I haven’t seen any discussion in the Australian press or the blogosphere about the implications of the Israeli Labour Party primaries for the possibilities of a peace settlement. Via Matthew Yglesias, here’s a very informative post from Daniel Levy:
Barak is in many ways the father of unilateralism, having promoted the “no-partner� narrative following his electoral defeat to Ariel Sharon in February 2001. Ayalon largely rejected the unilateral mantra and notably launched a political initiative together with Palestinian professor, author, and activist Sari Nusseibeh, in which they produced a 6-point set of principles for Israeli-Palestinian peace, around which they then gathered the signatures of members of the Israeli and Palestinian publics. The Ayalon-Nusseibeh principles are quite decent and realistic and you can read them here. In general, Ami is being seen as the candidate who could most breathe new hope and life into the prospects for peace. Akiva Eldar, in this article, explains in more details the reason why.
Odd. I thought it was Sharon who promoted the ‘Israel has no partners in peace’ formula, not Barak, who offered the Palestinians almost everything they wanted at Camp David in 2000 — an offer Arafat walked away from without even discussing it.
That’s funny Rob, many of the usual suspects (US, Israel) except the Palestinians have made this assertion - now I wonder if those doing so might have an ulterior motive ?
Barak’s offer was never written down and so the contents of it can be argued about until the cows come home, without proving anything. Arguing about it is like arguing about what two blokes in a pub said to each other, where one of those blokes is dead.
Of course, even if Barak had mafe he offer that Tob said he made, and Arafat had accepted it, that doesn’t mean the deal would have been done. If it was as generous as Rob says, the Israeli Right would have said “over my dead body” and that in itself would have been the end of that, since Barak didn’t have the weight to override them. And the militant Palestinians would have rejected it too.
The hardliners haven’t softened their positions since 2000. If anything, they are even harder. There are no prospects of a peace settlement between the Israelis and Palestinaians.
Bll Clinton has made it clear — in his autobiography and various speeches — that the failure of Camp David lay squarely with Arafat. I for one believe him. And Spiros, even the peaceniks in Israel were scared by the lengths to which Barak was prepared to go.
“even the peaceniks in Israel were scared by the lengths to which Barak was prepared to go.”
In which case, it definitely wouldn’t have come to anything.
In which case, further, it’s not true to say that if only Arafat had accepted Barak’s offer, we would now have peace in the Middle East.
One might ask what the point was of Barak offering something that he couldn’t deliver, and must have known that he couldn’t deliver. A cynic might answer that he knew that Arafat would reject it for any number of reasons (Arafat was a poor negotitiator, stupid, greedy, couldn’t deliver his own side, all of the above).
It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Arafat had been smart enough to accept the deal.
Arafat was always going to go to the grave with only one offer; to provide the Jews with more aquatic accommodations twenty kilometres or so to the west of Tel Aviv. Quelle surprise, it is the same offer being made by Hamas.
Spiro
Halle-fucking-lujah! FINALLY somebody gets it. Hullo? Israel is NOT the cause of dramas in the middle east.
http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol12/0503_csbkr.asp
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=989
Oh yes they are! In fact, they are quite capable of causing there own self-inflicted dramas…by, for example funding and training Hamas as a counterwieght to Fatah. Way to go, eradicate secular nationalism and sponsor religious fundamentalism!
Boot’s on the other foot now, though, Chav, with Israel funding and arming Fatah against Hamas. Times change, and so do enemies.
But some things always stay the same, as Israel continues to foster chaos and murder in Palestine, and throughout the ME
And indeed the world, Pterosaur. It’s the Jewish gene thing, you know.
Let me see -
Israel’s record (incomplete, but illustrative, I would argue)
Murders/assassinations in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria.
War mongering against Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine.
Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and illegal occupations backed by the State,
Territorial seizure, and “practical” (to borrow Ratty’s favorite term) apartheid practiced against the Palestinian people.
Failure to adhere to any of the UN resolutions passed wrt the situation in the occupied territories since 1965.
Collective punishment (a war crime when practiced by the Nazis in WW2) of civilians, kidnap and murder of elected representatives of the Palestinians, the kidnap, imprisonment and torture of Mordecai Vanunu.
Nuclear weapons proliferation
And the list goes on……
- not much to do with a Jewish gene, I reckon - more to do with the Zionist ideology which lies at the foundation of the Israeli state.
Absolutely. There is simply no atrocity that Israel will not commit against its peace-loving neighbours who long only only for peace, and who demonstrate that fact by word and deed every single day.
Both sides are impelled by whackos…
Just Israel has more weapons and better platforms with which to impose their tyranny. Do a weapons swap I would hazard a guess that the other side would do the same if not more.
Israel is tempered to some degree by the United States. Pretty badly under Bush and his unmitigating support mind you. He has given licence to all sorts of rashness by Israel - Lebanon being the prime problem.
From a western perspective I think we need to go into this against those we can influence more easily, which is Israel. We have no traction with the other side and any we did have has been compromised by the Bush administration.
There are far more moderates on the Israeli side than the Palestinian side. We need to appeal to them and reach out to them as they are the great hope.
And then the UN in all it’s glory can stop its catatonic paralytic hysteria at issuing countless yello cards to Israel while it does next to nothing about Sudan.
Pterosaur,
UN resolutions are not a valid measurement of transgression - and that’s on both sides of the debate.
Let’s compare say Israel and Sudan.
You may successfully argue the transgressions of the Israeli state versus the Sudanese government, but you surely could not justify a situation whereby Israel again and again gets carded in resolutions and Sudan gets zero.
The left neuters itself far too much by overly criticising Israel and remaining too silent on the crimes inflicted by its neighbours.
And the right apologises too much for the excesses and oppression of the Palestinians.
There are a lot of people in between who just think both sides are screwing it up for each other and there is almost too much hate and distrust to solve this.
Israel is the key. The people of Israel are generally better educated, more moderate, have more institutional understanding of democratic processes and love freedom more (in my opinion). We are not going to get much sense of out Palestine on either side. Israel needs to stoop to conquer, but alas I fear that posture is not coming soon.
Pterosaur
1965, eh? Pray tell, WHICH UN Resolutions - particularly the 1965 one - offend your rather idiosyncratic notion of mandatory.
John, any type of thinking which makes either side absolutely responsible or innocent will not work.
The right has to accept Israel has committed atrocities.
The right has to accept Palestinians are oppressed.
The right has to accept that its current posture is not alleviating the long term solution (but you could argue is assisting its short term protection).
Conversely, the left has to stop apologising for the actions of the Palestinians.
The left has to stop obfuscating and denounce the crazy and inhuman way the Palestinians regard Israel (no matter how coerced they might be).
The left have to demand that Palestinians recognise Israel.
Reasonable people everywhere should stand up and say - both sides are retarded. You are both very wrong.
When support from around the world evaporates for both sides, then maybe a solution can be found.
Sadly, it’s not likely.
I am getting a bit cheesed off by ABC-deriding, Howard-loving, right wingnuts “adopting” Israel’s cause as it’s own. Let’s remember that “Israel” is not a monolithic entity, any more than Australia is. I dare say there would be many people in, just Petah Tiqva who would love to take a horsewhip to people like that. Just the fact that Barak has a lot of support tells you something.
Sure, there is lunar right: as represented by Netanyahu, but he is a bridge too far for most Israelis.
In many ways, Israel is still a natural Labour state - the trade union in Israel, Histradut, is a far more powerful and respected than our ACTU, and it plays a big role in Israel’s economy - but that country’s politics are distorted by the intensifying conflict in the Middle East, where many jihadists have put Israel as central to their rhetoric.
Ken,
I agree and I love the dichotomy. This one in particular is not mentioned much.
One of the great hypocrisies of the right is to adhere itself conveniently to Israel under the mistaken belief that moderate Israelis are hawkish conservatives. I have visited there and did not generally encounter this viewpoint. In the 70’s Israel was the place to be for kibbutz loving socialist ideologues.
I wonder how long the superglue from the right would last in the region if Israel and its opponents could extract itself from this downward cycle of inhuman violence and we saw a strong secular political voice emerging, that may actually renounce some values of the religious right in the States.
Conversely, mentioned with better alacrity by the right, is the seemingly strange bedfellow alliance of the left in the west with conservative Islam. If not in fact then by perception, the left have allowed themselves to be more closely aligned with radical groups in the Islamic world.
Once again the bond would not last long given a peaceful outcome. The agendas of the radical right in Islamic societies do not gel well with the aims of the left.
Can’t work it out really. Political expedience comes to mind.
NewHeredaza
I am not trying to “solve” the situation. How they achieve that is up to the Israeli people. It might be a tough call to make, but it was obviously a huge mistake of the U.S. to continually interfere and prevent a decisive outcome one way or the other.
I am merely highlighting the fact that the Muslims have enough enmity among themselves to justify many more centuries of playing suicide-bomb tennis. Israel is merely a bit player.