I AM A JEW (PART XXIV - Dershowitz Again)

As the title shows this is the 23rd part (actually the 24^th, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on Part I and then scrolling upwards or by accessing the label I Am A Jew.

Alan Dershowitz appears to have taken it upon himself to be the principal spokesman or apologist for anything and everything that Israel does. He used to be a spokesperson for liberal causes in the great tradition of Judaism, but that Desrshowitz is no more.

As recently as May of 2013 he denounced Right Wing Jews:

…who believe that retaining the entire West Bank is more important than trying to make peace with the Palestinians.

But that was before prominent Israeli leaders began advocating for retaining the entire West Bank.

Now Dershowitz joins the apologists for all that resembles Israeli policies by becoming a spokesperson for those who try to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Now he finds anti-Semites under every rock, and in doing so joins the Right in smearing leading Jews.

In an article appearing on March 11, 2014 in the Right Wing magazine Newsmax entitled "Europe's Alarming Push to Isolate Israel" he lashes out at all critics of Israel and labels them “the grandchildren of Nazis and Nazi collaborators” which is rather startling in its sweep.

What is his evidence – and one might expect some evidence from the noted lawyer. It is true that there were many non-Germans complicit in the Holocaust, not just Germans. Yes, what else is new? How does that take us from the fact that Nazi supporters were not all Germans to his conclusion, or rather to his smear? He lumps Voltaire, Karl Marx, and Levrenti Beria to prove that the Left is as bad, or worse, than the Right. 

Well, now that he finds himself in good standing as a member of the Right (he appears to be writing a regular column for the Right Wing publication Newsmax) he has the nerve to lump Voltaire with the leaders of communism, or for that matter Marx with Beria.    

Voltaire was the founder of the enlightenment. In that capacity he was very anti-religion since it was religion that gave legitimacy to “the privileges of the nobility, and in the infallibility of the Church.” In doing this he “preferred to concentrate his attacks on the Old Testament and its followers, the Jews” but according to the Jewish Virtual Library, he did this “primarily a(s) a result of his hatred for the Church” and the Jewish Virtual Library goes on to say, “Voltaire's outlook was a powerful contribution to the creation of the mental climate which made possible the emancipation of the Jews…” emphasis added (Ibid) 

But the further exploration of this point is rather ridiculous because the views of people who lived in a world where anti-Semitism was the norm is hardly of import today. Whether there is anti-Semitism in today's world can hardly be doubted, but to conclude from this, that criticism of Israel has its basis in anti-Semitism, is far-fetched, to say the least. 

Dershowitz mentions the persecutors of Alfred Dreyfus, but somehow omits mention of Zola’s ringing defense “J'accuse.” If Zola were alive today and criticized Israeli policy, would Dershowitz smear him too with the brush of anti-Semitism.

But the extent of Dershowitz’s descent from any kind of liberalism is his own anti-Semitism, for he joins the Right in smearing prominent Jews. Thus we read his mean-spirited attack on Gertrude Stein and her companion, Alice Toklas, when he says that they: “collaborated with the Gestapo”. This is a gratuitous smear on one of the great Jewish intellectuals, which shows how low Dershowitz has sunk. For the background of this smear see the Jewish web site Tikkum's "Why the Witch-Hunt Against Gertrude Stein?." As to Gilad Atzmon, why publicize a nut few people have ever even heard of. See what the Arab press has to say about him. 

Will Dershowitz soon join the Right in smearing George Soros? It is such smears against fellow Jews that reveal the inanity of the new Dershowitz.

Following the demise of the Nazi regime we have had a long period where anti-Semitism, at least in Western Europe and the US, was at one of its lowest ebbs in recent history. It is only, the outrages of Israel, and its attempt to equate criticism of its policies with anti-Semitism, that has stoked the very thing that Israel should have been instrumental in preventing.

People like Dershowitz share the blame for this new outbreak of anti-Semitism, irrational, like all prejudices, including those against Blacks and Muslims, which are raging, at least as much as anti-Semitism. He asks:

Where are your demonstrations on behalf of the oppressed Tibetans, Georgians, Syrians, Armenians, Kurds, or even Ukrainians? Where are your BDS movements against the Chinese, the Russians, the Cubans, the Turks, or the Assad regime?

But demonstrations in those cases are unnecessary, since the governments of the West have been actively engaged in opposition. Do we need demonstrations to denounce the Russians in Ukraine, when the West has applied sanctions? If sanctions were in place against Israel it is highly unlikely that there would be demonstrations.

When Iraq tried to occupy Kuwait, George H.W. Bush declared:

This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait. 

The Cubans?

Does Dershowitz think that the US aught to be doing more against Cuba than what it has been doing all these decades?

Have the Western nations not made their concern with Tibetans clear by receiving the Dalai Lama in all the capitals. What more can reasonably be done?

No, the anger about Israel is because Israel has been given a free pass, to do as it will with the Palestinians. If there has been any favoritism it has been in favor of Israel, not against it. American aid to Israel in the last two years has exceeded 6 billion dollars. Since 1949 aid to Israel has exceeded 120 billion dollars, and to help Israel keep Egypt friendly, the US gives Egypt an additional “annual $1.3 billion military assistance package… “ 

Israel has been given a free pass because of the world’s guilt about the Holocaust. But the reliance on that guilt is wearing thin.

The prejudices of the world have always been around. Unfortunately they will always be with us. But to use them to intimidate legitimate criticism of any country, or of any policy, is a disservice to the very values for which Dershowitz used to be known.

It is sad to see a figure of such renown fall to such depth.

Except for comments received, my summation, and possibly a debate preceding the summation, this concludes my analysis of the Israeli/Palestinian tragedy. I now welcome any comments readers care to make and will publish same, with or without attribution, as the contributor wishes.

I AM A JEW (PART XXIII - Eating Crow!)

As the title shows this is the 23rd part (actually the 24^th, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on Part I and then scrolling upwards or by accessing the label I Am A Jew.

I have entitled this part “Eating Crow!” because I may have been wrong in one part of my presentations. In "IAM A JEW (PART VI - The Palestinians)" I stated:

As I have set forth, the Arabs of Palestine have lived there since at least 640 CE, whereas Jews have not lived in Palestine until 1882 when the concept of “Aliyah” came into vogue.

One of my blog subscribers, who prefers to remain anonymous wrote at that time:

One sentence in your September 22nd blog gave me pause. You wrote: (he then quotes the sentence set forth in italics above), and goes on to write:

I assume that you do not accept the theory, advanced as fact, I believe, that there is no genetic connection between what we now call Jews, and the Israelites who built the first and second temples; rather those who we now called Jews are either defended from a people who were converted to the Jewish religion by their king long after the exile of the Jews following the destruction of the first and second temples or people, or descendants of people, who converted to the Jewish religion after that time.  I therefore assume that you mean that there where no Jews living in Palestine at any time after, say, the defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt until the late 1880s.  If this is what you mean, I think you are mistaken.

 It is my impression that there have always been Jews in Palestine, albeit not in large numbers.  I have this impression from, for instance, seeing note in the High Holiday prayer books that certain poems or prayers were written by Rabbis who lived in Israel in the 5th and 7th Centuries.  I believe also, that the Jerusalem Talmud was complied in Tiberius in the 4th and 5th centuries, during the time that you seem to say there were no Jews in Palestine.  Being an admirer of your research ability, but not very good at it, I tried researching the question.  Aside from stuff I found on Google what was obviously based in ideology, one way or the other, not in fact, I did come across one essay which seems to be fact based, although it is obvious that the facts the writer found fitted with what he wanted to find.  The citation is here.  If you skim over the “if I forget thee oh Jerusalem" stuff it starts with, there is what seems to be well documented evidence that there have always been Jews, in varying numbers, in Palestine during the period in question.

I also came across another article, which argues that there was a very large Arab immigration into Palestine, starting soon after the initial turn of the century Zionist immigration. If this is true, then your statement about the Arabs of Palestine having lived there since at least 640 CE is not quite accurate, since it would seem that both the Jewish and Arab populations include many recent immigrants and descendants of recent immigrants. 

 And if both articles are correct, then the fact would be that some of the ancestors of both the Jewish and Arab populations of what is now Israel and Palestine have lived in this area for centuries, and most of them, and their ancestors came more recently.

The articles referred to are: “Continuous Jewish Presence in the Holy Land” posted by Eretz Yisroel and “The Myth of Jewish ‘Colonialism’: Demographics and Development in Palestine.” They make a convincing case for the presence of Jews in the Palestininan territory for far longer than I had set forth.

I include this in my writing because I am anxious to keep my facts as accurate as I am able.

However, to the extent that the facts are different from what I had believed them to be, I don’t think that they change the essential narrative. Regardless, of which group was there first, or how long that group had been there, I believe the essential fact is how many of each ehtnic group where in Palestine in 1948, when the UN authorized the creation of the Jewish State.

For that we don’t have to examine the historic record. If we look at my post "I AM A JEW (PART XIV - The Israeli Propaganda Machine v. The Alleged Power of the Arab Lobby)" we find that according to the United States State Department at the time of the partition in 1948 there were “650,000 Jewish inhabitants, 1,300,000 Muslim and Christian Arab inhabitants. I believe that those are the figures that count, not how long their forbears had been there.

At this point I invite all and sundry comments, criticisms, etc. I will publish them and as appropriate will comment on them. 

I AM A JEW (PART XXII - American Defenders of Israel Display a Double Standard)

As the title shows this is the 22nd part (actually the 23^rd, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts, I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on Part I and then scrolling upwards or by accessing the label I Am A Jew.

If I were writing about the United States instead of about Israel, and I pointed out its continuing racism, despite the fact that we now have the first African-American President, few would disagree.

If I pointed out that our laws are not evenly enforced regardless of race, with far more African-Americans being arrested, for example, for marijuana possession than Whites, despite the fact that violations occur at about the same frequency, would they jump to defend the U.S.? I doubt it! But when anyone criticizes Israel for far worse human rights abuses, they cry anti-Semitism; they cry it is a smear and they point out some of the good things that can be found about Israel. But why do they have a double standard?

I have been writing these articles about the sins committed by the government of Israel that succeeded that of its founders, that came to power over the dead body of Yitzhak Rabin and has been taking Israel in a totally different direction ever since, both economically, where its policies resemble much more the agenda of the U.S. Tea Party, and in foreign affairs where they resemble the ideas of the U.S. former Vice-President, Dick Cheney.

But how is my criticism rebutted?

  

These and many more came from Albert Nekimken of Vienna, Virginia. But what do they prove? We certainly could not produce similar pictures for, say Saudi Arabia, but neither I, nor anyone that I know equates Israel with Saudi Arabia. But just because there are examples of some good things in Israel, they hardly rebut, or even alleviate, the things I have been writing about.

For example, above there is a picture of what appears to be a Muslim women riding on a bus with an orthodox man. That may be true in some places but it doesn’t change the fact described in Part XXI of my series:

Our task was to observe and record gender segregation on bus line 56. On this bus line and others both in Jerusalem and between Jerusalem and other cities Haredim insist that women sit in the back of the bus and when possible only enter through the back door.

Or the picture of the Arab Druse Colonel shown contrasted against the description set forth in an article that recently was posted on Bloomberg View entitled "Cana ‘Jewish State’ Be a Democracy" where the author points out:

Access to housing (for Arabs) is not always equal. Spending on infrastructure in Arab towns is much lower than in Jewish towns.

Some things never seem to change. I still have an exchange that I had in November of 2010 with a very liberal woman in American politics, in fact, the mother-in-law of a prominent African-American journalist.

She wrote:

I don't feel quite as negative about Israel as you do, especially since its Arab citizens are far better off in Israel than most Arabs in their own countries, to say nothing of how Jews fare in Arab lands.

My response in part was:

You may or may not remember that during the Civil Rights battles of the '60s we oft heard the argument that American Blacks were much better off than most in Africa. Arabs in Israel are Israeli citizens and they are entitled to be as well off as Jews. Whether they are better off than Arabs in other lands is irrelevant. As for Jews in Arabs lands, I think that is as irrelevant as the argument about American Muslims being entitled to no more rights than Christians in Saudi Arabia. Palestinians are not responsible for the policies of other states nor should Israel imitate oppressive states.

But the excuses for Israeli discriminatory policies go on and on, as can be seen from the photos above. At best they are saying Israel is not all that bad. Well, that may be, but it just isn’t good enough.

I welcome comments, but will not publish any, unless they have a unique relevance to the segment under discussion, until this series is complete.

I AM A JEW (PART XXI - Voices in Defense of Israel)

As the title shows this is the 21st part (actually the 22^nd, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts, I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on Part I and then scrolling upwards or by accessing the label I Am A Jew.

I have not been publishing any comments received from readers because as I said at the end of each my blogs: “I welcome comments, but will not publish any, unless they have a unique relevance to the segment under discussion, until this series is complete. “

The series is not complete, but I think it is time to publish some of the comments I have received, and to analyze them.

Leonard Levenson, a criminal defense attorney, living and having his office in Manhattan, NY wrote:

I have been following your series very closely. I am very impressed by the thoroughness of your research and the apparent logic of your arguments. However, though I find your facts are correct, the conclusions you draw from them are not. I have been waiting for you to complete your series before responding in depth. At the outset however, I believe that all of the atrocities committed by Israel stem from the overhanging threat to their existence. The massacre at Deir Yassin for example occurred during a fight for Israel's very survival. The source of danger was, of course Arab hostility. The assassination of Count Bernadotte was the perception that he posed a threat to the survival of Israel. The reaction was extreme and unwise but it stemmed from Arab hostility.

 Israel, on the other hand was willing to cooperate with regard to the development of the Middle East economically and developmentally. Beneficial proposals for the irrigation of dry land in Palestine by diverting the Litani River would have greatly increased the productivity of the land but was rejected by Palestinian and Arab leaders. Other economic and developmental projects such as joint desalination proposals were put forth and likewise rejected.

 The terrorist acts by Israel were essentially misguided defensive acts designed to protect the Israeli state and population. The terrorist acts of the Arabs were misguided offensive acts designed to destroy Israel. I have not yet completed my research into the specifics of my comments. I doubt that it will be as thorough as yours. However, when completed I will communicate further.

This is a perfect example of what I see as a kind of “kneejerk” reaction in defense of actions by Israel that purport to be based on researched facts, but that upon examination are anything but that.

Levenson writes: “The massacre at Deir Yassin for example occurred during a fight for Israel's very survival.”

Even if that were true, would it justify the slaughter of innocent men, women and children? But it isn’t even true!

If Levenson had bothered to read my post "I AM A JEW (Part II)" carefully he would not have made this blanket statement for I wrote, and I quote in part:

“What has come to be known as the Deir Yassin massacre is instructive. I quote from Wikipedia:

“The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 120 fighters from the Irgun Zevai Leumi and Lohamei Herut Israel Zionist paramilitary groups attacked Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, a Palestinian Arab village of roughly 600 people. The assault occurred as Jewish militia sought to relieve the blockade of Jerusalem by Palestinian forces during the civil war that preceded the end of British rule in Palestine…. sparked terror within the Palestinian community, encouraging them to flee from their towns and villages in the face of Jewish troop advances, and it strengthened the resolve of Arab governments to intervene, which they did five weeks later. (Emphasis added)”

I call Levenson’s attention to the fact that at this point Israel was not “fighting for its life.” Arab armies entered the fray five weeks later and to a large extent because of this event. If Levenson, or for that matter other readers, want to know more of the details of Deir Yassin, I urge them to read the post here.

But Deir Yassin - or for that matter the bombing of the King David hotel - would not be a blot on Israel but for events that followed, about which the Jerusalem Post recently wrote:

On July 22, 1946, three phone calls were placed to the King David Hotel, an adjacent building and to The Jerusalem Post (then The Palestine Post), warning of an imminent bombing. Minutes later, a blast ripped through the historic hotel and then-headquarters of the British Mandate for Palestine’s civilian and military authorities, killing 91 people and injuring nearly 50.

These acts were not done by the Israeli Defense Forces, “The Haganah” but by the terrorist organizations known as the Stern Gang, later the Irgun and violated the ethics of The Haganah, which believed in “Purity of Arms.” In fact the differences between these groups was so fierce that it led to an actual clash of arms between them in the not to be forgotten “sinking of the ‘Altalena.’” 

So as long as the forces of decency reigned in Israel, it would have been wrong to even mention these horrendous deeds. But the Israel of its founders, the Israel of Ben-Gurion, is no more. The enemies of the Haganah, the enemies of Ben-Gurion, the very people who called Yitzhak Rabin a Nazi, and whose denunciations of him were directly responsible for his assassination, are now running the Israeli government.

They know no “Purity of Arms”! They are the philosophic descendants of terrorists, and they bear the blot of Deir Yassin and the King David Hotel and the Atelena.

As for Levenson’s comment:

Israel, on the other hand was willing to cooperate with regard to the development of the Middle East economically and developmentally. Beneficial proposals for the irrigation of dry land in Palestine by diverting the Litani River would have greatly increased the productivity of the land but was rejected by Palestinian and Arab leaders.

It is totally inaccurate, even though I wish it were true.

According to Wikipedia under the heading: “Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan” it states:

1955 US ambassador Eric Johnston negotiated the Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan… Jordan undertook to abide by their allocations under the plan. The plan was initially un-ratified by Israel, but after the US linked the Johnston plan to aid, also agreed to accept the allocation provisions.

In that same post, under the heading: “Subsequent developments” it relates:

1988 The Syrian/Jordanian agreement on development of the Yarmouk is blocked when Israel as a riparian right holder refuses to ratify the plan and the World Bank withholds funding. Israel's augments its Johnson plan allocation of 25,000,000 m³/yr by a further 45,000,000–75,000,000 m³/yr.

That doesn’t quite sound like the Levenson rendition.

There are many American Jews who are deeply concerned that the Israel that true Zionists like my father and I, and untold survivors of the Holocaust, and their children, is no more. We want an Israel that returns to the ideals of its founders, to the people, like Levenson, who went to Israel to work on a kibbutz, but that Israel is no more.

It is proud Jews, not self-hating ones, who decry what has happened and is happening in Israel. Who paid for advertisements in the New York Times like the one that appeared in the Times on September 16^th 2014 entitled “An Open letter to President Obama.” 

True Zionists seek the ideals on which Israel was founded!! Not the one of Netanyahu and Lieberman. Not the one that is described here:

I rode a bus in Jerusalem on January 22, that in and of itself is not unusual. What made this 90 minute journey unique was that it had been arranged by Anat Hoffman, director of the Israel Religious Action Centre (IRAC) for myself and Judith Sudilovsky, a free-lance journalist on assignment for Na’amat magazine. Our task was to observe and record gender segregation on bus line 56. On this bus line and others both in Jerusalem and between Jerusalem and other cities Haredim insist that women sit in the back of the bus, and when possible only enter through the back door.

Or the one described in an e-mail from “The Pluralist” an Israeli women’s organization:

The controversial nation state bill that passed its initial vote…(asserts) that only the Hebrew calendar will be the official state calendar… (or) that Arabic, the native tongue of 21% of Israel's population, will no longer be an official language on par with Hebrew.

But neither Levenson, nor most Americans, instinctive Israeli defenders of Israel, know what is going on. They believe what they want to believe, not what the reality is.

People in Israel are beginning to see the crisis that Israel has brought on itself. Thus a former director general of the Mossad, Shabtai Shavit writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz - see here or here - tells us:

I am truly concerned about the future of the Zionist project… the government’s blindness and political and strategic paralysis on the other. Although the State of Israel is dependent upon the United States, the relationship between the two countries has reached an unprecedented low point. Europe, our biggest market, has grown tired of us and is heading toward imposing sanctions on us. For China, Israel is an attractive high-tech project, and we are selling them our national assets for the sake of profit. Russia is gradually turning against us and supporting and assisting our enemies.

 I am concerned that large segments of the nation of Israel have forgotten, or put aside, the original vision of Zionism: to establish a Jewish and democratic state for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. No borders were defined in that vision, and the current defiant policy is working against it.

What can and ought to be done? We need to create an Archimedean lever that will stop the current deterioration and reverse today’s reality at once. I propose creating that lever by using the Arab League’s proposal from 2002, which was partly created by Saudi Arabia. The government must make a decision that the proposal will be the basis of talks with the moderate Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

True American supporters of Israel, of whatever faith, must stop blindly labeling resistance to oppression terrorism, and not excuse the inexcusable, defend the indefensible, rationalize the irrational, or justify the unjustifiable.

I welcome comments, but will not publish any, unless they have a unique relevance to the segment under discussion, until this series is complete.

I AM A JEW (PART XX - A Two-State Solution?)

As the title shows, this is the 20th part (actually the 21^st, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts, I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on Part I and then scrolling upwards or by accessing the label I Am A Jew.

As I indicated in my post "I AM A JEW (PART XIX - I Almost Wish I Hadn’t Started This  Study!)," the two-state solution is rapidly being denigrated and discarded by the Israeli government and its American supporters. While Netanyahu has not yet himself floated this idea, it was prominently advocated by his minister of the economy, Naftali Bennett and if the reader will refer to my post, as set forth above, he will see that what the minister of the economy is advocating is clearly an Apartheid state, with the Palestinians being confined to what can only be considered to be Bantustans. (See also the map shown in that post)

But while Netanyahu has not yet joined in this advocacy, The President of Israel, Ruvi Rivlin, has. In an article appearing in the New Yorker, see here or here. 

David Remnick writes:

Reuven (Ruvi) Rivlin, the new President of Israel, is ardently opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state. He is instead a proponent of Greater Israel, one Jewish state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. He professes to be mystified that anyone should object to the continued construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank: “It can’t be ‘occupied territory’ if the land is your own.”

He does not, as far as I can find, explain on what basis he claims the land as being that of Israel.

However, as Remnick explains, he, like Netanyahu, owes his philosophic bearings to Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky, who early on “recognized the deep, irreconcilable interests of the Arab presence in Palestine.” In the “Iron Wall” he wrote, according to Remick:

Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized…That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of ‘Palestine’ into the 'Land of Israel.'

So he recognized that Arab resistance was not some evil, anti-Semitic impulse, but the expected reaction of any people to “being colonized”.

But, according to Remick:

Rivlin is no doubt sincere when he says that he would give Arabs full civil rights in a Greater Israel, but he can be viewed as the more benign face of a right-wing one-state ideology. Others on the right who talk of one state want mainly to sanctify the annexing, in some form, of occupied territory. As Margalit puts it, “The rest really believe in apartheid in the West Bank. They believe in full surveillance, full dominion, something resembling a Stasi state as in that film "The Lives of Others."

When we look at Bennett’s plan it is apparent that this is what he advocates. 

But just as it was important for Israelis and their supporters to have realized that the Arabs had to fight as long as they could, it is equally important to realize that the fight is over. There is no longer any threat to Israel’s existence. There has not been since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and probably not since the 1967 war. Today, Israel has peace treaties with its main Arab opponents, Egypt and Jordan, Syria in the midst of its civil war is hardly a threat, and Iran, despite its bluster about wanting Israel to disappear, has never suggested that it plans to be the instrument of that demise. It is not likely to ever get the bomb, but even if it did, Israel’s own atomic bomb would be more than an adequate deterrence to any attempted attack, as would its iron done. Talk of needing more territory for its security, (which would have no effect on any threat from Iran) is blatantly and transparently dishonest, for if Israel’s border of 1948 could withstand the Arab armies, surely the much improved 1967 borders, could and would do so. But the so-called military threat is a phony, trumped up, excuse for the messianic drive for the annexation of Judea and Samara, as Israel likes to call the West Bank.

And opposition to the two state solution now comes from the many propaganda outlets for whatever the new Israeli policy is. Like the old communist party and their adherents, the Israeli propaganda machine, and their adherents, fall in line.

Thus the American Jewish Committee, gives voice to the new paradigm through an article by Lt. Col. (res.) Avital Leibovich writing in the New York Times she argues:

Recent statements by Sweden’s new prime minister and a nonbinding British resolution recognizing a Palestinian state could damage peace prospects by creating false expectations among Palestinians. Such recognition is premature. A two-state solution can only be achieved through direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Of course, what that means is that Israel insists on the right to veto any Palestinian state. It is more than apparent that it is not negotiating in good faith, and even as it has pretended to negotiate, it has constantly created ”facts on the ground”, which make a mockery of those negotiations. As the new position against a two state solution become increasingly shrill, even if not yet official, it is apparent that negotiations are now, and have always been, a mere pretense toward the drive for a “Greater Israel.” Gaza is to remain the great prison, where the majority of Palestinians are to be confined, without any rights, except such as Israel may deign to grant them, or that may be extracted by resistance, at great cost in human lives and suffering.

But let us look at the words of the Israeli spokes person explaining why a Palestinian state cannot come into being:

Any nation wishing to declare independence should meet three essential elements: a strong central government, control of defined territory and security. The Palestinian Authority does not yet meet any of them.

Why does it not meet these criteria? It is because Israel has not allowed it to! The P.L.O. is beholden to Israel for the collection of its taxes, which Israel withhold at its whim. It is responsible for security as Israel’s agent, much like Vichy was in occupied France, and as for defined territory, it would be clearly defined if Israel would stop grabbing more and more chunks.

Then the good lieutenant colonel (res) tells us that they can’t trust Mahmoud Abbas, because he isn’t popular enough. Is it any wonder, when he is seen as Israel’s poodle?

The excuses are legion. Abbas is too weak. He does not speak for the Gazans. They can only deal with someone who can speak for all Palestinians. So Hamas agrees to place itself under the P.L.O. Oh no, we will not deal with a unity government. The fact is that they have no desire to negotiate. Facts on the ground is the name of the game.

And then we hear the usual canard about Hamas. They will not recognize Israel. But now they said they are willing to abide by any treaty the P.L.O. negotiates. But they don’t trust them. But what about the fact that the charter of Likud forbids any ceding of any part of the West Bank? No one is supposed to know that, or mention it.

Facts on the Ground! Sincere negotiations require that the status quo be maintained, if not the status quo ante. Absent that, negotiations are a fig leaf for the endless and relentless creeping annexation of the West Bank, and the endless blockade of Gaza.

No wonder many Palestinians prefer a resistance leadership, rather than what they see as a collaborationist entity. Israel can’t have it both ways. It demands that Abbas collaborate and then claims they can’t negotiate with him because his collaboration has hurt his popularity. They can’t negotiate with their friends, and they certainly can’t with their enemies. But they can create facts on the ground.

And so we move to the final solution. An Apartheid state, with some Bantustans, and a Gaza under endless siege, a truly large, but not economically viable, Bantustan.

I welcome comments, but will not publish any, unless they have a unique relevance to the segment under discussion, until this series is complete.