October 2007

Yesterday a frustrated Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved a plan to cut electricity to Gaza after each Qassam rocket attack on Israel. Palestinian Spokeseman Saeb Erekat appealed for the international community to intervene. Today Prime Minister Olmert seemed to back away from the plan, promising that Israel would not create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Isn’t the constant barrage and the ensuing death and destruction in Sderot and other Israeli cities and towns in the Negev more of a humanitarian crisis than a 15 minute power cut? Why is the international community not concerned with what Hamas is doing in Gaza, both to Palestinian Fatah supporters and to Israelis with their constant rocket attacks?

I also thought that the Palestinians wanted independence from their Israeli “oppressors”. Doesn’t that include providing for their own energy needs at some point? Why should Israel supply a hostile enemy who is raining death and destruction down on innocent civilians? Yes, some Palestinian civilians may suffer with less electricity. Didn’t these citizens elect Hamas, who in turn promised to destroy Israel, in the first place? Don’t they bear some responsibility for the actions of the government they support?

I, personally, do not support 15 minute electricity cuts. I support announcing a cut off date, a true independence day for the Palestinians of Gaza. After that day there should be no more supplies of any kind from Israel unless they, like Egypt and Jordan before them, sign a peace treaty with Israel and live up to its terms.

If you haven’t read Jeffrey Goldberg’s astute analysis of Walt and Mearshimer’s Israel Lobby thesis, read it now. Key point:

It is rather uncontroversial to call Osama bin Laden an anti-Semite. He is the easy case. But since many people in the West are queasy about attaching the label of anti-Semitism to almost anybody, regarding the charge of anti-Semitism as itself proof of prejudice, let me begin by describing bin Laden’s view of history less inflammatorily–not as anti-Semitic, but as Judeocentric. He believes that Jews exercise disproportionate control over world affairs, and that world affairs may therefore be explained by reference to the Jews. A Judeocentric view of history is one that regards the Jews as the center of the story, and therefore the key to it. Judeocentrism is a single- cause theory of history, and as such it is, almost by definition, a conspiracy theory. Moreover, Judeocentrism comes in positive forms and negative forms. The positive form of Judeocentrism is philo-Semitism, the negative form is anti- Semitism. (There are philo-Semites who regard the Jews as the inventors of modernity, and there are anti-Semites who do the same; but the idea that Spinoza, Freud, and Einstein are responsible for us is as foolish as the idea that their ideas are jüdische Wissenschaft.) In both its positive and negative forms, Judeo- centrism is always a mistake. Human events are not so neatly explained.

Which brings me to my point: if AIPAC was so in control of US Foreign Policy, why would Condoleezz Rice say that “A Palestinian state is in the best interest of the U.S. and the region”?

Was it the Jews?

Ruth Gavison makes a very important point in an article in Haaretz: before we can have peace, all sides need to agree to two states for two peoples.

It is sad that these points have to be reiterated, but it seems that they do: Jews need to accept that the Palestinians are a People that have their own image of their ideal political union, and Palestinians need to accept that Jews have their own ideal of a political union. These ideal visions conflict at their core–and therefore cannot remain together.

To those One Staters, from the Right or the Left: Political Unions should not be forced. They should be reflective of the values the human beings within them hold. If those values highly diverge, the best possible reality accepts that the political union should be split. This is the core of self-determination, and the core of Zionism.

Ahmadinejad came, he spoke, and…we lost. We as in those who oppose Ahmadinejad’s multiple agendas. We as in those who should be learning from the past.

I have a number of good, brilliant friends who thought that the invitation was not that bad, because we need to confront such evil head-on, or that President Bollinger’s speech gave us a chance to ’stand up’ to tyrants like Ahmadinejad. I disagree with both.

First, to imagine that a verbal exchange is confrontation is to judge the external world of hard power using our internal metrics of soft power. That’s a mistake of metrics. Ahmadinejad didn’t walk away shaken–he walked away strengthened in knowing that he can keep acting and we’ll keep talking. And that is the problem: we’re going to keep talking, and he will keep acting until we realize that we need to recalibrate our metrics.
Second, Bollinger’s insults of Ahmadinejad shamed me. If you are going to bring the man, let him speak first! Only them can you return the favor. As it was, millions around the world saw American arrogance at play: invite a person into your home and then pee on them in public. Pathetic. Too bad AIPAC played in.

But it was done. And that’s why action is so very necessary. One petition–that I authored–has already garnered over 1200 signatures. Another more recent one, by Bryan Berkett, is gaining speed.

And here is a strong round-up of articles, thanks to Meredith at Mixed Multitudes.