Frustrated by Israeli settlement expansion, excessive violence, AIPAC maximalism, Netanyahu’s arrogance, Israel’s defiant disregard of international law, various Jewish responses claim to seek a middle ground. Israel is criticized by this loyal opposition, sometimes harshly, although so is the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and activists around the world. Both sides are deemed responsible in equal measure for the failure to end the conflict. With such a stance liberal Zionists seek to occupy the high moral ground without ceding political relevance. In contrast, those who believe as I do that Israel poses the main obstacle to achieving a sustainable peace are dismissed by liberal Zionists as either obstructive or unrealistic, and at worst, as anti-Israeli or even anti-Semitic.
Listen to the funding appeals of J Street or read such columnists in the NY Times as Roger Cohen and Thomas Friedman to grasp the approach of liberal Zionism. These views are made to appear reasonable, and even just, by being set off against such maximalist support for Israel as associated with AIPAC and the U.S. Congress, or in the NY Times context by comparison with the more conservative views of David Brooks (whose son currently serves in the IDF) who published a recent ‘balanced’ column lionizing Netanyahu, “The Age of Bibi” [Jan. 2, 2014]. Of all the deformed reasoning contained in the column, perhaps the most scandalous was comparing Netanyahu to Churchill, and to suggest that his story has the grandeur that bears a resemblance to Shakespeare’s MacBeth, an observation that many would find unflattering. Of all Netanyahu’s qualities remarked upon, Brooks astoundingly finds that “his caution is the most fascinating.” According to Brooks, Netanyahu deserves to be regarded as cautious because he has refrained from attacking Iran despite threatening to do so with bellicose rhetoric. I would have thought that Netanyahu’s inflammatory threats directed at Iran, especially as combined with covert acts including inserting viruses to disable its nuclear program and assassinating Iranian scientists, would seem reckless enough for most observers. Since Brooks fails to mention the murderous attacks on Gaza, there is no need to reconcile such aggressive behavior with this overall assessment of caution.
At the core of liberal Zionism is the indictment of the Palestinian leadership for “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity” to recall the self-serving quip of the Israeli diplomat, Abba Eban. Roger Cohen would have us believe that prior to the collapse of the April negotiations the U.S. Government had presented a framework agreement, acceptable to Tel Aviv, that the Palestinian Authority irresponsibly and unreasonably rejected. And not only rejected, but the PA behaved in a manner that was provocative, signed some international agreements as if it already was a state. [“Why Israeli-Palestinian Peace Failed,” Dec. 23, 2014] This spin comes from Netanyahu’s chief negotiator, Tzipi Livni, who is presented by Cohen as the voice of moderation, as the self-proclaimed champion of ‘two states for two peoples.’
Livni who is the leader of a small party called Hatnua, which is joined in coalition with a revamped Labor Party headed by Isaac Herzog, contesting Likud and Netanyahu. Cohen never inquires as to what sort of state she would wish upon the Palestinians, which on the basis of her past, would be thoroughly subjugated to Israeli security demands as well as accommodating the bulk of settlements and settlers while rejecting the rights under international law of Palestinians in relations to refugees.
When Livni was asked by Cohen whether she would suspend Israeli settlement expansion so as to get direct negotiations started once more, she indicated that she would “at least outside the major blocs.” Cohen calls her party ‘centrist,’ which is one way of acknowledging how far Israeli politics have drifted to the right in recent years. A reading of the leaked documents of the secret negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel represented by Livni showed how disinterested Israel seemed to be in two states for two peoples at that time of far less extensive settlement encroachment, as well as her overt rejection of the relevance of international law to the diplomatic process. [For a collection of the leaked documents showing Livni’s role see Clayton E. Swisher, ed., Palestine Papers: The End of the Road (2011)]
This expresses a second element of liberal Zionism, that despite everything the two state solution is confirmed over and over again as the only path to peace. As such, it should be endlessly activated in accordance with the Oslo formula that keeps the United States in the absurd role of intermediary and continue to insist that any Palestinian reference to rights under international law is an obstacle to peace. After more than 47 years of occupation and over 20 years of submission to the Oslo approach it would seem that it is past time to issue a certificate of futility, and the failure to do so, is for me a sure sign of either bad faith or extreme denial.
What is baffling is that those like Friedman and Cohen who surely know better play this game that never even raises the concrete question of how to reverse a settlement process that now includes as many as 600,000 settlers many of whom are militantly opposed to any kind of solution to the conflict that challenges their present situation. Conveniently, also, this liberal advocacy finesses the claims of the four million or so Palestinian refugees, including almost two million that have been confined to miserable refugee camps for decades, some since 1948. How can one possibly imagine a sustainable and just peace emerging from such a blinkered outlook!
Liberal Zionists also oppose as irresponsible and unhelpful all efforts to challenge this framework, especially any call for holding Israel to account under international humanitarian law for its excessive violence. Alternative futures based on the equality of the two peoples, such as some kind of living together within a single political community are dismissed out of hand, either because of colliding with Zionist expectations of a Jewish state or because after decades of hatred any effort at social integration would be bound to fail. Intriguingly, my experience of many conversations with both Palestinian refugees and Gazans is far more hopeful about peaceful coexistence within shared political space than are the Israelis despite their prosperity, prowess, and far greater security.
In a similar vein, liberal Zionists almost always oppose as counterproductive, activist initiatives taken under the auspice of the BDS Campaign. Their argument is that Israel will never make ‘painful sacrifices’ when put under pressure deemed hostile, and without these, no peace is possible. What these painful sacrifices might be on the Israeli side are never spelled out, but presumably would include disbanding the isolated settlements and maybe the separation wall, both of which were in any event unlawful. The real sacrifice for Israelis would be to give up the completion of the maximal version of the Zionist project, that of so-called Greater Israel that encompasses the entirety of the alleged biblical entitlement to Palestine. For the Palestinians in contrast their sacrifice would necessitate renouncing a series of entitlements conferred by international law, pertaining to settlements, refugees, borders, self-determination, sovereignty. In effect, Israel would sacrifice part of its unlawful dominion, while Palestine would relinquish its lawful claims, and the end result would be one of the inequality of the two peoples, not a recipe for a lasting peace.
A final feature of liberal Zionism is to make concessions to the Greater Israel outlook along the following lines—Israel should be allowed to control the unlawfully established settlement blocs; Israeli security concerns should be met, including by stationing military forces within the West Bank for many ears, while any Palestinian security concerns are treated as irrelevant; Palestinian refugees would be denied the right to return to their pre-1967 places of residence; Jerusalem would remain essentially under Israel’s control; no provision would be made to ensure non-discrimination against the 20% Palestine minority living within pre-1967 Israel; no acknowledgement would be made of the past injustices flowing from the 1948 dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their place of residence and the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages, the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people, the nakba, nor the recognition that the nakba is a process that has continued to afflict Palestinians to this very moment.
Despite its claim of reasonableness and practicality, the liberal Zionist approach is an increasingly irrelevant presence on the Israeli political horizon, paralleling the decline of the Labor Party and the peace movement in the country, as well as the ascendancy of the Likud and the politics of the extreme right. The Israeli end game is now overwhelmingly based on unilateralism, either imposing a highly subordinated and circumscribed Palestinian state confined to parts of the West Bank or establishing Greater Israel and giving up any pretense of implementing the formula of two states for two peoples. The fact that liberal Zionism and the diplomacy of the West largely plays along with the discarded scenario of two states for two peoples is nothing more than subservience to a cruel variant of ‘the politics of delusion.’
The denigration of liberal Zionism is not meant to belittle the effort of Jews as Jews to find a just and sustainable solution for both peoples. I strongly support such organizations as Jewish Voices for Peace and Middle East Children’s Alliance, and hail the contributions of Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappe, and many others to the struggle for Palestinian empowerment and emancipation.
Fortunately, Palestinian resistance will likely stymie the two variants of the Israeli end game mentioned above, but much suffering is almost certain to ensue before sufficient momentum builds within Israel and throughout the world for living together on the basis of equality and even solidarity, accompanied by the necessary acknowledgement of past injustices via some kind of truth commission mechanism. After such knowledge, anything will be possible!
Global Justice in the 21st Century 
Commentary on Netanyahu’s Visit to the United States
2 MarPondering the Netanyahu Visit
It is far too simple to be merely outraged by the arrogant presumptuousness of tomorrow’s speech by the Israeli Prime Minister to a joint session of Congress two weeks prior to national elections in Israel. The Netanyahu visit has encouraged various forms of wishful thinking. Perhaps, the most common one is to suppose that bump in the road of U.S./Israeli relations will lead to a foreign policy reset that is more in accord with American national interests (in the spirit of the Mearsheimer/Walt critique of the baneful influence of the Israeli lobby) or that it signifies the death knell of AIPAC or the permanent alienation of the Democratic Party from its knee jerk support for Israel. In my view, none of these developments will happen in the wake of Netanyahu visit, no matter how obnoxious or divisive or inappropriate as his presence appears to be.
First of all, it is important to separate three main dimensions of the Netanyahu speech to Congress: (1) its impact on efforts to reach a diplomatic solution in relation to Iran; (2) its impact on U.S./Israel relations; (3) its effects on the Israeli elections scheduled for March 17th. In my view, the biggest damage is likely to result from (1), with few lasting consequences arising from (2) and (3), although on (3) there is a serious possibility that the speech, contrary to Netanyahu’s apparent intentions, will weaken his reelection prospects because Israelis will worry (needlessly) that there will be permanent negative fallout with respect to the Israel-United States relationship if Netanyahu remains as the head of the Israeli government.
There is a fourth dimension, even more speculative than the others, yet probably of significance: (4) the impact of the speech on the rising tide of anti-Semitism. Here, we need to be careful to distinguish allegations of anti-Semitism that are used to stifle criticism of Israel and what I would call genuine anti-Semitism that exhibits and stems from hatred of Jews. It is a sad commentary on the current situation that these two contradictory realities are merged in toxic ways by current Zionist discourses on anti-Semitism, playing on Jewish post-Holocaust fears to shield Israel from justifiable criticism for its abusive behavior toward the Palestinian people and the related neglect of Palestinian fundamental rights.
My greatest worry is that the Netanyahu speech will stiffen still further the anti-Obama will of the Republican members of Congress, as abetted by the most diehard Israel supporters among the Democratic lawmakers, as to put a impassable roadblock in the path of mutually beneficial negotiations with Iran that are now at a critical make or break stage. To some extent this roadblock is likely to be somewhat disguised by taking the form of retaining strong sanctions (never justified) until Iran demonstrates its good faith for several years by adhering to all the limitations on its nuclear program, including free access for international monitoring. If diplomacy fails, it will have at least two detrimental effects: first, it will definitely tilt the domestic balance in Iran toward the hardliners, and likely make Iran more repressive internally and more belligerent externally; and secondly, it will increase regional tensions, and if Iran proceeds with its nuclear program, as it most probably would, this would greatly heighten the prospect of a military confrontation.
In such a setting, the Netanyahu speech is a dangerous wild card that would never have been played by responsible political actors, although threatening to deliver such a speech might have achieved a comparable harmful result without the backlash. But no one has ever claimed subtlety to be a Netanyahu virtue. Yet let suppose that Netanyahu had given in to pressure to cancel the speech with the side effect of psycho-political gratitude from most sectors of influential opinion in the United States. At that point Netanyahu could have exacted more than a pound or two of flesh from a foolishly grateful and supine Obama White House. We should not forget that in the context of nuclear weapons policy in the Middle East there is a surrealistic element present: Israel mounts its objections to a remote possibility of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons while avoiding any objections to the retention of its own nuclear arsenal, secretly developed. Such a diplomatic asymmetry should not be allowed to pass unnoticed. Indeed, it should not be allowed!
When it comes to weakening support among Democrats or Jewish voters, the news of Israel’s demise, to invoke the authority of Mark Twain, is greatly exaggerated. Democrats will explain their absence from the speech as a reaction limited to the Speaker John Boehner irresponsible and partisan rupture of Congressional protocol and to Netanyahu’s untimely presence. At the same time, they will do as other American political leaders, such as John Kerry are doing, seize the occasion to reaffirm their support for the unbreakable nature of the Israel/U.S. partnership. Already we hear strident reassurances to Israel of the underlying American commitment to the security and wellbeing of Israel as understood by the Israeli government. As for Jewish voters and funders, they may possibly be conscience stricken, and even annoyed, for the moment, but it is highly probable that even if Netanyahu wins the election in two weeks their fundamental allegiances will be reaffirmed. I believe this is especially true in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo and Copenhagen synagogue incidents and the regional rise of ISIS.
Such a prediction should not be interpreted as a sign that the rise of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle will lose its impressive recent momentum within universities, churches, and labor unions. In this sense, I expect the disconnect between Washington and the rest of the country will widen after the Netanyahu visit—mending fences in Washington while mounting new challenges to Israeli policies and practices throughout civil society. This will be expressed by further victories for divestment initiatives on American campuses and robust growth for the BDS campaign.
As far as the Israeli elections are concerned, it seems a black box. What is so notable, as authoritatively observed by Uri Avnery, is the deliberate unwillingness of the centrist anti-Likud coalition led by Isaac Herzog to dwell on the need for ‘peace’ or for a just solution to the conflict. The electoral debate seems to have evoked little interest in Israel, and what disagreement there is, concerns bread and butter issues relating to economic policy. There is one misperception that it is important to counter, the idea that persists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the outlook for a just peace would greatly improve if Netanyahu and Likud are defeated. There is not a shred of support for this kind of mindless optimism that remains so prevalent in the ranks of liberal Zionism, which hangs on to the vain belief that a two-state solution is still feasible and has any appeal for the Israeli electorate. It should have been clear years ago that a tacit consensus exists in Israel, and is not opposed by Washington, that Oslo diplomacy has reached a dead end. The only requirement for the sake of public opinion is to keep aloft the banner of false consciousness that with tough concessions on both sides a sustainable peace can still be achieved, and only by such means.
The issue of anti-Semitism is not likely to disappear. As mentioned, it will continue to be used to blunt and divert criticism of Israel. As well, the continued frustration of Palestinians and other Arab victims of Israeli policies and Islamophobia are likely to commit hate crimes (although to a far lesser extent than to be the target of such crimes). There is no doubt that the deft playing of the anti-Semitic card by Zionist forces has encroached upon academic freedom throughout the world, targeting critics and civil society peace and humanitarian activists. Troublesome as this is, more disturbing is the extent to which such tactics are reinforced by academic administrators and politicians who are either complicit or craven, scared by the disproportionate influence of Zionist advocacy in the media, government, and among the wealthy. For elaboration see the fine March 1, 2015 analysis and commentary by Philip Weiss in Mondoweiss online news service: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/03/netanyahus-speech-israel
What we can hope for in the wake of this latest Netanyahu experience is some greater appreciation of what is at stake in the Iranian diplomacy and the realization that the Palestinian ordeal is the defining human rights issue of our time, but don’t look to Washington for this to happen anytime soon. I expect that even Obama will swallow hard, and then do his best to resume relations as if nothing had ever happened, perhaps harboring secret fantasies of a devastating defeat for Netanyahu and his Likud Party on March 17th.
Tags: anti-Semitism, Iran nuclear diplomacy, Netanyahu, Obama, U.S. Congress, Zionism