Blaming Zionism for lack of two-state solution all that’s fit to print at NY Times
Mideast Media Sampler 09/15/2013
Ian Lustick has graced the op-ed page of the New York Times with Two State Illusion. Here’s the thrust of his argument:
All sides have reasons to cling to this illusion. The Palestinian Authority needs its people to believe that progress is being made toward a two-state solution so it can continue to get the economic aid and diplomatic support that subsidize the lifestyles of its leaders, the jobs of tens of thousands of soldiers, spies, police officers and civil servants, and the authority’s prominence in a Palestinian society that views it as corrupt and incompetent.
Israeli governments cling to the two-state notion because it seems to reflect the sentiments of the Jewish Israeli majority and it shields the country from international opprobrium, even as it camouflages relentless efforts to expand Israel’s territory into the West Bank.
American politicians need the two-state slogan to show they are working toward a diplomatic solution, to keep the pro-Israel lobby from turning against them and to disguise their humiliating inability to allow any daylight between Washington and the Israeli government.
His argument is that the two state solution is a delusion, but what makes his op-ed so offensive is that Lustick identifies the main obstacle to a two state solution and peace in the Middle East is Jewish nationalism, Zionism.
Now of course, in the first paragraph he identifies the true problem without acknowledging it. It is the corruption of the Palestinian Authority that makes peace impossible. (It is that and the Palestinian leadership’s refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.)
Whether or not Israel always accepted the idea of a two state solution, Israeli withdrawals within the first few years after Oslo means that the vast majority of Palestinians live under Palestinian rule. The only remaining question is what borders that state will have, and the Palestinian refusal to negotiate in good faith since then (including the so called “Aqsa intifada,” which was run by Yasser Arafat) has been the main stumbling block to a final agreement.
For one-statism (ie destruction of Israel) masquerading as realism, see Lustick's NYT oped. http://t.co/pd5syFrUUf
— Robert Satloff (@robsatloff) September 15, 2013
It’s also important to note one player whom Lustick, left out of his analysis: Hamas. Does that mean to suggest that Israel would do well to negotiate with Hamas that is devoted to its destruction? Maybe he doesn’t say that here explicitly, but it’s an argument he has made in the past. In fact he wrote that Israel should accept a “hudna,” or tactical cease-fire with Hamas. Given how well previous “hudnas” were observed it’s not unreasonable for Israel to reject such advice.
https://twitter.com/Yair_Rosenberg/status/379258391769538561
Reading what I’ve written so far, you might conclude Lustick believes that “settlements” are the biggest obstacle to Middle East peace. But that doesn’t give him enough credit. Lustick is a post-Zionist. Lustick believes that Zionism – in other words, Israel – is the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East.
@DannyAyalon Did you read the outrageous ed by Ian Lustick in the NYT? Core assumption of the entire thesis is that zionism is colonialism.
— Fabio Lava (@LavaFabio) September 15, 2013
If you aren’t certain of Lustick’s views, read the paradise he writes about at the end:
In such a radically new environment, secular Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank could ally with Tel Aviv’s post-Zionists, non-Jewish Russian-speaking immigrants, foreign workers and global-village Israeli entrepreneurs. Anti-nationalist ultra-Orthodox Jews might find common cause with Muslim traditionalists. Untethered to statist Zionism in a rapidly changing Middle East, Israelis whose families came from Arab countries might find new reasons to think of themselves not as “Eastern,” but as Arab. Masses of downtrodden and exploited Muslim and Arab refugees, in Gaza, the West Bank and in Israel itself could see democracy, not Islam, as the solution for translating what they have (numbers) into what they want (rights and resources). Israeli Jews committed above all to settling throughout the greater Land of Israel may find arrangements based on a confederation, or a regional formula more attractive than narrow Israeli nationalism.
He isn’t talking about the end of settlements, but of the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
(Elder of Ziyon mocks this vision.)
This isn’t something new for Lustick, who wrote Israel Needs a New Map for the Los Angeles Times earlier this year. That essay was effectively rebutted by Dexter Van Zile who observed:
Compared to virtually every other country in the region, such as Syria and Lebanon, Israel has been a runaway success. Zionism has worked while virtually every other ideology that has manifested itself in the Middle East, whether it be Pan-Arabism, Baathism, or Islamism, has been an astounding, and catastrophic failure.
Lustick’s problem is a simple one: He simply cannot see what is going on in front of him.
Nor is surprising that the New York Times would publish this. In March, the Times published an essay by Joseph Levine that argued that Jews, alone, are not entitled to nationalism.
Lustick isn’t just opposed “settlements.” He is opposed to Israel. He may couch his argument in fanciful visions of the future, but that is the reality of it. It’s important to note who applaud his op-ed.
Remarkable piece by Ian Lustick on Two-State Illusion: hope Kerry has time to read it. http://t.co/u0aJhCcCYI
— Stephen Walt (@stephenWalt) September 15, 2013
After 20 years of 2 state illusions, the NY Times runs this piece of sanity by Ian Lustick: http://t.co/bBiNWncT4W
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) September 15, 2013
Must read: Ian Lustick's powerful critique of Arab-Israeli peace process http://t.co/8Kx1tUbAjz
— Vali Nasr (@vali_nasr) September 15, 2013
They cannot argue that they are critics of Israel, but opponents of Israel.
There’s one more point about Ian Lustick that needs to be made. I will credit him for writing in a reasonable tone; it’s a quality that, no doubt, makes his unreasonable arguments palatable to some. However, he is an extremist.
https://twitter.com/RQA/status/379260846624346113
He once argued that he supported an American invasion of Afghanistan, but not one that was too “bloodless.” Martin Kramer analyzed Lustick’s argument:
To borrow academic jargon, this statement can be “unpacked,” and if you unpack it, this it what you get: regret that American forces didn’t suffer some sort of Mogadishu in Afghanistan, so that the victory would not have seemed “relatively bloodless on the American side.”
There’s probably a valid if banal analytical point lurking behind this: military superiority is its own temptation. But there is something more sinister and cynical in Lustick’s remarks, because he’s stating a personal preference, not an analytical thesis. And the remark’s cynicism extends beyond possible American losses. For if a bit more American blood had been shed in a longer war in Afghanistan, it’s certain that a lot more Afghan blood would have been shed as well.
Ian Lustick, whether arguing against Israel’s existence or for more American military deaths is an extremist. He has found a hospitable home at the New York Times.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
I thoroughly disagree with this: “It is that and the Palestinian leadership’s refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.”
It’s not the leadership, it’s the Palestinian people’s position. What little polling that exists, usually shows overwhelming antagonism towards the Israeli state among Palestinians.
If the people really wanted a viable 2-state solution, their leaders would be working to give them one.
That’s ok. These are the same people who believe that Climate Change is anthropogenic, even though the climate was changing long before human beings have been around.
That could easily blame the flying spaghetti monster for lack of a two state solution, but that would call attention to problems with evolution (not in the “change over time” sense, which everyone agrees with, but rather the Macroevolutionary cross phyla sense that has been discredited time and time again by conflicting phylogenies, the lack of transitional fossils, epigenetic discoveries, functional “junk” DNA and so forth), which is another pet of the progressives.
Any time you get a theory that explains everything, it explains nothing. And so it goes with Zionism and it’s being the cause of all the world’s ills……not.
The two state solution that the Palestinians would accept would be Gaza and the West Bank. Now, if Israel wants to be a state too, that’s a 3 state solution.
Magicians work by misdirection. They move their hands in such ways you don’t see the trick. And, you’re led to believe there are supernatural powers at play.
You’re more than welcome to believe what you want.
IF the NY Times is focusing on this story, which is routine propaganda … what’s actually happening that they’re afraid you would see?
How about the USA is clueless when it comes to Mideast politics. And, Israel is really in the midst of a very lousy neighborhood.
Israelis know that the media runs (and malfunctions) on the cock-and-bull stories it tells about the “wonderful” arabs. And, Jews “who must be Nazis.” Most people aren’t fooled by this hokum.
And, just like you teach children: “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”
At some point the arabs lost this war against Israel. But they can’t help themselves. To admit the truth would mean they’d have to face the humiliation of losing yet another battle with the Israelis. Who learned the best defense is in the walls they’ve built.
They’ve even built a wall across the Sinai. After seeing a flood of Africans cutting through the desert, in the hopes of immigrating into Israel.
How come Israel has such a great reputation down in Africa? Well, it’s got a working economy. Something lacking in most of the African countries. Some made worse, because Islamists have been armed. And, they kill blacks at will. You ever hear of Darfur?
As reported recently in the Jerusalem Post, according to a poll, only 11 percent of Jews in Israel support a two-state solution (TWS). The only subgroup that endorses TWS (52% approval) are supporters of the Israeli Labor Party. Thus today in Israel TWS is a fringe opinion. I strongly suspect that American Jews who are generally liberal and belong to Reform congregations (if they belong to anything) support TWS overwhelmingly. Of course American Jews, safe in their pleasant suburbs, don’t face an Arab-Muslim existential threat.
I don’t see any gain for Jews in Israel from a TWS. I my opinion, it’s delusional to think Israelis will be any safer after TWS. They should simply continue the status quo and there’s nothing the Arabs can do about it.
See Caroline Glick’s latest column for the long, sorry story of the PLO and two-state solution. No need for a copy of the NYT. . . unless you have a hamster.
Carolyn Glick explains the obvious– to all but Israeli leaders and American Reform Jews. You never exchange something abstract and intangible for something real. “Land for peace” — an idea put forth by fools for fools.
Utter nonsense, but it is nonsense which has risen to the level of mantra for the anti-Israel left.
By repeating it in slightly reworded forms, they reassure each other that day is night, black is white, and “Palestinians” want peace.
The whole Palestine thing is a fraud. I have written about it at http://thediplomad.blogspot.com/2013/08/palestinians-are-angry-dog-bites-man.html
Shmuel Rosner eviscerated Lustick here: http://www.jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain/item/so_now_we_have_to_talk_about_ian_lusticks_one_state_delusion
1) Ishmael & Isaac : If you haven’t read the story, in the Bible, go and read it. The Arabs, **2500** years later still had an inferiority complex about this – which Mohammed addressed. Problem is, the addressed it by saying that the Jews (sons and daughters of Isaac) were just a “teachable moment” as a warning to the REAL chosen people: The Arab Muslims (sons & daughters of Ishmael). Now that Israel is re-established it’s a giant poke in the eye of the truth (or lack thereof) about Islam. As long as Israel exists, Mohammed either got it wrong or was lying.
2) The Leadership of Hamas and the PLA (or whatever they’re calling themselves now) are kept in power, not unlike how the grievance industry in the U.S. If tomorrow came, and Israel were to magically disappear, and the Pallys were to have the land …. For about 2-5 years money would roll in to build up infrastructure and such, but after that … zilch. And like the race hustlers in the U.S., without a grievance the leadership of the Pallys et al are out of job and poor.