Damn, I have here such a good book on this conflict, by Peter Scholl-Latour (who wrote also insightful books on terrorism and the Middle East in general), who knows this part of the world for 50 years now, and who reported from every major war and event ranging from the Seven days war over Vietnam to all the Afghan wars to Iraq. Sadly it is only availiable in German. It is called "Lügen im Heiligen Land" (Lies in the holy country) and is the best account of the whole thing (from all six sides - Europe, USA, Russia, Palestine, Arab countries and Israel itself) I've read up to date.

I saw your comments to Dr. DeLong. I suspect he will be singing soprano for the next week or so due to the lovely (and newly aquired) necklace you're wearing now.

The first Intifada occured while Arafat was in Algiers, not on the ground in Gaza. It was the Palestinians themselves who decided to stage this protest, not Arafat. (I have no great love for Arafat except that he put Palestine back on the map and has kept it there for the past 30 years. No small feat.)

But if nothing changes, nothing changes. Whether the Palestinians go back to throwing rocks or continue to blow themselves up is a *tactical* question, not a philosophical one. As long as America continues to take sides (as it did in Lebanon, earning us our very own suicide bomber), the violence will continue, regardless of how many troops Sharon has on the ground.

My, my. That the IDF is coming to a consensus that it can only protect the Israeli population against suicide bombings if it occupies the West Bank population centers is a *fact*. The fact that you don't like the fact doesn't keep it from being a fact.

The insight of Oslo was that the more secure Israel feels, the more likely is the Israeli electorate to choose leaders who will give better terms to the Palestinians. Oslo is now in total ruins, but the insight remains true: the more suicide bombers, the worse the terms that will be offered to the Palestinians. (And, may I say, the greater the likelihood that Tel Aviv is going to disappear beneath a mushroom cloud in the next century.)

I've gotten the distinct impression over the last 5 years or so that more Americans are wising up to the situation. Remember way back when when *everyone* but Vanessa Redgrave thought the Israelis were the good guys? And think of the ugly things said about Redgrave's stand.

Now it isn't too hard to find Americans who are openly anti-Israeli. People are getting sick of a conflict that has gone on for 50 years with no end in sight. More people are thinking along the lines of, "Hmmmm. If the Israelis are such good guys, why haven't they done right by the Palestinians instead of killing them in droves, denying them any rights, bulldozing their houses, blatantly settling their land, etc. etc. etc."

The thing that strikes me in the quote from Hoffman's article is the cited "necessity" for IDF to remain in "close physical contact" with informers. Look at a map, people! The distances are minuscule!

I was once a strong supporter of Israel; I believed all the myths. But the continual expansion of settlements into the West Bank has caused me to conclude that successive governments (Barak has been portrayed in the American media as the good guy, but he did little if anything to even slow down that expansion) are territorial in nature and that conciliation is not likely until that attitude changes. Sadly, I don't think it ever will.

That the IDF is coming to a consensus that it can only protect the Israeli population against suicide bombings if it occupies the West Bank population centers is a *fact*. The fact that you don't like the fact doesn't keep it from being a fact.

Well, then I suppose the Baathist consensus that the Arabs can only free themselves from Western imperialism through ruthless oppression of all internal dissent is also a "fact."

And you can't argue with the "facts," right?

fyi - the barricdes has a new url

http://www.tothebarricades.com/

I saw your comments to Dr. DeLong. I suspect he will be singing soprano for the next week or so

I don't ordinarily pick fights with people who are basically good guys. But, as I said, the stunning American myopia about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of my pet peeves.

Plus I've been in a rotten mood for the past couple of days.

I'd like to get more background on this, much like the corporate dweeb you refer to.

Is there an objective resource I can go to that will give me the history required to put this all into context? I don't want to have to ask you to type it all up!

Billmon: A shrink friend of mine once told me that rotten moods in some people are a sign of ... hmmm, how to put this ... creativity bubbling away on the back burner. In other words, your creative impulses are hard at work ... they just haven't burst to the forefront yet, so they're driving you crazy in the background instead.

Then again, a rotten mood could mean that your hot water heater just took a dump and your roof is leaking ...

I'm working on something else right now, but when I can find some time, I'll try and post a bibleography. You could start, however, by reading this book:

A Peace to End All Peace
The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
By David Fromkin

It tells the sorry story of how the British promised both the Zionists and Arabs a national homeland in Palestine -- and then tried to stiff both of them.

For the modern reality of what Israel is trying to do in the occupied territories, try:

Intimate Enemies:  Jews and Arabs in a Shared Land
By Meron Benvenisti

Benvenisti is interesting because he thinks the two-state solution is no longer viable (if it ever was) -- in large part because of actions taken by Israeli governments (of the right and the left) since 1967.

You have to give his opinion some weight, because Benvenisti probably knows more about the West Bank (the economy, the demographics, the resources and the settlements) than any person alive.

I have enormous respect for him, because he is intellectually honest enough, and courageous enough, to see the moral implications of his own conclusions. Benvenisti advocates the creation of a secular, de-Zionized state in which both Jews and Arabs can live in full equality.

Which may also be a pipe dream, but at least it's a decent and honorable one.

For the Palestinian view:

Cry Palestine
by Said K. Aburish

Aburish is a journalist turned businessman from a family of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. He's a realist and a very good writer. I confess, I haven't actually read this particular title, but I've read several of his other books, and they were all good.

the justification for occupying the west bank used to be that it was needed as a buffer zone in defense posture against iraq. with saddam gone, they can't use that excuse anymore.

what happened to sharon's recent statement, voicing a regretful acknowledgement that in the interest of peace, israel must eventually withdraw jewish settlements from the west bank? was that just another media PR stunt?

What frustrates me most about all this is that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinean conflict is pretty simple to figure out, if harder to implement.

Israel moves out of the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Pretty much the 1967 borders, with finagling by both sides to be expected, but minor in scope.

Palestine gives up the Right of Return.

American troops provide a secure border between both sides forever and a day (which means 15-20 years) because there's no way the Israelis will ever accept UN troops.

A Natural Resources Committee is set up, composed of representatives of both sides, to parcel out water in the region (ever notice that where Israel has settlements tends to be where most of the water is?).

We quietly make it clear to the Arabs that all money "to rebuild Palestine" goes to infrastructure, not weapons. (We especially make it clear to the Jordanians, as it becomes a defacto Palestinean state and might try to unite with the West Bank and Gaza.) Any and all missle acquisition of any sort short of antitank stuff is a BIG no-no.

We make it equally clear to the Israelis that American border security forces can call upon the 7th Fleet if Israel ever returns to a Greater Israel frame of mind.

Then we hold on and pray...

was that just another media PR stunt?

Obviously. Sharon showed his real attitude toward dismantling the settlements when he told Colin Powell recently that the plan in the "Roadmap to Peace" to freeze the population of the settlements would mean that all the pregnant women in them would have to get abortions, and of course he knew that Colin wouldn't want that to happen.

Of course, Sharon is the moderate on this issue. His tourism minister, Benny Elon, is ready to round up all the Palestinians and drive them (one would assume at gunpoint)into Jordan. No "two-state" solution for Benny:

"The Palestinian Arabs already have a state," says Elon. "It's Jordan. Another state west of the Jordan River is a three-state solution, not a two-state solution. It would be a disaster for Israel, and it would be a disaster for the Palestinians."

Details on this dangerous nutcase can be found here: here

My braincase is gettin' ready to split from some rotten lees-run skull-pop, billmon -

They called this place a whiskey bar. It ain't, of course - no self-respectin' drinkin' man'd serve such swill. Got no reverence for the product, billmon. Shoulda checked the tax-stamp on the blockade - it warn't forged properly, this time. Too much piney stink and woodjuice in the still, marked with old paper, smudged. No reverence for the product, billmon, lose y'self a customer.

Or even, perhaps, a frequent and formerly enthusiastic reader.

Not that I'd ask you to shut up, mind - I couldn't ask you or tell you to shut up, because I ain't a right-wing talk-radio Republican nutbar like O'Reilly, and only they get the privilege of telling people to shut up because they're stupid, misled, and/or lying malefactors. Thank goodness we can always tell that it's the bad people who're trying to shut down discourse by telling other people to shut up.

'Course, everything always looks different depending on context. And you should be thanked for providing context dans l'ésprit superieur du bon volonté, natch.

I'll need to remember that, next time I think on how they were picking my friend's fiancé's flesh from the walls in the Hebrew University cafeteria.

>>I don't ordinarily pick fights with people who are basically good guys. But, as I said, the stunning American myopia about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of my pet peeves.<<

I'd be more worried about your inability to read what I wrote.

Whence comes your claim that I think continued Israeli occupation was inevitable and is justified? It wasn't inevitable. I don't think it is justified--but given what's happened since Arafat decided to try to see if suicide bombings would drive Israel out of the West Bank, I can't see any likely chain of circumstances that will get Israel out of the West Bank for at least a decade.

perfect billmon - thanks for the info!

Hi paul,

You might want to try "Pity the Nation" by Robert Fisk (a medium-hard read), "From Beirut to Jerusalem" (an easy read) by Thomas Friedman, "The Battle for God" by Karen Armstrong (an easy read) and "One Day in September" (an easy read but prolly should not be your first book) by Simon Reeve.

There will be a quiz. lol!

David Joseph Greenbaum,

"I'll need to remember that, next time I think on how they were picking my friend's fiancé's flesh from the walls in the Hebrew University cafeteria."

Honestly, intently sorry for your pain, David. I'm still feeling pain for a pal who was scraped off the ground after a Cat D9 ran over her. We both lose, Israel loses, the Palestinian people lose, the world loses. This issue needs to be on the front burner, and a lot more people need to feel some pain before we can all work our way out of this mess. Talking is a start.

Whence comes your claim that I think continued Israeli occupation was inevitable and is justified?

Well, maybe it's just me, but "I can't see any likely chain of circumstances that will get Israel out of the West Bank for at least a decade" does sound suspiciously like "inevitable."

And "Arafat decided to try to see if suicide bombings would drive Israel out of the West Bank" has a certain ring of justification about it.

Both statements are at least debatable, although the evidence for the latter is about on par with the administration's "evidence" of Iraq's WMD capability -- which is to say, highly suspect, even though the underlying allegation may be true.

But, even if true, the latter does not justify the former, in my opinion. And as others have pointed out in the comments to Dr. DeLong's original post, not everyone in the IDF believes it does. Everyone in Sharon's political circle, perhaps. But that's still (I hope) something different than the IDF.

In any case, I don't think my characterization of Dr. DeLong's argument was off base. And that isn't the ground I personally would choose to contest, if I were him. But I'm not, so I'll let him come up with his own arguments.

.

I'll need to remember that, next time I think on how they were picking my friend's fiancé's flesh from the walls in the Hebrew University cafeteria.

And I'll try to remember it, too, the next time a Palestinian family is butchered by an errant IDF missile, or the next time an IDF armored bulldozer runs over an American college student.

Billmon, I find your post troubling, particularly this line: "Let's ignore the more basic questions of Israel's legitimacy as a settler state in region colonized by the West after World War I." By bringing this up (even -- perhaps especially -- with the "let's ignore it" rhetoricism), you're opening a hideous can of worms. First, from a historical point of view it's disingenuous. For decades now, the Palestinians have been promised by their leaders a return to a Palestine cleansed of Jews, where they would go back to the farms their families left in 1948. OK, if that's the game we're playing, I want my grandfather's house in Germany back. And please, give me the title to the shtetl shack in the Ukraine where my great-grandparents lived until 1903. Second, much of Israel's early population growth came from Jews expelled from other countries in the Middle East. So, they get kicked out of Iraq and Egypt, where they'd lived for centuries, and now they (and their grandchildren) aren't supposed to be in Israel either? Or they're supposed to live in a "de-Zionized" Palestine run by the Arabs? OK, until they get kicked out again. That's the whole purpose of Israel: make sure that never happens again. Finally, the region was "colonized" by the equally-foreign Ottomans long before Versailles. The British inherited (and managed clumsily) colonies of a defeated and collapsed empire.

Second, look at the practical side. If the international community suddenly decided that Israel's existence were illegitimate, the result would be unimaginable carnage. Do you think three generations of Israelis, who have worked their entire lives to build the country, would simply say "oh, we'll just go back to Russia, Germany, Iran, and Ethiopia?" And where could they go? Most have no nationality but Israeli. No, they would fight. Hell, I'd go there and fight alongside them.

Finally, the moral-equivalence stuff really galls me. I hate it when the right-wing nutcases wave bloody shirts, but I have to say the Palestinians are showing a very, very ugly face when they (or subcultures they tolerate) send teen-aged girls as suicide bombers to blow up supermarkets. Now they send bombers disguised as religious Jews to blow up buses full of civilians. This turns my stomach far more than the sight of the IDF policing hostile territories with a heavy hand. I know they have killed more Palestinians than the terrorists have killed Israelis. But how many of the dead innocent Palestinian civilians were explicitly targeted or randomly, deliberately, barbarically murdered?

And I'll try to remember it, too, the next time a Palestinian family is butchered by an errant IDF missile

You said it yourself: "errant." That's the difference.

I don't think everything Israel does is right, either. The settlement policy is insane. If it's not stopped, it will ultimately destroy Israel as a Jewish democracy. (Tom Friedman is totally right about that one). But the violent anti-Semitism raging through the Arab world, and the terrorism it's producing, are a far worse evil.

The suicide bomber crowd, and their apologists, have far less interest in a two-state solution than even Sharon; their aim is not to liberate the West Bank and Gaza, but to destroy Israel and, in their wildest dreams, the Jewish people. And I doubt that even an instant Palestinian state, even on all the post-1967 territories with a guaranteed transit rights, would abate their violence. Still, in the end two "real" states, whatever the borders, will not be just the least terrible solution, but probably the only non-apocalyptic one.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to turn away from matters terroristic and rejoice in the fact that the Red Sox are tied for first in the AL East. Take that, Steinbrenner!

I lived most of my childhood in a mostly-white neighborhood, Aetna, a part of Gary, Indiana. Over the late 1970s, thanks to scare tactics by real estate salesmen and an upsurge in lower and middle class blacks being scared out of their old neighborhoods (often by the same real estate folks - gangs and the serious use of dangerous drugs weren't really an issue locally until the 1980s), white flight swamped my heighborhood. My parents held out until early 1979, then sold their home for $700 less than what it cost them to buy it ten years before. They were considered lucky.

The creation of violent gangs and especially the availabliliy of crack as a means to provide financing for their existence and later operations caused "black flight" in turn, for those who could afford it, in the 1980s from that same neighborhood. Three years ago I drove through the old neighborhood...words would fail to describe the place.

Many of my friends from back then I simply cannot talk to because all they see is "The Niggers came in and ruined everything." (In fact, I would suggest that, if we ever turn over the rocks of White Suburban Rage & Fear, there is some history of this sort underneath, passed on to their kids.) It's never that simple.

At some point, we have to all cut our losses and let go of the need for "justice", which is usually spelled r-e-v-e-n-g-e. So far, neither side has a majority willing to tell its leadership to do this.

The average Israeli thinks that being tough will stop the suicide bombers - if they need to get increasingly "tougher", so be it. They cannot see that continuing the present situation will simply bring more of them, and more nasty ways to kill people.

The average Palestinean lives under horrid living conditions that are rarely displayed in the USA, and thirsts for an end to it all, be it the reutrn of long-lost lands, the ability to tend one's existing land without appropriation by the Israelis, or just to the violence they suffer on a regular basis, often in retaliation for the violence members of their society "export" to Israel. They are being sold a never-never land if they think they'll get their lemon groves in Haifa back anytime soon, but what alternatives are they able to grasp on to?

If the US, the -only- force able to make effective change happen, doesn't stop it's dithering, there will be a very choice hell to pay for all of us.

When we finally invaded Iraq, I was asked at work what I thought about it all. I made the mistake of being honest - Tel Aviv or New York will get hit with a nuclear device or some sort within three years. They simply refused to accept this as likely, and thought I was nuts.

Given how we've dealt with potential material for WMDs in Iraq, not to mention any possible weaponized systems once within the country, I don't think I'm too far off so far.

And I don't look forward to further limitations of our dwindling civil rights, not to mention our basic humanity, when that device finally goes off.

We need to let go, repair the damage and move on, or life will get tougher for most of us, and very soon.

You said it yourself: "errant." That's the difference.

Even the manufacturers admit the things aren't perfect. Does the responsibility of the firer end when the missile has left the launcher?

>>And "Arafat decided to try to see if suicide bombings would drive Israel out of the West Bank" has a certain ring of justification about it.<<

You seem to be reading quite a bit into the statement to suggest that deLong sees this characterization of Palestinian actions as justification of IDF actions. You seem to have overstretched in your initial response and now just keep upping the ante. I can surmise from this that you probably have considerable personal insight into both Sharon and Arafat's behavior.

Billmon, you've opened up a can of worms and I commend you for doing so.

Dr DeLong, you are quoted as saying: "In the fall of 2000 Yasser Arafat decided that the Oslo Process and Clinton's pressure on Ehud Barak had not produced a good enough deal for him". This is premised on a mis-characterisation of the deal. I hate to use the "f" word but if one looks at the facts, the offer was not even viable, let alone generous, as the Israeli-US spin machine characterised it afterwards.

There's quite a lot of documentation on what Barak's proposal actually consisted of and it certainly isn't only the Palestinians who do not think it was generous or even reasonable. (By the way, please don't rely on my examples, there is lots of stuff on the web such as this page from Gush Shalom, an Israeli organisation: http://www.gush-shalom.org/media/barak_eng.swf)

If we all agree that an offer worth accepting needs to satisfy at least two criteria - viability, and control over the territory for the Palestinians - the details of the Camp David offer seem to contradict even these basic principles.

For example:
- the West bank was divided into four territorial units, the borders between which were controlled by the Israelis. Therefore the Palestinians would not have been able to enjoy the free movement of either people or goods within their own country
- the Jordan border was to be leased back to Israel for 99 years, therefore the Palestinians did not have control over their external border
- all airspace was controlled by Israel including communications e.g Israeli permission would have been needed to build a cell phone network
- people are fond of quoting that Israel offered 95% of the West Bank however there is less discussion of what was the remaning 5% that they held onto. This was principally the Ariel settlement bloc and the reason the Israelis were so keen to keep it is that it is situated on top of the most pure and easily accessible water source in the West Bank

There is a great myth about this so-called "generous" offer (which was, in reality, not even viable, let alone generous). The supposed choice of the Palestinians to reject this in favor of violence has led people to conclude that they have no interest in negotiating peacefully (by the way, it was presented by Barak as final and non-negotiable). This is just not true and the subsequent negotiations at Taba in the spring of 2001 prove this when most of the issues were ironed out, save the right of return. However by then, it was too late - the IDF had suppressed with disproportionate force the Palestinian uprisings following Sharon's offensive visit to the Al Asqa Mosque (including killing 13 Arab-Israelis) and yes, the Palestinian militants were waiting in the wings. As an important sidenote, not part of the central topic of this post, one should question why the militants had so many willing recruits by then: was it something to do with the doubling of the settlements during the Oslo process, did the frequent, devastating and arbitrary closures devastate the Palestinian economy (Harvard historian, Sara Roy, is the definitive authority on this) to the point of utter desparation etc. ?

To finish off, by the admission of both sides, they were painfully close to a workable agreement at Taba and it is one recent history's great tradgedies that the change of leadership in both Israel and the US derailed these final negotiations.

Does the responsibility of the firer end when the missile has left the launcher?

No, of course not. But whether the missile was aimed at the family deliberately or not is a huge difference. It is the distinction between (generously) collateral damage or (less generously) recklessness on the one hand, and atrocity on the other.

ColoZ,

Have you ever spoken to any of the Israeli refuseniks ? These people have made decisions of conscience that, in many cases have resulted in jail or social ostracisation. One could thus expect that they have some pretty good reasons for their actions and given that they number over a thousand, I don't think we can accuse them all of being insane or psychotically misguided.

One of them said something to me the other say that really resonated: "when you have absolute power over someone, you will abuse it, sooner or later". He then recounted instances of how he often witnessed colleagues beating Palestinians for no good reason and - testament to the corrupting nature of the power, I guess - even got involved himself sometimes.

No sane person who has been there and sees what goes on on a daily basis would attempt to argue that all of the IDF's actions can be legitimated in the name of self-defence, policing etc. Nor would they say that the abuses of the power are isolated instances. It is sytemtic to the occupation, an unavoidable consequence of such a massively disproportionate power structure between the occupier and the occupied.

Somewhat uncomfortably, I believe in Israel's right to exist. The safety of the jewish people after the Holocaust was a moral imperative of the highest order, unfortunately it was realized at great cost and injustice to other people. However, as you say in an earlier comment, one has to be realistic and recognise that most borders get drawn at the expense of one side or another.

I also believe that the logic justifying the occupation is paradoxical. As my refusenik friend told me and bore witness to, for every suicide bomber the IDF stop, several are created via the daily oppression, violence and humiliation. In addition to not realising its stated aim of self-defence, it is having a massive corrupting effect on Israeli society and destroying Palestinian society. I believe that if one really is interested in the long term future of Israel, the occupation has to be opposed and its faulty logic pointed out. I thus have no problem condemning the actions of the IDF in the many instances when they merit condemnation.

ColZ,

I somewhat rudely omitted my handle from the previous comment. It is provided herewith.

Votive.

I believe that if one really is interested in the long term future of Israel, the occupation has to be opposed and its faulty logic pointed out. I thus have no problem condemning the actions of the IDF in the many instances when they merit condemnation.

Fair enough, though I think 'condemnation' is a little strong; the occupation is bad for absolutely everyone. But a unilateral withdrawal right now is out of the question -- it would open the floodgates to an Iraq-style breakdown of order in the territories, and generate terrorism on a scale Israel hasn't seen even in its saddest years. What's to be done? I don't know any more than anyone else. Immediately freezing settlement construction would be a good start. A small rollback, starting with the hardest-to-defend and most disruptive settlements, would be a nice next step. (Why the hell are Israelis living in Gaza anyway?) But this isn't consistent with political realities in Israel, where the hawkish security party (understandably popular given the terrorism of 2001-2002) has unfortunate close ties to the radical settler movements. It's like asking the Bush administration to propose a trade deal with Cuba and sweeping new restrictions on power plant emissions.

But people out there making jabs at Israel's "right to exist" (I prefer "need to exist") aren't helping the situation. On the refuseniks, I can't say I know any, although many of the Israelis I do know are pretty liberal (as am I). The attention given to a movement that hasn't even cleared the 1% threshold is a little out of proportion -- I think its importance is inflated by outsiders who are predisposed to see dark motives in the IDF.

ColoZ -- I'm perfectly happy to open cans of worms, because I think they NEED to be opened, and examined and even, if necessary, swallowed, in order to get to a more reasonable debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

That Israel is a settler state cannot be denied -- not plausibly, anyway. The entire history of Zionism is the history of a settler movement. (In this sense, the modern settler movement is probably more in touch with the nation's founding spirit than today's secularist peace activists)

And you probably want to stay away from the "OK, give me back by stetl shack in Poland" argument. First because the movement of Jews to America was largely voluntary, and second because that is precisely the argument the original Zionists used about Palestine -- except they weren't asking for the return of a house they left in 1903, but for the return of a country their ancestors had left (or been exiled from) thousands of years before.

You also can't equate the Ottomans with the Zionists. That's just silly. The Ottomans were Islamic and indigenous to the Middle East. They were heavily Arabized and not seen as foreign occupiers -- until the British came along during World War I and manufactured their "Arab revolt."

In any case, the Ottomans were not colonizers. They ruled Palestine, they did not seek to settle it with immigrants drawn from another continent and anoher culture.

That said, it is also unquestionably true that millions of Jews from the Arab world fled to (or were expelled to) Israel after the 1948 war. This is important (at least to me) because it is the primary basis for Israel's legitimacy -- it's right to exist as a state.

I realize it is fashionable in some Arab intellectual circles to deny that Jews were persecuted or oppressed in the Arab world. This, of course, is bullshit. While Jews have, at various times through the ages, fared better under Islamic rulers than under Christian ones, they've never been treated justly or equally -- at least, not as I would define the terms.

It was therefore, in my view, legitimate for the Jews of the Arab world to aspire to their own independent state. Palestine was probably not the most plausible territory for the creation of such a state, since there actually were relatively few Jews living there before the Zionists arrived.

(Ironically, the area in and around Greater Baghdad might have been a more reasonable choice, since the city was once heavily, if not majority, Jewish.

But the historical connection of the Jewish people to the land between the Jordan and the sea also can't be denied -- except by fundamentalist Islamic bullshit artists. So there is a case -- a case -- to be made that the creation of Israel was as legimate and justified as the creation of Pakistan.

Assuming, I guess, that you think tribal nationalism is a good thing. Gandhi, as you recall, had his doubts about Pakistan. But Lord knows -- all the Lords know -- that the Jews aren't the only tribal nationalists in the Middle East.

OK. So Israel has a legitimate right to exist, if you accept all that reasoning. But others have legitimate rights, too. Others like the hundreds of thousands of native Palestinians, most of whom had been living in the Holy Land since the Arab conquest, and some of whom go back a good deal further than that.

You just can't get around the fact that the creation of Israel was an exercise in ethnic cleansing that would be impossible to justify -- or condone -- today. The details of that operation are only now coming to light -- ironically from the here-to-for sealed archives of the IDF.

I could go on and on here, but it's late. The Palestinians obviously have chosen some of the most destructive ways imaginable to defend and asset their rights as human beings. But those rights still exist. They are -- as at least one famous declaration puts it --"inalienable."

It's easy to conclude that the existence of Islamic fundamentalism negates the possibility of a just solution to the conflict, since the fundamentalists cannot be appeased by anything short of the destruction of Israel and the explusion of its Jewish inhabitants.

But this is a self-justifying argument -- almost a tautology -- since the agony and despair of occupation is the most powerful fertilizer for Islamic extremism. Hamas has never been weaker than it was immediately after Oslo was signed. It's never been stronger (politically) than it is today. Saying the threat of Islamic fundamentalism is a greater evil than the settlements is also pointless. They are BOTH evil, and the latter evil does not prevent the former. If anything, it provokes it.

As for "moral equivalence"? There is no moral equivalence between a suicide bombing and a IDF air strike that knowingly kills innocent civilians because there is no morality involved -- on either side.

Sooner or later, Israel is going to have to pay the price for all of this -- for the circumstances of its birth, for the policies it has pursued since 1948 -- and more especially since 1967. And the price is going to be higher than I think you can imagine.

You say if it came down to it, if Israel's existence were truly on the line, you would go and fight alongside them. But fighting might be the least of what you could be called upon to do, ColoZ.

Would you kill for Israel? Would you burn villages and bulldoze olive groves, round up young men to be tortured and force old men and women into trucks so they can be "transferred" somewhere (pehaps somewhere to the east?)

Would you man a guard tower at a concentration camp?

Because believe me, these things are on the horizon unless there is a fundamental reassessment of the entire Zionist project -- along the lines that Meron Benvenistu and others are advocating.

My own position is less complicated -- and less ambitious. If you and others like you want to go fight for Israel, go fight. If you want to kill, go kill. I'm resigned to the fact that some evils -- maybe most evils -- can't be prevented.

But it really sickens me that America has been dragged so deeply into the filthy business.

There is a Gordian knot uncut for near 'bout 100 years now binding Israelis and Palestinians ever more tightly and misreably. It is the cycle of violent attack, including outrageous acts of terrorism on outsiders seen as usurpers; and retaliation, including gross human rights violations that have come, over the decades, to include collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, mass imprisonments for long periods without trials; house demolitions; killings of rock throwing children, and more--which radicalizes ever more Palestinians to further bloody acts.
If you doubt this is the ultimate effect of Israeli actions, go back and examime news clips and contemporary accounts of how the Israelis were received as the new overlords by Palestinians in the West Bank in 1967, after the Six Day War. There were no flowers tossed. But after their awful treatment by the Hashimites, there was a wary neutrality among West Bank Arabs (not yet Palestinians in the eyes of most of the world, or even in their own minds). Its replacement with a ferocious Palestinian national consciousness owes much to Israel's own post-'67 actions--not least of all the establishment of settlements on expropriated land.
It must be added that the early PLO's terrorism also played a strategically classic role in provoking Israeli military responses that, in turn, also engendered the mass consciousness the PLO sought.
This dynamic is devilishly complicated to escape. And Yasir Arafat's rejection of not just the offer on the table at Camp David in Aug. 2000, but more particularly, Clinton's much more generous proposal the following December, which then-Prime Minister Barak accepted, probably represents the Palestinians' latest great missed opportunity, not to return for a generation or more, if ever.
In the meantime, it is crucial for Israel's survival that it cut, or at least loosen, the Gordian knot by distinguishing between the occupation and the settlements. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME, though Israel strives mightily to conflate them, and most of the world cooperates.
The military occupation can be cruel. It can involve counterproductive overreactions and human rights violations. But however badly executed, it is by its nature about Israel's need to protect itself from a population with many individuals and groups who maintain a still-unreconciled hostile stance towards Israel and all Israelis while inhabiting a geographic territory from which it can act on that hostility with great violent effect.
The settlements, on the other hand, are about dispossession of another people. They are about land expropriations. Cantonization. Many repressions and violent military actions required not to protect Israel within its pre-'67 borders but to protect the Israelis in the settlements on the expropriated lands. They are about robbery of underground water rights for settlement swimming pools while Palestinian farmers cannot obtain drilling permits. They are one of the major--though not only--causes of the very hostility that necessitates the occupation.
Finally, they are a demographic dagger aimed at Israel's claim to be either a Jewish state or a country that identifies in some fashion with the West and its democracies. This is because around 2015, if not earlier, the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River under Israel's control will become majority Palestinian. Israel within its pre-'67 borders already consists of a voting, citizen population that is 20 percent Palestinian--and who are identifying ever more with the currents surging through their West Bank breathren in the absence of a national border separating them.
The SETTLEMENTS necessitate a lot, though not all, of the extensive control and repression Israel imposes. They also constitute an increasing drain on the Army. But most importantly they threaten Israel's status as either a democracy or as a Jewish state. Jetissoning them is not a concession to the Palestnians. It is a matter of critical self-interest--just as maintaining the OCCUPATION is, for now, critical to Israel's security until such time as a secure two-state settlement can be reached with the Palestinains under some present or future leadership.
Unfortunately a willingness to evacuate the settlements would require a rending civil confrontation within Israeli society--if not outright war--given the ideological committment of many settlers. It would be a threat to national unity no less profound than the war Israel is calling on the Palestinian Authority to wage against Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
I would be interested in Prof. DeLong's comment on this viewpoint.

Billmon,

I wanted to raise something offline. I was wondering whether you would mind emailing me at votive100@yahoo.com and I could tell you more. Feel free to set up a one-off web-based email if you don't want to give out your permanent email address.

Votive
(can of worms opening advocate, 11:12pm above)

Ok, I just read this concerning events in the territories last week:

"In a typical instance of recent violence, the IDF invaded Khan Yunis last Tuesday; 100 Israeli military vehicles reinforced by Apache helicopter gunships entered the refugee camp, shelling residential areas and destroying homes, leaving 247 people homeless. In many of these invasions, IDF troops use Palestinians, including young children, as involuntary human
shields. Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups have repeatedly documented this treatment; the story was picked up by AFP, given the testimony of a European witness. It is hard to envision the lives of Palestinians who have to contend with this level of chronic terror; given Israel's increasing hostility to international observers, it will be getting harder."

Leaving 247 refugees homeless. This sounds like it should be some kind of logical absurdity.

This needs to be stated: there is no symmetry of any kind in this situation. There is an overwhelmingly dominant occupier - the world's fourth most powerful military, near-unconditionally supported by the world's only superpower - and the wreck of an occupied society. I could state it more simply: occupier, occupied. The asymmetry is inherent in the semantics.

I will also say this (at the risk of getting into scaldingly hot water): I condemn and lament the senseless, unjustifiable loss of life in the recent suicide bombs. However the effects that suicide bombs have on Israeli society as a whole (distinguished from the tragic devastation wrought upon the victims and their families) bears no comparison to what is perpetrated by the IDF against Palestinian society, day-in, day-out, as described above and which, as I said above, cannot be legitimated as self-defence. Such action can but perpetuate and increase the Palestinians' agony and despair which will in turn lead to continued violence against Israel.

And to Billmon's point, this IDF action would be impossible without the US's support.

Billmon -

hey, I was JUST reading Delong's comments section, came across your personal comment and jetted over here to say: thanks, I've wanted someone to say "Some free advice: Stick to economics, Brad. Because when it comes to the Middle East, you are completely clueless" to Delong for a long, long time. (esp when he launches into one of his mindless anti-Fisk/Pilger/etc rantings.

And waddyaknow: here you have a big section on DeLong's witlessness. Kudos! No wonder you have my favorite blog.

oops, that was me.

Billmon -

Have you read any of the books by
Norman G. Finklestein?

In particular, "Image and Reality of the Israel Palestine Conflict".

I highly recommend him and his writings.

Try http://middleeastinfo.org
It's got lots of good articles and links to resources on the Arab-Israeli conflict and tries to be objective.

mn