Airs – Ian Lance Taylor

Israel and Palestine and Annapolis

It’s nice to see the Bush administration doing another quick flyby of Israel and Palestine. Getting them to agree to end the conflict, and getting the rest of the Middle East to feel that the Palestinians were treated fairly, would make us far safer than even the best possible invasion of Iraq could ever have done. Unfortunately, it is fairly likely that this will be like the earlier Bush administrations flybys, and be forgotten in a few months.

In his book “Dark Hope,” David Shulman describes an unbelievable scene of an Israeli settler poisoning Palestinian sheep and goats. The goal was to force the Palestinians to move from their homes, continuing the long process of displacement and separation that has happened since the 1967 war. There will never be peace as long as Israel continues to permit the settlements to exist, and continues to support them by protecting their roads across Palestinian territory. That is obvious.

Similarly, it is obvious that there will never be peace as long as Palestinians carry bombs into Israel or launch missiles at Israel.

If only we could just get out and leave them alone to fight over their desert.

I really think that there will never be peace until the Palestinians are prepared to use determined nonviolent resistance. I don’t see how anything else can work. Even though everybody understands exactly what a final settlement will look like, none of the leaders can get there from here. A nonviolent resistance would force the Israelis to move forward. Violent resistance forces them to move away from any peaceful settlement. No resistance retains the status quo.

If that doesn’t happen, the general form of the future seems to be shaped by a simple fact: most Israelis can leave; most Palestinians can not. Therefore, conflict will continue, Palestinians will continue to attack, there will eventually be Israeli massacres of Palestinians (in all conflicts to date far more Palestinians have died through accidental shootings than Israelis have died through terrorist bombings), the Israeli moderates will leave, both sides will become more fanatical. Eventually somebody carries an atomic bomb into Tel Aviv, and Israeli forces kill or deport all the Palestinians. It’s very hard to be hopeful. We need Nelson Mandela, but nobody over there is even close. Or even trying to be.

I did think of one idea. The U.S. should go into the Palestinian territories and offer $1 million to anybody who can prove their ownership of land now inside Israel, in exchange for the deed and a videotape in which they abandon their claim. There would be plenty of forgeries, but that’s OK; it would only have to be done once, and it would be comparable to the billions of dollars that the U.S. gives to Israel very year. If this were done well, it could defuse one of the sticking points of any agreement: the issue of Palestinian’s right of return to their ancestral homes. Unfortunately, the chances of this happening are zero.

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Ian Lance Taylor

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12 responses to “Israel and Palestine and Annapolis”

  1. avjo Avatar
    avjo

    Hi Ian,

    I am Israeli. This is my everyday life (sadly).

    Let me assure you that there is a majority
    in Israel to evacuate the settlements. There
    is now, as there was 2 years ago, when we
    permanently left the GAZA strip. Thousands of
    settlers were forced out and their homes
    were demolished. All military presence was
    removed as well. Wouldn’t you expect GAZA
    to flourish afterwards ? To think of economy,
    Hi-Tech, Good restaurants… ?
    But that’s our way of thinking. They, instead, just
    accelerated their missiles industry and since then
    have been, on a daily basis, firing rockets into Israeli cities
    (not settlements).

    Our current government won the elections a short
    time after the GAZA evacuation. It had won with
    a clear intention to do the same thing in the
    western bank. But as it turned out, our lack of
    presence in GAZA just made it possible to HAMAS
    (palestinian terror group) to take over GAZA and
    to amplify violence. So sadly the just-leave-them-alone
    plan didn’t work, and any Israeli intention to evacuate
    the western bank without an agreement has vanished.
    We certainly don’t want HAMAS to take over it and
    be able to shoot rockets into all of our big cities.

    Sorry, but your 1M$ idea is contaminated with western
    thinking. You don’t need to worry about fakes, not at
    all. What makes you think that, after they will get
    the money, they will really put their weapons down ?
    This is just too naive. Think extreme. Try to think inside
    minds that give away candies after their child has successfully
    blown himself inside an Israeli bus, taking with him
    a dozen or two of Israelis. Golda Meir (our only PM
    who was a woman to date) said 30 years ago that
    there will only be peace when the Arabs will love their
    children more than they hate us.

    But you are right about one thing. We need a strong palestinian
    leadership who is willing to reach, and honor, agreements.
    Sadly, there was no such leadership to date.

    All in all I can understand your frustration. I feel just the
    same. I live in Tel-Aviv and I just hope this inevitability
    of an Iran-based nuclear briefcase will only happen after I finish
    my M.Sc. 🙂 (I just have nothing else to do than keep living,
    keep sending kernel patches, and.. hope for the best).

    ~avjo

  2. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    Thanks for the note. Obviously my perspective is different and undoubtedly simplistic, since these issues do not affect me personally.

    I do appreciate that a majority of Israeli’s support removal of the settlements. However, apart from Gaza, it hasn’t yet happened. All Israeli governments continue to support private roadways, banned to Palestinians, to the settlements. While I don’t know of any accurate surveys, I would be surprised if a majority of Palestinians are in favor of shooting missiles at Israel (the election of Hamas was as much as a rejection of Fatah as anything else–the Palestinians were given two bad choices, and there is no reason to think that the people voting for Hamas agreed with all of their positions, especially given the way Hamas presented themselves during the election campaign.) In other words, what the majority wants doesn’t count in Israel and Palestine. The question is what the people with the weapons will accept.

    I don’t think you can separate what has happened in Gaza (and let’s not forget that it was unilateral–the Palestinians had no say in what Gaza would look like afterward) from the way the western governments reacted to the election of Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist group. On the other hand, they won a relatively free election. The reaction was to cancel payments. It takes a long time to change an economy–it doesn’t make sense to think that it would happen overnight, or in one year, or in two. When the eastern European economies were forcibly converted through capitalism–including the donation of a great deal of money, which never happened in Gaza–it took at least six years before they could be considered even remotely functional as capitalist societies. And of course part of the reason it went so fast was that the process created many robber barons and involved a great deal of corruption. To expect Gaza to develop a functioning economy in two years when they actually lost money during the transition does not make sense.

    I didn’t say that paying Palestinians to abandon their claims on land which is now inside Israel would cause them to put their weapons down. Why would it? My only point is that the Palestinian right of return is one the key points which can not currently be negotiated. Israel can not accept it, and the Palestinians can not give it up. Taking it off the table would be make it more feasible to reach an agreement–as I said, everybody already knows what the agreement must look like, the question is whether either side can actually agree to it.

    Again, I’m sure my perspective seems simplistic. If I were running the U.S., which I’m sure we’re all glad will never happen, I would be putting my efforts into getting the U.S. entirely out of the equation. It’s enormously expensive for us, and I don’t think we can solve it.

  3. etbe Avatar
    etbe

    After 9-11 the IRA funding from people in the US decreased dramatically. Since then things have been a lot quieter in Northern Ireland.

    I think that things would improve in Israel and Palestine if everyone else would minimise involvement in all ways other than supplies of medical equipment and food. No weapons sales, and no financial support for either side.

    Then of course people on both sides would realise that their own security and economic well-being depends on working something out.

    Another idea (which came from a peace summit chaired by a Big Brother contestant famous for wearing bunny-ears and organised by John Safran) is to have Israeli and Palestinian children become pen-pals. If everyone in that region had a friend on the other side of the fence there would be more desire for peace.

  4. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    Thanks for the note.

    I’m not sure we can really stop providing all financial support for Israel and Palestine. On the one hand it’s politically impossible. On the other it’s not clear to me that it is the right thing to do.

    Having friends across the border would help, but my sense is that the conflict is being driven by a small percentage of the population on both sides. They would not be stopped.

  5. avjo Avatar
    avjo

    No quite.

    A politically-correct attempt to make the situation look symmetric
    is not helpful. While there are Israeli extremists for sure, the maximum
    they can do is protest. Israel is a strong democracy with an advanced
    judicial system. Civilians can’t posses weapons and do as they please.
    Any attempt to do so is immediately stopped.
    On the other hand, Palestinian terror groups are firing rockets to Israeli
    cities on a daily manner, and send suicidal human bombs to attack
    the Israeli gateways (through which they receive food, medicines and
    electricity). What makes this even worse is the fact that it is not a
    “small percentage” of the population; these attacks are approved
    and planned by the Palestinian government itself – controlled by
    Iranian-backed Hamas.

    Next week Israel is celebrating its 60th birthday. 60 years ago we
    have declared our independence. 8 hours later we were simultaneously
    invaded by 5 armies – the Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi, Jordanian and Egyptian.
    8 wars and thousands of terror attacks later we are still here.
    The menace has not ceased, it has just changed hats. Now it’s Iran
    who pledges to destroy us. And they don’t just talk; they supply
    and control Gaza-based Hamas and Lebanese-based Hezbollah,
    and develop nuclear weapons.

    I hope we can prevail this challenge as well. If not it will be a matter of time
    until they control the middle east completely.

    Then, etbe, where do you think they will be headed next ?

    A good article:
    http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/643426/happy-60th-birthday-israel-well-done-for-surviving.thtml

  6. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    The phrase “politically correct” is an interesting one. It is traditionally deployed by right-wing groups claiming that their views are not being aired on academic campuses. As such the term is literally self-denying, in that they are in fact airing their views when they use the term, but it does have meaning in cases where faculty positions are not extended to people with minority views.

    Using “politically correct” in the context of a blog does not make sense. There is no systematic filtering of speech here, except to block irrelevant spam. I assume you mean something like “the standard left-wing view,” except that from my perspective there is no standard left-wing view on Israel and Palestine. It’s an issue which splits the left.

    Two comments on the rest of your post. 1) If you look at how the election played out, the Palestinian people did not vote for a government which would attack Israel, they voted for one which would construct a livable society. None of us actually know how many Palestinians support the attacks on Israel, although we can make our guesses. 2) I’m not quite sure which “menace” is going to control the Middle East completely if Israel is destroyed. You seem to be conflating Iran with the Arab populations, which is a serious error. In any case, when that menace controls the Middle East, where will they be headed next? Nowhere. Do you think Iran, a country which could barely fend off Iraq, has a military chance against Turkey? Do you think that the military in Turkey, which has a long tradition of secularism, including the removal of insufficiently secular civilian leaders, would join forces with an Islamic movement?

    In any case, without making any claims whatsoever about symmetry, real harm has been done to the Palestinians in the past, and it continues in the present through the ongoing settlement policy. If Israel can not stop expanding the settlements in Palestinian territory, no peace is possible. I see that the Israeli government is saying that the Bush administration gave them a green light for expanding the settlements, and all I can say is that I hope even the Bush administration could not possibly be so stupid.

    In practice Israel plays all the roles of a government in Palestine, except for the roles the Israeli government chooses not to exercise. Yet the Palestinians have no say in the Israeli government. Without excusing Palestinian terrorism in any way, this is not a tenable situation in the long term.

  7. avjo Avatar
    avjo

    Thanks for writing.

    I didn’t know “politically correct” had so much meaning actually.
    I was using it to describe language which seeks to minimize offence to groups of people. For example, after a big terror attack in Israel takes place, a great
    deal of worldwide responses sounds like “we condemn any attack of
    civilians on both sides”. Such responses are meant to be balanced in
    and minimize offence to both sides, but they are actually hurting because
    the situation is not symmetric in any way. We do not deliberately attack
    civilians and we make a lot of effort to not hurt them, even to the extent
    of not firing back at terrorists which shoot from within populated areas.
    On the other hand, the Palestinians are methodically firing at our civilians,
    with a deliberate intention to hurt as much as possible. That’s asymmetric.
    And thus, balanced responses, which makes the situation look symmetric,
    are actually supporting the Palestinians terror groups, since they make
    them an equal side which is justifiably responding.

    The other thing I ought you an explanation is my usage of the “menace”
    word. No, I’m not mixing Iran with Arab population. I don’t have any
    problem with Arab (or Iranian) population whatsoever. To have a normalized
    relations with those populations that surrounds us remains a dream
    for most of us Israelis. We rather send our children to universities than
    to the army, be able to snowboard in the near Lebanese ski sites and
    drive to Damascus to eat good hummus. So no, you got me wrong. I was
    talking about Iran of course, and specifically about its regime (again,
    I have no problem with the people). The Iranian regime is a great threat.
    Look how they work. The era of conventional wars is over. They
    are not sending troops and tanks to occupy lands. Instead, they sponsor
    and arm extremists in other countries. They spread their propoganda
    within those populations by inciting them and sponsoring them, thus
    they rapidly gain support and control. Today they practically have armies
    within Lebanon, Gaza and probably Iraq. But it’s not a conventional army,
    it’s just plain population, which keeps the weapons in their homes.
    The goal is probably to spread Islamic fundamentalism and gain control.
    But I can’t tell what’s going inside their heads.
    Anyway, they have no problem to continue and keep working
    this way, since they do not publicly declare these relations. All of these
    militant groups (Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaeda ? Iraqi’s Shi’ite militias) are “mysteriously” equipped and sponsored, and eventually they gain control
    of their hosting country. Now what will happen if Iran will go nuclear
    is yet to be seen (or not). How confident they will be to further act, and will
    they directly use their nuclear or not is unknown. But one thing is for sure –
    it will be much more difficult to stop them.

    Last note – about the Israeli settlements. There is a majority in Israel
    that prefer peace in exchange for territories. We did that 30 years ago
    with Egypt. And we still want that with any Arab leadership who is brave
    enough to put an end to the hostility. Just like Egypt’s Anwar El Sadat was.
    We hoped we can do that with Yaser Arafat 15 years ago. But that didn’t
    happen. So we tried to do that unilaterally with the Palestinians with a
    complete withdrawal of Israeli armed forces and civilians from the Gaza
    strip. We hoped that without territories claims in Gaza, they will work on
    a better economy instead of bombs but we got that all wrong. We got Iran
    there with Hamas. We also withdrew from Lebanon, hoped for quiet there,
    but we again got Iran there with Hezbollah. In both places they have no
    land claims, and yet, they keep shooting. So the settlements is just an
    excuse. They have an agenda of destroying Israel, and having an Islamic
    republic here. They also publicly say that even if Israel will withdraw from
    the west bank, they will not recognize Israel as a state, and they will only
    agree to “10 years of quiet (hudna)” in return.
    So, yes, I agree with you that settlements are not helpful, but that’s
    not the root problem. As soon as a strong Arab leadership will seriously
    want peace with Israel, those settlements will be evacuated just like we
    did in Egypt and Gaza… But currently we are dealing with a fundamental
    opponent that don’t care about talks and peace. They want us out of here,
    and every mean is legit for them, including firing missiles from houses,
    shooting from “TV – Press” vehicles and exploding bombs from
    within ambulances.

  8. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    Thanks for the note.

    The balancing you are talking about is not what we in the U.S. mean by “politically correct.” That is more like “diplomatic language” or “political language,” in which certain references must be made, often with the understanding that they are not true.

    It’s always odd to read comments like “I can’t tell what’s going inside their heads.” Of course it’s hard to know what people think, but people are people everywhere. To find out what is going inside somebody else’s head, look inside your own.

    I don’t know why you conclude that the organizations that Iran supports will gain control of their hosting country. Hamas gained control by winning a free election, and they won that election by making more sense to Palestinians than Fatah did. Hezbollah is not in charge of Lebanon. al-Maliki is arguably supported by Iran, but he was put in charge by the U.S. Iran is strongly opposed to Al Qaeda–recall that Iran tried hard to help the U.S. in Afghanistan, only to be rebuffed; you undercut your argument by suggesting otherwise.

    I too would prefer that Iran not have nuclear weapons. On the other hand, I’m frankly much more concerned about the weapons in Pakistan. At least Iran has a relatively stable government. I like what I’ve seen about the proposals to exchange nuclear fuel with a strong presence in Iran; it will be hard for the Iranian government to reject those.

    I agree that the settlements are not the root problem. But as long as Israel continues expanding them, no peace is possible. So why does Israel keep doing it?

  9. avjo Avatar
    avjo

    Hi 🙂

    Why Iran-backed militant groups seize control of their hosting countries:

    1. Hamas:
    They won the elections, true, but shortly after that they systematically
    attacked Fatah posts, haunting and kililng Fatah men, until they reached
    a complete military control of Gaza.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaza_%282007%29

    2. Hezbollah:
    Just open TV.
    or:
    http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080508/lebanon_update_080509/20080509/

    They may take over completely (although that seems unlikely), but they
    don’t really need to, since they already do in Lebanon as they please.
    They control its south completely; most of the houses in S. Lebanon
    have a dedicated room for.. rockets (aimed at Israel). They pay generously
    for that with Iranian money. Their weapons, btw, are not smuggled any
    more – they are transported freely on the highways. UN men there do not
    dare stopping them. And now, the recent fights are becuase the Lebanon
    government don’t want Hezbollah’s recently declared new toy:
    They have a private Iranian-built communications network within Lebanon.
    A network that lets them tap on Lebanon phone system and communication
    networks. A state within a state.

    I admit I don’t know too much about militias within Iraq and other countries.
    Sorry for that. But there are not too many options as to where do they get
    the money, weapons, and military knowledge from.

    About the Israeli settlements:
    This is an Israeli political issue.
    There are simply a lot of Israelis that do support them and want
    them expanded. Israel is a democratic country, and a lot of citizens
    is a strong political power, which can affect the government.
    Everybody knows that they will be evacuated once a peace agreement
    will be reached. See our peace with Egypt, and our unilateral evacuation
    from Gaza.
    Personally I don’t support the expansion of the settlements, because
    that eventually is a waste of money (why build so much infrastructure
    if it’s only temporal?). Nevertheless, as long as we do not have a serious partner
    for peace, and instead we only have countries and militias that call
    for our destruction, I do not strongly oppose it.
    Btw, this last paragraph represents a general opinion shift for most
    of Israeli’s left wing stream. We were sure that after we completely evacuate from
    Gaza, people there will put their weapons down and instead start building
    their life. We were surprised to see the opposite happening, and nobody
    here is building on a Palestinian good will anymore… I guess we have
    nothing else to do than just.. wait. wait for them to have a strong leadership
    that seriously wants peace. This is sad, but that’s what we have been doing
    for the past 60 years. in 1947 the UN offered to split the land into two halves.
    The jewish community agreed, but the Arabs refused, and instead invaded…

  10. avjo Avatar
    avjo

    Rats; I again had this hideous newlines issue. sorry for that.

    Any chance to crop them ?

    (It always seems so counterintuitive for me to keep writing and let the line wrap by itself…)

  11. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    The newlines don’t look too bad to me; I wouldn’t worry about it.

    I think that if Israel just waits, it will lose in the end. That would be unfortunate. I touched on that in my original blog entry.

    The expectation that Gaza would simply clean itself up in a couple of years was wildly unrealistic. Did people really think that? Gaza did not and does not have a functioning independent economy. It is entirely dependent on Israel, and Israel remains in complete control of its borders which precludes developing any other possibilities. It will take many years to change that even under good circumstances.

    I simply don’t believe that simultaneously a lot of Israelis support expanding settlements and that “everybody” also believes that they will be evacuated eventually. That defies both logic and common sense.

  12. avjo Avatar
    avjo

    I agree, we can’t afford waiting. But it just seems inevitable now.
    I hope the current talks with Mahmoud Abbas will yield something but I honestly doubt that. Even if we do reach an agreement with him, it will not be accepted by Hamas (Iran), and they will keep shooting. violence will not stop. So it really depends on whether he (== his government, laws, police forces…) can control his people or not.
    Otherwise there’s nothing much to do than literally wait for another strong Palestinian leader who wants peace.

    I wasn’t clear on the Gaza thing. Of course we didn’t expect Gaza to turn into Paris in a year. But we did hoped they would WANT to. And it was a big issue here between the right and left political wings. Right-wing people claimed that by leaving Gaza it will turn into a violent, Hamas state. Left-wing people had a different vision: they hoped that without any further land claims, the Palestinian in Gaza will put their guns down and instead think of building a state. This dream was shattered. Listen to them – now they really think they are closer than even to destroy Israel and gain control of the complete territory. They see our peace attempts as a weakness.

    No logic problem here. Israel’s political map is splitted (roughly) fifty fifty. half right, half left. Actually after the GAZA failure people are going right a bit. Anyway, such a split has huge support for settlements. Even if it’s 30%, it’s still “a lot of Israelis”. Nevertheless, if a real oppurtunity would come, people will vote for peace. Just like they voted for evacuating Sinai (in exchange for peace with Egypt), S. Lebanon (in hope the hezbollah will put down its weapons once they will be left out of land claims), GAZA,.. So – deep inside – people know that the vast majority of settlements will be evacuated one day…

    I think I got the newlines better this time. Have a good weekend !

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