On the value of realism

What does the future hold?

Who knows? In Jewish tradition, Malachi was the last prophet, i.e., the last person to hear the word of God. He died  2,500 years ago. All else is speculation, whether colored by ideology, what the speculator would like to happen, or what is thought to be inevitable.

There are many who think that unless Israel shows more flexibility, its future will be nasty, brutal and short. It is likely that the Arabs will continue to multiply. Soon, if not already, they will be a majority between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. Their power will increase in international forums, not only because of numbers and oil, but because American and European governments will tire of Israel's stubbornness.

The settlements, in particular, are a problem. They must go, or at least be frozen, to satisfy the current demands of the Palestinians. Insofar as the Palestinian prime minister has said there will be state in two years, Israel must work hard to salvage what it can.

Dream on, those of you who forget, or who would not like to reckon with the element of power in international politics.

The Palestinians and their friends, including Americans and Europeans, have lost the Israeli Left. Meretz and Labor declined to their lowest polls ever in the previous election. Since then, the Labor leadership has coalesced with right-of-center Likud.

The Israeli government, and the dominant Jewish population, hold the keys to Israel's future. The country has a preponderance of military power in the area of conflict. It inflicted severe damage on Lebanon and Gaza in the most recent conflicts, and destroyed Syria's nuclear facility without a response. Greater powers have shown no signs of imposing their will.

Things do change, but no one knows the future. In the absence of certain knowledge, it is wise to assume that present realities will continue. Dreamers and ideologues may be right, but theirs is a risky bet.

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Has Obama done more harm than good - and does it matter?

This post is about some little details of international politics. For our understanding of the current situation we must rely on the media, which does not always get things right. And in any case, the media does not provide the nuances of private conversations, body language meant to decrease or increase the impact of what is said. Perhaps one can rely on the media's portrayal of events, without assuming that it is the whole truth.

The story begins with the Obama administration's efforts to jump-start a peace process between Israel and Palestine. Among the demands made of Israel, both by Secretary of State Clinton and Special Envoy Mitchell, was a total freeze on construction in settlements over the 1967 borders, including the new neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
 
There followed a series of meetings between Israelis and Americans, and turmoil within Israel. What emerged was an offer by Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu's government to freeze new construction for several months, not including Jerusalem, housing units already authorized or under construction, or public facilities in settlement areas.
 
Currently it seems the Americans recognize that this is the most they can get from Israel, and Clinton is saying that the US never demanded a total freeze as a precondition to negotiation.
 
Maybe yes, maybe no. We should not expect individuals with the kind of ego that goes with high office to admit failure.
 
Now Secretary Clinton is saying that the prime minister has offered a landmark concession.
 
But the Palestinians stopped listening at "full settlement freeze."

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Why the stalemate?

Headline in Friday's Ha'aretz:  "Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] is losing hope: 'I sense that Netanyahu has not changed since 1996'"
 
A headline on an inside page in the same edition: "Paralysis at the summit of coordination between the government and the territories." That story goes on to say that things are not happening in the policy to advance "economic peace" on account of the failure of Israeli government to make appointments to key positions in the program.
 
Elsewhere in the news we hear that negotiations about freeing Gilad Schalit are moving at the speed of a crippled snail. International donors are complaining that Gazans are still living amid the rubble because Israel will not open the borders to the supplies and equipment that their contributions will provide.
 
Let me offer explanations for these disparate items, summed up in some pithy epigrams:

• There is no free lunch in international relations
• You screw us, we'll screw you
• "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" may be a spiritual ideal, but the more popular norm in international politics is the simpler "Do unto others."

Israel can live well enough without solving the problem of Palestine. The Palestinians may pride themselves in their willingness to die for their national cause, but they have committed national suicide. There will be no Palestinian state as long as key factions persist with the dreams of turning back the clock to 1967, to 1947, or to the mid-19th century before Jews began coming to this area.
 
I perceive that Netanyahu has changed since 1996. He appears to be wiser, and more skilled in expressing what he demands as conditions for moving forward with a peace process.
 
Abu Mazen's problem is that he has not changed. From the information available to the public, I see no signs of flexibility in his position. No matter what Israel has offered, it is not enough.

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You want moderation? Not here

Muslim and Jewish religious leaders are competing to heat up their followers in defense of incompatible rights to the Temple Mount/Haram e-Sharif. And Ha'aretz is marking the 14th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination with a front page story revealing that his late widow, Leah, said that Binyamin Netanyahu was corrupt.
 
Should we comment first on the madness of religion, or the madness of journalism?
 
On religion and the Temple Mount/Haram e-Sharif, one can go on forever parsing the history and the rights of Jews and Muslims. Did Moshe Dayan make a fatal mistake in 1967 when he ordered that the flag of Israel be removed from the Dome of the Rock and turned over the management of the whole site to Muslim religious authorities? Did that contribute to peace, or did it contribute to Muslim insistence on a monopoly of their rights and their denial of a historic Jewish presence, and provoke Jews to demand the right to pray on the Mount, erect a synagogue, or start construction of the Third Temple, which might entail the removal of Muslim holy sites?
 
The controversy is fascinating for its historical and political elements, but Jerusalemites content to live without solving religious mysteries are left with the effects of simmering conflict. Currently we are in the midst of what may be an escalation that, at the least, will tie up traffic in the area of the Old City.

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A test of analytical skill or a political inquisition?

One of the reasons I chose to study political science more than 50 years ago was its eclectic character. Its concerns touch all of the social sciences, and it is hospitable to a range of perspectives.
 
I have worked with, and count among my friends individuals at numerous universities in several countries who have examined a variety of issues and express a range of views. Most of my own writing and teaching has been concerned with understanding how the political process works to determine who gets what. Description and understanding of citizen and official activities have been higher on my priorities than advocacy about what they should be doing.
 
It has been common to mock the notion of a "political science" that cannot be scientific, and is more political than scientific. Yet I continue to value work that employs intellectual tools in a systematic fashion to understand governing. Politics is at the heart of civilization. The essence of dealing with sensitive questions short of violence involves persuasion, voting, seeking allies and advantages in law and procedures, in the forums of government and campaigns for election.
 
Greatest among my recent pleasures is that one of my sons is pursuing graduate study in political science. Currently he is pondering options in Israel, Britain, and the United States.
 
We have talked about the politicization that has affected higher education, especially as it is tainted by the condemnation of Israelis without reference to what they think or what they have done. Until now, it has seemed that the malady is most severe at lesser institutions. Where it is worth the effort to obtain a decent education, one could hope that learning and analysis prevails over demands to comply with whatever is fashionable among political activists.
 
Yet the aspiring academic has sent me an e-mail headed by the question, "Why should I apply to such a place?" Required of all applicants for graduate study at the University of California, Berkeley is an answer to the following:

Please describe how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include information on how you have overcome barriers to access higher education, evidence of how you have come to understand the barriers faced by others, evidence of your academic service to advance equitable access to higher education for women, racial minorities, and individuals from other groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education, evidence of your research focusing on underserved populations or related issues of inequality, or evidence of your leadership among such groups."

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Jewish vitality

The latest sources of Jewish panic are claims that Israel has gone crazy in an alleged concern for its defense, and that the American Jewish Left is threatening what had been united support for Israel's essential concerns.
 
The Left is sickened by indications of bloodshed and destruction in Gaza. The Right is frightened by the emergence of the Leftist J Street and signs of its alignment with the White House. Either this new Left is provoking the White House to threaten Israel, or the White House is using the Jewish Left as leverage against Israel.
 
So what else is new?
 
Remember that Moses had his hands full with Hebrew rebels. Ezra struggled unsuccessfully with men attracted to shiksas (non-Jewish women). Josephus described full scale civil war. Since then Jews have produced, followed and been disappointed by no end of spiritual and political messiahs.
 
J Street is the American expression of what Israelis knew as Brit Shalom in the 1920s, and Peace Now from the 1970s onward.
 
If the greatest threat comes from an article in The Nation, then God's people can relax.

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Political aggression and its consequences

Excerpts from an official United Nations summary of the Human Rights Council resolution on the Goldstone Report:

. . . while the Israeli Government sought to portray its operations as a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self defence, the Israeli plan had been directed, at least in part, at the people of Gaza as a whole ... the treatment of many civilians detained or killed while trying to surrender [is] one manifestation of the way in which the effective rules of engagement, standard operating procedures and instructions to the troops on the ground appeared to have been framed to create an environment in which due regard for civilian lives and basic human dignity was replaced with a disregard for basic international humanitarian law.... The destruction of food supply installations, water sanitation systems, concrete factories and residential houses had been the result of a deliberate and systematic policy by the Israeli armed forces and not because those objects had presented a military threat ... other Israeli activities, particularly in Jerusalem, including ... limits to Palestinian access to properties and holy sites based on national origin, religion, sex, age or other grounds ... a grave violation of the Palestinian people's civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights ... Israeli violations of human rights in occupied East Jerusalem, particularly the confiscation of lands and properties, the demolishing of houses, the construction and expansion of settlements, the continuing construction of the separation wall built in part on land Israel occupied in the 1967 war, and the continuous digging and excavation works in and around Al-Aqsa mosque and its vicinity.... The Council demanded that Israel allow Palestinian citizens and worshippers unhindered access to their properties and religious sites in the occupied Palestinian territory, cease immediately all digging and excavations beneath and around the mosque, and refrain from any acts may endanger the structure or change the nature of Christian and Islamic holy sites."

What to do?

An obvious option is to persuade friendly and neutral governments that the resolution is one-sided, distorted or false, and a threat against Israel's elementary right to defend itself. Israel will work with its friends to assure that other United Nations forums, the courts and governments of individual countries do not respond to the Human Rights Council resolution with any concrete actions against Israel, its citizens, officials, or soldiers.

The most obvious falsehood is the claim that Israel is digging and excavating in, around, or beneath the Al-Aqsa mosque. The closest Israeli excavations are outside the large elevated area on which the mosque sits. The one-sided nature of the resolution is evident in that 10 out of 11 paragraphs deal with Israel's alleged violations, while only a "by the way" paragraph deals with allegations about Hamas:

(The Report) also found that Palestinian armed groups caused terror within Israel's civilian population through the launch of thousands of rockets and mortars into Israel since April 2001, determining that both sides may thus have committed serious war crimes and possible crimes against humanity."

Some Israeli politicians are blaming the resolution on the lack of sufficient efforts by Israel to explain its actions. More and better explanation is their solution.

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Tempest in a teapot

It's one of those times that excites Jews' well-developed paranoia.
 
A sizable majority of member states in the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva endorsed the Goldstone report, and sent it on the General Assembly and Security Council. Supporters will try to get an endorsement from the Security Council to indict Israel before the International Criminal Court.
 
The resolution not only accepted the Goldstone report on the Gaza Operation, but for good measure condemned Israel for human rights violations in the West Bank and Jerusalem, including the denial of religious rights. (During times of tension, Israel does not permit entry to the Temple Mount for men under an age when they are thought to be potential troublemakers.)
 
Not even Richard Goldstone was satisfied with the decision of the Human Rights Council, insofar as it did not condemn Hamas for its violations.
 
The delegates who voted for the endorsement came from Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Djbouti, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia. Some of these we should discount as international good-for-nothings allowed to yell and scream, but not permitted by the rules of the game to do anything serious. Saudi Arabia is tolerated on account of its wealth, but also kept from serious damage by existing rules and norms.

Some speak in double talk, endorse what the Palestinians want, perhaps to keep some of their own people quiet, but deal with Israel. Jordan and Egypt are prominent in this group. China, India and Russia are important for Israel, but do what they have to in order to satisfy their other interests. None of them is on the verge of taking serious actions against Israel. All are more violent than Israel in dealing with those who threaten their own regimes.
 
Indonesia has no diplomatic relations with Israel, but we have encountered large groups of Indonesian Christians in our favorite Jerusalem Chinese restaurant. The Philippines enjoys the foreign exchange earned by thousands of its people working here as care givers for the aged and infirm.
 
Altogether, the votes in favor of endorsement are just part of the international background static. Not pleasant to the ears, but not likely to affect one's quality of life.

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Nobel prizes and politics

Israel brought home another Nobel prize last week; Professor Ada Yonath shared this year's award for chemistry. Ha'aretz ran a front page chart showing the country in first place with respect to Nobel prizes won for science since 2000, in relation to population.
 
Israel is not quite in the league of Jews the world over, who account for over 20 percent of Nobels, but it does its part as a "poor cousin" whose universities and research institutes do not have the resources of those in North America or Europe.
 
Israelis take pride from their Nobel laureates, and also derive a little entertainment from them.
 
Not only is Prof. Yonath a renowned chemist, she's also staking a claim as an analyst of Israel's options in the fields of terror and international relations.

Obama's strength is also his weakness

Barack Obama won the most powerful office in the world, along the way promising widespread changes that magnified expectations. Now he has won the most prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. The Committee has cited him for "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples."
 
Extraordinary efforts there have been. The question is whether they have excited expectations beyond capacity. I remember a teacher telling me that effort is fine, but it is accomplishment that pays the bills.

On the same day as the announcement of the Nobel, there appeared two articles in respected journals that lambasted him for naivete and hubris.
 
The Economist noted that on the less-than-hot-button issue of the Olympics, Obama put his reputation on the line with a high-profile trip to Copenhagen, along with his wife, only to see Rio get the nod over Chicago.
 
The journal also joined those noting that the war in Afghanistan is not going well. The president finds himself in squabbles not only involving Taliban and al Qaeda, but also his lead general, vice president, congressional democrats and republicans, not to mention talk show vipers.
 
On his primary domestic initiative, the administration-friendly Washington Post headlines a dirty fight between a health insurance company and a prominent hospital, each accusing the other of putting profit ahead of patient care. Sick people who thought themselves insured are in the middle, being threatened with bills they cannot pay. 
 
Will this help the president advance his initiative, or does it point to the fatal illness of profit-making firms too heavily involved in health care?
 
Commentators on one of Israel's most prominent news programs ridiculed the president for not getting the message about the Middle East. His point man has arrived on another trip to the region, seemingly seeking the same concessions that Israeli leaders have already rejected.
 
The major headline in Ha'aretz notes that the White House is "furious over Israeli incitement against President Barack Obama." Is this a threat meant to force Israel into changing its decision about a settlement freeze, with or without parallel concessions from the Arab side? The Nobel will add to the pressure. Must Jerusalem be behind Oslo in recognizing the President's genius?
 
Barack Obama is a fascinating individual. He is also sitting in the world's most important seat. Observers the world over risk a great deal if they fail to understand him. Yet the task is not easy.

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