Obama/ Netanyahu Meet Produces Few Results
The Obama-Netanyahu talks were clearly a train wreck for Israel's far rightwing Likud Party. The talks went on nearly twice as long as scheduled, suggesting a lot of bumps in the road. The two seemed to me stiff in their body language afterward, and they clearly did not agree on virtually anything important. Both finessed the disagreement by appealing to vague generalities and invoking the long term. Obama wants to negotiate with Iran regarding its civilian nuclear enrichment research program, but stressed that his patience is not infinite. Netanyahu, of course, wants military action against Iran on a short timetable.
Netanyahu's hysteria about Iran is a piece of misdirection intended to sidestep the issue of Israel's own nuclear arsenal. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty, and allows regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, even if the latter is not completely satisfied with Iran's transparency. Israel just thumbed its nose at the NPT. Israel would only have the moral high ground in demanding that Iran cease enrichment research if it gave up its own some 150 warheads.
Obama wants Netanyahu to commit to supporting a two-state solution to be implemented in the near future. Netanyahu absolutely refused. He did say he is willing to "talk" to the Palestinians, though it is unclear why that would be a productive thing to do if he is die-hard against giving them the only thing they want. Rabbi Michael Lerner makes this point eloquently and at some length. Admittedly Netanyahu's hands are in some ways tied by members of parliament from his own party , who reject the whole notion of a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu said he did not want to rule the Palestinians. That is an evasion. If he won't give them a state, then they remain citizens of no state and inevitably Israel "rules" them in the sense of making the important decisions about how they live their lives. The Likud Party doesn't want the Palestinians, just their land and resources. That demand is actually what makes the Palestinian issue different and more horrific than other ethnic-national problems in the world. There are peoples imagining themselves as nations and working to assert a sub-nationalism. But virtually none of them lacks citizenship in a state. The Tibetans and others that are sometimes cited in this regard are not citizenship-less, even if they think they have the wrong citizenship. Palestinians have no citizenship at all, and all important decisions are made for them by their Israeli colonial masters. Sri Lanka, which claims to have just defeated the Tamil Tigers, was fighting to keep the minority Tamils (who speak a Dravidian language and are typically Hindus) as citizens of Sri Lanka, which is dominated by Sinhalese-speaking Buddhists. (The conflict is also in part about the wealthier Tamils wanting more autonomy from the poorer Sinhalese, and about a Marxist guerrilla group ironically representing this minority bourgeois demand; i.e. it isn't just ethno-religious.) As brutal as the Sri Lankan campaign was, it does not leave the Tamils at the end of the day without basic rights of citizenship in a state, which is the condition of the Palestinians-- who are therefore the most oppressed people in the world.
Netanyahu wants the Palestinians to acknowledge that Israel is a "Jewish state." I don't understand this demand. Israel is not a Jewish state, it is a multi-cultural state, with about half a million non-Jewish Russians and Ukrainians and 20% of its population is Arab. If "Jewish" is meant religiously, then observant Jews are actually a minority of the population in Israel. If "Jewish" is meant racially, then it is a particularly shameful demand. It is like demanding either that the US be recognized as a "Christian" country or as a "white" country. Obama was ill-advised to use the diction, himself.
As for Netanyahu's gift to Obama of Mark Twain's travelogue to nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine, that was kind of an ideological attack on solid historiography.
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/19/2009 01:10:00 AM
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22 Comments:
Isreal is not only challenging Obama on the two-state issue. It is the EU, the 1.3B Muslims, and the vast majority of the rest of the world.
This behavior is indicative of both arrogance and stupidity. They have no chance of winning, and they are turning all their (very few) friends into enemies.
The election of Netanyahu is probably the best news for the Palestenians who may now get their freedom far sooner than most people think.
I'm puzzled by Netanyahu's lack of interest in the Pakistani program, which through its expanded weapon production probably poses a more real threat than Iran. There has got to be a freeze on the nuclear arms race in South Asia, and Israel might have to be part of it.
Netanyahu, even when trying to be nice for the cameras, has a bullying and thuggish air about him. There is an arrogance that comes from knowing he can jerk us around as he likes.
The post conference press briefing was the most revealing event in Palestinian-Israeli affairs I have ever seen. Obama stated that if there was to be any linkage at all between the Iranian dialog and Israeli talks with Palestine, then "it would be the other way around." Palestinian statehood precedes Iranian non-proliferation.
This would be an example of Obama using the usual Israeli tactic of making outrageous demands on the other before Israel commits to acts of decency, thus giving Israel an excuse to avoid decency, i.e. not bombing Lebanon or Gaza, were it not for the reality that Obama intends to force Israel to make concessions first, to allow Palestine to establish independence, and to ensure that Iran does not pursue nukes. The last objective is plausible if and only if Israel gives up its own arsenal.
All in all, a bad day for Bibi and (please excuse me while I dust off my M.E. resume' - think fuel efficiency) a good day for civilization.
An excellent article. If only you could act as a correspondent for CNN or the BBC. It's a shame that I have to rely on your articles for insight as opposed to being able to rely on 'renowned' international news outlets.
"Netanyahu said he did not want to rule the Palestinians. That is an evasion. If he won't give them a state, then they remain citizens of no state and inevitably Israel "rules" them in the sense of making the important decisions about how they live their lives."Netanyahu is likely to get his wish (danger - unintended consequences dead ahead) but not in the way he thinks. He does not want a two state solution and he does not want to rule the Palestinians. I'm down with that, but Bibi thinks he can force the Palestinians out of Palestine. By avoiding Israel's responsibilities, Bibi will be the catalyst for a one state solution which is multicultural, not "Jewish."
"Obama stated that if there was to be any linkage at all between the Iranian dialog and Israeli talks with Palestine, then 'it would be the other way around.' "
Where was this, I sure found nothing of this nature? What I found was still more threats by Obama against Iran.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/world/middleeast/19prexy.html
May 19, 2009
Obama Tells Netanyahu He Has an Iran Timetable
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
After a session with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, President Obama said he wanted a response from Iran to his diplomatic opening by year’s end.
When the IAEA claims it needs more "transparency" from Iran remember what it means: they're asking for Iran to allow inspections far beyond of what Iran is legally obligated to provide to the IAEA. Iran had done so in the past on an ad hoc basis, and no nuclear weapons were found then either (for example the inspections at Parchin) -- but all that got Iran was heightened demands for yet more concessions. Iran is a sovereign state and won't allow itself to be treated as a defacto second-class member of the NPT, expected to give more than it is entitled to receive.
Great article, but please do your homework on the Sri Lankan issue.
To claim that the LTTE represents Tamils is an affront. The Tamils are not represented by brutal extremists who commit suicide bombings, kidnaps children to use in combat situations, run drug and arms smuggling operations, and whos leaders are wanted by Interpol.
The LTTE routinely assassinate Tamil politicians in the Sri Lankan government. It's a big reason why Lt. Karuna broke away from the LTTE and fought with the government forces to defeat Prabhakaran and the LTTE.
If the LTTE had won by the way, those people under his control would have lived in a military dictatorship.
So don't mix your apples and oranges, just because it's the flavor of the month.
Juan, think you had the body language right... Obama was closed, not buying what the other guy was selling, Netanyahu open, trying to be inviting. Also Obama's opening comments were to the room after a perfunctory nod to the other person... Netanyahu spoke very much directly AT Obama for much of his speech, as if selling something the closed Obama wasn't buying, and also trying to use the public setting to make Obama agree to stuff. Unfortunately I think American domestic politics is going to make it difficult to get something done this term, but there is more hope than there was.
In the May 17 Sunday New York Times, Jeffrey Goldberg has an op-ed in which he says Netanyahu told him that he regards Iran's leaders as a "messianic, apocalyptic cult." I thought the timing of that was particularly hilarious since the same week Robert Draper, the author of Dead Certain, revealed that George Bush believed God had told him to invade Iraq and Donald Rumsfeld used biblical quotes in the daily briefings he sent the president. What country was actually ruled by a "messianic, apocalyptic cult"?
The same edition of the Times had a news article that said the Obama administration had ruffled some feathers (hawk feathers) in Israel by suggesting it should become party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Making the Middle East a nuclear free zone would be a long way to helping create peace in that region, but I'm opposed to any sort of linkage for settling the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination. They've been plagued by linkage for the last 61 years, and somehow, all those separate peaces (Egypt, Jordan, etc.) never resulted in any gains for them.
Someone asked about Obama's comment that the linkage "would be the other way around."
I misquoted.
Here is the actual segment from the Newshour. JOURNALIST: Mr. President, the Israeli prime minister and the Israeli administration have said on many occasions -- on some occasions that only if the Iranian threat will be solved they can achieve real progress on the Palestinian track. Do you agree with that kind of linkage?
BARACK OBAMA: If there is a linkage between Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, I personally believe it actually runs the other way. To the extent that we can make peace with the Palestinians -- between the Palestinians and the Israelis, then I actually think it strengthens our hand in the international community in dealing with a potential Iranian threat.As for the NYT et al, there is a lot of spin and misreporting. The Newshour transcript is a cure.
I don't really understand why 'Bibi' gets to walk away with a victory on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process being conditioned (in part) on the US having the most restrictive timetable possible on talks with Iran (to help ensure US diplomacy fails). And what if talks do fail? What then?
What did Obama walk away with after his meeting with 'Bibi'? Assurances there would be no more ongoing *illegal* settlement construction? No. Assurances of Israel's commitment to a 2 state solution? No. Assurances there would be less restrictions on humanitarian aid getting into Gaza? No.
In fact, the Israeli govt actually managed to add even more stumbling blocks to talks with the Palestinians by adding a new condition or two -something about educating Palestinian kids about peace??? and recognition of Israel as a "Jewish" state? Unbelievable. Naturally, the Palestinians will never agree to that and quite frankly, they shouldn't have to.
All Netanyahyu did was toss red herrings around to try to sabotage any meaningful US efforts to try to actually get the process moving again while demonstrating to everyone that he is really not willing to negotiate in good faith and that he has no interest in being any sort of partner in actually working towards peace.
I think the whole thing was totally insulting to Obama the country as a whole- Netanyahyu came across as arrogant and unbending and Obama came across as understandably annoyed yet all too willing to appease Israel and it's right-wing hawkish supporters here in the US- particularly in light of Avigdor Lieberman's statement a few weeks ago that when Bibi meets with the US, Israel will essentially get whatever it wants out of the US administration with respect to Iran and the peace process.
Oh, and don't forget that leading up to all of this, previously-banned Uzi Arad was given his visa back by the State Dept so he could accompany Netanyahu to DC- yet another insulting Israeli demand met.
Really Juan? The Palestinians are the most oppressed people in the world? More oppressed than the Sudanese Christians and black Muslims? More oppressed than the people of Sri Lanka (aprox. 65,000 to 85,000 killed since 1983) The warlord ruled Somalis? The Chechnians? Would you rather be gay in Gaza or Israel – or for that matter anywhere fundamental Islam is strong? Is it really necessary for you to express your support for Palestinians by exaggerating their plight? Is it not bad enough on its own without it having to be the worst?
I very much respect your blog. Your fluency of languages is an amazing resource. Your ability to keep track of all the parties in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is astounding. But when it comes to Palestine and Israel I think it would do you and your readers a favor if you would finish a posting, take a breath, maybe drink cup of tea and then comb through for accuracy. I respect passion. But if you’re trying to present this blog as facts not feelings, give it s hot.
This is great post with a great point in each paragraph (and thanks for the Avner Cohen link).
But I think you got derailed on the Jewish state thing, which almost all Americans do. The religious/racial dichotomy -- the idea that Jewishness has to be either a religion or a racial category-- comes very naturally to us, but that's only because we're are extreme outliers in both our experience of citizenship law and our experience of religion. We are have one of the the most extreme ius solis citizenship codes in a world where ius sanguinis is the norm; and we are perhaps the only state in the world whose state-formative experience of religion was of dissent protestantism.
So when Netayahu says he wants recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, he means on a ius sanguinis basis, where you get citizenship based on what citizenship your parents or grandparents had, like every country in eastern Europe or the middle east, as opposed to getting citizenship based mainly on where you were born, as in the US.
It's perfectly fine to be against that and say it's a terrible idea in this situation and terribly unjust and unworkable, etc. But there's nothing weird about the formulation and there's nothing inherently racist in it. It is especially normal in diaspora states. It's virtually certain that if there is ever a Palestinian state, it will be a ius sanguinis state; it's hard to imagine how it could possibly be anything else.
Furthermore, the idea we Americans have that you can easily separate the Jewish religion from Jewish ethnicity doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. The Jewish religion is based on the Halakhic law, and one of the first of them is that a Jew is defined as someone whose mother is a Jew. Ethnicity is thus inseparable from the religious law, which can't be changed. This isn't the way dissent protestantism works, which frames how we Americans think. But it's not abnormal in world terms; most people in the world think of religion as something you get born into rather than you choose. And ethnicity being defined by religion can be found in lots of places.
Even here in the US, lots of completely nonreligious people think of themselves as Jewish, which makes no sense if Jewishness is a religion, since they don't have one. You can say it's a cultural thing if it makes you feel better -- but so is ethnicity. There is no genetic basis for ethnicity. It doesn't mean it isn't a social reality -- and in the case of a ius sanguinis legal code, a legal reality.
In sum, I'm not saying this is a good thing. Not at all. But it's not crazy or unusual. On this one point, Israeli categories are more like those of most of the world than American categories. And for a Zionist, this is rock bottom issue. If Israel ever ceasing to be a ius sanguinis state, then in their eyes it ceases to be Israel, and becomes just another country. Which the rest of us might think would be a great thing. But you can see why they're against it. And this is certainly nothing new by Yahoo. Every member of the very major party in Israel subscribes to it.
Michael:
Since 20% of Israel is Arab and on the order of 5% is non-Jewish Russian & Ukrainian, a "blood-related" criterion for citizenship is highly invidious. Not to mention that there is no such thing as 'blood' (a majority of Ashkenazi Jewish women do not have Palestinian haplotypes). I'm glad to condemn such criteria where they are used elsewhere, too, but mostly it has to do with language and history rather than 'race' & religion in the case of most other countries.
It works in Israel to for instance deny Arab-Israeli villages 'recognized' status, which means they cannot repair buildings or make improvements, etc. Jews from Brooklyn can show up and build a settlement the next day and it is 'recognized,' at least de facto. So its effect is certainly racist.
As for Palestinians being the most oppressed people in the world, I stand by the statement. It depends, of course, on what your criterion is for oppression. I am talking about political repression and existential wholeness. There is an essential difference between being unhappy with your country, or being oppressed by your country, and not having a country at all while being oppressed by everybody else. The latter condition is slave-like. As for deaths, Israelis have since 1947 killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of Palestinians to camps. There is no other population of the stateless in the world nearly as big as the Palestinian.
If 4 million of any Western population were stateless and many of those were living in refugee camps, I think there would be rather an outcry.
Michael Pollak comment above ignores the real issue. The Israelis asking the Palestenians to declare Israel a Jewish state, not the Israelis themselves.
Not only that, but the Israelis want the rights of Palestians; self determination dependent on this. In fact, they want it as a pre-condition for negotiations, not to free the Palestenians but just to improve their conditions slightly.
Two points regarding Prof. Cole's comments on Netanyahu:
First, I strongly believe that Netanyahu intended a double meaning with his "Israel doesn't want to govern the Palestinians" comment. Yes, Israel wants a puppet Palestinian government to play bad cop while Israel robs Palestinians of water, land, etc.
BUT, more important, the comment was also code-speak for what Israel plans with-in the pre-1967 borders. Israel doesn't want to be governing Palestinians in Israel. It wants to expel them, or to get the Palestinians to accede to the absurd demand that they recognize the right of Israel to exist "as a Jewish state" -- that is, that Palestinians formally agree to a legal structure in which they are systematically denied equal rights.
Second, I suspect that Netanyahu is also shopping for a diversion to allow expulsion of West Bank Palestinians, among other atrocities. He expressly endorsed this at the time of the Tiananmen massacre in China (see the Jerusalem Post and others for details).
Juan, I'm not denying Israel is a racist state -- it is. I'm denying ius sanguinis citizenship laws are necessarily racist. Germany has a strong ius sanguinis. But it's in many ways one of the least racist states in the world. It discriminates against immigrants in ways we don't in the US (until 10 years ago, 2nd generation Turks had no chance to become German citizens). But it's not like not having that law keeps us from doing all kinds of nasty things to immigrants that Germans don't (They find "positive discrimination" or what we call affirmative action easy to justify and pass).
Racist discrimination in Israel could be removed while still leaving the ius sanguinis. The discriminations you highlight are based on laws that are not intrinsic to a ius sanguinis. The village problems mainly stem from the law that only Jews can own property, laws that allow legalize housing discrimination, and the law that allows identification of ethnic group on government ID. All could be abolished in one stroke without touching the citizenship law. The injustice of foreign Jews coming in large numbers is largely a thing of the past, and was mostly based on the wideness of the Law of Return, which is different than the citizenship law. Ironically that law could easily be made much narrower (thus solving the problem) precisely by insisting on the religious fine points (which would rule out 95% of self-identified Jews in the US and 99% of those in Russia) and replacing it instead with a generous asylum law. And lastly but not leastly, all these discriminations are based on the convention that refuses to allow any non-Jewish parties to be counted towards a majority in the Knesset. You could change that without changing the ius sanguinis because it isn't even a law.
Furthermore, there is nothing stopping a ius sanguinis state from creating citizens by naturalization, just like any other state. They would then have the same rights to pass on their citizenship. Germany did it with all Jews who remained there after WWII, and they now have the same iron-clad citizenship that Germans do. They can live their whole lives somewhere else, and their children are still German citizens. Israel could do the same for it's 20% Palestinian population.
Pure ius solis is a nice idea, but basically you only find it in "immigrant" states, meaning colonies that wiped out virtually all the natives, like the US, Canada and Australia. In lots of places it would create more problems that it solved, esp. in the current transmigratory world. (There are good reasons why we gave Germany the law it has when we wrote their current constitution -- giving them ours would have created all kinds of problems with Germans refugees ethnically cleansed from elsewhere).
In short, it's possible to modify a ius sanguinis so that it's perfectly non-racist. It may never have happened yet. But then, there aren't any perfectly non-racist ius solis countries either. And making one kind of country into another has basically never happened to my knowledge. It's seductive to think that if you changed this keystone, this whole network of discrimination would crumble. But if you look comparatively, they have thus far been largely independent of each other.
Again, I'm not denying Israel has deeply racist laws, nor am I denying that the current occupation is basically apartheid. I'm just saying the ius sanguinis is not the key, nor is it a deal-breaker. We should concentrate on the many things that are.
Netanyahu wants the Palestinians to acknowledge that Israel is a "Jewish state." I don't understand this demand. Israel is not a Jewish state, it is a multi-cultural state, with about half a million non-Jewish Russians and Ukrainians and 20% of its population is Arab. If "Jewish" is meant religiously, then observant Jews are actually a minority of the population in Israel. If "Jewish" is meant racially, then it is a particularly shameful demand. It is like demanding either that the US be recognized as a "Christian" country or as a "white" country. I don't see the point here. Britain has a state religion (Anglican), yet there is full religious freedom for those who don't practice it. Israel does not have a state religion; in practice there may be discrimination against Muslims (though less than there is against Christians in the Arab world, not to mention against Jews) but there is nothing inherently discriminatory in a "Jewish state" any more than there is in the "Anglican state" of Britain.
Let me make sure I understand this. Israel, that has its own clandestine nuclear project, wants the United States to act on Iran's not-so-transparent nuclear project. And, the United States seems to be going along...
Isn't something wrong here?
Michael Pollak, I have no idea at all what you are actually claiming but the term "right of blood" repeatedly used even in the pretentious Latin is quite offensive. Palestinians and Berbers and Christians and more should have all sorts of natural rights to live as full citizens in Israel.
Michael Pollak, do not tell us about Germany and "immigration". Palestinans have all rights to live in Palestine (all of it), and Zionism is the only reason they are not. The right of return to ALL Palestinans (the only just and lawful solution) will be the end of a Zionist project. All else is a hot air.
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