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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/cantarow04092009.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/cantarow04092009.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">April 9,
2009<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>The Problem
Isn't Avigdor Lieberman <br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
Israel's Master Plan for Transfer
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By ELLEN
CANTAROW<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">N</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>o one doubts that Avigdor Lieberman is a
thug. His ultimata (“Those who think that through concessions they will
gain respect and peace are wrong,” etc, <i>New York Times </i>Thursday,
April 2, 2009) were designed to shock. On this site Neve Gordon’s
revelations of Lieberman’s many corruptions, his beating of a 12-year-old
child, his exhortation to bomb Gaza as the US bombed Hiroshima, supply
further ugly evidence against the man, and fuel the flash-fires burning
through the Internet in the wake of his appointment as Israel’s foreign
minister. <br><br>
So he should be denounced by all means, but it is certain that the
problems attaching to his name are not going away. On the contrary --
particularly given President Obama’s repudiation of Lieberman during the
President’s speech in Ankara, Turkey, and his avowed loyalty to a
‘two-state solution’ – these problems will appear in a different form,
specifically in regard to the nature of the “two states” under the
guidance of Obama, Netanyahu & Co. <br><br>
If the Lieberman appointment wasn’t specifically designed to have him
play bad cop to everyone else’s good cop, it’s certainly turning out that
way. A recent J Street petition urges me and thousands of on-line others
to denounce Lieberman as a threat to “our community’s values,” and also
to endorse J Street’s offer of “our best wishes and congratulations . . .
pledging to help Benjamin Netanyahu's government where possible, and push
when necessary, to achieve the goal of real peace and security for
Israel, the Palestinians, and the whole Middle East.”<br><br>
This is truly a dangerous path. Three years ago, Lieberman proposed
annexing to the northern West Bank parts of the Galilee with large Arab
populations. At the heart of this region is Wadi Ara, described in a US
media account a few years ago as “a seasonal riverbed adjacent to the
West Bank.” With a majority Arab population, Wadi Ara has been Israel’s
ever since Ben-Gurion wrenched an agreement from Jordan’s King Abdullah
that he cede the land as part of the post-war armistice agreement.
<br><br>
The area’s story goes back farther. During a 2005 US trip, Shimon Peres
suggested to American listeners that US “disengagement funds” (your tax
dollars at work after the famed Gaza “pull-out”) should be employed to
“develop” Wadi Ara – that is, to resettle the “dispossessed” Gaza
settlers there. This echoed Irving Howe’s suggestion in <i>The New York
Times Book Review </i> (May, 16,1982), that more Jews be sent to the
“under-populated Galilee” – “under-populated,” that is, in the sense that
New York was “under-populated” by whites until the gentrification
projects of the housing “boom years.”<br><br>
Lieberman set the Peres idea on its head with his “land-swap” notion but
both proposals have in common their preoccupation with the “the
demographic issue.” On this, just about all of Israel – and much of so
called “liberal Jewish” America - is united, extreme-right through left,
the devil being only in the details how to resolve it for good. <br><br>
<a name="_ednref1"></a>Lieberman’s suggestion was deemed “illegal” by
Israeli scholars, but it has found sympathetic supporters ever since. As
it stands now, it could easily trot forward as a “two-state solution”
under US-Israeli aegis. 1 This is what is ignored in the hysteria about
Lieberman’s actual appointment: “transfer,” long an Israeli option, may
actually take place in the near future. (Lieberman’s has been called
“soft transfer”)<br><br>
In the <i>Washington Post </i>February, 2006, Henry Kissinger
enthusiastically endorsed the idea without mentioning Lieberman by name:
“The most logical outcome would be to trade Israeli settlement blocs
around Jerusalem . . . for some equivalent territories in present-day
Israel with significant Arab populations. The rejection of such an
approach . . . which would contribute greatly to stability and to
demographic balance reflects a determination to keep incendiary issues
permanently open.” <br><br>
Incendiary issues” no doubt include Wadi Ara Arabs’ bitter resistance to
the “land swap” notion. “Stability” and “demographic balance” are code
for the purity of the Jewish state, once it’s been relieved of its
“demographic problem,” and once potentially fractious Arabs have come
under the boot of the Palestinian Authority, the US-Israel regional
puppet. <br><br>
<a name="_ednref2"></a>Around the same time Kissinger wrote his
commentary, Israel National News reported that Knesset member Otniel
Schneller of Kadima, “considered to be one of the people closest and most
loyal to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert,” had proposed something similar to
Lieberman’s “swap” idea. Schneller’s plan was “more gradual.” The
annexed, former Israeli Arab citizens would still be of the Jewish state.
Their land, however, would belong to the Palestinian Authority and they
wouldn’t<a name="_ednref2"></a> be allowed to resettle anywhere else in
Israel. 2 <br><br>
A more recent recruit to this bandwagon is Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni,
who has said a “Palestinian state” could “be the national answer to the
Palestinians” in the territories and those “who live in different refugee
camps or in Israel.” <br><br>
One assumes that this plan will keep popping up and that (the incendiary
Lieberman kept tidily in the wings while his shoot-from-the-mouth
behavior distracts the attention of “the left”) that it could well come
to fruition. <i>The New York Times’</i> Ethan Bronner reported February
12 that “the left” likes Lieberman’s “willingness to create two states,
one Jewish, one Palestinian, which would involve yielding areas that are
now part of Israel.” Note Bronner’s use of “willingness” and “yielding,”
suggesting his own tacit endorsement of Israel’s magnanimity. (Bronner,
of course, quoted no Arab voices from Wadi Ara, nor did he mention that
what Israel would yield is land inhabited by
<i>untermenschen</i><a name="_ednref3"></a>. At best the vast majority of
Israelis consider the Arabs to be people who need “help” -- as in the
suggestion 32 years ago by Irving Howe’s disciple, Michael Walzer, that
the indigenous people are “marginal to the nation.” His solution was
“helping people to leave who have to leave.” 3 <br><br>
<a name="_ednref4"></a>Again, there’s no need to ask the people of Wadi
Ara and such “Arab” areas how they feel because, after all, the land
isn’t<a name="_ednref4"></a> theirs to begin with. The Jewish National
Fund controls more than 90 percent of Israel’s land and the JNF must use
charitable funds in ways that “directly or indirectly [benefit] . . .
persons of Jewish religion, race or origin.” The JNF is “recognized by
the Government of Israel and the World Zionist Organization as the
exclusive instrument for the development of Israel’s lands.” Such
development is open, forever, only to Jews. 4 <br><br>
And so, amidst much celebration (hand-shakes on the White House lawn,
etc.) the new “two-state” solution could well be realized in the
not-so-distant future. A Palestinian ghetto would exist alongside a
Jewish state, which would of course include the settlements. “The
demographic problem” bedeviling Zionists ever since two rabbis returned
in the 19th century with the report that the bride was “beautiful but
married to another man,” would vanish. Now and then, on a distant
hilltop, a lone goatherd might appear, nostalgically suggesting “simpler”
and more “traditional” times. Palestinian embroidery would be sold at
appointed places, to adorn the persons and furniture of pure Jews
commuting back and forth to a now purely Jewish Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
from, say, purely Jewish Maale Adumim. American readers wearing exquisite
Navajo turquoise jewelry – this writer among them – will recognize these
images.<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">* * * <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>How could it have come to this? Surely
not for want of countless early warning signals. Here, for example, is
Moshe Dayan in an interview with BBC reporter, Alan Hart, May 14,
1973:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>Alan Hart – Why are you seeking to establish more and more
settlements? The Arabs think that your goal is to stay in Transjordan for
eternity.<br><br>
<dd>Dayan – That’s right. In fact I think that Israelis should stay in
Transjordan for eternity and till the end of time.<br><br>
<dd>HartArabs listening to you now, including President Sadat, will say:
“There you are! Dayan has confirmed that he’s only after territorial
expansion…<br><br>
<dd>DayanOK, if you think the desire to feel at home throughout all of
Transjordan is an expansionist ambition. If that’s what you call being
“expansionist,” then I’m an expansionist.” <br><br>
<dd>--from Amnon Kapeliouk’s Israel: la fin des mythes (Israel: an end to
all myths),</i> Editions Albin Michel, 1975 (translation mine.)<br><br>
</dl><a name="_ednref5"></a>Nor should one forget Dayan’s 1967 comment to
colleagues about what they should tell the Palestinians: “[Y]ou shall
continue to live like dogs, and whoever prefersmay leave…” 5 Or, farther
back in time, Chaim Weizmann’s remarks about the 1917 Balfour
declaration, on record with the Jewish Agency Executive: “[W]ith regard
to the Arab question – the British told me that there are several hundred
thousand negroes there but that this matter has no significance.” In
Fateful Triangle</i><a name="_ednref6"></a>, Noam Chomsky quotes US
journalist Vincent Sheean, who “arrived in Palestine as an avid Zionist
in 1929, [and who] left a few months later a harsh critic of the Zionist
enterprise largely because of the attitudes among the Jewish settlers
towards what they called the ‘uncivilized race’ of ‘savages’ and ‘Red
Indians,’<a name="_ednref6"></a> ‘squatters for thirteen centuries’…” 6
<br><br>
In Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel’s Security
& Foreign Policy,</i> (University of Michigan Press, 2006), Israeli
security and foreign policy analyst Zeev Maoz shows that Israel was
conceived through deliberate policy choices as a “Sparta state.” All of
its governments from Ben Gurion forward have relied on Zeev Jabotinsky’s
“Iron Wall” doctrine. This doctrine translates as military blows "to
convince the Arabs of the futility and illogic of their dreams. Over
time, the Arabs will come to accept the Jewish state and to make peace
with it."7<a name="_ednref7"></a> (See this writer’s review
at
<a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20927">
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20927</a>.) The
destruction of Gaza this past winter is the latest of such actions
designed to persuade the natives that their dreams are futile and
illogical. <br><br>
<a name="_ednref8"></a>It cannot be over-emphasized that without the US,
Israel could not have gotten to this point. 8 President Obama is turning
out to be more of the same. Announcing the appointment of George Mitchell
as his Middle East envoy, Obama said: <br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Senator Mitchell will . . . help Israel reach a broader peace with
the Arab world. Let me be clear: America is committed to Israel's
security. And we will always support Israel's right to defend itself
against legitimate threats. . . To be a genuine party to peace, the
quartet has made it clear that Hamas must meet clear conditions:
recognize Israel's right to exist; renounce violence; and abide by past
agreements. . . I should add that the Arab peace initiative contains
constructive elements that could help advance these efforts. Now is the
time for Arab states to act on the initiative's promise by supporting the
Palestinian government under President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad,
taking steps towards normalizing relations with Israel, and by standing
up to extremism that threatens us all.</i> (Emphasis mine.)
9<a name="_ednref9"></a> <br><br>
</dl><a name="_ednref10"></a>The emphases on Israel’s “right to defend
itself,” the requirement that Hamas toe the quartet’s line, the
underscoring of the US-Israel puppet regime – all this is obvious. What
is not so obvious is Obama’s deliberate choice to eviscerate the Arab
League’s 2002 proposal, the body of which requires Israel to withdraw to
its 1967 borders with some modifications. Obama quotes a corollary
to the proposal, a small paragraph requiring Arab states to “normalize”
relations with Israel – the corollary has as its premise that first
Israel must make real (not bogus) land concessions. This was the solution
almost reached at the Israeli-Palestinian talks in Taba, Egypt in 2001:
Ehud Barak withdrew. 10 <br><br>
<a name="_ednref11"></a>Just so, Israel refused in 1971 what was then a
dazzling prospect, President Anwar Sadat’s offer of full peace. Egypt was
the regional Arab super-power, and peace with it would have ensured
future treaties with other Arab countries. (The Palestinians were not
considered by Sadat, who was interested only in Israel’s withdrawal from
the Sinai, which it had taken in 1967.) The consequence of Israel’s
rejection, a choice of expansionism over security -- one that Henry
Kissinger, backing Golda Meir, enabled -- was the Yom Kippur War.
This cost Israel the lives of three thousand Israeli soldiers; a
"staggering" loss of equipment (Zeev Maoz’s term); $10 billion
in overall damages. On at least two occasions Israel armed its nuclear
warheads, bringing the region to the brink of nuclear war. 11 <br><br>
Israel rejected security for expansionism at Oslo as well, no matter what
the “generous offer” myths may say. It continues to do so as I write.
More bad news floods our e-mail boxes about the rotting concentration
camp in Gaza. US-Israel apparently intends to make it an international
charity case, an occasional shooting gallery for WMD testing in dense
urban areas, or both. At the same time, bad news comes from the West
Bank, where arrests and kidnapping of Palestinians, the shooting of
international solidarity workers, home demolitions, settler pogroms,
further annexations in East Jerusalem, and all the rest of it, continue
at a brisk and unimpeded pace.<br>
Such is US-Israel’s history. Such is the present. In all of this Avigdor
Lieberman is merely an exclamation mark. Those who want change should
focus on the larger picture. <br><br>
Ellen Cantarow</b> can be reached at
<a href="mailto:ecantarow@comcast.net">ecantarow@comcast.net</a><br><br>
<font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Notes.<br><br>
</font><a name="_edn1"></a>1. I am indebted to Noam Chomsky’s essay,
“Good News, Iraq and Beyond,” for ideas about the Lieberman “land <br>
swap” and some of the politicians who embraced it. See
<a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/17048">
http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/17048</a><br><br>
2. Ibid.<br><br>
3. “Nationalism, Internationalism, and the Jews: the chimera of a
binational state,” in Irving Howe & Carl Gershman, Israel, the Arabs
and the Middle East </i>(Bantam, 1972).<br><br>
4. “Good News, Iraq and Beyond.” Chomsky discusses a recent (only partly
successful) challenge to the JNF’s blatantly racist practices. <br><br>
<a name="_edn5"></a>5. Noam Chomsky, Fateful Triangle </i>(South End
Press, 1983, 1989), p. 481. Dayan made this statement in a September,
1967 meeting, suggesting what his colleagues should tell Palestinians.
The original sources is Yossi Beilin. Shimon Peres protested that that
Israel should preserve its moral stand, and Dayan replied, “Ben Gurion
said that anyone who approaches the Zionist problem in a moral aspect is
not a Zionist.” <br><br>
<a name="_edn6"></a>6. Ibid.<br><br>
<a name="_edn7"></a>7. Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land: A Critical
Analysis of Israel’s Security & Foreign Policy </i>(University of
Michigan, 2006) p. 9<br><br>
<a name="_edn8"></a>8. A crucial article recently posted at Znet, by
Irene Gendzier, proves through her analysis of a rich assortment of
quotes by US officials, that in 1948 everyone in US power knew precisely
what was happening to Palestine’s Arab population. They looked on – some
with horror, some with skepticism. Those who saw in Israel the prospect
of a future Spartan guarantor of US “interests” (post-British-French
hegemony in the region and access to its oil) looked on with cold
curiosity. After 1967 the deal was, so to speak, signed, sealed and
delivered.<br><br>
<a name="_edn9"></a>9. “President Barack Obama Delivers Remarks to State
Department Employees,” The Washington Post,</u> January 22,
2009
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/22/AR2009012202550.html">
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/22/AR2009012202550.html</a>
<br><br>
<a name="_edn10"></a>10. See Ran HaCohen’s portrait of Barak, whose
record is equally as appalling as Lieberman’s, at
<a href="http://anti-war.com/hacohen/?articleid=12110">
http://anti-war.com/hacohen/?articleid=12110</a> ) Also see Idith Zerta
and Akiva Eldar’s essential Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel’s
Settlements In The Occupied Territories, 1967 – 2007, </i>for rich
descriptions of Barak’s affection for the most extreme of Israel’s
right-wing religious nationalist settlers.<br><br>
<a name="_edn11"></a>11. Maoz, p. 417.<br><br>
<br><br>
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