Tag Archive for 'Tom Segev'

Norman Geras is concerned.

Some reading links…

1. Ethan Bronner on opinion inside Israel: ‘[W]hile tens of thousands have poured into the streets of world capitals demonstrating against the Israeli military operation, antiwar rallies here have struggled to draw 1,000 participants.’
2. Tom Segev on the receding prospect of peace: ‘I belong to a generation of Israelis who grew up believing in peace. At the end of the Six-Day War of 1967, I was 23, and I had no doubt that 40 years later, the Israeli-Arab war would be over. Today, my son, who is 28, no longer believes in peace. Most Israelis don’t. They know that Israel may not survive without peace, but from war to war, they have lost their optimism. So have I.’
3. Paul Sheehan on a recent demonstration in Melbourne: ‘Amid demonstrators protesting against the Israeli attacks on Gaza were those carrying signs that said: “Clean the Earth from the dirty Zionists”… “Chosen dirty people of the Earth”… “Stop the sub-human Zionist land-grabbing barbarian mass murder in occupied Palestine”. Then there was the young man with an Australian accent, interviewed by the BBC in Beirut last week, during a demonstration against Israel’s actions in Gaza: “I’m an Australian, but I’m here to kill Jews.”‘
4. Iran opposed to a ceasefire.

1. So according to Ethan Bronner of The New York Times, a hundred and ten percent of the citizens of Israel, that light unto nations, were in favour of dropping thousands of tonnes of munitions both legal and illegal onto the densely crowded streets of Gaza; destroying UN shelters, warehouses, schools, hospitals, homes and farmlands, killing 1,285 people, of whom 1,062 were non-combatants (281 children and 111 women) and wounding 4,336, among them 1,133 children. If this were true then it is surely a blood libel against the Israelis. An accusation that they are evil ogres happily advocating the collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians. Has Professor Norman missed a clear cut case of anti-semitism?
2. In his Op-Ed, Tom Segev bemoans the now familar and entirely facetious lament: “The poor Israelis have no partner for peace”. The reality is somewhat different:
   

   For the past three decades the international community has consistently supported a settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict that calls for two states based on a full Israeli withdrawal to its June 1967 border, and a “just resolution” of the refugee question based on the right of return and compensation. The vote on the annual U.N. General Assembly resolution, “Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine,” supporting these terms for resolving the conflict in 2008 was 164 in favor, 7 against (Israel, United States, Australia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau), and 3 abstentions. At the regional level the Arab League in March 2002 unanimously put forth a peace initiative on this basis, which it has subsequently reaffirmed. In recent times Hamas has repeatedly signaled its own acceptance of such a settlement. For example, in March 2008 Khalid Mishal, head of Hamas’s Political Bureau, stated in an interview:

   There is an opportunity to deal with this conflict in a manner different than Israel and, behind it, the U.S. is dealing with it today. There is an opportunity to achieve a Palestinian national consensus on a political program based on the 1967 borders, and this is an exceptional circumstance, in which most Palestinian forces, including Hamas, accept a state on the 1967 borders….There is also an Arab consensus on this demand, and this is a historic situation. But no one is taking advantage of this opportunity. No one is moving to cooperate with this opportunity. Even this minimum that has been accepted by the Palestinians and the Arabs has been rejected by Israel and by the U.S.[29]

   Israel is fully cognizant that the Hamas Charter is not an insurmountable obstacle to a two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. “[T]he Hamas leadership has recognized that its ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future,” a former Mossad head recently observed. “[T]hey are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967….They know that the moment a Palestinian state is established with their cooperation, they will be obligated to change the rules of the game: They will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original ideological goals.”[30]

3. Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel should perhaps be updated to accusation of anti-semitism is the last refuge of Zionists.
4. On the 5^th of November 2008, Israel unilaterally broke the truce that been in place since June of that year. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s own information, Hamas had basically kept its side of the bargain. Israel had not. In mid-December Israel rejected an offer from Hamas for a renewed ceasefire agreement. After the hostilities had begun, neither Israel nor her Western allies seemed in a rush to conclude a ceasefire. But Norman thinks only the alleged Iranian rejection is worth mentioning. Odd.