The Middle East is a hard place for idealists, especially for the Western liberal variety. My feelings of optimism for the region have been ground down over time like rocks under slow-moving glacial ice.
Last time I visited Israel, at the end of the Gaza war this past January, I met Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh. He sounded no less despondent than the Israelis I spoke to. "Listen," he said. "We must stop dreaming about the New Middle East and coexistence and harmony and turning this area into Hong Kong and Singapore...I don't see a real peace emerging over here. We should stop talking about it."
That's what I hear from almost everyone I speak to over there now, whether they're Muslims, Christians, Jews, or whatever. Arabs, Israelis, Kurds - most seem to have a dim view of the future. Optimists, for the most part, parachute in for a brief time and leave. I hate it. It depresses me. But that's how it is.
Some writers and analysts are slightly less gloomy, and I frequently ask them to cheer me up and hope their relative optimism isn't fantasy. Jeffrey Goldberg's work at The Atlantic occasionally qualifies as less pessimistic than mine. His outstanding book Prisoners
I spoke with him a few weeks ago in Washington D.C.
MJT: You don't seem particularly optimistic that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be resolved any time soon, but I notice from reading your work that you seem slightly less pessimistic than me.
Goldberg: (Laughs.)
MJT: My view is pretty bleak and yours is slightly less so. And I'm wondering if you can map a way out that's realistic.
Read the rest at MichaelTotten.com
Another really great discussion, Michael.
The interview suggests that the problem is the Arabs are hell bent on Israel's destruction and that poverty among Palestinians is not the issue.
I think it's better not to take Hamas at their word about every extreme thing they say. The flip side of this is that Palestinians take the extreme settler position "at its word" and the upshot of these assumptions, erroneous or not, is there is no hope for peace. I think it's better to assume and trust (because we must) that if a true Palestinian state can be forged, Israelis and Palestinians can coexist in peace and prosper together.
At the moment, conditions for a Palestinian state do not exist. Nearly 40 percent unemployment, no infrastructure, no airport, no sea-port, military occupation, and a divided territory riddled with Israeli settlements do not add up to a viable Palestian state. To suggest that poverty and the lack of economic opportunity, or hope, on the Palestinian side are not the overriding issue is off the mark. The key issue is not Arab acceptance of Israel, the key issue is forging conditions in which a Palestinian state has a chance to prosper. For this reason, the settlements are at the heart of the matter.
I think it's better not to take Hamas at their word about every extreme thing they say. The flip side of this is that Palestinians take the extreme settler position "at its word" and the upshot of these assumptions, erroneous or not, is there is no hope for peace. I think it's better to assume and trust (because we must) that if a true Palestinian state can be forged, Israelis and Palestinians can coexist in peace and prosper together.
Well I must admit, replacing the actual actors in a conflict with figments from my imagination does result in a much rosier view of the future.
Ignoring the extremists as being unhelpful and assuming everyone secretly wants peace, prosperity, and fluffy bunnies was what resulted in Oslo.
I agree the settlements are a serious mistake on the side of the Israelis, but let's not kid ourselves. If I wave a magic wand and erased all the settlements tomorrow would Palestine be any more a viable nation than they are today?
They still would have no economy and no basis upon which to form one, they have no stable civil government and no traditions upon which to build one. They have no coherent geography let alone defensive territorial integrity, and are completely dependent upon surrounding nations for all transportation links and water sources.
The government is composed of embezzling thugs, and the population has been raised on Jew-hatred and scape-goating for several generations. Other than low grade warfare against Israel, the Palestinians have no shared historical/cultural traditions to bind them together.
Not to mention the little difficulty in weaning them off a 60 year old absolute dependence on foreign aid.
Palestine simply is not a viable nation, settlements or no settlements, and it's probably time to quit pretending it could be. We'll have peace in Palestine when Egypt and Jordan give up the Palestinian gambit and reabsorb the territory.
Treefrog may be correct about the viablity of the West Bank and Gaza. The idea of Egypt and Jordan absorbing the territory is interesting. I've not heard or read much about such a prospect. I'm vaguely aware, however, that Jordan is about as excited to take in the ~4 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza as Israel.
Do Egypt or Jordan have an obligation to absorb the Palestinians? Any more so than Israel? Why? Are they any more likely to? I'm not sure what is meant by "gambit" in Treefrog's post.
It seems evident that if Israel were to absorb the West Bank and Gaza Israel would have to be transformed into a secular state along the U.S. model, with protections for all ethnicities and religions. For this reason, Israel can't and won't absorb them.
A long term subjugation of the West Bank and Gaza by Israel, however, will slowly begin to undermine Israel's legitimacy. I think Israel has no choice but to actively help the Palestinians succeed. Much more actively than it has been doing.