Talkingpointsmemo's Josh Marshall: Gimme a Break

[flpoljunkie]

Gimme a Break
Josh Marshall

September 21, 2011, 10:05AM

Everyone is now in a flutter about this monumental non-crisis about whether or not the Palestinians, or particularly the Palestinian Authority, will go to the UN and ask the UN to call them a state. But it's not clear to me on what basis the Palestinians can be asked not to do this. The Palestinians want a state. The vast swathe of political and international opinion says they should have one, though the devil is very much in the details. So why can't they try to get one? Frankly, it's never been really clear to me why the Palestinians haven't already declared one, though arguably they did a long time ago.

The standard rejoinder is that statehood should be decided at the negotiating table. And ideally, that's true. But the current Israeli government wants negotiations that are pretty clearly not negotiations at all. They're on the basis of things the Palestinians can't really agree to -- on-going settlement. And it's pretty clear to everyone that the Netanyahu government -- at the very least this Netanyahu government (I'll leave out there the very hopeful and extremely hypothetical idea that Netanyahu might think differently if he were in a different coalition) -- is pursuing a policy of not resolving the Israel-Palestinian dispute, not on any terms the Palestinians can ever agree to. The Netanyahu governments policy is openness to perpetual talking -- not negotiations toward a plausible settlement.

The calculus was different twenty years ago. (Yes, it really was twenty years ago.) But now things are very different. And can anyone claim with any seriousness that this is going to sour the trust between the two parties? That's too silly for words.

I'm a Zionist. I deeply believe in a two-state solution, with the '67 borders as the starting point for the discussions. I believe that for many reasons. But the most important of those is that I believe it is the best and only viable path forward for Zionism and the State of Israel. But the 'negotiations' have gotten to the point where I simply can't see any room for complaint about what the Palestinians are proposing to do. Sure, it's sort of a distraction. But a distraction from what? In other words, I'm not for or really against what the Palestinians are trying to do. But opposing it just casts in painfully sharp relief the intrinsic ridiculousness the current version of 'negotiations' has become.

more...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/09/everyone_is_now_in_a.php?ref=fpblg

Late Update: Listening to President Obama's speech going on as I write I find myself thinking, Yep, yep and yep. Agreeing with every point. But not seeing where it at all contradicts anything I wrote above.

[starroute]

1. Does it even mean anything any more to say you're a Zionist?

I just checked some definitions of Zionism online. Mainly, they're historical, describing Zionism as a movement that was active a century ago, with a bit of unacknowledged gymnastics to get in the contemporary meaning:

"a worldwide Jewish movement that resulted in the establishment and development of the state of Israel"

"an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel"

"a political movement for the establishment and support of a national homeland for Jews in Palestine, now concerned chiefly with the development of the modern state of Israel"

"The belief that Jews should have their own nation; Jewish nationalism. Zionism gained much support among Jews and others in the early twentieth century"


So basically, Zionism began in the 1890's as an international movement to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It was idealistic, it presented itself as being the answer to problems of racism and discrimination, and whether you agreed with it or not, it had a plausible reason for existing.

But what on earth does "Zionism" mean now? It's not a movement, it's not forward-looking, and it doesn't present itself as offering potential answers to vexing questions. It's become a way of saying, "I support the status quo. I will defend the existence of a state narrowly defined on the basis of Jewish ethnicity -- no matter what extreme measures it takes to maintain such a state in the face of demographics and world opinion -- and will reflexively reject any possible alternatives."

People certainly have the right to take that position. But for someone like Marshall to simply declare "I'm a Zionist" without any further questioning or analysis seems like a failure of vision -- or, at best, a form of ass-covering.

[flpoljunkie]

2. Josh Marshall does not support the status quo or Netanyahu's leadership. I see no inconsistency.

[Martin Eden]

3. How would a Palestinian State function ...

... with Jewish settlements and connecting roads slicing & dicing their land into something that doesn't resemble a sovereign state ... have you ever seen a map of the West Bank and all the settlements?

If you think the solution is the removal of all those Jewish settlements, exactly how do you think that will be achieved?

[frazzled]

5. I think it means pretty much what it always has ...

and what each of those definitions comprises: belief that a state of Israel as a homeland for Jews has a right to exist. It's not that complicated.

But what should not be inferred is that Zionism is coterminous with support for particular actions of the Israeli state: it is possible to be wholly opposed, for instance, to the current Netanyahu government (or another one, if you like) and still be a Zionist. It is also possible to be a Zionist and fully support the establishment of real Palestinian state. Ditto for being a Zionist and being opposed to the settlements. That, I believe, is the position that Josh Marshall takes (as do I). The rest is just politics.

Essentially, all Zionism means is that there should be a legitimate country called Israel. All the rest is totally disputable.

[starroute]

6. But my point is that it wasn't always about merely "existing"

In the first half of the twentieth century, being a Zionist meant something. It was an idealistic movement which grew out of the idea that in a world of nation-states which were usually based on a sense of shared ethnic identity, Jews needed their own nation-state to survive and flourish.

In other words, it amounted to an assertion that Jews would be better off if they were more like everyone else -- and also, at its best, to an assertion that everyone else deserved the same rights and freedoms that Zionists were claiming for Jews.

But Zionism is no longer either idealistic or a movement. It's a political position, a statement that you find the continued existence of a Jewish state supremely important -- even if that undercuts the international standing of the United States and even though we're now living in a world where nation states based solely on ethnic identity are becoming generally less viable.

The result is that what was once a declaration of Jewish universalism has somehow dwindled into an assertion of Israeli exceptionalism. And in the process, it has lost the connection it once had to the larger global movement for human rights and universal freedom.

That's why I find it very hard to understand how someone like Josh Marshall can say "I am a Zionist" and mean anything real by it. Once upon a time, his Zionism and his liberalism would have formed a seamless whole. But that time is long gone, and it leaves his declaration of Zionism ringing somewhat hollow.

[Phx_Dem]

4. Abbas decided on his own not to do this. I think most people

want a two-state solution, but it needs to be done the right way. At this point, Abbas needs to reschedule the October election that he cancelled "indefinitely." Right now he is operating like a dictator not an elected leader.

[flpoljunkie]

7. Think Progress: 69% of Israelis Say Israel Should Accept U.S. Recognition of Palestinian State.

POLL: 69 PERCENT OF ISRAELIS SAY ISRAEL SHOULD ACCEPT U.N. RECOGNITION OF PALESTINIAN STATE

A joint poll by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in the Occupied Palestinian Territories found that 69 percent of Israelis think that their country should accept United Nations recognition of an independent Palestinian state, according the Jerusalem Post. The survey also found that 83 percent of Palestinians supported the U.N. bid. Six hundred Israelis and 1,200 Palestinians in the Occupied Territories participated in the poll. Of the Israelis that sided with accepting the U.N. decision, 34 percent said Israel should start negotiating with the Palestinians and 35 percent said the Palestinians should not be allowed to change dynamics on the ground. (HT: Josh Shahryar)

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/09/21/325469/poll-israel-un-palestine/