Heretics' almanac

A note on Annapolis

The multilateral talks scheduled to start in Annapolis tomorrow aren't getting a lot of optimistic press. The hostess, Condi Rice, has ratcheted down expectations quite a bit, and neither side is holding out much hope for a serious breakthrough. Setting aside the fact that most breakthroughs tend to occur when they're not expected, it's worth wondering why everyone is so downbeat ahead of this summit.

No to a Palestinian state (for now)

I really wish the Palestinians well. I think they are entitled to everything all humans are entitled to: political freedom and self-determination, free speech and cultural expression, and of course badly needed humanitarian relief. Not only do they deserve it; they are likely to embrace it and flourish in it.

But I think Rice is way off when she says it's time for a Palestinian state, for these reasons:

• Abbas's demands for establishing such a state are unreasonable. The issues he's outlined are legitimate, but his proposed resolutions aren't.
• This is because Abbas has no choice - he will be unseated or worse if he proposes anything that is acceptable to Israel. This is how radicalized Palestinian public opinion has become, for the simple reason that the linking of terrorism and demands has been so strong for so long.
• It is unclear - to put it kindly - what options Israel will have for defending itself against the (virtually guaranteed) hostile acts of this state. The Europeans - as is their longstanding tradition - would rather that Israel did nothing to defend itself.
• The likely result of a Palestinian state right now is a situation ten times worse than what we're seeing Gaza, with disastrous results for the Palestinians and Israelis, and the outlook for long-term peace.
• Rice should give the Palestinians a choice: they can have a timetable, or a road map, but not both. That way they can have as much of a state as they can pull together by the deadline; or they can have a solid state eventually based on certain milestones. What they can't have is everything they want from Israel while reserving the right to demand more under the threat of violence.
• In the meantime, the international community should support everything Abbas does to institute democratic institutions, low-level contact between the parties, confidence-building measures, etc. While also lending absolute support for Israel's right to defend itself against terrorists, even if that includes barriers, checkpoints, or wading into the West Bank and Gaza to arrest the crooks.

It's time the world treated the Palestinians as the adults they are

Making it clear with the Palestinians

In Slate, Shmuel Rosner makes a point that should not be lost on anyone who actually wants to see peace in and around Israel and the Palestinians. The dilemma, which Blair and others seem to want to sidestep, is this:

What if the democratically elected Palestinian government doesn't want peace with Israel?

There are lots of pundits who believe that the Palestinians voted for Hamas not because they agreed with Hamas's political platform of fundamentalism, terrorism, and rejectionism, but because Hamas is less corrupt than Fatah. And the corollary therefore must be that Israel should redouble its efforts to soften up on the Palestinians, e.g., dismantle the barrier, get rid of the checkpoints, release prisoners, etc. And that a further corollary to that is that Israel's failure to do will cause more terrorism.

The tightening conspiracy theories about Muhammad al-Dura

There's a bit of an edit battle going on over at Wikipedia about Muhammad al-Dura, the little boy that came to symbolize the anti-Israeli side in the second intifadah. One very stubborn editor doesn't want to accept the premise that al-Dura even existed, let alone died, or was shot by Israelis.

To be sure, the closer you look at all this, the more iffy it sounds. But it takes a little nerve to just simply go ahead and assume that the whole thing is a fraud from beginning to end. But the editor does make one good point, which is this: if the whole thing were staged, why assume that anyone was killed? And for that matter, if it were staged, why not at least speculate that the boy was an actor?

Of course, for those who believe that al-Dura was a real 12-year old boy who was killed in an exchange of fire between Israeli and Palestinians, such a supposition is grotesque and obscene. And certainly, those who hold his victimhood up as a symbol for the intifadah, the idea is almost blasphemous. Such is the power of symbols.

What follows Summer Rains?

Maybe it's simple fatigue, but the endless op-eds you'd expect to find about the political implications of Operation Summer Rains aren't that easy to find. The Norwegian Socialist Left party wants to recall Norway's ambassador to Israel, which probably won't happen, and wouldn't make one iota of difference if it did.

There are lots of predictable reactions, of course. Those on the anti-Israel side feel it's an overreaction, an attempt at re-occupying Gaza, collective punishment, subversion of Palestinian democracy, a war crime, etc., etc. Those who support Israel on principle defend the operation because it has a just military rationale (rescuing an abducted citizen) and took place in the context of unbearable provocations (something like 800 Qassam rocket attacks in less than a year).

There is talk of an uncontrolled escalation, the Norwegian UN official Jan Egeland is scolding everyone and warning of a humanitarian catastrophe. Arab heads of state are expressing their outrage, etc., etc.

Here's my take:

When bad things happen to Palestinians

The Gaza beach bomb incident is following an all-too-predictable and tiresome sequence of events:

• Something terrible happens to Palestinians
• There's a rush to judgment to make Israel culpable
• The first news reports are disjointed but assume that Israel is in fact culpable
• Israeli officials are terse in their response, seemingly strengthening the case for culpability
• As the actual events come to light, Israel's culpability becomes more doubtful
• Media watchdogs take the mainstream media to task for rushing to judgment
• The media ignore corrections and objections and change the subject
• Pro-Israel advocates become increasingly outraged about being ignored
• Anti-Israeli try to put the original version into the official record
• A rhetorical skirmish ensues
• The dead and unfairly accused are forgotten; justice and fairness give way to cynicism and opportunism

It's a wonderful world.

Fact or fiction from Norwegian Church Aid?

In the collective mind of European Norwegian journalists and most politicians, there is no human more evil than the "Israeli settler." These people personify all that is wrong with the Middle East: the racist colonists, driven by religious fanaticism, without regard for the indigenous people they are robbing and displacing.

On April 21, Aftenposten reported that a Norwegian "observer" from Kirkens Nødhjelp (Norwegian Church Aid) in Hebron, Tore Heen Ottesen, was "stoned" by "Israeli settlers" who arrived by bus, even though the school that Ottesen was observing was right next to the Jewish section in Hebron.

Setting aside the fact that Aftenposten got no independent confirmation, or that they somehow decided to characterize ISM as "observers," let's assume that the story is entirely true.

35,000 homeless Palestinians

In the last few weeks, about 35,000 Palestinians have been driven from their homes, left to their own survival skills in outlying areas, several thousand in cities close to the border of Jordan. Jordanian authorities won't accept them.

If you haven't read about this in your local newspapers, there's a reason. Israel has nothing to do with these expulsions - they took place in Baghdad and were perpetrated by the Palestinians' Arab "brothers" who happen to be Shi'ite, whereas most (all?) Palestinians are Sunni. And I suppose Jordan's open borders to Palestinians only faces west.

It might be interesting to compare numbers: how many Palestinians through the years have been expelled from Arab countries vs. from Israeli-controlled areas?

The psychology of the Olmert Plan

In poignantly low voter turnout, the Knesset ended up being more fragmented than ever. However, a party dedicating itself to centrism and the sort-of-new Olmert, won most seats - 28 out of 120. I don't know if anyone has figured out precisely what mandate this gives the new Olmert government yet, but it seems a strong supposition that Olmert will establish - unilaterally, bilaterally, or multilaterally - the borders between the (Arab) state of Palestine and the state of Israel.

I'm not going to pretend to understand the dynamics of Israeli politics - it's unbelievably complex and confusing unless you study and discuss it every day - but I did find this discussion in Ha'aretz interesting.

The article is an argument between Ari Shavit and Chaim Ramon, in which they mostly agree on the end state (or rather states) but can't agree on the protocol for getting there.

Hitchens, this time somewhat right

Christopher Hitchens has for once abandoned his firm platform of intellectual dishonesty when it comes to anything Israeli and asks a pretty good question in Slate:

There is also an element of condescension in the "corruption" explanation. Hamas says that it wants an Islamic state all the way from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. It publishes and promulgates the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Why not assume that it is at least partly serious about all this?

Of course, then he makes some outright false assertions to make sure that Israel still is at fault for every problem in the world:

For years, the PLO leadership has been at least officially committed to a two-state solution and has at least officially made a distinction between Judaism and Zionism. It has also renounced the disgusting tactic of suicide murder.

and:

Only imagine if the Israelis had been forced to recognize a West Bank and Gaza state when the PLO first accepted it 20 years ago.

Let's be clear here: