The Israeli/Palestinian issue has to be one of the most brutal and intractable issues globally. My own perspective on it has evolved on it as well- I’d like to think in response to events on the ground.
When I started out becoming aware of this question and arguing about it online in the early aughts I felt pretty strongly pro-Israeli (and pro-Israeli Labor party) and viewed the Palestinian cause with a resigned despair. As events progressed, though, my view of the Palestinians have remained mostly unchanged but my opinion of the Israeli side has degraded to something similar, an exasperated despair.
I’d personally track it back to Sharon. When Sharon unilaterally withdrew from Gaza I was shocked but also intrigued. I’d never liked Sharon (my Jewish friends were lefties and Sharon had always struck me as a right-wing firebrand) but, in hindsight, I have come to realize that he was likely the last of the genuinely liberal right-wing Likudniks. What came after Sharon has greatly heightened my appreciation for the old General. If he had not been felled by that stroke and had, instead, prosecuted the withdrawal from the territories that he had been contemplating history would probably be a much brighter one now. Since Sharon the Likud has led the way in leading Israel into an increasingly corrupt and fundamentalist direction and I am genuinely concerned for its survival- not in terms of physical survival but in terms of its survival as a liberal, democratic state.
As for the outcomes? The answers really haven’t changed a lot:
>Moral Liberal Answer: Israel bites the bullet and annexes the West Bank (and maybe Gaza), gives the Palestinians voting rights and civil rights equal to any other Israeli and then endures a painful period of absorption as they “digest” this new large body of citizens into the polity. As for Palestinian refugees abroad? The Israelis say fish em.
Pros: It is (mostly) moral. It is possible. The Israelis have mostly succeeded in doing this before (with Israeli Arabs), in the long term this offers a plausible path to peace.
Cons: It is HARD. There would be a painful period of genuine violence as the revanchist elements of Palestinian and Israeli society try to scuttle the plan by attacking each other. The policing actions within Israel would be costly and painful and, yes, some Israeli’s (Jewish and Palestinian) would die from internal violence. The political will necessary to make this happen and to stick to the principles of unification would be astronomical and there’s a genuine demographic challenge but, so long as a right of return for Palestinian diaspora isn’t honored then the Israelis could potentially pull it off. It’s likely this is an “answer” to the problem that’s good enough to allow Israel to resolve relations with other Arab states.
>Moral Conservative Answer: Call it the Sharon solution. Israel withdraws from the territories. It annexes territory around major settlement blocks along the new border and around Jerusalem. Palestinians in those areas are offered citizenship or else financial compensation to move. Jewish settlers outside those defensible lines are dragged, forcibly, out of their settlements and are resettled back in Israel. The Israelis would maintain some military presence along the boundaries of this new independent Palestine with the understanding that when/if the Palestinians make peace with the Israelis then the military will withdraw.
Pros: It is (mostly) moral and the Israeli’s did this, mostly, with Gaza. They know they can do this and they know how. Legally speaking this is the simplest solution for the Israeli state apparatus and requires the least reform. It secures Israel and the demographic question is resolved. The Palestinian diaspora can move to the West Bank and would no longer be Israel’s direct headache. The Palestinians would have to start governing themselves in earnest and, hopefully, could eventually become a functional state. It’s likely this is an “answer” to the problem that’s good enough to allow Israel to resolve relations with other Arab states. In theory the Palestinians would eventually tire of pointless extremist raids that only result in some dead Israeli’s and a lot more destruction and death for Palestinians and, as this would in theory allow Israel to make peace with the Arab states, the Palestinians should eventually develop to a point where they don’t want to raid or shoot missiles at Israel.
Cons: The political will required to prosecute this plan would immense. Ever since Sharon put them on notice the Israeli right has been frantically trying to establish facts on the ground to make this option so politically costly as to be impossible. Withdrawing fully from the Territories would expose Israel to considerably more risk from raids and missile strikes and they’d have to be ready and willing to go in, “mow the grass” in retaliation and then (importantly) withdraw again.
Both these outcomes have the downsides of promising heightened casualties for a finite period of time but offer genuine hope that, in the long term, peace will settle on the region. The alternative of perpetual conflict status quos might have a lower year by year immediate casualty count but, when assumed out into the foreseeable future, has a higher body count.
There’s also the strategy the Israeli’s seem to be pursuing. Call it the nu-Likud strategy.
>Immoral Nu-Likud strategy: Increase settlements in the territories and grind the Palestinians down. Assume that right wing Israeli birth rates will allow the Israelis to outnumber the Palestinians and encourage lower fertility and emigration from the territories and also general abuse of Israeli Arabs. This also gives the Israeli-Likud right a steadily increasing base of fundamentalist voters to support a series of illiberal Likud governments that will continue to transform the Israeli state into a Jewish fundamentalist one. Think of this as a kind of ethnic cleansing in very slow motion.
Pros: It’s politically easy to work towards compared to the moral answers. The settler right loves this and it welds the right into a manageable electoral block. In the long run it offers a solution that is cheap and easy.
Cons: All this plan costs is Isael’s liberal soul. But the economic dynamism of the Israeli state lies on the left side of their political spectrum. The settlers and Jewish fundamentalists blocks are agrarian or, to put it starkly, welfare bums. At some point there’s a genuine risk that the economically productive part of the Israeli polity will decamp for a non-theocratic state and Israeli will become an Israeli Iran on the Levant.
Reading back over this I noted that these outcomes mostly rob the Palestinians of agency. I think that accurately reflects the reality that Israel is the overwhelmingly dominant actor and the Palestinians only options are perpetual low level violent resistance and implacable passive resistance. If I were a Palestinian the only sensible option I can see would be the peaceable option.
>Moral Palestinian option: Call it the Gandi option. Abbas gets turfed out of the Palestinian Authority and their new political leader eschews political violence and levels a threat to the Israelis: “Negotiate a withdrawal or else we will dissolve the Palestinian Authority and begin demonstrating against Israel’s “apartheid” behavior and demanding civil rights within Israel. This basically is demanding a Sharon++ strategy and threatening to force the moral liberal option if the Israeli’s refuse to play ball.
Pros: It’s moral. It would play spectacularly well with the developed world and with the liberal portion of the Israeli polity. It’d strike at the heart and core of the Nu-Likud strategy and genuinely threaten their grip on power. A negotiated withdrawal of Israel from the territories would mean the Palestinians could bargain for more land, possibly some accommodation in East Jerusalem and a lot of financial aid for the new Palestinian state from the world and Israel. It offers the fastest path to independence and prosperity for the Palestinians in the West Bank. Also, for what it’s worth, a leader who pursued this path would have international celebrity and, likely, a Noble Peace Prize in hand in short order.
Cons: Not only would such a strategy be facing a right-wing Israeli government that’d be spitting livid over it but it’d also face fury and outrage from the Palestinians. A leader charting this path would need to be a true persuader to try and get the masses to follow along and would remain at great peril of being murdered by fanatics from both the Israeli right and the Palestinian revanchists. The charisma and discipline required of this political movement would be immense.
But, realistically, that’s it. Alas, in my jaded middle age I fear that the only realistic path is going to be the Nu-Likud one and I shudder for Israel’s future if I’m right about that.
I don't know about that, the Second Intifada took place from 2000-2004 roughly which is the era of the blogosphere.
Though, on the other hand, the Second Intifada and its interaction with the new media paradigm and also with the fact that it blew up Oslo* was basically the point where both the Israeli pro-peace left and sympathy for the Palestinian cause internationally went into a severe decline. So you may still have a point that the new, more interconnected less gate-kept media paradigm is just not congenial to the Palestinian cause as it operationally functions currently.
*And, of course, it happened in a world under the shadow of 9/11.
Nuttery has a lot of definitions, my friend, but with the case of Israel its general unacceptability on the wider left is unambiguous and, that when they crossed the line, those nuts got smacked down is healthy if you ask me. Nuts from the other direction get coddled and elected to national office.
But nuttery in general shouldn't be widely smacked down because a lot of it may be wrong headed or impractical but it isn't necessarily abhorrent wrong.
The megaphone, in this case just to be clear, is a phone that connects to a twitter account for an assortment of student associations or, in the largest case, the DSA? Yes?
I mean, they mostly just have only a phone already, and a bunch of credulous (on the center) or desperate (on the right) media amplifiers.
All well and good. I think the retractions are a healthy sign and generally a positive development.
I'd like to refer, also, to an excellent post on the other blog that is pertinent to the subject:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/10/the-myth-of-the-american-left
To wit: the "left" we are talking about doing and expressing these sentiments is a tiny, marginalized fringe of the actual operational left in this country.
That contrasts starkly with the other side where the deranged statements and nuttiness is literally coming from the GOP's most recent elected President, the rights' most likely future Presidential nominee and many many political actors who are currently members in good standing of the GOP.
I've heard him speak. If you thought DeSantis was bad, hoo boy!
It feels like whistling past the graveyard to dismiss Kennedy but how would he even get on the ballot as an independant?
In similar news, Cornel West isn't running as a Green anymore. When you're too much of a self important spoiler for even the Green Party that's new heights.
True and, frankly, with regards to the mountains of old cluster munitions we sent over there it probably saved us money having the Ukrainians shoot it off than what it'd cost to dispose of it at home. Even before we factor in the Russian assets blown to fish the US probably turned a profit handing that stuff over to Ukraine.
I wouldn't say that #3 is being erased by Hamas, but people are being reminded how bad the actors on the Palestinian side are . That doesn't undo #3- instead it makes disengagement from the whole affair and "to hell with them both" attitudes more likely.
This is a good point DD and core to the dilemma on the Palestinian side. Hamas wants to kill israelis no matter the consequences, the Israelis want to defend Israelis and will accept dead Palestinians if that's what it costs to defend Israelis. The Palestinians don't really have an organized group who's primary goal is to defend and advance Palestinian interests- just ones who's goal is to kill Israelis. There is the PA but their goal is more to simply suck up money and stay in power, nothing more.
That Kos article was very good. What it boils down to is that the Israeli's priority is protecting Israelis and if Palestinians get hurt as they try and do that (and many do because the Israelis somewhat desultorily try not to cause excessive collateral damage but it's a profoundly second order goal), so be it. Hamas' priority is hurting Israel and Israelis and if Palestinians get hurt as a consequence of that, so be it.
Sure, sure, sure but there is, what, one Gaza desk in the CIA? One in the various other agencies as well? Monitoring the Palestinians is virtually the sine qua non of the Israelis parallel organizations. There's simply no comparison.
Mmm didn't Saudi Arabia also voice support for Hamas? That's the whole ballgame as to why Hamas (and their sponsors) launched this attack. It'll be terrible for the Palestinians, but since when has Hamas ever given a fig about the Palestinians? If it scuttles the Israeli/Saudi raproachment it'll have accomplished its goal and I don't see how it doesn't.
I agree emotionally and intellectually but for that posture to be adopted by Israelis broadly there needs to be something way more specific. The IDF and intelligence services need to be able to say "We warned the PM something specific was brewing in Gaza SOON and he ignored us" or else I fear Bibi may be able to shunt the blame onto his enemies in the State services.
Anyone outside Israeli intelligence could expect more of just a "hmm that's annoying/interesting" stance towards this. Within Israel though we're talking about something that is existential and central to the purpose of those organizations. If the Mossad didn't know, then heads should roll in the Mossad like they have never rolled before and if the Mossad did know, warned the politicians and got ignored then heads should roll among the politicians like they never have rolled before.
On “Auribus Teneo Lupum: Holding a Wolf by its Ears”
The Israeli/Palestinian issue has to be one of the most brutal and intractable issues globally. My own perspective on it has evolved on it as well- I’d like to think in response to events on the ground.
When I started out becoming aware of this question and arguing about it online in the early aughts I felt pretty strongly pro-Israeli (and pro-Israeli Labor party) and viewed the Palestinian cause with a resigned despair. As events progressed, though, my view of the Palestinians have remained mostly unchanged but my opinion of the Israeli side has degraded to something similar, an exasperated despair.
I’d personally track it back to Sharon. When Sharon unilaterally withdrew from Gaza I was shocked but also intrigued. I’d never liked Sharon (my Jewish friends were lefties and Sharon had always struck me as a right-wing firebrand) but, in hindsight, I have come to realize that he was likely the last of the genuinely liberal right-wing Likudniks. What came after Sharon has greatly heightened my appreciation for the old General. If he had not been felled by that stroke and had, instead, prosecuted the withdrawal from the territories that he had been contemplating history would probably be a much brighter one now. Since Sharon the Likud has led the way in leading Israel into an increasingly corrupt and fundamentalist direction and I am genuinely concerned for its survival- not in terms of physical survival but in terms of its survival as a liberal, democratic state.
As for the outcomes? The answers really haven’t changed a lot:
>Moral Liberal Answer: Israel bites the bullet and annexes the West Bank (and maybe Gaza), gives the Palestinians voting rights and civil rights equal to any other Israeli and then endures a painful period of absorption as they “digest” this new large body of citizens into the polity. As for Palestinian refugees abroad? The Israelis say fish em.
Pros: It is (mostly) moral. It is possible. The Israelis have mostly succeeded in doing this before (with Israeli Arabs), in the long term this offers a plausible path to peace.
Cons: It is HARD. There would be a painful period of genuine violence as the revanchist elements of Palestinian and Israeli society try to scuttle the plan by attacking each other. The policing actions within Israel would be costly and painful and, yes, some Israeli’s (Jewish and Palestinian) would die from internal violence. The political will necessary to make this happen and to stick to the principles of unification would be astronomical and there’s a genuine demographic challenge but, so long as a right of return for Palestinian diaspora isn’t honored then the Israelis could potentially pull it off. It’s likely this is an “answer” to the problem that’s good enough to allow Israel to resolve relations with other Arab states.
>Moral Conservative Answer: Call it the Sharon solution. Israel withdraws from the territories. It annexes territory around major settlement blocks along the new border and around Jerusalem. Palestinians in those areas are offered citizenship or else financial compensation to move. Jewish settlers outside those defensible lines are dragged, forcibly, out of their settlements and are resettled back in Israel. The Israelis would maintain some military presence along the boundaries of this new independent Palestine with the understanding that when/if the Palestinians make peace with the Israelis then the military will withdraw.
Pros: It is (mostly) moral and the Israeli’s did this, mostly, with Gaza. They know they can do this and they know how. Legally speaking this is the simplest solution for the Israeli state apparatus and requires the least reform. It secures Israel and the demographic question is resolved. The Palestinian diaspora can move to the West Bank and would no longer be Israel’s direct headache. The Palestinians would have to start governing themselves in earnest and, hopefully, could eventually become a functional state. It’s likely this is an “answer” to the problem that’s good enough to allow Israel to resolve relations with other Arab states. In theory the Palestinians would eventually tire of pointless extremist raids that only result in some dead Israeli’s and a lot more destruction and death for Palestinians and, as this would in theory allow Israel to make peace with the Arab states, the Palestinians should eventually develop to a point where they don’t want to raid or shoot missiles at Israel.
Cons: The political will required to prosecute this plan would immense. Ever since Sharon put them on notice the Israeli right has been frantically trying to establish facts on the ground to make this option so politically costly as to be impossible. Withdrawing fully from the Territories would expose Israel to considerably more risk from raids and missile strikes and they’d have to be ready and willing to go in, “mow the grass” in retaliation and then (importantly) withdraw again.
Both these outcomes have the downsides of promising heightened casualties for a finite period of time but offer genuine hope that, in the long term, peace will settle on the region. The alternative of perpetual conflict status quos might have a lower year by year immediate casualty count but, when assumed out into the foreseeable future, has a higher body count.
There’s also the strategy the Israeli’s seem to be pursuing. Call it the nu-Likud strategy.
>Immoral Nu-Likud strategy: Increase settlements in the territories and grind the Palestinians down. Assume that right wing Israeli birth rates will allow the Israelis to outnumber the Palestinians and encourage lower fertility and emigration from the territories and also general abuse of Israeli Arabs. This also gives the Israeli-Likud right a steadily increasing base of fundamentalist voters to support a series of illiberal Likud governments that will continue to transform the Israeli state into a Jewish fundamentalist one. Think of this as a kind of ethnic cleansing in very slow motion.
Pros: It’s politically easy to work towards compared to the moral answers. The settler right loves this and it welds the right into a manageable electoral block. In the long run it offers a solution that is cheap and easy.
Cons: All this plan costs is Isael’s liberal soul. But the economic dynamism of the Israeli state lies on the left side of their political spectrum. The settlers and Jewish fundamentalists blocks are agrarian or, to put it starkly, welfare bums. At some point there’s a genuine risk that the economically productive part of the Israeli polity will decamp for a non-theocratic state and Israeli will become an Israeli Iran on the Levant.
Reading back over this I noted that these outcomes mostly rob the Palestinians of agency. I think that accurately reflects the reality that Israel is the overwhelmingly dominant actor and the Palestinians only options are perpetual low level violent resistance and implacable passive resistance. If I were a Palestinian the only sensible option I can see would be the peaceable option.
>Moral Palestinian option: Call it the Gandi option. Abbas gets turfed out of the Palestinian Authority and their new political leader eschews political violence and levels a threat to the Israelis: “Negotiate a withdrawal or else we will dissolve the Palestinian Authority and begin demonstrating against Israel’s “apartheid” behavior and demanding civil rights within Israel. This basically is demanding a Sharon++ strategy and threatening to force the moral liberal option if the Israeli’s refuse to play ball.
Pros: It’s moral. It would play spectacularly well with the developed world and with the liberal portion of the Israeli polity. It’d strike at the heart and core of the Nu-Likud strategy and genuinely threaten their grip on power. A negotiated withdrawal of Israel from the territories would mean the Palestinians could bargain for more land, possibly some accommodation in East Jerusalem and a lot of financial aid for the new Palestinian state from the world and Israel. It offers the fastest path to independence and prosperity for the Palestinians in the West Bank. Also, for what it’s worth, a leader who pursued this path would have international celebrity and, likely, a Noble Peace Prize in hand in short order.
Cons: Not only would such a strategy be facing a right-wing Israeli government that’d be spitting livid over it but it’d also face fury and outrage from the Palestinians. A leader charting this path would need to be a true persuader to try and get the masses to follow along and would remain at great peril of being murdered by fanatics from both the Israeli right and the Palestinian revanchists. The charisma and discipline required of this political movement would be immense.
But, realistically, that’s it. Alas, in my jaded middle age I fear that the only realistic path is going to be the Nu-Likud one and I shudder for Israel’s future if I’m right about that.
On “Israel and Ukraine and Political Correctness”
I don't know about that, the Second Intifada took place from 2000-2004 roughly which is the era of the blogosphere.
Though, on the other hand, the Second Intifada and its interaction with the new media paradigm and also with the fact that it blew up Oslo* was basically the point where both the Israeli pro-peace left and sympathy for the Palestinian cause internationally went into a severe decline. So you may still have a point that the new, more interconnected less gate-kept media paradigm is just not congenial to the Palestinian cause as it operationally functions currently.
*And, of course, it happened in a world under the shadow of 9/11.
On “Speaker Vacancy Stymies House Work”
Let's not. It'd only seem witty to those already in the tent.
On “Brief Aside On Cancel Culture”
I agree completely, Saul, the internet changed absolutely everything.
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I think Drezner puts his finger on how one should view most of these left wing indulgences.
https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/a-brief-note-regarding-the-public
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I have little to object to in your analysis here.
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Nuttery has a lot of definitions, my friend, but with the case of Israel its general unacceptability on the wider left is unambiguous and, that when they crossed the line, those nuts got smacked down is healthy if you ask me. Nuts from the other direction get coddled and elected to national office.
But nuttery in general shouldn't be widely smacked down because a lot of it may be wrong headed or impractical but it isn't necessarily abhorrent wrong.
"
The megaphone, in this case just to be clear, is a phone that connects to a twitter account for an assortment of student associations or, in the largest case, the DSA? Yes?
I mean, they mostly just have only a phone already, and a bunch of credulous (on the center) or desperate (on the right) media amplifiers.
"
All well and good. I think the retractions are a healthy sign and generally a positive development.
I'd like to refer, also, to an excellent post on the other blog that is pertinent to the subject:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/10/the-myth-of-the-american-left
To wit: the "left" we are talking about doing and expressing these sentiments is a tiny, marginalized fringe of the actual operational left in this country.
That contrasts starkly with the other side where the deranged statements and nuttiness is literally coming from the GOP's most recent elected President, the rights' most likely future Presidential nominee and many many political actors who are currently members in good standing of the GOP.
On “Can RFK Jr Actually Help Joe Biden?”
He has my sympathy for that- it'll still be a huge handicap.
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Depending on where he seems to be pulling support from the right might stealth fund his campaign.
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I've heard him speak. If you thought DeSantis was bad, hoo boy!
It feels like whistling past the graveyard to dismiss Kennedy but how would he even get on the ballot as an independant?
In similar news, Cornel West isn't running as a Green anymore. When you're too much of a self important spoiler for even the Green Party that's new heights.
On “Israel and Ukraine and Political Correctness”
I'd personally consider "going into Gaza" to be both ranged bombardment and physical invasion.
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The other shoe will drop if/when the Israelis go into Gaza.
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Well, to be fair to them, everyone at the vegan socialist cooperative cafeteria they go to agrees with them.
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In the short term I have no doubt but none of the underlying issues are going to evaporate.
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True and, frankly, with regards to the mountains of old cluster munitions we sent over there it probably saved us money having the Ukrainians shoot it off than what it'd cost to dispose of it at home. Even before we factor in the Russian assets blown to fish the US probably turned a profit handing that stuff over to Ukraine.
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I wouldn't say that #3 is being erased by Hamas, but people are being reminded how bad the actors on the Palestinian side are . That doesn't undo #3- instead it makes disengagement from the whole affair and "to hell with them both" attitudes more likely.
On “From CNN: Israel says it is ‘at war’ after Hamas surprise attack”
This is a good point DD and core to the dilemma on the Palestinian side. Hamas wants to kill israelis no matter the consequences, the Israelis want to defend Israelis and will accept dead Palestinians if that's what it costs to defend Israelis. The Palestinians don't really have an organized group who's primary goal is to defend and advance Palestinian interests- just ones who's goal is to kill Israelis. There is the PA but their goal is more to simply suck up money and stay in power, nothing more.
"
That Kos article was very good. What it boils down to is that the Israeli's priority is protecting Israelis and if Palestinians get hurt as they try and do that (and many do because the Israelis somewhat desultorily try not to cause excessive collateral damage but it's a profoundly second order goal), so be it. Hamas' priority is hurting Israel and Israelis and if Palestinians get hurt as a consequence of that, so be it.
"
Sure, sure, sure but there is, what, one Gaza desk in the CIA? One in the various other agencies as well? Monitoring the Palestinians is virtually the sine qua non of the Israelis parallel organizations. There's simply no comparison.
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Good, though unfortunately what happens next will hinge on what Bibi's administration does.
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Mmm didn't Saudi Arabia also voice support for Hamas? That's the whole ballgame as to why Hamas (and their sponsors) launched this attack. It'll be terrible for the Palestinians, but since when has Hamas ever given a fig about the Palestinians? If it scuttles the Israeli/Saudi raproachment it'll have accomplished its goal and I don't see how it doesn't.
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I agree emotionally and intellectually but for that posture to be adopted by Israelis broadly there needs to be something way more specific. The IDF and intelligence services need to be able to say "We warned the PM something specific was brewing in Gaza SOON and he ignored us" or else I fear Bibi may be able to shunt the blame onto his enemies in the State services.
"
Anyone outside Israeli intelligence could expect more of just a "hmm that's annoying/interesting" stance towards this. Within Israel though we're talking about something that is existential and central to the purpose of those organizations. If the Mossad didn't know, then heads should roll in the Mossad like they have never rolled before and if the Mossad did know, warned the politicians and got ignored then heads should roll among the politicians like they never have rolled before.