The Choice for Israel – Civil war for peace or the end of Zionism?
When Peres made that statement to me there were only about 70,000 illegal Jewish settlers in residence on the occupied West Bank. Today, including occupied Arab East Jerusalem, that number is 500,000 and rising on a daily basis. (In recent days Netanyahu has assured the settlers that when the temporary freeze ends, it will be back to building and continuing colonization as usual).
If Peres was right in his logic, it’s more than reasonable to assume that there is today no prospect of any Israeli leader taking on the settlers. But is the situation really as bleak as that?
There are some Israeli commentators who think it isn’t. They have suggested that in the event of prospects for a real peace, many of the settlers would agree to quit the West Bank and be re-located in exchange for generous financial compensation. My own guess is that half their present number and perhaps even more would. But that would still leave a very significant number of armed bigots, some of them in my view deluded to the point of clinical madness, who would fight to the death.
As I write, I am reminded of what Eygpt’s President Sadat said to me a few months before he was assassinated. “There will have to be a Jewish civil war before there can be peace.”
My own conclusion is that any Israeli leader even thinking about taking on the settlers, and probably triggering a Jewish civil war, would need to be empowered by a referendum in which all Israelis were asked one question: In exchange for a real and lasting peace with the Arab and wider Muslim world, are you in favour of Israel withdrawing to its borders as they were on 4 June 1967, with Jerusalem an open, undivided city and the capital of two states?”
If a majority of Israelis answered “Yes”, the leader could take on the settlers.
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syed mehdi hasan ashraf:
December 6th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Provided the contents of peace formula is well explained showing clear picture of what is at stake & what benifits to achieve then i do not think removing settlers would be difficult.
A yes in referendum will defenitely give suport for any action taken against the setlers to the politicians but will not help in mind making of setllers in leaving the sttlement.A substantial monetary incentive coupled with benefits of peace with neighbours could do the trick for achieving peaceful removal of settelers.
Joyce Carmichael:
December 6th, 2009 at 9:36 am
On my frequent trips to visit my family in Texas I am alwsys pleased to pass a sign at the roadside reading ‘Give Aid to Gaza Here.’ My daughter tells me that there is a mighty rise in people actively interested in the Palestine/Israel problem since the Gaza massacre nearly two years ago. Much education has been delivered and assimilated and all of this in the most staid and conserfvative state in America. Very hearetening.
Mary:
December 6th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Israel deliberately allowed the settlements in the West Bank to flourish, knowing full well that they are illegal. It also knew that these settlements would eventually destroy any chance of a two-state solution. Netanyahu has agreed to a temporary “moratorium” on building more of these illegal encroachments on Palestinian land, but has declared openly that the theft will continue full swing once the freeze ends.
The Israeli public seems to have been conspicuously silent on this whole issue. Maybe because so many of them have finally caught on to Netanyahu’s agenda and are endorsing it. I can only hope that there would be enough dissent within the populace to make civil war a realistic possibility. The more likely scenario would be to push the Palestinians into a Third Intifada, which would mean that for Netanyahu, all bets are off.
I see that Israel is apoplectic over the probability of the UN dividing Jerusalem between them and the Palestinians. This cheers me up a bit.
gerald spezio:
December 6th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Alan, I think that the Zionist Israeli lawyering/distortion connection is well worth our focus & exploitation.
Israeli has more lawyers per capita than any other place on the planet; but is the most illegal tribe to ever inhabit the planet.
The U.S. has more lawyers than any other place on the planet.
The U.S. Senate is has been bought by Israel – it is composed of 62% lawyers.
Very little is ever made of this glaring paradox – most lawyers; least LAW
HART: The Choice for Israel – Civil war for peace or the end of Zionism?:
December 6th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
[...] by Alan Hart - 5 December 2009 [...]
Max:
December 10th, 2009 at 3:51 am
Alan,
The two scenarios you are describing (civil war for peace & end of Zionism), seem to me some forms of justice for Palestinians.
My fear is that something much worse is waiting to happen to Palestinians.
Lets imagine we are in year 2109. What if the situation in Palestine by then is like this:
Due to decades of Israeli settlement activities, and land grabbing, the space Palestinians are allowed, have had shrunk to some refugee camps and because of malnutrition and lack of medication, their population has been almost extinct. And the very few reminders of them are allowed to live in Israel, because they are too few to pose any threat to the Jewish state. Exactly what happened to native Americans.
By 2109 people around the world including Israelis will say, something really bad happened to Palestinians, but its already part of history and nobody can do anything about it. Exactly the way today nobody is asking Americans to go back to Europe and UK, and give the land back to native Americans. Its history, isn’t it?
I think this is what Israel is doing: prolong the struggle and make it impossible for justice to happen.
Max:
December 10th, 2009 at 3:53 am
Alan,
What makes you this optimistic?