I wish you all, the parents and the entire tribe of settlers... restorers of the
Jewish settlement in Hebron... great blessing and joy in raising your son.
Bringing your son into the covenant of the Patriarch Abraham, in the city of
Abraham after 40 years separation from it, has a special symbolic significance.
It bears testimony to our continuous connection to this place, to which we have
returned never to leave.
– Yigal Allon, January 29, 1969
These sentiments, conveyed in a congratulatory letter from the Labor Party’s
iconic moderate, to a family in Kiryat Arba, the Jewish neighborhood adjacent to
Hebron, on the occasion of the first brit ceremony in the community, underscores
how decoupled from historical fact and political context the discourse on the
Palestinian issue has become.
Allon, who commanded the Palmah in the War
of Independence, served as deputy prime minister, education minister and foreign
minister under Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin.
He was arguably the first
mainstream politician to explicitly propose making far-reaching territorial
concessions in Judea and Samaria, in what came to be known as the Allon Plan.
Yet even he, the archetypical “pragmatic” secular Zionist, understood the
profound significance of Hebron for the Jewish people, its heritage and its
nationhood.
Relativity of ‘radicalism’
It is instructive to keep this in
mind when assessing last week’s debate between Peter Beinart and Daniel Gordis
at Columbia University, sparked by the publication of Beinart’s book The Crisis
of Zionism.
In the opening minutes of his address, Beinart berated the
government for assisting in the construction of a cultural center in Kiryat
Arba, which he dubbed “one of the most radical and remote settlements in the
West Bank.”
Radical? But wasn’t it endorsed by a revered Labor leader,
the author of the policy of “territorial concessions,” as a “place to which we
have returned never to leave”?
Indeed, wasn’t it David Ben- Gurion who in 1970
declared, “We will make a great and awful mistake if we fail to settle Hebron,
neighbor and predecessor of Jerusalem, with a large Jewish settlement,
constantly growing and expanding, very soon.”?
So what makes Kiryat Arba
“radical” – established as it was in the era of Labor-hegemony, years before a
Likud-led government was conceivable, in an era when Zionism was presumably
still true to its liberal-humanistic principles, allegedly so dear to Beinart’s
heart?
Moreover, what makes it “remote”– barely 24 km. from the Malha shopping
mall in Jerusalem, roughly the same distance from London’s Whitechapel to
Heathrow Airport – and considerably less than the distance from the US Capitol
to Dulles International Airport in Washington? How “remote” is that?
Contextual
lacunae and factual lapses
Nowhere could the unfortunate audience get the sense
that “radical, remote” Kiryat Arba was created under the Labor Party, and
situated so close to Israel’s capital that both could easily fit within the
confines of many Western cities. Nowhere could they get the sense that the
development of the Jewish presence in Hebron was not some deranged initiative of
renegade right-wing religious radicals, but a reflection of the vision of the
founders of state – even those who embraced the “land-for-peace”
formula.
It is thus a great pity that Gordis did not seize the
opportunity to rectify this – along with many other contextual lacunae and
factual lapses in Beinart’s presentation. After all, as one of participants
remarked, she came because “as a Jew invested in Israel, I thought it’d be an
opportunity to educate myself.”
And there was much need to “educate” the
attendees in light of Beinart’s cavalier attitude toward the truth – with regard
to both what he said and what he didn’t.
For it was not only the cultural
center in Kiryat Arba that irked him. He also berated “this government” for
supporting the cultural center in Ariel – a city of almost 20,000 residents and
a University Center with a student population of 13,000.
For some reason,
Beinart avoided mentioning (perhaps out of ignorance, perhaps not) that the
establishment of Ariel was approved by none other than Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Shimon Peres while serving as defense minister under Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Yitzhak Rabin, who never dreamed it would not remain under Israeli
control in any future agreement.
Settlements: Sources and sponsors
Listening to Beinart one would never guess that settlements were a mainstream
initiative, launched long before any “insidious” Likud government could hijack
Zionism and distort its noble liberal principles, enshrined in Israel’s
declaration of Independence that he is so wont to refer to (more on that
later).
I am certain that many in the Columbia crowd would have been
astounded to learn that the real sponsor of the settlement project was not some
wild-eyed, bearded rabbi or a shrill settler extremist, but none other than
Shimon Peres himself. I am sure they would be astonished (as Beinart himself
might be) to discover that Peres authored a book in which he prescribed the need
to “create a continuous stretch of new settlements; to bolster Jerusalem and the
surrounding hills, from the north, from the east, and from the south and from
the west, by means of the establishment of townships, suburbs and villages –
Ma’aleh Adumin, Ofra, Gilo, Beit El, Givon, to ensure that the capital and its
flanks are secured, and underpinned by urban and rural
settlements.”
Peres elaborated: “These settlements will be connected to
the Coastal Plain and Jordan Valley by new lateral axis roads; the settlements
along the Jordan River are intended to establish the Jordan River as [Israel’s]
de facto security border; however it is the settlements on the western slopes of
the hills of Samaria and Judea which will deliver us from the curse of Israel’s
‘narrow waist.’” (Compare and contrast Peres’s use of the term “Judea and
Samaria” with Beinart’s recently proposed “undemocratic Israel.”)
‘Zionism’
devoid of Zionist antecedents
Note that this policy prescription was articulated
a decade before the “ominous specter” of Avigdor Liberman, the “illiberal”
Russian immigrants or messianic Orthodox zealots – Beinart’s pet villains –
appeared on the political scene as a force of any significance, to sully the
theory and practice of Zionism.
One can only wonder what real antecedents
Beinart can invoke for the brand of cuddly Kumbaya Zionism he professes to
embrace, and whose alleged abandonment has led to the growing alienation of
young American Jewry. Certainly up until the end of the previous century, no
Israeli leader of significance embraced it.
It would have been an
anathema even to post-Oslo Yitzhak Rabin, who in his last address to the
Knesset, in October 1995, advocated a permanent settlement with the Palestinians
in which Israel’s frontiers “will include the addition of Gush Etzion, Efrat,
Betar and other communities east of what was the “Green Line... and [t]he
establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria like the one in Gush
Katif.” (Again, note the terminology.)
Is Beinart lamenting the loss of a
long-loved ideology or inventing (read “fabricating”) a new, antithetical and
unattainable ideal, which never existed in the past and can never exist in the
future? Again, sadly, the contextual history of the settlement enterprise was
not conveyed to the audience who were left largely uneducated on this
score.
Misinformed or misleading?
As in Beinart’s previous writings and
appearances, so his address on this occasion was replete with distortions,
half-truths and blatant untruths too numerous to refute in a single opinion
column – even a lengthy one. But here are some of the more blatant.
In an
attempt to portray the settlers as avaricious and self-seeking, Beinart alleges
that “this government is essentially paying Israelis to move across the Green
Line,” claiming it “has reversed its predecessor and made significant chunks of
the West Bank a national priority zone eligible for a host of
subsidies.”
I guess he must have missed the headlines earlier this year
proclaiming that the settlements had been removed from the “national priority”
category.
Thus under the heading, “Gov’t to withhold aid from
settlements” (February 2), Attila Somfalvi, political correspondent of Ynet,
wrote: “The government has decided to exclude 70 West Bank settlements from the
list of national priority areas,” adding: “Government sources estimate that
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was concerned that including the settlements
in the list will hurt the latest efforts to restart the peace talks with the
Palestinians.”
That certainly puts a different spin on things, and
suggests that care should be exercised before taking Beinart’s words at face
value.
While it is true that some questions regarding government aid for
settlements in Judea and Samaria remain, the picture that emerged from the
research I conducted for this article is that – in practice – virtually no
government incentives are available to anyone wishing to “move across the Green
Line.” (I use the term “virtually” so as to err on the side of caution, as I am
not aware on any such incentives. Perhaps Beinart could enlighten me.)
Enmity
not ethnicity
Much of Beinart’s chagrin is directed toward Israel’s policy in
Judea and Samaria which applies different administrative/legal systems to
Israeli citizens and to non-Israeli Palestinian residents. For Beinart,
this constitutes a “flagrant violation” of the pledge enshrined in Israel’s
Declaration of Independence to “ensure complete equality of social and political
rights... irrespective of religion, race or sex.”
One wonders if it is
really necessary to explain to a professor of political science (as Beinart is)
that the Declaration of Independence applies to a limited segment of humanity –
Israeli citizens – not to the entire population of the world.
It is
certainly not applicable to hostile aliens – at least potentially – of whom well
over 90 percent support organizations (either Fatah or Hamas) whose founding
documents call for the eradication of Israel.
To suggest, as does
Beinart, that Israeli policy toward the Palestinians is based on considerations
of ethnic identity reflects either ignorance or ill-will, and is robustly
refuted by Israel’s treatment of its citizens of other non-Jewish ethnic origin,
who indeed enjoy “social and political rights... irrespective of religion, race
or sex.”
Any fair-minded assessment clearly shows that it is not
Palestinian ethnicity but Palestinian enmity that lies at the root of the
application of different administrative systems. Moreover, it is not this policy
of differentiation that reflects racism but the demands for its
abolition.
For these demands embody an inherent – but unequivocal –
negation of the Jews’ right to self-defense, an assumption that Jews can be
assailed with impunity – and the expectation that Jews should die meekly. That
is the real racism – a racism with which Beinart appears inextricably
complicit.
Not a suicide pact
Since Beinart appears far more concerned
with Palestinian suffrage than Israeli security he should remember that “West
Bank” Palestinians are stateless not because of Israel, but because they were
unilaterally – and apparently illegally – stripped of their Jordanian
citizenship.
As one prominent Palestinian legal expert put it: “More than
1.5 million Palestinians went to bed on 31 July 1988 as Jordanian citizens, and
woke up on 1 August 1988 as stateless persons.”
Perhaps before
recommending reckless abandon as a template for Israeli policy, Beinart would do
well to refer to the wisdom expounded by some of the Supreme Court justices in
his own country. For example, he might heed the words of the chief US prosecutor
at the Nuremberg Trials, justice Robert Jackson, who cautioned that if one “does
not temper [one’s] doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, [one] will
convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.”
He might
do well to peruse the opinion of justice Arthur Goldberg, who observed that
“while the Constitution protects against invasions of individual rights, it is
not a suicide pact.”
Finally, Beinart might refer to the prudent
sentiments of Thomas Jefferson, who pointed out that “strict observance of the
written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not
the highest.... To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written
law, would be to lose the law itself, thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the
means.”
Beinart should apply all this to the situation in which Israel
finds itself. Perhaps this will generate the realization that just as the US
Constitution is not a suicide pact, neither is the Israeli Declaration of
Independence.
Brandishing bulldozers
I could go on disputing and refuting
virtually every one of the points raised by Beinart in his debate with Gordis.
Almost without exception they were demonstrably based on false assumptions or
misrepresentations, omissions or exaggerations, half-truths or even
untruths.
His sources were almost invariably some failed politician
clinging forlornly to a discredited doctrine, embittered ex-civil servants or
blatantly biased political organizations.
Yet for some reason, Gordis,
who recently penned a rather telling riposte of Beinart’s book in this paper,
chose to be largely non-confrontational and to avoid assertively challenging
either the credibility of Beinart’s sources or the cogency of his
arguments.
Although he began making an excellent opening point – that
essentially there is “nothing Israel can do to end the conflict – not even land
for peace” – he ended up severely undermining his case, declaring that he had no
real disagreement with Beinart on most issues and that basically they shared the
same vision for Israel – even if they differed on how to attain
it. Acknowledging a priori that your adversary’s case is essentially
valid is not a recommended strategy for winning arguments.
Perhaps most
disturbing was his reassuring Beinart he too had many reservations about the
settlements and that “many are going to have to get bulldozed.”
“We have
shown in Gaza,” continued Gordis, trying to convince Beinart that settlements
are not a real obstacle to a viable Palestinian state, “that we know how
bulldoze when we need to bulldoze.”
That is not the lesson of the 2005
Gaza disengagement. The real lesson is that even if we do bulldoze, it is of no
avail.
It is pity that Gordis chose not drive this home.
Idiot or
enemy?
Whichever way you slice it, Peter Beinart is complicit in promoting the
dangerous hoax of Palestinian statehood, and in a manner highly detrimental to
Israel.
There are only two possible explanations for his actions: He is
either sincere or he is not.
If he is sincere, he is merely a “useful
idiot,” and he should be treated as such. If he is not, then he is engaging in
activities that are intentionally detrimental to Israel. He is, therefore, an
enemy – and should be treated as such.
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