One reason as to why the Israeli Palestinian conflict has not been resolved, and nine irrelevant ones

Commentary on Bradly Burston’s Opinion piece from Ha’aertz of June 20^th 2018.

There is only one reason why the Israeli – Palestinian conflict hasn't been resolved in nearly 100 years; and one reason alone. The constant rejection of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state by the Palestinian leadership, historic and current. From the rejection of the first partition plan in 1937; Until the refusals of Mahmood Abbas's to even enter the negotiation room and talk with Benjamin Netanyahu. And this is during and under the auspices of the Obama administration, the most anti settlements president in US history.

None of this is new. And a lot of excuses were made for Abbas's conduct. The problem with those arguments is that they only prove the opposite. If Mahmmod Abbas was truly bothered by Israeli policies such as settlements, checkpoints, security barrier, etc., he should have entered that room and tried to get an agreement that among other things would have ended those policies. With both the US administration and the world public opinion lining to his side, even a failure would have worked for his advantage. Instead, he walked away, not allowing the talks to even begin.

This is a simple and obvious fact. But to the political Left, including the Zionist one this is more than an inconvenient truth. It is an identity crisis, one that has not been resolved since October 2000.

One example is Bradly Burston confused opinion piece in Ha’aertz of June 20^th 2018. There he names nine other reasons for the protraction of the conflict. Those reasons get the title 'both sides suck' suggesting equal share of the blame. The problem with those reasons is that they are not nine, and they are all not relevant to the inability to resolve the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The equivalence they suggest is an absurd, and morally problematic.

Reasons 1, 4, and 5, are different expression of the same thing, street rhetoric. Reason 1 refers to the content of that rhetoric, 4 to the tools of expression, and 5 is a suppose profile of those that spread this language. To be clear, street rhetoric is indeed counterproductive. When political leaders use it, it is known as demagogy. It is then that it is harmful enough to prevent a resolution of a conflict. But this is not what Bradly Burston is talking about in those three reasons. He is talking about nameless and faceless individuals. These are the folks that make up that street. And they can do and they do inflict a lot of harm. The most painful examples are the assassinations of Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin. But even after those horrific tragedies, the peace process continued. Mubarak Kept the Camp David accords, and Netanyahu, the Oslo accords. He even evicted the greater part of Hebron. Both did it reluctantly, but they did it. And yes, Netanyahu has used demagogy in more than one occasion. And it was foolish and nasty for no reason. But he did not use it against Gaza. He used it internally, once against Israeli Arabs, and a few times against the Israeli left.

Bradly Burston also gets the street mostly wrong. Accusing Israel of been a Nazi does not come from Hamas. Hamas, like the PA, advances the story that Jews are related to apes and pigs. Hamas, like the PA, indoctrinate children to welcome the day when all Jews are gone from the land of Israel. And both see those that do murderous violence in the service of that cause as heroes and patriots. And when they die in the process they are martyrs, 'shahids'; in the eyes of both PA and Hamas. Accusing the Israeli side of Nazism, or Nazi like activity comes mostly from the European left, and the American left. The Palestinian side does find it useful, but they have other messages for their people.

Yes, there is a "who was here first debate?" but god is not the authority on both sides, facts are. Those on the Israeli side point to the archaeological record. Those at the Palestinian side point to a mixture of real facts and appropriated facts. Their real facts are the cultural and commercial lives Arabs had in the land of Israel prior to 1948. These cultural and commercial lives did not stop with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. And they did not stop with the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The appropriated facts include the soccer match between the all Jewish, Zionist soccer team of Maccabi Palestine vs Australia in 1939, introduced as the evidence for the existence of an Arab Palestinian state prior to 1948.

The problem with Bradly Burstun's analysis is not only that he gets the street wrong, or mostly wrong. The street talk is not the cause of the perpetuation of the conflict. It is another symptom of that cause, bigotry. Historically it did not stop the peace process, not with Egypt, not with Jordan, and not even with the Palestinians. Only the actions of the leaders had an impact on it. And they have the power to choose if to make street language a tool of policy or not.  

Another thing Bradly Burstun gets wrong is social media. Bradly Burstun set out in his piece to explain why this nearly 100 years long conflict has no end in sight. The problem is that social media, like Bibi Netanyahu, and Donald Trump did not exist 100 years ago, neither did Hamas for that matter. As for the current role of social media, the idea that armchair keyboard activists from long distance are contributing to the deadlock is so 2009. We are in the era of Russian hacking, fake profiles, and uncontrolled data mining. Within the context of this conflict, in this present day of age, late 2018, social media has two demonstrated roles. One, is as another venue of expression of street rhetoric, there it has the same effect as it had with previous tools of expression. It does a lot of harm on occasions, but not enough to derail the resolution of the conflict. The other function is as a part of a recruitment mechanism for terrorist organizations and/or the encouragement of "lone wolfs" to conduct terrorist activities. Best examples are the Jewish terrorist attacks against Israeli Arabs and Palestinian civilians that came under the banner of 'tag mehir,' price tag. These attacks picked with the mass murder of most of the members of a Palestinian family in the village of Duma on July 31^st, 2015.  There is also the so called 'knifes intifada' of Palestinian teenagers targeting mostly Israeli civilians on both sides of the green line. This intifada gave us a 13 years old stabber, the killing of a pregnant woman in front of her children, killing a teenage girl in her bed, and the killing of an entire family in Halamish on July 21^st 2017. And the more recent tragedies, at Gush Etzion, and Barakan, and those that followed, from both sides; show us that this phenomena has not stopped. And the final example, Daesh, (ISIS); they used social media to recruit people into their organization, and to inspire "lone wolfs'" attacks across Europe and North America.

Bradly Burston demonstrate a strange and surprising lack of the concept of time. He shows a lack of understating of both history and the present day. That makes his argument irrelevant in the most fundamental way. And it does not stop there.

In reason 6 Bradly blames the corruption of both sides. First corruption is not an impediment to peace, or to sound judgment in managing a conflict. Sa'adat was corrupt, Begin was no saint, and King Hussain of Jordan was no role model in the eyes of human rights organizations. And if I have to detail their contribution to the peace process to Bradly Burston, ot to anyone else, then this whole response is a waste of time.

Second, comparing Netanyahu to Hamas is a false parallel. No one in the Gaza strip is investigating Hamas for their corruption. And the corruption Bibi is suspected of is not ripping off the country's infrastructure. Hamas's rule in the Gaza strip most certainly does that. In the first part of his article Bradly Burston describes the ecological disaster the Gaza Strip had become. The main cause of it is the loss of the water aquifer beneath the Gaza Strip. The facts show that Hamas is the only one responsible for this situation. Instead, Bradly Burston alludes to a shared blame with the Netanyahu government. There is no shared blame here. If Israel had attacked the water infrastructure of the Gaza Strip none of its residents would have been able to use it to pump the water out of the aquifer. Because Israel and the IDF remain true to their high moral and ethical standards; that infrastructure remained mostly intact. And that is despite recurring hostilities. This allowed Hamas to manage the use of water as they saw fit. In this case, allowing the residents to pump dry the aquifer. Now it is salinized with sea water and contaminated with sewage that permeated into the empty aquifer. And yes, Israel is under an ecological threat because of that. And no, no one saw this coming. Even the biggest critics and opponents of the disengagement from Gaza did not predict that Hamas will be this criminal in its negligence of its most basic civilian responsibilities. And since they are capable of this level of indifference to the needs of their civilian population, one that had turn most of the Strip into an open sewage dump, be certain that they are capable of lesser monstrosities. Those monstrosities been the confiscation of material sent to the Gaza Strip for civilian purposes and using it for military ones. The best example is the concrete used by Hamas for their attack tunnels.     

Bradly Burston's false parallels are bewildering. He makes a comparison between Hamas' encouragement of the use incendiary kites and balloons against Israelis, with Netanyahu discussing the future of TV broadcasting in Israel. This is like comparing acid with milk; albeit not a very tasty milk. TV broadcasting is not a violent activity that causes a massive destruction of property. Not to mention that there is nothing unusual for heads of states in times of conflict to find time for civilian matters.

Reason 6, along with reasons 2, 7, 8, and 9, are a part of his Netanyahu reasons. For obvious reasons he is getting the greater share of the blame. Reasons 2 and 7 are also the same thing, hardline political stand. Is talking tough an impediment to peace or a necessary tool in negotiations between arch enemies? That is open to debate. Negotiating with Hamas has its unique problems. First most of the negotiations that do take place are wartime negotiations. In wartime, enemies on both sides, no matter how bitter, negotiate prisoners' exchange, cessations of violence, arms control, and the welfare of civilians affected by the conflict. In the mad realities of war, any war, this is normal and not unusual. And so is talking though.

And this is war. There are frustrations. And there is a lot of pain, a lot of bitterness, a lot of anger. But Hamas is not just talking though. They are giving orders to do harm.  One good example that was caught on tape: Yikhya Sinuar, head of Hamas' military wing, encouraging the people around him, to attack the border fence and take out the hearts of the people they meet on the other side. Israeli politicians do talk tough on occasions, sometimes as deterrence, sometime as a talk to their base, but never as orders to the troops on the ground.  We do not have to like any of these talks. As a matter of fact it is a good thing that we don't. But when we lose the distinction between the two different examples we lose our moral clarity. And a lack of moral clarity is a key characteristic of Bradly Burston's piece.

Reasons 8 and 9 are also the same thing, both sides are out of control. Israel, because the UN opposes its policies and president Trump support those policies. And Hamas is out of control because the UN takes there side, and Trump takes Israel's side. First, Hamas does not need the UN, Trump, or anyone else to relive them from their constraints. They do not believe in constraints. And they have a charter and an ideology that justifies all forms of violence. Second, Netanyahu does not need to show that the UN is hostile to Israel. The UN has been doing it on its own long before Bibi's political career had begun. Do you remember David Ben Gurion Um Shmum remarks?

Third, what constraints has Israel released itself from? It took the IDF several weeks before it begun to respond to the arsonists sending incendiary kites and balloons into Israel. Those are legitimate military targets, using a tool of war used continuously since ancient times, fire. And they use it to attack Israelis by torching their properties. Yet Israel avoided harming these arsonists, for nearly a month.

Even the image of the IDF troops firing live ammunition at unarmed protesters, does not verify his claim that Israel is out of control. This is from the simple fact that it is not true. During June and July 2018 there were a lot of protesters near the border fence, in the tens of thousands of them, day after day. They were overwhelmingly unharmed. Those that were harmed by Israeli live ammunition were engaged in an activity distinctively different than protest. They were attacking the border fence. This fence serves as an obstacle, preventing terrorists from infiltrating Israel, and attacking and murdering its civilians. Hamas’ intentions and commitment to murder Israelis is an undisputed fact. We all saw that the spates of suicide bombings that took place in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. We saw it in the rockets raining down on the Israeli communities in vicinity of the Gaza Strip. And we see it in the incendiary kites and balloons send repeatedly into Israel, by these “protestors.” The only difference between those methods is their success rate. Israeli defenses along the Gaza Strip make sure that success will be kept at a very poor level. Without that fence, and its protectors that success rate will increase. And it does not matter by how much. The duty of the Israeli army is to defend the lives of Israelis and in these cases that duty demands the defense of that fence; even if it is attacked by an unarmed horde. But it was not attacked by an unarmed horde. It was repeatedly attacked by organized groups, armed with rocks, Molotov cocktails, demolishing devices intended to remove the fence, and occasionally firearms, and those assisting them. (That is as of June 2018, since then thing got a lot worse in the firearms department). And the IDF repelled most of them by using teargas. Only when there was a danger to the fence live ammunition was used, selectively, by snipers. First to wound, and later to kill, when the breach was inevitable. We already know that most of the dead were members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. None of them wore a badge that identified the organizations they belonged to. They were killed by Israeli snipers because they were engaged in activities that threaten the fence and the Israeli civilians living behind it. Those are the kind of activities that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have committed themselves to. It is therefore not surprising that most dead were man, and most of them were members of known terrorist organizations. Those that were killed and those that were wounded were hurt in the same circumstances. Therefore the idea that the wounded are of a different category does not make sense. Since the whole world believes in this irrational perception, debunking it requires another article. One that will be published alongside this one.

The moral crisis of the American immigration policies of 2018.

A critical review of all of us.

Immigration, by its very nature is always at a state of moral crisis. Especially when it is mass migration. The need to leave one’s home, usually not by choice; and the difficulties of absorption, of adjusting to new places, with new rules and customs; this is not an easy experience. This never-ending pressure of cultural shock, and cultural differences, aggravates the difficult choices the immigrants must make, in order to survive. Those of us that have not gone through such an experience must be grateful for these choices that we don't have to face.

But we must also take into consideration the impact of mass migration on the absorbing countries. These are not the kind to be dismissed. When mass migration centered in specific regions within a country, these places are transformed into alien looking territories for the local population. Feeling alien in places one once felt at home is an unsettling and stressful experience for many. It is fascinating only to a few. Such a stress does not justify hatred and bigotry, and definitely not the violent manifestation of such ideologies and emotions. But it is also not justified to treat it with contempt by those fascinated by the newly available cultural experiences. [And no absolutely no. When reality changes like this and new cultures get expressed in huge volumes, it is not genocide of any previous culture, and it is not occupation].

Adding to that is the impact on the economy. Immigrants of mass migration are usually a cheaper work force. This is a work force that will take jobs the local work force won't go near. For the same reasons they are also willing to work for less in jobs the local labor force already occupies. Their desperation is understood and deserves more than sympathy and empathy. And so does the situation the local workers had found themselves in. They now have to compromise on their working conditions, conditions that took generations to improve. In the short run it is a choice between dumping the immigrants and dumping capitalism.  This is why stress is the more common experience among the local population, including the political echelons. The fruits of immigration are historical facts in most cases, but that is in the long run. When mass migration takes place they are far from certain. During that time the future is largely a frightening unknown to all those caught in it. While the immigrants chose that unknown; the veteran inhabitants did not. Such anxieties test the moral fiber of both sides, and compromise is often the rule everybody eventually practices.

But there is compromise, and there is a complete dismissal of any moral guidelines. Sadly, the story of the American policy of zero tolerance toward undocumented migrants belongs in the latter category. Nothing demonstrates that better than the wide scale separation of children from their families. These are families of undocumented migrants that entered the USA illegally. And the apologetic furry of some rightwing American activists only shows that they fully acknowledge that. But their arguments were not very effective. They tried to shift the blame to the Obama administration, by pointing out that it was practiced earlier by his administration. In the process they omitted the fact that it was in a much smaller scale. Their second accusation, that the Obama administration also released adults with children into the general population only serves to contradict their main accusation because it is the exact opposite action. This is not just a question of what is therefore the wrong policy. Is it the policy of letting-in all the families that have entered illegally that is wrong, or is throwing them all out wrong? The Obama administration is not above criticism. This was the administration of rhetoric in the face of crisis and challenges. When actions were needed and difficulties arose, rhetoric usually led their withdrawal from any action or decision. That is how the Obama administration handled a lot of issues. This is not one of them. For started there was not a lot of talk on this issue by him, not beyond what was necessary. Second, mass migration is a global phenomenon. It is not unique to a single country or continent. In my personal opinion, solving the problems related to it is more difficult than solving the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and I will elaborate later. Third, this flip-flopping allegation only serves to show that the Obama administration did try to solve this matter. And that is a point of credit, even if they failed. Forth, by pointing out that this practice has early history, all they show is that both sides in the debate had time to address the problem of families’ separation; but didn’t. And no, this does not mean that there is plenty of blame to go around. It is the American right that made immigration a cardinal issue. If they cared, they should have addressed this sooner. The fact is that they did not. This is because the original Miller – Sessions – Bannon line was ok with this practice. "The morality isn't the law. They are criminals when they come across" Bannon told ABC. In doing so they refuted that apologetic fury, before it even began. Their rational, zero tolerance against illegal immigration is where the problem lies.

Zero tolerance against illegal immigration groups these migrants with ordinary criminals and that is inherently unjust. Real criminals not only break the law repeatedly. They also hurt others with the full intention of doing so. Illegal immigrants break only one law; the border they illegally crossed. Such an act is indeed a violation of a nation’s sovereignty. And any nation or state has the right to protect its sovereignty against this violation, even by deportation. But no policy maker can ignore the fact that this is not done in order to deliberately harm the locals. Like the legal immigrants, they are trying to improve their lives, not to harm others. And when faced with difficult hardship in the new country, only a minority will turn to the life of crime.

Steve Bannon at ABC, June 2018 

Acknowledging that does not mean that a policy of sweeping amnesty or relaxation of enforcement should be adopted. Such policies will make the distinction between legal and illegal immigration pointless. They will also encourage all sorts of criminals to come over. And any country has the right to be upset when the social problems of other countries are exported to it. Not to mention that that too will conflate criminals with ordinary people coming over illegally. Keeping away criminals is a duty of every sovereign nation. It is a duty to all its citizens and residents, and that includes immigrants, legal and illegal ones.

Zero tolerance sound deterring, but that depends on its effectiveness. It may catch a thousand, but thousands more will escape. And most of the criminals are likely to be among those that were not apprehended. After all they already have experience in evading the law. These are the brightest that are more likely to be deterred, the ones president Trump wants to bring in. This is because each and every legal immigrant is one bureaucratic mishap away from been classified as illegal. And the more complex the bureaucracy is - the greater are the chances for a mishap. Therefore the mere risk of been treated as a criminal is enough to deter away those that have alternatives. And the brightest have alternatives. And if they have to fear been separated from their families, their children, then the less attractive possibilities will become more attractive, far more.

The biggest falsehood in the immigration debate is the perception that there are easy solutions. Whether it is Steve Bannon's Zero tolerance policy, Jeremy Corbyn's let them all-in advocacy, or the Israeli policy of ignoring the issue as if it is going to go away on its own. With the third example been the dumbest, wit is not the demonstrated property of any of these approaches.

The Israeli policy of no policy had turned a handful of neighborhoods into dumping grounds for the illegals. This had created over crowdedness that was beyond the ability of the local infrastructure to support. Obviously, this made life miserable for these migrants, and the local residents. This added to the tension between the two populations, which in turn added to the stress. And this cycle has so far, no end in sight, even after this migration wave has largely stopped. 

Migrants from East Africa in southern Tel Aviv,
source Calcalist 

The let them all-in policy, practiced and led by Angela Merkel, brought about the Cologne riots of December 2015. This massive criminal and sexual assault that took place in several German cities was perpetuated largely by work migrants from North West Africa, not war refugees. They first had exploited the open door policy of Western Europe known as the good will policy. That policy was aimed at helping refugees from war turn countries such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen. But the countries in North West Africa that these work migrants came from do not suffer from the turmoil of the Arab spring. They are just poorer countries. We all have the right for social mobility, but should we do it at the expense of someone else's lives? This was a clear-cut case of massive exploitation and abuse of the good will policy and the plight of the actual war refugees. Having done one wrong collectively, it was easy for a sizeable portion of them to do other wrongs collectively, and openly.

Here, Europe failed to distinguish between lands where people's lives were in daily danger, and those that are simply at an economic disadvantage. Such a distinction is not always easy to make. In some countries the economic conditions are so dire; poverty places people's lives in almost daily, life threatening situations, especially children. This is what amplifies the difficulties in forming a policy, both in Israel and the USA. No one wants to send people to their death. And nobody wants that desire to be exploited; by anyone – for whatever reason. In the events leading to the Cologne riots, such a distinction could have been made easily. Instead European decision makers grouped all Muslims and all Arabs into one category of helpless individuals. This allowed the better off North West Africans to abuse both Europe’s, and those that were truly running for their lives. The backlash that was created by this had turned against all the immigrants.

The Bannon doctrine had been shamed by the families' separation affair. But that is just a symptom of a greater folly. As I said before, solving the problems relating to immigration is more difficult than solving the Israeli Palestinian conflict, or any other political conflict for that matter. The reason is because this is not something a single act or a single policy can resolve. It is a management challenge, a global one. This means working with others to resolve it, and Trump's election rhetoric sabotaged that. His rhetoric was generalizing, de-humanizing, and racist. No matter how severe the problem of crime in the USA is; and even if those illegal migrants are over-represented in the statistics of criminal activity. That rhetoric remains unjustified. It also alienated vast segments of the American public, and not just the Hispanic population. Among communities that historically suffered a lot from racist oppression, this language reawakened traumas that weren’t dormant in the first place. And the list is long, with Jews and African Americans on the top. For many of them standing up to president Trump and Bannon became a matter of survival and anger. Survival: because of the bitter lessons of the past regarding the outcome of such rhetoric. Anger: because they see it as the need to do the civil right struggle all over again. And the resentment that came from that is aimed against any member of the Trump administration, and any idea and any policy they come up with, good or bad.

Trump’s rhetoric and Bannon’s ideas created two management problems, external and internal. The external problem is the alienation of the people of Mexico, were most of the migration movement goes through, as well as many of the migrants. And there is no doubt other nationalities across Latin America were also alienated. The internal one is in the shape of what is known as sanctuary cities. These are cities, states and counties that decided to go against the federal government over the immigration issue and protect the illegal immigrants living in their territory. The fear created by the rhetoric of the president of the USA been the main reason.

In order to have a working policy on immigration, the Trump administration has to work with both oppositions, at home and abroad. A simple matter of realpolitik by the relevant countries across Latin America will make it possible. But the resentment of the general population will limit that cooperation.

As for the internal opposition, this one is made up of people afraid for their very lives. They won't compromise so easily. One of the ways to overcome this opposition is to win over those cities and states in upcoming elections. This is what Bannon is doing in Europe. If successful, nationally and globally (globally been Europe, not Latin America), all of the responsibility of solving the problems of global mass migration will fall on them, on the Bannon camp. They will have to go beyond demagogy, and beyond policy, and manage the issue with other governments across the world. However, some of these governments are so corrupt they are in bed with global criminal organizations and human traffickers. That means they will be working with people they now know will screw them over. This is a reality every government in the democratic world faces, no matter what its ideology is. The problem is that the main outcome of zero tolerance on illegal immigration, along with restrictions on legal immigration, is a higher demand for the services of human traffickers; by their very victims. This will give them a stronger hand or even an upper hand. This is something no politician can afford, especially those that promised to make fighting crime a high priority.

The failure of world’s leadership to properly and effectively address the challenges of global migration has left the ground open for populists of all sorts. These populists have made the management of the situation more difficult. If they win overwhelmingly, management will not be possible. If they lose, mainstream politicians will have to take into account the social forces they have gathered, undermining the little effectiveness better management can create. The biggest tragedy is that should any or all of these populist politicians decide to actually resolve this; they will have to go against their base, against their election promises. Since this is a management challenge, solution will not be immediate. And such incumbent candidates will not be able to justify this to their base. And that may open the door for the pure and unapologetic, poisonous bigots. And while non-of these possibilities is an apocalyptic nightmare, the harm that will come from this mis management, will affect us all. The need to make moral compromises does not mean that every morally problematic decision is the wise one. History has shown us that mass migration stopped only when the conditions in the countries of origin had changed. The forces of history had more to do with those changes than actual policies. It shouldn't be the case now, but it is. This crisis does not need populist slogans. It needs new ideas. I wish I had any to give.