Roger Cohen Sees the Real Goals of BDS

In an op-ed in the New York Times, Roger Cohen says what I've been saying all along about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement:

"I do not trust the B.D.S. movement. Its stated aim is to end the occupation, secure “full equality” for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, and fight for the right of return of all Palestinian refugees. The first objective is essential to Israel’s future. The second is laudable. The third, combined with the second, equals the end of Israel as a Jewish state. This is the hidden agenda of B.D.S., its unacceptable subterfuge: beguile, disguise and suffocate."

A Note to Naksa Day Protesters

If you try to cut down the border fence, climb over it or try to cross it in any way, and you get killed in the process, it is your own goddamn fault.

While I'd rather the IDF used non-lethal methods to push people away from the fence, I can also understand the use of live ammo. Breaching the border is not non-violence. The so-called Palestinian refugees will never be able to exercise their mythical right of return by force.

And by the way, I'm not denying there are Palestinian refugees, or that the question of what happens with the Palestinian diaspora is not a problem that has to be solved. However, most of these protesters are not refugees according to the standards set for all refugees who are not Palestinians.

Israelis and the Refugees

Carlo Strenger is a smart guy. He is a Tel-Aviv University professor and a Haaretz columnist. He usually knows what he's talking about. In this weekend's newspaper, however, he showed ignorance about the Palestinians' views on one of the conflict's toughest issues:

"There is but one way in which the looming collision could be made less catastrophic. Obama could decide to change course; instead of opposing recognition of Palestine, he could support it, as Israel should, if it acted rationally, under two conditions: Palestinians have to renounce any claims this side of the 1967 borders, including the right of return, and the Arab League would recognize Israel’s legitimacy and move towards normal relations. Palestinians would probably agree to that, and so would the Arab League as this corresponds to its peace initiative."

(Read the whole thing in English or Hebrew)

Strenger thinks the Palestinians would probably agree to renounce the right of return in exchange for American and Israeli recognition at the UN. In the Hebrew original, he even uses stronger language - instead of "probably" there is a phrase closer in meaning to "obviously". Obviously, the Palestinians will give up the right of return, Strenger thinks. Really?

This is one of the Palestinians' core issues, one that the masses say the leadership has no authority to compromise on. They see this as an inalienable individual right. Abbas may one day compromise on this, but only in a final agreement. He would lose all support if he announced the refugees won't come back even before he achieved de facto independence.

Strenger is just one of many Israelis who do not realize how hard it will be to reach peace with the Palestinians, especially because of their unwillingness to come to terms with the fact that they can't become citizens in Israel proper. 

Anyway, today it seems there will be another way out of this mess other than Strenger's suggestion. Abbas has agreed to resume talks in France. I hope Netanyahu follows suit.

Do Israeli Arabs Support Shooting Palestinian Refugees?

I went to the monthly Peace Index, looking for details about Israelis' opinions about different elements of Netanyahu's speeches. I ended up finding something completely different. Something odd and curious. In the May Peace Index (Hebrew/English), the following question appears:



Did the army commander on the Golan Heights who gave an order to refrain from firing potentially lethal shots [at Palestinian protesters entering from Syria] act properly, or should everything have been done to prevent the infiltration into Israel, including the firing of potentially lethal fire?

	General Public	Jews	Arabs
1.       He acted properly in giving the order	57.1	62.2	27.8
2.       Everything should have been done, including the firing of potentially lethal fire	34.2	30.7	54.4
3.       Don’t know/ Refuse to answer	8.7	7.2	17.8

I read it and couldn't believe it. A vast majority of Jews supported restraint while a majority of Arabs supported a "by any means necessary" approach. That Jews supported restraint didn't really surprise me. However, I would have expected Palestinians with Israeli citizenship to be less willing to shoot the Palestinians who don't have citizenship. Maybe it's a mistake and they switched the data around? No, the "general public" numbers fit, considering that the general public is split about 80%-20% between Jews and Arabs.

I have no idea what to make of this statistic. Could it be that Palestinian Israelis feel even more threatened by an influx of refugees into Israel than Jewish Israelis? Do they want Israel to shoot Palestinians to gain sympathy for their brothers? Or maybe they themselves don't believe in non-violence?

Abbas Puts Refugees Front and Center

In his op-ed in the New York Times, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority calls upon the United Nations to unilaterally recognize the State of Palestine. What struck me was how central the Palestinian refugees and the right of return were to his argument. He starts the article with his own story of expulsion from Safed, and calls the right of return a "most basic of human rights". He also says that a core issue the new state will negotiate with Israel would be "a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on Resolution 194". In other words, their return.

I do not expect Abbas to drop the right of return before there is an agreement in place. However, Israel will never be able to agree to a mass repatriation of Palestinians into its own territory. This is the main reason why Israel and its allies must not allow the establishment of a Palestinian State, or a UN recognition thereof, without a signed final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Recognition of a state can only come in a treaty where Palestinians will simultaneously recognize that mass return into Israel cannot be implemented and where an alternative solution is reached.

If the State of Palestine is already recognized by the world community, Palestinians will have less incentive to reach a compromise, even if they are still under Israeli military control. They will bet that now that IDF presence will become an illegal occupation of a whole foreign nation (as opposed to the situation now, where settlements are illegal, but the occupation itself is not) other countries will be more willing to do the Palestinians' work for them and force Israel to give in to all or most of their demands.

Return of the Original Refugees

Robbie Sabel and Oded Eran have an interesting solution for the Palestinian refugee problem. In an op-ed piece (no English translation is currently available) in today's Haaretz they say that Israel should agree to the return of those refugees who were physically present in what is now Israel and became refugees during 1947-1948. Their descendents would not be allowed to come with them, since they were never here, but rather were born elsewhere.

Repatriation of the original refugees would mean that Israel abides by Resolution 194, readmitting those who left or were driven out and are now willing to live in peace within Israel. According to Sabel and Eran, there are currently about 42,000 original refugees, and it is not known how many of them would want to return.

Sabel and Eran correctly argue that even if we agree to take in refugees, we must not call it an implementation of the right of return. Saying that such a right exists for this smaller group (and it really doesn't) may strengthen calls for the right of return of the generations born after 1948 as well.

In addition to the repatriation of older Palestinians, some form of compensation and reparations for loss of property would also be paid.

Response to Rashid Khalidi

Originally, I wrote this as a comment on Gert's blog post which reprinted Rashid Khalidi's New York Times op-ed piece, What You Don’t Know About Gaza. It came out so long, I decided it merits its own post.

I must say, today's NY Times op-ed page was very unfriendly to Israel, with critical articles by Nicholas Kristof, Roger Cohen, Khalidi and Gideon Lichfield. But that's okay. Conservatives David Brooks and William Kristol, as well as my favorite columnist Thomas Friedman, had previously written articles in favor of Israel's Gaza operation. I particularly liked Thomas Friedman's piece.

Anyway, here is my response to Rashid Khalidi's opionion article:

I read this article this morning and found it very troubling, though not at all surprising. I truly do hope Barack Obama's connection with Khalidi was exaggerated by Republicans.

THE GAZANS How is it relevant that the Gazans are not there by choice? Is it alright for them to fire at Ashkelon and Be'er-Sheva because their grandparents came from those cities?

The Gazans have been kept in the refugee camps by their Arab brethren. Had Egypt, who controlled the strip between 1948-1967, or any other Arab country, rehabilitated the refugees and invested in them, things would look differently. Instead, the refugees and their suffering were used as a tool against Israel to keep calling for the right of return. After all, if they'd rebuild Palestinians' lives in their new locations it would have seemed like they were giving up on the right of return.

THE OCCUPATION First of all, the Gazans have never NOT lived under occupation. Before 1967 they were occupied by Egypt; before 1948 by the UK; and before 1917 by the Ottomans. Right now, their self-rule is greater than at any time in the past.

Israel has made many mistakes over the years in Gaza. It should have done what Egypt before it should have done - it should have made Gazans' lives better. However, once Israel withdrew from the territory, it was up to the Palestinians to make their lives better, even if Israel controlled the border. Even before the blockade that started when Hamas rose to power, Palestinians did nothing with their territory.

THE BLOCKADE Fuel, electricity and humanitarian aid kept coming in to Gaza all this time. The aim of the blockade was not to choke the Palestinians, but to harm the Hamas government. If a nation elected a government bent on your destruction, would you cooperate with it economically and otherwise?

THE CEASE-FIRE In November Israel attacked a tunnel where arms were being smuggled in. The IDF said there was an imminent threat to Israel from whatever was coming through that tunnel. Was it a smart move? Maybe not, but it didn't come out of thin air.

WAR CRIMES The numbers do not speak for themselves. They don't demonstrate each side's intentions, but rather each side's technological advancement. The civilian death toll is too high - the result of both Israeli recklessness and Hamas activity within population centers. However, this is not a war crime on Israel's part, since the civilians are not the targets. Also, it is not true that civilians are the majority of the dead.

"Negotiation is a much more effective way to deal with rockets and other forms of violence. This might have been able to happen had Israel fulfilled the terms of the June cease-fire and lifted its blockade of the Gaza Strip."

Israel wanted to continue the cease-fire, but Hamas refused. It demanded that the border crossings be opened, but as long as Hamas is unwilling to allow inspections they cannot be fully opened. The smuggling of arms must stop.

"This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about rockets."

Khalidi would like to think that it isn't. This way, the Palestinians have absolutely no responsibility for what is happening. The truth is that it is about rockets. After eight years of Qassams and Grad missiles, Israelis have had enough.

"Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”

This is a horrible statement. Moshe Yaalon is an idiot, though not an isolated idiot. Maybe this kind of thinking has something to do with some of the tactics of the current operation but it is not the goal. The end of rocket fire and rocket smuggling is.

Vaccines and Sudanese Refugees

When my niece was born, my sister decided not to vaccinate her against certain diseases, fearing that vaccines had something to do with my nephew's autism. "Everybody else is vaccinated anyway, so there's nobody who can get her sick", was her main argument then, when she tried to convince me (and probably herself) that the risks of vaccination are greater than the risks of non-vaccination.

For the past few years a small yet steady stream of African refugees, mostly from Sudan (Darfur and South Sudan), has been crossing the border into Israel. Their numbers have recently risen and their plight has gotten more press coverage. While in the past they were arrested and deported, government policy now allows them to stay in Israel, but they do not have any legal status here. Most of them don't even receive refugee status, and the government doesn't lift a finger to help them. They've been pretty much stranded. Some Kibbutzim have taken some of them in, others have been given jobs in Eilat, but even those are only temporary solutions.

I thought of pitching in somehow to help them, maybe by volunteering at a Kibbutz where they are staying or something of the sort. But then I realized that there may be health implications. Even if I am vaccinated against most diseases they may have, I can still become a carrier and pose a health risk to my niece. Then I thought of the fact that not only can I become a risk factor, a lot of people who either come into contact with the refugees or with others who have been in contact with them, may pose a health threat to my niece and any other child who was not vaccinated.

I should talk to my sister about this. It isn't too late to give my niece the vaccines she hasn't taken yet. Now, with the current situation, my sister may be convinced that the risks of not being vaccinated outweigh the perceived menace of mercury.

And an apology to the refugees if this post makes them sound like little more than carriers of dangerous diseases. I still plan to help them.