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Hagel needs Hegel

I don’t often write about Israel/Palestine issues.  There are many other well-informed and intelligent people devoting their professional lives to what is euphemistically known as the Middle East “peace process.”  It hasn’t gone anywhere for years, and expert opinion generally suggests it is not going anywhere anytime soon.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t interesting developments.  Neither facts nor opinion stand still just because negotiations are going no place.  There is a growing inclination among right-wing Jews (Israelis and Americans) to think that they can annex the West Bank without incurring the risk that Arabs will outnumber Jews in this Greater Israel.  Either the Arabs will be governed separately and won’t have political rights within Israel, or the Israelis will pay them to leave and go to Jordan, where the Hashemite monarchy is looking shaky anyway.

Let me be clear:  either of these solutions is a heinous proposition, the first for an apartheid regime and the second for ethnic cleansing, even if accomplished by financial incentives rather than force.  But there are apparently substantial numbers of Israeli Jews (nowhere near a majority yet) willing to consider these propositions rather than the now more commonly accepted two-state solution, which would maintain the Jewish majority in Israel by allowing a Palestinian state to govern the West Bank and (in the traditional proposition) also Gaza.  Prime Minister Netanyahu is arguably among those who appear to find a one-state proposition attractive.

A Palestinian Linked-in colleague asked these questions the other day:

1- if Israel have Any intention of an honest and fruitful dialogue to negotiate for a two state solution, why are they still granting new permissions to build hundreds of illegal units in the illegal settlements built on Palestine occupied land?
2- The withholding of the Palestinian Tax funds by the Israeli government which is leaving over 116 thousand Palestinian employees without salaries
Is that a collective punishment? How long Israel think that the Palestinian will remain cross handed ?

These are perfectly good questions, but I fear the answer is all too obvious:  the Israelis building in the settlements and withholding tax revenue from the Palestinian Authority are not interested in the two-state solution.  They are pursuing their BATNA:  best alternative to a negotiated solution, which is one state without Palestinian votes (or possibly without Palestinians).

The question is how Americans and Palestinians should react to this situation.

As for the Americans, President Obama’s nomination of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense seems to me a correct response, though it is presumably being done for many other reasons as well.  Hagel is a determined two-stater.  I hope this will be backed up by a substantial portion of the American Jewish community, most of which understands perfectly well that holding on to the West Bank would some day end Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.  The big problem in the United States is not the Jews, who voted overwhelmingly for President Obama, but rather evangelical Christians, who appear to have convinced a lot of Republican members of Congress that Hagel ‘s two-state approach betrays inadequate support for Israel.

I cannot speak for Palestinians, but their choices are clear:  a re-opened negotiation, a new intifada or a non-violent uprising of a sort that has not been seen so far.  A re-opened negotiation is unlikely, since Palestinian President Abbas has, understandably but unfruitfully, insisted on an end to settlement activity as a pre-condition.

It is hard for me to imagine in the wake of the violence that has prevailed recently in the Arab spring that the next rebellion in the Palestinian territories will be nonviolent, much as I believe that would be more effective.  It is far more likely that Israel’s growing interest in holding on to the West Bank will generate another violent uprising.  But that won’t help the Palestinians to make the case that their state already exists, as they and the UN General Assembly would like to claim.  Nor will it convince the Israelis to go back to the bargaining table.

Is there an alternative?  Avner Cohen proposes an unlikely one:  Asma Aghbarieh-Zahalka, the Arab leader of a non-sectarian, non-ethnic Jewish and Arab political party.  Would that life were like that.  The sad fact is that Israeli politics will be driven for the foreseeable future by Prime Minister Netanyahu and his increasingly nationalist allies.

I’m afraid the bottom line is that things aren’t likely to go anywhere anytime soon, but Hagel will have a rough time in his confirmation hearing on Israel/Palestine issue.  He is going to need some of Hegel’s ability to reconcile the irreconcilable.