The Palestine question needs answers

I am perfectly willing to believe that today’s pro-Palestinian demonstrations on Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza, in which Israeli security forces killed at least eight people, were in part efforts to use the annual Nakba (“catastrophe”) commemoration of Israel’s founding as a way of refocusing attention away from poor governance in Arab countries and towards the plight of the Palestinians.  This seems especially likely in the case of Syria, which has a real need to show Israel and the United States that there is good reason to preserve autocratic rule, which has ensured peace on the Syrian-Israeli border for decades.  Israeli claims that Iran is stirring the pot seem far-fetched, but who knows, maybe even that is true.

None of that excuses the ham-fisted reaction of the Israeli security forces, which seemed unprepared and undermanned for the occasion.  Of course the country has a right to defend its borders, and stone-throwers in my view do not qualify as unequivocally peaceful demonstrators.  But how stupid is it for democratic Israel to adopt the methods of the Arab autocrats in responding to provocation?  Where has shooting protesters had a stabilizing impact?  And just how serious is the presence on your sovereign territory of even a few hundred demonstrators?  How long do you think they will be able to stay once the security forces move deliberately and without violence to cut them off from support across the border?

This overreaction comes at a delicate moment, with Prime Minister Netanyahu getting ready to visit Washington and President Obama preparing to unveil who knows what now that his Middle East special envoy, George Mitchell, has quit in obvious frustration.  If Iran and its Arab allies in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza are successful in an effort to refocus the Arab Spring on Palestinian issues, Israel and the United States are both in deep difficulty.  The best thing they can do to avoid that unfortunate trap is to stop killing protesters and offer some clear answers on when and how the state of Palestine can emerge from the chaotic soup in which the Middle East finds itself.