By Bill Stewart
It seems clear that Binyamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister and currently the leader of the rightwing Likud party, will be Israel's next prime minister. "Bibi," as he is popularly known, has signed his first coalition deal, one that includes his chief coalition partner, Yisrael Beiteinu, a hard-right group led by Avigdon Lieberman, a Russian immigrant. Lieberman, who once was a bouncer in a night club in Moldova, is likely to be Israel's next foreign minister. Both Netanyahu and Lieberman are opposed to an independent Palestinian state, a stance that puts them on a collision course with the US and the European Union.
These are difficult days for Israel. Since the end of the Gaza war, the Jewish state has found itself increasingly isolated internationally. To be sure, diplomatic isolation is nothing new for Israel; it has been rejected by most of its Arabs neighbors for more than 60 years. Many Israelis find diplomatic isolation to be par for the course. They sigh, shrug their shoulders, and get on with their lives. What else is new?
The problem, however, is that Israel's problems with its neighbors are growing more acute, and the US is committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. Jerusalem cannot ignore Washington. Too much depends on the relationship with America, including more than $3 billion in aid annually and access to the latest in military equipment. Israel can survive economically without US assistance, but it cannot remain a great military power in the region without access to the US arsenal. That access ensures Israeli military superiority in the Middle East and thus Israel's security. The US has clout, both diplomatic and military. That is why the US is essential to forging a deal with the Palestinians.
Opinion polls indicate that most Israelis are in favor of a two-state solution, though there is not much enthusiasm for negotiations. For many, perhaps most Israelis, the bloom is off the rose regarding talks with the Palestinians. Nevertheless, there is a general perception among secular Israelis that without a secure, independent Palestine, Israel will cease to be a Jewish state within the next few decades. This is so because the birth rate among Palestinian Arabs, to include the one million or more who live in Israel proper as well as those in the occupied territories, is considerably higher than among Israeli Jews. An eventual free vote among Arabs and Jews would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state; Arabs would simply outvote the Jews. There is a relentless logic to demography. The alternative to a Palestinian state is an Israel presiding over a captive and colonial population as it does today in its contemptuous and often brutal occupation of the occupied West Bank, which includes the 500,000 settlers living in illegal settlements. In a few years, Israel would cease to exist as a democratic state. The choice is stark, and it is real.
In much of the world, including Europe, there is little enthusiasm for Israel. Zionism is seen as a code word for latter-day imperialism and even racism. For them, the Jews are European and American immigrants, not indigenous peoples of the Middle East, never mind the Biblical stories. The recent Gaza war only fueled more anti-Israeli feeling. An Israeli military college has printed damning accounts by Israeli soldiers of the killing of civilians and vandalism during Israel's December-January military operations in Gaza, to include the outright murder of unarmed Palestinian women and children.
Israeli authorities promise an investigation, and no doubt one will be held. It is a safe bet, however, that no Israeli soldier will be found guilty. Israeli soldiers seldom are, despite the evidence. By contrast, the Arabs never hold themselves accountable for their actions, so we will see no investigation into the behavior of Hamas. During the Gaza operation that ended on January 18, approximately 1,300 Palestinians were killed, including some 440 children, 110 women and dozens of elderly civilians. The counter argument that Israel was sustaining daily rocket attacks by Hamas and had to do something, does not hold much water when compared to the Palestinian casualties. Fewer than a dozen Israelis had been killed in these year-long attacks, including those during the Gaza war.
Israel's self-image is rooted in the belief that the Jewish state has held the moral high-ground not only since its inception in 1948, but in the years of struggle since the first Zionist immigrants to Palestine in the 1880s. Americans, on the whole, tend to share this view. But revisionist Israeli historians agree that this simply is not true, especially in the Israeli war for independence, indeed for survival, in 1948-49.
According to Israeli historian Benny Morris, in his magisterial "1948 The First Arab- Israeli War," the murder and mayhem wreaked by Palestinian Jews upon Palestinian Arabs was at least as great, if not greater, than Palestinian Arabs upon the Jews. The Jews of Palestine were better organized and better equipped in their acts of ferocity, including attempts at ethnic cleansing. Nobody has clean hands in this long and tragic affair. We should not rush to condemn Palestinian acts of murder, whether by suicide bombers or by rockets, before we recognize the crimes inflicted upon the Palestinians by the Israelis. Murder is not a one-way street; it is two-way, and has been so for more than 100 years.
We need to recognize that the moral imperative for a free, independent and secure Palestine is as strong as that for Israel. That should be our starting point in the negotiations to come.