You cannot derail a train no one is on

A spokesperson from Israel’s foreign ministry warned the United Nations that if the Goldstone Report on war crimes in the Gaza War of early this year is endorsed by the UN Security Council, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process will be in jeopardy. Surely, this is a joke.

The peace process has yielded no results since the second Intifada. The Palestinians herded into Gaza elected Hamas, which has no interest in peace, and the screws have tightened on Palestinians everywhere. The Oslo Accords, the closest things to an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord ever signed, are a distant memory. “Natural growth” of settlements continues. Israelis retain all the power in negotiation. Would Israeli government movement away from peace be a sudden turn, or would it be on course? It is not much of a threat to say you will derail a train no one is on.

Israel’s courts will try soldiers that are accused, by Israeli fact-finding commissions, of war crimes. Israel has never been a country that desperately sought approval from others, and is unlikely to start now. It will not give into blackmail. Any anger that outsiders’ actions generate within Israel will make it easier to go to war again the next time.

The goals of the war, Operation Cast Lead, were long term ones. An article in Haaretz says that Israelis hoped its success would mean Egypt and Israel’s working together to produce results in Gaza, such as inter-Palestinian reconciliation, which in turn could lead to negotiations with them. It implies that, all because of forces outside of Israel’s control, such as the shrinking stature of Mahmoud Abbas and the growing one of Iran, ferment in Jerusalem and fighting in Gaza, the long term results the war aimed to achieve will never materialise. Things just never seem to go right when you are the victim.

Sarcasm aside, it is hard not to agree with Israeli claims that the report is biased. The annoying words “anti-Semitic”, the words that imply that the only racism that matters is that against Jews, words used so often one might be forgiven for thinking that everyone outside Israel is an anti-Semite, may in fact be a fair accusation in this case. As I have said before, the UN Human Rights Council is hopelessly biased against Israel, and the UN has not been much better. The Human Rights Council is full of human rights-violating Arab states that hate Israel. The Council’s existence throws the UN’s legitimacy into question.

The Council’s anti-Semitism is so blatant that it has made no attempt at a reference to Palestinian (presumably mostly Hamas) crimes during or before the war in its resolutions condemning Israel. Amnesty International’s report was not similarly biased, and its authors called for all crimes to be punished. We can clearly see which organisation is truly interested in human rights.

Because of the lack of legitimacy of the body that commissioned the Goldstone Report, the report’s veracity is too difficult to ascertain. Because there was little trace of a peace process to start with, things could easily degenerate into violence. And because Israel is used to this sort of bullying, nothing is likely to change between Israelis and Palestinians.

A third Intifada may be brewing

According to a piece in Foreign Policy, a news magazine known for integrity and depth of analysis rather than sensationalism, a third Intifada could be ready to break out. Rioting has increased in Jerusalem and so has detention. Fighting among Palestinians contributes to instability. Though the Barack administration is taking small steps toward reconciliation between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, my guess is that many Palestinians do not trust their leaders to look out for their best interests. And Jewish radicals are still visiting the Temple Mount, which sparked the second Intifada. As a result, the rocks are flying.

(Also find analysis of the viability of a third Intifada at the Global Arab Network and a rather incomplete analysis at Haaretz.)

My perceptions may be flawed, given that I am not in Israel and never have been, but it seems from the large amount I have read that the way to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict is to change the perceptions of Israelis. Israel holds the cards in this relationship. The Israeli authorities make the decisions that govern Palestinians’ lives, not the other way round. Israelis’ perceptions, however, are skewed by the strong collectivist bias of the culture. The Jews are God’s chosen people, after all. But more so than that, people in Israel have been offered half-truth, fabrication, propaganda and occasionally the truth, and it is very hard to distinguish among them. People have so much choice in what to believe that, like everywhere else, they tend to believe the stories that make themselves sound most righteous. Would seeing how their support for so-called apartheid policies is affecting common people in the Occupied Territories head off a third Intifada? If not, would anything?

NATO cooperation with Russia is worth pursuing

The new secretary-general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has called on NATO to form closer ties with Russia, and suggested discussing linking missile defense systems. This is an excellent idea.

Mr Rasmussen, former prime minister of Denmark, has also said that NATO and Russia should focus on their common interests, and not their disagreements. It is easy for those in politics to pander to the hardliners in their constituencies by criticising and talking tough. But since the election of Barack Obama (and probably before then), the United States has adopted a more conciliatory attitude toward all its potential opponents. As yet, this new approach has reduced tension between the US and Russia. Barack recently cancelled US plans for components of a missile shield to be placed in Poland and the Czech Republic, former Soviet satellites, and the Russian government responded by shelving plans to deploy missiles in Kaliningrad.

Upholding the nuclear nonproliferation regime is one common interest of both NATO and Russia. Barack has taken action to show he is committed to nonproliferation, which will probably help his diplomatic efforts in places like Iran as well. Republican accusations that these actions will embolden America’s enemies and Czech opposition worries that they will endanger its nation are unfounded. Friends and foes alike take cues from the United States. If the US is building big weapons, they will too. If the US reduces missile stocks, other governments are expected to put their weapons development on hold. Fear drives militaries to order bigger and better weapons. Barack’s moves on missiles, and NATO’s greater cooperation with Russia, will reduce fear, not increase risk-taking. And to say that the US must be a bulwark against all possible threat from Russia is along the lines of the incorrect belief that the US can contain any and all threats direct against itself or its allies. It cannot. However, the deeper its ties to Russia are, the more painful sanctions will be to Russia if it becomes belligerent.

Russia and NATO also have common interests in fighting piracy and terrorism, and energy supplies. The Georgia question, human rights and so on will need to be addressed but it will soon be possible to discuss them against the backdrop of amicable talks. Until then, NATO and Russian governments should embrace confidence-building measures. These measures should include reciprocal information exchanges among security forces, joint military exercises and cooperation to reduce the spread of small arms and land mines around the world.

Not many of these suggestions are in the works but they are all possible ways of reducing animosity between two blocs that have been considering on the brink of a war of annihilation. If Mr Rasmussen stays on course, he will leave a legacy of peace.

The consequences of Israel’s territorial gains from the Six Day War for peace with Egypt

My essay is finished. The link is here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/17693618/The-consequences-of-Israels-territorial-gains-from-the-Six-Day-War-for-peace-with-Egypt

My contention is that the formerly Egyptian territory Israel gained in the Six Day War was the key motivation in Egypt’s signing of the Camp David Accord with Israel, the hardest negotiated concession Israel made and as such, was the principal factor for peace between the two countries. This essay seeks to understand the role Israel’s territorial gains of the Sinai Peninsula and the waterways around it played in securing its peace with Egypt. It will examine Israeli and Egyptian leadership, their decisions, the external influences on their decisions, and the importance of territory in peace negotiations and the Camp David Accord between Israel and Egypt. It will focus on the time between the end of the war and the signing of peace treaties, and does not consider ancient Arab and Jewish territorial claims.

I would love to hear feedback, either here or at Scribd.

Research Paper Proposal–Israel’s territorial gains from the Six Day War and their consequences for peace with Egypt and Jordan

After consulting with my professor, I have decided that the previous topic was too broad. I went through literally a dozen other research questions and have decided on the following proposal. Again, if my readers can give any feedback, I would really appreciate it.

For my research paper, I will attempt to ascertain how Israel’s territorial gains in the Six Day War led to the Israel-Egypt and Israel-Jordan peace accords.

Middle East scholars agree that the Six Day War was a momentous occasion for the region, with ramifications far beyond the capture of territory. Perceptions of threats to security in the Middle East, including to Israel’s very existence, have been radically altered. A lasting peace seems to have been attained between Israel and Egypt, and Israel and Jordan. Another way of framing this question is, how did perceptions of Israel’s territorial acquisitions from the Six Day War affect peace negotiations? The conclusions of this paper will help us understand how Israel’s two major peace agreements were reached and may help us understand the territorial dimensions of similar, future accords.

To answer this question, I will need to determine the consequences of the acquisitions of the Sinai, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. In other words, what did Israel’s gains lead to and not lead to? I will also need to look at peace proposals related to territory (“land for peace”) and compare them to the treaties that were eventually signed. This paper will focus almost entirely on the time between the end of the war and the signing of peace treaties, and will not delve into ancient Arab and Jewish territorial claims, except insofar as they affected the parties’ decisions. Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian official positions and perspectives will be an important factor in understanding the extent to which territorial concessions played a role in achieving peace.

Secondary questions therefore include, did Israel’s acquisition of the Sinai lead to its peace accord with Egypt, and if so, how? How were the decisions of leaders such as Anwar al-Sadat and Hussein bin Talal to go to the negotiating table affected by territorial considerations? How important was the captured territory to Israeli leaders? Were they anxious to give it up in return for peace? Did outside actors such as Jimmy Carter, the UN Security Council and the USSR push for territorial bargaining?

In order to understand the influence of Israel’s captured territories on peace, I will divide my essay into the following sections (which may change before the essay is complete):

1)      An introduction to Israel’s territorial acquisitions from the Six Day War and why they are important for answering this question.

2)      A timeline of relevant events between June 10, 1967 and the signing of the peace accords (though this will probably be consigned to an appendix).

3)      Leadership. How did the perspectives of leaders such as Anwar al-Sadat and Menachem Begin on the territorial consequences of the war bring them to the negotiating table? How important was the territory to the leaders? This and the following section could be broken into the subsections of Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

4)      Peace. How are land clauses in proposals for peace similar to those of the treaties eventually signed? What happened during the negotiations focused on land and how were they resolved?

Research Paper Proposal–the Six Day War’s consequences for official relations between its combatants

The reason I have not been posting for the past two weeks is that I have begun a class at the University of Victoria on the politics of the Middle East. I would like to ask my readers’ opinions on my research paper proposal. This is part of my mark and it is due on Monday, July 20th. I am asking for advice on the structure of the proposal, the proposed structure of the essay, the questions I am asking and any sources you can think of that may give me interesting perspectives on the subject. And if you can’t help with any of those, what do you suggest as a good title? Here is my proposal.

For my research paper, I will attempt to ascertain to what extent the Six Day War has shaped Israel’s official relations with Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the United States.

Middle East scholars agree that the Six Day War was a momentous occasion for the region, with ramifications far beyond the capture of territory. Perceptions of threats to security in the Middle East, including to Israel’s very existence, have been radically altered. Another way of framing this research question might be, what has happened since June 10, 1967, that has affected relations between Israel and its once most belligerent neighbours, and its now most loyal ally?

To answer this question, I will need first to determine the direct consequences of the Six Day War and then draw conclusions about what they have lead to. For the purpose of this paper, the term “official relations” means Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian and American government and military positions, decisions and actions that have influenced Israel, and vice versa. Some events that will feature prominently in this paper are the Yom Kippur War, the Camp David summit and peace accords, the Israel-Jordan peace treaty, perceptions of threats and border issues.

Secondary questions therefore include, did Israel’s acquisition of the Sinai lead to its peace accord with Egypt? How have leaders such as Anwar al-Sadat, Hafez al-Assad and Hussein bin Talal affected official relations? How has official blame for losing the war soured Israeli-Arab contacts and negotiations? How have pride and shame at the Six Day War’s outcome affected prospects for peace?

Though Saudi Arabia and Iraq played roles in the conflict, they were not humiliated in the way Egypt, Syria and Jordan were. My assumption is that their relations with Israel have been less affected than those of the countries on Israel’s periphery, and as a result will not be delving deeply into their relations with Israel. This paper will address the USSR’s influence in the region after the Six Day War but, as a defunct entity, Israel no longer has relations with it, and it is not central to this paper. The United States, on the other hand, has increased its strategic presence in the Middle East and its relations with Israel have affected its prospects for peace with its neighbours, for better or worse.

Finally, I will not be addressing terrorism, Jewish settlers or Palestinian refugees to any great extent, because they concern nonstate actors and thus are not directly related to the question I wish to answer.

In order to understand the Six Day War’s influence on Israel’s international relations, I will divide my essay into the following sections (which may change before the essay is complete:

1)      The direct consequences of the war. This is the essential first step to knowing what this paper should be analysing. I will introduce perspectives on the war’s results.

2)      Pride and shame. Pride among Israelis and shame in Egypt, Syria and Jordan have had consequences for official relations in the Middle East. This section may touch on public sentiment (including American Jewish influence on Israel) but will focus on interpreting Israeli and Arab leaders’ decisions since the war.

3)      War. Interstate conflicts of various types involving Israel and its neighbours have arisen since 1967. How much did the outcomes of the Six Day War lead to such conflicts?

4)      Peace. How effective have Security Council resolutions, the land for peace proposal and high level negotiations been in reducing the risk of war between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan? Has the United States’s relationship with Israel reduced or increased the risk?

Conflict and the search for meaning

We all seek meaning in life. Meaning has various sources, but we must be careful to find our meaning and not that of others. The search for meaning is at the center of the world’s conflicts.

A major source of meaning is hunting, as I discussed in my last post on human nature. Modern hunting takes many forms. Some people participate in unfulfilling hedonism such as sexual escapades or gathering possessions. Some engage in the struggles of their ancestors, seeking revenge for ancient injustices. Aside from hunting, we have other pursuits that seem larger than ourselves. Many people feel that religion is a great source of meaning, though it also leads to conflict when it is combined with the hunt. The guards in the concentration camps who believed in what they were doing had meaning in their lives.

A lack of meaning in one’s life can be dangerous to our health. Some people seek new meaning, but if one does not look for and pursue it all the time, one can become depressed, neurotic and suicidal. Viktor Frankl had meaning. He was writing his magnum opus while interned in concentration camps in the 1940s. His subject: man’s search for meaning.

Those reading this may know of Abraham Maslow and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. He says that meaning, while important, is the small part of the pyramid. Frankl turns the pyramid on its head, saying that, without meaning, the other things can only take us so far. A mind with a purpose can carry its person through anything, but one without can shrivel and die. Frankl found that, in the concentration camp, the people who had given up their reason for living were the ones who died. He, on the other hand, would steal scraps of paper on which to write his life’s work, and he is certain that this is what kept his brain, and his body, alive through the most bitter conditions humans have known. And it is this struggle for one’s life’s meaning that is at the heart of the world’s darkest conflicts.

At some point in our lives, people offer us meaning. This meaning is comes in the form of nationalism, religion, ideology and so on. Sometimes we do what others are doing, which is conformism, and sometimes we do what others want or force us to do, or totalitarianism. But external meaning, that is, meaning offered by others, is false meaning. It acts like a drug: it feels good but lets you down because there is nothing there to satisfy you as an individual. Taking on someone else’s meaning leaves you with a feeling of emptiness.

What we need is striving for goals, tension between meaning to be fulfilled and the man who wants to fulfill it. Far from being an afterthought en route to food, work and a house, the search for meaning is the primary motivation in life. So the individual must seek his own, specific mission in life. We are filled with internal conflict, which is the hardest conflict to solve. Internal conflict is the tough questions in life: Am I happy? Do I make others happy? What is my purpose or mission? Why am I doing what I am doing? How can I make my life better? How can I make the world better? Internal conflict cannot be solved with guns and bombs. It cannot be delegated to another person, no matter how wise. Because it is so difficult to resolve our internal conflict, many people give up on it. They take on external meaning instead and pay with their lives.

Let us say I have a cause: liberation for my homeland. Where did I get that cause from? Everyone else who looks like me and talks like me is doing it. They are my family. I have been told that my whole life. And I have also been told that family is destiny, and family is the only source of meaning. These people are my family, so I must fight for them. I will dedicate my whole life to this cause. I have become a willing slave.

And there are millions of these slaves in the world. They are the suicide bombers, the unquestioning soldiers, the members of death squads, the monomaniacal liberationists and ideologues, who are no more than tools of their cause. We see this problem played out all over the world: nationalists in Palestine, Kosovo, Xinjiang, Chechnya, Tamil Eelam, Kashmir, Basque, Kurdistan, and everybody fighting against them, are engaged in existential struggles because they have accepted another’s meaning. Not only do such people cause some of the worst violence in the world, they are blind to the truth. When the enemy kills, it is a horrible act of war; when we kill, it is for our noble cause. They have chosen not to resolve their inner struggles and have accepted the false meaning of a cause they will never benefit from.

An alternative to being a footsoldier is to be a general. Similar in result to the pursuit of goals of one’s group is the pursuit of power for oneself. Power is very tempting. I think I have the answer, and power is what I need to put my solution into effect. (Frankl calls the pursuit of money the more “primitive” version of the pursuit of power.) The result of this temptation is (national or corporate) empire building. People will lie, steal, kill, or send others to die, anything in the scramble to the top of the ladder. When they are there, they do everything they can to hold on to power. Mass graves are testimony to this fact. And they build their empires with no concern for others. In other words, people who are not searching for a meaning that is greater than themselves will not only lead empty lives: they will lead destructive ones.

Relentlessly pursuing something is not realising your life’s meaning. Frankl says we should do three things to find meaning: achieve, experience and adopt the right attitude. Achieving means creating something that is good for the world, such as a book or a work of art. Experiencing is experiencing nature, culture, truth, beauty and love. Our attitude is how we react to suffering. Since suffering is an inevitable part of life, we must learn to handle it. Again, Frankl spent almost three years in a concentration camp. He says that when we are challenged by suffering, through a potentially fatal disease, for example, how we strive to turn tragedy into triumph, to regain hope, is part of our search for meaning.

People need to find meaning, and many people need help finding it. Education is one answer: schools that give opportunities to express oneself and find one’s passions give the best education. Education should not be about getting a job. If it is, the society it creates could break down into depression (internal conflict) or war (external conflict). At the same time, meaningful work is a great way to find meaning in life. It can lead us to preserve stability in society in order to keep our opportunities for meaning and give others the same chances. Lack of meaning is a major cause and symptom of the world’s most violent conflicts. Helping others to find meaning should be a high priority of those involved in conflict resolution.

The time perspective problem in conflict analysis and resolution

Tatar scholar Zufar Fartkutdinov once said “the patience of a nation is measured in centuries.” Many nations and their independence movements lie dormant for hundreds of years until they are roused by great upheavals. Others make attempts at independence but need to be patient and change political culture over centuries to get their way. But what Fartkutdinov called patience, some might call living in the past.

Time perspectives are an interesting psychological phenomenon. We see the passage of time in all kinds of different ways. Some people focus on the past. Of those who do, some think about the good things, or at least what we can learn from the bad, and others brood over past misfortunes and injustices. Some people are only interested in the pleasures of the present. Others are more focused on the future, and lose sight of the lessons of the past. Psychologists Philip Zimbardo (who wrote the Lucifer Effect) and John Boyd have studied time perspectives and have reached two conclusions that are highly relevant to conflict resolution: a) time perspectives are learned, not naturally ingrained, and b) a healthy time perspective is one that takes a balanced and optimistic view of the past, present and future.

For someone Zimbardo and Boyd would call “past-positive”, reflecting on the past is about learning from the bad (eg. mistakes) and celebrating the good. Both men scored nearly perfect for past-positive on the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, a test of how we perceive time that you should consider taking. Their high scores were presumably because of their wide understanding of time perspective psychology. They know it is very important to know what happened in the past, because it provides a sense of continuity and a sense of self. It can be a source of happiness. And it is necessary if we want to predict the future. But too much emphasis on history, especially a “past-negative” perspective on your group, can cause serious problems.

A focus on the past seems to lead to collectivism. Collectivism rises from an extreme focus on history as told by members of the group you belong to. I have detailed the problems that collectivism causes in my series on individualism and collectivism. Collectivist ideas such as nationalism, racism and so on are irrelevant in modern society, where they are no longer necessary for security or meaning. They continue to exist, however, because we consider the past to be much more than something to learn from. For so many collectivists, the past is a source of pride, honour, rules and meaning.

But should it be? Our groups are not pristine. They have committed war, pillage, rape, oppression and other crimes, often on large scales. Collectivists, of course, dismiss these cases as aberrations, not the people we really are. But a fair reading of history would have to include the good with the bad. Clearly, our collective pasts are not the best place to find virtue.

What is so bad about living in the past? For an individual or a group, the dangers are the same. First, people who are stuck in the past are not willing to try new things, make new friends, or embrace change. For an individual, this can mean a life of misery. What if you moved to get a new job and spent your whole time thinking about how much better your old home was? You would be missing out on all the opportunities for fun and learning in your new environment. For groups, fear of the new means all the same things, but with global implications.

Take, for instance, the Tibetan people. Given that the Tibetans were once free of Chinese rule, many of them resent that it has come back. The fact that most Tibetans are not old enough to know what it was like for Tibet to be independent is irrelevant. People locked in past-negative perspectives imagine what the past was like as they reconstruct it from stories and can only imagine a return to it. But if a Tibetan adopts a future perspective (or better still, a balanced and optimistic view of time), he or she can thrive in the new and prosperous China. Many Tibetans have already done so. Why does one have to cling to one’s culture and past to the rejection of all others? If there are advantages in doing so, try adopting a new culutre in addition to your old one.

Second, since most groups, especially fiercely collectivist ones, share a history of trauma, such as war, genocide, oppression, slavery, and so on, they are likely to want revenge. As Zufar Fartkutdinov probably realised, revenge can stew for centuries. Think about the hatreds in the world that are based on past injustices that hating people feel have gone unresolved. Palestinians hate the Israelis. Millions of Asians hate the Japanese. People from the former Yugoslavia hate each other. Tamils and Sinhalese hate each other. Muslims hate the Jews and the Americans. Anyone who might have oppressed my people, even though I may have lived free and peacefully my whole life, is evil. These feelings are often called ancient hatreds, but a more accurate word is racism. Not everyone in these groups feels hatred, but it is difficult not to when your parents and teachers and friends and leaders and media and history books all tell you to.

So where does this leave us? Zimbardo and Boyd’s first point was that time perspectives are learned. If they are learned, they can be unlearned. For people to want reconciliation instead of revenge, they need to learn other perspectives on the past, and on time itself. A future orientation would also be helpful. A future orientation makes you more likely to learn, save, work hard and try to reconcile the past for the sake of the future. Some of the conditions for a future orientation are

-living in a temperate zone, because different seasons make us plan ahead;

-a stable family, society and nation, because we can predict the future and how our actions will be rewarded;

-education, because we spend many hours learning with no immediate benefit but great future benefit;

-having a job and being successful, because these things show us our effort can pay off.

The future is worth keeping in mind in order to make the right decisions today. Poor neighbourhoods, especially those with poor schools, drugs and gangs, have trouble leaving a “present-fatalistic” mindset because it seems as though, whatever you do, you are bound to be stuck in the ‘hood. But someone with the future in mind thinks it is better to be safe than sorry: no guns, no drugs, no jail, just hard work for future payoff.

The past is too often a weapon in the propaganda war. It should be taught as a way of orienting oneself in a morally neutral history, and learned through multiple perspectives. The past has too much pain and blood to be where we should get all our rules and morals from, but if we learn an inclusive and fair history, we can learn important lessons about how to improve the world. If we focus on the future, we are more likely to be patient and work hard for the benefit of others. Learn more about time perspectives and their effects in the Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd.

One week of Israeli-Palestinian conflict bias-balancing: Conclusions

Day 7: Conclusions

I have spent the past week reading and analysing newspapers from Israel and Palestine to try to make sense of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By balancing the biases from news media, we can get a good picture of what is going on, what the people think and why things are the way they are.

One unspoken job of the newspapers is to give its readers reasons why they are right. If you believe Palestinians should not have their own state, you read the papers that not only agree with you but give you well-reasoned arguments as to why yours is the only logical position to take on the issue. Thus, when you read other newspapers that say Palestinians deserve sovereignty, you can denounce them dextrously. The newspapers I read, particularly Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, the Palestine Chronicle, the Alternative Information Centre and Arutz Sheva were very good at telling their readers how to think and why.

All newspapers are biased, though some more obviously than others. It is hard to tell which are the right-wing papers and which are left-wing, as the basic positions are the same. The divisions would be more accurately described as into doves and hawks. I didn’t find as many doves as I expected. I know there are peace activists among Israelis and Palestinians but there is just so much anger that they are clearly fighting an uphill battle. Others, meanwhile, claim to want peace, but since there could never be peace while the other exists, they must be held down or eliminated.

My take on the two-state solution

The biggest issue at play in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is, in my opinion, independence for Palestinians. There are other issues too but they would all be solved if this one was. For example, the right of return of Palestinian refugees. If there was a Palestinian state, it would be able to accommodate them. So the two-state solution is the solution. But it is still a long way off.

Netanyahu’s ideas on a Palestinian state are that, since it is a dangerous tiger, it should have its teeth, claws and one eye removed. Having nominally endorsed the idea of a Palestinian state, he can say he is on the side of the US. However, he has shown his hawkish side is the one he will follow. A Palestinian state must agree to recognise Israel as a Jewish state; a demilitarised Palestinian state; no control over Jerusalem; and Jewish West Bank settlements will keep growing. He made this proposal because he knew Palestinians would reject and get angry at it, making his government look like the peacemakers whose olive branch was rejected by the unreasonable Arabs. He started his speech by saying “Peace has always been our people’s most ardent desire.” What he meant was, Peace for Jews is our desire. If others need to be repressed or killed to secure it, fine.

That said, there is no reason to believe the two-state ideal is dead, as some Palestinian journalists have claimed. Netanyahu will not be in power forever. The Barack administration will keep up the pressure. Jimmy Carter’s point of view is valuable as well. But a viable Palestinian state does, nonetheless, seem a distant prospect.

The Israeli press spends too much time writing about why everything Israel does is right, and why everyone who disagrees with anything it does is wrong. If the newspapers reflect and reinforce public opinion, Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter are hated in some circles of Israeli society. These are the peacemakers. How can Israelis claim they want peace if they shoot the peacemakers? And how can they find solutions if everything is the fault of Arab terrorists?

Israelis in general also need to get over the idea that theirs is the only legitimate claim to the land of Israel. Was there nobody there before the Aliyah? Why do Jews but not Arabs deserve a nation state? There is no reason that Jews, Muslims and Christians, Jains, Daoists, dogs and monkeys cannot all live in harmony in Israel. All it requires is accepting that our group is no better than theirs.

How should Palestinian leaders proceed? Being far less powerful than the Israeli state, Palestinian leaders might be better to commit to non-violent resistance and creative solutions. I know, I know, in the face of aggression, one wants to be aggressive. I can understand the Intifada and the radical groups and the anger and bitterness of the Palestinians. But violence by Palestinians has two major consequences. First, it means retaliation, and if the blockade of and war in Gaza were any guide, violence is just not worth it. The Israeli Defence Forces should have made that clear. Second, it means less international sympathy for the people committing violence. If the Palestinians can play the peaceful yet oppressed minority, they could garner the support needed for recognition of their plight, and the world would put enough pressure on Israel to give them their own state. Or perhaps that is already the case and the result is not statehood but the status quo. Perhaps everyone needs to work harder to achieve peace.

The media can play the role of the hawk, by presenting narrow views and arguments that never compromise, or it can play the role of the dove, by presenting a variety of viewpoints, each one reasonable, from people of all ideologies in the conflict. Too many play the hawk. More critical thinking, more balanced biases, and more recognition of the legitimate claims of the other are the only way to achieve peace.

One week reading Israeli and Palestinian newspaper bias

Day 6

Today we will start by looking at an Israeli paper, then a Palestinian one, then one that claims neutrality.

Yedioth Ahronoth

Wikipedia calls Yedioth Ahronoth (“latest news” in Hebrew) the most widely circulated paper in Israel since the 1970s. It gives right- and left-wing commentary, though it is seen as more of a tabloid than a newspaper.

The big news today is Netanyahu’s speech at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He will be laying his policies out plain, they say. They also say he will give his support to the idea of a Palestinian state, but that it must be a demilitarised state. How a demilitarised state could keep its independence I do not know. The leader writes of this and shows photographs of protestors. In one, some women are holding signs saying “NO settlements/apartheid wall/Gaza siege”, and in another photo, counterpoint to the first, people are waving Israeli flags and holding a banner in Hebrew that I can’t read, but which the article reliably informs me reads “Barack Hussein Obama – an anti-Semite and hater of Jews”.

The next headline reads “Iran reformists: annul vote”. “Ahmadinejad rivals Mousavi, Karroubi say they will file an appeal to annul ‘illegitimate’ results of nationwide election”. Well, if you like. I doubt it would do anything. In the Israeli press, the assumption is that the Iranian election was rigged and fraudulent. I wonder if it really was. An op-ed embed in this story asks “The beginning of the end? Young Iranians may topple Ayatollah regime in wake of elections fiasco.” It should have been titled “Wishful thinking? Israelis hope young Iranians will topple the Ayatollah”.

You see, if all you read is Israeli newspapers, you will probably just presume the vote was fraudulent, along with the fact that Iran is about to declare nuclear war on Israel. So you could have trouble seeing that it is possible Ahmadinejad won the popular vote, or that the ruling clerics might be popular. There is certainly some evidence of violence and vote rigging. Do they mean the Iranian election should have gone to second-choice Mousavi? Are enough Iranians going to be angry enough with the result that they will take down the government?

The next headline down in Yedioth Ahronoth is about Jimmy Carter. Despite the protest we read about yesterday, he met with the town council of Gush Etzion, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. The local council says it changed Mr Carter’s perceptions. A seemingly carefully selected group was brought into council leader Shaul Goldstein’s house to meet with Carter. The group included two religious leaders, two women who had lost family members to terrorists, and a pair of newlyweds who said that, if there were limits to the natural growth of settlements, they could not raise a family in Gush Etzion.

A link in this article leads to the report on Noam Shalit giving a letter to the former US president for his son Gilad. Unlike Haaretz, the Yedioth Ahronoth website does not have a timer counting the number of seconds Gilad Shalit has been kidnapped. It does, however, have the exact number of days, 1083, printed in the article.

Arab Media Internet Network

At first glance, AMIN is structured like the Palestine Chronicle: journalists write new articles every day or so and submit them to the newspaper. As a result, the links to all the old articles are down the sides of the page. There seem to be many more articles in Arabic than in English. According to Google Translate, this site does not translate from English to Arabic or vice versa. Here is a selection of the articles in Arabic. (Bear in mind that Google Translate is imperfect and it is not always possible to capture the shades of meaning of other languages.)

Is the establishment of a Palestinian state in the interest of Palestinians?

Palestinians pin their hopes on others

Suffering of prisoners and the suffering of 40 years of occupation

Exposing racism in the Israeli police and security forces

An Israeli ministerial committee ratifies a law against commemorating the Nakba

The Arabic headlines seem slightly more angry than the English ones. Here are some of them.

Will the Netanyahu government make progress toward peace?

Obama’s song and dance in Cairo

Oslo redux: Fool’s gold in Israel/Palestine

While I will not translate the full Arabic articles, the English articles are nonetheless pro-Palestinian. But they are well-written and full of insightful analysis. The article on if the Netanyahu government’s progress on peace, for instance, discusses why it may, though gives six reasons why it probably will not. Popular, hawkish governments are sometimes the ones who make real progress toward real solutions. This journalist, Elias Tuma, a professor emeritus at the University of California, recalls how similar leaders such as Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin have surprisd us by signing lasting peace treaties. Being a strong leader, says Tuma categorically, “Natanyahu is capable of reaching and signing a peace agreement with Palestinians.” Then he gives six reasons why he might not.

First, Avigdor Lieberman, Foreign Minister and Deputy PM, submitted a bill to the Knesset banning commemoration of the Nakba. Second, Lieberman’s party submitted a bill demanding that Israeli Arabs recognise Israel as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic state. Third, the same party demands that Israeli Arabs serve in the military or another civic institution. Failure to do either of the last two results in loss of citizenship. Fourth, another party in the ruling coalition submitted a bill to declare that Jordan is Palestine. In other words, the Palestinians can leave Israel and go there. (I read about this idea elsewhere. It is really stupid. They might as well have declared that Russia is Israel.) It is not just cracks that support this bill: its supporters include three cabinet ministers. Fifth, Netanyahu has not accepted the two-state solution yet. Well, actually he has, but this article came two days before his speech where he said he accepted it. Sixth, Netanyahu insists on continuing construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Well, actually he said that new settlements would not be allowed, but natural growth of existing settlements (which are numerous) would be allowed. History will bear out the accuracy of this analysis. I think Elias Tuma is right.

Many of the articles are out of date, speculating on what Netanyahu (or even Barack) will say in his speech. This past weekend was something of a game changer because of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech and the election in Iran, so they are not so relevant anymore. One final note of interest on this site: there are a number of books in Arabic, written by Palestinians about Israel. If I could read Arabic, I would love to delve that much deeper into the experiences of Palestinians by reading them.

Bitter Lemons

Bitterlemons.org (subtitle: Palestinian-Israeli crossfire) is a project, financially supported by the European Union, to present Israeli and Palestinian viewpoints on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and peace process. It “maintains complete organizational and institutional symmetry between its Palestinian and Israeli components.”

Bitter Lemons offers a long list of links to such pertinent documents as Security Council resolutions; International Court of Justice decisions; the Athens Plan, a 2005 initiative calling for Israel to disengage from Gaza and the Northern West Bank; statements by political leaders; and other agreements and plans dating back to the founding of Israel.

I also appreciate that you can very easily access back editions all the way to 2001; and each weekly edition addresses a different topic. Some of the most recent are Obama’s Cairo speech; In the aftermath of Pope Benedict’s visit; and West Bank-Israel security issues. Many of the same contributors write in each edition. This week’s is Netanyahu’s speech on the peace process.

“A Palestinian View”: Ghassan Khatib calls Netanyahu’s speech “a failed public relations exercise” that “catered to the right-wing constituency that put him in the position he is in.” (An English transcript of his speech can be found here.) After taking apart Netanyahu’s “farcical” concept of a Palestinian state, Khatib says that the entity Netanyahu describes is not a state at all. I agree wholeheartedly, and will explain why tomorrow. Khatib continues by saying that the speech is a threat to peace, and that the American administration must clean up the mess. He also acknowledges the radicalisation of Palestinian opinion, and that this speech will not help that either. Mr Khatib is a former minister of the Palestinian Authority.

“An Israeli View”: Responding to pressure from Washington, the Israeli prime minister and his advisors thought of the best way they could address US government demands and throw them out at the same time: “give everyone–the US administration, his coalition, the Palestinians–a little of what they want. Confuse them, too. But also do something dramatic to satisfy the Americans.” He avoided confronting the real issues, and is “steeped in Revisionist ideology”. His coalition, meanwhile, will hold.

“A Palestinian View” (I do not really like the whole identity thing but I suppose it is relevant): Mr Netanyahu’s speech was “the death of hopes for peace and a Palestinian state.” Is that not a little premature and pessimistic? Anyway, the writer, a professor at Al-Quds University, goes on. He speaks of the PM’s invocation of Abraham when he said that the West Bank, like the rest of Israel, is Jewish and Israeli and whatever else makes it ours because it is the land of Abraham. But, says the writer, Abraham is a prophet of the Christians and the Muslims too. Are they not all his children? This article gets bitter. Though of course the Israelis, especially the government, should understand Palestinian viewpoints, the ones this writer mentions are the kind that Netanyahu’s base would reject out of hand. It therefore speaks less to Israelis in a position to do something and more to the already bitter. This man should aim his lemons higher.

“An Israeli View”: This final article, also bitter, blames the Palestinians for repudiating Mr Netanyahu’s acceptance of a Palestinian state. Moreover, “[h]ad they accepted Netanyahu’s offer, I have no doubt that there would have emerged in Israel an unprecedented consensus favoring a Palestinian state.” But that is like saying, if you offer me a bowl of rice off your banquet table, I should accept it graciously; and if not, I do not deserve it. This writer, a columnist for Haaretz, said that “they repeatedly reject Israel’s generous offers”. So it’s all their fault.

I very much enjoyed reading Bitter Lemons, because even what I do not agree with, I appreciate as a well-reasoned perspective. I can conclude that, as far as I have read, they do indeed uphold their position in the centre of the road. Tomorrow, I will draw conclusions from my week reading Israeli and Palestinian newspaper bias.