Nakba Day and Implausible Peace Plans

...Shavit’s reference to his opportunity zones as a “greenhouse” is telling. It should be remembered that when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, wealthy American Jews bought the greenhouses built by Jewish settlers in order to give them to local Arabs who could then build their economy. But the greenhouses were destroyed in a paroxysm of Palestinian rage against anything connected to the Jews hours after the Israelis left. Much as Shavit might hope that Israeli withdrawals in the West Bank will produce a different result, there is no reason to think that any land abandoned to the Palestinians will not be converted to terrorist hotbeds, much as the independent Palestinian state in all but name in Gaza soon became.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
15 May '14..

The market for new Middle East peace plans is pretty much like that available for diets. Just as there will never be a shortage of schemes offering you a way to lose weight by various means, the supply of “new” solutions to the conflict in the Middle East is a well that never runs dry. The latest entry to what is a growing genre comes from Israeli journalist and author Ari Shavit, whose book—My Promised Land—on the conflict got generally favorable reviews in the United States. Writing in the New Republic, Shavit offers what he claims is not only a new approach but a “plausible” one that seeks to learn from the mistakes made by the peace processors in the more than 20 years since the Oslo Accords.

Like that book (which was subjected to a thorough and withering takedown by the irreplaceable Ruth Wisse), whose superficial evenhandedness endeared it to both liberal Jewish friends of Israel and many who are not its friends, Shavit’s plan sounds smart and also avoids the clichés about Israelis needing to search their souls or having to be saved from themselves by wise foreigners. Indeed, there is much to recommend it. Shavit counsels that we should forget about what he calls “Old Peace” with its obsession with crafting grand agreements and promoting White House ceremonies and instead concentrate on “New Peace”—an idea that will focus on Palestinian economic development and reform as a way to transition them and their Israeli neighbors to accepting a two state solution that will be based on ending the conflict rather than merely pausing it. But the idea isn’t new. Though he gives the back of his hand to Israel’s current government as being part of the problem rather than the solution, this concept of fostering change on the ground as the foundation for genuine reconciliation is what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been advocating for years even as he has accepted a two-state solution as the basis for agreements.

But as smart as this may be, the problem with Shavit’s “New Peace” is pretty much the same as the shortcomings with the old variety. And the evidence of the impractical nature of his plan is very much on display today as the Palestinians and their cheerleaders around the world celebrate “Nakba Day.” May 15 is the anniversary of Israel’s Independence in 1948, an event that Palestinians refer to as the “disaster” or nakba. The parades, speeches, and vows of eliminating the Jewish state that are echoing throughout the political culture of the Palestinians today are proof that, at least for the foreseeable future, such practical plans as that of Shavit, which require them to put aside their historic grudges and focus on building a productive future, haven’t got a chance.

Shavit’s plan requires Israel to enact a total freeze on building in those Jewish settlements in the West Bank that are beyond the security fence. That’s a measure that wouldn’t inconvenience Israel all that much since almost all of the new housing beyond the 1967 lines is in Jerusalem and the settlement blocs that are inside the fence and would be kept by Israel in any peace agreement. But Shavit also says that Israel should withdraw completely from large swaths of the West Bank and that each such area would become an economic opportunity zone for Palestinian entrepreneurs where a free-market economy would grow without the debilitating corruption of the current Palestinian Authority.

The zones would be aided by the Arab states and the European Union and overseen by the United States. This new spirit of growth would foster a different civil political culture that would replace the old Palestinian one in which national identity is inextricably tied to war to the death against Zionism. Only by recreating themselves in this manner will Palestinians ever be willing to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders would be drawn. As Shavit writes:

Shavit's Distorted Vision vs. Jabotinsky's Clarity

...The Zionist leadership did what was necessary to create the state, and despite what anti-Zionist revisionist historians say, did not engage in mass murder (as Arabs did whenever possible)....And we do not “owe them” a state. In fact, because a Palestinian Arab state in Judea and Samaria is simply incompatible with the continued existence of the Jewish state — a result of military realities and Arab and Muslim intentions — we are obligated to oppose such a state.

Fresnozionsim.org..
28 December '13..

Yesterday Ha’aretz reporter Ari Shavit was interviewed on NPR about his new book. Let me start by saying that Shavit is not a foaming anti-Zionist like his colleagues Gideon Levy, Amira Hass and (formerly) Akiva Eldar. And I have to admit that I haven’t read his book. But the interview reveals a certain mindset that is disturbingly common among the supposedly sane Left in Israel.

For example, Shavit said,

It was part of the Ottoman [Empire] – and the entire region was, like, chaotic and tribal. So one has to remember, they did not conquer a well-established state, but those other people were there. And my great grandfather did not see them. Now, that’s the source of the tragedy, because on the one hand, you have this amazing triumph that is a result of the brilliant insight [of Zionism]. On the other hand, you have this ongoing tragedy of a 100-year war – more than that – that is the result of that basic flaw, that we did not see the Palestinians and the Palestinians would not see us, and…

This isn’t true, at least for those Zionists with decent eyesight. It was clear to Vladimir Jabotinsky as early as 1923, that as much as some of the more tender-minded Zionists believed that it would be possible to share sovereignty over the land with the Arabs, the Arabs would never willingly agree to it. Zionism does not require expulsion or expropriation of the Arabs, he believed, but it does require Jewish sovereignty, a Jewish state, and he was certain that this couldn’t come about through a voluntary agreement.

The collision of Jews and Arabs in the land of Israel was bound to have a winner and a loser, and Jabotinsky was convinced that a Jewish victory was not immoral, any more than an Arab victory — which history has shown us would have been far bloodier — would have been. Zionism was moral because there was no alternative for the Jews, while there were many for Arabs. But that doesn’t mean the Arabs have to be happy about it.

Ari Shavitt's addition to “Israel is losing its soul” books

...In any case, that even a more thoughtful, nuanced left-winger like Shavit feels compelled to write about his country in terms of “tragedy” and “doom,” and that so many people are now getting this warped message, is really something to lament.

P. David Hornik..
FrontPagemag.com..
23 December '13..

I haven’t read My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, the new New York Times bestseller by Israeli left-of-center journalist Ari Shavit. In my book-reviewing days I read more than my fill of “Israel is losing its soul” books. I have a lot of resistance to subjecting myself to another, along with other priorities.

Shavit, of course, is not just another Israel-basher. Among left-wing Israeli commentators he’s distinguished by having admitted he was wrong about “peace” with Syria, relating to Binyamin Netanyahu as a human being instead of a demon, and being intensely concerned about the Iranian threat—that is, capable of acknowledging that Israel still faces threats that it did not create itself.

Some commentators I respect clearly like My Promised Land. However, a review by another of my esteemed authors and commentators, Ruth Wisse, makes me all the more leery of putting any time into the book.

“[E]verywhere in My Promised Land,” Wisse writes, “the techniques of literary foreshadowing are deployed to telegraph impending doom.” And yet, “according to Shavit himself, his fears arise less from what Arab and Muslim leaders intend to do to Israel than from what Israel has done to them.”

Israel, in other words, as a doomed country—as comeuppance for its own sins. Sounds all too familiar.

Perhaps, if I read the book myself, I would get a different impression of its import. It seems unlikely, though, in light of some quotations Wisse offers.

Such as some sentences of Shavit’s about a concert by the great violinist Jascha Heifetz at Kibbutz Ein Harod in 1926—that is, in prestate, pioneering Israel, twenty-two years before statehood. As Shavit imagines this event:

I think of that great fire in the belly, a fire without which the valley could not have been cultivated, the land could not have been conquered, the state of the Jews could not have been founded. But I know the fire will blaze out of control. It will burn the valley’s Palestinians and it will consume itself, too. Its smoldering remains will eventually turn Ein Harod’s exclamation point into a question mark.

“…burn the valley’s Palestinians,” no less. Here you can see a map of the 1947 UN Partition Plan. The blue part was supposed to be Israel, the orange part Palestine (Jerusalem belongs to neither, an internationally administered city). Everything from Beersheba southward is desert; the Jews, whose connection to the land goes back over three thousand years and who have been assiduously building it up since the 1880s, get the Negev Desert, a strip along the coast, and eastern Galilee. The Palestinians get the rest.

As Ari Shavit knows, the Jews accepted this plan; the Palestinian and Arab side rejected it out of hand and instead launched a war to annihilate Israel. Shavit also knows that in 1994 Israel created the Palestinian Authority; that in 2000-01 it turned the historical clock back by offering the Palestinians a state that they—again—rejected; ditto for 2008; that meanwhile in 2005 Israel withdrew totally from Gaza; and that in 2009 Netanyahu, with his right-of-center background, pronounced himself in favor of a two-state solution.

Apparently, though, for Shavit, none of this is enough to expiate the primal sin he feels hovering over himself, over his country.

The Myth and Myth-making of Ari Shavit's "The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel"

...When the British ended their mandate and vacated the Holy Land the following year, Arab armies waged war on the nascent Jewish state, with the declared intent of destroying it. While the fighting spawned thousands of displaced Palestinians, the wound was self-inflicted, not created by Israel, as Shavit would have readers believe.

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
15 December '13..

Ari Shavit, an author and columnist of the leftist Israeli newspaper Haaretz, is being lionized by liberal, secular media in the West. His new book, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, is widely acclaimed as the ultimate insight into the founding and existence of the Jewish state. Shavit wants readers to understand the full complexity of what makes Israelis tick. And how the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians came about and still festers.

But Shavit veers off the rails -- and drastically so -- when he deals with the most fundamental question of Israel's existential rights in the Jews' ancient homeland. Here, for example, is how he explains the birth and presence of the Jewish state, as reported by Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn:

This is about homeless people creating a home for themselves and creating homeless Palestinians." In other words, Israel is a colonial implant whose existence has come at the expense of Palestinians and their rights to the land. That, according to Shavit, is why triumph and tragedy are part and parcel of Israel's very definition. That's why Shavit and Israelis who buy his argument are apt to be saddled with a huge dose of guilt. ("A voice from Israel speaks of fear, celebration and caution" Dec. 14 Post edition, page B2)

Put another way, Israel is responsible for what Palestinians refer to as their "naqba" -- their historic "catastrophe," duly observed and remembered each year -- inflicted by Israel's creation.

Unfortunately, despite all the acclaim showered on Shavit, he's dispensing a myth, a historical fiction, that offends real history.

Marquadt-Bigman - A decade after the day peace died

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
10 February '12..



When I was reading Ari Shavit’s most recent article in Ha’aretz, I was wondering if he recalled his interview with former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami some ten years ago. Under the title “The day peace died”, the interview was published in the Ha’aretz weekend edition of Friday, September 14, 2001 – which of course was just three days after 9/11; but the date also was close to the one-year anniversary of the then still ongoing “Al-Aksa intifada.”

While Shlomo Ben-Ami and Ari Shavit talked about the negotiations in Camp David and Taba, one of the instigators of the Al-Aksa intifada, Marwan Barghouti, marked the one-year anniversary of the senseless violence by giving an interview to Al Hayat, where he explained that he had seized “a historic opportunity to ignite the conflict. The strongest conflict is the one that initiated from Jerusalem due to the sensitivity of the city, its uniqueness and its special place in the hearts of the masses who are willing to sacrifice themselves [for her] with not even thinking of the cost.”

In his recent column, Shavit argues “that the old peace is dead” and that “we must quickly replace it with a new, realistic peace.” The political implications of his argument amount to an acknowledgement that the right was right, and that Netanyahu’s (and Lieberman’s) view that the conflict with the Palestinians can only be managed is the only realistic approach for the foreseeable future.

Needless to say, Shavit still tries to provide a “balanced” picture, e.g. when he asserts: “The Israelis’ despair of ever achieving peace was no less a blow to peace than the blow dealt to it by Palestinian intransigence.”

Ari Shavit frustrated: Netanyahu did not include text from trial balloon in address to Congress

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
26 May '11




[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: Someone provided Ari Shavit with a 30 word text "trial balloon" that was ostensibly going to be included in PM Netanyahu's address to the US Congress. It remains unclear just how committed Mr. Netanyahu was to including the 30 words. After all, it would not be the first time that staffers and others lobbying for a prime minister to follow their recommendations leaked their ideas to a reporter in the hopes that the trial balloon takes on a life of itself. Then again, there is also the possibility that Mr. Netanyahu himself was toying with the 30 word text and shared the information with Shavit.


What happened?


Let's not forget that before PM Netanyahu arrived in the U.S. the Israeli media was gleefully marching Netanyahu down the gangplank, predicting that he was going to be devoured by President Obama.


It is conceivable that, out of sheer desperation, Mr. Netanyahu prepared a 30 word text to use as a last measure to avoid - or at least postpone - disaster.


But that's not how things played out.


American leadership and many in the American media were troubled by President Obama's remarks before Netanyahu's arrival.


And then a big surprise: it was thought that the concept that Israel was not required by 242 to provide a Palestinian state with a land mass equal in size to the West Bank and Gaza Strip was too complicated to explicitly argue. But it turned out that the opposite was the case. American leaders and the media not only followed the argument - many embraced it.


In fact, a whole series of serious points were relayed, absorbed and accepted.


So by the time Prime Minister Netanyahu made his way to Congress to deliver his address the situation had radically changed.


Instead of having to cower and offer a 30 word text to the "concessions Moleh", Mr. Netanyahu could hold his head high and present Israel's case.


And so he did.


And a frustrated Ari Shavit along with most of the rest of the Israeli media joined in trying to explain to the Israeli public that it was a disaster.


A view that the Israeli public - despite the media offensive - utterly rejected.]

===============================
Netanyahu's peace stance is running Israel into a wall
Barak and Meridor must make it clear to the prime minister this week that if an Israeli initiative doesn't materialize pronto, they will quit. Who knows? Perhaps, faced with a real threat, he will finally emerge from his shell.

By Ari Shavit
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/netanyahu-s-peace-stance-is-running-israel-into-a-wall-1.364109 Published 02:51 26.05.11Latest update 02:51 26.05.11

When Benjamin Netanyahu became prime minister, he had to formulate a peace strategy. He had to decide whether he aspired to reach an interim agreement or a final-status one with the Palestinians. He opted to go for a final-status agreement.

Shavit Condemns Ha'artez's Double Standard on Jenin Murder

The killing of
Juliano Mer-Khamis
 did not prompt
huge headline

TS
CAMERA/Snapshots
07 April '11

http://blog.camera.org/archives/2011/04/haartezs_shavit_condemns_doubl.html

Ha'aretz columnist Ari Shavit decries the double standard of his own newspaper, as well as the Israeli left in general, with respect to its reaction to the murder of Israeli filmmaker Juliano Mer-Khamis in Jenin on Monday. He writes:

It is not hard to imagine what would have happened had Juliano Mer-Khamis been murdered by Jews. The murder would receive a huge headline in Haaretz. Under the headline, five furious analyses would appear - one of them mine.

The writers would harshly denounce the Jewish murderousness and urge a culture war against Jewish fanaticism. Others would demand not to repeat the mistake made after Baruch Goldstein's murderous rampage and to evacuate the settlements immediately. Others would demand to look into the goings on in the Hesder yeshivas, which offer Torah studies alongside military service, and the state-run religious education system.

Selected racist quotes would be pulled out of primitive rabbis' writings, historic comparisons would be made to Emil Gruenzweig's murder and Yitzhak Rabin's murder and Martin Luther King's murder.

Within a day Mer-Khamis would become an icon. On Saturday night thousands would gather holding torches to mourn the peace hero and rise up against the powers of darkness. Mer-Khamis' murder at the hands of Jews would rebuild the left, reunite it and send it to a new battle against murderous Jewish fascism.

But Juliano Mer-Khamis was not murdered by Jews. So instead of a huge headline he got a story below the fold. Instead of five angry essays, he received only one (beautiful ) eulogy.

Nobody talked about racism, fanaticism and fascism. Nobody spoke of education systems spreading hatred and about primitive clergy. Mer-Khamis did not become an icon and thousands of people did not demonstrate.

Shavit also extends his criticism to "Western enlightenment," charging:

A post-colonial complex makes Western enlightenment systematically ignore injustices caused by anti-Western forces. Thus it loses the ability to see historic reality as a whole, in all its complexity. It also makes it act unfairly and unjustly.

It discriminates between different kinds of evil, different kinds of blood and different kinds of victims. It treats third-world societies as though they are not subject to universal moral norms.

Indeed. Thus, as documented earlier this week by CAMERA, the International Herald Tribune has no trouble featuring Palestinian grievances against Israeli, but completely ignored Mer-Khamis' murder, as well as the indictment of an alleged Hamas rocket expert.

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From the Temple Mount to Goldstone and Back: By Moshe Feiglin

The government is in disarray, frenetically trying to formulate a response to the Goldstone Report. Should Israel establish a commission of inquiry to deflect the danger of an international tribunal or should we do just the opposite and avoid opening a Pandora's box? The Defense Minister opposes the inquiry - the Chief of Staff and the soldiers do not want to find themselves under interrogation on suspicion of war crimes. Other ministers are in favor; Dan Meridor (of course) Herzog and others explain that an Israeli inquiry will stave off international pressure. And Netanyahu, true to form, vacillates somewhere in the middle, establishes a committee to report on a commission of inquiry and attempts to give everyone what they are looking for.

But the real reason for the Goldstone Report is not the Cast Lead Operation. As such, Israel's ability to deal with the report is not a question of inquiry into the fighting.

Leftist Ha'aretz journalist Ari Shavit came up with an excellent definition for the Goldstone Report. According to Shavit, it is the tip of the huge iceberg called loss of moral justification for the existence of a Jewish state:

"Under the calm waters upon which the Israeli luxury liner sails, lies an iceberg. The Goldstone Report was the first sighting of the iceberg. The Turks turning their backs on us was the second sighting. The pursuit of Israeli officers in Europe was the third sighting, the boycott of Israeli goods and companies in different places in the world the fourth sighting, the insensitivity to the fact that an atomic power threatens to wipe Israel off the map is the fifth sighting of the iceberg. Every week, practically every day, the iceberg shows its face. And when we look carefully over the rail of the luxury liner, we can see the exact nature of the peeking iceberg. The iceberg is the loss of moral justification for the State of Israel."
(Ari Shavit, Ha'aretz, Oct. 15, '09)

Ari Shavit has no doubt why we lost the moral justification for the very existence of a Jewish state on the face of the earth. The reason is the settlements, of course. When a person does not walk before G-d with simple sincerity, he can easily be drafted into the service of foreign gods. No historical or security facts will convince the Left to re-think its theories.

But at least our intelligentsia can define the problem and understand that we must deal with something far more serious than how our soldiers fought in Gaza. Our very right to Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel and essentially - the question of our being a nation and not just a religion - is on the line. And let there be no doubt: If we fail this test, the State of Israel will fall, G-d forbid. Because when a tree loses its roots and dries up, it will eventually fall over.

From where do we draw our moral justification? What is the point that, in its absence, our right to exist as a sovereign nation in our Land comes into question?

"He who rules the Mount rules the Land," wrote the poet of rebuke and faith, Uri Tzvi Greenberg. When the State of Israel descended from the Temple Mount and gave it to the Moslemwakf immediately after its liberation, it charted the course to Goldstone. That is the core around which Shavit's iceberg has crystallized.

The encouraging part of this story is that those who understand the source of the problem also know how to deal with the Goldstone Report. A commission of inquiry will not restore Israel's moral justification. But a house of worship for Jews on the Temple Mount will.

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