By Paul Rogers
For most of Israel’s 75-year history, its closest ally has been the United States, prepared to use its UN security council veto and invariably willing to encourage military collaboration as well as providing plenty of direct aid.
But that relationship is highly stressed at present, mainly down to the Netanyahu government’s determination to curb the power of the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, in favour of more power for the Knesset.
As Time magazine put it recently: “The sources of Biden’s grievances are manifold. Since reclaiming power, Netanyahu has formed a hard-right coalition filled with ultraconservative and ultra-Orthodox voices. They have moved quickly to expand Israel’s settlement presence in the West Bank – gobbling up land that Palestinians see as their own and making the conditions near-impossible for an independent state to ever emerge there.”
The White House’s worries go beyond Israel’s current domestic instability, even with the weekly mass public protests against the judicial changes which the US president, Joe Biden, cautioned the Israeli government not to pursue.
They also concern the security of the occupied West Bank, where an increase in violence has been manifest over the past couple of years, mainly down to greater numbers of Jewish settlers with deep religious convictions.
They now number more than half a million across the West Bank, with many seeing it as their God-given land.
Meanwhile, the existing Palestinian population experiences more and more limitations, with security controlled by Israeli forces. Extremists among the settlers persistently harass and disrupt Palestinian life, including attacks on villagers. All too often, Israeli security forces just stand by, even in the face of direct violence.
The Biden administration rarely says much, but there has been a change in its overall attitude, shown by the recent celebration of Israel’s 75th anniversary. It was the relatively moderate if largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, who was invited to Washington to address the US Congress in July, rather than the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
‘Terror’ on the West Bank
Far more pointed was the use of the term “terrorism” against Israel by the state department in response to the killing of a young Palestinian, 19-year old Qusai Jamal Maatan, near Ramallah by settlers on August 4.
The Israeli agriculture minister, Avi Dichter, tried to dismiss this as a misinformed comment. But the state department confirmed the specific use of the term.
Behind all of this is a major problem for the Israelis in securing the West Bank for the Jewish settlers. With Netanyahu’s government dependent for its very survival on backing from ultra-Orthodox and ideologically nationalist politicians in the Knesset, the settlers have to be afforded all the protection they require.
But the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) is deeply reluctant to occupy even small areas of territory because of the determined opposition they would face from Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and other paramilitary groups.
Over the past two decades the IDF has learnt the hard way to do everything it can to avoid frontline troops being in close contact with Palestinian populations for any length of time. In a rare event on July 3, the IDF forced entry into the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin, a tightly packed district with 17,000 people crammed into a few streets and alleyways.
But this involved a brigade-sized force of well over 1,000 elite troops backed up by Shin Bet intelligence agents, Magav border police, armed drones, helicopter gunships, armoured personnel carriers and armoured bulldozers.
The entire operation of combing the camp for explosive device production workshops and other paramilitary sites linked to PIJ was compressed into just 48 hours of intensive activity. In the process, 13 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed and scores of Palestinians were taken into custody.
This raid was most likely prompted by a well-organised PIJ ambush of an Israeli army patrol near Jenin in June, when five armoured personnel carriers were damaged. A subsequent IDF rescue operation required a substantial ground force backed up by AH-64 Apache helicopters using air-to-ground missiles and took nine hours to complete.
Security and settlers
Why is there such a problem? Most analysts had come to the view that Israel had sufficient forces needed to ensure its own security – whether in southern Lebanon, Gaza or the West Bank. The reason goes back over two decades with the IDF finding that, first in southern Lebanon and then especially in Gaza, ground troops facing highly motivated and well trained paramilitary opponents fighting on their own home ground took unacceptably high casualties.
The largest IDF operation in Gaza of recent years was the seven-week Operation Protective Edge
back in 2014 to suppress rocket fire into Israel and destroy underground facilities. The elite Golani Brigade led the way, but took heavy casualties with 13 killed and 50 injured on the first day alone.
IDF deaths over the seven weeks were 64, with 469 injured. These were tiny compared with over 2,000 Palestinians killed and about 10,000 injured, mostly civilians, but still unacceptably high for the Israelis.
Since then, Israel has opted more for remote war using missiles, bombs and artillery together with anti-rocket technologies, together with selective assassination raids by Special Forces.
The West Bank was relatively easy to control before the expansion in Jewish settlements, albeit appallingly difficult for Palestinians. Many settlers live close to Palestinian towns and villages and are afforded protection by the Israeli government which is controlled by ultra-right parties sympathetic to the settler movement.
Such has been the change in Israeli politics that even if parliamentary control slips away from the likes of Netanyahu, that will not end the problem. The settlers will remain, they are well armed and utterly convinced that they are right.
Netanyahu and the religious right have unleashed a new force and it may be that some in the Biden administration recognise the implications of this and do not like what they see.
Paul Rogers is Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford.
The Conversation arose out of deep-seated concerns for the fading quality of our public discourse and recognition of the vital role that academic experts could play in the public arena. Information has always been essential to democracy. It’s a societal good, like clean water. But many now find it difficult to put their trust in the media and experts who have spent years researching a topic. Instead, they listen to those who have the loudest voices. Those uninformed views are amplified by social media networks that reward those who spark outrage instead of insight or thoughtful discussion. The Conversation seeks to be part of the solution to this problem, to raise up the voices of true experts and to make their knowledge available to everyone. The Conversation publishes nightly at 9 p.m. on FlaglerLive.
ASF says
I have never read such tripe in my life. The West Bank was never “easy to control.” To preach against the Orthodoxy in Israel while ignoring the religious fanaticism that drives the actions of Israel’s worst enemies a backwards wave of the hand is blindly biased, to say the least.
The insistence of many media outlets (including this one) to criminalize Israeli efforts to defend itself from the 24/7 threats to its existence while largely ignoring the actions of its provocatours doesn’t pass the smell test. The insistent violence and Human Rights abuses of the powers aligned agaiunst Israel are both undeniable and unacceptable on any level. To put Israel under a uniquely punishing miscroscope while giving its enemies a comparatively free pass contributes to the overall problem.
Other nations would be far less restrained than Israel has been if they found themselves in Israel’s shoes. It’s quite possible that they might be similarly tested in the future, especially if they keep enabling the anti-democratic (and typically Human Rights Abusing) forces determined to crush Israel. Other nations recent electoral results have not been any more promising than Israel’s most recent ones have been. Alas, we measure and judge Israel by a very different yardstick and that’s the operative definition of prejudice.
Without Israel in it, the world would not magically become a more peaceful, stable and democratic place. Quite the opposite would be true. I hope we never have to find that out.
Bill C says
So, might makes right? The settlers are using the same pretext to cover their use of indiscriminate violence to invade the West Bank as Putin is using to invade Ukraine: that the land is historically theirs.
JimBob says
“Lebensraum” is a term that comes to mind in light of Netanyahu’s recent abandonment of democracy in favor of right wing autocracy.
ASF says
You want to see a perfect example of “autocracy”? It’s what the mostly Left Wing judges in Israel practice currently. They are invested with the power to summarily throw out any legislation passed by the Knesset, simply on the basis that the presiding judge personally finds it to be “unreasonable.” In other words, whenever legislation offends their own personal and/or political sensibilities, under the unreformed system, unelected judges can cancel them at will and whim. To make the case of how “undemocratic” that is, the high court in Israel appoints their own from within their own ranks. At times, they have been known to employ family members in clerkship positions. The Knesset, by contrast, is an electoral body that does reflects the will of the majority of Israelis–at least, the ones who show up to vote.
Other nations like the U.S. have no right to be interfering in the internal affairs of Israel. Israel is not a territorial possession of the United States or any other nation. To order them to follow the policy dictates of nations other than Israel itself is, in itself, undemocratic.
Putting Israel under a more punishing microscope, where they are basically “darned if they do and dam*ed if they don’t”, is what led to Netanyahu being re-elected. Israel felt forced to circle the wagons. Now, other nations are interfering even more intensely which is helping to tear apart the only functional democracy in the entire Middle East.
If Israel falls to the wayside, do people really feel that will make the world a better place? Do Americans really believe that our own security will not be put even more at risk if that occurs? The first thing that would happen in that case is that the United States would be forced to more actively–perhaps even militarily– intervene in that part of the world, just to protect our own global interests. Be careful what you wish for.
The hate that starts with Jews as it primary target never ends with Jews as its only victims. History proves that still unlearned lesson to be true. What is happening to Israel IS reflective of the fact that Jews, in general, continue to be more endangered than ever–being that Israel happens to be the one and only majority Jewish nation in existence on the entire planet.
Stop applying more punishing judgements and expectations to some than you do to others, especially yourself. That is the operative defintion of prejudice.
JimBob says
Ironicall, your ranting about “unelected judges” adhering to their “own personal and/or political sensibilities” directly reflects the rhetoric of America’s own advocates for a white nationalist autocracy. You must love Trump’s SCOTUS appointees.
ASF says
In fact, I don’t. You are wrong on all counts, it seems.
Some Democrats have been lobbying to change the way that SCOTUS operates becuase of what has hapopoened over the past few years. They are many of the self-same demmcrats who are most critical of judicial reform efforts in Israel which is blindly hypocritical.
Ray W. says
While many Zionists consider Theodor Herzl to be one of the foremost founding fathers of the Zionist movement, I have read other perspectives that focus on Vladimir Jabotinsky as the founding father of the modern Zionist philosophy and movement.
When Herzl emerged on the world stage, the Zionist movement focused solely on repatriating Ashkenazim from Europe, particularly western Russia, which was engaging in numerous pogroms against its native Jewish population. The idea of a Zionist political state was not the primary focus of Herzl’s plans. Indeed, some of the literature from that time envisioned a one-state solution, with Arabs and Jews having equal rights in a future government.
At the time, Palestine was relatively sparsely settled, but its Arab population dwarfed that of the indigenous Jewish community by roughly 10 to one. The Ottoman Empire was in decline, but still in control of Palestine. Herzl advocated for a passive immigration from Europe to Palestine, but the Sultan was not open to a large influx of European Jews. And the Palestinian Arab presence certainly was against any Zionist immigration.
Prior to WWI, Jabotinsky, born in the Ukraine, emerged as a countering presence in the evolving Zionist movement. While not alone in his views, he became the face of what is now called Revisionist Zionism. Jabotinsky advocated for a more aggressive form of Zionism. His views encompassed two different perspectives. The revisionist view held that either a more aggressive Jewish defense force or a movement backed by a major Western power, either Great Britain, the United States, Germany or France, would more rapidly advance the Zionist cause.
With the onset of WWI, many Jews, including Jabotinsky, pressured the British Army to absorb Jewish forces into the army. Jabotinsky first served as an officer in a Jewish unit during the Gallipoli campaign. Later, when the British Army formed several Jewish brigades, Jabotinsky again served with distinction on the Western front. The lobbying by the revisionist Zionists led to the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which answered one of the goals to the movement, which was to have a major Western power seemingly allied with the Zionist movement.
With the collapse of the Russian government and the struggles for power in the fledgling Soviet Union, the Zionist movement gained a measure of urgency. Poland began its own experiment as a democracy (not its first, though), with its own instabilities. Germany, too, had surrendered, and its own provisional post-war governments were struggling for respect within its own citizenry. And finally, the Ottoman Sultan had been deposed and the new young European-leaning Turks were engaged in their own struggle with an invasion by the Greek army. Most of Palestine fell under British control, with France in Syria and Lebanon, but both of these European nations were exhausted by war.
Amidst the multitudes of struggles throughout Europe and the Middle East, Herzl’s passive Zionist movement lost momentum and Jabotinsky’s more aggressive form of Zionism gained favor in the European Jewish community. Jabotinsky was honored by the British Army for his service, and he gained credibility as a leading Jewish thinker in Palestine. There is no doubt from some of his writings that he, too, held thoughts of a single-state solution, where Arabs and Jews governed themselves, but he also had a more pragmatic side to his advocacy.
In 1923, he published an essay that encapsulated his thoughts at that time of what it would take to create a new Zionist political state. Remember, Herzl really didn’t advocate for a Zionist state; he was more open to emigration into Palestine and let the future take its course. Jabotinsky was far more concerned with creating a new Jewish state in the middle of a Palestinian Arab majority.
In his essay, which Jabotinsky titled The Iron Wall, he starts by conceding that there will always be two nations in Palestine, with his hope that the Jewish nation will become the majority nation. He then frames his central question: “… [W]hether it is always possible to realise a peaceful aim by peaceful means. For the answer to this question does not depend on our attitude to the Arabs; but entirely on the attitude of the Arabs to us and to Zionism.”
Next, Jabotinsky describes his view that there will never be a voluntary agreement between the Jewish community and the Palestinian Arabs, because the indigenous Arab population will never agree to become a minority population. He draws a comparison with the Pilgrims, who believed there was room enough in America for both the Indians and the Pilgrims. But, he concluded, the Indians fought with “ferocity” against the Pilgrims. Jabotinsky concluded: “Every native population, civilised or not, regards its lands as its national home, of which it is the sole master, and it wants to retain that mastery always; it will refuse to admit not only new masters but, even new partners or collaborators.”
Next, Jabotinsky posits that the Arabs are not foolish enough to fall for attempts to bribe them with money or development; they know that the Zionists want their land and no amount of sweet words or promises will persuade them to part with it: “Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised.” Jabotinsky concludes that: “Colonisation can have only one aim, and Palestine Arabs cannot accept this aim. It lies in the very nature of things, and in this particular regard nature cannot be changed.”
Jabotinsky then proposes his “Iron Wall.”
“We cannot offer any adequate compensation to the Palestinian Arabs in return for Palestine. And therefore, there is no likelihood of any voluntary agreement being reached. So that all those who regard such an agreement as a condition sine qua non for Zionism may as well say ‘non’ and withdraw from Zionism.
“Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population — behind and iron wall, which the native population cannot breach.
“That is our Arab policy; not what we should be, but what actually is, whether we admit it or not. What need, otherwise, of the Balfour Declaration? Or of the Mandate? Their value to us is that an outside Power has undertaken to create in the country such conditions of administration and security that if the native population should desire to hinder our work, they will find it impossible.
“And we are all of us, without any exception, demanding day after day that this outside Power, should carry out this task vigorously and with determination.
“In this matter there is no difference between our ‘militarists’ and our ‘vegetarians’. Except that the first prefer that the iron wall should consist of Jewish soldiers and the others are content that they should be British.
“We demand that there should be an iron wall. Yet we keep spoiling our own case, by talking about ‘agreement’ which means telling the Mandatory Government that the important thing is not the iron wall, but discussions. Empty rhetoric of this kind is dangerous. And that is why it is not only a pleasure but a duty to discredit it and to demonstrate that it is both fantastic and dishonest.”
Jabotinsky then focuses on his final point, which to him is the morality and justness of the Zionist movement, which he splits into two phases:
“We hold that Zionism is moral and just. And since it is moral and just, justice must be done, no matter whether Joseph or Simon or Ivan or Achmet agree with it or not.
“There is no other morality.
“In the second place, this does not mean that there cannot be any agreement with the Palestine Arabs. What is impossible is a voluntary agreement. As long as the Arabs feel that there is the least hope of getting rid of us, they will refuse to give up this hope in return for either kind words or for bread and butter, because they are not a rabble, but a living people. And when a living people yields in matters of such a vital character it is only when there is no longer any hope of getting rid of us, because they can make no breach in the iron wall. Not till then will they drop their extremist leaders whose watchword is ‘Never!’ And the leadership will pass to the moderate groups, who will approach us with a proposal that we should both agree to mutual concessions. Then we may expect them to discuss honestly practical questions, such as a guarantee against Arab displacement, or equal rights for Arab citizens, or Arab national integrity.
“And when that happens, I am convinced that we Jews will be found ready to give them satisfactory guarantees, so that both peoples can live together in peace, like good neighbors.
“But the only way to obtain such an agreement, is the iron wall, which is to say a strong power in Palestine that is not amenable to any Arab pressure. In other words, the only way to reach an agreement in the future is to abandon all idea of seeking an agreement at present.”
So why do I focus on Jabotinsky? Although he died in 1940, after helping found the Irgun, a Jewish self-defense militia, among many other self-help groups, one of his protégés was Menachem Begin. While Begin, eventually the leader of the Likud Party, never negotiated with the Palestinian Arabs, he did participate in the Camp David Accords, which took the Egyptian and Jordanian armies off Israel’s borders; he was assassinated by an ultranationalist Israeli for that success, as was Sadat by one of his own ultranationalists. And Jabotinsky’s biographer was Benzion Netanyahu, another leading Zionist historian and thinker and Benjamin’s father.
I am not saying that the official policy of today’s Likud Party, along with its ultranationalist partners, is the philosophy of non-negotiation as described in The Iron Wall. Can it be argued, however, that elements of Jabotinsky’s The Iron Wall find favor or even great weight in current Israeli government policy toward the indigenous Arab population?
ASF says
Speaking of “indigenous”…I can name Kings Saul, David and Solomon as evidence of ancient Hebraic/Judaic history in the region. Care to name for me some comparatively illustrious examples of “Palesitnian” Kings, Queens, etc. to match that of the Jews?
Attempts to minimize the history of Jews in their homeland (or outright ignore it) won’t work to establish the Arab or Muslim’s presumably “superior” claims of belonging there while the Jews do not.
The fact that many Mosques in the region are built OVER the conquered remains of Synagogues and Churches suggests who the real “colonialist occupiers” are.
Since 1948, there have been at least five two state solutions offered to the Palesitnians which they have rejected out of hand. One of them made in 2000 would have given them 95% of the “occupied territories” and control over parts of Jerusalem along with many additional reparations. It isn’t Israel and its democratic governments that have stood in the way of any of these proposals becoming a reality. They were willing to talk about implementing these proposals while the Palestinians have, for many years now, refused to even sit down to negotiate with the Israelis face to face.
The Palestinians marching around screaming, “From the River to the Sea, all of Palestine will be Free!” is a pretty “ultra-nationalistic” and apartheid sentiment all on it own. Israel–which is the only majority Jewish nation on the planet–has a right to defend itself against the efforts of those who refuse to stop trying to annihilate them.
Ray W. says
Two significant flaws in your mostly valid points.
First, Jabotinsky was the author of the words you complain about. When he used the term “colonising”, he understood that the native Sephardic Jewish community was not agitating for a Jewish political state. Jabotinsky chose that term to describe the Zionist movement that existed among the European Ashkenazi community that he was urging to move to Palestine to colonize the region. Granted, Jabotinsky wrote The Iron Wall in Russian, not in Hebrew, from which one can infer that he understood his target audience and it wasn’t the Sephardic Jewish community as it existed in 1923. When you read the entire essay, as you should, Jabotinsky compared the native Palestinian Arab majority to the Sioux and the Aztecs, whom he described as fiercely resisting the colonizing European peoples.
Second, you fail to mention that the five two-state solutions that forms the backbone of one of your points were offered by Labour and Kadima governments, not by Likud Party-led coalition governments. Yes, in Netanyahu’s first term as Prime Minister, he signed the Wye River agreement, which signaled that he intended to carry through with an earlier agreement signed by a Labour government that had a five-year sunset clause, but members of his coalition immediately threatened a no-confidence vote, so Netanyahu backed away from his signature within a month. It didn’t help. The Knesset voted no-confidence anyway and he was ousted.
I think an argument can be made and supported that Israeli politics is best described as a fractious, ever-shifting state of governance. It exemplifies this paraphrase of Churchill’s commentary on democracy: Democracy is a terrible form of government, until you compare it to all the other forms of government that have been tried.
You present as a commenter who intentionally leaves out the obvious. You can do better than this. Please stop overlooking the obvious. I channeled Jabotinsky’s words, which clearly identified the Ashkenazim Zionist movement in 1923 as an outside political force intent on colonizing a region to the point of establishing a Zionist political government, which region was dominated by an indigenous population that did not want them to come. And the present Likud Party-led coalition government opposes any two-state solution. Please prove me wrong. As Jabotinsky wrote: No peace in the present. Peace in the future.
ASF says
Jabotinsky died in 1940. You seem to take a pretty dim view of Zionism despite your claim of “channeling” him. Alternatively, Should we throw into this discussion what some Islamist/Jihadist figures throughout history (and currently) have had to say about establishing a caliphate? Let’s keep things in perspective.
Speaking of perspective… your use of the phrase “a fractious, ever-shifting state of governance” sounds pretty descriptive of the United States and a lot of other governments throughout the globe.