Attackerman

The Churlishness of Benjamin Netanyahu

When Benjamin Netanyahu returned to the Israeli premiership in 2009, it looked like he had a precarious grasp on power and Barack Obama had a commanding one -- not just domestically, but internationally. So when Obama came out the gate pushing the peace process, I thought that Netanyahu's challenge would be to tell Obama "no" without seeming to tell him "no." And when acrimony developed between the two leaders, it seemed like Obama's game plan might have been to weaken Netanyahu until his coalition cracked and Tzipi Livni replaced him, ready to work with Obama and Abbas on a two-state solution. 

Wrongest. Analysis. Ever. 

Obama has been repeatedly punked by Netanyahu. And Netanyahu is running the game plan I thought Obama was running on him: reaching out to the GOP to weaken Obama's hold on power. In his new tenure as PM, it's been the one political move that Netanyahu's pulled off brilliantly. 

But it's an absolute disaster for Israel. One of Obama's first acts in office, my friend Eli "Beast of All Daily Beasts" reveals, was to secretly give Israel bunker-buster bombs that it had long sought. That's a fact that should change people's analysis of Obama's tenure. It's also one that makes Obama look straight-up reckless -- the bombs, as Eli writes, could easily be interpreted as a U.S. green light on an Israeli attack on Iran. What would happen when, after such a hypothetical attack, the Iranians noticed the bomb fragments and traced the weaponry back to the United States?

And all this was happening, in secret, while Obama issued (unrequited) treaties to the Iranian regime for negotiations. No one can ever credibly claim Obama took a military option off the table. He did way more than keep it on the table, he shipped it to Tel Aviv. 

Back to Netanyahu. So here comes this shipment of bunker-busters, from the patron to the client. Netanyahu opens the package. And then a card comes in the mail. Hey, it reads, now we need you to stop settlement construction. That's what Abbas needs to come back to the table. And Netanyahu says: Nah, fuck Obama. Not only does Netanyahu refuse, but he cynically repurposes Obama's "negotiations without preconditions" line to mean that he's ready to talk only under conditions that Abbas cannot take back to the Palestinians and look like a credible peacemaker. It's a lot like saying that you're perfectly welcome to come over for dinner, as long as you don't mind watching me fuck your wife. 

You know the rest. And if you don't, Antony Blinken will remind you. If you have any doubt of Abbas's extraordinary willingness to make peace, then I urge you to read my friend Clayton Swisher's acquisition of the Palestine Papers -- internal documents showing a Palestinian Authority that's practically abject in its pursuit of a statehood deal. There's a reason why Ehud Olmert warned this week that Israel will not always have a Palestinian partner so committed to peace. 

Netanyahu has endangered all of that, through a short-sighted and juvenile willingness to hold out for absolutely everything and give the Palestinians nothing but a middle finger and a smile. And as long as Obama doesn't put genuine pressure on Netanyahu, he's letting Netanyahu get away with it. Netanyahu knows that time is on his side with the United States if only the GOP returns to the White House; American support, particularly from conservative evangelicals, can counteract the demographic slide that ensures continued Israeli dominion over the West Bank will become apartheid-like.

This is not a strategy that presumes a pursuit of peace. It's a strategy for the continued injustice of occupation, which troubles the mind of Netanyahu not at all, and his coalition partners' even less. 

Israel And The Great Unpersuaded

Andrew Exum is a really good and fair observer of Israel/Palestine. He's just very good at it. Yet nearly every time he writes on the subject, he prefaces it with a variation of, "Now, I'm loath to say anything about Israel and Palestine..."

Maybe he's doing an Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer thing -- in which case: well played, sir -- but I think he's sincere in his stated desire not to wade too deeply on a volatile, emotionally charged debate that's constantly policed by demagogues. Still, it's entirely because Exum has a perspective entirely outside our own intra-tribal grievances that his analysis is so clear and so persuasive. He's got an open mind and is looking to be persuaded by the best arguments. 

Which is a long and meta way of saying you should read his epic fisking of Rick Perry's Israel speech, which is probably the last and least euphemistic word on the subject. Israel isn't really looking to persuade anyone these days, just to rally the forces that are already on its side, rhetorically speaking, and to beat back its critics. And all of that makes it striking to read the impatience of a fair-minded observer who's looking to be persuaded and isn't impressed. 

Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer video by Hannah_Pittman - Photobucket - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Now, if only politics reporters were similarly willing to actually abandon euphemism and adjudicate the merits of speeches like Perry's...

Islamophobic Email of the Day

In a weird way, it's worse when they're addressed to me in a respectful tone, because this one gets real ugly real fast.

Spencer,

Contrary to a large group perception, Islam is NOT tolerant or a religion of peace.  Those Muslims who would like to update the religion so that death is not the automatic sentence for every deviation, must themselves face death and there are not many willing to do that.  It is only necessary to consult two sources for verification of the non-peaceful nature of Islam:  their holy writ and history/current events in a country run under Islamic Sharia law.  Islam by it own definition can not tolerate any other religion or law. They do not assimilate--it is against their religion. Islam will always be at war with the world, unless it is able to change the foundational doctrine--which is currently punishable by death.  Even leaving the religion is punishable by death. 

So, while I do applaud the courage of "moderate" Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement, I also have to question their motives and the extent of their cooperation.  Taqiyya is a doctrine of deciet used by Muslims to aid the expansion of Muslim goals.   Our public support needs to be for true moderates and not worry about offending the majority of Muslims who are fully "observant" ("devoted", "faithful", or any other rendition).  

Fully observant Muslims should be encouraged and aided to leave our shores and go to a country with Sharia law, where they will not be offended.  We have the strength (currently) to defend our citizens and beleiving what he Islamic doctrine states of Islamic intent and tactices is NOT discrimination.  It is realism.  Projecting our western mindset on the Islamic world will not make them western.  People are killed by wild animals everyday because they do not apprecaite that wild animals live by a different set of rules than civilized people.  Projecting our human values on bears, poisonous snakes, alligators, or any number of lethal beasts, does not make them human. It only clouds our judgement and makes us vulnerable to attack.  Believe what the Muslims tell you. They ARE out to dominate the world and kill those who will not submit.  

This was all one paragraph -- I know you're surprised by that -- but I broke it up for readability. So religious Muslims are beasts that should be deported. How do you write something like that and not stop yourself? How do you write something like that and then send it off in an email? To a journalist?

Meanwhile, there's a West Bank rabbi who believes pretty much the same thing, and will face pretty much no international condemnation. (h/t Glenn Greenwald.)

The Bind Hamas Is In

So here's its position on Palestinian statehood at the United Nations:

Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister, said Sunday that his movement would not stand in the way of President Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Fatah party. “We support establishing a Palestinian state on any part of Palestinian land without giving up an inch of Palestine or recognizing Israel,” he told the members of the Palestinian Legislative Council here.

On Saturday, the branch of Hamas based in the Syrian capital, Damascus, issued a statement objecting to the United Nations move, expected later this week, because it was “unilateral,” meaning that Hamas had not been included in the decision.

The application, it said, was an extension of Fatah’s “path of compromise and insisting on dialogue while distancing itself from resistance and holding strong cards. We affirm our deep conviction that resistance is the main path that must be pursued together with political and public struggle.”

That took three paragraphs to explain. And I still don't really know if it's "Yes, But..." or "No, But..." All that matters, for the purposes of the impending U.N. debate, is that Fatah wants the United Nations to recognize Palestinian statehood and Hamas isn't cool with that. Imagine how that sounds in Arabic. 

How unfortunate that the United States is in the same position. It seems like the U.S. position is "No, But..." Yet to different audiences, its position on the substantive thing itself -- Palestinian statehood -- will be "Yes, But..." And all that will matter for the point of the debate, which seems increasingly likely to be a linchpin moment for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is that the United States is saying No. Like a certain group of thugs who run Gaza. And like the Netanyahu government, which doesn't want a Palestinian state at all, whatever it says in English to an international audience. 

Read The Koran

As you might imagine, over the past four days I've gotten several angry, pitiful emails urging me to read the Koran. If only I could interrupt my dhimmitude long enough to read the Koran, the argument goes, I would see the insidious master plan that the Muslims have for us. And if I possess the barest shred of intellectual integrity, I would reconsider aiding and abetting the stealth jihad of exposing Islamophobia inside FBI counterterrorism training. 

"Read the Koran!" has become such a ubiquitous and self-righteous exhortation of the Sharia-Panic circle that it's easy to overlook exactly what it means. At its heart, it presumes that a religious text sacred to almost two billion people around the world for 1500 years is... easy to understand.

Put aside for a moment the additional presumption that the Koran is a blueprint for war, something like Mein Kampf. That's noxious enough. But just consider that for centuries, theologians, scholars and believers have grappled with the meaning of the Koran -- constructing reconciliatory arguments about its contradictory passages, incorporating counterevidence, arguing with others who give slightly more weight to this-or-that textual nuance. Whole schools of thought develop -- often heatedly -- about the correct understanding of Islam. 

And none of that matters. Because after 9/11, a group of Americans with minimal prior exposure to Islam figured it all out, for all time. They discovered the plot that lurks within the heart of the Koran. They can even quote you passages, like real scholars. The quest for meaning and understanding has reached an endpoint. 

I am an agnostic. I'm not an atheist for the same reason I'm not religious: I simply cannot presume to possess any certainty about the largest metaphysical question humanity confronts. But I learned enough at East Midwood Jewish Center to know that only a fool believes s/he has an ageless religious text figured out. After my studies there ended, I learned enough about the world to understand that the wo/man who makes that presumption exhibits a basic disrespect for the intelligence of billions of people who struggle with those texts for their entire lives.

Those who tell you, in an accusatory tone, to "read the Koran," will never have read the Koran. They will perhaps have scanned words that the Koran contains. But they will never have read it. What a shame that they don't understand the difference.

Reclamation

Words cannot express how much I hate this and how much contempt I have for this project.

OK. Let's talk. Judith Butler and Tony Kushner and the rest of them can congratulate themselves all they like about their anti-Zionism. And I respect Butler's agony when she says, "The idea that one might, absolutely and unconditionally, abhor the Nazi genocide and object to the basis of the founding of the State of Israel took a long time. It was as if -- to take that linkage apart was to cleave my own soul." Wait, actually, I'm lying. I don't respect it at all.

I refuse to accept that the only way to be loyal to humanity and liberalism is to reject Zionism. To be loyal to humanity and liberalism requires, instead, rescuing liberal Zionism from its dire condition. The State of Israel has placed itself on a precipice. To throw one's hands up and say the whole project was evil from its conception improves not a single person's life. And it ignores -- rather willfully -- the overwhelmingly dire condition of European Jewry that gave birth to Zionism. Judith Butler, I'd like you to meet Ahad Ha'am.

Let's go really quickly through 19th Century Zionism. I promise you this will not be painful. Establishing a Jewish state in the mid-19th Century is an impossible, fanatical, ludicruous idea. Accordingly, European Zionism is incoherent and deeply factional. One thing it agrees on: if it's to work, it needs a big, powerful patron. So different Zionist thinkers make different arguments to different potential benefactors about why a Jewish state was in their interest. Then they also had to make different arguments to Jews who viewed them like we view street preachers today. Why should an assimilated middle-class Jew with a promising law practice in Berlin want... political independence? Among the effects: Zionism develops both a universalist strain (There ought to be a Jewish State because all peoples deserve statehood) and an exceptionalist strain (There ought to be a Jewish State because the Jewish people have suffered so tremendously and we're actually super-awesome). All Zionist thinking flows from one of those two basic propositions; some pick and choose from either, depending on convenience or cynicism.

I believe the just basis for Zionism is the universalist strain. And you know what that obligates me to also believe? That there must be a State of Palestine. (Ideally, one day there will also be an independent Kurdistan, even if I don't particularly want the U.S. to be its midwife.) Not "should." "Must." To betray the State of Palestine, as a Zionist, is to cast your lot in with the exceptionalists. That way lies madness, injustice, occupation, war and all of the things the State of Israel was supposed to alleviate for the Jews. And to be an anti-Zionist, one must also make the choice: should statehood not exist for anybody, or just not for the Jews?

I'm looking at Israel and America, on the verge of an epic strategic -- and, I contend, moral -- mistake in opposing the creation of a State of Palestine at the United Nations. They are blundering so badly that they are inadvertently strengthening Hamas and spitting in the eyes of the Mideast's democratic revolutions. I worry that we will look back on this moment and view it like the decision to invade Iraq -- an unforced error of profound and awful magnitude that severely set back the hopes for a more humane Mideast.

But I can't accept that the only course of action is to wash your hands of universalist Zionism. It is the obligation of those who believe in Zionism to rescue liberal Zionism. It is the only Zionism that is in the interests of the world and the interests of Israel. Because the other Zionism doesn't go away. It would only get stronger in the absence of its moral and strategic counterbalance. That, I contend to you, is what the real impact of Judith Butler and Tony Kushner and the others' argument is. If they want to opt out of the project, they can opt out; they're free to do so. But to opt out has consequences of its own. There's a reason why all of those early Phillip Roth novels feature such agonized protagonists who can neither escape or reject nor be "free" of their Jewishness.

One last thing. This film's focus is wrong. Right now, in this eclipse of liberal, universalist Zionism, it isn't the right-thinking, liberal, cosmopolitan Jews whose opinions hold sway. As Matt Yglesias has written, this is the dawning of the era of post-Jewish Zionism. All that stuff that Jews believe about social justice that animates universalist Zionism? The new crowd don't play that. They play power and millenialism and force and fire and blood. They play, above all, tribalism. That's what's on deck if they are not stopped and universalist Zionism dies a death of weakness and apathy. 

OK, now yell at me in comments, tell me I'm a fascist, etc.

Oh, Never Mind Him, He's Just The Foreign Minister

So this is Israeli diplomacy:

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman plans to hold meetings with the head of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group which has maintained an armed struggle against the Turkish government since 1984 and is internationally recognized as a terrorist organization. Word of the meeting was published on Ynet.com which also suggested that the the PKK might ask Lieberman for military aid. The proposed meeting, which would add additional stress to Israel’s tense relationship with Turkey following Turkey’s recent decision to expel Israel’s ambassador from Ankara, was met by cautious remarks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. Haaretz reports that the Prime Minister’s office did not confirm or deny Lieberman’s retaliatory plan but called for restraint with regards to statements concerning Israel’s relationship with Turkey, stating, “Our policy was and remains to prevent a breakdown of relations with Turkey and easing the tensions between the countries.”

Words fail. Netanyahu obviously doesn't to "prevent a breakdown of relations with Turkey." If he did, he would publicly flog Lieberman for even thinking of meeting with the PKK, especially while Turkey is (brutally) waging an offensive against the terrorist group. It would be like Jordan's King Abdullah meeting with Hezbollah representatives during a resumption of Hezbollah/Lebanon/Israeli hostilities.

There's this crazy idea out there that Avigdor Lieberman doesn't merit a lot of attention because on the big issues (Russia, the U.S., the U.N.), Netanyahu personalizes diplomacy. I imagine that's because of the embarrassment Israelis feel that a racist like Lieberman could actually be a cabinet minister. But guess what: he's the Israeli foreign minister. It's a shonda of shondas. Netanyahu keeps him around because he needs Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu. That tells you about everything you need to know about Netanyahu. 

They Asked Me To Go To Rehab, I Said No, No, No

So it would appear Prince Turki read my post about how U.S. -- and hey, why not, Israeli -- support for Palestinian statehood at the United Nations would be a masterstroke. He wrote a stern op-ed arguing that the U.S. can either support statehood or lose all the Mideast credibility that the Obama administration has tried to earn Washington since taking office. It actually comes down to an outright threat:

The United States must support the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations this month or risk losing the little credibility it has in the Arab world. If it does not, American influence will decline further, Israeli security will be undermined and Iran will be empowered, increasing the chances of another war in the region.

Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has. With most of the Arab world in upheaval, the “special relationship” between Saudi Arabia and the United States would increasingly be seen as toxic by the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, who demand justice for the Palestinian people.

Saudi leaders would be forced by domestic and regional pressures to adopt a far more independent and assertive foreign policy. Like our recent military support for Bahrain’s monarchy, which America opposed, Saudi Arabia would pursue other policies at odds with those of the United States, including opposing the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Iraq and refusing to open an embassy there despite American pressure to do so. The Saudi government might part ways with Washington in Afghanistan and Yemen as well.

I don't like it when client states threaten their patrons. Don't like it when Netanyahu does it; and I definitely don't like it when Turki does it. So fuck him.

The overall advice, however, isn't actually bad: 

The Palestinian statehood initiative is a chance to replace Oslo with a new paradigm based on state-to-state negotiations — a win-win proposition that makes the conflict more manageable and lays the groundwork for a lasting solution.

The only losers in this scenario would be Syria and Iran, pariah states that have worked tirelessly — through their support of Hamas and Hezbollah — to undermine the peace process. 

Just absolutely true. Conservatives have told us since the Oslo process began that it was doomed and cloaked their objections to Palestinian statehood in a lack of faith in the peace process. Well, maybe Oslo is dead, so now state-to-state negotiations are the way forward. If Hamas doesn't like it, let it object to statehood and stare marginalization in the face.

The U.S. spends extraordinary amounts of money and prestige in the Arab world trying to pull it in directions that it doesn't want to go. Then it has to spend even more of each mitigating the negative consequences of that effort. Opposing Palestinian statehood would take that trend to the Nth degree. On the other hand, since the region at this point expects the U.S. to oppose statehood*, reversing course would likely send a shockwave of optimism through the Mideast. And you wanna talk about undermining al-Qaida's narrative, well...

I suppose another objection is to say that we shouldn't listen to Turki because the Saudi monarchy is craven, brutal, self-interested and irrelevant given the Arab Spring. I'll spot you the first three adjectives. But does anyone actually think that the Arab Spring makes what Turki writes less true?

* Object to this formulation? Think it's unfair? Think how it sounds in Arabic. And good luck explaining the U.S. objection to ...not statehood itself but the process through which statehood would be achieved... at the United Nations and throughout the Mideast.

The Pincer J Street Is In

The putrefaction of the peace process has compelled the Palestinian non-fanatic leadership to seek a statehood vote at the United Nations this month. I could rend my garment in sorrow about what a folly this is or whatever, but can you really blame Fatah? The Netanyahu government has the available alternatives to rebuke its West Bank fanatics and resume substantive negotiations aimed at resolving the conflict. The Obama administration has the available option of pressuring Netanyahu to that end. Fatah sees nothing for its patience -- except a status quo that favors Hamas. If you were a Palestinian, you would push a U.N. gambit as well. 

So what's a liberal pro-peace pro-Israel pro-Palestine American to do? Demand Obama pressure Netanyahu, for one thing. Suggest that Obama flirt with not vetoing the U.N. statehood resolution, for another, to see if that captures Netanyahu's attention. What you shouldn't do is exactly what J Street is doing: denouncing the statehood maneuver. All of a sudden, J Street is essentially telling Palestinians that it's not fair of them to use the only option they've got left, and draws dangerously close to siding against statehood. I know it doesn't mean to do that, but this is the constellation of political forces as they are.

Noam Sheizaf puts it very well:

Dictating the Palestinian path to independence as a pre-condition to dealing with them is the mistake the Israeli left has done again and again, usually with the help of the United States. The administration is repeating it now, and J Street follows. With both, it seems that it’s not the understanding of the current moment in the geo-political conversation which dictates policy, but rather short-term political considerations and the fear of a rightwing backlash. It’s partly understandable for the administration (especially near elections), less so for an organization which was all about opening up the debate.

Instead of expanding the conversation on Israel, J Street is reaching out to the consensus. This is the kind of political thinking that got Israel and its supporters in the United States to the impasse in which they are today. For the first time, I get the feeling that J Street has lost the desire to take a leading role in finding the way out of it.

Lining up with AIPAC is not going to win J Street any good will from the traditional, moribund American Jewish organizations it formed to challenge. I get that it's emotionally and politically difficult to side with the Palestinian statehood resolution. But we are where we are. It will be much, much more emotionally and politically wrenching to see Israel maintain its 44-year injustice; to see the Palestinians continually denied a state on their homeland; to see Hamas grow in strength from the status quo; to see Israel slouch into perpetual, apartheid-like injustice; and to see the United States either acquiesce to it, appear impotent in the face of it, or actually encourage it.

I thought J Street existed to push the debate about Israel/Palestine leftward. What a shame to see it devolve into the same sort of failed institution it used to counterbalance. 

Breivik and the Jews

So, one kind of important difference between Breivik and al-Qaida looks way less of a difference on further inspection:

Were the majority of the German and European Jews disloyal? Yes, at least the so called liberal Jews, similar to the liberal Jews today that opposes nationalism/Zionism andsupports multiculturalism. Jews that support multiculturalism today are as much of athreat to Israel and Zionism (Israeli nationalism) as they are to us. So let us fight together with Israel, with our Zionist brothers against all anti-Zionists, against all cultural Marxists/multiculturalists. Conservative Jews were loyal to Europe and should have beenrewarded. Instead, he just targeted them all… So, are the current Jews in Europe and US disloyal? The multiculturalist (nation-wrecking) Jews ARE while the conservative Jews ARE NOT. Aprox. 75% of European/US Jews support multiculturalism while aprox. 50% of Israeli Jews does the same. This shows very clearly that we must embrace the remaining loyal Jews as brothers rather than repeating the mistake of the NSDAP.

In case you didn't know, the NSDAP is the Nazi Party. I'm seeing some people on Twitter who really ought to know better talk about the pro-Israel aspect of Breivik's manifesto. Look closer: this guy is musing on which Jews should and should not be exterminated. And lucky tribespeople: the Avigdor Liebermans among us can live! This is the philosemetism of fools. 

The disturbing thing is that illiberal Zionism is on the rise. Wake the fuck up, fellow Jews. You have just been called "nation-wreckers." For my tribespeople on the right, these are your bedfellows against the Islamic extremists that you self-interestedly confuse with authentic Muslims. Liberalism is what will redeem Zionism; the Netanyahus of the world will condemn Israel to moral catastrophe.