On the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Six Day War the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) BICOM and Fathom Journal compiled a compendium of contributions from prominent thinkers, activists, security professionals, politicians, and artists to discuss and debate the implications of the 50th anniversary of the War, it’s legacy for Israel and Zionism and prospects for peace in the region.

​FMEP President Lara Friedman was 1 of the 50 voices who participated in the conversation. You can read Lara’s piece below, the 49 other contributions are available online: https://www.50voices50years.com/50-voices

---

by Lara Friedman

In 1968, Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz warned what the legacy of the 1967 War would be for Israel, if it held on to the newly-occupied territories:

“A state ruling over a hostile population of 1.5 to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that this implies for education, free speech and democratic institutions. The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the State of Israel…the Israel Defense Forces, which has been until now a people’s army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, degenerate, and its commanders, who will have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in other nations.”

Fifty years later, this legacy is on stark display. The post-1967 fantasy that Israel can simultaneously exist as a liberal democracy and as a state ruling over millions of disenfranchised Palestinians is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions.

The collapse of this fantasy is evident in “united” Jerusalem, which is more divided and undemocratic than at any time since 1967. It is on view in policies in the West Bank that Israel no longer bothers to pretend are temporary, like the two legal regimes it has for 50 years maintained in this single territory: one for Israelis, one for Palestinians, separate and unequal.  Earlier this year, Israeli legislation removed even the veneer of respect for this occupation-version of rule of law, in order to launder settler law-breaking.

Within Israel’s recognized borders, an illiberal wave threatens Israeli society and the foundations of Israeli democracy. The most right-wing government and Knesset in history today govern Israel, and have declared war on Israeli civil society. Working hand-in-hand with reactionaries, they are using legislation and intimidation to try to silence those who challenge the pro-occupation, pro-settlements agenda. Peace and human rights activists live under threat; the courts and even military leaders are assailed for any perceived failure to defend the pro-occupation line. Free speech – on campuses, in the media, the arts, and the public square – is under assault.

Internationally, the Israeli government is demanding that the world cease talking about “occupation” and accept a new definition of “Israel,” updated to mean, “Israel-plus-settlements.” Carrying this logic to its most cynical conclusion, it brands opposition to occupation and settlements as “anti-Israel” or even anti-Semitic, and works to enlist other countries in its effort to quash free speech and activism critical of its policies. In doing so, Israel is on a collision course not only with the governing body of world soccer, but with its closest allies, like Germany; Israel’s leaders are also risking relations with Jews in the Diaspora, and especially the United States, as, for the sake of settlements, they align themselves with illiberal forces in other countries.

Israel has realized many achievements in the past fifty years, but all of them are overshadowed by five decades of policies that have allowed those who prioritize keeping the land occupied in 1967 over all else – including over peace, security, democracy – to determine Israel’s future. This is the disastrous legacy of the 1967 War.

Writing in today’s Washington Post, former U.S. peace negotiators Dennis Ross and David Makovsky observe the steadily deteriorating situation in Israel-Palestine. “As the risk of escalation grows, both sides are becoming even more doubtful that there will ever be peace. With Palestinians divided and their leaders increasingly discredited, and a right-­wing government in Israel, the conflict is not about to be resolved,” they write. “But that is all the more reason to think about what can be done to preserve the possibility of a two-state outcome, particularly with the Palestinians entering a period of uncertain succession.”

What can be done, Ross and Makovsky suggest, is that rather than continuing to oppose all settlement growth, the U.S. should change its policy to differentiate between the large settlement blocs which many assume that Israel will retain in a final peace agreement (contingent upon land swaps negotiated with the Palestinians), and the smaller outlying settlements and outposts, which it won’t.

“A new U.S. approach would acknowledge that building within the blocs does not change the contours of the ‘peace map,’” they write. “While not formally endorsing settlement activity, it would nonetheless seek to channel it into areas that will likely be part of Israel in any two-state outcome.”

This is very similar to proposal last November from Israel Policy Forum’s Michael Koplow. My colleague Mitchell Plitnick responded at the time with a piece laying out some of the problems with this approach, noting that, “This approach did not lead to progress when Bush took it. It would likely be much worse if Obama did it now, given the current situation, where Israel has lurched further right, the U.S. has lost most of its credibility as broker, and Abbas is hanging politically on by a thread.” It also bears some similarities to a recently proposed, and similarly problematic, plan by Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog, which I critiqued here.

But Ross and Makovsky go even further. In addition to accepting the legitimacy of the settlement blocs — which, let’s remember, are illegal under international humanitarian law — they actually suggest that the U.S. should compensate Israel by promising to veto any UN Security Council resolution that Israel doesn’t like, agree not to present the Council with parameters on a final resolution to the conflict, and press European and Arab allies to denounce Palestinian efforts to “de-legitimize” Israel, a term that the authors do not define, but which presumably means seeking international legal relief at the International Criminal Court and other venues for Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights.

For good measure, the authors suggest that the president “could also highlight the contrast between Israel adopting a settlement policy consistent with a two­-state outcome and Palestinian behaviors that undermine such an option.”

It’s hard to know where to begin with this, but suffice to say that it’s painfully typical of an approach that privileges Israeli political concerns and treats Palestinians’ basic rights as an afterthought, or at most as goods to be traded. The fact that this approach has failed, time and time again, to deliver any positive change to the Palestinians’ situation (or, we should also note, to provide Israel real security) is one of the main reasons that Palestinian leaders, at least those like Mahmoud Abbas who advocate for diplomacy and against violence, are increasingly discredited at home, and deeply frustrated with the U.S.-brokered process. Ross and Makovsky’s approach would not only repeat that dynamic, it would amplify it.

Providing Israel with more, always more carrots is, by definition, the path of least resistance in DC, which helps explain why people keep recommending it. But, as I wrote in an earlier piece (and as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu himself repeatedly, and rightly, made clear with regard to Iran), carrots alone won’t do the trick in any negotiation. You need some sticks. The challenge is making sure that the carrots and sticks, the incentives and disincentives, are lined up in such a way as to lead toward the goal. For instance, I think there could be value in recognizing the legitimacy of settlements blocs as recommended here, but only as part of a formal process with a defined, time-limited end state, similar to the P5+1 acceptance of Iran’s uranium enrichment as part of the 2013 Joint Plan of Action. But granting this concession simply in the hope that good things will happen doesn’t seem like a smart plan.

I agree with Ross and Makovsky’s diagnosis of the situation. It is dire, and it is deteriorating,  for the Israelis who’ve endured terror attacks and for the Palestinians who endure the violence of military occupation and settler colonization every day. Following their prescription, on the other hand, wouldn’t arrest this decline, it would accelerate it, while shredding whatever credibility as broker the U.S. still has.

When President Barack Obama signed the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill last week, a precedent was set. The bill included a provision that “…requires the U.S. Trade Representative to discourage European Union countries from boycotting ‘Israel or persons doing business in Israel or Israeli-controlled territories’ during free-trade negotiations between the U.S. and the EU.”

In effect, this amendment treated Israeli settlements, for the first time in American history, as being part of Israel and therefore deserving the same protection. It was a small step; there is no enforcement mechanism in the bill.

However, it cracked the dam and opened the potential for a flood. This small amendment was a first step in reversing long-standing American opposition to the settlements, and its support for the two-state solution. Read more at Talking Points Memo

 

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process — the one that is supposed to end with a two-state solution — is on life support. Both sides in the conflict have made their share of missteps, but Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, all but pulled the plug earlier this month by pledging during his reelection campaign that Palestine would never become a state on his watch. He reaffirmed the sentiment even as he dialed back the rhetoric after the vote. This position runs directly counter to U.S. national security goals.

A two-state solution has been an American goal for nearly two decades. Ina 2002 speech, George W. Bush became the first president to explicitly call for the creation of an economically sustainable, demilitarized Palestinian state. “The establishment of the state of Palestine is long overdue,” he saidin 2008. “The Palestinian people deserve it. And it will enhance the stability of the region, and it will contribute to the security of the people of Israel.” Today, virtually all American politicians, on both sides of the aisle, publicly support this outcome. But with Netanyahu standing in its way, how can the United States advance this goal?

By recognizing the state of Palestine.

>>Read the full article in the Washington Post>>

The idea that the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is dead has been repeated so many times in the

past several years that it has taken on the droning sound of a mantra. Yet at the same time, we continue to hear pleas like the one that Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour made as the Security Council was about to reject the Palestinian resolution calling for an end to Israel’s occupation: “Those eager to save the two-state solution must act and cannot continue to make excuses for Israel and to permit, and thus be complicit in, its immoral and illegal behavior.”

So which is it? Must we abandon the two-state solution and think of other formulations or do we desperately need to revitalize and resuscitate the process we’ve been working on since 1993? Perhaps there is a better answer: a completely different approach to the two-state solution. (more…)