The Way Forward in the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Last week I posted two links by Palestinian activist Ahmad Iraqi expressing a Palestinian perspective on what’s going now in Israel-Palestine. Today I want to share two excellent articles from Sunday’s New York Times.
The first is by City University of New York professor Peter Beinart. It gives a detailed summary of the history of attempts at the two-state solution and examines the causes of their failure. There is enough blame to go around to all sides. Beinart offers an even-handed analysis, while holding on to the hope for a two-state solution.[1]
Times opinion editorialist Michelle Goldberg posits that a “decent American left is needed now more than ever after the events of the last eleven days if we are to prevent Israeli war crimes from taking place in Gaza. She laments, however, that groups like Students for Justice in Palestine declare that “Today we witness a historic win for the Palestinian resistance.” And she is similarly disturbed by statements like the one issued by the Connecticut Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) proclaiming that the Hamas-led “Palestinian resistance launched an unprecedented anti-colonial struggle.”
Yet Goldberg also reports that democratic socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders issued a statement calling on the international community to “focus on reducing humanitarian suffering and protecting innocent people on both sides.” And House of Representatives member and DSA affiliate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denounced the group’s support for an pro-Hamas rally in New York City.[2]
Sanders and Goldberg are responsible leftists who have spoken up against terrorism. There are many more on the left, myself included, who stand with them. But our impetuous leftist friends are making more noise right now. This illuminates the way that they are populists on the left. Like their rightist counterparts in the Freedom Caucus in Congress, or the Proud Boys in the street, they just want to blow things up. They won’t be successful, because support for Israel is much too entrenched in the institutions of the American state and civil society to allow that to happen.
But the big question now is whether the people who want to blow up Israel here and in the Middle East can be left on the margins as “pragmatic leftists” push to achieve a viable two-state solution in Israel-Palestine? And related to that, what exactly would a viable Palestinian state look like today with the West Bank littered with Jewish settlements? Answers to these questions are for another post. In the meantime, do your own homework on these looming questions.
[1] Peter Beinart, “The Work of Moral Rebuilding Must Begin Now,” New York Times, October 15 2023 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/14/opinion/palestinian-ethical-resistance-answers-grief-and-rage.html
[2] Michelle Goldberg, “The Need for Decency From the American Left,” New York Times, October 15 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/opinion/columnists/israel-gaza-massacre-left.html
I don't see any hope for progress unless Netanyahu is taken out of office by vote in the Israeli legislature. He cannot do anything to alienate the far right parties in his coalition. And he doesn't have to do anything as long as popular opinion in Israel continues to call retribution, and as long as the war against Hamas (and other allies of Iran) continues . . . I think the logic of the political situation in Israel is that the war will continue, Netanyahu will stay in office, and the longer the war continues the more it will expand to other countries. This is already happening, with some US participation.
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