The American Disconnect

One of the implicit themes throughout my posts, especially the ones written in Israel, that I'd like to make explicit is this: there is a growing and vibrant movement in Israel that is mobilizing around the urgent need to arrive at a two-state solution. I don't want to oversell the number of Israelis in this camp, but there is a significant number of former security officials, business leaders, professors, and journalists among them. They are opinion makers and if they lead, large numbers of Israelis just may follow.

Meanwhile many Americans, Jews included, are generally unaware of this movement, or if they have some vague notion of its existence, do not know that it is being driven to a large extent by former chiefs of the IDF, Mossad and Shin Bet. You know the type, some of them are our friends or members of our family: the can't go back to 67 borders choir; the united and eternal Jerusalem crowd. They know Ahmadinejad threatened to "wipe Israel off the map," and are ready to back a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, but don't know that the past head of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, called the suggestion of an Israeli attack on Iran "one of the stupidest things I have ever heard." These Americans "know" that Israel will never "divide" Jerusalem, but have no idea that two Israeli prime ministers offered to do just that.

Too often the discourse in the US proceeds along the premise that there is some unanimity of Israeli opinion that is reduced to the most intransigent and hawkish of views. Americans seem largely oblivious of the fact that not all Israelis agree with Netanyahu's policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians. So when they hear someone in Chicago or New York voice the very same ideas that are expressed in the Israeli Peace Initiative (two state solution, 1967 borders with land swaps, etc.), they are dismissive, unaware that this initiative even exists or that it was put forward by Amnon Lipkin-Shahak (former head of the IDF), Danny Yatom (former head of the Mossad) and Yaakov Perry (former head of the Shin-Bet), just to name a few.

The challenge for us is to make them aware. Circulate news stories and links to the Israeli Peace Initiative and highlight the identities of its signers. Send it to friends and family. Send it those who agree with you and those who don't. Most teachers will tell you that if one student in a class fails, it is probably the student's fault. But if a large number fails, it is partly the teacher's fault.

Get this information out there. We can't allow this class to fail.

The Week to Come

The Palestinians are planning demonstrations on Israel's borders on June 3, 5 and 7 to mark their losses in the 1967 Six Day War. 

Meanwhile, the Israeli opposition parties and peace groups will gather the evening of June 4 in Tel Aviv at Rabin Square to say "Yes" to a peace agreement.

The Netanyahu government? Today they started making noise about the need for a military attack on Iran.

Meanwhile, we're another week closer to September.

Must Read Article - Can Obama Beat the Israel Lobby?

In case you believe AIPAC's line that it is apolitical and will back whatever the current government in Israel happens to be, think again. From Henry Seigman, member of AIPAC's executive committee from 1965 to 1994, and former head of the American Jewish Congress:

The main agency for the promotion of this deception [that Israeli governments have sought a two state solution] in the United States has been the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), whose legitimacy is based on the pretense that it speaks for the American Jewish community. It does not, for the lobby’s commitment is to Israeli governments of a certain right-wing cast.(Emphasis here is mine.)

AIPAC went into virtual hibernation during the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the 1990s because he disliked its politics and the notion that an Israeli prime minister needs AIPAC’s intercession to communicate with the US administration. The chemistry between them was so bad that Rabin encouraged the formation of a new American support group, the Israel Policy Forum.

It is not widely known that in 1988 the three major US Jewish “defense” organizations—the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress and the Anti-Defamation League—joined in a public challenge to AIPAC (as well as to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations), charging that the policies it advocates do not always represent the views of the American Jewish community.

Siegman goes on to propose a way of overcoming AIPAC's grip on Congress:

It is generally believed that for a US president to speak truthfully to the American people about the dishonesty of this Israeli government’s peaceful pretensions is to invite a devastating loss of financial support, as well as electoral defeat. Can Obama overcome the opposition of the Israel lobby, and of a Congress so deeply beholden to that lobby, and successfully promote a US peace plan? I believe he can, particularly if he obtains the support of former Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, whose deep friendship with Israel is beyond challenge. The plan is consistent with the Clinton parameters of December 2000 and with positions taken by Bush, who stressed that Israel cannot acquire any territory beyond the ‘67 lines without Palestinian consent. In a confrontation between the Israel lobby, on the one hand, and former Presidents Clinton and Bush and President Obama, on the other—who together declare their support for a peace plan they believe to be just, fair to both sides and in America’s national interest—there should be no question about who would prevail.

Take the time to read to the entire article.

Back to Jerusalem

Here's Bibi earlier earlier today: "The government is obligated to building Jerusalem, as [Jerusalem] is the heart of the nation." Here's the map. I guess Bibi didn't read yesterday's post.

Airstrike Kills 14 Women and Children

It seems that hardly a week goes by without a similar report. The tragedy of our involvement on so many levels is indescribable.

Where is the international outrage? Is there a limited supply which is being saved for Israel?

Salaam Alaikum!

Welcome Palestine! It's only taken about six weeks, but I finally penetrated the Palestinian market. Got my first pageview from the "Palestinian Territories."  Palestine joins Iran, India, Bulgaria, Greece, the Netherlands, the Bahamas, Singapore, France, and Germany, just to name some of the others. And of course the US and Israel. Still, the comments have been few and far between. Time for everyone to speak up. Palestine, the floor is yours . . . .  

Let's Talk Jerusalem

Since Elie Wiesel penned his open letter on Jerusalem over a year ago, I have been doing a lot of thinking. Mr. Wiesel’s words were poignant and his obvious love for the City of Peace found a ready audience in me. Reading that the first song he heard was a lullaby from his mother about Jerusalem drove home in a very personal way the strong attachment many Jews, myself included, feel toward Jerusalem. Mr. Wiesel wrote his letter in reference to the contretemps set off by the announcement that Jerusalem’s municipal board had approved construction in  Ramat Shlomo and the Obama administration’s demand that all construction beyond the green line be frozen. In his letter, Mr. Wiesel urged that a solution to Jerusalem be addressed last among the issues between Israel and the Palestinians.

The speeches this past week by President Obama, in which he paid heed to Mr. Wiesel's advice, and by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, in which he conditioned any peace with the Palestinians on Israel retaining full sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, accelerated my thinking. Is it possible that Jerusalem could be shared with the Palestinians as part of a final peace agreement? Can our collective yearning for Jerusalem be reconciled with a division of Jerusalem? What about the call for a "united" and "eternal" Jerusalem? So I returned to take a look at the map of Jerusalem to better understand where the Palestinian neighborhoods are located and where the Jewish neighborhoods are located.  

For many years I have had some familiarity with the history of Jerusalem borders. For example, I knew that the UN partition plan set up Jerusalem as an international city. I also knew that Israel’s War of Independence ended with Israel in possession of West Jerusalem and Jordan in possession of East Jerusalem, including the Old City. Certainly I knew that after the Six Day war, Israel gained possession of East Jerusalem, reuniting the city. What else did I need to know?

In 1990, during the first Gulf War, when I was in Jerusalem apartment hunting I went to Hebrew University and pulled off a telephone number for an apartment located in Gilo. I wasn’t exactly sure where Gilo was, but I knew the rent there was lower than in other areas, like Rehavia and Beit Hakerem. So I took the No. 32 bus out to see the apartment and it was in a beautiful stone building, the flat had a marble floor and a stunning view of the terraced hills to the West. So I moved in. I remember telling some of my Israeli friends at the time that I found an apartment in Jerusalem, in Gilo. Well that’s not really Jerusalem, it’s more of a suburb they told me. But this did not bother me in the least; every morning I got up and rode the bus into the city center and walked to the court, which was then located in the Migrash HaRussim.

Eventually, a brother of one my friends said that Gilo could be considered a settlement as it was beyond the green line. I satisfied myself that it wasn’t a settlement because Israel had annexed it. (I assure you, the Palestinians do not see it this way.)

And there matters stood - until I started considering the borders in the context of a possible peace agreement and started looking at maps and doing some research. This is what I found. After the Six Day War, Israel annexed, not only Gilo and what was then East Jerusalem, but several Palestinian villages east of East Jerusalem. The size of Jerusalem had tripled and Palestinian villages never part of Jerusalem now found themselves within Jerusalem’s borders. I also learned that prior to the 1860's Jerusalem's population was confined to the Old City, and that the British during the Mandate period after World War I had drawn municipal borders for Jerusalem that included areas well outside the Old City. Take a look at the map above.

So how does an understanding of the history of Jerusalem's changing borders affect a determination about whether to give up areas of Jerusalem as part of a peace agreement?

Let's put aside for the moment that Jerusalem is already de facto a divided city, divided between Jewish and Palestinian neighborhoods. Danny Seidemann, who I wrote about in a previous post, in making this point told us about "Tel Aviv tourism" and how it has become fashionable for Israelis to travel as if on an exotic safari to East Jerusalem and stay at the American Colony Hotel. That East Jerusalem's American Colony is considered by Israelis to be in a foreign land was recently confirmed for me, before I ever met Danny, by my Israeli friends, some who grew up in Jerusalem. When I told them that I would be staying at the American Colony, they laughed or gave an Israeli "oo-ah" as they told me to enjoy Palestine.You see, most Israelis understand that Jerusalem is a divided city. And they are fine with it. That's why Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak before him were ready to cede the Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem as part of a final agreement. But like I said, let's put that aside.

A city is defined by its borders. Jerusalem no less. But when people speak about "an undivided eternal" Jerusalem, the underlying premise is that there is some naturally occurring physical space that is Jerusalem. And because God promised us Israel, and David made Jerusalem its capital around 1000 BCE, and Solomon built the Temple there in 957 BCE, and because Jews have maintained a continued presence ever since, Jews have eternal sovereignty over Jerusalem.

What this argument ignores, however, is that there is no naturally occurring physical space that is Jerusalem - it's a construct. While we do not have a surveyor's map of David's Jerusalem (though archaeology may one day provide one), we know that through the 1860's Jerusalem's population was confined to the Old City and the borders have been defined differently at different times, depending on the nation exercising sovereignty. We also know that the borders have grown significantly.

So when assessing our own willingness to negotiate sovereignty over some of the neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, we need to understand what Jerusalem we are talking about. Are we talking about the Jerusalem at the time of King David, the Jerusalem of the Ottoman Empire, or the British Mandate. And if we are talking about today's mega-Jerusalem, we must ask what is so sacred about the Palestinian areas in East Jerusalem, which until 1967 had never been considered part of Jerusalem, that Israel needs to retain sovereignty over them?

Perhaps I am wrong, but I believe the Jerusalem Elie Wiesel's mother sang about in the 1930's transcended borders. Certainly, Jerusalem's boundaries in Mandatory Palestine are not its boundaries today. Jewish collective spiritual attachment and claim to Jerusalem, no less than to Israel itself, cannot  be reduced to borders. And it would be more than folly to try to align our spiritual attachment to Jerusalem with its present day borders; it would be impossible. They simply do not align.