by John Lyons
Someone leaked the Cabinet document to me. It said: ‘These are small island states, situated fairly close to one another in the Pacific Ocean, have very close ties to the US and vote with Israel in the General Assembly.’
A black humour developed among Israel’s diplomats. ‘There’s a joke that if all else fails we have two guaranteed votes: the US and Micronesia,’ one told me.
Immediately following the vote upgrading the status of Palestinians, the Netanyahu Government announced approval for zoning and planning of building work in the E1 zone of the West Bank. With this announcement, Netanyahu crossed another of Washington’s red lines. Only 12 square kilometres in area, the E1 lies between Jerusalem and the settlement of Maale Adumim. Settling this area would make a contiguous Palestinian State virtually impossible. Israel quietly began construction in the area. As Israeli website +972 Magazine reported, the development plan included the transfer of the West Bank police headquarters, the construction of at least 3500 residential units and a large commercial centre, and more. The plan made no reference to the local Palestinian population.6
‘The E1 would kill the idea of two States,’ Alon Liel, former head of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, told me. ‘The strategic location of the E1 is going to cut Palestine into three geographic units: Gaza, the north West Bank and the south West Bank. This is also playing into the hands of the enemies of Israel who are saying Israel is developing a Bantustan system.’ Liel added: ‘The Israeli Government in its response said: “Who is the international community? We don’t recognise the international community.”’
The continued escalation of settlement growth made the attempts by the US under John Kerry at peace negotiations virtually impossible. The number of West Bank new settler housing commencements increased by 132 per cent in the first quarter of 2013, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.
Over my six years in Jerusalem, I watched as the government of Israel – at a critical time in history – sabotaged peace. It was a critical time because it was not too late to form a Palestinian State and because Netanyahu, as someone from the far right, had the credibility with the right wing to deliver a deal.
Yet because Israel has been so successful at running interference with this reality, a perception has been created that it is earnestly chasing peace – if only the Palestinians would come to the party. Without doubt, there have been occasions when the Palestinians have blocked an agreement.
But the power to make an agreement has, mostly, been with the more powerful partner – Israel. They are the occupier. They have the ability to withdraw from the West Bank to allow the creation of a Palestinian State. And any withdrawal would be backed by the fierce – and legitimate – deterrence that comes from being the most powerful military in the Middle East should a new Palestinian State pose any security threat to Israel.
Debate about a Palestinian State has been going on, one way or another, since 1947 when the United Nations created the State of Israel alongside a new Arab State. Netanyahu said, occasionally, that he would be prepared to consider a Palestinian State. Surely, then, the proof of this would be to present a map showing boundaries Israel would accept. Despite all his rhetoric, Netanyahu has never been prepared to present a map to the Palestinians – something that surely someone would do if they were serious about negotiations. Acceptance of the boundaries in the map would, of course, be dependent upon the Palestinians agreeing to various conditions.
As mentioned, the financial support given to settlements by the Netanyahu government has been unprecedented. Investigations by Israeli media have revealed that much of the financial support has been given ‘under the table’ through the World Zionist Organisation, founded by Theodore Herzl at the first Zionist Congress. Forward magazine reported that ‘for decades, the Israeli government, with the tacit consent of diaspora Jewish leaders, has taken one branch of this group, the Settlement Division, and turned it into a covert cash box for bankrolling settlement activity off the government’s own books’.7
Various Israeli politicians have protested about the unaccountability of government spending on settlements. According to official Israeli figures, from 2008 to 2012, spending on settlements increased 1000 per cent. In 2014 alone, it increased by 800 per cent.
It has taken considerable investigation by Israeli politicians to track funding for the settlements, as it comes from several different departments – the interior, agricultural, transport, education, welfare and health ministries. One Knesset member who has been frustrated by the opaque nature of the funding is Elazar Stern, from Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah Party. ‘I’m a member of the finance committee and I’m telling you, I’m being conned,’ he told Reuters. ‘Funds are hidden. Clauses are lumped together so that you vote on an item that is justified and then they slip it in.’
Another member of the Knesset, Stav Shaffir, who sat on the Finance Committee, later said that when she got onto the committee she realised that Israel had two budgets, ‘one budget that has been passed legally on the Knesset floor, another secret budget that is being transferred in the finance committee, secretly, sometimes with no Knesset member even sitting inside and with no supervision on where this money is going’.8
On the election of Netanyahu’s fourth government in 2015, after I’d left the Middle East, the push for Greater Israel would become stronger still.
The ministry Netanyahu chose in 2015 reflected the growing extremism in Israel. As the country moved to a more hardline position, politicians actively paraded their pro-settlement credentials. The new Minister for Justice was Ayelet Shaked, who previously ran a radical right-wing group called My Israel. In 2016, Netanyahu appointed Dani Dayan, a settler leader, to be Israel’s Consul General to New York. Dayan is openly opposed to a two-State solution. He once said: ‘I am willing to commit injustices on behalf of the existence of the Jewish people.’
It’s one thing to encounter racism among ordinary Israelis, but much of it seems to be driven by political figures. According to the Jerusalem Post, Naftali Bennett, a senior minister in Netanyahu’s government, is reported to have said during a debate about terrorism: ‘I killed a lot of Arabs in my life – and there’s no problem with that.’ Ben Dahan was appointed to run the Civil Administration (the body which is in charge of the West Bank) despite having said of Palestinians: ‘They are beasts, they are not human.’ Dahan – a rabbi – once told Maariv newspaper: ‘A Jew always has a much higher soul than a gentile, even if he is a homosexual.’9 In countries like the US and Australia, such comments would disqualify someone from high office.
Many politicians openly flaunted their racism. In Upper Nazareth, a traditional Christian area, Israeli councillors made their views of Arabs clear – with impunity. Councillor Zeev Hartman, when asked his wish for Israeli Independence Day, said he wanted ‘all the Arabs to disappear’.10 The Mayor of Upper Nazareth, Shimon Gapso, said that since the establishment of Israel, ‘racially-pure kibbutzim without a single Arab member and an army that protects a certain racial strain have been established, as have political parties that proudly bear racist names such as “Habayit HaYehudi” [“Jewish Home”]. Even our national anthem ignores the existence of the Arab minority – in other words, the people Ben-Gurion did not manage to expel in the 1948 war. If not for all that “racism”, it’s doubtful we could live here, and doubtful that we could live at all.’11
The new public mood was reflected in political slogans. Said journalist Akiva Eldar: ‘The slogans of the 1990s were that only the Likud [Party] could make peace. Now peace is not on the cards any more. The average Israeli would like to wake up in the morning and find out that there are no Palestinians around, including Israeli Palestinians. For the average Israeli, a Palestinian is a terrorist until proven otherwise.’
In 1991, fresh from high school, journalist Gil Yaron left Germany and moved to Israel to work as a journalist. He wanted to live where he was ‘self understood’ as a Jewish person. But Yaron told me, ‘I think … [Israel] is movin
g in a very problematic direction.’ Language that was once used on ‘the outer rims of the political spectrum’ had become mainstream. He pointed to the way Arabic had been downgraded and how Benjamin Netanyahu had told Israeli Arabs ‘if you don’t like it here, you can go to Gaza’. Yaron said: ‘That used to be the talk of the extreme right, it should not be a sentence from the Prime Minister.’
Award-winning Norwegian journalist Sidsel Wold had been a great supporter of Israel. She lived on a kibbutz for three years and came to love the country. She learnt Hebrew and began converting to Judaism. In 2007 she became correspondent for Norway’s NRK because ‘I wanted to show a more positive side of Israel and Israelis’. However, what she saw changed her mind. ‘After living in Jerusalem for five years one gets a very different picture, unfortunately a negative one,’ she told me. ‘But that is also because Israel has changed. There is no ideology, no idealism like in the 1980s, the solidarity has gone. What I see is the beginning of another apartheid state, with a different system than South Africa but with segregation.’ She came to the view that ‘Israel’s greatest enemy is its own politics, its occupation and its arrogance.’
I arrived in Israel having been exposed to all the myths pushed by Israel’s lobby groups. One myth was that inside Israel there had been a fierce debate about the future of the country. Living in Israel, I quickly realised it was untrue. Veteran Agence France Presse bureau chief Philippe Agret agreed: ‘Even the left are united behind Zionism … All of them are Zionists. Today a lot of Israelis are driven by fear. If not indifferent, they condone what’s happening in the occupied territories, and the discrimination within Israel.’
The dominant Israeli viewpoint today is that Israel is now ‘managing a problem’ in much the same way that a police force manages a troublesome neighbourhood. Most Israelis have moved on from seeking any change. They’re comfortable with the status quo. They take some international criticism, but it’s not great enough to deter them from Greater Israel. This is a term usually heard from visiting foreign ministers.’ Most Israelis can get on with their lives and not even have to think about the conflict; the Israeli Army manages that for them. People living in Tel Aviv never need to think about the settlements – they happen ‘out there’.
Over lunch in Jerusalem in late 2014, towards the end of my posting, I asked an Israeli official – one of my contacts – whether Israel had in fact won the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He smiled, as if he were surprised it had taken me so long to figure it all out. ‘It depends what you mean by won,’ he said. ‘If by won you mean that we are in total control of the West Bank, then yes, we have won. The debate at senior levels of our government now is what comes next – do we cede back some of the territory for a Palestinian State, or do we decide we are going to hold on to it permanently and make it part of Israel?’
But the ‘victory’ that Israelis believe they have won is, in my view, corrosive. It is changing the character of Israel. The continuation of the settlement enterprise confirms that many Israelis now believe it is a right for 600,000 Jewish settlers to live on land that is not within their recognised borders. The values upon which Israel was founded are being violated on a daily basis.
The mood in Israel is hardening. One reason for this was the Second Intifada (2000–05). While the previous 40 years of the conflict had occurred mainly in the West Bank, the Second Intifada brought violence into Israel. Many Palestinians engaged in attacks on civilian targets. Suicide bombers hit bus stops and cafés. In my view this was unforgivable.
Sylvie and I came to realise how crucial the Second Intifada was to understanding the Israeli mindset. Talking to Israelis helped us realise how many families had been touched. Our landlord, Avi, told us how it ended his relationships with Palestinians; this situation was common. I realised there was a major disconnect between the high importance that Israelis place on the Second Intifada and the low importance given to it by many journalists.
The Second Intifada largely wiped out the centre and left in Israel, and the whole country veered to the right. It gave political momentum to the national religious movement, which argues that the decision of the United Nations in 1947 to create a Palestinian State was irrelevant.
The First Intifada, from 1987 to 1991, was confronting; the Second Intifada was dreadful. And if the next round of violence comes it will almost certainly be far worse than the last.
Within Israel, more and more security experts are realising that there is something their country can do to address the violence: end the occupation. More than 200 key national security figures in Israel and the US have posted comments on the site of the New York-based Israel Policy Forum (IPF),12 urging Israel to change direction. Yuval Diskin, a former head of Shin Bet, wrote: ‘The unsolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict represents an existential threat. We need to reach an agreement before we reach “a point of no return” in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, a point from which we will not be able to return to the option of the “two states for two people.”’ Shabtai Shavit, a former head of Mossad, wrote: ‘Some values are more sacred than land. Peace, which is the life and soul of true democracy, is more important than land.’
Many of the former heads of Mossad and Shin Bet – who understand both Israel’s strength as well as the consequences of not finding a resolution – have urged their country to agree to a Palestinian State. It is the politicians, not the security experts, who are resisting.
The Israeli media has grown louder in its warnings. Even Israel Today has expressed concerns. Columnist Dan Margalit referred to ‘the last remnants of Israel’s good name in the democratic world’.
Warnings have also been heard from some Israeli politicians. Former President Shimon Peres warned: ‘We’re galloping at full speed toward a situation where Israel will cease to exist as a Jewish state.’ Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: ‘We don’t have unlimited time. More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated, two-state solution because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one. From a struggle against “occupation”, in their parlance, to a struggle for one-man-one-vote. That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle – and ultimately a much more powerful one. For us, it would mean the end of the Jewish state.’13
Arnon Soffer, an academic from Haifa University, has advised several Israeli governments about the ‘demographic threat’ of the Palestinians. ‘When 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe,’ he told the Jerusalem Post. ‘Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day. If we don’t kill, we will cease to exist. The only thing that concerns me is how to ensure that the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings.’
Israel is losing many of its most loyal friends. Over our six years in Israel, we watched international support for the country deteriorate. In his second and third terms, Benjamin Netanyahu crystallised in the minds of many the idea that Israel was no longer interested in a two-State solution. In November 2011, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who had been one of Netanyahu’s confidants, was caught telling President Obama that Netanyahu was a ‘liar’. In October 2014, Richard Ottaway, the Conservative chairman of the UK’s Foreign Affairs Committee, explained his reasons for abandoning support for Israel: ‘Looking back over the last 20 years, I realise now Israel has slowly been drifting away from world public opinion.’14
Strangely, outsiders recognise the coming crisis better than many Israelis. The country has been immersed in so many conflicts for so long that its public now finds it difficult to make objective assessments. Jewish diaspora communities have been told for so long that everything is fine that they do not realise the co
ming dangers.
Prominent British lawyer David Middleburgh warned that diaspora Jews have a duty to visit the Palestinian Territories to understand the problem. ‘If we do nothing, can we complain if we awake one day and Israel has sleepwalked into the status of a pariah country?’ he asked.15
The New York Times’s Jodi Rudoren said: ‘I don’t think [Netanyahu] has a real plan to deal with the pariah issue. I think his basic feeling is to avoid. This problem is not solvable, he thinks, because the way to solving it through a road map is unacceptable to him. The way he would like to solve it with the [Israeli] military staying in place is obviously unacceptable to the Palestinians, so let’s keep going and make sure they [the Israelis] don’t get blown up today.’
I asked Rudoren for her thoughts on the conflict generally:
I actually don’t think it is more complicated than I thought. I think it’s less soluble than I thought. I think the outsiders’ understanding of this situation is basically like two peoples with reasonable claims to the same place trying to figure out some sort of way to split it up. There are a few nutty issues like what do you do with Jerusalem and the refugees but they should be figure-out-able and what’s taken so long? But I think the more you get into it the more you understand the hatred, the racism, the distrust, the invisibility of one to the other, the deeply held belief that each set of people wants to destroy the other’s right to exist as a people, as a nation-State, all those things make what should be a fairly simple, straightforward project – all the work has already been done on the maps etc – makes it really complicated. This question – is there really a will to resolve it?
