David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, is arguably the most influential Jewish American journalist. Now 50, Remnick became editor at 37 after an impressive career covering the collapse of the Soviet Union for the Washington Post. His book about that incredible period, Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, won a Pulitzer in 1994.
Over the years he has written about Israel and the Palestinians with some regularity. Although he claims no special expertise in the area (other than being a strongly identifying Jew), his editor's "comments" indicate that he knows the issue well. In fact, his pieces are usually far more sophisticated than the news and opinion pieces that the supposed experts regularly produce for the prestige newspapers and journals.
Over Remnick's past 13 years as editor of the New Yorker, his attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have evolved. In the early years, Remnick's views were decidedly mainstream. Though no Likudnik, he did give Israel the benefit of the doubt in most situations. Back then, he clearly believed that although Israel often blundered, even badly, it still was sincerely seeking peace. Of course, holding those views was significantly easier a decade or two ago than it is today.
Today those views seem only to be held by either true believers (the "Israel can do no wrong" crowd) or politicians determined to ingratiate themselves with donors whose politics can be summed up as "Israel First." There aren't a whole lot of those donors but it doesn't take very many to intimidate politicians. And intimidated they are.
But established journalists like Remnick don't have to be intimidated (although ingratiating oneself with rich and powerful people is not an unknown phenomenon among writers).
And today Remnick is treading the path blazed last year by Peter Beinart, another influential Jewish American writer who had been editor of the New Republic at 24. A year ago, Beinart broke with the AIPAC crowd with a blockbuster piece in The New York Review of Books explaining how the combination of right-wing Israeli policies and the mindless chauvinism of AIPAC and its allies had succeeded in alienating young Jews from Israel.
Beinart's piece enraged the pro-Israel establishment, although it knew, from its own surveys, that identification with Israel is strongest among those in their 80s and then drops precipitously among the now-aging "baby boomers" and their kids. (One Ivy Leaguer recently told me that even J Street is a hard sell among Jewish kids. As for AIPAC, forget about it. In fact, any passion for Israel at all makes you pretty much an outlier.)
A year later, David Remnick has crossed Beinart's Rubicon. In a "Talk of the Town" essay in his magazine, Remnick definitively asserts that it is time for the United States to put a comprehensive peace plan (exchanging the territories for peace) on the table and to push it to fruition. He writes that the Obama administration obviously knows this, but is simply afraid of the implications for "domestic politics." Remnick believes that fear is misplaced and that Obama should think big despite the pressure from the donors and White House aides mired in the status quo.
For decades, AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, and other such right-leaning groups have played an outsized role in American politics, pressuring members of Congress and Presidents with their capacity to raise money and swing elections. But Democratic Presidents in particular should recognize that these groups are hardly representative and should be met head on. Obama won seventy-eight per cent of the Jewish vote; he is more likely to lose some of that vote if he reverses his position on, say, abortion than if he tries to organize international opinion on the Israeli-Arab conflict. However, some senior members of the Administration have internalized the political restraints that they believe they are under, and cannot think beyond them. Some, like Dennis Ross, who has served five Presidents, can think only in incremental terms.This is strong stuff, especially when it comes from David Remnick. But it isn't all.
A sizable chunk of the piece is devoted to Remnick's explanation of why it is silly to expect Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to abandon his decades-long commitment to the occupation of the Palestinian territories. The thinking goes that:
Just as Nixon set aside decades of Cold War ideology and Red-baiting in the interests of practical global politics, Netanyahu would transcend his own history, and his party's, to end the suffering of a dispossessed people and regain Israel's moral standing.
Not going to happen, writes Remnick. He believes that the reason is the influence of Netanyahu's 101-year-old father, Benzion Netanyahu. Remnick tells of a meeting he had with the prime minister's father, writing that the elder Netanyahu "invited me to his house for lunch, and I am not sure that I have ever heard more outrageously reactionary table talk. The disdain for Arabs, for Israeli liberals, for any Americans to the left of the neoconservatives was chilling."
Add to that a "coalition government that includes anti-democratic, even proto-fascistic ministers, such as Avigdor Lieberman," and it's clear that Obama's sweet talk has not a chance of accomplishing anything.
And that is why Obama has to act decisively and without waiting for permission from AIPAC, Dennis Ross, or the Democratic Party's fundraisers.
The importance of an Obama plan is not that Netanyahu accept it right away; the Palestinian leadership, which is weak and suffers from its own issues of legitimacy, might not embrace it immediately, either. ...Rather, it is important as a way for the United States to assert that it stands not with the supporters of Greater Israel but with what the writer Bernard Avishai calls "Global Israel," the constituencies that accept the moral necessity of a Palestinian state and understand the dire cost of Israeli isolation.
Remnick concludes that it is time for the United States to stop telling the Israelis what they want to hear, and start telling them what almost all policymakers actually believe.
If America is to be a useful friend, it owes clarity to Israel, no less than Israel and the world owe justice -- and a nation -- to the Palestinian people.
A few years ago, there was no chance that either David Remnick or Peter Beinart would be saying these things. And a few years before that they wouldn't even be advocating a Palestinian state at all. And before that it wasn't even safe to talk about a discrete Palestinian people.
But it's all changing for two reasons. First, at long last, it is common and uncontroversial knowledge that the Palestinian people have suffered mightily at the hands of Israel, with the support of the United States.
Second, it has become abundantly clear that Israel's isolation is increasing at such a rapid rate (Turkey and Egypt distancing themselves from Israel in a single year) that the continuation of the occupation (and the conflict that emanates from it) threatens the existence of Israel itself.
That is why there will be more Remnicks and more Beinarts. Not because influential Americans like them are indifferent to Israel's survival. But because they aren't.
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
What makes you think that Israel would honor such an agreement this time.
So you support a total removal of blockade just like that?
So Iranian boats full of mortars and missiles like the one just caught should be able to go freely into Gaza?
Furthermore, there are plenty of wepoans getting into Gaza, so the blockade is failing.
Mar 19, 2011 Gaza City - Violence between Israel and militants of the Islamist Hamas movement flared on Saturday after nearly 50 mortar shells from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israeli communities
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1627256.php/50-rockets-launched-from-Gaza-into-Israel-eight-wounded
The blockade is still in place. WMBD keeps reminding us that a blockade is an act of war. Why should Hamas be peaceful when Israel doesn't respect peace?
A comparison is required:
The palestinians and Tibetans started their struggle 60 some years ago.
Here are the differences:
The palestinians chose the way of terror.
The Tibetans chose the way of peace.
The palestinians are getting UN aid for themselves and their descendants.
The Tibetans live in modesty in India, mainly Dharamshala.
The palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has personally sent people to kidnap planes and murder athletes in the Munich Olympics.
The Tibetan leader, the 14th Dalai Lama has declared worldwide he rejects violence.
When world leader goes against them, the palestinians murder him (Sirhan Sirhan who murdered Robert F Kennedy, who would have been the next US president).
When the world leaders ignore the Tibetan struggle, they still don't turn to violence.
The palestinians murder themselves, as witnessed in the Hamas wars with Fatah.
The Tibetans live in peace and there is no violence between themselves.
The palestinias cannot get along with their Arab hosts, (Black September, Lebanon civil war. Jordan, Egypt do not want them. Lebanon does not give them rights.)
The Tibetans have been living in peace with their Indian host.
Despite all differences, the world gave both leaders a Nobel Peace Prize (although only the Dalai Lama deserved that).
The hypocrite world gives all attention to the palestinian struggle while ignoring the Tibetan one.
we want to fight terrorism, NOT REWARD IT.
To say palestinian and Tibetan in the same sentence is an insult to all Tibetans.
FREE TIBET
A clear evidence to what happened in 2 years prior to the 1948 war is in the U.N definitions:
The UN definition of a Refugee:
UNHCR spells out that a refugee is someone who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country."
Source: http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c125.html
And this is the UN definition to an Palestinian Refugee:
Under UNRWA's operational definition, Palestine refugees are people whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.
UNRWA's services are available to all those... The descendants of the original Palestine refugees are also eligible...
Source: http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=86
This is the definition that the Arabs passed in the UN.
Now the question is, of course, why to mention June 1946 to May 1948?
If the palestinians were there for generations, as they claim, why not simply say "prior to May 1948"?
And the answer is because there were no palestinians prior to 1946.
Well, actually there were, of course. But not even close to the numbers they claim.
Hypocrisy has no boundaries.
The answer is because the conflict and the massacres by the Jewish terrorist groups were at their worst between 1946 and 1948 which lead to the Palestinians, in great numbers, either running away in fear or forced out of their homes.
So, if any Palestinians left before 1946, the UN has no evidence that it was out of fear (Even though that was the case) and so would not be considered refugees according to the Original UN definition of a refugee!
So dear, the Palestinians WERE IN PALESTINE BEFORE 1946 and in great numbers!
Your explanation is full of hatred and an insult to logic.
The worst violent acts between local populations, that the British record during their mandate were the 1929 Palestine riots, which were against (guess……) the Jews.
Second, as to your "So, if any Palestinians left before 1946, the UN has no evidence that it was out of fear". So ridicules. What does it matter what the reason was. The UN definition did not relate to fear or any other reason in the "palestinian refugee" definition, and you bet they knew about reasons, because the regular refugee definition mentions lots of reasons as "fear".
So, "my dear", objection overruled.
Nope.
There is an extremely good LEGAL reason why those dates were chosen, and it has to do with the mechanism detailed in the Partition Plan for deciding who would be a citizen of the "Jewish state" and who would be a citizen of the "Arab state" once those two states came into being.
The key phrase is "place of residence", because that phrase gets quite a workout in Chapter 3 of the Partition Plan.
Is it refugee?
"But not even close to the numbers they claim."
The numbers are not in dispute. They appear in the reports of many independent bodies such as the King-Crane Commission (1919), the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry (1946) and a host of others.
If they would have perished, then its up for grabs, but they didn't. And that's a FACT.
Israel has proven it can have lasting peace because of the peace with Jordan and Egypt. Israel has also kept its promise to lower the strength of the embargo of Gaza. And finally, Israel pulled out of Gaza and hasnt moved any settlers back in. All three are promises Israel has kept.
I am SURE there are a million ways Israel has broken promises, reneged on deals, walked away from the table, and outright lied.
My question is this: Can anyone tell me 3 ways the Palestinian government has kept a promise in the past 10 years. I know there must be examples, I just dont have the knowledge of them yet.
Recognition of Israel.. you have to reocgnize the state of Israel to negoiate and they have been there many times since OSLO.... They have joint policing...andhelped by sending firemen to the fires that wer ein the forests covering old villiages.. this will not make on this site for some reason (like most of my find the middle ground ones.) I would love to see a peace between the two people, but you have to stop oppression and greed first .
1) "denoucing terrorism" The PA continues to glorify and extol terrorism.
2) "proof..how many terrorists attacks from the west bank". Apart from the recent Fogel family massacre, there are almost daily, failed attempts.
3) "Recognitio n of Israel.." as a future Arab-majority mixed state with the insistence of the right of return.
4) "you have to stop oppression and greed first ." No! The Palestinians have to accept the historic and legitimate rights of a nation state of the Jewish people to exist in a small part of its ancestral homeland. This it refuses to do. This is the crux of the problem. The existence of the Jewish state is NOT "oppression and greed."
2. Fatah promised not to give up its demand for "RIght of Return" and has not reneged on that
3. They promised not to negotiate if Israel didn't stop bu8ilding. They kept their word on that and they didn't negotiate when Israel had a 10-month moratorium on building.
Such facts don't matter, though.
the occupation has not ended. Why would jihad (resistance to occupation) end until the occupation does?
>> 2. Fatah promised not to give up its demand for;RIght of Return and has not reneged on that
They never made that promise, and not should they.
>> 3. They promised not to negotiate if Israel didn't stop building
False. Both aides signed the Road Map, which stipulated that building would stop.
Israel violated the agreement. There should have been no need for a moratorium.
Such facts matter.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/13/israel-palestinian-minors_n_795727.html
...as a donation from Victoria Secrets that promotes its product among female soldiers.
I suggest that you let them throw stones at you since it is just harless target practice.
Other acts of terrorism occur sporadically, yet the overwhelmingly vast majority of Israelis live lives of safety and comfort on par that that of Americans, while the price that EVERY Palestinian must pay for the daily growth and perseverance of the illegal and internationally condemned settlements is to live a life of poverty, statelessness, and violence, violence and poverty and statelessness perpetrated upon them by the settlers and the army that protects them.
The number of Palestinian men women and children killed in this ongoing conflict vastly outweighs the number of Israelis killed.
Israel has no intention of stopping the settlements and must be forced. It would be much better if it were forced by it's ally, the US, rather than by a coalition of recently democratized neighboring countries who find a state sponsored, violently enforced, colonial settler movement in their midst as offensive and unacceptable as we would in ours.
It's time for the US to FORCE Israel out of the settlements for their own good, and for the good of the region and the US
Thanks to the US.
Why would the US have any right to "force" anything on Israel?
If your "coalition" of arab states wants to get rid of Israel they are free to try.
OH...that's right...they already did that numerous times...and lost.
Israel was forced on the Palestinians. Iraq was forced to withdraw from Kuwait. The US could just as easily drive Israel out of Gaza.
Left doesn't automatically mean good and peaceful and Right doesn't automatically mean war-mongering, people hating Troglodytes.
Presenting facts like the uncalled-for murder of the fmaily in Itamar means nothing to the humanist Progressives. The fact that Israel has provided hospital treatment to 180,000 Palestinains, including wounded terrorists, is never when Progressives claim that Israel's prevention of weapons reaching Gaza is un-humanistic.
I hope that open-minded people will look at all the facts liek the Charters of Hamas and Fatah, like what Abbas says to his people in Arabic.
According to your schedule, the ground were supposed to break apart many years ago. But contrary to your prognostication Israel is flourishing with the most vibrant, strong economy and defense in the ME. And apparently it's the most stable country in the region according to Al Jazzira.
All courtesy of the US.
Israel paid for bone if it's defense forces, and BTW, gave still been defeated twice by Hezbollah.
The economy us entirely greased by the US.
If course, if Israel was such an economic miracle, it wouldn't need the world's biggest welfare cheque nor need the US tax payer to pay for it's weapons.
To the contrary US economy, its IT part, greased by the Israel's startups and inventions.
http://www.israelinnovation20.com/category/information-technology/
http://expo2010israel.com/?CategoryID=171
...to stay firm and defend Israel with all the might
In return, Israel supplies technology and intelligence. For example, Israel designed 660 modifications to the F-16 plane, making it a much better product.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/US_aid_to_Israel.gif
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf
"In return, Israel supplies technology and intelligence"
Also, since when does Israel "supply" technology and intelligence? and it doesnt matter if Israel decided to put Alteza lights or spinner wheels on its F-16 which it got for free using my tax dollars anyways, just as it is getting the F-35s for free.
Those mods have nothing to do with U.S. And if our gov is forcing our military to adopt Israeli mods then it is another way Israel is sucking money out of U.S.
P.S. From the FAS website "In 2007 Bush administration announced that it would increase US military aid to Israel to $6 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR over the next decade."
Both sides play the blame game, sacrificing the lives of civilians. Neither side has any moral compass left.
Israelis need to open their eyes and ask, when was the last time we saw a group of people herded into an enclosed ghetto whose only shared trait was their religion? Hello! Lights are on, but is there anybody home?
The status quo is intolerable and presents a security threat to the whole region, Europe and the U.S. Someone has to call an end to this game.
We are supposed to show contempt to the Arabs for unleashing inaccurate and ineffective decades old rockets in defiance of the continued occupation of their lands as well as hundreds times the modern rockets, cluster bombs and artillery shells rained on the Arabs. Even the Arabs living in Israel does not enjoy as many rights as an Israeli Jew even though it is said to be a democracy...
If you study history, you will know that double standards is something easy to practise but finding out the truth of the matter is much harder. I strongly urge the people here to read the UN documents on what happened.
Guess who is doing that.
perpetuating their own interests by getting their chlidren arrested by israeli army? stop trying to manipulate us all in the name of israel.