All posts tagged: two-state solution

Will the White House Fight for a Palestinian State?

Will the White House Fight for a Palestinian State?

Published by skeptic

Amid the war in Gaza, a major crisis has been brewing, largely behind the scenes, between the United States and Israel over the need for a Palestinian state. The two governments’ positions have long diverged—except during the administration of Donald Trump, whose peace proposal envisaged Israel annexing an additional 30 percent of the occupied West Bank and enveloping a conditional Palestinian state in an even more empowered Greater Israel. Now that divergence has a harder, sharper edge than ever: Washington’s strategic goals in the region require a Palestinian state in the long run and Israeli acknowledgment of that aim in the short run; the Israeli government is having none of it. Much expectation attends a purportedly comprehensive peace proposal that the U.S. and its most important Arab partners have reportedly been working on, soon to be unveiled and then implemented as the Gaza war winds down. The centerpiece of the plan would be a firm commitment to, and timeline for, the creation of a Palestinian state—a process that President Joe Biden has already mapped out …

What Claudine Gay Got Right and the International Court of Justice Got Wrong

What Claudine Gay Got Right and the International Court of Justice Got Wrong

Published by skeptic

In 2003, Warner Bros. released the much-hyped Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, some 12 years after the previous installment in the franchise. The celebrated critic Roger Ebert was not impressed. The movie, he wrote, “abandons its own tradition to provide wall-to-wall action in what is essentially one long chase and fight, punctuated by comic, campy or simplistic dialogue.” Unfazed, the film’s promoters proudly emblazoned Ebert’s verdict on their advertising. Well, four words of it: “Wall-to-wall action.” Context matters. It can completely change the meaning of a phrase or an act. And yet, since October 7, many otherwise thoughtful and intelligent people have abandoned context and turned themselves into the political equivalent of Terminator 3’s PR team. When the subject is not the movies but matters of the Middle East, the consequences of this sleight of hand are far graver than some dubious promotional puffery. Exhibit A: The U.S. Congress. In December, Republican Representative Elise Stefanik grilled Claudine Gay, the then-president of Harvard University, about anti-Semitism on campus. The exchange went viral and ultimately triggered …

Benjamin Netanyahu Must Go – The Atlantic

Benjamin Netanyahu Must Go – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

When a nation suffers a surprise attack, the most obvious costs are the sheer loss of life and the immediate damage to national security. But another casualty can be the nation’s underlying strategic assumptions about the world it inhabits. This happened to the United States on 9/11, when terrorism went from a third-tier annoyance to the foremost security challenge the U.S. faced, and a new and little-known enemy emerged as its primary foe. In Israel, the attacks of October 7 have had a similarly devastating effect, destroying the nation’s sense that its territory was reasonably safe from a large-scale Palestinian attack and that the lack of a political settlement with the Palestinians was manageable for the indefinite future—that is, without a solution involving either two states or one binational state. The idea that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could provide security while kicking the Palestinian problem into the indefinite future, which he has been making state policy for nearly three decades, has lost all credibility. The question for Israelis is what will fill the void left …

The Israel-Hamas War Is Straining Biden’s Coalition

The Israel-Hamas War Is Straining Biden’s Coalition

Published by skeptic

Throughout the summer, the Progressive Change Institute, a prominent grassroots organization aligned with Democrats, teamed up with the White House to promote President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda. The group helped organize events across the country, including in battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, to publicize one of the president’s most popular proposals: a crackdown on unnecessary or hidden consumer charges popularly known as “junk fees.” The institute was encouraged by how much positive local-media coverage the events generated, taking it as a sign that a concerted campaign could lift the president’s lackluster approval ratings ahead of his reelection bid. Its leaders were eying a second round of activity this fall to amplify Biden’s record on lowering prescription-drug and child-care costs. Since October 7, however, those plans are on hold. Many progressives are protesting the administration’s support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, which began after Hamas’s massacre of more than 1,200 Israelis and has left more than 16,000 dead, according to Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry. On perhaps no other issue is the gap between …

Netanyahu’s Path to Political Survival

Netanyahu’s Path to Political Survival

Published by skeptic

After Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, vigils and demonstrations broke out in Tel Aviv, mourning the dead and demanding the return of the hostages. One popular photo showed a lone woman with a hand-drawn sign that proposed a trade: Bibi for the Hostages. Remarkably few Israelis would, in those early days of the war, have objected to such a trade. Bibi—Benjamin Netanyahu—was prime minister during the worst sneak-attack against Israel in the country’s history, and the disgust at his government’s failure was universal. A survey recently found that only 4 percent of Jewish Israelis ranked him as the most reliable of Israeli public figures. His overall approval rating recently clocked in at 27 percent, which for a wartime leader is desperately low, comparable to what a politician gets when (as Selina Meyer put it in Veep) “running on a platform of higher taxes and episiotomies.” So why is Netanyahu still in office—and why do I keep meeting people who think he’ll still be there for a long time to come? Even Israelis who despise …

Who Wants a One-State Solution?

Who Wants a One-State Solution?

Published by skeptic

A Nepalese historian once told me a story. On a plane to Kathmandu, he was sitting next to an American legal expert who had been called in to help design Nepal’s first-ever republican constitution. But after sparking a conversation about Nepal’s history and its diverse peoples, the historian was shocked at the expert’s lack of knowledge about the country. The American was quick to explain that this ignorance was deliberate, and that he had no desire to learn about Nepal. “You see, good constitutional law is good regardless of the context,” the expert said. “I make a point of not learning details about a country, because they are irrelevant to constitutional design.” This case might be extreme, or perhaps embellished in the retelling, but something about it feels terribly familiar in regard to the Middle East. Americans debating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict often resort to simple categories and narratives, seeking to impose them without regard to context. One such narrative ignores the history of nationalism and the national right to self-determination. Israel, by this account, is …

We’re Lucky Biden’s in Charge

We’re Lucky Biden’s in Charge

Published by skeptic

President Joe Biden and his national-security team began their time in office in 2021 intending to concentrate on confronting China’s rise. The state of the world has not allowed such a singular focus. First came the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s return to power. Next was Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Now Hamas has carried out its barbaric terrorist attack against Israeli citizens, triggering a forceful response from Israel and potentially a major interstate war in the Middle East. Americans are lucky to have President Biden and his foreign-policy team in charge of national security right now. Their experience and knowledge extends not just to China and Asia but to the world, and they have made smart moves in defense of American interests and values. From the start, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Biden both traveled to Israel to signal strong American support for a democratic ally. In times of crisis, allies need to show up; once there, Blinken and Biden delivered appropriate messages about shared values, Israel’s right to self-defense, …

Israel’s Two Reckonings – The Atlantic

Israel’s Two Reckonings – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

On April 22, 1979, four Palestinian terrorists set out from southern Lebanon on a rubber dinghy and landed on the Israeli coast, near the northern town of Nahariya. They proceeded to an apartment building, breaking through the front door of the Haran family. Inside, they seized Danny Haran and his 4-year-old daughter, Einat. Meanwhile Danny’s wife, Smadar, hid in the attic with her 2-year-old daughter, Yael. The terrorists took their two hostages to the beach, where they shot Danny and smashed Einat’s skull against a rock. Back in the attic, Smadar, attempting to quiet Yael, accidentally smothered her to death. Of all the Palestinian terror attacks of the era, none had as great an impact on the generation that came of age around the 1973 Yom Kippur War as the destruction of the Haran family. The fate of the Harans hit so hard in part because the ultimate Israeli nightmare is helplessness. Zionism promised to empower the Jews; the Haran family’s fate belonged to Eastern Europe, not the Jewish state. This week, the Jewish state …

Amir Tibon on How His Family Survived the Hamas Massacre

Amir Tibon on How His Family Survived the Hamas Massacre

Published by skeptic

When I first heard that Israeli civilians were being massacred on the country’s Gaza border, I thought of my friend Amir Tibon. Amir is an exceptionally talented journalist who is fluent in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, and has devoted his life and skills to humanistic coverage of what can often be a dehumanizing region. His writing includes award-winning reporting on efforts to achieve a two-state solution and a biography of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. On Sunday, I didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. That’s because Tibon lives in Nahal Oz, a small community bordering Gaza that has no Iron Dome missile defense to protect it. On Saturday, it came under mortar fire from above and was invaded on the ground by Hamas terrorists. During their incursion into Israel, they murdered more than 900 Israelis, while brutalizing and kidnapping many others, most of them civilians. The death toll is continuing to rise. Tibon and his family survived the indiscriminate slaughter, but only after enduring a horrifying ordeal. Just before he put his two …

Is Israel at War With Iran?

Is Israel at War With Iran?

Published by skeptic

The October 7 attacks on Israel by Palestinian terror groups, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are being compared with 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. In fact, with more than 600 Israelis dead by the time of writing, their proportional death toll is several times higher than that of 9/11, and the factor of surprise is arguably greater than at Pearl Harbor. But 9/11 and Pearl Harbor weren’t just tragic attacks. They were casus belli for seismic wars. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has declared his country to be heading into “a long and grueling war.” The air attacks he ordered in Gaza have already resulted in hundreds of Palestinian casualties. Will October 7 also lead to a broader conflagration in the region? Most important, can Israel rightly consider itself to be engaged in a shadow conflict with Iran? Many commentators scoff at bringing Iran into an analysis of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. The sentiment is understandable. Some Beltway pundits name-drop Iran primarily to drive their own agendas. And the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not primarily about …