Pillar writes: "There already shouldn't have been any doubt about the
orientation of the current Israeli government and the associated obduracy of
that government in blocking any path toward resolution of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The government led by Benjamin Netanyahu is
firmly rightist, dominated by those opposed to the relinquishing of occupied
territory or the creation of a Palestinian state."
Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu with Israel's new defense minister Avigdor
Lieberman. (photo: Getty)
Israel Veers Even Further Right
By Paul R. Pillar, Consortium News
26 May 16
Hillary Clinton says she wants to take the U.S.-Israeli relationship "to the
next level" even as Prime Minister Netanyahu's right-wing regime plumbs new
depths of extremism, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.
here already shouldn't have been any doubt about the orientation of the
current Israeli government and the associated obduracy of that government in
blocking any path toward resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The
government led by Benjamin Netanyahu is firmly rightist, dominated by those
opposed to the relinquishing of occupied territory or the creation of a
Palestinian state.
Netanyahu, who comes across as one of the more moderate members of his own
coalition, has paid more lip service than some other members of that
coalition to the idea of an eventual Palestinian state, but he has made
clear with other words and actions that he has no intention of any such
thing coming into being on his watch, or of taking any meaningful steps
toward such a state coming into being.
Now come reports that Netanyahu is offering the Defense Ministry to former
Moldovan nightclub bouncer (and resident of a West Bank settlement) Avigdor
Lieberman. This will bring into the ruling coalition Lieberman's Yisrael
Beiteinu party, which even within the Israeli context is usually described
as "hard right."
Bringing Lieberman into the government is indicative not only of the overall
orientation of that government but also of some larger disturbing trends in
Israeli attitudes that the government has fomented more than it has
discouraged.
If Lieberman is made defense minister he would replace Moshe Ya'alon, who in
recent days has backed the Israeli military in prosecuting (though only for
manslaughter, not the murder that occurred) an Israeli soldier who was
caught on videotape shooting in the head, at close range, a Palestinian man
who was wounded and lying on the ground, already subdued and obviously not a
threat. Lieberman has joined other hardliners in expressing support for the
soldier. (Netanyahu has visited the soldier's family to express sympathy.)
Netanyahu had been trying to recruit another coalition partner to increase
his government's thin majority in the Knesset. Talks with centrist leader
Isaac Herzog fell through; the government evidently had more in common with
the crude hard right tendencies of Lieberman. Perhaps the timing of this
latest political move was a natural outcome of this sequence of
negotiations.
Or maybe it was at least as much another example of Netanyahu's proclivity
for poking a stick in the eye of foreign leaders who look like they might be
getting on his case about the Palestinian conflict - such as timing an
announcement of more settlement expansion to coincide with a visit of Vice
President Biden. This time the stickee is the French government, which is
organizing an international conference for later this year on
Israeli-Palestinian peace.
All honest outside observers should use the report about Lieberman coming
into the Israeli government as an occasion to remind themselves that this
tragic and long-running conflict continues to run because one side refuses
to end it. The gross asymmetry between the two sides is all-important.
One side, the occupying power - the side with the firepower - has the
ability to end the occupation and resolve the conflict if it decided to do
so. The other side has no such power. That other side, the Palestinian side,
has tried to use violent resistance but has subsequently and correctly drawn
the conclusion that such violence is not the answer; the violence,
unsurprisingly, only stokes legitimate fears among Israelis about their
security.
Violence has been continuing in the unplanned, spontaneous, and
frustration-driven form of young people grabbing knives and stabbing the
first Israelis they can find. The Palestinian leadership has turned to
multilateral diplomacy, which, besides popular boycotts, is about the only
tool it has left. And the Israeli government does everything it can to
impede and to foil such diplomacy, as it is trying to do now with the French
initiative.
A common urge to sound impartial leads to the common refrain that the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict persists because neither side has the political
will to settle it. Nonsense. The overwhelming majority of Palestinians do
not want to continue to live under Israeli occupation. They have the will
but not the power to settle.
There certainly are divisions and political weakness on the Palestinian side
- of which the Israeli government has striven to prevent any repair, such as
in "punishing" the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority through withholding
tax revenue whenever it has moved toward reconciliation with Hamas - but
there is no significant pro-occupation party among Palestinians.
The hardliners who control Israel policy have the power but - as ample
evidence, even without Avigdor Lieberman, has shown - not the will, as long
as third parties do not make them suffer any meaningful consequences. They
do want the occupation to continue.
The Netanyahu government's repeated claim that it wants to negotiate with
the Palestinians should be described as the charade that it is. It is
understandable that Palestinian leaders have no desire to engage in talks
that have no prospect of leading to anything, when such engagement would
just mean participating in the charade while the occupation continues and
more facts are built on the occupied ground.
The insincerity is all the more obvious when Netanyahu speaks of talks with
"no preconditions" while at the same time insisting that the Palestinians
pronounce Israel to be a "Jewish state" - a precondition that implicitly
limits how the issue of Palestinian refugees and right of return can be
resolved, and also would mean the Palestinian leadership formally signing on
to a declaration that non-Jewish Israelis are second-class citizens. Those
are the only things such a pronouncement would mean.
The Palestinian leadership long ago recognized, formally and unequivocally,
the state of Israel. As Palestinian leaders have noted, that state is free
to describe itself any way it wants.
With the American political system still wearing its usual straitjacket on
this issue, the main hope right now for taking any steps out of this tragic
situation lies with the French initiative. If the United States is to do
anything helpful any time in the foreseeable future, it probably will have
to come in the remaining eight months of the Obama administration.
One of the two presumptive presidential nominees speaks of taking
U.S.-Israeli relations "to the next level" - and it is safe to assume she
doesn't mean that the next level will consist of imposing consequences for
the continued occupation.
The other presumptive presidential nominee caused nervous moments in the
Israel lobby when he talked about being impartial, but the nerves were
soothed with a speech to AIPAC that said all the "right" things. And now he
has Sheldon Adelson and Adelson's heavyweight bankroll on his side, with
everything that implies for this nominee's future posture on Israel-related
issues if he were to be elected.
________________________________________
Paul R. Pillar, in his 28 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, rose to
be one of the agency's top analysts. He is now a visiting professor at
Georgetown University for security studies. (This article first appeared as
a blog post at The National Interest's Web site. Reprinted with author's
permission.)
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu with Israel's new defense minister Avigdor
Lieberman. (photo: Getty)
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/05/21/israel-veers-even-further-right/https:
//consortiumnews.com/2016/05/21/israel-veers-even-further-right/
Israel Veers Even Further Right
By Paul R. Pillar, Consortium News
26 May 16
Hillary Clinton says she wants to take the U.S.-Israeli relationship "to the
next level" even as Prime Minister Netanyahu's right-wing regime plumbs new
depths of extremism, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.
here already shouldn't have been any doubt about the orientation of the
current Israeli government and the associated obduracy of that government in
blocking any path toward resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The
government led by Benjamin Netanyahu is firmly rightist, dominated by those
opposed to the relinquishing of occupied territory or the creation of a
Palestinian state.
Netanyahu, who comes across as one of the more moderate members of his own
coalition, has paid more lip service than some other members of that
coalition to the idea of an eventual Palestinian state, but he has made
clear with other words and actions that he has no intention of any such
thing coming into being on his watch, or of taking any meaningful steps
toward such a state coming into being.
Now come reports that Netanyahu is offering the Defense Ministry to former
Moldovan nightclub bouncer (and resident of a West Bank settlement) Avigdor
Lieberman. This will bring into the ruling coalition Lieberman's Yisrael
Beiteinu party, which even within the Israeli context is usually described
as "hard right."
Bringing Lieberman into the government is indicative not only of the overall
orientation of that government but also of some larger disturbing trends in
Israeli attitudes that the government has fomented more than it has
discouraged.
If Lieberman is made defense minister he would replace Moshe Ya'alon, who in
recent days has backed the Israeli military in prosecuting (though only for
manslaughter, not the murder that occurred) an Israeli soldier who was
caught on videotape shooting in the head, at close range, a Palestinian man
who was wounded and lying on the ground, already subdued and obviously not a
threat. Lieberman has joined other hardliners in expressing support for the
soldier. (Netanyahu has visited the soldier's family to express sympathy.)
Netanyahu had been trying to recruit another coalition partner to increase
his government's thin majority in the Knesset. Talks with centrist leader
Isaac Herzog fell through; the government evidently had more in common with
the crude hard right tendencies of Lieberman. Perhaps the timing of this
latest political move was a natural outcome of this sequence of
negotiations.
Or maybe it was at least as much another example of Netanyahu's proclivity
for poking a stick in the eye of foreign leaders who look like they might be
getting on his case about the Palestinian conflict - such as timing an
announcement of more settlement expansion to coincide with a visit of Vice
President Biden. This time the stickee is the French government, which is
organizing an international conference for later this year on
Israeli-Palestinian peace.
All honest outside observers should use the report about Lieberman coming
into the Israeli government as an occasion to remind themselves that this
tragic and long-running conflict continues to run because one side refuses
to end it. The gross asymmetry between the two sides is all-important.
One side, the occupying power - the side with the firepower - has the
ability to end the occupation and resolve the conflict if it decided to do
so. The other side has no such power. That other side, the Palestinian side,
has tried to use violent resistance but has subsequently and correctly drawn
the conclusion that such violence is not the answer; the violence,
unsurprisingly, only stokes legitimate fears among Israelis about their
security.
Violence has been continuing in the unplanned, spontaneous, and
frustration-driven form of young people grabbing knives and stabbing the
first Israelis they can find. The Palestinian leadership has turned to
multilateral diplomacy, which, besides popular boycotts, is about the only
tool it has left. And the Israeli government does everything it can to
impede and to foil such diplomacy, as it is trying to do now with the French
initiative.
A common urge to sound impartial leads to the common refrain that the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict persists because neither side has the political
will to settle it. Nonsense. The overwhelming majority of Palestinians do
not want to continue to live under Israeli occupation. They have the will
but not the power to settle.
There certainly are divisions and political weakness on the Palestinian side
- of which the Israeli government has striven to prevent any repair, such as
in "punishing" the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority through withholding
tax revenue whenever it has moved toward reconciliation with Hamas - but
there is no significant pro-occupation party among Palestinians.
The hardliners who control Israel policy have the power but - as ample
evidence, even without Avigdor Lieberman, has shown - not the will, as long
as third parties do not make them suffer any meaningful consequences. They
do want the occupation to continue.
The Netanyahu government's repeated claim that it wants to negotiate with
the Palestinians should be described as the charade that it is. It is
understandable that Palestinian leaders have no desire to engage in talks
that have no prospect of leading to anything, when such engagement would
just mean participating in the charade while the occupation continues and
more facts are built on the occupied ground.
The insincerity is all the more obvious when Netanyahu speaks of talks with
"no preconditions" while at the same time insisting that the Palestinians
pronounce Israel to be a "Jewish state" - a precondition that implicitly
limits how the issue of Palestinian refugees and right of return can be
resolved, and also would mean the Palestinian leadership formally signing on
to a declaration that non-Jewish Israelis are second-class citizens. Those
are the only things such a pronouncement would mean.
The Palestinian leadership long ago recognized, formally and unequivocally,
the state of Israel. As Palestinian leaders have noted, that state is free
to describe itself any way it wants.
With the American political system still wearing its usual straitjacket on
this issue, the main hope right now for taking any steps out of this tragic
situation lies with the French initiative. If the United States is to do
anything helpful any time in the foreseeable future, it probably will have
to come in the remaining eight months of the Obama administration.
One of the two presumptive presidential nominees speaks of taking
U.S.-Israeli relations "to the next level" - and it is safe to assume she
doesn't mean that the next level will consist of imposing consequences for
the continued occupation.
The other presumptive presidential nominee caused nervous moments in the
Israel lobby when he talked about being impartial, but the nerves were
soothed with a speech to AIPAC that said all the "right" things. And now he
has Sheldon Adelson and Adelson's heavyweight bankroll on his side, with
everything that implies for this nominee's future posture on Israel-related
issues if he were to be elected.
Paul R. Pillar, in his 28 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, rose to
be one of the agency's top analysts. He is now a visiting professor at
Georgetown University for security studies. (This article first appeared as
a blog post at The National Interest's Web site. Reprinted with author's
permission.)
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
