A personal view on the Middle East
Because the issue of the Middle East has become so dominant, friends sometimes ask me, or sometimes avoid asking me but would probably like to know, my views.
This is an attempt to summarize my position.
It is not comprehensive, nor a plan to solve the catastrophe, but just an attempt to assemble the key building blocks I believe must be accepted if a way forward is to be found.
I am not trying to provoke or persuade, nor, given how horrific and complex this issue is, am I confident that all my views are beyond challenge or can help find a resolution to it.
I simply seek to explain how I see it, as I reckon people are entitled to know, and then make of my view what they will…
Netanyahu is a disaster, not interested in a peaceful resolution of the conflict or the lives of Palestinians. While he has a lot of support in Israel, and agrees with, or opportunistically yields to, the views of right-wing extremists in his coalition, there is also substantial opposition to him, and Israel remains a democracy, albeit a flawed one. (A recent poll found that 69% of Israelis want a ceasefire and hostage release.) One can only hope the democratic process will throw him out sooner rather than later.
Hamas is a disaster, and the dispute is about more than history, territory and the settlements; it is actually about the militant, fundamentalist Islamism of Hamas and some other nations in the region, most notably Iran, and their rejection of Israel’s right to exist. Unlike Israel, in Gaza there is little opposition to the ruling regime, Hamas, and such opposition as there is is brutally suppressed.
There should have been a ceasefire long ago, but it takes two to agree, and neither Netanyahu, nor Hamas (which triggered the current round of conflict) or Hezbollah (which has no actual territorial dispute with Israel), are genuinely ready for one.
Israel should have withdrawn from the West Bank long ago. That said, while the settlements, and in particular the brutality of some (but not all) of the settlers and the politicians who encourage them, are a significant cause of the hostility to Israel, they are also an excuse, and withdrawal would not end the rejection by Hamas of Israel's right to exist.
Everything should be negotiable, but one thing is not. The Palestinian leadership must stop poisoning the minds of children and teaching them that Israel is evil and that their duty is to eliminate all Jews from it by becoming martyrs who will be rewarded in heaven.
Israel had to respond to Oct 7, and to Hezbollah’s constant bombing of Israel. Hamas is a real threat to Israel, and the accusations about tunnels and human shields are real, and make innocent casualties inevitable - as is always the case in war e.g. Hiroshima, Dresden, Afghanistan. However, it is not unreasonable to criticise Israel's response and the resulting toll as horrendous, probably excessive, and counter-productive (in that rather than eliminating Hamas, it may create a new generation), but it is not genocide if the meaning of that term is understood correctly (even if some extremists in Israel would countenance a genocide-like response).
That said, Israel has gone much too far now and should indicate a genuine and serious willingness for a ceasefire, perhaps even by offering a unilateral pause to see how Hamas responds. A real settlement will almost certainly require an international peace-keeping force.
The refugee issue is largely spurious. Palestinian refugees are the only refugee category in the world in which descendants of the original refugees continue to be designated as refugees, and have a special UN agency (UNWRA). The 700,000 people who became refugees after the UN’s creation of Israel in 1948 are matched by the similar number of Jews who were at the same time forced to flee the surrounding countries (Egypt, Yemen, Morocco, etc) for Israel.
The failure of the other ME countries (some of which are super-wealthy) to assist, or resettle, refugees since then, and to offer sanctuary and aid to the people of Gaza now, is contemptible, and reflects their manipulation of the refugee issue for political purposes, and their unwillingness to incorporate militant Palestinians into their own populations. Tragically and intentionally, Oct 7 set back the momentum towards better relations with some of those countries, in particular Saudi Arabia.
The characterisation of Israel as ‘colonial’ is simplistic and unhistoric. It fails to recognise that the movement of people into Israel was not conducted by an imperialist invading foreign nation, exploiting people and resources, but that it augmented (incrementally, through land purchases, migration, and other, mainly but not always legal means, and finally in 1948 with a UN vote) an unbroken Jewish presence in the land.
The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is, at best, only partially true. It may be that, regrettably, because of the hardening of attitudes and the perception of security threats, arrangements in the occupied territories look disconcertingly like apartheid. It is absolutely untrue, however, to describe Israel itself as an apartheid nation; non-Jewish citizens there (including Arabs) enjoy full civil rights and occupy senior judicial and other positions - almost certainly more than minorities do in neighboring nations.
That is not to deny that Israel's creation resulted in significant conflict, injustice, dispossession and suffering for Palestinians and Arabs. Even so, dispossession and conflicts as a result of movements of people over time and territory have occurred everywhere in the world throughout history - for instance, in post WWII Europe, and on a massively larger scale, and at the same time as the establishment of Israel, in India and Pakistan, but also here in Australia. These movements have not always led to the turmoil that the ME has endured for so many decades.
Whatever the horror and injustice of the current situation, even worse is happening elsewhere e.g. Sudan, Syria, and the world does not care. (In the last 10 years 306,000 died as a result of the conflict in Syria, 62,000 in the last year in Sudan; 432,000 in Afghanistan since 2001). This selective outrage is what leads some in the Jewish community to perceive the worldwide opposition to Israel as partly based on ingrained, historic - albeit often subconscious - antisemitism.
Jews have vastly diverging views on the situation. While most, including me, fervently believe in the importance of Israel’s survival (and in that sense could be described as ‘Zionists’) many of us are very critical of its government. Many, like me, also recognize and are deeply distressed that the character of Israel as an enlightened, pluralist, secular, moderate, democratic and united nation, informed by the idealistic socialist and secular origins of its foundation, is seriously jeopardised by its recent history and conduct.
It therefore follows that if those people (and movements such as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) opposed to Israel’s conduct wish to avoid being seen as anti-Semitic (and I do not agree that criticism of Israel should necessarily be regarded as anti-Semitic), they should direct their opposition at Israel’s government and its representatives, not at Jews, universities and other institutions.
There are a number of organizations whose work seems to be based on assumptions similar to these. Two whose endeavours I support are the New Israel Foundation (www.nif.org.au) and Standing Together (www.standing-together.org).
Excellent nuanced post Michael, I am in basic agreement with your points, the overall point to me is the way Israel or Hamas is waging this war is just totally counter-productive - for example Israel doesn't appear to have any real end game so one side effect will be just inciting a new generation of Hamas terrorists. I would add is that a number of individuals and groups are taking one side or the other to partly just carve out their own kind of 'brand' - look at the way some commentators like Douglass Murray are pretty much ADF apologists, and ditto Sky News, while on the other side the Australian Greens are so pro-Palestine you would have to doubt if they have any support at all in the Jewish community. There have been war crimes on both sides, and the sooner they both come together with Isreal having a cease fire and Hamas returning the hostages the better.
Liffman on Israel: A Gentile's Perspective
Like most of my early acquaintances, I grew up in a comfortable middleclass Melbourne suburb where everybody was of Anglo-Saxon descent. So when, at Burwood Teachers College in 1961, during a discussion of the history of classical music, our music teacher remarked that there was one people who had made a greater contribution to classical music than anyone else, we were all stumped for an answer. No, it wasn't the Germans, he said. It wasn't the French or the Italians. In response to our blank expressions he finally said: "It was the Jews."
That was my first real introduction to the significant contribution of the Jewish people to Western culture. Later on, I went to Melbourne University and I found that many of the students and teachers and thinkers I was most drawn to and admired were Jewish
I became aware of the long history of Anti-Semitism and sympathised with the Jewish people, and condemned their on-going victimisation.
The creation of the state of Israel seemed like a godsend. The Jews finally had a place they could call home. I meet inspiring people who were putting their ideals into practice on Kibbutzim. And joined in the condemnation of those who tried to destroy the new country.
My love and admiration for my Jewish friends and acquaintances around the world remains unabated, but in recent years I have begun to feel uneasy about the direction in which some of its leaders are taking the state of Israel, as are many Jews, both inside and outside Israel.
I'd like to make a few brief comments on some of Michael's 15 Statements. Those I wholeheartedly endorse I have skipped over to save space.
2. Hamas is a disaster.
The cowardly Hamas incursion on 7 October must stand as one of the most ill-conceived military adventures in history. Hamas presumably imagined that, having taken all those hostages, they'd then sit down with the Israelis and negotiate a few concessions for the return of the hostages, or maybe have a prisoner swap.
How wrong they were! Netanyahu and his right-wing backers were just waiting for an excuse to come down hard on the Palestinians. Some believe their end goal is the annexation of the whole of Palestine to create a biblical Eretz Israel, from the river to the sea.
4.Israel should have withdrawn from the West Bank long ago.
If by this Michael means also withdrawing the residents from the Jewish settlements this is easier said than done. There are now nearly 150 of them, and many of them have been there for years. I suspect none of them have any intention of ever returning back within Israel's UN specified boundaries.
But is the alternative, their integration into a Palestinian State, feasible?
My fear is that the people who keep Netanyahu in power plan to annex the West Bank, which is why they so vehemently oppose the "Two State Solution".
5.Everything should be negotiable, but one thing is not. The Palestinian leadership must stop poisoning the minds of children and teaching them that Israel is evil and that their duty is to eliminate all Jews from it by becoming martyrs who will be rewarded in heaven.
I absolutely agree. The indoctrination of the next generation must stop.
The Palestinian extremists and their supporters in Iran must accept that Israel is a fait accompli and totally support its existence, as many Arab countries have. Moreover, these accepters need to be more proactive in putting pressure on their Islamic colleagues to join them in accepting Israel, for the sake of peace and for the sake of the welfare of the Palestinian people.
Whether this is likely to happen in Iran while the mullahs hold sway is a moot question.
The most constructive thing that supporters of the Palestinians could do is to convince the Iranians and Hamas and Hezbollah and the other extreme Islamists that Israel has a right to exist, so that a path to peace can be negotiated. Until that happens, they can't really blame the Israelis for being stroppy with them.
Protesting the violence is attacking a symptom - they need to attack the cause: Israel denialism. Israel is not going to go away.
But, as I argue in a previous article (https://rationalemagazine.com/index.php/2024/01/31/if-you-want-peace-in-palestine-dont-start-from-here/), the Israelis must also acknowledge that as a result of the Israelis gaining something, the Palestinians have lost something, and maybe reparations are required. The Israelis need to make it a zero-sum game for the Palestinians, not a stark loss.
7 .… Israel has gone much too far now and should indicate a genuine and serious willingness for a ceasefire.
That depends on what Israel's aim is, apart from the stock "we have a right to defend ourselves" mantra. If the aim of Netanyahu and his supporters is taking over the whole of Palestine, as some suspect, then they haven't gone far enough yet.
But if saner heads prevail, a ceasefire should be possible.
10. The characterisation of Israel as ‘colonial’ is simplistic and unhistoric.
Strictly speaking this is true. As far as exploitative colonialism is concerned, such as occurred in many parts of Africa and South Asia and to a lesser extent, South America, where a European power annexed a territory, exploited its material, and in some cases, human, resources, and then left, there is no similarity.
However, it must be conceded that there are some similarities with settler colonisation, as occurred in North America, Australia, and South Africa, in which a large number of Europeans actually settle in a territory, displace the existing population and set up a society that largely excludes them. While it is true that there have always been some Jews in Palestine, the new arrivals were predominantly European in their culture and outlook. Indeed, Jews from the Middle East with a more Semitic background who migrated to Israel sometimes complained about being treated as inferior by the majority European oriented migrants.
And while it is true that the settlers in Israel were not proxies for a European power, as in colonialism strictly defined, the Zionists were in a sense proxies for Jewish communities around the world, who not only contributed materially to the establishment of Israel, but felt they were, in a sense, part of it, and gained comfort from its existence. So, as they say in the classics, it's complicated!
13. Whatever the horror and injustice of the current situation, even worse is happening elsewhere e.g. Sudan, Syria, and the world does not care. … This selective outrage is what leads some in the Jewish community to perceive the worldwide opposition to Israel as partly based on ingrained, historic - albeit often subconscious - antisemitism.
It is true that the awful things that are happening in other places don't seem to get the attention they deserve, both from our political leaders and from the media, while every night on the news one of the first items is how many Palestinians or Lebanese have been killed in the latest IDF bombardment. I think one of the main reasons that this occurs in Australia is because of the existence of significant Jewish and expatriate Middle Eastern communities here, who have a stake. But I am sure that conscious and unconscious antisemitism also plays a part. Sad to say, there is a stain of antisemitism (and racism and misogyny) buried deep in the Australian psyche which will take generations to breed out.
In Conclusion
Thank you, Michael, for your honest and provocative piece which has helped me to clarify my own views.