Tag Archives: American-Israel politics

West Bank Settlement Policy Today – Questions and Answers

29 Sunday Mar 2015

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“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s settlement policy resembles his predecessors’ in many ways, but it is a march toward permanence in a time when prospects for peace are few.”

So wrote Jodi Pudoren and Jeremy Ashkenas in a NY Times piece called “Netanyahu and The Settlements” (March 12, 2015). (See link below for full article).

In the spirit of Pesach, I pose a series of questions and answers:

• What is the current status of settlement construction beyond the Green Line? Lior Amichai, Deputy Director at Jerusalem’s Shalom Achshav Settlement Watch Project, reported to the J Street National Conference in Washington, D.C. last week that between 2009 and 2014 Israel began construction beyond the Green Line a total of 10,858 housing units. In that time Israel also proposed 5711 tenders for future building, promised to submit 13,077 plans for future projects and changed the status of 20 illegal “outposts” to “legal settlements.”

• Since the Oslo process began in 1993, what is the Jewish population growth in the west bank? In 1993, 110,300 settlers lived on land over the Green Line. Today, the Jewish population totals 356,500 settlers. 12% of Israeli settlers control 60% of west bank land and the Palestinian Authority controls the other 40%.

• How are Palestinian Arabs and Israelis who live beyond the Green Line treated by Israel? Palestinian Arabs who live beyond the Green Line enjoy none of the rights of Israeli citizenship because those territories, taken by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, have never been formally annexed or incorporated into the State of Israel. The legal status of west bank Palestinian Arabs is therefore different than Israeli Arab citizens who enjoy all the rights and privileges that Israeli Jewish citizens enjoy. West bank Palestinian Arabs are subject to the Israeli Military Authority without the same democratic rights and protections enjoyed by Israeli Arab citizens living within Israel itself. Israeli confiscation of privately owned Palestinian land in the west bank is the most serious inequity. It is estimated by Israeli human rights organizations B’tzelem and Shalom Achshav that one third of all land held by Jewish settlements in the west bank is built on Palestinian deeded land. Israeli settlers in the west bank, however, enjoy all the same rights of citizenship as do those Israeli citizens (Jewish and Arab) who live within the Green Line.

• What is Israel’s budget for settlement construction beyond the Green Line? Labor MK Stav Shafrir is now conducting an investigation as a member of the Knesset Budget Committee to determine exactly how much money has been allocated for settlement construction in the past and on an annual basis. She reported to the J Street National Conference last week that, in truth, there are two Israeli budgets – one public and one she called “secret.” MK Shafrir estimates that at least 1 billion NIS has been allocated in the last couple of years to build settlements and infrastructure (e.g. roads, electricity, water) with money that shows up nowhere in Israel’s official budget and has not been approved by the Knesset.

• What are the policies of the different American Jewish Federations regarding funding projects beyond the Green Line? J Street U (J Street’s college division) is investigating the policies of America’s largest Jewish Federations about funding projects in Israel beyond the Green Line, if it is done at all. That report will be published once information has been collected and analyzed.

• What is the future of the large settlement blocs in a two-state agreement? Israeli and Palestinian negotiators last year reached a consensus that the large Israeli settlement blocs and neighborhoods surrounding Jerusalem will be part of the state of Israel in any two-state agreement, with corresponding land swaps given by Israel to the future state of Palestine. This means that 75% of all Jewish settlers living now in the west bank beyond the Green Line will be absorbed inside the borders of the state of Israel. The remaining small Jewish “outposts” and settlements not inside the settlement blocs in the west bank where approximately 90,000 Israeli settlers now live will either be vacated or will come under the authority of the state of Palestine. Despite this consensus amongst the negotiators, PM Netanyahu recently declared (see NYT below): “I do not intend to evacuate any settlements.”

• Will the Palestinians file charges against Israel in the UN International Criminal Court? Martin Indyk, the chief American negotiator in last year’s failed talks and once a leader of AIPAC, has charged that PM Netanyahu’s “rampant settlement activity” has a “dramatically damaging impact,” so much so that next month the Palestinians may file a case in the UN International Criminal Court charging that Israeli settlements are an ongoing war crime.

• What ought to be the role that liberal American Zionists play? Our role ought to be to support our Israeli brothers and sisters who protest against continuing settlement construction except, perhaps, in the large settlement blocs that likely will remain in Israel once a two-state agreement is attained, and to continue to support all efforts to bring about an end-of-conflict agreement of two states for two peoples.

This NY Times piece “Netanyahu and the Settlements” includes maps showing exactly where the settlements and outposts are located beyond the Green Line as well as the history of settlement activity since the Oslo period began in 1993.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/12/world/middleeast/netanyahu-west-bank-settlements-israel-election.html?_r=0

The World-Wide Media’s Mis-characterization of Israel’s Election Results

19 Thursday Mar 2015

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[The following is a letter I received from a friend, Glenn L. Krinsky, a long-time progressive Zionist, who I believe accurately, corrects the media’s mis-characterization of the 2015 Israeli election. I am posting Glenn’s letter by permission. Glenn L. Krinsky is a law partner in Jones Day – One Firm Worldwide in the Los Angeles office. I add some reflections following Glenn’s email.]

“It’s just amazing how the worldwide media, including the Israeli media, have so vastly mis-characterized the election results. 

In 2013, Bibi prostituted himself to Lieberman, and their combined Likud/Yisrael Beitenu slate won 31 seats. Naftali Bennett’s then-new party, Habayit HaYehudi, won 12 seats. So Bibi/Lieberman/Bennett won 43 seats.

This year, Bibi purposely shifted to the extreme right to cannibalize votes from Lieberman and Bennett to ensure that Likud was the largest single vote-getter and would be asked to form the coalition. The strategy succeeded in the sense that Bennett went from 12 to 8 and Lieberman was marginalized down to 6. But note, this year the Bibi/Lieberman/Bennett trio got 44 seats, only one more than 2 years ago.

What happened to the center/left? In 2013,Yesh Atid won 19 seats (but sold out and went into Bibi’s coalition). This year Yesh Atid got 11 (a decrease of 8). Labor went from 21 (15 for Labor plus 6 for Livni’s Hatnuah party) to 24, and Meretz went from 6 to 5. So, these parties won 46 seats in 2013 and only 40 in 2015.

Where did the other six seats go? Not to the right, since we saw that they went only from 43 to 44. Instead, they went to Kahlon (the former Likud-nik who moved from the right to the center) who got 10 seats, whereas in 2013, the former Likud-nik who moved from the right to the center–Shaul Mofaz–got only 2 seats. In other words, the ‘we want change but don’t want Labor or Livni’ vote stayed right at 21 seats (in 2013, 19 for Yesh Atid + 2 for Mofaz; in 2015, 11 for Yesh Atid + 10 for Kahlon).

The Arab parties went from 11 to 13 (because of the drawing power in 2015 of the 3 Arab parties consolidating into one joint list), and the ultra-Orthodox went from 18 to 13 (due to the split in Shas, which went from 11 to 7 seats since Yishai’s half of Shas barely missed the threshold which would have given it 4 seats, which would have matched exactly Shas’ 2013 results when added to Deri’s half of Shas in 2015). 

So, it’s clear that, with minor variations (the largest being Kahlon’s showing), the 2015 results are strikingly similar to the 2013 results.

The real story in 2015 was one of ‘expectations versus results.’ The opinion polls showed Herzog pulling away from Bibi in the last week, and everyone was conditioned for a Zionist Union victory. Instead, Bibi went so far to the right that far right-wingers didn’t feel the need to vote for Bennett or Lieberman. As set forth above, the right-wing trio merely went from 43 to 44. But Bibi took enough votes away from Bennett and Lieberman that Likud far outstripped Herzog/Livni as the largest party, which the media are characterizing as a ‘resounding’ or ‘striking’ win when it’s merely a reflection of Likud moving so far to the right that it cannibalized votes from Bennett and Lieberman.”

As I indicated, I believe Glenn has interpreted the election correctly. He alludes to the final weekend of the campaign in which PM Netanyahu appealed to the worst in the Israeli character. His racist and demagogic disenfranchisement of 20% of Israeli citizenry represented by the Arab population inside the Green Line has done serious damage not only to his credibility as the Prime Minister of all Israeli citizens, but his appeal to fear and hate is unbecoming to the nation state of the Jewish people.

Further, Bibi’s rejection this last weekend of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sadly conforms to what many of us knew to be the truth even after the Prime Minister’s speech in 2009 at Bar Ilan University in which he said that he supported a two-state solution.

Reports emerged following the break-down in the American sponsored Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that Tzipi Livni, who served as Israel’s chief negotiator, was constantly undermined and second-guessed by Bibi’s lawyer who sat in (on orders of the PM) on every negotiation session and made Livni’s work next to impossible. In truth, as Bibi revealed to settlers after his Bar Ilan speech, he never intended to make a deal with the Palestinians for a state of their own in west bank territories.

Now, the challenge will be for all of us who love Israel, to continue to love her and support her, even as we insist that Israel’s future as a democratic and Jewish state depends on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In truth, there is no other solution to this conflict, and we American ohavei m’dinat Yisrael have to join with half of Israel’s population in supporting them in advocating for an end to the conflict which will not only be in Israel’s best interest internally, but internationally as well.

While Waiting for Israeli Election Results – Thoughts on ‘Optimism’ and Important Articles to Ponder

17 Tuesday Mar 2015

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The only poll that matters is the one taken today, on election day. Then what matters is who President Rivlin will ask to form a coalition government and how the parties will line up, which could take weeks.

In the meantime, here are some thoughts about optimism and pessimism and a few articles I recommend.

“The alternative to Hamas is Abbas. He is a serious man who has declared himself in favor of peace and compromise, of a demilitarized Palestinian state and against terror…There are always skeptics in life…To be an optimist you have to work very hard and have a lot of patience. It’s more natural to be a skeptic, be on the safe side…But in my experience in life I feel that being optimistic is wiser and more realistic…Optimists and pessimists die the same way. It’s how they live that’s different.” -Former President Shimon Peres addressing Israeli High School Students

“Some people see things as they are and ask why. I dream things that never were and say why not.” -Robert F. Kennedy

“A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn’t see the clouds at all – he’s walking on them.” -Leonard Louis Levinson, writer

“An optimist is the human personification of spring.” -Susan J. Bissonette, writer

“A pessimist finds difficulties in every opportunity; an optimist finds opportunities in every difficulty.” -President Harry S. Truman

“Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.” -Nelson Mandela

“B’Yisrael ye-ush lo optsia – In Israel despair is not an option.” -Yaron Shavit – past President of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism and military commander of Milluim in North Israel

5 Recommended articles:

1. The American Jewish Community Is Fracturing. What’s Causing It? Steven M. Cohen, The New Republic. Professor Cohen is among the most respected demographers of the American Jewish community. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121304/generational-divide-american-jews-israel

2. Amos Oz – Last Chance for a Jewish State,  The Los Angeles Jewish Journal. A landmark speech delivered before the eighth international conference of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/transcript_of_amos_oz_remarks_to_inss

3. LIVE UPDATES: Some 26% vote before noon; Likud ‘worried by high Arab turnout’, Times of Israel. http://www.timesofisrael.com/ballot-stations-open-as-israelis-choose-new-leadership/

4. Israel’s New Political Center, New Yorker, Bernard Avishai. http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/israels-new-political-center

5. Bibi’s Opponent: ‘I Trust the Obama Administration to Get a Good Deal’, Atlantic. Jeffrey Goldberg notes in an extensive interview with Herzog that unlike Netanyahu, the Zionist Union head “is clever enough to talk about the US-Israel relationship with discretion and nuance.” http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/03/goldberg-isaac-herzog-interview-on-iran-and-obama/387628/?utm_source=btn-twitter-pin

The Final Week Before the Israeli Election – 3 Articles

13 Friday Mar 2015

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Those interested in the Israeli election are no doubt following the news carefully in Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel , the LA Jewish Journal, The Jewish Daily Forward, and other news sources. The following three items encapsulate the dynamism of this election in Israel among Jews, Israeli Arabs and the American Jewish community.

Though anything can happen, as past Israeli elections have shown, I believe that this election may truly represent a sea-change. Polls indicate that in the closing week, Israeli opinion is solidifying. Here are two edited articles and a link to a third that reflects that dynamism and what this election means to Israelis, Arabs and American Jews.

[1] From a Letter of Rabbi Dow Marmur from Jerusalem. March 15, 2015. (edited)
Ari Shavit, whom the world reads nowadays more than ever thanks to the deserved success of his book, “My Promised Land,” suggested in his Ha’aretz column earlier in the week that the very possibility of a Herzog government has restored hope to many Israelis. They’re hoping, it seems, that:

*he’ll restore normal relations with the United States instead of siding with Republican extremists in Congress;

*he’ll see Israel’s security problems in the larger context than just Iran, something many experts in the field believe to be necessary;

*he’ll tackle the economic issues of the day, particularly the cost of housing which has soared because, according to one report, a third of all new homes have been bought by investors, not owner-tenants;

*he’ll stem the massive flow of funds and subsidies to the settlements;

*he’ll restart negotiations with the Palestinians and release the tax revenues which rightfully belong to the Palestinian Authority but that Israel is currently holding as retaliations for the Authority turning to the International Criminal Court.

[2] “Why I’m voting Meretz and not for the Arab ticket.” Salman Masalha. Haaretz. March 12, 2015. (edited)

The actions of the Joint List of Arab parties for the Knesset over the question of a surplus votes agreement with Meretz was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. Meretz was willing to cancel its surplus votes agreement with the Zionist Union to sign such an agreement with the Joint List, just to prevent tens of thousands of votes from going to waste – but the Joint List refused….

I admit that I boycotted recent elections, and that I recently used this platform to call for boycotting the present election too. I had many reasons in favor of a boycott. The reasons have not changed. The circumstances have.

When Islamist imams declare in the Arab media that a vote for the Joint List will bring down the rule of the right, yet the Joint List includes an Islamic Movement whose candidates live a polygamous life, I wonder which right they are talking about. Do they themselves not represent the very same thing just in a different costume, the sheitel or the hijab?

We must say clearly that the Joint List includes not only the equivalent of Yisrael Beiteinu of the Arab street, in the form of the Arab nationalism of Balad; but also the racist parallel of Habayit Hayehudi in the shape of the Islamic Movement.

…Here it turns out that the nationalists of Balad, who are fighting with all they have to enter the Knesset and swear loyalty to the “Jewish and democratic” State of Israel, are not willing to sign an agreement with Meretz based on the claim that it is a Zionist party, but when the time comes they embrace the racists from the “Habayit Haislami” (“Islamic Home”) of the Arab street.

Therefore, this is the time to disperse the fog and put everything on the table. I confess that I have never voted for Meretz. I always gave my vote to Hadash. But the time has come to voice a clear and pronounced civil Arab call: If the choice is between a vote that will give Meretz a Knesset seat or a vote that will give another seat to the Arabs from the Joint List who are the counterparts of Habayit Hayehudi or Yisrael Beiteinu, then the proper choice of every responsible citizen is clearly Meretz.

Every vote for Meretz is a sure vote for separating religion and state, for civil equality and equality between the sexes. Every vote for Meretz is a sure vote for social justice, cultural and national justice, freedom of expression and freedom of thought. And above all, every vote for Meretz is a certain vote for the peace we all aspire to. It is impossible to say all these things with certainty about any other party.

That is why, for a sane country and equal citizenship for everyone, I have decided to vote for Meretz.

[3] “Israel’s Debates Creep (Back) Into Our Bloodstream – American Jews Realize They Are Part of Election Drama.” JJ Goldberg. Jewish Daily Forward. March 13, 2015.

http://forward.com/articles/216514/israels-debates-creep-back-into-our-bloodstream/#ixzz3UHJ19DA4

Shabbat shalom!

On The J Street Summit in San Francisco

13 Friday Jun 2014

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Last week, my wife Barbara and I attended the West Coast Summit meeting of J Street in San Francisco. I was honored to be asked, as the co-chair of the national Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street that includes 800 rabbis and cantors from across the religious streams, to be part of the opening night program in which former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, former United Nations Ambassador from Israel Gabriella Shalev, and former United States Ambassador to Egypt and Israel Daniel Kurtzer were featured.

I was asked to question PM Fayyad after each of the speakers presented opening statements. The conversation was hard-hitting and candid from each of three former major players in American, Israeli and Palestinian leadership about what is necessary for the sake of peace in light of the recent failure of the Kerry Middle East peace talks.

You can access all of the sessions here – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4CViXUNRkO6zMLr6JrSKT8nQXGbXEEJW –

The opening night’s program can be found here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaXLYv9Hxt0&index=2&list=PL4CViXUNRkO6zMLr6JrSKT8nQXGbXEEJW

On a related matter, a friend asked me this week if I have seen “The J Street Challenge,” a pseudo-documentary that attacks J Street as an anti-Israel political organization.

I have not seen it, as I know it to be a propaganda piece that systematically distorts J Street’s message and accuses the 185,000 supporters of J Street and the 800 rabbis and cantors of being anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic. By extension, it must cast aspersion on the 84 pro-Israel members of Congress who support Israel and have accepted J Street’s support. This hateful propaganda piece is being shown in cities around the country.

If people wish to know the truth about J Street, all you need to do is to go to the J Street website (http://www.jstreet.org) and read our position papers, or watch sessions of this most recent conference.

We are pro-Israel and pro-two state solution advocates. We love Israel and are proud of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and her manifold accomplishments over the course of the last century of Jewish history. Many Israeli members of Knesset have attended our conferences. The great Israeli writer Amos Oz told us a couple of years ago in Washington, D.C. “I have been waiting for J Street my entire adult life.”

At a time when the Jewish people needs to come together, regardless of our differing opinions, in common cause for the sake of the peace, security and the democratic character of the state of Israel, why some American Jews are spending a fortune to cast unfair and inaccurate aspersions against J Street is, frankly, baffling to me and, I believe, a source of shame that should be checked.

As Rav Shmuel once said – Eilu v’Eilu divrei Elohim chayim – “This and that are words of the living God.” Intolerance, hatred and falsehood do not belong between Jews who love the people and state of Israel.