June 5, 2009--The West Bank & the Final Days
Barack Obama rightly pointed out during his historic speech yesterday in Cairo that in order to move the so-called peace process forward in the Middle East the Israelis have to stop building more settlements in the West Bank.
When the new prime minister of Israel was in Washington a few weeks ago, both Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama, in private and in public, stressed this. It was met by deafening silence by Benjamin Netanyahu. As was their call for a two-state solution—one for the Palestinians and of course one for Israel, which Hamas and the rest of the players in the region would have to recognize and stop threatening with annihilation.
But the settlement issue has been and is likely to remain the most daunting of the many issue that have to be overcome if there is ever to be a deal and a version of peace.
This is so complex and multilayered that at about the same time Obama was delivering his speech a controversy burst into the open about the policies of the Bush administration in regard to the settlements and the complaint by high officials in the Netanyahu government (surrogates for him) that Obama was abrogating “old understandings” between Washington and Israel that they said allowed the Israelis “some construction.” (See linked New York Times article for the details.)
Though some former Bush officials are denying this, the evidence is pointing to the fact that at a minimum they were told, or it was implied to them with a wink, that no matter what President Bush or Secretary Rice might say in public the Israelis could continue to pursue a policy of “natural growth”—no major new settlements would be allowed but that they could continue to build new houses for Israelis that were contiguous with existing ones.
One Bush official put it this way—it was “similar to taking a string and laying it around a settlement and prohibiting any construction outside the string.”
In the hallucinatory world of those lands it would then come down to just where that string was placed. Would it just skirt the borders of existing structures so that vacant lots within it could be built out or would it stretch to the horizon so that new construction would eventually double the size of existing settlements?
As they have been prone to do for millennia in that contested region, they and we could argue and literally fight about these fine points for additional millennia.
But while thinking about that, this string image reminded me of another string--the eruv--one that orthodox Jews use to circle their communities so that on the Sabbath anything that occurs within it can be considered to be happening within their individual homes.
Those not familiar with this need to know that on the Sabbath, Jews are forbidden from doing any sort of work outside the home — including mundane tasks such as carrying a wallet in a pocket or a child in their arms. Not very practical in the real world. So they construct an eruv in their community--a large, unbroken boundary inside which people can go about their business on the Sabbath. The eruv in effect becomes an extension of their home even though it may encompass many acres.
To the less religious it’s a fudging sleight-of-hand that allows the orthodox to subvert God’s Sabbath commandment, to others it’s an appropriate accommodation to modern big city life.
The settlement eruv can be seen in precisely these conflicting ways—is it a legitimate way for Israelis to assert, while limiting, what they are permitted to do in these occupied lands; or is it a subterfuge that allows them to fill more and more of the West Bank with homes for Jewish settlers?
And why are the Israelis so intent on expanding their occupation of this territory? Some claim it is so that they can create a security zone between them and Jordon—directly to the east of the West Bank. But Israel is at peace with Jordon. They are indeed allies in many ways. Others then say they need to expand their territory in order to house their growing population. But it is growing at a very modest rate—on average just 1.7 percent a year and this is easily accomodatable within their existing national boundaries.
I believe there is another, more ominous motive—what we call the West Bank, religious radicals in Israel refer to it as Judea and Samaria, a part of Greater Israel. Eretz Yisrael Ha-Shlema--or literally, the Whole Land of Israel. They claim that these lands are promised to them in the bible. In Genesis 15:18-21, Numbers 34:1-15, and Ezekiel 47:13-20. And that by occupying Judea and Samaria they are participating in fulfilling biblical prophesy.
This religious impulse makes the situation on the ground much more complicated. It’s one thing to be talking about this territory as necessary to Israel’s security or to house a rapidly growing population, it’s quite another to have to confront those hundreds of thousands in Israel who say it was promised to them by God.
Further complicating matters is the fact that this land is also sacred to orthodox Christians and Muslims. It, as with the other “children of Abraham,” the Jews, is considered to be fundamentally related to the Final Days, when in their different but parallel eschatological traditions the Messiah or God or Mohammed will return to earth and by so doing initiate the events of the Apocalypse and Final Judgment.
All three traditions say that a precondition for the ultimate End of Time involves the appropriate, biblically or Koranically defined necessary occupation of the land between what is now Israel and much of what is now Iraq. For the Jews and Christians who believe this, the land must be occupied by the Jews; for Muslims it must be by people of the Islamic faith. And this in-between land that is so sacred is the largely made up of the West Bank. Thus, much of the problem, is as religious as it is geopolitical.
So to say that any resolution to the settlement situation will require the wisdom and skills of a Solomon—much less a Netanyahu or an Obama—is the understatement of the millennium. But the judgment of secular history and even Nobel Prizes await. And these too through the ages have proven to be strong motivators.
When the new prime minister of Israel was in Washington a few weeks ago, both Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama, in private and in public, stressed this. It was met by deafening silence by Benjamin Netanyahu. As was their call for a two-state solution—one for the Palestinians and of course one for Israel, which Hamas and the rest of the players in the region would have to recognize and stop threatening with annihilation.
But the settlement issue has been and is likely to remain the most daunting of the many issue that have to be overcome if there is ever to be a deal and a version of peace.
This is so complex and multilayered that at about the same time Obama was delivering his speech a controversy burst into the open about the policies of the Bush administration in regard to the settlements and the complaint by high officials in the Netanyahu government (surrogates for him) that Obama was abrogating “old understandings” between Washington and Israel that they said allowed the Israelis “some construction.” (See linked New York Times article for the details.)
Though some former Bush officials are denying this, the evidence is pointing to the fact that at a minimum they were told, or it was implied to them with a wink, that no matter what President Bush or Secretary Rice might say in public the Israelis could continue to pursue a policy of “natural growth”—no major new settlements would be allowed but that they could continue to build new houses for Israelis that were contiguous with existing ones.
One Bush official put it this way—it was “similar to taking a string and laying it around a settlement and prohibiting any construction outside the string.”
In the hallucinatory world of those lands it would then come down to just where that string was placed. Would it just skirt the borders of existing structures so that vacant lots within it could be built out or would it stretch to the horizon so that new construction would eventually double the size of existing settlements?
As they have been prone to do for millennia in that contested region, they and we could argue and literally fight about these fine points for additional millennia.
But while thinking about that, this string image reminded me of another string--the eruv--one that orthodox Jews use to circle their communities so that on the Sabbath anything that occurs within it can be considered to be happening within their individual homes.
Those not familiar with this need to know that on the Sabbath, Jews are forbidden from doing any sort of work outside the home — including mundane tasks such as carrying a wallet in a pocket or a child in their arms. Not very practical in the real world. So they construct an eruv in their community--a large, unbroken boundary inside which people can go about their business on the Sabbath. The eruv in effect becomes an extension of their home even though it may encompass many acres.
To the less religious it’s a fudging sleight-of-hand that allows the orthodox to subvert God’s Sabbath commandment, to others it’s an appropriate accommodation to modern big city life.
The settlement eruv can be seen in precisely these conflicting ways—is it a legitimate way for Israelis to assert, while limiting, what they are permitted to do in these occupied lands; or is it a subterfuge that allows them to fill more and more of the West Bank with homes for Jewish settlers?
And why are the Israelis so intent on expanding their occupation of this territory? Some claim it is so that they can create a security zone between them and Jordon—directly to the east of the West Bank. But Israel is at peace with Jordon. They are indeed allies in many ways. Others then say they need to expand their territory in order to house their growing population. But it is growing at a very modest rate—on average just 1.7 percent a year and this is easily accomodatable within their existing national boundaries.
I believe there is another, more ominous motive—what we call the West Bank, religious radicals in Israel refer to it as Judea and Samaria, a part of Greater Israel. Eretz Yisrael Ha-Shlema--or literally, the Whole Land of Israel. They claim that these lands are promised to them in the bible. In Genesis 15:18-21, Numbers 34:1-15, and Ezekiel 47:13-20. And that by occupying Judea and Samaria they are participating in fulfilling biblical prophesy.
This religious impulse makes the situation on the ground much more complicated. It’s one thing to be talking about this territory as necessary to Israel’s security or to house a rapidly growing population, it’s quite another to have to confront those hundreds of thousands in Israel who say it was promised to them by God.
Further complicating matters is the fact that this land is also sacred to orthodox Christians and Muslims. It, as with the other “children of Abraham,” the Jews, is considered to be fundamentally related to the Final Days, when in their different but parallel eschatological traditions the Messiah or God or Mohammed will return to earth and by so doing initiate the events of the Apocalypse and Final Judgment.
All three traditions say that a precondition for the ultimate End of Time involves the appropriate, biblically or Koranically defined necessary occupation of the land between what is now Israel and much of what is now Iraq. For the Jews and Christians who believe this, the land must be occupied by the Jews; for Muslims it must be by people of the Islamic faith. And this in-between land that is so sacred is the largely made up of the West Bank. Thus, much of the problem, is as religious as it is geopolitical.
So to say that any resolution to the settlement situation will require the wisdom and skills of a Solomon—much less a Netanyahu or an Obama—is the understatement of the millennium. But the judgment of secular history and even Nobel Prizes await. And these too through the ages have proven to be strong motivators.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
6:25 AM
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