RUTHFULLY YOURS

Backing the French initiative to convene an international conference in the near future on the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” a group of eleven prominent French ambassadors published an appeal in Le Monde on February 3, 2016, urging Paris and Brussels to “save the Palestinian state.”

Their 900-word opus can be summarized as follows:

The ongoing “knife-intifada” is an expression of the “frustration and humiliation” of the Palestinians “after nearly 50 years of occupation,” and the “spontaneous violence” it produced has nothing to do with Islamic terrorism as practiced by the Islamic State (ISIS). Besides, “Israel’s repression” has produced “a far greater number of victims” than Israeli casualties.

Since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1996, “all peace initiatives have failed,” thus preventing the Palestinians from “being granted a portion of Palestine since 1967.” In theory, negotiations should conform to the “principle of two-states, recognized by the United Nations since 1947” but the policies of Prime Minister Netanyahu – which aim at “establishing a Greater Israel from the sea to the Jordan River” — have reduced the potential area of the future Palestinian state. The unresolved Palestinian question fuels the animosity of the “Arab/Muslim world against the West.”

While the U.S. will continue to pledge their allegiance to Israel, Europe remains “inhibited by the specter of the Shoah and the power of the [pro-Israel] lobbies.” But the “power of the law” should address the “sense of injustice that is spreading in public opinion.” To that effect, the French Government will introduce a Security Council resolution to “resume negotiations under international control” and, “should these negotiations fail, France would recognize the Palestinian State.” As the international community confronts ISIS, why wouldn’t it deploy “an equivalent effort” toward peace, which would “at last grant the Palestinian people their rights”?

But we should not wait. Without delay, “France should immediately recognize the Palestinian State.” As long as Israeli “colonization” continues, “the association treaty between Israel and the European Union should be suspended” as well as “the special economic and scientific cooperation from which Israel benefits.” These measures are necessary to prevent Israel from “losing its soul” in the pursuit of its “apartheid policies.” What is at stake in this conflict are the “values of the Western world” and it behooves everyone to contribute to its solution “in terms of civilization.”

Much of the student left has “some kind of problem with Jews”, said
the bravely decent Alex Chalmers last week in his resignation
statement as co-chair of the Oxford University Labour Club following a
vote in favour of Israeli Apartheid Week.

Labour’s national student organisation is launching an inquiry but the
“the problem with Jews” on the left is not going away. In January a
meeting of the Kings College London Israel Society, gathered to hear
from Ami Ayalon, a former head of Shin Bet, the Israeli domestic
intelligence service, who now champions a two-state solution, was
violently interrupted by a chair-hurling, window-smashing crowd.

Last summer the Guardian columnist Owen Jones made a courageous plea
for the left to confront this demon head on. Since then, however,
criticism of Israeli government policies has mutated into a rejection
of Israel’s right to exist; the Fatah position replaced by Hamas and
Hizbollah eliminationism. More darkly, support in the diaspora for
Israel’s right to survive is seen by the likes of Labour’s Gerald
Kaufman, who accused the government of being influenced in its Middle
Eastern policy by “Jewish money”, as some sort of Jewish conspiracy.

The charge that anti-Zionism is morphing into anti-Semitism is met
with the retort that the former is being disingenuously conflated with
the latter. But when George Galloway (in August 2014 during the last
Gaza war) declared Bradford “an Israel-free zone”; when French Jews
are unable to wear a yarmulke in public lest that invite assault, when
Holocaust Memorial day posters are defaced, it is evident that what we
are dealing with is, in Professor Alan Johnson’s accurate coinage,
“anti-semitic anti-Zionism”.

A recent Brookings Institution survey presented at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. indicated a growing American partisanship toward Israel and the Middle East. But an analysis of an online survey taken in November suggests strategies for Israel’s friends to counter growing Democratic Party estrangement with Israel amidst an enduringly pro-Israel and Philo-Semitic American population.

Survey director Shibley Telhami said that Israel is dramatically becoming what fellow panelist and Brookings expert Tamara Cofman Wittes called a wedge issue. As Telhamiwrote in “Politico,” the Republicans’ pro-Israel base is an indicator that “GOP candidates are principally catering to an evangelical base that has become Israel’s biggest support base in American politics.” A survey press release noted that while Evangelical Republicans make up only 10 percent of the American population, 23 percent of all Republicans and 77 percent of Evangelical Republicans want the United States to favor Israel. In all, 40 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of self-identified evangelicals “say a candidate’s position on Israel matters a lot,” compared to 22 percent for Independents and 14 percent for Democrats.”

Telhami pointed out that, by contrast, the biggest story of all was the 49 percent of Democrats who said that Israel has too much influence on American politics; 14 percent said too little, and 36 percent said about the right amount. The striking partisan divide of this key finding impressed him, as the corresponding survey results among Republicans for too much, too little, and appropriate Israeli influence were respectively 25 percent, 22 percent and 52 percent. The overall American breakdown is 37, 18 and 44 percent, while 39 percent of evangelicals said that Israel has too little influence (23 percent too much and 38 percent the right amount), and views of too little Israeli influence increase with age.