Danny Rubenstein Discusses “Keeping the Two-State Solution Alive”

By Jane Adas


	Israeli journalist Danny Rubenstein (Staff Photo J. Adas).

AFTER HAVING reported from Gaza and the West Bank since Israel occupied the Palestinian lands 41 years ago, journalist Danny Rubenstein left Haaretz and now writes a weekly column on the Palestinian economy for Calkalist, the Israeli business daily published by Yediot Ahronot. At a Sept. 9 appearance in New York, where his talk on “Israel and the West Bank: Keeping the Two-State Solution Alive” was sponsored by Americans for Peace Now and Meretz USA, Rubenstein confided that an incentive for the change was his personal feeling that the peace process is in trouble. How, he asked himself, could he report on yet another meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders that would again come to nothing?

Although the Palestinian public sector has for years been paralyzed and in a state of collapse, Rubenstein said there has been improvement in the West Bank economy over the past year. Among the reasons for the upturn, he said, is the fact that this was a Jubilee year in Israel, when Orthodox Jews cannot cultivate land and must therefore buy from Gentiles. With Gaza under siege, West Bankers have no competition, and agricultural sales are three time what they normally are. Also, he noted, an unprecedented three million Christian tourists have visited holy sites in the West Bank, providing much needed business for Bethlehem’s hotels.

According to Rubenstein, Tony Blair, the Quartet’s envoy to the peace process, played a major role in persuading the Israeli military to ease restrictions on Israeli Palestinians wishing to shop in Jenin and other West Bank cities, producing increased revenue. A fourth factor Rubenstein cited is that many Palestinians who had returned during the Oslo process have, because of what is now an economic catastrophe, moved to Gulf states for well-paying jobs. They now send money to their families in the West Bank, he noted—but the downside is that Palestinians are suffering a brain drain, with “no more engineers in Ramallah.”

Finally, Rubenstein explained, Israel has allowed some investment in the West Bank—although not necessarily for altruistic reasons. After Israel’s trauma in Lebanon, when Hezbollah, which had no tanks or helicopters, was still able to fire rockets at Israel, the generals realized they could not crush Hezbollah or Hamas by military means, Rubenstein said. Therefore, improving conditions in the West Bank is meant to teach Gazans that, by supporting Hamas, they lose.

Yet not only has Hamas survived in spite of the siege and boycott, Rubenstein pointed out, but it has proved that it can keep the cease-fire with Israel. Hamas’ most important political goal is legitimacy, the Israeli journalist explained, and this is why it no longer supports Qassem rockets or suicide bombers.

Israelis credit the wall/fence for their increased security, but Rubenstein suggested it has not been so effective. The military governor told him recently that, despite the security barrier, 50,000 Palestinian workers enter Israel without permission every day.

In Rubenstein’s opinion, if the Israeli army were not in the West Bank, Hamas would take it as well, because the Fatah movement has failed and Hamas is the only alternative. Yet Israel cannot deal with Hamas—not because it does not recognize Israel, but because doing so would betray Abbas. Rubenstein said he would prefer that Israel deal with a coalition Palestinian government and that both sides make real concessions: Palestinians give up the Right of Return and Israel end its settlement project.

The only way to solve the problem, Rubenstein asserted, is two states for two people. It is legitimate, he acknowledged, for Palestinians to say, “if we can’t have a state, then annex us and we will ask for equal rights in our homeland.” Because Israel is so strong, however, it would never allow a binational state, according to Rubenstein, and the result would be a disaster for Israel. Having been advised never to use the “A” word in the United States, although it is acceptable in Israel, Rubenstein warned that were the two-state solution to fail, Israel would become an A(partheid) state.

Green Party Debates What’s Next in The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict


(L-r): Norman Finkelstein, Larry Hamm and Issa Mikel (Staff Photo J. Adas).

The Green Party of Bergen County, NJ sponsored a Sept. 10 forum in Teaneck on “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What’s Next?” Independent scholar Norman Finkelstein discussed tactics: where things stand now and where there is genuine hope. Polling data reveals that support for Israel among Americans is broad, but not deep, he noted, and that it has weakened measurably among American Jews. Based on his own experience speaking on college campuses, Finkelstein reckons that one-third of his audience is the “Hillel faithful,” one-third is indifferent, and the remaining third supports justice for Palestinians.

Finkelstein said he suspects that declining support for Israel has less to do with intermarriage than with the fact that both Israel’s history as we now know it and Israel’s present behavior have become indefensible from a liberal, moral standpoint.

According to Finkelstein, the biggest failing to date of those advocating justice for Palestinians is not taking advantage of the powerful weapon of truth. Nearly everyone in the audience had heard of the Balfour Declaration and the U.N. Partition Resolution (181). Yet the Balfour Declaration was only a private letter, he pointed out, and 181 a General Assembly recommendation with no more weight than the annual votes on Palestine that are routinely ignored. Hardly anyone in the room, however, knew of the International Court of Justice’s July 2004 Advisory Opinion on the Legality of Israel’s Wall. Yet, Finkelstein asserted, this was a huge Palestinian victory—their own Balfour. He exhorted the audience to learn the facts and the historical record.

Attorney Issa Mikel criticized what he calls the Oslo Syndrome: the notion that the parties can negotiate infinitely without results, with no clear sense of peace beyond a cessation of hostilities, without good faith, and without regard for the relative power of the two sides. He identified problems on both sides: Palestinians are willing to give up too much, and Israelis never fully commit to what needs doing. Instead Mikel strongly advocates BDS: “boycotting” at whatever level, whether products from the occupied territories, from Israel, or from companies doing business in the territories; “divesting” from companies that profit from Israel’s occupation; and, as a last stage, “sanctions.” Mikel sees the purpose of BDS as increasing the cost to Israel of its apartheid policies, and its advantage as breaking through our mental state of hopelessness and empowering Palestinians at a future bargaining table.

Larry Hamm, a community organizer in Newark and president of the People’s Organization for Progress, said he had heard all his life about Israel, but only gradually became aware of Palestine. In 1975, while a student at Princeton University—where he and Finkelstein were classmates—Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) came to speak about South Africa and compared the situation there with Palestine. Hamm’s friend, attorney Adrienne Wing, was at the United Nations as the representative of the National Conference of Black Lawyers when Arafat addressed the General Assembly. As Arafat walked to the podium, he passed Wing and embraced her as his “black sister,” a moment captured in a photo that was in all the media. Wing lost her job with a law firm and was blacklisted. Experiences like these led Hamm to believe that we will never see peace in the world unless we get justice for Palestinians. What has happened to Palestinians, he concluded, is wrong, an abomination. He doesn’t care about one-state or two-states. He is just concerned that there be no Bantustans. Hamm is for whatever Palestinians want.

Daniel Kurtzer on Middle East Peace


	Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer (Staff Photo J. Adas).

Daniel Kurtzer’s career has been steeped in U.S. Middle East policy. A member of the U.S. team at Madrid in 1992, he was ambassador to Egypt from 1997 to 2001 and to Israel from 2001 to 2005, and served as an adviser to the Iraq Study Group. At Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey on Oct. 6, he gave his perspective on “Middle East Peace.”

In searching for lessons from 60 years of U.S. diplomacy in the region, Ambassador Kurtzer described the November 2007 Annapolis conference as both a starting point and a culmination. What was new and positive about these negotiations, he said, was the decision to address the final status issues rather than deferring them in favor of incremental confidence-building measures. But like Bill Clinton at Camp David, he continued, President George Bush waited until the last year of his second term to act. By then, Kurtzer explained, both parties not only had histories of bad behavior—Israel’s settlement expansion and Palestinians’ “predisposition to resort to violence when things got tough”—and were divided on substantive issues, but each side also was divided internally.

In assessing the last three presidents’ negotiating histories, Kurtzer gave George H.W. Bush the highest marks for having a clear strategy, sustained diplomacy, a strong Secretary of State in James Baker, a diverse negotiating team, and an independent U.S. policy. Kurtzer identified Bush’s alienating domestic constituencies as the only weakness in his diplomatic approach. Kurtzer gave Clinton a more mixed review. In spite of strong domestic support and a positive environment for diplomacy, Clinton had an unfocused, ad hoc strategy and did not prepare sufficiently for summits. After doing very little for most of his presidency, according to Kurtzer, Clinton went from zero to 100 miles an hour by becoming over-involved in micromanaging details, thereby squandering the latent power of the presidency. In addition, the Clinton team too often relied solely on talking points provided by Israel, so that the process became too insular. Kurtzer assigned George W. Bush the lowest marks for too many missed opportunities, failure to support U.S. envoys and diplomats, and unresolved disagreements among his key advisers, with some of them declaring that the road to Jerusalem lay through Baghdad.

In response to a question of whether presidents waited until their second term to become involved because of domestic pressure, Kurtzer acknowledged that the two presidents who engaged early—Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush—were not re-elected to a second term. Yet Kurtzer ascribed that to a failure of leadership among all concerned parties rather than to domestic issues.

Kurtzer concluded by summarizing lessons for U.S. policymakers: peace between Israel and Palestine is a vital national interest and not a favor to either party; policy must be made in Washington; the administration should create opportunities rather than waiting for conditions to ripen; there should be no more incrementalism; and there must be monitoring mechanisms for accountability and consequences for failure to fulfill commitments.

Jane Adas is a free-lance writer based in the New York City metropolitan area.