ebrei contro l'occupazione

13 August 2008

Even though it hasn't been made public (and even the Palestinians say they haven't seen such a "peace plan" committed to writing), I know - and can reveal exclusively for the readers of Lawrence of Cyberia - what exactly is in the Olmert Plan, whose details were "leaked" to Ha'aretz yesterday.

There are two reasons that I know the contents of this Israeli plan.

1. Israel has, and has only ever had for the past 40 years, one plan for the Occupied Territories. The plan is to control permanently the whole West Bank, but to avoid annexing the people who live there (and who would simply vote Zionist control over them out of existence if they ever enjoyed equal rights) by forcing them to leave or - for the really stubborn ones - by confining them in impoverished reservations and calling this "Palestine".

The key to creating these impoverished reservations is that Israel must directly annex those parts of the West Bank that - if relinquished to the Palestinians - would make their state a viable concern. In practical terms, that means:

• severing Arab East Jerusalem entirely from the Palestinians of the rest of the West Bank (because East Jerusalem is the economic powerhouse of the Occupied Territories, generating more than one-third of GDP, and is the key to economic viability for a Palestinian state). You do this by building a "Jerusalem envelope" or ring of settlements around the eastern edge of Arab East Jerusalem - like Gilo, Har Homa, East Tapiyot, Ramat Eshkol, and more than a dozen others - so that when you magnanimously declare you will settle for annexing "only" the settlement blocs you also happen to be entirely severing East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. You didn't really think the location of the major settlement blocs was decided by chance, did you?)

• annexing the Jordan Valley, which ensures the West Bank has no land border with the outside world, leaving it entirely dependent on Israeli largesse. (And seeing as the Jordan Valley is the breadbasket of the West Bank, annexing it also leaves the Palestinian reservations entirely dependent on Israel even for food).

• annexing those parts of the West Bank that control the Palestinians' water supply (you do this by building major Israeli settlements - like Ariel in the northern West Bank - on key points for dominating the West Bank acquifer, so that when you magnanimously declare you will settle for annexing "only" the settlement blocs you also happen to be annexing the water supply they control; you didn't really think the location of the major settlement blocs was decided by chance, did you?

• annexing those parts of the West Bank that allow the Palestinians meaningful territorial contiguity (you do this by building major Israeli settlements - like the largely empty but super-sized Maale Adumim, which extends from East Jerusalem almost to Jericho - at the narrow point of the central West Bank, so that when you magnanimously declare you will settle for annexing "only" the settlement blocs you also happen to be cutting the West Bank in two; you didn't really think the location of the major settlement blocs was decided by chance, did you?)

What this all looks like on the ground was first mapped out immediately after the Occupation began, with the Allon Plan of 1967 (click all maps to enlarge):

Now take a look at maps showing the outlines of "Palestine" that Israel has been trying to impose on the Palestinians throughout the "peace process" years:

The Netanyahu Plan of 1995;

Oslo II of 1995

Barak's Generous Offer™ of 2000:

10.08.10

Though Tony Judt's disease left him paralyzed and able to breath only on a machine and to speak only with an amplifier, he continued to produce fascinating texts.

Tony Judt died late last week. An amazing man, who while dying from a disease that left him paralyzed and able to breath only on a machine and to speak only with an amplifier, continued to produce fascinating texts, including about his situation.

This highly regarded British-born Jewish historian, a professor at New York University who lived in Israel as a young man, was critical in recent years of Israel's policies and conduct. In 2003, he wrote in the New York Review of Books that Israel had reached a situation in which to remain a Jewish state it could no longer remain a democracy. He therefore proposed that we "think the unthinkable ... a binational state." The article was never translated into Hebrew, yet it was received here with aggressive hostility. "Who's in favor of annihilating Israel?" Yoel Esteron wrote in Haaretz. "An anti-Semite is not just a person who pushes a Jew into an oven," wrote Dr. Yohai Sela in the magazine Hamizrach Hatichon.

That's how it is in Israel. Anyone who criticizes it is immediately labeled anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic, a hater of Israel and a self-hating Jew. When the critics are on the outside, Israel can do nothing except seat them on a low chair. But when the critics are on the inside, something certainly can be done. Even the New Israel Fund and Haaretz are damaged by their criticism of Israel. Some people are excoriated, attacked in the press, exposed to violence by the police and the military, denied their rights and removed from positions of power in the mainstream.

In Israel, this process has been underway for many years. But Judt's case exposed the amazing fact that the exact same process is going on in the American Jewish community.

In 2003, right after publishing his article in the New York Review of Books, Jewish and liberal circles called Judt a self-hating Jew, an anti-Zionist, a delusional leftist. He was removed from his senior position at The New Republic, whose editor, his good friend (! ), accused him of calling for the abrogation of the State of Israel. In 2006, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee brought about the cancellation of Judt's participation in a discussion on the Israeli lobby and American foreign policy at the Polish Consulate in New York. The same all-out war in the same language was declared last year against J Street, the "leftist" Jewish lobby that supports the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.