Abbas has proven he's a partner for peace

With a series of important, courageous statements, Mahmoud Abbas has made clear that the Palestinians have a pragmatic leader who is offering Israel a chance not to be missed.

Haaretz Editorial | Aug. 25, 2013

The meeting in Ramallah on Thursday between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and a Meretz party delegation once again underlined the fact that Israel does have a partner for peace talks. With a series of important, courageous statements, Abbas proved that the Palestinians have a pragmatic leader who aspires to a peace agreement and is willing to take meaningful measures in order to create a new and better situation in the region.

Abbas did not avoid any topic; he expressed clear positions on issues that are considered controversial. He emphasized that a Palestinian declaration of the end of the conflict would be part of the peace agreement. “People say that after signing a peace agreement we will still demand Haifa, Acre and Safed,” he said. “That is not true. Signing the agreement will signal the end of the conflict.”

The Palestinian president further clarified that in any peace settlement the Palestinian state would agree to be demilitarized. “We don’t need planes or missiles. All we need is a strong police force,” Abbas said. He even revealed that during earlier negotiations with then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, there was an agreement to station American soldiers in the West Bank.

Abbas said the Palestinians would accept changes to the 1967 borders as part of land swap agreements, saying, “Let’s lay down a map and start marking the borders.” He also did not reject the possibility that some Jewish settlements could remain under Palestinian sovereignty after the signing of an accord.

Regarding the Israeli desire for an interim agreement, Abbas emphasized that while his goal was to reach a final agreement that would thwart the "various elements looking for ways to sabotage things and derail the process," he was "willing to implement the process in stages ... just as you did in the agreement with Egypt over the withdrawal from Sinai."

The positions laid out by Abbas underline the fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must not treat the entire process as if it were a tax that must be paid to Uncle Sam. "We wanted the meetings between negotiating teams to take place every day or every other day, and not once a week or every 10 days like the Israelis want," Abbas told the Meretz delegation, adding that he had no objection to meeting with Netanyahu and claiming that no progress has been made in the talks so far.

"Without peace there will be tragedies here. There is an opportunity now. Look at what’s happening all around us. Everything is in turmoil. Now is the time to reach an agreement," Abbas said.

Netanyahu's silence must not be the response to these wise remarks of Abbas. The chairwoman of the Labor Party, MK Shelly Yacimovich, is also duty bound to give the prime minister the support needed to advance the peace process. Today there is a unique opportunity to reach a historic agreement.

Just be a human being

How can we reconcile the terror-filled daily lives of Russia's gays and lesbians with the 

celebration of sports?

By Ravit Hecht | Aug. 21, 2013 

The Russian parliament passed a law this year prohibiting “homosexual propaganda” among minors.
 This is a continuation of the aggressive legislation in various parts of Russia, for example a law the governor
of St. Petersburg signed in March, that coming publicly out of the closet as gay is a criminal offense. These
laws, even if they do not sentence gays and lesbians to death or imprisonment, are a crime against human
beings, which no individual or democracy-loving country can stand for. These are laws that crudely and
ignorantly differentiate between one person and the next, which confines masses of people to a limited
 existence, which automatically sentence a certain group whose only sin is the desire to choose who to
live with — to the shame of being second-class citizens.
That same Russia was the recent venue for the World Athletics Championships. The world’s best athletes
 showed off to spectators and viewers around the globe the wonders of the human body and spirit, which
constantly stretch the limits of their abilities. That same Russia is also to host the 2014 Winter Olympics,
which will attract hundreds of athletes and tens of millions of spectators and viewers.
How can the contradiction be resolved between the ordinary, terror-filled daily lives of Russia’s gays and
 lesbians and the extraordinary celebration of sports, which crosses cultures, peoples and countries? Such
 a contradiction cannot be resolved — the hesitant condemnation by U.S. President Barack Obama, who did
 not boycott the Winter Olympics, and the confused attempts of the International Olympic Committee to
 create some sort of compromise with regard to gay and lesbian athletes, show this.
Such a contradiction cannot be resolved because something as damaging as Russian homophobia empties the
 Games of their significance. The pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, who astounded fans when she retired in
perfect style with a gold medal at the World Championships, was asked shortly thereafter about the recently
enacted laws in her country. In broken English and embarrassed body language, she mumbled that in Russia
“we just live boys with women, girls with boys,” and that she supports the laws of her country.
In her response, Insinbayeva exposed the scam: She stands on the podium, tallest of all, closest to heaven
and to God, but she is neither a giant nor an outstanding figure. She is just a young woman who can jump
 higher than other young women.
It was, in fact, the defiant kiss of the Russian team’s relay racers, Kseniya Ryzhova and Tatyana Firova,
 who are less well known and whose achievements have not made them “living legends” in athletic terms,
 which will be remembered from the World Championships in Russia as a wonder of humanity, a symbol
of the human spirit that remains undaunted in immoral human surroundings.
Like the historic salute by athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico
 protesting discrimination against blacks in the United States, an act that would later be said to overshadow
 any of their athletic achievements, the Russian women will be remembered for their kiss of protest against
 the homophobic fascism of President Vladimir Putin. No one will remember Insinbayeva’s pole vault.
It was just a jump.
In a place where people are deprived of their natural rights, one cannot pole vault or figure skate and win
some prize. In a place where fascist principles permit, even indirectly, the protection of the law to be
 withdrawn from a group of people only because of who they are — the greatest human achievement is
simply to be a human being. To show solidarity with others, to fight for their natural rights and to oppose
any initiative, governmental or popular, based on mass, blind injustice. That is true for Russia, and it is
 also true for Israel and any place under the sun. If it doesn’t exist, all the rest is meaningless.

Israel and the Constancy of Change

Israel and the Constancy of Change

In our everyday discourse the belief that change is possible, that people's characters and attitudes can fluctuate with time, is an attribute usually associated with naïveté. The wise and seasoned among us know better.

What is astonishing is that the pull of determinism remains strong even when evidence of change is all around us. As parents, our children grow and change before our eyes, and yet at each stage of their development we can find it hard to imagine them transitioning to the next. We are often drawn to seeing our current job, or our family life, or our emotional state, as fixed in stone even if our own very life experience points to the contrary.  

When we look at the Middle East the same dynamic is often at play. In the last years we have watched the region undergo unprecedented change, and yet many find it hard to accept that more is yet to come. With each transition, many quickly persuade themselves that things have settled permanently into place.

Not too long ago Bashar Assad was considered the unquestioned and stable ruler of Syria. Today, the civil war that threatens his rule is seen by many as a tragic and fixed part of the landscape. In Egypt, few predicted the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, fewer still its fall from power in such short order. Hardly anyone anticipated these changes. And yet, amazingly, there are still those who speak with conviction about the nature of the Middle East when the only thing that it seems possible to say with certainty is that we do not know what will come.

Our discourse and understanding of Israeli society can be similarly distorted by our pre-conceptions about the (im)possibility of change. In parts of the Jewish world the sense that Israel's democracy is imperiled is seen as a constant. But despite the insistence that "it was always thus" it is hard to deny the evidence that Israeli society has become more democratic and pluralistic with each passing decade.

We forget too that Israel's search for peace and security has known different phases. There have been times of utter despair, but also moments of justified hope; there have been times of more and of less security. The pollsters tell us that many in Israel have grown deeply skeptical about the prospects of peace, but in years to come this may be described as a period through which we passed, not a permanent state of being. After all, pollsters give us a glimpse of what people think today, but they tell us little about how they may change tomorrow.

This is not to say that everything changes all the time, that change happens quickly or that it necessarily occurs in a positive direction. Some features of our existence are deeply entrenched and exceedingly difficult to uproot. Hostility towards Israel is one of these features. But while the nature of Israel's challenges can be similar over time, the way we adapt and respond to them does not have to be.

Our resistance to embracing the unpredictability and frequency of change may come in part from the fact that there are elements in our environment that can appear immovable. But it also stems from a psychological need to feel in control, from a basic human yearning for stability. Perhaps also by discounting the possibility of change we can avoid responsibility for our role in directing events. Ultimately, though, permanence is an illusion. And we need to be aware of how our attraction to it can warp what we see, what we think, and the decisions we take.

What we must resist is the view that real change is impossible; that somehow Israel's present predicament is also its permanent one. This is a particularly dangerous illusion for it prevents us from asking the right questions. How does change happen? How can we identify the signals that it is coming? How can we shape events in our favor? And how do we influence hearts and minds? If we are trapped in the mindset that there is nothing new under the sun, we forfeit the capacity to be agents of change ourselves, and we hand it to others.

In our Jewish calendar, we have just entered the month of Elul: the period leading up to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur where our focus is on Tshuva - on the opportunity to renew and re-create ourselves. A tradition in which the concept of Tshuva is so central, is a tradition which rejects determinism. It is a tradition which recognizes that being blind to the reality and possibility of change is immeasurably more dangerous and more impoverishing for our individual and collective existence, than is the fear and volatility associated with change itself.

Our Judaism, not just our lived experience, tells us to be conscious of the pitfalls of the chimera of permanence. It tells us to leave a space for the possibility of the presently unimaginable. It tells us that change is coming, the only question is whether we will be a part of it.

Doctor Tal Becker, is a research fellow at the Hartman Institute, Jerusalem and Deputy Legal Adviser of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Israel's spectacular suicide

New construction in Judea and Samaria is now proceeding at the highest pace in seven years. If this continues, the Netanyahu-Lapid-Bennett government will put an end to the two-state solution, the Jewish democratic entity, and the Zionist dream.

By Ari Shavit | Jun.13, 2013 | 3:26 AM |

Few people paid attention to the news that during the first quarter of 2013, there were 865 housing starts in the settlements. That was a 176 percent increase over the parallel quarter last year and a 355 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2012. Although settlers are only four out of every 100 Israelis, of every 100 housing starts this year, 8.5 were in the settlements. While in sovereign Israel the scope of new construction is slowing, new construction in Judea and Samaria is now proceeding at the highest pace in seven years.

The trend is clear: Within a short time the number of settlers will increase dramatically, as will their ability to block any attempt to divide the land. If it continues this way, the Netanyahu-Lapid-Bennett government will put an end to the two-state solution, the Jewish democratic entity, and the Zionist dream.

This is not a question of peace. In the coming years there will be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Nor is it a question of total and immediate withdrawal. In the coming years Israel will not be able to hand over the West Bank to the Palestinians in the same hasty way it gave them the Gaza Strip. But it is a question of survival. Will Israel, at the last minute, stop flooding theoccupied territories with settlers? Will the Zionist enterprise retain the option of going back to being a moral enterprise? Will the Jewish state choose life, or become unwittingly dissolved in an occupation that is becoming eternal?

As of now the answers are clear: No, no, and no. The Likud of Danny Danon prefers the Land of Israel over the State of Israel. Naftali Bennett’s Habayit Hayehudi (“The Jewish Home”) is determined to drown the Jewish national home in the swamps of colonial decay. Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid (“There is a future”) is turning out to be the party of opportunistic ambiguity, turning its back on the Zionist future. It’s just as Labor chairman Shelly Yacimovich said last week in the Knesset, that the national camp of Labor-Meretz-Kadima is now sitting in the opposition, while it’s the government of right-right-right that is on the verge of establishing a binational reality that will be irreparable.

From the settlers’ perspective, everything’s fine. Their situation has never been so comfortable. The international community is slowly internalizing the fact that the fundamental problem in the Middle East is not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the pathological political culture of the Arab world. The United States and Europe are too tired to confront the intense determination of the heirs of Gush Emunim. Israel can sell a navigation app for a billion dollars at the same time that it has lost its way. Right now there is no power within Israel, nor any power outside Israel, that can force Israel to save itself from its settlers. The most important minister in the government − Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel − can continue the momentum that began in the first quarter of the year. The government of no future will allow him to continue to break records in settling Judea and Samaria. While 20 ministers are engaged with all sorts of nonsense, the housing minister is burying Zionism in the hills.

Thus, from the Israelis’ perspective things are not good. They are not good at all. True, soon there will be a budget and soon there will a “sharing of the burden,” and it’s going to be a great summer. The restaurants along the coast will be full and the nightclubs will be full and Tel Aviv will be as lively as ever. But the fact that in 2013 Israelis still haven’t found a sane political party that will protect them sanely from the settlements, means that even as they are partying, they are dying. Even as they are winning, they are committing suicide. This country has, in the past, seen a few group suicides. But never has it seen a suicide so spectacular and so sweet and so unnecessary as the quiet suicide it is committing now.

Living in delusion

Living in delusion

American mediation is not the last chance, but it is the last chance under comfortable circumstances. Israel should realize negotiations are with the Palestinians, not the U.S.

Haaretz Editorial | Jun.05, 2013 | 5:50 AM |

The intensive efforts of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to advance the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are coming to an end. In Kerry’s speech to the American Jewish Committee’s annual meeting on Monday, he already began to sketch what Israel can expect if it does not come to its senses and seek an agreement with the Palestinians. “[T]he people who think somehow because there is a fence and because there’s been greater security and fewer people hurt are lulling themselves into a delusion that that somehow can be sustained. It cannot be,” Kerry said.

Although his remarks were directed at both Israel and the Palestinians, his warnings − “We’re running out of time ... If we do not succeed now ... we may not get another chance ... the status quo is simply not sustainable,” and if the status quo persists, “Israel will be left to choose between being a Jewish state or a democratic state” − leave no room for doubt: It is Israel that will bear the burden of failure.

The distorted policy Israel has adopted, according to which the negotiations are not between it and the Palestinians, but rather between it and the U.S. administration, shows that Israel is indeed deluding itself.

By these lights the entire negotiating process is nothing but a means of appeasing the last friend Israel has. When the U.S. pressure lets up and Kerry throws up his hands, the danger of a decline in relations will pass, and with it the need to negotiate. Israel, it seems, is also not particularly rattled by the threat of having to choose between its democratic and its Jewish character, nor by Kerry’s broad hint that that Judaism and democracy are not synonymous. The moral understanding of our American friend, that a country cannot be an occupier forever, is far from the understanding of a country celebrating 46 years of occupation in which it has seen redemption of the messianic, delusional variety.

Over the years Israel has become accustomed to phrases like “the last chance for peace,” has managed to avoid almost every “last chance” of this type and has steeled itself against pressures both at home and abroad. This time, too, one can almost sense the satisfaction at Kerry’s failure, with the government relating to him and his mission as a nuisance. American mediation is not the last chance, but it is the last chance under comfortable circumstances − while the West Bank is still quiet, while the Palestinian Authority has not renewed its efforts to obtain recognition for a Palestinian state, while the Arab countries are prepared to support any flexible solution and while the world has still not officially boycotted Israel. A government that ignores these circumstances and the American efforts is putting its citizens at risk.

An Israel against peace is a danger to its citizens

The past few days suggest most members of Israel's new government regard every new initiative for advancing the peace process as a threat that must be repulsed. Such a government is a threat to its citizens.

Haaretz Editorial | May.03, 2013 | 6:04 AM

U.S. President Barack Obama’s efforts to advance the peace process do not end with the shuttle diplomacy of his Secretary of State John Kerry, or with his meetings with the Israelis and Palestinians. The threatening developments in the Middle East, the crisis is Syria and the Iranian threat, require the American president to expand the circle of partners and include the leaders of Arab nations. It turns out that the Arab leadership is not only not indifferent to these efforts − it has never given up on its hope to advance negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and has never renounced its initiative as formulated in the Arab League decision of 2002. The decision states that in return for a withdrawal from the territories, Arab nations will normalize their relations with Israel and provide Israel with a protective security belt.

In the meeting between Kerry and the heads of the Arab League delegation, the Arab leaders made an important addition: agreement to minor border corrections and the exchange of territory between Israel and the Palestinians. In doing so the Arab League adopted the position of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and provided him with critical support for a limited concession on territory. This came after the Arab League already supported his position on the question of the right of return, when Abbas said: “We must reach a just and agreed upon solution on the question of refugees,” and in doing so subordinated the right of return to the negotiations.

Israel responded with distinct coolness to the new initiative. The prime minister did not even find it necessary to praise this important change in the Arab position, and made do with a general statement that that we must reach an agreement “that will prevent Israel from becoming a binational state, but will provide stability and security.” Only President Shimon Peres and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni adopted the new position and recognized its importance. Other ministers, such as Yair Lapid, who in his platform demanded progress in the peace process, Moshe Ya’alon and Yuval Steinitz, who bears the impressive title of minister for strategic and intelligence affairs, did not respond at all. It seems that in their eyes, every new initiative for advancing the peace process is a threat that must be repulsed.

Israel still insists on holding negotiations on all the core issues at once and rejects Abbas’ demand to negotiate on borders and security issues first. In doing so the government strengthens its rejectionist image at the same time the territories are starting to heat up. Such a government is a threat to its citizens.

It’s Not About the Peace Process, but About Peace as a Value

It’s Not About the Peace Process, but About Peace as a Value

By Rabbi DONNIEL HARTMAN

The peace process has returned to our public and political discourse. With President Obama's visit, coupled with Secretary of State Kerry's fresh enthusiasm, Israeli and Palestinian leaders are being challenged to dust the cobwebs off their negotiation strategies and find ways to renew the conversation about our common future.

Is peace, however, a process or a value? Over the years, under the belief that the other side no longer sees it as a value, Israeli society has followed suit. In a deep way we have relinquished the aspiration for peace, relegating it to the back shelf of messianic dreams and the prayer book. Since we have perceived it as unattainable, instead of living with the pain of unfulfillable yearnings, we have realigned our expectations. And so, peace has become a "process," to be managed, to be spoken about at appropriate times, in particular, when it serves our public relations interests. The maintenance of the process has become an end unto itself.

The beauty of a process lies not only in the immunity it provides from disappointment but also in the lowering of demands that are required of us. We merely have to show that we are negotiating in good faith and are willing to show up and talk at any time and at any place, with no preconditions. The latter is of particular value, as it enhances the chances that the process will continue, God willingly, indefinitely. As long as everything is on the table, the peace process is guaranteed an inexhaustible supply of issues to talk about. As long as we are talking, we are fulfilling our duties to the process.

Truth be told, there is a value underlying the "process," and that is the survival of the State and the security of our citizens. As long as one is committed to the peace process, war is off the table and acts of violence which exceed what is perceived as a tolerable level are condemned. Those who are committed to the process are by definition committed to doing everything in their power to limit such acts. And so, we are committed to the process, for in the unpredictable and volatile Middle East, it provides some comfort and stability and maintenance of a status quo which is an improvement on the alternative.

The Israel whose 65th birthday we are about to celebrate, the Israel which I love, however, never saw the status quo as a goal. While survival and security are certainly values of tremendous worth, they never exhausted the hopes of our people. We come from a tradition in which peace is not a process but a value, a value which far transcends the absence of bloodshed. When our rabbis teach us that all of Torah was given for the sake of peace, they are asking us to reorient our consciousness of ourselves and of our reality.

Peace as a value challenges us to think of the possibilities of what life would be like when we live in harmony with ourselves, others, and our surroundings. It is a life not defined by a zero-sum game consciousness but by the possibilities of win-win. It is when a sum total far exceeds the value of its parts. When we see the other and are open to being enriched by the lessons they can teach us. It is when we enable ourselves to transcend self-interest and to experience the joy and completeness which come from giving. It is when justice for all truly reigns within the land.

Like all values, peace is difficult to attain. The world of realpolitik does not merely question it but attempts to erode its place within our system of values. In a harsh world in which naivete is often dangerous, the value of peace is often undermined. And thus, we give birth to the peace "process."

However, when something is a value, truly a value of such significance that it can be spoken of as the goal of all of Torah, one does not let the exigencies of reality destroy it. The meaning of holding something to be a value is that I shape my world in its light and do not allow the world to shape it. Now, to hold peace as a value does not mean that one is naively innocent and childish. It does not mean that I expect "peace now." It does mean, however, that I want peace now.

As a value whose implementation never ceases to obligate me, I think about it, speak about it, dream about it and constantly ask myself one simple question: What do I have to do today to bring peace closer? The attainment of peace, like a process, requires two sides. However, while a process is by definition a negotiation among parties, peace as a value obligates everyone independently. While the fulfillment of peace is not only dependent on me, the actions of others do not absolve me of my responsibilities. These responsibilities include the ongoing education of my fellow citizens to ensure the immunization of our values in the face of the cynicism potentially promulgated by the "realists." It requires the education of our citizens to prefer the pain of unattained hopes over the short-term comfort of lower expectations and the self-righteous aggrandizement of arguing, "It's not our fault."

It obligates us at the very least to assess all of our actions and ensure that there is nothing that we are doing to hinder its implementation. Only when peace is truly a central value within our national culture, can such an honest assessment occur.

Finally, embedded within the notion of a value is the willingness to reprioritize, to take risks, and to be willing to pay a price not merely for its implementation but also to enhance the chances of its implementation. As a value it is more valuable than other things, and our politics must give expression to this not only in words but in actions.

When peace is a process, acquiescing beforehand to preconditions, confidence-building measures, and pre-commitment to a particular outcome or framework for resolution is unnecessary. The goal of the process itself is precisely to work these things out, hopefully indefinitely or at the very least until blame is placed on the other side, at which time we can freeze the process, to be resumed at an as yet to be determined later date.

When peace is a value, however, we must do a tremendous amount of work first and foremost among ourselves, assessing how it can best be achieved and co-exist with our other values. We are engaged in a never-ending process among ourselves to determine the principles which will shape our policy, a policy founded on the yearning to implement the value. As such, we neither fear confidence-building measures nor preconditions, as long as they are in sync with our principles. To negotiate in good faith is not to come to an empty table but to one in which both sides have done extensive work and can show how their values get translated into policy. These are not concessions that we make to the other but strategies which we are willing to execute to enhance the possibility of implementation of the values which are ours.

We are now 65 years old and can celebrate the gifts of Jewish sovereignty, power, and success. What do we want to celebrate when we are 66? Will we want to give thanks to one more year in which we were able to maintain the status quo, or will we be able to celebrate a year in which our national identity reconnected with its noblest values and aspirations? Will we dare to emerge out of the "process" and embrace the value? It may not make any difference in the status of our relationship with our neighbors, but it will at the very least change who we are and what we do. As for the rest, who knows?