Could Israel be drifting towards disaster?

The collapse of the latest peace talks leaves Israel "in a real bind," but may also open a new way through

by Bronwen Maddox / June 19, 2014 / Leave a comment

Published in July 2014 issue of Prospect Magazine

US Secretary of State John Kerry (left) recently warned Israel that it risked becoming “an apartheid state” in its treatment of Palestinians. © AP/Getty

In early summer, the Golan Heights are covered with flowers; small scarlet poppies have seeded themselves among the flowering thorn bushes, and in the haze rising from the Sea of Galilee neat orchards of cherry trees are in full leaf. On the high plateau, which Israel seized from Syria in 1967, American tourists examine abandoned artillery posts. But below, the soft crump of shellfire is audible from Arab villages; Syrian fighters supporting the Assad regime in Damascus, just 50 minutes away along a road now choked with gunmen and checkpoints, are firing at rebels, holed up in houses and farms. Neither side is firing at Israel—beyond the occasional shell, apparently accidental—which sometimes meets with fire in return. But the soundtrack of constant violence is a reminder of the turmoil on all sides of Israel in the past three years, “since what we still optimistically call the Arab Spring,” said one British official, adding laconically, “and the Israelis, well, don’t.”

That turmoil is one new concern for Israel. Yet many argue that its most serious threat lies inside its borders, in the perpetual failure of its leaders and their Palestinian counterparts to forge a peace deal. Driving from the Heights back down to the coast, the signs of that deadlock are even more stark at night. Clusters of minarets, glowing with green lights at their peak, mark out the dense, twisting streets of Tulkarm and Qalqilya, Palestinian towns with a particularly militant his…

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harderwijk
June 25, 2014 at 05:21
This piece, in light of the inexorably forlorn ‘Peace Process’, is obviously, in my opinion, a well-written, eminently reasonable, fair and balanced analysis of the status quo evident in the region today. Which, having said as much, is, also in my pathetic opinion, not only part of the problem, but may indeed be precisely the whole crux of the wretched matter. I say that because this fine article could never be presented, verbatim, as the heartfelt position of any of the representative, elected office-bearers of any camp in this protracted conflict. Not in the Knesset, not in Ramallah, not in Gaza, not in Congress, the Kremlin, not in Beijing, Whitehall and certainly not in Brussels. This ‘objective’ account of ‘the state of play’ could not possibly be credibly articulated in any of these halls of legislative decision making. Because Maddox, sensibly, as is to her credit and appropriate to her calling, does not take a ‘position’. Those, who are, for better or worse, appointed, by whatever ‘democratic’ means, to make the fateful decisions that will have the most awe-inspiring consequences, simply cannot afford to sit back and indulge in such a lavishly ‘objective’ analysis of each agenda, from each perspective, professed as well as diplomatically obscure, of the plethora of ‘stated aims’ that have become so readily identifiable since 1948. None of which has very much at all to do with the lived experience of the multifarious, polyglot, multicultural spectrum of ordinarily innocent, banally decent, common people who, like it or not, find themselves intractably stuck ‘on location’, on the ground, as we speak, each dealing with his and her very own personal, public and private circumstances, be they economic, social, psychological, physical, sexual and emotional. That intensely private perspective can never be considered ‘relevant’, because the ‘demographic distribution’, electorally charged political rhetoric and media spin takes all the sound and fury. That’s where all these inane debates are always won and lost. While the ordinary people, regardless of religion or socio-economic orientation, just want to get on with their lives … put bread on the table and see their kids right. Meanwhile, as we all know by now, who can deny it, ‘Peace in the Middle East’ is the quintessential oxymoron. What’s not to like? What should ‘a resolution’, that could remotely satisfy all players, even look like? Isn’t that, incidentally, true of most human relationships? That the fundamentally inherent conflict of interest is the only workable norm?
Andy Martin
June 29, 2014 at 13:04
'Apartheid' ie apartness. Manifestly the vocabulary fits. Whatever Simon Schama says. The irony, in the global context, is that Israel is winning - in exporting its 'democratic' model. The rest of the Middle East is letting sectarianism rip. It's another version of the settlement strategy.