PALESTINE/ISRAEL: Netanyahu says there’s no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict/Gilad Atzmon: Jews & Their Self Interest-An Interview with Philip Weiss...

Netanyahu says there’s no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

 Posted: 18 Jun 2011 02:07 PM PDT

Etgar Keret / Haaretz

The flight to Rome leaves in the middle of the night. When I finish packing my small travel suitcase, my wife gives me a scrap of orange notepaper. It isn’t meant for me; it’s for the prime minister. It reads: “Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, I beg you do everything in your power to bring peace, for the sake of the future of our children and yours. Thank you, Shira.”

I find this amusing, and she is offended. “What are you thinking?” I ask her. “That Bibi is like the Western Wall? That you can stick a note into a crack in him somewhere, pray a little and he’ll bring peace?”

“So forget the note,” she says. “Tell him something. Argue. Do something that will get him out of his bunker.”

“People don’t change their views that quickly,” I say. “Certainly Bibi doesn’t.”

“So you won’t succeed,” she says. “What do you have to lose? That you’ll look like a fool, the way I did with the note? So look like a fool, or like a pest. But at least try.”

At the hotel in Rome, Tal ?(the photographer?) and I join the rest of the diplomatic reporters, who had arrived a day earlier. They tell me about their flight to Rome on the prime minister’s plane, which from their stories sounds like a real piece of junk. They call it “the drainpipe,” saying the seats don’t lean back and have no legroom. They say they’re jealous of me and Tal because we came on a commercial flight.

We’re supposed to be taken from the hotel lobby to a joint press conference by Netanyahu and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. I ask them if they think anything interesting will happen there ? some kind of new initiative, a headline, something that could help jump-start the negotiations with the Palestinians. It takes me only a few seconds to understand they don’t really believe anything exciting will happen here.

Army Radio, for instance, sent its economic reporter. If this had been a trip to Washington, the diplomatic correspondent would almost certainly have gone. But for trips like these ? the kind that have to be covered but no one expects to produce any drama that would require the reporter to use his sources and connections in the prime minister’s entourage ? even a reporter from a different field will do.

“You know,” one of them tells me, “seven years ago we were in Rome for a similar meeting, something utterly routine. And suddenly, in the middle of the night, [Special Assistant to President Bush] Elliott Abrams arrived ? here, in this very lobby ? and [Ariel] Sharon informed the Americans that he had decided on the disengagement” from the Gaza Strip.

“However,” the reporter hastened to reassure me, “Netanyahu isn’t Sharon. So there’s no chance anything will happen.”

At the press conference, we wait together with dozens of Italian reporters for Netanyahu and Berlusconi to arrive. Everyone is amazed by the blue-and-white tent the Italians have set up. It’s truly beautiful. I’m particularly impressed by the giant painting behind the speakers’ dais. In it, you see something reminiscent of David playing his harp and, beside him, something that looks like the severed head of Goliath the Philistine ? what one might call the roots of the conflict.

When I ask about the picture, the Israelis have no answers, but they’re happy to accompany me to one of the Italian officials. To my question about who did the painting, the Italian answers, with a sly smile, “A good one.” Then he waves his hands helplessly and explains that “Berlusconi likes nice things.”

But after an AP correspondent, who has grown curious about the throng, asks the same questions, the official calls someone to find out. The complete answer will be given to the journalists later, from the dais, when Berlusconi will say he heard that people were interested in the painting. And, after giving the artist’s name and when it was painted, he will add that it depicts a 19th-century bunga bunga party.

At that moment, it will be possible to hear more than 100 journalists laughing in relief. Thanks to Silvio, they will leave here with a headline after all.

Even before Netanyahu and Berlusconi start speaking, one of the people in Netanyahu’s delegation volunteers to explain to me ? with somewhat surprising agreeableness and sincerity ? how the whole thing works: The Italian reporters will ask two questions and the Israeli reporters will ask two questions. The questions are known ahead of time.

I try to find out whether the reporters will then be able to raise their hand and ask something spontaneous. He says no, and explains: “Bibi and Berlusconi have important messages to convey and this is, in fact, their shared platform for conveying them. To put a leader in an empty studio in front of a camera feels too totalitarian, so they build an event like this where they can go up on stage prepared and transmit in front of the cameras the messages on which they have decided to focus. These bilateral meetings always have the phase of the friendly slaps on the back, followed by the getting down to business, and then comes the phase I call the fax phase…” the man explained.

Netanyahu and Berlusconi go up on stage. They begin with their speeches and then take questions from reporters. It goes just like the man from the delegation explained. The messages are sharp and clear: The problem is not the settlements; the root of the conflict is the fact that the Palestinians refuse to recognize the existence of the Jewish state. What the countries of the world have to do is expose the true face of the Palestinians and force them to recognize Israel not only as just any country, but as a Jewish state.

Berlusconi, who had warmly complimented Netanyahu and Israel from the stage, nods every time he hears one of the messages, and from time to time ? before Netanyahu issues some powerful statement, along the lines of the Arab spring turning into the Arab winter if Iran gets an atom bomb ? he preempts it by a second and gestures toward Netanyahu like a magician finishing a particularly difficult trick and waiting for the cheers of the audience.

After the press conference, we go back to the hotel for an intimate briefing for Israeli political correspondents with the prime minister. Before we enter the hotel room where we are to meet Netanyahu, we undergo a thorough security check. They X-ray my bag three times. It has a small metal object that could be a weapon. After a long search of my bag, they discover it’s my laptop plug.

The Israeli journalists take their seats around the table and wait for the prime minister. One of them suggests not letting it run too long; if it finishes quick enough, there will be time for a little stroll around the Piazza Navona before the PM’s ?(people use the Hebrew abbreviation PM a lot, with its vaguely military feel?) junk heap of a plane takes us back to Israel.

Netanyahu’s team is very friendly and attentive. They agree that, at the end of the briefing, Tal will take my picture with Netanyahu at the request of the newspaper, even though photographers have been banned from the briefing and the shot had not been coordinated ahead of time.

I try to take advantage of their willingness a bit more and ask if I can ask Netanyahu only two questions after the briefing ends. The spokesman wants to know ahead of time what questions I plan on asking. I’m not surprised. In the few hours I’ve spent here, I already realize that in a dialogue between a journalist and a prime minister who feels persecuted by the media, there is great fear of an inappropriate question, almost as if I had managed to get into the weapons room.

I present my question. It’s not too difficult, but it’s still one for which the answer is not the need to expose the true face of the Palestinian leadership or, alternatively, that the Iranian nuclear program is not only a danger to Israel but to the whole world.

The spokesman tells me we’ll see at the end of the briefing if there’s time. And although he is very nice, it’s still clear to both of us that it will not happen and I realize that if I’ve made up my mind to try to speak to Netanyahu and look like a fool, I will have to do it in front of all the other journalists.

Netanyahu comes in and the briefing begins calmly and with smiles. The reporters and Bibi complain about the plane. It’s too narrow and the seats don’t tilt back. They took it because Netanyahu had, in the past, been raked over the coals by the newspapers for being ostentatious and wasteful and here we see things come full circle like every good morality tale; the people who wrote about the wastefulness now feel how unpleasant this frugality is for their back. Afterward we talk a little about the Iranian threat and a bit about Syria and how the Italians know how to put on an event, and how in Israel it will take 200 years to learn.

The briefing is already drawing to a close and I half push in and stutter a question. I travel a lot in the world, I say, and hear a lot of people who talk about Israel. Some love it and some hate it. But they all describe Israel as bogged down and passive. The Palestinians can initiate a flotilla one day and a declaration to the United Nations on another, while Israel, it seems, has no plan and can only react.

The prime minister objects and says these are the kind of statements that appear in the newspaper I’m writing for, but that does not yet mean it is true and that Israel actually has a great many friends, although we like to say it’s isolated. I nod and say that without reference to the issue of our friends, it is important for me to know what the government’s peace initiative is and what the plan is that we are promoting to end the conflict with the Palestinians.

The reporters around the table convey to me mixed feelings of empathy and impatience. They look at me the way I looked at my wife 14 hours before when she asked me to give Netanyahu a note from her. I feel as if they like this strange attempt of mine to get a pertinent answer from Netanyahu to my question, but for some of them at least, it’s a shame to waste valuable time on this empty move, especially when the clock is ticking and the Piazza Navona awaits.

The only person who treats the whole thing with patience and seriously is Netanyahu. “This is an insoluble conflict because it is not about territory,” he says. “It is not that you can give up a kilometer more and solve it. The root of the conflict is in an entirely different place. Until Abu Mazen recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, there will be no way to reach an agreement.”

The reporters around the table convey to me mixed feelings of empathy and impatience. They look at me the way I looked at my wife 14 hours before when she asked me to give Netanyahu a note from her. I feel as if they like this strange attempt of mine to get a pertinent answer from Netanyahu to my question, but for some of them at least, it’s a shame to waste valuable time on this empty move, especially when the clock is ticking and the Piazza Navona awaits.

The only person who treats the whole thing with patience and seriously is Netanyahu. “This is an insoluble conflict because it is not about territory,” he says. “It is not that you can give up a kilometer more and solve it. The root of the conflict is in an entirely different place. Until Abu Mazen recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, there will be no way to reach an agreement.”

Netanyahu made similar comments at a press conference a few hours earlier, but then it sounded like lusterless, recycled spin. Now that he was sitting across from me, looking me in the eye and explaining the same thing with endless patience, it suddenly sounded like the truth. Well, not my truth, but his truth.

I continued to nudge him, saying that even if all that was right, I still didn’t understand what pragmatic plan would come out of that conclusion. Netanyahu told me right away that the practical plan for advancing the peace process is to reiterate this at every opportunity.

“You have to see the effect it has on people,” he said, smiling. “You say it and they just remain slack-jawed.”

Just that day, he said, during a conversation with local politicians, he saw it happening before his eyes. Another writer at the table pointed out that we’ve said it more than once and it hasn’t convinced most countries. Netanyahu nodded and said the Palestinians have been spreading their lies for more than 40 years, and lies that have become so deeply entrenched cannot be uprooted quickly.

During the conversation the prime minister also mentioned an article he read about Ireland, which said more than 25 years had to pass before those who had been fighting England were able to moderate their position and become flexible enough to end the conflict. When I asked whether there wasn’t anything else that could be done for the peace process aside from reiterating the truths he announced to the world, the prime minister smiled a fatherly smile and said that sometimes we have to liberate ourselves of the feeling that everything is in our control. After all, it’s impossible to build an agreement on a lie, and until the Palestinians agree to accept Israel ? not just as a country, but as the Jewish state ? it will be impossible to move forward.

The meeting ended and we made way for the photographer ushered in by the spokesman, as Netanyahu, despite his busy schedule, willingly made time for the photo op. I watched from as close as I could. At Berlusconi’s press conference, I still saw in Netanyahu that slew of cliches that people typically attribute to him: scared opportunist wielding slogans just so he can hold on to his seat. But now, from a distance of just 20 centimeters, he looked like an obstinate and resolute man with an uncompromising, and very threatening, world view. I try to smile, but after this conversation I just can’t summon a smile, or hope. Just despair.

Source: Haaretz.com

Gilad Atzmon: Jews & Their Self Interest-An Interview with Philip Weiss

Posted: 18 Jun 2011 01:10 PM PDT

by Gilad Atzmon

Over a week ago I emailed to the well- known blogger Philip Weiss, an interesting post written by Nahida (AKA The Exiled Palestinian).

In her article, Jewish Voice For Peace? Really?? , Nahida expresses some sharp criticism of Jewish anti-Zionist groups, forcefully arguing that “Anti-Zionist Jewish organisations are trying to silence Palestine’s supporters, to frame the debate” and to “steer the course of the liberation” of her homeland.

Since Weiss runs the most popular Jewish progressive blog, offering an invaluable source of information regarding Israeli crimes, I thought he might be willing to address Nahida’s criticism, and to discuss it with his many progressive Jewish followers.

Weiss did not post Nahida’s article on his blog, but his discussion with me was brave and honest*, and to a certain extent he affirmed Nahida’s criticism, admitting that it was indeed ‘Jewish self-interest’ that he himself was ‘concerned with’.

Weiss had the following to say on the matter: “I believe all people act out of self-interest. And Jews who define themselves at some level as Jews — like myself for instance — are concerned with a Jewish self-interest. Which in my case is: an end to Zionism. A theory of political life based on altruism or concern for victims purely is doomed to fail.”

Openly and bluntly, Weiss confirmed what many of us have been saying for a very long time: it is not solely ‘altruism’ or concern for Palestinians victims that motivates some of the most prominent Jewish campaigners and organisations, but it is also, as Weiss freely admits, ‘Jewish self-interest.’

I confessed to Weiss that I was overwhelmed by his frankness. I think that Weiss may well be the first Jewish activist to admit , or even to define the Judeo-centric impetus behind the Jewish- progressive political discourse.

I decided to press it further, asking Weiss whether he considered himself to be ‘tribal’?

And once again, Weiss’ answer was brave and honest, though he did start to express some frustration. He answered, “Yes I do at some level. And what bugs me about stuff you send me (I guess that Weiss was referring to Nahida’s article) is that I end up in the end inevitably and predictably at some site trashing Jewish religion, to which I have very little connection, though yes I feel some core ‘Id’** and this makes me think in the end, that dialogue with you will not help ME because I am interested in frying different fish. While you seem out rather reductively to prove the degeneracy of a religion which I’m sure is deeply problematic, as Islam is and the Church of Pedophilia…( sic)”

However, I still do not grasp why Weiss thinks that I am interested to reductively ‘prove the degeneracy of a religion’ — I am not really interested in criticising the religion of Judaism, or any other religion for that matter: in fact, I am far more concerned with Jewish secularism and Jewish secular ideology.

However, it was at that stage that I realised that Weiss was a perfect candidate for an interview. He certainly embodies the Jewish-progressive school of thought: a unique mixture of righteousness, charming self-love, mixed together with some deep intolerance towards other people’s belief systems.

I went on to ask Weiss: “What does the word ‘Jewish’ mean for you?”

Weiss was short and precise in his response : “My mother, my father, my grandparents, a family feeling, us-ness, in distinction to the Them.”

I pressed Weiss further , asking him, “this ‘us-ness’ does it really extend beyond family and friends? Do you, for instance, feel ‘us-ness’ with an Iraqi Jew?”, I wondered.

‘I think identity is multi-factorial,’ Weiss replied, ‘I feel American before I feel Jewish. I think that’s the achievement of my life, to have flipped those identities, and Jewish is second. I see Jewish as this great civilization that I am part of. That transcends borders, and it’s not Zionist. Zionism is like Shabbetai Tzvi, It’s a big chapter in a long story. Jews will survive this one too. Jews is: a sense of difference, yes, inevitably of elite identity, that’s part of Jewish history and one I struggle with. Jewish is a Story, a myth…’

I liked the imaginative and poetic manner in which Weiss referred to his own identity. I appreciated his honesty, and I also accepted what seems to be a possible discrepancy between the universal consciousness and the tribal affiliation.

And yet, I really wanted to grasp how Weiss translated his sense of tribalism into a political, or ideological, awareness. I enquired further, to which he responded, ‘I’m against compartmentalized identity but I do think that people are tribal, it’s the nature of the species right now, and the deal is do we call on that or do we try and reduce it? I’m for reducing it but not denying its existence till everyone puts down their shield and that doesn’t seem bloody likely.

I had some “us-ness” from my family, a lot of it, but bridled at it. “Is it good for the Jews?” question bugged the hell out of me. But if Herzl, a Christmas tree Jew like me, was made Jewish by anti Semites, as he was, I was made Jewish by the Neocons. I thought, I’m Jewish too so f**k them with their tribalism.’

You can call it anything you like. you can reduce it to JVP is Jewish, or JVP has multiple dimension. I’m in the multidimensional human camp. My wife is not a Jew. She uses Ayurvedic typology, Jungian typology and Freudian (psychoanalysis) to understand people. She uses Astrology too sometimes. I dip around in all that too and I’m also Jewish and feel a real bond with Jews. Is it Ashkenazi and racist? I’m sure it is at some level. They’re the ones I grew up with. Do I transcend? I hope so.’

That is fairly impressive, I thought to myself : up to that point, Weiss had seemed to be coherent, a healthy amalgam of a self-reflective person who acknowledges his tribalism and roots, yet tries to transcend those aspects.

And yet, I was still slightly confused — I reminded Weiss that only two days earlier he had mentioned in our discussions that Jews like himself were “ concerned with a Jewish self-interest”. I then asked him whether he approved that Jewish anti-Zionist activism may as well be primarily concerned with Jewish interests?

I guess that at that stage, Weiss started to feel irritated or even trapped, for he somehow turned sour, saying : “Primarily concerned with Jewish interests seems a stupid trap to me.”

But, I reminded Weiss that “self-interest” and “Jewish self-interest” had been his own words, quoting to him his initial reaction to Nahida’s post — indeed, Weiss had actually said, “I believe all people act out of self-interest. and Jews ..likemyself  — are concerned with a Jewish self-interest.”

I suggested to Weiss that I can live with inconsistency — I also offered him the opportunity to feel free to change his words, or amend his narrative to suit his ‘new line’ ( in which he had stated that “primarily concerned with Jewish interests seems a stupid trap”)

.

I did feel , however, that Weiss should at least be made aware of the contradictions in his own words: after all, one can either argue that “Jews act out of Jewish self-interest” or, one can contend that to be “primarily concerned with Jewish interests is a stupid trap.”

Yet, one cannot have it both ways, and one cannot hold these two views simultaneously, unless an explanation is offered.

But I guess that I asked for too much : Weiss didn’t want to address the contradiction, saying, “( I ) Disown none of them,” explaining to me his opinion that “foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a little mind.”

At that point, I felt that it would be the right time to disengage, and to leave Weiss alone, just before things got further out of control.

It seems to me that once again, I have failed to converse with a ‘progressive Jew.’ I guess that in spite of the openness Weiss showed initially, he, like mny others, cannot resolve the tension beyond the universal and the tribal.

And by now, I am increasingly certain that this gap cannot be bridged easily, if at all, for the tribal and universal are like water and oil.

I guess that the difficulties involved in resolving the tension between the universal and the tribal explains why so many progressive Jews prefer to operate in intellectual, ideological and political exclusive ‘Jews only’ cells where these questions are never raised, never asked, and never answered.

* Philip Weiss’ words are published here with his full agreement and concession

** Id- a slang name for a Jew, I guess that it comes from Yiddish. A Id-Yid is a Yiddish speaker.

Gilad Atzmon was born a secular Israeli Jew in Tel Aviv and trained at the Rubin Academy of Music in jerusalem.  His service as a paramedic in the Israeli Defense Forces during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon caused him reach the conclusion that  “I was part of a colonial state, the result of plundering and ethnic cleansing.” In 1994 Atzmon emigrated from Israel to London, where he attended the University of Essex and earned a Masters degree in Philosophy.  He has lived there since, becoming a British citizen in 2002.  Atzmon’s novels have been published in 22 languages.  His first novel A Guide to the Perplexed, published in 2001, is set in a future where by 2052 Israel has been replaced by a Palestinian state for 40 years.

 Satanic Israel