A pragmatic vision for Israel's Left: A reply to Benny Morris

The failure at camp david was wrought by Barak and the number one rejectionist of peace has been and continues to be the Israeli Government. I don't buy Morris'so called intellectual and moral "integrity". He does not want to see Israel's major responsibility in the current situation.

"But we must dismantle settlements and roadblocks in the heartland of Palestine" so that the job of suicide bombers will be easy on their way to kill jews

The Israeli Left has no idea if or under what conditions the Arabs would accept a Jewish-majority Israel. It just likes to think so.Why don't you ask their leadership and get the answer from the source rather than guessing at appeasement tactics?

to understand what every street sweeper in Israel already knows.

... but the Pal refugees cannot hope to return to sovreign Israel... ... however, they can strive to return to the West Bank, which is presently territory occupied by Israel on a temporary basis, since Israel has no legally recognized rights on the WB...

YOur Vision is death to Israel basically from a security standpoint. Very pragmatic very brilliant and totally self delusional! Kol a Koved to your principals which are at best wishful thinking!

The world would be a better place without you nazi-jews. Every country should stop paying trillions of money to you rotten land of sand. Your Israel-Ponzi-Sheme will go down! You make all Jews flee their countries and you are paying for that soon.

Peace will come when the Palestinians feel that they have received justice, and that means that the refugee problem must be dealt with fairly and in keeping with international law. This means allowing the refugees the freedom to reclaim their homes and re-establish their villages in Israel if they want to--the decision should be theirs. Two states on the same land--a condominium--would allow refugees to return AND Israel to remain a Jewish state (and Palestine also to be a state, with membership in the United Nations). Each state would take care of its own population. The two states would coordinate on everything else. See parityforpeace.org. P.S. The West Bank is not disputed land. It is occupied land, subject the the Fourth Geneva Convention, which says that an occupying force may not move settlers into the territory it occupies.

Israel's actions weren't the only things you weren't paying enough attention to -- you've apparently never actually read Morris' books. He's extremely biased in favor of Israel. He constantly rearranges the sequences of events, chooses words, comes to conclusions that simply defy the facts he has just cited, etc to make Israel's case look as plausible as possible. Sometimes he becomes almost unreadable on this account. You just can't figure out what he is actually saying. What's more, he has always frankly stated that he is a partisan of Zionism. He'd probably grant that he's hardly trying to be even-handed. He just refuses to participate in outright lies. That's all.

Under present and foreseeable conditions, there is a significant probability that a Palestinian country would be a terror base against Israel and a staging base for an attack sponsored by countries like Iran, No responsible Israeli government can risk this. The only reasonable policy is to "hold on" until major changes occur in the Arab Muslim world. With renewable energy and electric cars, there oil wealth will disappear. As China has learned, the price of economic survival is opening up to the rest of the world. With this opening, militant Islam will fade and the desire to destroy Israel will no longer be more important that improving the lives of people. Then, peace will be possible.

The idea that peace between two nations could be achieved by negotiations is not a leftist idea. It is a foolish idea. It never worked in the past which means it most likely will never work in the future. So far only a complete defeat of the enemy was bringing the peace.

Morris' disillusionment and reaction to the Second Intifada seems to ignore the role of Sharon's provocation on the Temple Mount and the viciousness of the IDF in the riots that followed - 47 Palestinians killed and 1,800 wounded compared to five Israeli deaths. Morris has left his reputation as an honoured historian behind - he is now no more than a shill for right-wing Zionist propaganda.

You say "is to drive the indigenous Arab population out of the West Bank by making life there impossible for them." You might not be aware ,but Jews are at least as indigenous to the land as Arabs are . And the land is disputed anyway , not as if Israel took something without a legit claim . The whole issue is turned upside down and people like you , who do not know , or do not wish to know the whole story try to create a story .

The majority is never right, and the left doesn't have to garner big numbers or public relations gimmicks with spin to do it's job. Let me tell you a true story to make the point: Norman Thomas was the perennial Socialist Candidate in America in the first half of the 20th century. He was asked pointedly, at the end of his career, how come you ran repeatedly when you never garnered more than 2% of the vote? Thomas replied: When I first ran they said I was a mad anarchist, when I ran again they said I was a dirty Communist. The third time, a lousy Socialist. The fourth time, Roosevelt adopted my entire program in the New Deal. So, friends, what's important is that members of the left articulate clearly the moral and practical points they are making accurately. And in fact, Bibi has turned dramatically left, now, after decades of denial, speaking of the possibility of a Palestinian state side by side with Israel. The left will prevail by truth, not numbers. Baruch ha Shem.

Carlo and his ilk are the real reason that peace is a dream. Appeasement and a chamberlinian approach rerach the opposite of desirious results.

... then they must be conveyed kicking-and screaming into peace negotations... ... the same applies to the rabid and refractory among the settlers... ... many, as I do, still believe that there is a sane majority of Israelis across the political spectrum... ... who would opt for peace in our time with our neighbor's, the Pals... ... rather than the alternative which is untenable to live with for all of us, on both sides of the divide...

We expect rightly the Arab recognition of the Jewish State but at the same time what have they been witnessing, expropriation of West Bank Palestinian territory, which time and time again is considered unlawful from international nations as well as Israel's closest ally, the United States. Nothing justifies the terror inflicted upon Israel but the Palestinians responded with intifadas when U.N. resolutions were ignored throughout the decades after the initial resolution 3 days into the Six Day War by the U.S. Both sides must make compromises for peace if peace is genuinely sought that is.

Ideologues spend their life fantasizing of perfect worlds. Pragmatists try to make the one we live in work. I have immense respect for Benny Morris the historian. I understand his reservations, as well as Carlo Strenger's suggestions. I cannot see how 'peace' will come with a single moment. I am most impressed that in 2,500 years there has not been an example to show Sun Tzu wrong in his postulation that 'there is not a single example of a nation which profited from protracted war." In the long run if Israel is to prosper it must end the war with Palestine. This cannot be done by including Palestinians within the State of Israel. It cannot be done by expelling or exterminating them. Thus it can only be done by allowing a Palestinian State. If settlement expansion is allowed then the possibility of a Palestinian state ceases to exist. But what then becomes of the Palestinians? Expulsion? Or death camps? Or just a walled ghetto with permanent sub-human status? And war.

its not about building homes its about stealing land.

strenger repeats & repeats about pragmatism. these days we need some more detailed proposals about what to do & in which direction to go. what he says is in fact not very different from what netanyahu is saying, w/the only difference that strenger would be willing to clear out some of the settlements on the way to the "distant goal". both somehow imply it's gonna work out in the end, in the meantime let's be pragmatic. how long are the two sides gonna need to work out a final deal? you need a real horizon here, one that makes it credible the two sides are actually going the same way (unlike oslo), & you need it fast. it's not bad what he's saying & the analysis of morris etc is interesting. only one note. i always react negatively to this kind of division: "israel was insincere, the pals were in chaos & ambivalent" - one was an actor, the other only had a "condition". that's always wrong. both were insincere during oslo.

His book "The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, 1947-1949," shows that he is a good historian. His refusal to serve in the territories -- he was young and ideallistic, you have to forgive him for that. His conclusion, albeit belated, that Ben Gurion should have expelled all the Arabs from the territories taken during the War of Independence is correct. Things would have been far simpler now. Mr. Strenger and the "left": why do you all insisit on the pre-1967 borders? I haven't heard a convincing argument from you yet.

"Simple logic" assumes that the Israeli colonies in the OT are the only problem. He mentions nothing about the years of oocupation by the Israeli Military and security forces, murders of Palestinians, political kidnappings and total societal domination. And, he implies that the Palestinians are building colonies in Israel.

The left and right are inseperable relative concepts. A bird cannot fly without the two, nor a brain or buttox function without the opposing lobe. The decline in the knesset of overt left policies actually weakens the right as well as the whole is diminished. Arab rejectionsism and backward looking is intrinsic to their culture and politics. Israel encroachment on Palestinian land prejudices the future. Both sides seem to take comfort from the perpetual conflict, and the blood of innocents will be the price. Ego, pride, glorifying and misreading history are the real issues. Let us remember Begin left Sinai, and Sharon left Gaza, and Bibi, if he wakes up from his trance will start to withdraw from illegal and dangerous settlements. Or go down in history as the leader who mislead Israel into final catastrophe..

Strenger is right: "Neither Palestinian nor Arab Rejectionism are immutable laws of nature". But is the current Israeli???

You are correct, most people would agree that "building homes" is much more innocent than "killing people" (terrorism). If "building homes" is seen as a form of peace- ful future coexistence, which would then of course automatically require the right to vote for the West Bank Palestinians in a "Greater Israel", then that is correct. But that is not what most settlers and right- wing Israel/Diaspora want. They regard all the land as Jewish land, and the clear aim is to drive the indigenous Arab population out of the West Bank by making life there impossible for them. In that case, the otherwise innocent "building of homes" becomes indeed a form of "terrorism".

No one suggests that building homes is morally equivalent to killing people but the issues should be stated squarely and honestly. Rocket fire from Gaza and suicide bombers are certainly wrong and those who engage in it should be condemned as they harm innocent civilians. "Building homes" is a deceptive euphemism for the theft of another people's land and unlike suicide bombings, is an officially sanctioned state act that, along with many other Israeli policies, does harm to innocent civilians. It is state sponsored collective punishment and patently illegal.

For starters, you should hold Israel and the Palestinians to equal standards. It doesn't help when you routinely turn a blind eye to Palestinian aggression (killing people, inciting hate in Arab media) by excusing it as the result of Jews building homes. There is absolutely no moral equivalency between building homes and killing people. If the territories are disputed then *both* Israeli and Palestinian construction unduly influences final talks, not just Israeli. Furthermore, Israel has destroyed its own settlements numerous times; how many times have the Palestinians done the same or arrested its terrorist groups? In short: stop trying to "enlighten us" and just be pragmatic. Drop the vision and face reality.

Please explain.