Jeff Halper on Israel/US Relationship - and Where He's Wrong

Jeff Halper leads the Israeli Coalition Against House Demolitions, a group that began as a real coalition that included groups such as Rabbis for Human Rights but became, over time, it's own NGO under Halper's leadership. it's a group I respect for their willingness to confront the occupation with their bodies, protesting home demolitions and engaging in illegal - but morally just - rebuilding of homes. [Hmmm. I wonder if maybe it's the occupation that is illegal?]

His latest article is getting major play, as it addresses the U.S. - Israeli relationship on the dawn of the Obama administration.

My argument with him is that he makes claims that are not supported in full. Activists working on Israeli-Palestinian issues are strongly tempted to place that conflict at the center of their understanding of world politics. If the I/P conflict is a fulcrum, a lever that could lead to massive change in the international system, then it makes perfect sense for well meaning folks to devote an outsize share of attention to it.

A BONE IN AMERICA'S THROAT by Jeff Halper

Even before the voting began, Israeli politicians and pundits were asking: Will an Obama Administration be good for Israel? "Be good for Israel" is our code for "Will the US allow us to keep our settlements and continue to support our efforts to prevent negotiations with the Palestinians from ever bearing fruit?" For Americans the question should be: Will the Obama Administration understand that without addressing Palestinian needs it will not be able to disentangle itself from its broader Middle Eastern imbroglios, rejoin the community of nations and rescue its economy?

This is an important question. Obama's treatment of the I/P issue will be a litmus test for how it intends to deal with the Middle East and the rest of the world.

The Israel-Palestine conflict should be of central concern to Americans, near the top of the new Administration's agenda. It may not be the bloodiest conflict in the world - its minor when compared to Iraq - but it is emblematic to Muslims and to peoples the world over of American hostility and belligerence. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not merely a localized one between two squabbling tribes. It lies at the epicenter of global instability. Go where you may in the world and you will encounter the same phenomenon: a sense that the suffering of the Palestinians represents all that is wrong in an American-dominated world.

It is certainly emblematic to Muslims, and to leftists around the world, such as those who show up at the World Social Forum. But beyond that - I think you are overstating the extent to which this issue defines the world's perception of a U.S. role. Why, if this was the case, was Israel so successful at getting Europe and others to boycott the Hamas government?

Is Israel really the epicenter of global instability? More than Iraq and the oil rich parts of the Middle East? More than Congo, which it's death toll surpassing five million? Not the global potable water crisis or the rising cost of food? It is also possible to go around the world and find people who associate the Palestinian cause with Islamic extremism and terrorism - but that doesn't make it so.

As Obama comes into office, he will encounter a global reality very different from that of eight years before: a multilateral one in which a weakened and isolated US must find its place. He will discover that much of America's isolation comes from the view that the Occupation of the Palestinian territories is, in fact, an American-Israeli Occupation. If restoring a weakened American economy depends on repairing relations with the rest of the world, he will learn that without resolving the Israeli-Palestine conflict he will not create those conditions in which the US will be accepted once more into the wider global community.

Allow me to disagree. The view of the U.S. as a rogue superpower has much more to do with the invasion of Iraq, the bullying of Iran, the rejection of Kyoto, the bypassing of the United Nations than with the occupation of Palestine. Yes, it's a factor; but not the dominant one, globally speaking.

The second statement, according to which addressing the occupation is key to addressing the U.S. economic recovery is fanciful. The U.S., sadly, can probably come out of recession without changing course dramatically on I/P issues. I don't think your evidence is persuasive:

To be more specific, the Israel-Palestine conflict directly affects Americans in at least five ways:

• It isolates the US from major global markets, forcing it to embark on aggressive measures to secure markets rather than peaceful accommodation;

I am not aware of any major global markets that are currently shut off to the U.S., aside from Cuba and North Korea. The U.S. has quite a robust engagement even with countries such as Iran and Venezuala.

• It thereby diverts the American economy into non-productive production (tanks not roads), making it dependent upon deficit spending which only increases dependency upon foreign financing while diverting resources into the military rather than into education, health and investment;

Yes, U.S. militarism steals from the hungry. Eisenhower said that. But is I/P the fulcrum of those policies? The amount of weaponry flowing into the Middle East to countries not named Israel is tens of billions of dollars higher than what Israel gets for free or purchases. And that entire amount, over several years, is small compared to how much is wasted in Iraq, or how much was given away to bailout the U.S. banking industry. This demonstrates how small the issue of I/P is in comparison to other efforts to divert resources away from 'education, health and investment.'

• Support for the Israeli military costs US taxpayers more than $3 billion annually at a time of deepening recession and crumbling national infrastructure;

3 billion dollars is a small fraction of Israel's GDP, estimated at well over 200 billion a year, and an even smaller part of the US annual budget ($2700 billion in 2007). Simply put, it's just not very much money in global terms, however harmful an impact it has in the Middle East.

• It leads to an American involvement in the world that is mainly military, thus begetting hostility and resistance which produce the threats to security Americans so greatly fear; and

Hold on now. You are saying that it's Israel's fault that American involvement in the world is mainly military? The U.S. has pursued imperialism since before Israel existed! It has engaged in military adventures all over the world, and especially in Latin America, without any connection to Israel. And furthermore, the main mechanism to advance U.S. hegemony has been financial instruments and meddling in economies, with the IMF, World Bank and multinational corporations serving the place of U.S. troops.

• It ends up threatening American civil liberties by encouraging such legislation as the Patriot Act and by introducing Israeli "counterinsurgency" tactics and weaponry developed in the West Bank and Gaza into American police forces.

Israeli counterinsurgency tactics are being used by the U.S. military overseas (Iraq), not in the United States. Israel has been a follower, not a leader, in crowd control and police tactics. And support for Israel is completely independent of the amount of freedom Americans enjoy. Blaming Israel for the Patriot Act? It seems far-fetched. Is there any proof of that?

For many peoples of the world, the Palestinians represent the plight of the majority. They are the tiny grains of sand resisting what most Americans and privileged people of the West do not see. They are a people who are denied the most fundamental right: to a state of their own, even on the 22% of historic Palestine that Israel has occupied since 1967. For the majority of humanity that lives in economic and political conditions unimaginable in the West, the suffering caused by Israel's occupation - impoverishment and a total denial of freedom that can only be sustained by total American support - is emblematic of their own continued suffering. Israel's oppression of the Palestinians with the active backing of the US shows demonstrably the existence of a global system of Western domination that prevents others from achieving their own dreams of political and economic well-being.

There are polls showing that for Arabs and Muslims, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a potent issue. I am unaware of data showing that what is true for the Middle East is also true for China, India, Nigeria, Brazil, Russia and other places where poor people struggle. There is worldwide sympathy for the Palestinians, but saying so does not equal the assertion that the suffering of Palestinians is emblematic for the majority of humanity.

Like a bone in the throat, the issue of Israel's occupation can be neither ignored nor by-passed. To make things even more difficult, it is doubtful if a two-state solution is still possible, since Israeli settlement activity has largely eliminated that option. Whatever the eventual solution, if this most destabilizing of conflicts is not addressed, the US - even under Obama - will remain mired in conflicts with Muslim peoples and reviled by peoples seeking genuine freedom. Neither the US nor Israel will find the security they claim they seek. We live in a global reality, not a Pax Americana. The logic of the Bush Administration has run its course. No longer can the US throw its weight around in a War Against Terror. No longer can its involvement be purely military. The new logic that will accompany Obama into office can be summarized in one word: accommodation. And the US will not get to first base until it achieves accommodation with the Muslim world, which means ending the Israeli Occupation. What happens to the Palestinians takes on a global significance. Clearing the bone in the throat - that is, ending the Israeli Occupation and allowing the Palestinians a state and a future of their own - should be a top priority of the next American administration. Indeed, America's attempt to restore its standing in the world depends on it. In the global reality in which we live, the fate of Americans and Palestinians, it turns out, are closely intertwined.

Hear hear. Only, instead of trying to persuade with prophecies of what will happen, I'd rely on more balanced arguments. Changing U.S. policy is important even if Palestine is not the epicenter of global instability, even if most Muslim nations can be persuaded to accept the current U.S. - Israel relationship. Halper's arguments showcase a weakness of the pro-Palestinian left, in Israel, North America and around the world. They multiply the facts by their passion, and end up with unsustainable rhetoric. It can rally the base, but doesn't carry over to the other side of the Potomac, where the decisions get made.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the center of the universe. But it's the center of MY universe, and Jeff Halper's as well, and it needs to be addressed with one eye towards peace and one eye towards justice. Not because the world will go up in flames, and not because this situation will impoverish American families. Saying so provides ammunition to those who see the left's centering of global politics on Israel as a way into anti-Semitism (which it sometimes is).

See Halper's article without my interspersed comments here.

I hope it's clear that I respect Halper and his work, even as a quibble with some of his statements.