Regionalize the Conflict

Guest post by Ben Murane

Naomi Chazan, a leading Israeli peacenik and former Meretz MK, made an American tour recently to bolster support among American Jews for progressive causes in Israel. (She's presently President of the New Israel Fund.)

Fiery, witty and on the offensive, Chazan leapt immediately into the speculation about Bibi, Obama and a two state solution and made strict recommendations to Americans: regionalize the solution to the conflict.

Stupidity, she said, is repeating a failure while expecting different results. The Olso process failed and to simply hope that Israel and Palestine can be sweet talked back to the table may have worked eight years ago. But now with Iran influencing Hamas and Hezbollah, the conflict at home is tangled in wider problems. Obama, she says, has done the intelligent thing in dealing with Iran, Syria and the Palestinians together with Israel.

The hypocrisy of Israel's nuclear program existing unacknowledged alongside the battle against Iranian nuclear proliferation stings in the Arab world. Iran's funding of Hamas -- more hardline than the average Palestinian -- by outsiders scuttles diplomacy. Syria's complicity with Hezbollah (also aided by fundamentalists further afield than Lebanon) is the same. The interwoven influences demand addressing all of it or none of it.

It is also no longer reasonable to expect that Israel and Palestine will reach an amiable final status agreement. Not with Bibi Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman at the Israeli helm. Not with a neutered Abbas and recalcitrant Hamas divided on the Palestinian side. It may be time, Chazan suggested, for a serious non-military intervention by the international community. Meaning, America and the Quartet should force a settlement agreeable to both populaces upon their politicians. The is even a silver lining for politicians answering to outraged hardliners: "Hey, it's not my fault," they can claim, "the Americans made me do it!"

Furthermore, she said that such an imposed agreement (she didn't like that word and preferred -- "non-military diplomatic intervention") would necessarily be two states for two peoples. "I don't care what is said by otherwise very smart people in the pages of the New York Review of Books," she said with a smirk. "I am a real person, my country is real. The alternative to a two state solution is not a one state solution, it's more of what we have now, wars on the backs of civilians."

That said, she demanded an answer of American Jews: "You voted Obama by 78%...It's as if there's a total disconnect between the liberal values of American Jews and their attitude to Israel...Israel's existence is totally dependent on Israel's soul. An end to the discomfort." An end to the occupation of another people.

We need more progressive voices like Naomi Chazan. But we need there here, home grown in the U.S. of A. Be one.

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