Israel
Why the Palestinian question won’t disappear
By BEN COHEN/JNS.org
It’s been clear for a long time that there is little difference between the character of terrorist attacks in Israel and those in the West more broadly. Trucks ram into crowds—as they did in Nice, Berlin and Jerusalem.
Terrorists blow up or shoot up nightclubs—as they did in Orlando, Tel Aviv and Bali. Knife-wielding Islamists dash into venues from shopping malls to police stations stabbing anyone in reach—as they did in Minnesota, Brussels and, yes, Tel Aviv.
Compared to 15 years ago, there is a much greater empathy with Israel’s existential position these days. European leaders like French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May have shown far greater readiness than even our own President Barack Obama to recognize that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism, that the campaign to boycott Israel is founded upon hatred and that Israel lives in a neighborhood where every day, someone influential somewhere calls for its annihilation.
Sadly, this understanding doesn’t carry over into the workings of diplomacy. The last days of the Obama administration have brought us the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which paves the way for imposing a solution outside the framework of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and the Jan. 15 Paris Mideast conference, at which no less than 72 countries, including the U.S., are pulling up in the French capital to issue a statement so utterly divorced from reality that you can’t help laughing.
Leave aside the obvious objections: that this conference perpetuates the fallacy that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies at the heart of the Middle East troubles, or simply that the spectacle of 72 countries fixating on Israel—when neighboring Syria has been turned into a graveyard—is nauseating.
Look, instead, at the worldview expressed in the conference statement, a draft of which was distributed in advance of the conference. The tools for achieving and sustaining a “two-state solution,” it declared, are “economic incentives, the consolidation of Palestinian state capacities, and civil society dialogue.”
Alright then. Economic incentives: Forget about turning Gaza into a flourishing port city for as long as Hamas is running the place. Ignore the fact that Palestinian Authority (PA) corruption and nepotism have concentrated immense wealth around Ramallah with no trickle to the rest of the West Bank. Disregard the rampant scale of organized crime in the West Bank, as documented by the Palestinian academic Ali Qleibo. Just carry on believing that pumping “economic incentives” will usher in a new era of peace.
Palestinian state capacities—this is an interesting one. It sort of, kind of, hints that we shouldn’t automatically expect a Palestinian state to be like, y’know, Norway, from the get-go. And there are two reasons for that. First, that the PA has been thieving billions of dollars in international aid money from day one of its existence. Second, apart from a few exceptions like Jordan and the areas under Kurdish control, Middle Eastern states—of the Sunni and Shi’a, Arab, Turkish and Persian variety—are little more than dungeons with flags on top of them.
But hey, that’s nothing that a bit of “civil society dialogue” can’t fix, eh? I don’t want to be unfair here, because there have been some wonderful efforts to encourage dialogue between Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel, but for that approach to work, you need to first recognize the humanity in each other. What would actually get discussed at these dialogues, anyway? An Israeli asking a Palestinian, “Why are your preachers calling us sons of apes and pigs again?”
Maybe none of this matters anymore. Maybe Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is right when he says that the Paris conference is the “final gasp” of a failed strategy. He has good reason, after all, to believe that, especially having heard the condemnation of Resolution 2334 from Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson.
Yet while the change of administration in Washington may strengthen Israel’s diplomatic position for the immediate period, and while the Palestinians will have to get to the back of the line in terms of international priorities, the Palestinian question itself will not disappear. In many ways, it will find its status enhanced.
To begin with, there’s the public domain. And this brings us to something that the Europeans have never understood: The historic Palestinian strategy has never been about achieving statehood, but about preventing a negotiated solution in order to perpetuate the image of the Palestinians as the people to whom history has dealt the cruelest blow. It’s why the Palestinians make deliberately unrealistic demands, like the “right of return”—a goal the Palestine Liberation Organization originally pledged to achieve through violence—and suing the United Kingdom for the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
In terms of building up public support around the world, it’s a strategy that has worked. Hence, we can assume that if President-elect Donald Trump does a 180-degree turn on President Obama’s approach to the Israelis, the narrative of the Palestinians—ignored by America, facing 50 years of “occupation” under Israel—will become emblematic of public resistance to the foreign policies of the Trump administration. In the American context, the Democratic Party is now the most significant barometer of that process.
The Palestinians can also play power politics. They can carry on with their campaign to achieve membership in international bodies as an independent state. They can curry favor with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the next stage of his conflict with the West. And they can insert themselves into domestic issues—rising anti-Semitism, the political culture on university campuses, the legality of boycotts—in a way that few other foreign policy issues can do.
As I said, Netanyahu may well be right about the last gasp of Obama’s strategy to secure Palestinian independence. But none of us should believe that these battles are over.
Ben Cohen, senior editor of TheTower.org & The Tower Magazine, writes a weekly column for JNS.org on Jewish affairs and Middle Eastern politics. His writings have been published in Commentary, the New York Post, Haaretz, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. He is the author of “Some of My Best Friends: A Journey Through Twenty-First Century Antisemitism” (Edition Critic, 2014).
Israel
Join the Masa Canadian Professionals Volunteers Program!
You are invited on a 4-week volunteer program in Israel from October 14th to November 10th. Help rebuild Israeli society post-October 7th over Canadian Thanksgiving, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah. Spend three weeks based in Tel Aviv and one week based in Eilat!
This program is exclusively for Jewish professionals aged 22-50, working at Jewish organizations or remotely in any field.
The cost of the program is $150 USD to the organizer and $50 USD to Masa. Participants will receive a Masa grant of $2650 USD that is applied to participation and to cover additional costs. The cost of the program includes housing, meals while volunteering, transportation on travel days, health insurance, leadership training, and more. Volunteers are required to commit to the volunteer schedule, with the understanding that there will be the flexibility to work remotely for 8 specific days during the program. Flights are not included but you get a 15% discount from El Al.
Sign up here: https://www.masaisrael.org/go/canada-jp/ space is limited!
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to make a difference and connect with fellow professionals. For more information, contact Mahla Finkleman, National Manager of Partnerships and Outreach, Masa Canada, atmfinkleman@ujafed.org and/or Sam Goodman, Senior Manager of Israel Engagement, sgoodman@ujafed.org.
Save the Dates for Info Sessions:
- Thursday, September 5th, 12:00 – 12:30 EST
- Wednesday, September 11th, 12:00 – 12:30 EST
Join us in Israel for a meaningful and impactful experience with Masa!
weeks based in Tel Aviv and one week based in Eilat!
This program is exclusively for Jewish professionals aged 22-50, working at Jewish organizations or remotely in any field.
The cost of the program is $150 USD to the organizer and $50 USD to Masa. Participants will receive a Masa grant of $2650 USD that is applied to participation and to cover additional costs. The cost of the program includes housing, meals while volunteering, transportation on travel days, health insurance, leadership training, and more. Volunteers are required to commit to the volunteer schedule, with the understanding that there will be the flexibility to work remotely for 8 specific days during the program. Flights are not included but you get a 15% discount from El Al.
Sign up here: https://www.masaisrael.org/go/canada-jp/ space is limited!
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to make a difference and connect with fellow professionals. For more information, contact Mahla Finkleman, National Manager of Partnerships and Outreach, Masa Canada, atmfinkleman@ujafed.org and/or Sam Goodman, Senior Manager of Israel Engagement, sgoodman@ujafed.org.
Save the Dates for Info Sessions:
- Thursday, September 5th, 12:00 – 12:30 EST
- Wednesday, September 11th, 12:00 – 12:30 EST
Join us in Israel for a meaningful and impactful experience with Masa!
Features
New website for Israelis interested in moving to Canada
By BERNIE BELLAN (May 21, 2024) A new website, titled “Orvrim to Canada” (https://www.ovrimtocanada.com/ovrim-en) has been receiving hundreds of thousands of visits, according to Michal Harel, operator of the website.
In an email sent to jewishpostandnews.ca Michal explained the reasons for her having started the website:
“In response to the October 7th events, a group of friends and I, all Israeli-Canadian immigrants, came together to launch a new website supporting Israelis relocating to Canada. “Our website, https://www.ovrimtocanada.com/, offers a comprehensive platform featuring:
- Step-by-step guides for starting the immigration process
- Settlement support and guidance
- Community connections and networking opportunities
- Business relocation assistance and expert advice
- Personal blog sharing immigrants’ experiences and insights
“With over 200,000 visitors and media coverage from prominent Israeli TV channels and newspapers, our website has already made a significant impact in many lives.”
A quick look at the website shows that it contains a wealth of information, almost all in Hebrew, but with an English version that gives an overview of what the website is all about.
The English version also contains a link to a Jerusalem Post story, published this past February, titled “Tired of war? Canada grants multi-year visas to Israelis” (https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-787914#google_vignette) That story not only explains the requirements involved for anyone interested in moving to Canada from Israel, it gives a detailed breakdown of the costs one should expect to encounter.
(Updated May 28)
We contacted Ms. Harel to ask whether she’s aware whether there has been an increase in the number of Israelis deciding to emigrate from Israel since October 7. (We want to make clear that we’re not advocating for Israelis to emigrate; we’re simply wanting to learn more about emigration figures – and whether there has been a change in the number of Israelis wanting to leave the country.)
Ms. Harel referred us to a website titled “Globes”: https://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=1001471862
The website is in Hebrew, but we were able to translate it into English. There is a graph on the website showing both numbers of immigrants to Israel and emigrants.
The graph shows a fairly steady rate of emigration from 2015-2022, hovering in the 40,000 range, then in 2023 there’s a sudden increase in the number of emigrants to 60,000.
According to the website, the increase in emigrants is due more to a change in the methodology that Israel has been using to count immigrants and emigrants than it is to any sudden upsurge in emigration. (Apparently individuals who had formerly been living in Israel but who may have returned to Israel just once a year were being counted as having immigrated back to Israel. Now that they are no longer being counted as immigrants and instead are being treated as emigrants, the numbers have shifted radically.)
Yet, the website adds this warning: “The figures do not take into account the effects of the war, since it is still not possible to identify those who chose to emigrate following it. It is also difficult to estimate what Yalad Yom will produce – on the one hand, anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews and Israelis around the world reminds everyone where the Jewish home is. On the other hand, the bitter truth we discovered in October is that it was precisely in Israel, the safe fortress of the Jewish people, that a massacre took place reminding us of the horrors of the Holocaust. And if that’s not enough, the explosive social atmosphere and the difference in the state budget deficit, which will inevitably lead to a heavy burden of taxes and a reduction in public services, may convince Zionist Israelis that they don’t belong here.”
Thus, as much as many of us would be disappointed to learn that there is now an upsurge in Israelis wanting to move out of the country, once reliable figures begin to be produced for 2024, we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that is the case – which helps to explain the tremendous popularity of Ms. Harel’s website.
Features
Message from a Palestinian in Gaza to protesters: “You’re hurting the Palestinian cause”
A very brave Palestinian who was willing to put his name to paper and write an article for Newsweek Magazine has exposed the utter hypocrisy of all those students – and others, who have been setting up encampments across the U.S. – and now Canada, too.
You can read the article at https://www.newsweek.com/message-gazan-campus-protesters-youre-hurting-palestinian-cause-opinion-1894313
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