The West Bank and Sanctions

For decades, the United States and Israel have danced a well-choreographed pas de deux around the subject of the West Bank of the Jordan River.   Whenever a resolution came before the United Nations Security Council sanctioning Israel for planting colonies in these occupied territories, the United States would use its veto to scuttle the resolution.  Then behind the scenes, we would elicit promises to stop, or at least limit, settlement activity.  

The West Bank poses incredibly complex problems for Israel; historical, strategic, philosophical and existential.  They can't annex it without risking their identity as a democratic Jewish state; either Jewish citizens would become a minority of the electorate, or they would have to deny voting privileges based on ethnicity - neither of which is considered compatible with that identity.  There is a consensus among those whose goal is a just peace that there must be some form of a two-state solution, with side-by-side contiguous Israeli and Palestinian nations – divided approximately along the pre-1967 border, but integrating mutually agreed swaps of land.  At the best of times, this has reached a point where the only remaining questions were the details of which tracts go to which state.  This goal is shared not only by the international community, including the United States, but also by significant segments of the Palestinians and Israeli populations, who would be most directly affected.  Neither side’s extremists would get all they want, but in the view of those who seek justice, this is an exchange of ‘land for peace’.  

But there is powerful opposition to this, and always has been.  There are segments of Palestinian society who cannot be reconciled to losing any of their historical homeland – including the internationally-recognized territory of Israel.  And within Israeli society, there are those who dream of a ‘greater Israel’ that incorporates all of the West Bank.  Leaders from this segment of Israeli society have allowed, and in some cases, promoted the planting of colonies throughout the occupied West Bank.  Netanyahu is from this segment of society, and has promoted colonization at an unprecedented rate.  

Each of these colonies (often referred to as settlements) is surrounded by a broad ‘security perimeter’, and they are linked by a network of roads that Palestinians are not allowed to travel, or even cross, except at specified checkpoints.  What the people of this region are left with are isolated islands, with limited movement, within which they are always subject to unexpected, violent intrusion.  The humiliating conditions in these isolated enclaves in the West Bank closely resemble those of apartheid-era South African ‘homelands’.   

There is a virtual news blackout in this country about the conditions of this military occupation – so not surprisingly, there is little sympathy when a Palestinian acts out in defiance.  

Whatever the underlying conflict, it is made more intractable by the continued colonization of the West Bank.  Though Israeli politicians—even those like Netanyahu, who doesn’t mean a word of it—claim to seek a just negotiated settlement, these settlements make that impossible.  Palestinians sometimes use the analogy of two people sitting across a table, deciding how to divide up a pizza, as one of the people keeps grabbing slices and eating them.  It is Netanyahu’s intention to gorge until there is no pizza left to divide

This colonization of the West Bank is also promoted by arms merchants in the US and elsewhere, whose profits would be devastated by an emerging peace in this region.  The symbiotic relationship between them, American right-wing religious leaders, and the expansionist wing of the Israeli body politic forms an implacable barrier to any just settlement of this problem.  As has been evident this week, they respond in outrage even when the United States does not actively stand in the way of international recognition of the obvious problems posed by colonization of these occupied territories.  

Dedication to Cause vs. Tranquility

We live in emotionally and ethically challenging times.  Particularly during political campaigns, it is easy to forget one of the most fundamental realities of human psychology. 

It is impossible to focus on what you hate and what you love at the same time.  Hatred has an addictive effect, which steals one’s attention and focus from those we love. 

We must set aside time to learn, and make informed decisions in order to have a functioning democracy.  But please set aside much of your day … much of your attention to the beauty which surrounds us, those we love, and who love us.    

Verdun

Think of France, and a hundred images flood our minds; excellent wine, delicious food (served in decidedly non-American portion sizes), art, history, the Eiffel Tower, skiing in the alps, and bicycle racing, just to name a few. 

But mention the French Army to an American, and all these images disappear: replaced by a cynical perception of an army that won’t fight, and surrenders at the first opportunity. 

This perception is so widespread that no explanation is needed. It’s just implicit.  Nobody questions it; nobody except for the one group that doesn’t buy into it at all—historians—who know that this bit of slander has no basis in fact.  It’s just one of those caricatures that has been repeated so often over such a long period of time that many people accept it without question.  There is a certain amusement to this caricature, enough so that many people resent being set straight. 

But for those who are willing to revisit this long-held belief with an open mind, we are at an historical crossroad. 

One hundred years ago the French, along with their British and Belgian allies were locked in a bloody stalemate, stuck in trench lines that stretched from the Swiss border to the English Channel.  Time after time, one side would try to advance, only to be repulsed with heavy losses.  Then the German high command came up with a planned offensive so monumentally huge that it would ‘bleed France white’, forcing them to surrender.

The fortress and area around Verdun were not an important strategic target, but held great value in the hearts and minds of the French.  The Germans chose to attack there, simply because they knew the French would spare nothing to defend there.  In that they were absolutely right. 

To get an idea of the scale of the violence of the initial assault, in the first two days of the offensive, The Germans hurled over two million high-explosive artillery shells into a seven-mile stretch of French defenses near Verdun, killing tens of thousands of French soldiers.  Pause for a minute to consider the sound of millions of artillery shells exploding all around you, for days at a time. 

Because of their incredible advantage of men, artillery, and airpower, the Germans were able to advance a few miles in the first few weeks.  But ultimately, they were stopped short of Verdun itself.  The battle continued for ten months, making Verdun the longest single battle in the history of Western Europe. 

In the end the French ‘won’ the Battle of Verdun – by the only standards that mattered in that war of wholesale slaughter fighting over feet and inches.  After their initial losses, the French defenders regained all the ground that had been lost.  But in ten months of fighting, as many French and German soldiers were killed in action in that seven mile battle front as in the Union and Confederacy combined in the entire four years of the American Civil War – even heavy fighting continued elsewhere all along the Western Front.

Verdun was the longest duration battle ever to take place in Western Europe, and, despite terribly lopsided odds against them, the French army prevailed. 

Hardly what one would expect of ‘surrender monkeys’.    

http://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Verdun