Times of India Tide of global opinion turning against Israel Minhaz Merchant, July 11, 2010, 01.01am IST Is Israel's long-term security as a nation under threat? That was not a question many asked seriously 10 years ago. But today, thoughtful observers of West Asian politics, including friends of Israel, are asking the question and coming up with a one-word answer that was, till recently, unthinkable: perhaps. Israel has clearly overreached itself in recent months under the pugnacious leadership of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who took office in March 2009 (he was earlier prime minister between 1996 and 1999). In January 2010, an Israeli assassination squad murdered Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai, leading to international condemnation. More recently, Israeli navy seal commandos killed nine protesters aboard a peace ship flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Movement. For more than three years, 1.5 million Palestinians have been living under siege in Gaza, a narrow strip controlled by the Islamist party Hamas and blockaded by Israel, subsisting on food, water and medicines allowed in by Israeli troops and smuggled from Egypt through a maze of underground tunnels. There are three principal actors in this human tragedy. First, the United States for its support of any Israeli action, however excessive, in West Asia. Second, Israel for its uncompromising position on Gaza and the West Bank. Third, the broader Arab leadership, largely impotent since the creation of Israel in May 1948. The trade-off is cynical and simple. American military power protects Arab governments from democratic movements in their own countries in return for acceptance of US policy in West Asia. Arab leaders make periodic statements of protest against Israel through the Arab League. But the clear understanding between the US and nearly a dozen Arab countries (including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Jordan) is that America's policy writ in West Asia will not be challenged. Though President Barack Obama has attempted to moderate this policy, it remains an article of faith on Capitol Hill. The Obama administration's balanced approach has, however, restored US goodwill among moderate Palestinians. The Palestinians are the original inhabitants of the territory which today comprises Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. They were historically known as the Peleshets or Philistines, an Assyrian-Phoenician people who lived in the land since 3,000 BC. Herodotus, the Greek historian, first used the term Palestini around 500 BC. [ This is inaccurate. The Philistines --from various Greek islands-- did not arrive in "Palestine" until ca 1200 BC. The original inhabitants of the land were an unidentified Chalcolithic people who have left a good number of archaeological remains that date back as far as ca 8000 BC. The Canaanites may or may not have been their direct descendants but were clearly on the scene no latter than ca 3500 BC and possibly much earlier. The Hebrews arrived at some date, possibly ca 2300 BC but no later than ca 1900 BC, which seems to me to be very unlikely since the earlier time has much stronger historical reasons. Why the writer of this article botched the story here is anyone's guess, but otherwise the material has real value. -- BR ] Palestine was under Ottoman rule till just before the end of World War I. Between 1917 and 1948, it was administered under a British mandate. During this period, the population of Jews in Palestine rose six-fold from less than 100,000, mainly because of the migration of persecuted Jews from Eastern Europe. The massacre of more than six million Jews by Nazi Germany in World War II gave powerful Jewish leaders in Britain and the US a window of opportunity. Public opinion worldwide, outraged by Nazi atrocities during the Holocaust, favoured the immediate establishment of a Jewish state made up largely of European Jews and predicated on biblical prophecies of a Jewish homeland. Had the creation of Israel under UN resolution 181, adopted on November 29, 1947, been delayed by even a year, the moment would have passed. Palestine as a separate nation has a solid legal — and civilizational — foundation. In 1917, Article 7 of the League of Nations mandate stated that a new, separate Palestinian nationality be established. Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations gave international legal status to Palestinian people and territories earlier administered by the Ottoman Empire. How will the modern Palestinian tragedy play out? Israel, though a nation of determined and talented people whose centuries-long persecution in Europe rightly draws widespread sympathy, has two crucial weaknesses. The first is demographic. Israel has a low birth rate. Net migration, due to the psychological state of siege it lives under, is also turning negative. Meanwhile, the Palestinian population is exploding. Though confined to narrow strips of land, the number of Palestinians in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank (nearly six million) has already exceeded the total Jewish population in Israel (5.66 million). If this trend continues, Israel's long-term security will be seriously compromised. Israel's second weakness is the shift in global, especially European and US, public opinion against its treatment of Palestinians. The international Free Gaza Movement, now three years old, is gathering pace. European Nobel laureates, American senators and Asian civil society leaders are challenging Israel directly and frequently. But Israel's real worries will begin once a separate Palestinian state is established over the next few years under the two-state solution brokered by the US at the Annapolis Conference in November 2007. Palestinian demographics and cross border fungibles could break down Israel's ring-fenced security, causing even more of its nervous east European-origin Jews to migrate back to their homes in Russia, Poland and elsewhere. The inevitability of long-term reverse migration is what really haunts the Israeli political leadership. The result of reverse migration could be a creeping, backdoor takeover by neighboring Palestinians of much of the territory they lost when Israel was created. It is this very real fear that drives Israel's policy on Palestine. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
