Should Israelis and Diaspora Jews who believe that the
occupation and the settlements are a barrier to peace lobby for US and European
pressure on Israel?
When Obama announced his coming visit to Israel, many had
hoped for some progress to be made on the peace agreement front. Such progress
cannot be achieved without serious pressure on a government that wishes to hold
on to and continue settling the West Bank. Some Israelis had put their hopes on
Obama – who reportedly neither particularly likes nor trusts Netanyahu – to impose
his will. He should, after all, have quite some leverage.
“When I was in Hebron, I was sure no one knew what was going
on there. If the mothers knew what their children are doing – so I thought – we’d
leave Hebron immediately. But I discovered that wasn’t how it was, because a
lot of people don’t think that way. A lot of people, when you tell it to their
faces, they just don’t give a shit. … I think international pressure is good. I’m
happy about any kind of international pressure. If we are not capable of making
the change, then let them lay on the pressure, let Obama lay on the pressure,
let all the countries lay on the pressure. Let soldiers who go through stuff
talk about it, expose it to Israelis and to the world. Unfortunately it’s of
more interest to the world than to Israelis.”
These words of 22-year-old Roee, just out of the army, which
appear as monologues together with voices of other young Israelis in A Land to Die For? *, seem not to have
reached President Obama. Unless the White House is running a successful
disinformation campaign and if we are to believe what various analysts and
journalists are telling us, President Obama is coming to Israel without serious
intention to sort out the current standstill in the Middle East.
Sentiments such as Roee’s and hopes in the Israeli left that
Israel could be “saved” from itself through external pressure are not something
new. Often, such voices are criticised by the right wing that sometimes even considers
the call for external pressure to be tantamount to treason. Indeed, this has habitually
also been the attitude of Diaspora Jews: It does not matter what you think and
say at home – you should not
criticise Israel or it’s government in public.
Yet, if holding on to the Occupied Territories is in fact
bad for Israel – a view that has recently been made quite clear in the Oscar
nominated documentary, The Gatekeepers,
and which is shared by many senior members and former members of the Israeli
security establishment – then those Diaspora Jews who attempt to stifle any
criticism of Israel may have instead of helping Israel actually harmed her.
An amazingly effective AIPAC, a generally strong pro-Israel
public opinion in the United States together with the decline in the power of
Arab oil means that those who have been hoping for Obama to put real pressure
on Israel are likely to be disappointed. Will Europe deliver where the US is
failing? It does not have the same leverage over Israel as Israel’s main
financial, military and political supporter, the USA. Yet, public opinion in
many European countries has in the last years turned anti-Israel. At some point
European governments may decide to take notice of what their voters are saying.
Europe may yet save Israel from the extreme right road it has been taking for too
many years.
Diaspora Jews should ask themselves whether they should
continue to automatically toe the Israeli government line rather than listen to
what others such as Roee and some of his friends are saying. Pressuring Israel
back to sanity may be the most pro-Israel act Jews in the Diaspora could
undertake.
* David
Ranan, “A Land to Die For? Soldier Talk and Moral Considerations of Young
Israelis”, Theo Press, 2013.
