The Next War the U.S. Must Wage in the Middle East. By Max Boot and Michael Doran.

Department of Dirty Tricks. By Max Boot and Michael Doran. Foreign Policy, June 28, 2013.

Why the United States needs to sabotage, undermine, and expose its enemies in the Middle East.

McDonald’s Strikes a Blow Against Israel. By Rami G. Khouri.

McDonald’s strikes a blow for legitimacy. By Rami G. Khouri. The Daily Star (Lebanon), June 29, 2013.

Khouri:

The news that the McDonald’s Israel franchise decided not to open a restaurant at a new mall in the Jewish settlement of Ariel, in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank, pales in comparison with the news out of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq these days. Yet the symbolic political significance of this act may impact the region in a substantial and positive manner in the years ahead.

 

My reasoning is based on the following points. First, any just and mutually agreed permanent peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians will have to return all the territories occupied in 1967 to the Palestinians (with mutually agreed land swaps in some cases).

 

Second, this can only be achieved when a majority of Israelis accepts a principle that the entire world has already accepted: that the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are occupied lands that Israel must relinquish, in return for Arab recognition of Israel’s demand for an end of conflict, acceptance of Israel’s legitimacy, and normal relations as peaceful neighbors.

 

Third, Israelis will only arrive at this point when they grasp that their continued acts of colonization will generate new and more effective international responses in the form of boycotts and sanctions.

 

Fourth, this delegitimization of Israeli colonization policies may be critical to heightening global and Israeli appreciation that Israel in its pre-1967 lands has the right to live peacefully within secure and recognized borders if it also recognizes parallel Palestinian rights. However, Israeli colonization in occupied Palestinian and other Arab lands is illegal, will not be tolerated, and will increasingly be fought through all available legal means.

 

Fifth, international business firms that boycott Israeli colonies are an important part of the growing movement to politically pressure Israel to reverse its colonization and annexation measures, and to negotiate a permanent peace accord that includes a sovereign Palestinian state and an agreed resolution of the refugees issue.

 

The realtor who is marketing the retail spaces in the Ariel mall has said that other commercial firms also expressed concerns about operating in occupied lands, presumably because this could subject them to international consumer boycott campaigns that have caused some other international firms to lose business, including Adidas, Veolia and G4S. This slowly expanding international business sector campaign to highlight the illegality of Israel’s colonization endeavor is matched by continuing efforts by some leading churches in the West to divest from investments in companies that are based in or exploit the resources of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

 

Some international artists or academics have also refused to engage with Israelis for the same reason. Such boycotts or divestments are relatively few today, but they are growing steadily, gaining more publicity, and hurting Israel and the Zionist enterprise where it hurts most – in the soft underbelly of their stained legitimacy.

 

This is one of the ways in which the apartheid system of South Africa eventually collapsed under the unbearable weight of its own self-inflicted international isolation. I am convinced that a similar process must unfold with Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories that are increasingly compared to apartheid practices.

 

Israelis and their zealot apologists in the West complain that boycotting Israel is a form of anti-Semitism and seeks to delegitimize the very existence of the state. Both of those are false accusations, and worn-out Zionist intimidation tactics that increasingly fall on deaf ears, because Israel’s blatant disregard for international law and its demeaning mistreatment of the Palestinians under its occupation for almost half a century have become so offensive to both human sensibilities and the rule of law.

Boycotts, divestments and sanctions differentiate sharply between Israel’s right to exist within its pre-1967 borders and its unacceptable actions in the occupied territories. The campaign to boycott and sanction Israeli colonization does not primarily aim to delegitimize Israel, but rather to delegitimize and end the criminality that Israel and Zionism practice in the occupied territories. Other aspects of these campaigns also highlight Israel’s mistreatment and denial of rights of Palestinians who are Israeli citizens within the state’s 1948 borders, and the Palestinian refugees scattered around the world.

 

The courageous decision of the McDonald’s Israel franchise may generate a campaign against the fast food chain’s products around the world by Zionist and pro-Israel groups that have used such pressures in other cases (such as threats to withdraw advertising from National Public Radio stations in the United States for alleged pro-Palestinian broadcasts).

 

It is important in these cases to resist the intellectual terrorism and political intimidation that Zionist groups will use against those who dare to point out that Israeli colonization – like South African apartheid – is an act of international criminality that must cease. That is, if the legitimate state of Israel within its original 1948 borders is to have any chance of living peacefully, and legitimately, with its neighbors, who should enjoy the same rights to secure statehood as Israel demands.

For Israel, Jewish Identity Must Trump Democracy. By Hagai Segal.

Jewish before democratic. By Hagai Segal. Ynet News, June 26, 2013.

Segal:

Our Declaration of Independence includes 650 words. The word “Jewish,” in its different forms, appears 20 times, while the word “democracy” doesn’t even appear once.

 

The people who drafted the declaration and signed it had the highest regard for democratic values, but first and foremost they wanted to stress its Jewish side. Perhaps they said to themselves that there are many democracies in the world, but only one Jewish country. It’s important to protect it.

 

These days it’s even more important. From the outside and from within attempts are being made to undermine the Jewish character of the Jewish state. The dark forces rely on the fatigue of the Zionist material in order to internationalize Israel and declare it a state of all its citizens. They are taking advantage of the fact that over the years the fashion here has changed, and democracy has been emphasized at the expense of Judaism.

 

The Knesset members of the new era have ignored the Declaration of Independence’s list of priorities, and the High Court of Justice has acted as if it were based in The Hague. Sacred Zionist terms like “the Judaization of the Galilee” have turned into bad words. An MK from the Labor Party has expressed her opinion that “Hatikva” is a racist anthem. A ministerial initiative to wave a flag at schools has been presented as a wretched nationalistic idea. For the first time in the history of Israel, a proposal has been submitted to the Knesset to declare the Nakba as a national commemorative date. It would not have been submitted had the “nation state bill” been approved by the previous Knesset.

 

When Netanyahu demands that Abbas recognize us as a Jewish state, the Left says this demand stems from an inferiority complex: Why should we care if Abbas recognizes us or not? After all, it is clear that Israel is a Jewish state.

 

Well, it’s not so clear anymore. It’s time for us to come to our senses and turn the good old list of priorities from 1948 into a law. Israel’s right to define itself as a Jewish state is as important as its right to defend itself militarily. Don’t worry, it will continue to serve as an exemplary democracy, but it will finally start restoring its Jewish interest.

Egypt in Crisis.

Opponents of Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi gather for noon prayers in Tahrir Square, the focal point of Egyptian uprising, in Cairo Sunday, June 30, 2013. Organizers of a mass protest against Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi claimed Saturday that more than 22 million people have signed their petition demanding the Islamist leader step down, asserting that the tally was a reflection of how much the public has turned against his rule. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil).

A Light Fails in Egypt. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, June 29, 2013.

Mead:

Is Egypt’s revolution falling apart? Clashes between anti-government protestors and Muslim Brotherhood supporters turned deadly yesterday, leaving at least three—including an American college student—dead. These clashes come ahead of massive country-wide demonstrations against President Morsi scheduled for Sunday. The NYT reports that on-the-ground forces are even speaking of a civil war:

The use of firearms is becoming more common on all sides. Secular activists who once chanted, “peaceful, peaceful,” now joke darkly about the inevitability of violence: “Peaceful is dead.”

…Egypt’s most respected Muslim cleric warned in a statement this weekend of potential “civil war.”

It’s hard for the American press to wrap its head around what’s happening in Egypt. The Western media instinctively wants to view the conflict as Islamists vs. secularists or liberals, with the future of democracy at stake. The reality is both darker and more complicated, but at best only a handful journalists have the intellectual chops to make sense of this picture, or the writing ability to help American readers understand a reality so different from our own experience here at home.

 

Leslie Chang gets closer than most in this piece in the New Yorker, but the problems are even deeper than the ones she puts her finger on. Based on interviews with leaders in the anti-Morsi movement, Chang correctly points out that Egypt’s opposition is neither particularly coherent nor interested in governing. The looming protests were organized by a movement known as Tamarod, or “rebellion” in Arabic—a movement founded mostly by young Egyptians whose sole goal is to drive Morsi from power.” I have yet to meet a politician with a substantive plan to overhaul a system of food and fuel subsidies that eats up almost one third of the budget, or to reform the education sector, or to stimulate foreign investment.”

 

She continues:

After two years of watching politicians on both sides of the fence squabble and prevaricate and fail to improve their lives, Egyptians appear to be rejecting representative democracy, without having had much of a chance to participate in it. In a country with an increasingly repressive regime and no democratic culture to draw on, protest has become an end in itself—more satisfying than the hard work of governance, organizing, and negotiation. This is politics as emotional catharsis, a way to register rage and frustration without getting involved in the system.

It would be a mistake to attribute the ineffectiveness of Egypt’s opposition to the purely personal failings and intellectual blind spots of the people currently prominent in its ranks. We are looking at something more deeply rooted and harder to fix. An intense rage and dissatisfaction with the status quo without any idea in the world how to make anything better: this is the typical condition of revolutionary movements in countries without a history of effective governance or successful development. It is also often typical of political movements in countries dominated by a youth bulge. The unhappiest countries are the places where this large youth bulge comes up against failed governance and curdled hope. Think Pakistan, where a comprehensive failure of civil and military leadership is turning one of the world’s most beautiful countries into one of its most miserable ones.

 

Inexperienced 18 years olds who have grown up in corrupt, poorly governed societies, and been educated in trashy schools by incompetent hacks know very well that the status quo is unacceptable. Young people who know they are being ripped off and abused are typically not very patient. Throw in healthy doses of sexual frustration and contempt for an establishment that has lost confidence in its own capacity to lead, and you have a cocktail much more explosive than anything Molotov knew.

 

Egypt’s university system is particularly destructive. Year after year it turns out people with paper credentials, high expectations, and no real skills or understanding of how the world works. Those who manage to acquire real skills often go work in the Gulf, where Egyptian expats are able to have something approaching an effective professional career. But many Egyptian secondary school and university graduates end up in the worst of all possible worlds: too well-educated to accept the grinding poverty, soul-crushing drudgery and lack of status that so many jobs there entail, but not well-educated enough to build a better future for themselves or to organize effectively to remedy the ills of a society that creates such a dismal trap for youth.

 

Countries like Egypt a critical mass of people with a vision of how to build a modern society and an ideology through which they can effectively mobilize the majority to support a project which the masses of the people may not fully understand. In much of the developing world in the twentieth century, the critical mass was made up of a small number of people with advanced western education and the ideology was one or another of the varieties of social nationalism that dominated that century in much of the world. Whether communist and totalitarian as in Russia, China or Vietnam, democratic socialist as in India, nationalist and quasi-capitalist as in Ataturk’s Turkish Republic and Peron’s Argentina, or any of the other varieties of twentieth century developmentalist ideology, these big ideas and grand visions mobilized populations for the difficult work of transformation and uplift.

 

A significant source of Egypt’s trouble today is that it has already had one ideological transformation and convulsive moderation under the charismatic leadership of President Nasser. Nasser captured the hearts and minds of the Egyptians as no one else has done, mobilized the entire energy and enthusiasm of the nation for a great project of renewal and development, and failed horribly, utterly and humiliatingly. The shocking 1967 defeat by Israel was the most dramatic sign of the failure to make Egypt a modern and effective country, but signs of Nasserite economic, social and technological failure litter Egypt even today. Egyptians grow up in the rubble of shattered dreams, in a society corrupted and degraded by the long aftermath of disillusion and despair.

Islamism in its various forms is the sole candidate in Egypt for an ideological alternative to the corpse of Nasserist nationalism; it has sold itself to the masses as the once-rejected rival to nationalism whose time has finally come. For decades, often under conditions of persecution and repression, the Muslim Brotherhood and similar movements demonstrated an idealism and a public spirit that the corrupt heirs of Nasser could not match. They operated soup kitchens for the poor; they offered young people patronage and improved educational access. Building on centuries of national tradition and religious aspiration, they developed a comprehensive, all-embracing world view that offered, or appeared to offer, answers to the three great problems of Egypt’s youthful population.

 

First, Islamist economic policy administered by an honest and competent government would address the poverty and lack of opportunity afflicting so many Egyptians. Second, Islamist ideas would help the youth make sense of a chaotic and confusing world filled with disturbing ideas and values. And last but not least, Islamist success would restore dignity to Egyptians as human beings, as Egyptian citizens, as Arabs and as Muslims by overcoming backwardness and making Egypt self-sufficient and free-standing, respected in the world.

 

That was the dream. Morsi’s biggest problem never was, and still is not today, the twittering liberals of early Tahrir; western oriented secular liberalism has a long way to go before it can become a significant ideological force among the masses in Egypt. His greatest ideological opponents are cynicism and despair and he is in such deep trouble today because the collapsing economy and the general paralysis make him look like another snake oil salesmen selling a fake route to progress. What if Islamism like Nasser’s nationalism is a failure in Egypt? What then? What next?

 

Salafis, the ultra-Islamists who think Morsi’s problems stem from his failure to roll out the full glory of Islamist governance, hope that as the Muslim Brotherhood loses its appeal, their harder and purer faith will carry the day. It’s not impossible; the situation in Egypt is fluid and Islam is a powerful force in what remains a pious and serious society. But sooner or later the Salafis will come to the place in the road where Morsi stands; there is little reason to believe that more radical Islamist ideas and practices can heal what’s wrong with Egypt’s economy.

 

So though the Morsi government is losing its ability to govern by hope and by faith, that doesn’t mean it will fall; from an ideological and political standpoint, it has no serious opposition. A lot of people hate the government and blame it for making everything worse, but they cannot agree among themselves on an alternative course.

 

Whatever happens in the demonstrations scheduled for an increasingly tense country, it seems that as ideology and hope weaken, the role of force in Egypt’s government must rise. That means first and foremost the Army; flawed as this institution is, it has no rivals in Egypt. If (when) Islamism fades, force remains.

 

The Army, which loyally served Mubarak until, under the influence of his wife and son, the aging president sought to turn the Egyptian state into the private property of his family, knows that Egypt must have order even if it doesn’t have hope. At the height of his popularity, Morsi hoped to subordinate the Army to the Islamists; it seems clear now that the Army holds the higher cards. The Army is not necessarily opposed to having an Islamist president. It gives people something to talk about, and someone to blame other than the military.  A weak elected president with a dented mandate suits the military pretty well— and in any case many Egyptian officers are quite pious and don’t mind having a civilian government that imposes religious norms.

 

The really scary question in Egypt is whether things have decayed so far that the Army, either directly or indirectly, can no longer maintain order. Are so many Egyptians so angry, so disillusioned and so desperate that they will simply refuse to accept another stitched-up military backed state? If so, Egypt is less likely to explode than to implode: the economy would collapse further, food riots and other forms of violence would break out, minorities would face persecution and pogroms, criminal gangs would emerge. There could well be mass killings and civil chaos— though, despite the cleric’s words, we don’t see Egypt descending into a Syrian style civil war. Egypt lacks Syria’s ethnic and religious diversity; the largest minority group, the Copts, are too interspersed with the rest of the population to fight a civil war and are neither well-armed nor well-organized.

 

This would likely end in the emergence of a strong man who crushed dissent and imposed a new government, however harsh. Egypt has more than 5,000 years of continuous civilization and governance, and as a people, Egyptians have repeatedly chosen the dangers of strong government over the dangers of weakness and division. Tyranny relies on despair; combine fear of anarchy with a lack of faith in a truly bright future, and dictatorship is on its way.

 

Most revolutions fail and leave people worse off than before. The true believers of the Muslim Brotherhood want to keep their dream alive, and we can expect them to fight hard for that. Many ordinary Egyptians may have decided that Islamism is a flop, but the hard core true believers will argue that they haven’t had a chance to put in into practice yet. They will want to crush their opponents, tighten their grip on the state, and follow the Islamist path for many more miles before the true believers are ready to give up. They may well prevail in this next round of demonstrations and confrontations, but time is not on the Islamists’ side. Yet again, cynicism is winning its war against hope in Egypt, and yet again the Army is standing in the wings.

 

Nobody knows what will happen in Egypt this week, and the Muslim Brotherhood could lose the battle for public opinion but gain the power for control of the state. Sometimes revolutionary movements prevail even though they fail to satisfy the hopes that brought them to power. Revolutionaries often turn out to be failures at utopia-building, but very good at building police states.

 

That could be happening in Egypt this summer; we shall see. But the hopeful phase of the Egyptian Revolution has come to a close. It looks more and more as if the Muslim Brotherhood must either become a much harsher movement in a much bleaker world, or it must learn to watch power slip from its hands.


Egypt’s Petition Rebellion. By Leslie T. Chang. The New Yorker, June 28, 2013.

Egypt: Protesters Gather Nationwide To Demand Morsi’s Ouster. By Hamza Hendawi. AP. The Huffington Post, June 30, 2013.

Andrew Pochter, RIP. By Walter Russell Mead, Bryn Stole, and Jeremy Stern. Via Meadia, June 30, 2013.

American killed in Egypt, US warns against travel there. FoxNews.com, June 29, 2013.

U.S. Student Killed in Egypt Protest Was Drawn to a Region in Upheaval. By Ravi Somaiya and Erin Banco. New York Times, June 29, 2013.

For Egypt’s Liberals, Noise Doesn’t Equal Power. By Fouad Ajami. Real Clear Politics, June 28, 2013.

Ajami:

The Brotherhood’s stock in trade was conspiracy and a willingness to dodge mighty storms. It had waited out the protests of Tahrir Square. Those 18 magical days in 2011 that captivated outsiders and gave back Egyptians a measure of political efficacy and dignity were the work of secular liberals, Christian Copts, young men and those daring women who defied custom and tradition to come out in the public square.

 

Yet the Brotherhood had more than eight decades of political experience behind it. The military dictatorship had atomized the feeble liberals, leaving them unprepared for the contest over the new order. Like liberals elsewhere in hard, illiberal places, they were sure they embodied their country’s spirit.

 

They were trounced by the Brotherhood and the hardline Salafis in the first parliamentary elections; the judiciary, a bastion of the old order, stepped in and dissolved the parliament. The democrats didn’t own up to the truth: While Egypt has a sophisticated intellectual elite, a modernist camp, and Europe isn’t too far away, it is a poor country with a high illiteracy rate and a population that the Mubarak dictatorship had been content to leave to darkness and the rule of superstition.

 

In the best of worlds, the Brotherhood would have been willing to tread carefully and to acknowledge the narrow mandate it had secured with Mursi’s election. But a paranoid movement that ached for power wouldn’t show restraint. The Brotherhood lived by a majoritarian logic. Mursi was its frontman. It had a political bureau and a supreme guide.


Egypt Braces For a Fight. By Mike Giglio. The Daily Beast, June 28, 2013.

Be inclusive, Morsi, or you may face a second Egyptian revolution. By David A. Super. The Christian Science Monitor, June 28, 2013.

Will it take a second revolution to complete Egypt’s democratic transition? Anti-government protesters plan to turn out in massive numbers Sunday. President Mohamed Morsi should heed cries for more inclusiveness. Otherwise, he may find himself toppled like Mubarak.

The Egyptian State Unravels. By Mara Revkin. Foreign Affairs, June 27, 2013.

Gangs and vigilantes thrive under Morsi.

Mohamed Morsi has turned his back on Egypt’s revolution. By Sara Khorshid. The Guardian, June 27, 2013.

The president is failing to deliver on his promises, and Egyptians are growing angry with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Is a Second Revolution Really What Egypt Needs? By Shadi Hamid. The Atlantic, June 27, 2013.

President Morsi suffers from a “legitimacy deficit,” but will opposition groups gain anything from trying to oust him on Sunday?

In Egypt, Skepticism Over Religion in Politics. By Maggie Michael. Associated Press, June 27, 2013.

Egyptian Politics: Beyond the Brotherhood. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, June 26, 2013.

“You Can’t Eat Sharia.” By Mohammed ElBaradei. Foreign Policy, July/August 2013.

Egypt is on the brink – not of something better than the old Mubarak dictatorship, but of something even worse.

Egyptians must not let their country descend into chaos. By Wadah Khanfar. The Guardian, June 25, 2013.

President Morsi has made mistakes – but Egypt’s opposition, by aligning with former regime members, is sidelining democracy.

Egypt Will Erupt Again on June 30. By Eric Trager. The New Republic, June 24, 2013.

Egypt’s youth are still clinging to the 2011 revolution. By Andrew Doran. Jerusalem Post, June 22, 2013.

Palestinians: “No Jews Allowed!” By Khaled Abu Toameh.

Palestinians: “No Jews Allowed!” By Khaled Abu Toameh. Gatestone Institute, June 25, 2013.

Why She Drinks: Women and Alcohol Abuse. By Gabrielle Glaser.

Why She Drinks: Women and Alcohol Abuse. By Gabrielle Glaser. Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2013.

Motherhood Drives Well-Educated White Women to Drink White Wine. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, June 28, 2013.

Why Are So Many College Graduates Driving Taxis? By Peter Orszag,

Why Are So Many College Graduates Driving Taxis? By Peter Orszag. Bloomberg, June 25, 2013.

Winds of Economic Change Blow Away College Degree. By Peter Orszag. Bloomberg, November 8, 2011.

Is the labor market return to higher education finally falling? By Tyler Cowan. Marginal Revolution, June 27, 2013.

Will All Taxi Drivers Soon Have College Degrees? By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, June 28, 2013.

Fixing the Dropout Problem. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, June 28, 2013.

Dropping Out of College, and Paying the Price. By Eduardo Porter. New York Times, June 25, 2013.

Thirteen Facts About Social Mobility and the Role of Education. By Michael Greenstone, Adam Looney, Jeremy Patashnik, and Muxin Yu. The Hamilton Project, June 2013.

The Great Reversal in the Demand for Skill and Cognitive Tasks. By Paul Beaudry, David A. Green, and Ben Sand. NBER, March 2013.

The Frontier in Israeli History. By Moshe Dann.

The frontier in Israeli history. By Moshe Dann. Canada Free Press, June 14, 2013.

Isaiah Nation. By Moshe Dann. Jerusalem Post, June 25, 2013.

Frontier Myths and Their Applications in Israel and America: A Transnational Perspective. By S. Ilan Troen. Israel Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring 2000).

De-Judaizing the Homeland: Academic Politics in Rewriting the History of Palestine. S. Ilan Troen. Israel Affairs, Vol. 13, No. 4 (October 2007).

Israeli Views of the Land of Israel/Palestine. By S. Ilan Troen. Israel Studies, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Summer 2013).

Jewish Settlement in the Land of Israel/Palestine. By. Ilan Troen. Jewish Virtual Library, July 2011.

Palestine, Peoples and Borders in the New Middle East. By Ahmad Samih Khalidi. NJBR, June 3, 2013.

Israel Lives the Joseph Story. By Thomas L. Friedman. NJBR, June 6, 2013.

Israel May Always Be in Conflict. By Shaul Rosenfeld. NJBR, June 28, 2013.


Dann (frontier):

In 1862, at the beginning of the Civil War, Congress passed and president Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which granted unclaimed and uninhabited state land to American “settlers.”

 

This act was meant to encourage pioneer farmers, some of whom referred to their new territory with biblical names, like “Zion.”

 

To a large extent, these pioneers defined America’s national character – “rugged individualism,” boldness and courage and a deep belief in American destiny. The frontier became a symbol of American freedom, independence and ingenuity.

 

Nearly 75 years ago, an American historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, asked a fascinating question that has been the subject of professional debate ever since and that might be relevant for Israel: What was the impact of the frontier on American history? He proposed that the frontier functioned as a sort of socioeconomic safety valve and was a perennial democratizing force in American society. The loss of the frontier (around the turn of the century), he concluded, meant not only the loss of land, but the loss of an ideal – “liberty” and “freedom of opportunity” and a “creative vision of a new order of society.” Settlement of the West was, Turner believed, the essence of the American experience.

The current dilemma over Israel’s borders offers an application of Turner’s thesis. If Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) can be considered Israel’s frontier, what does it represent in terms of a national psyche and what might be the psychosocial effect of its loss? Is Jewish settlement in this territory central to the future of Israel? And are Israeli settlers today doing what their predecessors, the pioneers, did generations ago? Opponents of settlements argue that Israel’s “occupation” of territory which it conquered as a result of the Six Day War in 1967 undermines democratic values, encourages oppression and exploitation and fractures Israeli society.

For Palestinians the expansion of Israel’s frontiers (indeed Israel’s very existence) and the “occupation” are a disaster. The nakba (disaster) which is observed by Arabs inside and outside of Israel refers to the establishment of Israel in 1948; the loss of more territory in 1967 made things worse, they claim.

 

Those who support Jewish settlement present its advantages: a profound historical homecoming, cheap land, abundant resources and critical security issues. The right of Jews to live anywhere in Eretz Yisrael is the essence of the re-establishment of the state; most believe it is embedded in the meaning and purpose of the Jewish people as well. But the issues of settlements and borders did not begin in 1967. Where, then, do Israel’s frontiers lie? And to whom does Judea and Samaria belong?

BEFORE BECOMING a state, Israel’s frontier was marked by purchasing vacant land and swamps for reclamation projects. Palestine was known by Jews as The Yishuv, the settlement, because all of it was just that. Nationbuilding made everyone a pioneer. Settling the land was the essence of Zionism; the frontier was everywhere.

 

Despite Arab gangs attacking whenever and wherever they could, Jews bought land and built settlements.

 

In 1948, the newly established State of Israel was attacked by five Arab countries, led, supported and supplied by England and France. Armistice lines of 1949 never became borders; Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip and Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria – both supported terrorist raids against Israel.

 

Following Israel’s War of Independence the Negev desert became a frontier.

 

David Ben-Gurion envisioned its settlement as critical to the future of the state and to set an example retired to an isolated desert kibbutz, Sde Boker. The harsh conditions of the Negev, however, did not attract the masses, even with the establishment of Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba in 1969. The desert towns around it held on; some even expanded.

 

Beduin villages and towns, on the other hand, flourished.

 

The Galilee also offered many opportunities for settlement, but even today, Jews are barely a majority there. Jews needed cities, hi-tech and industrial parks; Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa were more attractive than the countryside, the desert and farms.

 

The Six Day War in 1967 was a watershed.

 

It opened many possibilities as well as problems, all rooted in the controversy of Israel’s birth. While the War of Independence solidified Israelis around armistice lines, this demarcation was never accepted by any Arab country; the 1967 war created a geographic separation between new settlers and older ones. A connection was always there, the difference was in location.

 

Except for the Sinai and Golan, these areas were accessible to major cities and industries. Rich in natural resources and agricultural potential, they were (except for the Sinai) historically more relevant than most of what had comprised Israel previously.

 

Settlement in the areas acquired after 1967 began largely for ideological reasons, inspired by a renewed vision of Zionism – reclaiming much of what was, throughout history, Eretz Yisrael, the biblical Land of Israel. There were also important economic reasons: cheaper land and housing, farming opportunities and ample water resources.

 

In addition there were critical security considerations – control of the mountain ranges which overlook major Israeli population centers. This new settlement movement had deep spiritual implications for religious as well as secular Jews and had direct economic and strategic advantages.

 

Returning to ancient Jewish sites and rebuilding Jewish towns near archeological ruins named for Shiloh, Beit El, Kiryat Arba/Mamre, Hebron, Sussiya, Gamla and Katzrin and many others, inspired an entire generation. Moving back into Jerusalem’s Old City and building new neighborhoods in the surrounding hills was the realization of a dream for Jews everywhere. It was, in a sense, fulfilling Jewish history.

 

Jews were able to pray freely at the Western Wall for the first time in 2,000 years. Archeological excavations brought thrilling dimensions to Jewish history. The problem was that Israel’s new frontier was not empty. Nearly a million Arabs lived there, mostly in towns, villages and UNRWA-sponsored refugee camps.

 

Israel’s expansion relieved a security problem and created another. Prior to the war in 1967, Israel was vulnerable along its 15-kilometer-wide border between Tel Aviv and Haifa, its northern border with Syria and Lebanon, and the Gaza strip, from which terrorists launched raids. The new borders that followed Israel’s victory in 1967 and the sense of overwhelming military superiority gave Israelis a new level of comfort and expectations. This did not last long.

 

The Yom Kippur War of 1973 shattered Israeli illusions of invincibility.

 

Infused by renewed idealism, practical realities, and a more receptive government, settlement activity increased.

 

But the disappointing outcome of the First Lebanon War (1982) and rampant inflation sparked new fires whipped by winds of internal strife.

 

Expansion also created a security problem. In the late 1980s, violent Arab riots – the intifada – erupted throughout the West Bank, spoiling what most people hoped might become a “new Israel,” and destroying domestic complacency and a spirit of cooperation. The Oslo Agreements in the early 1990s enabled the establishment of a Palestinian Authority (which governed 95 percent of Arabs living in the West Bank) and brought economic prosperity and renewed hopes for peace. But these were dashed as Yasser Arafat and Hamas opened a terrorist war against Israel in 2000.

 

Attacks on Jews traveling to and from their homes in the West Bank became an almost daily occurrence.

 

Israeli shops, hotels, buses and cafes were targeted. Mobile killing squads of Arab terrorists traveled the roads, attacking Jews. The intensity of these attacks increased after the Oslo Agreements, encouraged by what the Arabs perceived as willingness by Israel to abandon the West Bank and halt settlement activity. Terrorist bombings became a regular occurrence, encouraged as part of a holy war (jihad). The idea of a pioneer frontier also deteriorated from within.

 

Israeli society became consumer hungry, a barbecue of Western commercialism wrapped in a pita. Seduced by movies, malls and mass culture Israelis gave in. Becoming part of the modern technological world, a spinoff of American culture, meant there was a price to pay: loss of Jewish and Zionist identity and values.

 

The split in Israeli society between religious and secular communities and those who supported settlements or opposed them deepened. The issue of settlements was an indication of what had been achieved and, as well, where one stood on the political, religious and even the social spectrum.

 

The ideology of Religious Zionism was a threat to the secular elites who controlled the media, and the political/ economic life of the country. Settlers were portrayed negatively and became anathema, the “West Bank,” a burden to left-wing governments. Not only was a PLO state agreed to officially, but those Jews who lived in the territories that would be surrendered would pay the price. Moreover, the issue of Jerusalem, considered by nearly all Jews as a symbol of national unity and purpose, became negotiable.

 

UNILATERAL WITHDRAWAL from the Gaza Strip and the destruction of 21 Jewish communities there (as well as four in Northern Samaria) in the summer of 2005 not only set a precedent – it emboldened Hamas, a terrorist organization, and led to its takeover of the area. For the first time in history, a country controlling an area over which it claimed historic rights was prepared to relinquish it without any rewards or security benefits. Israel’s frontier was suddenly abandoned.

 

“Why then,” some ask, “could not the idea of the frontier in Israel be within its pre-1967 borders? Isn’t there enough land in the Negev and the Galilee? Would it not be better to be satisfied with less if that is the price for peace? Is the fabric of Israeli society being destroyed by suppressing Arab/Palestinian nationalism? Why not agree to a PLO state with Jerusalem as its capital, a complete withdrawal from the Golan Heights and be done with it?” But if settlement was wrong after 1967, what made it right before? What makes a frontier? Frontiers are more than measures of land, or a struggle for space; they are expressions of national identity. As physical boundaries, Turner suggests, frontiers can be translated into selfperceptions and behavior – a state of mind. The erosion of an external frontier erodes the psychological borders of emotional security and well-being.

 

Withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Gaza threatens the legitimacy of all Jewish settlement and sovereignty and – with a terror-based state as a neighbor – leaves Israel even more vulnerable than it was before.

 

Israeli facts of life – the constant, daily struggle against terrorism and threats of annihilation – destroy any sense of security and increase general anxiety. The more vulnerable and unprotected one feels, the less flexible, more irrational and defensive they become. This condition contributes to an Israeli personality that is arrogant, brash, rude and confrontational.

 

Survival of the fittest, in Israel is not simply a way of life, it is a raison d’etre.

 

The threatened loss of more than 150 Jewish communities and relocation of hundreds of thousands of people has exacerbated deep schisms in Israeli society – a kulturkampf. Characterized as “obstacles to peace” by opponents of Jews who live in the “occupied territories,” settlers and their supporters are vilified by the Left and a hostile media. The late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin even went so far as to exclude them from the body politic of Israeli society, although most of the settlers are religious Zionists, the backbone of Israel.

 

If settlement is inherent to Zionism, the notion of a frontier lies at its roots.

 

Abandoning the frontier in Judea and Samaria would certainly diminish the notion of Zionism and would create a chasm, a deep sense of loss and alienation within the Jewish people. It is not coincidental that today Zionism itself is under attack. “Post-Zionists” argue that separating from Israel’s founding ideology might be healthy.

 

Zionism, especially religious Zionism, runs directly counter to supranational (and, of course, Arab) interests because it is, by its very nature (the prophetic Ingathering of Exiles) irrational and subjective – even romantic.

 

That may explain why Jewish settlers are castigated as messianic. Appeals to biblical and prophetic sources are considered irrelevant, at best; at worst, they are a threat to the idea of a multinational, secular, democratic state.

 

The loss of Israel’s frontier and the vilification of Jewish “settlers” bring into question the fundamental premises of Zionism, and in the wake of Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Northern Samaria, a self-induced tragedy. And it’s not over.

 

Although temporarily postponed, the threat to remove hundreds of thousands of Israelis from their homes is constant – insisted upon by most of the international community.

 

The result seems to be a psychic loss of identity (what does it mean to be a Zionist, an Israeli, a Jew?), a sense of national betrayal (reflected in widespread government corruption), hopelessness and despair (a political system without accountability). Withdrawal may result in massive economic disruptions as well as physical and psychological dislocation. On a practical level, withdrawal would mean the loss of critical water sources and strategic position, threatening Israel’s existence.

 

Turner’s insight was not his description of what the frontier actually was, or how it functioned, but the image that it served in nation-building. The loss of a major part of what now constitutes Israel, and the creation of a hostile state in that area, as well as the Second Lebanon War, drive the debate over Israel’s frontiers into a head-on collision with the threat of extinction.

 

Jews who have settled in Judea and Samaria and their supporters argue that the essence of Israel is the right of Jews to live anywhere in Eretz Yisrael.

 

Their opponents assert that this policy will undermine the state and lead to its demise. The crucial debate is not over territory, but about nationality, the nature of Israeli society itself.

 

WHAT MUST emerge from this struggle is not simply a new set of borders, no matter what they are, but a new concept of Zionism and of the State of Israel. Ultimately, the question is not whether Israelis can face the Arabs, but whether they can face themselves.

 

Frontiers, by nature, offer challenges and demand conquest. They are, by definition, to be discovered, explored, and tamed. But as we learn from the story in the Book of Numbers, when scouts came back from searching the Land of Israel, they reported that conquering was impossible for it was a land that appeared to be full of giants.

 

“Moreover the land eats up its inhabitants . . .

 

We were in our own eyes as grasshoppers, and so we were in theirs.” In despair, they lost their perspective and vision.

 

The internal debate over Israeli borders reflects a self-perception: are Jews the legitimate inhabitants of the Land of Israel, responsible for its use and maintenance, or illegitimate occupiers? The return of the Jewish people to Eretz Yisrael after 2,000 years of exile and in the shadow of the Holocaust is not about land, but meaning and purpose; it offers the opportunity to fulfill a Divine mission.

 

The concept of the frontier, in Jewish terms, is not merely economic, political or geographical. It is essentially a vision that has been at the core of Jewish existence since the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob 4,000 years ago. Conquering Eretz Yisrael was a historic and theological definition of the Jewish People’s mission – building a Torah-based society. Creating a political, economic and social structure in which the ideals and values of Judaism are realized, is what real Zionism is all about.

Why Black People Understand Rachel Jeantel. By Christina Coleman.

Rachel Jeantel, the witness that was on the phone with Trayvon Martin just before he died, gives her testimony to the prosecution during George Zimmerman’s trial in Seminole circuit court in Sanford, Fla. Wednesday, June 26, 2013. Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder for the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin.(AP Photo/Orlando Sentinel, Jacob Langston, Pool) (Credit: AP).

Why Black People Understand Rachel Jeantel. By Christina Coleman. Global Grind, June 27, 2013.

What White People Don’t Understand About Rachel Jeantel. By Rachel Samara. Global Grind, June 26, 2013.

Why Crackers don’t understand Rachel Jeantel. By Albert N. Milliron. Politisite, June 28, 2013.

Defenders of Rachel Jeantel Channel John C. Calhoun. By J. Christian Adams. PJ Media, June 28, 2013.

Rachel Jeantel Portrayed as Victim of Bullying by Zimmerman’s Defense. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, June 28, 2013.

Institutional racism against Rachel Jeantel. C.R. Gucci Little Piggy, June 27, 2013.

Rachel Jeantel Explained, Linguistically. By John McWhorter. Time, June 28, 2013.

Dark-skinned and plus-sized: The real Rachel Jeantel story. By Brittney Cooper. Salon, June 28, 2013.

The smearing of Rachel Jeantel. By Mary Elizabeth Williams. Salon, June 27, 2013.

Racial tension and the Trayvon Martin trial. By Laura Ingraham. Video. The O’Reilly Factor. Fox News, June 28, 2013.

Cracker (pejorative). Wikipedia.

Florida Crackers. Cracker Country.

The Crackers of Georgia. By Delma E. Presley. The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Summer 1976).

The Florida Cracker Before the Civil War as Seen Through Travelers’ Accounts. By James M. Denham. The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 72, No. 4 (April 1994).

Israel May Always Be in Conflict. By Shaul Rosenfeld.

Time to Face Reality. By Shaul Rosenfeld. Ynet News, June 26, 2013.

Rosenfeld:

State of Israel must come to terms with the fact that conflict with Arabs may be irresolvable.

 

Even if [Naftali] Bennett’s “shrapnel in the rear end” analogy was a bit below the belt, the spirit of his words was right, and it’s a shame that the option of a non-solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has never really been placed on the table of public discussion.

 

When the risk involved in the establishment of a Palestinian state is significantly greater than the chance for true peace, and when the price Israel would have to pay is unbearable – particularly when the Palestinian partner has never proven it is really willing to accept a Jewish state even within the 1967 borders – it is safe to say that what Bennett meant was that the conflict, in its current state, is irresolvable.

 

At the heart of the majority of the public’s political viewpoint lies the belief that the Israeli-Arab conflict can be resolved, and even if untying this Gordian knot is difficult and complex, it is not impossible. Bennett is the only key political figure – from the Left or Right – to ever raise the possibility of not resolving the conflict as a viable option.

 

There is nothing wrong with wishing for something, so long as these hopes do not become an alternative for understanding the reality. Those who say “there is a solution to every problem, you just have to really want to find it” and “we cannot live by the sword forever” are putting their wishes ahead of a proper examination of the reality and all the options it offers.

 

The world has given us many problems – in physics, math, philosophy and biology – which cannot be solved. And what is true for science is just as true for political conflicts. Some conflicts lasted hundreds of years, others ended when one or both of the sides disappeared; there were empires which collapsed, just as there were countries and nations that are mere footnotes in the pages of history. It is safe to assume that most of those who were involved in these conflicts believed wholeheartedly that there was a solution to their problems and suffering.

 

As far as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is concerned, most of the concessions we are willing to make are far less than the minimum the other side would be willing to accept, even as part of an interim agreement (as is stated in the “doctrine of phases” from 1974). The Arab world still views Israel as a foreign element, a thorn (or piece of shrapnel) in the rear end of the region, which they consider to be Arab-Islamic or Palestinian in essence (“All of Palestine, from the river to the sea, is occupied” – Jibril Rajoub).

 

The Arab world’s relative and temporary acceptance of Israel stems from its doubts regarding the possibility of getting rid of Israel, as well as from the Jewish state’s close relations with Washington and the monetary benefits some Arab countries receive from the US. But most of the historic, cultural, religious and ethnic material that feeds the Arab ethos with regards to Israel does not indicate a true acceptance of the Jewish in state in the region. The opposite is true.

 

All we can do is manage the conflict rationally and refrain from falling into traps such as the Oslo Accords and the Arab peace initiative. We must carefully try to solve that which is solvable and accept that which is unsolvable while seeking creative interim solutions. Just as people live with chronic diseases for their entire lives, there is no reason we should not be able to exist for many years with the chronic Mideast conflict, although statements such as those made by Olmert (“If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, the State of Israel is finished”) and Lapid (“The Palestinians must have their own country”) do not help the cause.

Why American Jews Matter. By Roger Cohen.

Why American Jews Matter. By Roger Cohen. New York Times, June 20, 2013.