There's been some dispute on an email list a belong to about this, but here New Republic editor in chief Martin Peretz contemplates the possibility that Palestinians should "be given autonomy rather than independence" before deciding that he is "actually not sure that they are ready even for this truncated form of self-determination" and proposes that the King of Jordan just colonize the bits of the West Bank that Israel doesn't feel like taking.
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Jordan Option
22 Jun 2007 09:53 am
Comments (9)
Posted by saifedean | June 22, 2007 11:28 AM:"What amuses me about this pig Peretz is the incredible openness with which he peddles his racism about Palestinians. That the Palestinians can not establish a good government, for him, seems purely down to intrinsic qualities within their genetic make-up."
Seems? Where does he even imply it might have anything to do with their genetic make-up? The plain fact is that there is no partner for peace on the Palestinian side. Perhaps if we gave them more money and some more land a partner would emerge. But probably not. It is not a question of good government - in fact Peretz probably wants an Arab to do what Israel cannot with terrorists - but of governments willing to live in peace with Israel.
Posted by saifedean | June 22, 2007 11:28 AM:"The wall, Israeli occupation, Israeli control of borders and sovereignty everywhere and the destruction of all the infrastructure by the Israeli army seem to be just trivial issues that the Palestinians could've sidestepped easily to achieve a government as efficient as that of Sweden."
Again efficiency is not the problem but I think that a government that did not fire rockets into Israel on a regular basis would be nice. Surely that is a minimal condition for peace? Abu Mazen has not been able to stop them. Hamas does not want to. The fact is your claims are either exaggerated or irrelevant. Others built states living in peace with their neighbors on worse collections of rubble. South Korea for instance.
Posted by saifedean | June 22, 2007 11:28 AM:"Somehow it doesn't strike him that perhaps for the Palestinians to be able to govern their state, they would actually need a state, with all of what that entails."
Such as more rockets raining down on Israel? Oslo called for small steps to build confidence. So far Israel has a moderately poor record of doing this but the Palestinians have done nothing whatsoever. Hamas still cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and calls for the destruction of Israel. I do not sit in Israel but I am not willing to force them to play games with Israeli lives. As long as there is no partner for peace, there is no partner for peace.
The problem the Jordan option poses for progressives is that it is requires them to go beyond bashing Israel and to prioritize the less than utopian solutions for the problem. (And anyone who wants to advocate for utopian solutions in the Middle East should take a look at how well that's working out in Iraq.)
In a perfect world, the Palestinians would have a functional, democratic state living side-by-side in peace with Israel. But that's not a realistic option any time soon.
The question then becomes what is more pressing - ending Israeli occupation or Palestinian statehood. Contrary to the expectation of Oslo, building a Palestinian state requires more than simply Israeli withdrawal and international aid. It is an extraordinarily difficult task, and neither of the primary actors in Palestinian politics, Fatah or Hamas look capable of accomplishing it any time soon.
If an independent Palestinian state is the most important priority, then patience is required - as Israel can not afford to pull back without viable Palestinian institutions to fill the gap. Palestinian failures, which will be inevitable on the security front, will lead to temporary reverals of any Israeli withdrawals.
A Jordanian "trusteeship" or "mandate" to provide security in the 90-95% of the West Bank that will ultimately be ceded certainly thwarts short-term Palestinian national ambitions. Yet it is the only thing that will permit an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in the forseeable future.
A questions that honest progressives need to ask is this following. If they find Jordanian rule of West Bank Palestinians so objectionable, why don't they find Jordanian rule of the Palestinian majority on the East Bank objectionable?
If you were living in Ramallah or Nablus, who would you want patrolling your streets: (a) Israeli soldiers; (b) Fatah-affiliated gangs fighting for turf with Hamas-affiliated gangs or (c) Royal Jordanian police?
No, the problem with the Jordanian option is that no one can think of a reason why the Jordanians would want to do it.
As long as we are playing Master's of the Universe here, how about the option of putting the entire mandate back together and annointing the Hashemite monarchy over all it? No, takers?
mhpine: "In a perfect world, the Palestinians would have a functional, democratic state living side-by-side in peace with Israel."
No. In a perfect world, the Palestinians would have their own land back, and the Israelis would not be stealing it, conquering it, appropriating it, and walling it off. Nor, it hardly needs to be said, would the Palestinians have undergone 75 years of ethnic cleansing.
In a perfect world there would never have been any such thing as slavery. The Hebrews would never have been enslaved in Egypt. There would have been no Exodus, no Torah, no Judaism, no Christianity, no Islam.
Other Bill's right. The Jordanians would have to be absolutely insane to bring even more Palestinians inside their own borders, even provisionally.
In a perfect world the Pawnee would give back all the land they took from the Sioux.
Comments closed July 06, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
What amuses me about this pig Peretz is the incredible openness with which he peddles his racism about Palestinians.
That the Palestinians can not establish a good government, for him, seems purely down to intrinsic qualities within their genetic make-up. The wall, Israeli occupation, Israeli control of borders and sovereignty everywhere and the destruction of all the infrastructure by the Israeli army seem to be just trivial issues that the Palestinians could've sidestepped easily to achieve a government as efficient as that of Sweden.
Somehow it doesn't strike him that perhaps for the Palestinians to be able to govern their state, they would actually need a state, with all of what that entails.
What a twat.
Posted by saifedean | June 22, 2007 11:28 AM