This morning it came, quite accidentally but also fortuitously, to my attention that the notorious “Campus Watch” website, overseen by Daniel Pipes, responded to the Ibishblog posting from June 29 entitled, “The Massad tenure case: time for the campus thought police to close up shop.” Campus Watch shamelessly and preposterously denies that it has any intention of having an effect on the hiring and promotion of faculty involved in Middle East studies or who express opinions on Middle Eastern related political matters. Anyone who has visited that site is now fighting the urge to disintegrate into peals of hysterical laughter. It’s a little like a lobbying group claiming to have no intention of influencing policy or legislation. What, pray tell, is it there for, then? Why create this index of offenses and offenders, this virtual blacklist, if not precisely to chill speech and, ultimately, to influence not only academic conduct, but academic hiring and promotion as well? The claim is absurd, and they know it.

But an even more blatant lie, on a more specific but more easily testable matter, is also proffered in this exceptionally dishonest response, to wit:
Demonstrating further that Ibish has neglected to do his homework, he makes the following allegation:
“Organizations like Daniel Pipes’ notorious ‘campus watch,’ which had in its initial mission statement an overtly racist complaint about the number of Arab and Middle Eastern professors in Middle East studies departments…”
Campus Watch’s mission statement has never contained any language pertaining to the ethnic background of Middle East studies professors. Ibish is likely referring to an article co-authored by Norvell B. De Atkine and Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes in 1995, long before Campus Watch came into existence, titled, "Middle Eastern Studies: What Went Wrong?" The article examines the benefits and problems associated with the growing number of academics of Middle Eastern origin in the field of Middle East studies, none of them based on racist language or assertions.

In English, we call this a lie. But you need not take my word for it, even though I have this all amply recorded in both my files and my memory. Campus Watch’s initial mission statement is, in fact, readily available through the invaluable “Wayback Machine” which stores images of websites archived by dates. The earliest capture of the Campus Watch site is from October 1, 2002. This incontrovertibly establishes that the initial “about us” section of Campus Watch included the following statement:
Middle East studies in the United States has become the preserve of Middle Eastern Arabs, who have brought their views with them. Membership in the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the main scholarly association, is now 50 percent of Middle Eastern origin.

It is therefore plainly the fact that Campus Watch’s mission statement did indeed contain overtly racist language pertaining to the ethnic background of Middle East studies professors. It cast the presence of “Middle Eastern Arabs” as a problem in Middle East studies, and bemoaned the fact that MESA’s membership “is now 50 percent of Middle Eastern origin.” Campus Watch’s denials are nothing more than blatant lies, which are easily exposed with a simple click of the mouse. It typifies everything about their approach to their work and their engagement with the academic world.

Which brings us back to the question of tenure. True enough their present site, while plainly designed to chill speech and obstruct hirings and promotions, is chockablock with denials that it intends to do any such thing. But just in case anyone had any doubts that this, too, is a blatant lie, a consultation of the October 2002 website will confirm that its “main goals” were then listed as including the intention to, “Identify key faculty who teach and write about contemporary affairs at university Middle East Studies departments in order to analyze and critique the work of these specialists for errors or biases,” and, “Keep the public apprised of course syllabi, memos, debates over appointments and funding, etc.”

In other words, at its inception Campus Watch made no bones about its intention of identifying “key faculty” with which it disagrees and indeed engaging with questions involving funding and appointments. That they have had subsequently to back off from saying so directly, because this was an effort at overt outside interference in academic questions such as hiring and tenure which should obviously be independent of political bullying by fanatics of any variety, including Mr. Pipes and his employees, does nothing to diminish the very obvious fact that they are continuing with the project they began in 2002. In the end, it is all about compiling a McCarthyite or Nixonian enemies list of “key faculty” and poisoning the atmosphere with regard to their potential funding and appointments.

Anyone who cares about academic freedom and integrity should be delighted at the spectacular degree to which this project has failed, and amused by Campus Watch’s efforts to deny what they not only blatantly and shamelessly do, but also what they used to publicly boast was their founding and core intention.

If Netanyahu and the Israelis felt like gloating last night and this morning, that feeling is long gone. President Obama?s speech at the UN General Assembly this morning laid down some very important markers for all parties and committed the United States to a number of principles and positions that are going to make life extremely difficult for any Israeli government that does not wish to cooperate on peace or thinks it is going to get a free ride from this administration. Indeed, in many ways the speech corrected widespread misunderstandings of what happened yesterday in the bilateral and trilateral meetings, and underscored the seriousness of the Obama administration, and the fact that they have neither been deterred nor backed down in any meaningful sense on peace. Most importantly, it greatly strengthens the Palestinian hand in the run-up to permanent status negotiations.

On the major issue that has dominated until now, the settlements, President Obama laid down the following marker: ?we continue to emphasize that America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.? This only underscores what was obvious from what happened yesterday: the United States has kept the settlement issue alive, accepting Israel?s private assurances privately but continuing to insist that settlement activity is not legitimate. This means that (I would argue in marked contrast with what other administrations in the past would undoubtedly have done) Obama has retained the settlement issue as a card to play with Israel in the event of any future crisis. The settlement issue is on hold, but it is by no means off the table, as today?s speech makes crystal clear.

President Obama said today that, ?The goal is clear: two states living side by side in peace and security ? a Jewish State of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people.? This is worth parsing, as he has acknowledged that Israel is a ?Jewish? state, without defining that (and since Israel defines itself, this is pretty well beside the point), but speaks of a Palestinian state that ends the occupation that began in 1967. This anticipates a border conversation that entails less rather than more modifications to the armistice lines of 1949. It is not the kind of rhetoric likely to be pleasing to Mr. Netanyahu, to say nothing of his coalition partners. Even less Israeli-oriented was President Obama?s suggestion that he intends to, ?develop regional initiatives with multilateral participation, alongside bilateral negotiations,? although there might be a way for them to live with that.

But perhaps most pointed were his observations that, ?all of us must say publicly what we would acknowledge in private,? which in the past might have stung Arab eyes more, but at the moment seem very squarely aimed at the Israeli government. That this observation was immediately followed by the point that, ?The United States does Israel no favors when we fail to couple an unwavering commitment to its security with an insistence that Israel respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians,? indicates a strong connection between the two thoughts. Under this President, the United States does not intend to allow the strategic relationship with Israel to contradict the strategic need for peace and Palestinian independence. And, in another passage that might have been written in reference to yesterday no matter when it was actually penned, the President affirmed that, ?even though there will be setbacks, and false starts, and tough days ? I will not waiver in my pursuit of peace.?

In my view, almost everything about the President?s speech today vindicates and reinforces the reading of yesterday?s events I advanced in my posting earlier this morning. It?s become more clear than ever that President Obama is not going to drop this issue or back down in the face of Israeli stonewalling on settlements. He?s not going to be dragged into an endless series of dead ends either.

And, it would strongly appear that he has established a framework for setting up permanent status talks that is much more advantageous to the Palestinian than to the Israeli position, especially in the passage in which he promised ?to re-launch negotiations ? without preconditions ? that address the permanent-status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians; borders, refugees and Jerusalem.?

Explicitly including Jerusalem as one of the core issues to be dealt with in the negotiations President Obama is promising to begin in the near future runs directly counter to Israeli positions on the status of this issue and strongly reinforces the Palestinian view that Jerusalem is a central issue that cannot be set aside or ignored. Perhaps even more than settlements, this issue will be extremely challenging for Netanyahu, especially given the attitudes of some of his coalition partners on the matter, to deal with effectively.

By emphasizing the importance of Jerusalem to the upcoming permanent status negotiations, President Obama has greatly strengthened the Palestinian negotiating position and, in effect, sided with it against the Israeli stance. It?s likely that a lot of people will fail to understand the significance of this gesture, but the Israeli government and its supporters, I can assure you, will not be among them.

Most reactions to the tripartite meeting at the UN yesterday between Pres. Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu and Pres. Abbas were negative, and this is entirely understandable since no one had anything particularly new to say. Reaction in the Arab world was particularly agitated, with many commentators arguing that Obama has "capitulated" to Israel’s position on settlements, and some even throwing up their hands entirely about any possibility of progress under this president. Most Israeli reactions were not particularly more enthusiastic, but Foreign Minister Lieberman did claim vindication for his government’s position in refusing to come to public terms with the United States on a settlement freeze. Most American reactions seem to share the President’s evident frustration with the parties, some sympathetically and some feeling that Obama has been naïve or at least unduly ambitious in his engagement thus far.

It is certainly true that Pres. Obama has been unable to reach a public agreement with the Israeli government on a settlement freeze, but this isn’t necessarily or simply a bad thing. Under the circumstances, it would appear that Netanyahu in practice could not accede to the full scope of American demands that a settlement freeze publicly commit to a longer timeframe and to including all parts of Jerusalem without seriously risking the collapse of his government. His right-wing allies were willing to go along with a settlement freeze limited in time to nine months or so but not one that includes all parts of Jerusalem. Neither the Americans nor the Israelis were prepared to back down, so now, in effect, the Obama administration has decided to move on towards permanent status talks anyway.

One way of reading this is that Obama has backed down, because he is probably not going to be pursuing the issue aggressively in the coming weeks. However, it is equally true that Obama has undoubtedly secured wide-ranging private assurances on settlements from Israel without compromising any of the principles he has laid down. The Israelis may be claiming to have gotten something out of Obama, but in fact Obama has apparently secured significant private assurances from the Israelis without amending his position (the administration never said this was a precondition to permanent status talks) or without pretending that Israel has agreed to something it refuses to agree to.

As in his dealings with the Israelis, Obama has had only partial success with the Arab states. Apparently, some of the smaller Arab states have, like Netanyahu, privately agreed to a partial accommodation of Obama’s position, some reportedly promising a return to the status quo ante sub-recognition diplomatic links involving trade missions and so forth that existed before the second intifada. However, it would seem that new diplomatic overtures from key states such as Saudi Arabia were never going to be forthcoming in connection to a settlement freeze as Obama had been proposing. This reticence, while it might be justifiable on many grounds, has given Netanyahu a certain degree of cover in claiming that he is, at least, not the only party to be only partially agreeing with Pres. Obama’s demands.

What is fascinating is that, having hit a brick wall with his initial proposals, Obama is not, in fact, backing down at all. Rather, he is doubling down on Middle East peace, willing to accept the political price of being defied by both the Israeli government blatantly and the Arab states to a lesser but still significant extent, and is not taking no for an answer. Other administrations would have already accepted the Israeli position as a legitimate and useful one, and congratulated Israel for the 9-12 month settlement freeze, not including buildings already under construction or Jerusalem. Obama has completely refused to do that, but has also not allowed this stonewalling by Netanyahu to torpedo his entire Middle East peace initiative. Instead, he has absorbed the blow, so to speak, and, in effect, called Netanyahu’s bluff by insisting that the parties go forward into permanent status talks anyway. The New York Times today reports that administration officials including the President have assured the Palestinians that these talks will have "clear terms of reference," in other words that the talks will look a lot more like the ones the PLO wants to have been those that Netanyahu will be comfortable with

If Netanyahu was trying to sabotage Obama’s peace initiative at an early stage by refusing to accommodate his demands for a complete and total settlement freeze, then this plan has not been a success, but a failure since the President is insisting the process move forward and pocketing whatever private assurances he has gained from Israel without any public acknowledgment of them. It’s true, and regrettable, that he has not succeeded in achieving his first major goal, but it’s important that President Obama is not letting this deter him from pushing forward, and it’s extremely premature to conclude, as some ideologues on both sides (who don’t want peace talks to succeed anyway) are, that Obama’s initiative has "already failed." The administration might be accused of a miscalculation, but not of a fatal failure.

I think we can be sure that even though there has not been a public accommodation on settlements, there is a private understanding that will mean that beyond what has already been announced (significant though that is), little, if any major, settlement activity will actually be taking place for the next year or two. Moreover, Netanyahu may have been able to stonewall Obama on settlements, but this only intensifies the diplomatic heat he will face going into permanent status talks. And, of course, there is the point of view (which I find extremely plausible) that Netanyahu deeply fears these negotiations because they will demonstrate not only the distance between his position and that of the United States on peace, but also how much closer to the American view the Palestinian one currently is.

The word that is defining the American position repeated by both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in recent days is "determined." They have been carefully sending the message, largely aimed at Netanyahu I think, that they are not going to be stonewalled into giving up on Middle East peace if that is his or anybody else’s intention. I think the administration is counting on the idea that sustained American pressure and engagement will, eventually, pay dividends and that Israeli and Arab leaders can only resist for so long. It would also appear that they are focusing on laying the groundwork for a process they envisage taking a number of years, and they are well aware that the shelflife of Israeli governments is usually quite limited. By refusing to accept Israel’s partial accommodation of his demands on settlements as satisfactory, and also refusing to be deterred in pursuing even broader negotiations that place all the permanent issues on the table, with "clear terms of reference," Obama is demonstrating that he is neither going to back down nor walk away even when the limitations of American influence, in this case on Israel, are publicly demonstrated. He is going to take the hit and keep on coming.

For Palestinians, this is definitely not all bad news by any means. True enough, the United States was not able to secure a complete settlement freeze, and, in all honesty, I don’t think anyone really expected that it could. That the American demand remains on the table, unfulfilled, is definitely useful from the perspective of Palestinian diplomacy. President Obama has made it clear that President Abbas is a full partner in the negotiations he is trying to start, and it seems likely that Palestinians have much more of an interest in moving quickly into permanent status talks, especially if they have clear terms of reference and tackle all the issues seriously and/or simultaneously, than the present Israeli government seems to.

Finally, not only does the Palestinian position seemed to be closer to the US one than Israel’s is, the Palestinians have demonstrated much more cooperation with the Obama approach than Netanyahu has, which is another significantly useful development. In the Arafat era, President Bush, who was keenly interested in personalities and had an instinctual approach to diplomacy, developed a powerful disliking for the Palestinian president that Israel was able to repeatedly exploit to its advantage. The same ought to be true in reverse in this case, not that this is personal or instinctual, but given that the Palestinians are the one party that has really spared little effort to cooperate with the Obama administration so far, this ought to prove extremely useful to them going into permanent status talks.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that the Palestinians have a clear interest in the resumption of these negotiations, even without the settlement freeze that has been established as a precondition. Of course, critics who are taking an entirely pessimistic perspective are, as always, standing on solid ground — Middle Eastern diplomacy, especially on the Israeli-Palestinian front, offers few historical and political bases for optimism (which I have always warned against anyway). If those critics are right, and even as a hedge against quite possible if not probable failure to develop major progress in the next 12-24 months, the question is: what can Palestinians do proactively and independently of diplomacy and the interests, and even whims and caprices, of the Israelis, Americans and Arab governments?

The answer, quite clearly I think, lies in the proposal advanced by Prime Minister Fayyad’s new government program that Palestinians move quickly and unilaterally towards creating the administrative, economic and infrastructural elements of statehood in spite of the occupation, building "de facto statehood." If anyone is frustrated, and who could blame them, by what happened in New York yesterday, and they don’t have a more serious alternative than Fayyad’s proposals (and I’m not aware of any), they should wholeheartedly embrace his program for unilateral, proactive and constructive institution building towards Palestinian statehood no matter what Israel says or does and no matter what happens at diplomatic meetings in New York or elsewhere.

I received the following question from a reader who follows the Ibishblog on Facebook: "Dr. Hussein, Your advocacy is commendable. As a Muslim, you fight for me. I am just wondering, given your personal belief system, why do you advocate for Muslims?"

First of all, let me say thanks very much for this extremely important and interesting question, which demands both a simple and a complex answer. The simple answer as to why I would fight for Muslim American civil rights and liberties and against Islamophobia and discrimination is because it is right in the abstract. It is important to fight against all forms of discrimination and defamation, but we do so most effectively when it comes to the communities we know best. Those who follow my work will note that I also take a keen objection to anti-Semitism, sectarian intolerance, homophobia and other forms of discrimination sometimes exhibited by Arabs and Muslims, and it is for precisely the same reasons. There are principles at stake here, and they are universal and humanistic.

There is, however, a more complex answer as well. First of all, let us address the question of my "personal beliefs system." I imagine that the reader is referring to my personal religious opinions. I am, and have since I was a very young child (probably around age 6 or 7, believe it or not), been a committed agnostic. This means that I’m skeptical about everything, including all the claims of all major religions and the claims of atheism as well. Without going into any details, I’m convinced that the great metaphysical questions of existence are beyond the comprehension of human beings at both the rational and the intuitive ("spiritual") registers. Indeed, and I’m sure I will be writing about this in more detail sometime, I embrace and celebrate what I have termed "the virtue of doubt," and I agree with my friend the late Edward Said that a secular frame of mind requires skepticism on all matters, especially the trajectory of history which is a genealogy of human choices.

However, these details are another subject for another time. Suffice it to say that since my arrival in Washington in 1998, I have taken every opportunity to make it clear that I am not "a Muslim" as such in terms of religious belief, but rather from the Muslim American community and part of the Muslim American community. This shouldn’t be difficult for anybody to understand, as it’s a simple distinction between private philosophical and religious beliefs and familial, cultural and personal affiliation.

At the same time, I’ve been quite firm in insisting that my agnostic religious beliefs and secular political commitments do not in any way diminish my share of and participation in the legacy and heritage of the great Islamic and Arab civilizations of which I am every bit as much an heir as the most pious of the faithful. Just as my Arab and Muslim heritage doesn’t in any way diminish my American identity or commitment, so too my agnostic persuasion and secular values do not in any way diminish my participation in and commitment to both the Arab-American and Muslim American communities.

And, in truth, even if I wanted to (which I don’t), I could not escape this participation. There is nothing outside the whale. We are all, whether we like it or not, to our fellow Americans simply Arabs and Muslims, with all the negative and (occasionally) positive connotations with which these identities are infused in American popular culture. As a matter of fact, my future and fortunes are inextricably tied to those of my fellow Arab and Muslim Americans, as theirs are to mine, and we have no reasonable option but to respect each other and try to work together to advance common interests in a reasonable way.

Anyone who thinks that an agnostic such as I, or a Christian Arab-American for that matter (unless they are a Bible-thumping evangelical, perhaps, and probably not even then), are somehow immune from or even less affected by Islamophobia, anti-Arab defamation or discrimination on the basis of religious bigotry or ethnicity doesn’t understand how these things work in the contemporary United States. I don’t think there are very many people in the Arab-American community who have been called an Islamist, a jihadist, a supporter of terrorism, anti-American, radical, extremist, an anti-Semite, etc., more than I have been, or in a more public way. Most if not all of the people who have called me this in, for example, major newspapers, or on major television programs, have known very well that not only am I not any of those things, but that I am both agnostic in my religious opinions and secular in my political orientation. It doesn’t matter one bit, of course, since it is our identity and our community, and not our actual opinions or activities, that are often under attack. Again, there is nothing outside the whale.

But, I should emphasize, even if there were, I would not take advantage of that opportunity. We are not just talking, after all, about my own fortunes, but also those of my family and my community to which I have a profound and unshakable commitment. It is simply unacceptable to me that Arab-Americans and Muslim Americans should be defamed, mistreated or discriminated against, or that their rights are violated. This commitment is what brought me to Washington DC in the first place in 1998 to begin working as Communications Director of ADC. Obviously, it’s also what inspired me to write most of what I have written, which has mainly been about Arab and Muslim American civil liberties, rights and defamation, including three very extensive reports on hate crimes and discrimination against Arab-Americans, covering the periods 1998-2001, 2001-2002, and 2003-2007, respectively.

There is one final important point to make: this is also an important expression of my commitment to the United States and to American values. The attack on Arab and Muslim Americans that we have been witnessing since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, especially the explosion of Islamophobic hate speech, is an attack on American values of fairness, inclusiveness, equal treatment under the law, religious accommodation, cultural diversity and freedom of conscience. Combating this rash of hate speech, and the discrimination it has inspired, is to defend the most essential elements of what makes this country great. As I noted above, there are many forms of defamation and discrimination facing many different communities in the United States that have to be opposed, however it’s obviously the case that the most effective opposition, because it is the best informed and most motivated, tends to come from or be led by people in the affected communities themselves. It is up to us to join this battle for our own sake and for our country, and for us to do it in an effective and intelligent manner that is productive rather than counterproductive.

In short, the reason why I advocate on behalf of the rights of American Muslims and against abuses and defamation is a combination of personal interests, family interests, community interests and national interests. Under such circumstances, I don’t think that either I or anybody else really has a whole lot of choice in the matter.

One of the more disconcerting features of the English-language Arab press, which now contains a fairly wide variety of daily offerings (none of them particularly impressive yet), is the persistence on the part of several of these newspapers in printing the most ridiculous nonsense, as long as it is written by a Westerner. The most obvious instance of this, which I have complained about before, and in writing, is the positive addiction by whoever runs the Khaleej Times to the extremely idiotic, and often shamelessly anti-Semitic, nonsense spouted by somebody called Karin Friedemann.

On August 30, this newspaper published perhaps her most cancerous pile of garbage yet, in which she exonerates Al Qaeda for the attacks on the US embassies in East Africa and, somewhat more subtly but unmistakably, for the September 11 terrorist attacks as well, and argues that all accusations against it are simply an evil Jewish plot against the Muslims. Her article can only be described as a love letter to bin Laden and Al Qaeda, praising them in every way, comparing Muslims trained by Al Qaeda to Jews trained by the Israeli military, and describing its dead cadres as "martyred saints" with "miraculous healing powers."

Suffice it to say that this article, if you can call it that, is one of the most corrosive, stupid and malicious I have read anywhere in the Arab media, in English, French or Arabic, in many years, if not ever. I very much doubt that, had it been written in Arabic by someone with an overtly Muslim name (this character claims to be some sort of "convert" to Islam, but with friends like that…), that a newspaper such as the Khaleej Times (not to give it too much credit) or similar Arabic language newspapers would have published it. Perhaps a number of years ago, but not today.

As the Arab media has moved away from overt conspiracy theories and, in most cases, the most blatant forms of anti-Semitism, a couple of those that publish in English have found a way to continue to include these malignant ideas with a form of plausible deniability: simply attribute them to someone with a Western name. I’m not suggesting that anyone in these newspapers proactively asks these authors to write such drivel, or that they specifically go looking for this kind of material. I think that rather, they are susceptible to giving credence to what would otherwise be readily identified as the most arrant nonsense if it were submitted by an Arab or a Muslim, as long as it is e-mailed from the United States by someone with a Western background. It’s an extraordinary combination of internalized and externalized racism combining to perpetuate the lowest possible common denominator in contemporary Arab political discourse.

Obviously, this kind of thing and worse, is to be found in the Arabic language media as well. But rarely in this manner or at this level. It takes a character like Friedemann these days in the Gulf to openly, shamelessly and maliciously heap praise and exoneration on bin Laden and Al Qaeda and get published in a well-read newspaper. And, anti-Semitism always goes down better when coming from someone who purports to be from a Jewish background and who is an American. It would be no exaggeration to say that most of what she writes is nothing more than anti-Semitic ranting of the most crude and despicable variety.

No newspaper in the United States or Europe would print this kind of hateful rubbish, not because it is challenging, controversial or edgy, but because it is paranoid, idiotic and an amateurish rehash of classical Western anti-Semitism that is well understood as a caustic form of hate speech (sadly, the same understandings about comparable Islamophobia are not yet as widespread). Yet somehow, and to our shame, she has actually found a regular gig with a known (albeit not major) English-language Arab newspaper. That I’m the only person who appears to be bothered by this, at least enough to say something publically, though I cannot be the only person who noticed it, is extremely troubling.

Another example of precisely the same phenomenon can be found in the current issue of Al-Ahram Weekly (English edition). In it, someone called Jeff Gates offers a substantially more convoluted but no less insidious version of the same ideas. Gates suggests, in an almost amusingly implausible fashion (i.e. it would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic), that Israel was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and indeed for a series of "provocations," arguing that the war in Iraq and the entire American military posture in the Middle East is simply and solely a consequence of evil, deceptive Zionist manipulation by a gang of wicked Jews and their fellow travelers. Again, the anti-Semitism bubbles up to the surface as he concludes his piece by describing Jewish, or at least Zionist, Americans as "this enemy within" (how many times have Muslim Americans in subject to the same calumny?).

Again, I do think that the editors of Al-Ahram at the very least would have thought twice about publishing this article had it been written by an Egyptian, an Arab or an Arab or Muslim American (there is a whole other subject to pursue about this and many other government-funded Arab newspapers aggressively promoting attitudes entirely at odds with the foreign policies of their funders, but this is another subject for another time — and that’s a promise). The fact that it is signed by one "Jeff Gates" is probably a major feature of its attractiveness, and a salient point in explaining how such ridiculous, pathetic and malicious propaganda could make it into a newspaper that generally speaking avoids this level overt hate speech.

When dealing with the Arabic-language media, the situation is more complex, as one is surveying a field that is infinitely broader. However, this kind of nonsense is increasingly unusual, if not virtually eliminated, from the major pan Arab newspapers and is, in spite of what is implied by organizations like MEMRI, hardly the usual fare in all but the most extreme and fringe publications. On the other hand, it does tend to pop up from time to time in one form or another in many publications. The English-language press in the Arab world, in some cases, seems to have found the outsourcing of stupidity to be a solution for keeping these ideas in circulation while imagining that they are employing some form of plausible deniability or, worse still, invoking the supposed inherent authority of Western identity (either way, this is a manifestation of the rampant internalized racism in the Arab world).

The Khaleej Times has actually offered regular platform to a shameless anti-Semite, supporter of Al Qaeda, and certified nitwit. The widely read and Egyptian government-funded Al-Ahram Weekly has seen fit to publish an article that even children would both laugh at and understand is dangerous. I am pretty sure that they would not have published such utter crap, at least at this point in time, if these ghastly articles had been written by someone with an Arab or Muslim name instead of Karin and Jeff. It has all the charm and integrity of desperate resin-scraping, stems and seeds.

I get a lot of interesting responses to the postings on the Ibishblog, but those regarding my last posting on the UN Goldstone commission of inquiry into the Gaza war were particularly revealing. Both Arab and Jewish partisans tend to become enraged by any suggestion of equivalency between Israel and any group of Palestinians, particularly when it comes to conflict, warfare and armed struggle. Indeed, both the Israeli government and Hamas condemned the Goldstone report for the sin of "false equivalency," among other things. Both Jewish American and Arab-American readers have criticized my posting for pointing this out and committing — horror of horrors — a false equivalency of false equivalencies!

One of my regular Arab American readers was particularly upset by my suggestion that there was any kind of parity, even though the logic and the language were absolutely identical, between Israel’s objections to the Goldstone report and those of Hamas. He writes, "Do you actually believe that Israel attacked Gaza because Hamas was insufficiently decorous towards its tormentor? How do you account for the Israeli assault following a period of calm from Hamas? And why on earth would you spend even one millisecond suggesting that there is anything like parity between Israel’s behavior and that of Hamas?" Taking these three questions one by one: no I don’t think that on the first question; second, I think the chronology of who hit who first depends on who is doing the counting and when they start, however I think we can all agree that Israel is the occupying power and therefore has certain heightened legal responsibilities; and finally I would say that when there are interesting symmetries, for example the indistinguishable logic and language produced by both sides in the Gaza war in reaction to the UN report, that’s worth noticing and it’s meaningful.

On the broader question of the Gaza war and how it started, I’m not going to retrace all the positions outlined by the American Task Force on Palestine as laid out in our numerous commentaries, analyses and congressional testimony on the conflict. Anyone who likes can read them for themselves, and draw their own conclusions. But I would say that since we were able to predict in March of 2008 that the ever-increasing cycle of tit-for-tat violence between Hamas and Israel was leading inexorably towards a major Israeli action, and warned both parties against this cycle, perhaps we were onto something. I’d say overall both parties, against any sound judgment and their better interests, were itching for a fight. That may not include all Israeli and Hamas leaders, but enough of them combined to produce a critical mass of reciprocal violence to make the catastrophic war inevitable.

Throughout 2008, we warned that miscalculations and reckless actions on both sides would produce precisely the results it did produce. That doesn’t mean there is moral, legal or political parity between the two parties, because there are major distinctions between them at all kinds of registers. But it does mean that both of them contributed actively, recklessly and foolishly to a concatenation of circumstances that brought disaster upon the people of Gaza and which could and should have been avoided.

A number of Jewish and pro-Israel voices have similarly, but more privately, objected to my "false equivalency" in pointing out that the Israeli and Hamas responses to the Goldstone report were indistinguishable. People on both sides are convinced that their friends are the victims and the other side the immoral murdering gangsters. Indeed, pointing out this equivalency costs me with all parties, and it doesn’t really win me any friends at all. The Arab-American grassroots doesn’t like it, the Washington-based Jewish organizations don’t like it, and the US foreign policy establishment doesn’t like it much either. That’s not the point. This symmetry in reactions to the Goldstone report is not, in fact, a false equivalency of false equivalencies, it is a very telling parallel about the Manichaean and absolutist perceptions on both sides and the degree to which neither party to the Gaza war felt or feels constrained by basic rules of conduct or standards of responsibility pertaining to armed conflict. That’s a point worth making.

Arab-Americans like the reader who complained in the above quote will be outraged that I dared to draw a parallel between the occupier and the occupied. Jewish and other Americans who complained privately to me will be outraged that I dare to compare the government of Israel to a State Department designated terrorist organization. In fact, I haven’t compared either to the other. I have simply pointed out that at one register the two parties share a certain set of attitudes that helps explain how the Gaza war occurred when people like those of us at ATFP could see it coming more than 8 to 10 months in advance, and could also predict that it would be devastating to the people of Gaza and not advance the interests of either Israel or Hamas. This means that we are talking about a process that spiraled completely out of control. Recognizing and reflecting on the mirror-image reactions to the Goldstone report, perhaps, helps begin to explain how that happened when the disastrous consequences, both humanitarian and political, were quite obvious in advance.

For the record, let me state that interesting symmetries and parallels aside, the most salient feature of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the radical asymmetry at its heart between an occupied and dispossessed people who are, at best, lightly armed, and a major nation-state with one of the world’s most powerful militaries and myriad additional resources and international support. If there were more symmetry of coercive power between the two parties, the conflict would probably already have been resolved. But I don’t think my reminding people that this is of the core of my entire analysis of the conflict and its resolution is going to mollify anyone.

What people object to is the notion of moral equivalency, when they are convinced that one side is moral and the other side is not moral. I definitely believe that the occupation is immoral and that the struggle to end the occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state is a just one. But I think it is unrealistic to divide societies into good people and bad people, and assume that the ends justify the means or that the cause defines the morality of anyone and everyone on both sides, including during conflict. I demand the right, and I think everyone has the moral responsibility, to retain the capacity for critical judgment in spite of a moral and political affiliation with a certain cause (in this case, the cause of Palestinian liberation and national rights). If that commitment translates into an assumption that everything Palestinian is by definition moral, or more moral, than everything Israeli, which is by definition either immoral or less moral, or that one cannot agree with Judge Goldstone that both parties in a conflict violated the rules of war, or that they contributed to an unnecessary conflagration which benefited no one, then it is demanding an inadmissible suspension of independent thought and rational judgment.

This isn’t a false equivalency. It’s a correct equivalency: human beings should all be held to the same standards of moral conduct, especially when it comes to armed conflict, whether we believe their cause is just or not. That is a true equivalency of a true equivalency.

Israeli President Shimon Peres issued a statement in response to the UN commission of inquiry into the war in Gaza which found that both Israel and Hamas had violated the laws of war in their conduct and which recommends further inquiries and possible criminal investigations.

Peres’ logic is crystal clear: "War itself is a crime. The aggressor is the criminal. The side exercising self-defense has no other alternative." Then follows a list of largely true specific accusations against Hamas about its use of violence and its extremism. The statement allows no possibility that Israeli forces might be nonetheless subject to the laws of war, that its soldiers might nonetheless have committed war crimes with or without political or superior authorization, or that, given his logic, Israel is bound to respect the laws of war in its response to "aggression." All of these are preposterous notions, even if one were to accept his fundamental proposition that Hamas is simply an aggressor and Israel is simply a victim acting in self-defense. It is extraordinary, and every reader should take note that there is not a word in Pres. Peres’ statement that acknowledges that in acting in what he claims is simply self-defense, there are any limits to Israel’s actions or any need for accountability whatsoever.

Of course, Israel’s posture in the occupied territories, and there is no question legally and factually that Gaza remains under occupation, cannot in any sense be described as self-defensive, with hundreds of thousands of settlers and thousands of heavily armed forces operating outside of its borders in violation of Security Council resolutions and the Geneva Convention. Under no formulation can that posture be framed as "defensive." And obviously, whether a party believes it is acting in self-defense or not (and almost no one ever goes to war without believing or claiming that they are acting in self-defense), all are still bound by the laws of war and Judge Goldstone’s report holds both Israel and Hamas properly to account, within the limited means at its disposal, for their abuses.

But what is even more disturbing about Pres. Peres’ miserable response to the measured and balanced findings of Judge Goldstone and his colleagues, in spite of a complete lack of official Israeli cooperation with his necessary and appropriate inquiry, is that its logic is fundamentally indistinguishable from that employed by the most extreme elements in Hamas, at least in terms of the logic of conflict. Is it not readily imaginable to picture Mishaal, Zahar, or any leader of the Izzedin Al-Qassem Brigades thundering into a microphone on television that, "War itself is a crime. The aggressor is the criminal. The side exercising self-defense has no other alternative," and then following up with a bill of particulars against Israel no less shocking and no less accurate than Pres. Peres’ self-serving indictment of Hamas? Indeed, is this not the logic, and its implicit corollary that under such circumstances those acting in self-defense are no longer accountable for their behavior, that underlies and rationalizes the most extreme actions by Palestinian militants including suicide bombings and rocket attacks?

It is noteworthy and extremely significant that the leaders of Hamas and the so-called "Islamic Jihad" organization have rejected the report as vehemently and angrily as Israel’s leaders. According to the Jerusalem Post, "a Hamas legislator in the Gaza Strip expressed astonishment because the report had failed to distinguish between the ‘aggressor and the victim,’" while Pres. Peres’ statement, in indistinguishable language, complains that the report, "fails to distinguish between the aggressor and a state exercising its right for self defense." Both Israel and Hamas apparently feel that they are acting simply in self-defense, and that as such they are not accountable for their actions and are not obliged to obey the laws of war. Obviously, both parties are wrong, and Judge Goldstone and his colleagues are right.

My colleagues and I at the American Task Force on Palestine warned repeatedly and in writing, in March and June of 2008, that both Israel and Hamas were heading towards a disaster, and that if those firing rockets from Gaza into Israel persisted, Israeli leaders would find themselves unable to resist a wide-ranging military assault on Gaza which would primarily kill and devastatingly affect Palestinian civilians, be entirely counterproductive to both Israel’s and Hamas’ interests, and prove disastrous for the people of Gaza. It has given us no satisfaction whatsoever to have been proven right on all these counts.

The Ibishblog has received some very interesting responses to my recent posting on Security Council Resolution 242 and its successor resolutions and one-state advocacy, and the logical conndrum of both relying on and fundamentally opposing its internal logic.

One careful and astute reader suggests the following way out: “what if the one state advocate relies upon the 4th Geneva Convention rather than UN 242? If I remember correctly, the former forbids the transfer of a state’s population to an occupied territory, period. No one questions that Israel is now a state, nor would most have trouble recognizing that it has occupied Gaza and the West Bank, without any reference whatsoever to 242. Now we have a basis for ending the occupation which commits us to precisely nothing re our attitudes towards Israel’s legitimacy going forward.”

It’s a nice try, but it doesn’t hold together. The problem is one perforce relies on 242 in order for the Fourth Geneva Convention, which the reader characterizes perfectly accurately, to be applicable in the occupied Palestinian territories in the first place. Otherwise, there would be, as Israel claims, a dispute and not an occupation, and the applicability of the Geneva Convention would be a matter of opinion rather than a matter of fixed international law.

There are scores, probably hundreds, of circumstances around the world in which an ethnic or sectarian group claims to be under the “occupation” of some member state of the United Nations. As far as I can tell, only three of these are so designated by the Security Council under any reading, the most clear-cut case being the occupied Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights (the other two more murky instances being Western Sahara and Cyprus). In such cases the applicability of international law protecting civilians living under foreign military occupation is clear-cut and indisputable, and continuously causes Israel discomfort and diplomatic difficulty. Indeed, the entire Arab and Palestinian case against the occupation is based on this. If you remove the international legal designation of the occupation in Palestine by shifting away from 242 to something else, that Geneva Convention becomes essentially irrelevant.

Because the Geneva Convention relies on 242 as a predicate which establishes as an indisputable fact that this is an occupation and that Israel is bound by the limitations placed by the Convention and other instruments on occupying powers (Israel’s dodge is to say that it isn’t an occupying power, but it does respect the Convention’s limitations, even though it does not), dispensing with 242 means that the Convention may well not apply at all to this situation. Certainly, Israel’s case that it doesn’t would be infinitely stronger, and it would be a matter of opinion rather than a matter of law and fact.

Another esteemed reader questions the utility of 242, writing: “Even if I stipulate that 242 is somehow a legally binding resolution (which I do believe it is), the failure of the international community to enforce 242 seems to me to fundamentally devalue, or even entirely dissolve, its merits. What good is a law that is never enforced, or is enforced in an inequitable manner, such has clearly been the case with Israel and 242? How valid or useful is this law, in practical terms? If we determine that 242 is essentially void of practical or practicable merit, then does this cascade down to all the subsequent legal rulings that you discussed?”

I think these are two separate questions. It’s definitely true that neither plank of 242, which lays out reciprocal obligations of “land for peace” have been realized. Israel has not withdrawn from the occupied territories (land) and its right to exist in secure and recognized borders free from threats and the use of force (peace), and its respect for the same rights of its neighbors such as Lebanon, have not been realized. I don’t think that makes 242 invalid or anachronistic, as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once tried to suggest. It didn’t take, and the Palestinian cause dodged a bullet on that one. The whole Israeli political/legal case defending the occupation is based on a rejection of 242, while the Arab case demanding an end to the occupation is similarly based on upholding 242.

Moreover, subsequent Security Council resolutions pursuant to 242 have included numerous extremely important declarations (all made unanimously, including with the support of the United States) such as that Israel’s de facto annexation of Jerusalem is inadmissible and that Israel specifically is required to withdraw from Jerusalem and more recent resolutions explicitly calling for the creation of a Palestinian state (for the first time).

I definitely understand and share the frustration of this reader, and probably most of my readers, friends, and fellow Arabs and Arab-Americans at the failure to realize the requirements of 242 after so many years, indeed decades, of outrageous occupation. But I don’t think it would be right to fail to recognize the political and legal significance of this crucial designation of Israel as the occupying power (something Israel would desperately like to get out of, but thankfully cannot). And it would also be wrong to understand the diplomatic space as static just because a resolution has not been achieved. Only the most cynical and jaded would fail to see the virtue in Pres. Obama’s efforts to secure a settlement freeze from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

All this talk about settlements, indeed the whole idea that the Israeli civilian presence in the occupied territories are settlements in the occupied territories depends entirely on 242. Without 242, it would become very easy to argue that these are simply Israeli civilians living in Israeli towns in some disputed area that is and will probably continue to be under the control of Israel rather than settlers illegally colonizing occupied lands. Personally, I’m extremely uncomfortable with that, to say the least. And, I think, so should everybody else.

But one thing is for sure, you can’t have it both ways. If you accept the logic of 242, then you accept the logic of 242 in toto. Neither the Israeli right nor the Palestinian Islamic right or ultraleft can legitimately pick and choose this bit and that according to their own convenience. Anyone can walk away from this logic, but that means embracing another logic which has to be coherent and explicable. Otherwise, we are simply stuck in the realm of emotions, agendas and slogans.

I thought that I had said what needed to be said in my new book about the problems that one-state rhetoric has in dealing coherently with the occupation, but on further reflection I do think there is a point that requires a little further illumination than it has already received. In the book, I point out the serious problems with maintaining that there is an occupation in place in the Palestinian territories, but in the same breath saying that this occupation is taking place within what is, or as soon as possible should be, a single, unified state, and that the appropriate corrective to this occupation is the political unification of the occupier and the occupied in one fell swoop without any intervening period of independence. I described this position correctly as both novel and incoherent. However, there is a deeper problem that I think should be spelled out even more clearly than I did in the book itself.

The problem has to do with the legal status of occupation, which pro-Palestinian rhetoric naturally takes for granted. Following the 1967 war, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip found themselves under what was almost universally recognized as a hostile foreign military occupation by Israel that was illegitimate and had to be ended. The only exception to this point of view is Israel itself, which does not view itself as the occupying power and refers instead to ?disputed territories.? This is, of course, in order to keep Israel?s territorial claims on the table and to avoid being bound by the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention, among other things.

However, the dispute (if you can call it that) is between Israel and everybody else. It?s like a slightly deranged individual insisting there is a dispute over whether or not the sky appears blue: ?everyone else says it does, I say it doesn?t.? In fact, in legal and diplomatic terms, there is no dispute. The international community has a legal, political and diplomatic body that is charged with determining these matters: the UN Security Council. And it is under the terms of a series of Security Council resolutions, beginning with Resolution 242, that the Palestinian and Arab position that the occupied territories are indeed occupied shifts from a political stance and a claim to being in legal terms an unassailable fact.

The legal condition of occupation, the status of Israel as the occupying power, the legal obligation for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories, the invalidity of any Israeli territorial claims other than adjustments voluntarily agreed to by the Palestinians, all of this is predicated legally, politically and diplomatically on Resolution 242 and its progeny. The problem for one-state rhetoric, which invariably continues to speak and think in terms of the occupation (I notice one of its proponents has taken to referring to Israel now as simply ?the enemy occupier?), is that 242 and the other Security Council resolutions are a package deal. They clearly establish the legal, political and diplomatic reality of the occupation as a fact as opposed to a claim (the only other ongoing occupations that fall into this category might be Western Sahara and Cyprus, but neither case is as clear cut as the occupied Palestinian territories). Palestinian and Arab diplomacy since 1967 has been based on this fact.

However 242 also explicitly recognizes the state of Israel and its ?right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.? All opposition to the occupation that is grounded in international legality flows from 242, but this document also provides legitimacy and international legality for the continued existence of the Israeli state. It appears to me that most pro-Palestinian one-state rhetoric continues to base much of its rhetoric and analysis on 242?s designation of Israel?s presence in the occupied territories as an occupation, while rejecting the second plank altogether.

It strikes me that from a legal and diplomatic perspective, this is extremely problematic. Security Council resolutions are not à la carte menus from which one may pick and choose according to taste and convenience. 242 and subsequent resolutions built on it are based on a fairly coherent diplomatic logic reflecting what is necessary and possible. In the same way that the position of the Israeli right wishes to focus on Israel?s right to live in peace without accepting the reality of the occupation and the obligation to bring it to an end, much one-state rhetoric as it currently stands relies on the legal designation of Israel as an occupying power in 242 while dispensing with its explicit recognition of Israel and its right to continue to exist.

I suppose it?s possible for one state advocates to decouple their characterization of Israel as the occupying power in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from the terms of Resolution 242, but in that case they are reducing the terms of reference regarding the occupation from a legal, political and diplomatic fact to that of an assertion and a claim (to which Israel has counter-assertions and counter-claims). It would mean that the Palestinian case is effectively no different than that of scores of other ethnic-minority areas in various UN member states that crave independence and consider themselves ?occupied? by the ethnic majority. Of course, one-state advocates could go further and point out that if you include the people living under occupation and the Palestinian citizens of Israel then Palestinians are not a minority as such at all, but rather a plurality in the entire area under Israeli control. And, since they aren?t interested in ending the occupation and securing independence and freedom for a Palestinian state, but rather wish to join with Israelis in some kind of unified state, dispensing with the legal status of the occupation and Israel?s obligations as a result might not be displeasing.

In other words, I find it easy to imagine a one-state advocate reading the above and saying, ?yes, the legal status of occupation is really beside the point, what?s important is to have equal rights in the entire country for all people and to avoid partition at all costs.? If that is the point of view one state rhetoric has adopted, at least it?s intelligible, although I continue to maintain that the occupation is unacceptable and wicked and has to end as soon as possible. But it?s definitely not consistent with continuing to talk in terms of “occupiers” or “occupation.” It might be coherent to talk about “oppressors,” “racist regimes,” or “apartheid,” but once you have made this political leap into the abyss beyond the legal framework of occupation versus independence, continuing to talk about Israel?s presence in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as an ?occupation? is not only intellectually and legally jarring and inconsistent, it undermines the thrust of the rest of the argument.

I see this incoherence as further evidence, as if any were needed, that one state rhetoric generally speaking has not thought through the problem with which it is dealing. It is continuing to use terms of reference that are wholly inappropriate to its stated goals, and evinces few signs of serious, sustained analysis. Again, we confront the fact that what we?re dealing with here is not a systematic body of thought, but a bunch of slogans which often contradict themselves and which, when they reach any degree of specificity at all, tend to become quickly incoherent.

One-state advocates may not like to read what I?m writing. They certainly have avoided any sort of engagement or response, undoubtedly because they do not know what to say and were not expecting this kind of challenge and because, as their rhetoric suggests, they have not thought through the problem with any degree of clarity or in any systematic manner. But in fact, I?m doing them a big favor. If there is no one to point out the flaws in your thinking, and everyone simply tells you that you are either completely right and what you are advocating is nothing less than ?inevitable,? or conversely dismisses you out of hand without engaging your arguments at all, it will be difficult to refine the arguments and understand the weaknesses and strengths they may have. In this case, the weaknesses appear to be so overwhelming that healthy engagement, which is essential to any robust and functioning political agenda or point of view, is completely unwelcome and, it would appear, terrifying. But, really, there is no evidence that any of the one-state advocates have given any thought whatsoever to the conundrum about occupation that is deeply built into their rhetoric, as illustrated above.

A Jewish American one-state advocate claimed on his blog that the questions I am posing to his Palestinian and Arab colleagues are not new and have been answered many times in the past. I?m sure he knows that?s not the case at all. These questions, for the most part, are indeed new, because one-state rhetoric has not been challenged in a sustained way from a pro-Palestinian perspective until now. The problem I have illustrated regarding Resolution 242 and the status of occupation in the context of one-state rhetoric, to my knowledge (and I?m pretty sure about this), hasn?t been pointed out by anyone before this blog posting. I?m also pretty sure the one-state advocates haven?t considered it. And no one can seriously claim that it?s not relevant. The more the Palestinian and Arab American one-state advocates refuse to address any of the issues I have been putting on the table, the more they will be tacitly admitting they don?t have any answers that can possibly be persuasive. Perhaps they?re working on it. At the very least, my critiques offer them a golden opportunity to identify the weaknesses, failings and internal contradictions in their arguments and activities, and improve them.

Benny Morris is at it again, blaming the difficulty of securing a conflict ending peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians entirely on the attitude of the Palestinians. Over the weekend, he wrote the following gem in the Guardian: “The major problem is that the two-headed Palestinian national movement is averse to sharing Palestine with the Jews and endorsing a solution based on two states for two peoples.” This is essentially a summary of his latest book, “One State, Two States” (Yale University Press, 2009), which is one of the worst books I have read in a long time on this or any other subject. Morris may be a fine historian, but his political attitudes are so ethnocentric and aggressively bigoted that his analysis often boils down to little more than racism directed against Palestinians and other Arabs. The idea that one may be a fine historian and a complete fanatic shouldn’t surprise anybody. There are many such individuals, for example David Irving. And Benny Morris.

The crux of Morris’s argument in both his book and his op-ed is that no element of the Palestinian national movement, specifically not the PLO and Fatah, have ever recognized the principle of two states or to the legitimacy of Israel. And the biggest problem for his argument is that this is simply not true. For example, Morris must have been sleeping through the recent Fatah Sixth Party General Congress, at which almost everything was the subject of contentious debate except two issues: the leadership of President Abbas and the national strategy of seeking a negotiated two-state agreement with Israel. It wasn’t debated because this strategy has become the accepted strategic decision for the mainstream nationalist Palestinian movement since the late 1980s. The evidence that the PLO and the Palestinian Authority both accept the principle of a two state agreement, and have recognized and entered into binding treaty agreements with the state of Israel is beyond serious question. Contrast this with the tooth pulling required to get Prime Minister Netanyahu to agree in principle to a two state arrangement at the beginning of his new term in office. Simply put, the most essential element of Morris’ argument is demonstrably and obviously false.

On the other hand, when it comes to the psychology behind the conflict, he may have a point, although it certainly applies as least as much to Israelis as it does to Palestinians. I do think there is an element of truth in the notion that for many people on both sides of the conflict, there is a deep-seated unwillingness, in their heart of hearts, to fully accept the legitimacy of the other’s national narrative and national rights. Some of these people simply reject the idea of the national rights of the other community, as with Israel’s extremist Infrastructure Minister, Uzi Landau, who recently declared regarding the occupied territories, "This land is ours and ours alone." He had the almighty gall to add, "It is the Arabs who are occupiers." Reading Morris’s account, one would never know that this sentiment, to one extent or another, is very common among Jewish Israelis.

And, no doubt, there are many Palestinians who feel similarly that the only legitimate national entity and movement in mandatory Palestine is the Arab one. Hamas certainly does, but with the added twist that its nationalism is explicitly Islamic as well as Arab. Most versions of the one-state agenda at best seem to offer the terms of the French emancipation in the words of Clermont-Tonnere: “to the Jew as an individual everything; to the Jews as a nation nothing.” And, in truth, the Palestinian citizens of Israel as individuals have been allowed much less than everything, and the Palestinians have, as a nation, been allowed nothing.

Looking for evidence that the other side in this conflict does not fundamentally embrace at a core level the legitimacy of one’s own nationalism and narrative is extremely easy to do, and both Palestinians and Israelis can find a plethora of evidence to bolster these doubts. It’s impossible to know the deepest sentiments of most Palestinians and Israelis, but it would be surprising and, perhaps, odd if they were able, at a core emotional level and that this stage in their mutal history, to reconcile their own nationalist sentiments with the full, unqualified legitimacy of nationalist sentiments on the other side. However, that doesn’t mean that a peace agreement is impossible, as Morris wrongly concludes. Interests can trump sentiments, and a peace agreement is strongly in both the Palestinian and Israeli national interest.

One of the most significant arguments in favor of a two-state peace agreement is precisely that it does not require the reconciliation and harmonization, or even the direct coexistence, of the Israeli and Palestinian national narratives. These narratives would, under such circumstances, transition from direct armed conflict into diplomatic relations between two states, with minorities on one or possibly both sides. There are many examples around the world of states whose founding national narratives are directly contradictory to each other, and who nonetheless are able to maintain working diplomatic relations and avoid ongoing conflict. To shift from a relationship entirely defined by occupation, repression and violence to a possibly resentful but workable peace would be a major accomplishment for both peoples. It is absurd for Morris or anyone else to argue that resistance to two states is largely or even mainly on the Palestinian side when in the past few weeks we had the competing spectacles of the Fatah Congress on the one hand and numerous extremist and exclusivist Israeli statements, many from Cabinet ministers, regarding settlements and occupation on the other hand.

It is entirely possible that, as so many other peoples have done in the past, Israelis and Palestinians could enter into a mutually acceptable and mutually necessary peace agreement without either enthusiasm for its terms or modification of their own sense of the trajectory of history. People like Morris who hold that Palestinians will not be ready for peace until they abandon their national narrative or become ardent Zionists, and Palestinians who hold that as long as Israelis are Zionists at all, that one side or the other will never be ready for peace, are wrong. Peace, or rather a conflict ending agreement, will and should be based on interests and needs, rather than sentiments and narratives. Both peoples will have to overcome their emotions and sentiments in order to make the necessary compromises. But neither of them can afford not to do so.