The US-Israel dispute over Israel’s apparent determination to continue with settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories in spite of its Roadmap commitments and demands from the Obama administration is reaching a critical phase. MJ Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum argues that, “Netanyahu believes that President Obama has gone as far as he intends to go and that he need only dig in to win.”

However, any impression that the US is backing down in this developing standoff is undermined by the fact that, “Special US envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell has called off a meeting scheduled for Thursday in Paris with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the backdrop of the ongoing dispute over West Bank settlements.” Both Israel and the US claim to have canceled the meeting, giving contradictory accounts about how and why this has happened.

However, it is very difficult not to see the meeting cancellation in light of the Israeli government’s approval of 300 new settler housing units in the West Bank, beyond the territory incorporated by Israel’s “separation barrier.” This announcement is obviously a direct challenge to the Obama administration’s demands for a complete settlement freeze, and it is likely that the meeting cancellation is, in reality, a response to this unacceptable development. The State Department has reiterated that it is opposed to all settlement activity, including in Jerusalem, and that there were no “secret understandings” between Israel and the Bush administration to allow for continued settlement activity.

The AP reports that, contrary to Israel’s insistence that settlement activity focuses mainly on “natural growth” due to new births among existing settler populations, “Data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics…[is] showing that in 2007, 36 percent of all new settlers had moved from Israel or abroad.” The report adds that, “2007 wasn’t a random blip. Migration accounted for between a third and half of the population growth in each year between 1999 and 2007, save 2005, when numbers were skewed by Israel’s withdrawal of 8,500 settlers from the Gaza Strip.”

I have been arguing for a number of weeks that a US-Israel deal on settlement activity is likely, and that if it essentially serves as a cover for Netanyahu to effectively agree to a settlement freeze, also desirable. However, if an agreement provides a face-saving way for the administration to back down on its demands for Israeli compliance with its Roadmap obligations on settlements, it would likely prove a fatal blow to the Obama administration’s efforts to reengage seriously with the peace process and make any meaningful progress in the coming months. That would, of course, be a disaster.

Unlike MJ, I don’t see any serious signs that the administration is preparing to back down. All the statements coming out of the State Department and other administration sources over the past couple of weeks have been clear and firm about the United States position that all settlement activity must end. If Netanyahu believes that he has simply stared down the US government or has been rescued by the crisis in Iran, I think he is in for something of a surprise, as signaled by Mitchell’s cancellation of his meeting with the Prime Minister.

One can already see the outlines of what amounts to a face-saving agreement for Netanyahu to give way to the administration’s demands. Ha’aretz reports that, “Israel is considering enacting a temporary freeze on settlement construction, excluding projects already underway, if the United States agrees to continued construction for natural growth once the freeze ends.” Such an agreement might appeal to the administration not only as a way of avoiding a costly and pointless confrontation with Netanyahu, but also because it fits in with a scenario the administration has been toying with for some time. A temporary settlement freeze might give the administration grounds for deploying the Annapolis agreement provision that once Phase 1 Roadmap obligations are being met, Phase IV permanent status negotiations can begin simultaneously with Phase 1 implementation.

The administration has indicated interest in front loading these permanent status talks on the issue of borders, sketching out which settlements are mutually agreed to be retained by Israel in a land swap with a future Palestinian state. If a settlement freeze is in place until a broad understanding on which areas will eventually be retained by Israel can be arrived at by the two parties, additional settlement activity within those areas, so the logic goes, would no longer pose a mortal threat to the peace process or create additional complications to the achievement of a permanent status agreement. Therefore, the “temporary” nature of the settlement freeze does not contradict the administration’s strategy for significant progress, and the grandfathering of already initiated construction projects can serve as the necessary political cover for Netanyahu to essentially give way to President Obama on this issue.

If this sounds overly elaborate, or too much like a longshot, that’s because the settlement issue is one of the most difficult that any Israeli government will be facing until it is finally confronted with the need to compromise on Jerusalem and some of the other more difficult permanent status issues. No Israeli government has ever successfully implemented a genuine settlement freeze, and Netanyahu faces particular difficulties given the sentiments in his right-wing coalition. It is understandable and wise for the administration to seek to avoid a confrontation ultimately designed to bring down the Netanyahu government over the settlement issue because it would be a draining, exhausting and costly exercise that might leave little political momentum and capital left to actually push the peace process forward, and would reinforce the idea in Israeli politics that the settlements issue is political poison that leads to the downfall of governments. For all of these reasons, any realistic agreement on settlements that is effectively an Israeli capitulation to US demands would have to be couched in these kinds of caveats.

Just as it is reasonable for the Obama administration to give Netanyahu as much political cover as possible, without backing down on the essential elements of a genuine settlement freeze, it is also important for Palestinians and their supporters to understand the difficulties the administration is facing. The kind of agreement outlined by Ha’aretz, if it is really pegged to a major push to achieve an understanding on the nature of an Israeli-Palestinian land swap in preparation for Palestinian independence, would be an entirely useful development. It would be wrong to see this, in spite of its caveats and “temporary” nature, as a capitulation by the United States to Israel’s settlement agenda. On the contrary, if it is handled properly, it could be a creative solution to an extremely difficult hurdle that has to be overcome with considerable degrees of finesse and determination.

The Obama administration is to be encouraged in its efforts to find a solution that allows the parties to move into permanent status negotiations in a serious manner for the first time since January, 2001. Thus far, there is every indication that they are still serious about achieving this and not prepared to allow Netanyahu to simply dig his heels in and thwart the administration’s determination to find a way to move forward. The Obama administration appears to have developed a strategy that actually could work through a combination of a “temporary” settlement freeze followed by an understanding on permanent status border issues. Actually implementing it will be a tall order, but no one ever suggested that progress on Middle East peace would be easy or straightforward.

The New Republic has published on its website, with gushing praise, a deranged speech given by Elena Bonner, widow of the late Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, who calls a two-state peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians “the dream of Adolph Hitler.” “Because the plan ‘two states for two peoples’ is the creation of one state, ethnically cleansed of Jews, and a second one with the potential to do the same,” she claims, “a Judenfrei Holy Land–the dream of Adolph Hitler come true at last. So think again, those who are still able, who has a fascist inside him today?” Apparently all those who yearn for peace in the Middle East.

This ludicrous idea would be of only passing interest if it had not been enthusiastically adopted by one of this country’s best known political magazines, and lauded by its publisher as “wonderful.” Marty Peretz has long been known to harbor extreme views on Middle East issues, but this seems to stake out a new dimension of extremism for both him and his chronically irresponsible (on this issue, at least) magazine. This increasing tendency for supporters of the occupation and pro-Israel extremists to equate peace in the Middle East and any realization of Palestinian national rights with Hitler is an extremely revealing and repulsive display of fanaticism, but also mounting panic that peace might actually be achievable.

Bonner’s hysterical opposition to a Palestinian state is supposedly based on the idea that, “The Quartet, and the Arab countries, and the Palestinian leaders (both Hamas and Fatah) put additional demands to Israel. I will speak only of one demand: that Israel accept back the Palestinian refugees.” Obviously the Quartet makes no such demand on Israel and it has been clear for a long time that Palestinian negotiators understand that Israel will not be agreeing to any mass return of refugees in a two-state peace agreement. The Arab Peace Initiative calls for the “Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian Refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194,” which is deliberately vague and allows for a wide range of options for a Palestinian-Israeli agreement short of a mass return of refugees. In other words, Bonner’s claim is simply untrue, and I am sure she knows this.

It seems clear from the tone and attitude of her speech that Bonner in fact supports the occupation, which is not mentioned at all in this address that is full of the language of human rights by a self-described human rights activist. She evinces no interest in or recognition of the atrocious human rights situation for Palestinians living under occupation, and its questionable if she even recognizes or cares that a foreign military occupation is in place in the Palestinian territories. Her reference to the occupied West Bank as “Judea and Samaria” is a further indication of her attitude towards the territories, implicitly suggesting that they are, in fact, a part of Israel. This attitude explains the need to lie about the international and Arab position on the refugees in order to condemn peace as a Hitlerian and anti-Semitic plot.

Most noteworthy, however, is Bonner’s neglect of the most obvious question: if she is so passionately opposed to a two-state peace agreement, what is she for? Everyone who stands against a reasonable peace agreement based on ending the occupation should immediately be confronted with the need to explain what they think the alternatives are and what they feel is preferable to a reasonable peace agreement. Typically, opponents of peace based on a Palestinian state on both sides, but especially on the pro-occupation right (which is what we seem to be dealing with here in this “wonderful” address), are silent about what they actually favor. This is, obviously, because anything they are likely to propose will be so indefensible and outrageous that their extremist agenda would be instantly exposed, and so silence on the most screamingly begged question is required.

And this character has the almighty gall to not only pose as a human rights activist, but also to call advocates of peace fascists, and peace itself “the dream of Adolph Hitler.” Wonderful, Marty, just wonderful. The overwhelming majority of Israelis, Palestinians, Arabs and Americans who support peace are going to have to work together to sweep aside this sort of fanatical opposition from extremists on all sides. Let’s give the supporters of violence, conflict and occupation much more to panic about in the coming months and years.

An astute reader of the Ibishblog writes to me, ?So I read the piece about divestment, and it sounds like the only solution you are proposing for everyone is to line up behind the PA, which might be very hard for many to swallow given their reputation.? Good point. Of course I don’t mean that at all, but I can understand how a quick reading of my posting on boycotts might give people the wrong impression. My point, which I think is absolutely accurate, is that a tactic of economic, social and cultural pressure such as boycotts and sanctions in a situation such as the Palestinian-Israeli dynamic is only likely to be effective as part and parcel of a broader political strategy. In this context, the broader political strategy must be ultimately aimed at securing a diplomatic solution, since no other practical option presents itself, and this requires at least consistency with national political strategy. Without this basic level of consistency, how would any leverage produced by boycotts and sanctions be translated into national-level political results?

However, I would never suggest that everyone has to support the PLO or the PA, or any Palestinian organization or party in order to aid Palestinians and their society. On the economic front, the opportunities are particularly broad ranging. Were people to channel their energies into economic development, creating businesses, social support, education and health care initiatives, infrastructure development, the arts, sports or anything at all that is constructive in the occupied Palestinian territories, I have no doubt their efforts would be highly effective in the aggregate and in the long run in affecting the situation for the positive. Moreover, all of this type of effort would have the added impact of not only being politically helpful, but also directly and immediately improving the lives of ordinary Palestinians. And, it would not be at all inconsistent with the imperative of transforming the Israeli-Palestinian dynamic into a win-win equation in which what is good for Palestinians does not threaten Israel and vice versa.

Most people concerned with the issue on both sides are used to thinking in zero-sum terms about how to defeat the enemy. Many supporters of Palestine are therefore accustomed to searching for creative ways of fighting back against Israel, rather than focusing on positive measures that would aid Palestine and the Palestinians (although, of course, some people do attempt both approaches simultaneously). However, I think it’s obvious that now is the time for Palestinians to focus on building the institutions and infrastructure that can allow them to function in an independent state. There is much that can be done to build Palestinian society, including independent businesses, organizations and civil society, without following the lead of any political organization or faction.

Obviously, I’m not asking anyone to line up behind the PA, follow any leaders, or anything of the kind. There are any number of useful and constructive things that individuals and organizations can do to support Palestinians and their national rights without looking towards any leadership whatsoever. Indeed, it will probably be the case that most of the most useful things done for Palestine outside of Palestine will be done in exactly this manner: without considering the opinion of any Palestinian political parties or politicians.

On his frequently interesting blog, Philip Weiss asks today, “wouldn’t the biggest power move/gamechanger be for Hamas to accept Israel’s right to exist, and then fully initiate a civil-rights struggle?” I have a lot of respect for Weiss, but he is right when he notes further on in the same posting that, “I am surely confused here.” There are two problems with his formulation and one good insight, all mashed together. Let me try to unpack this a little, as Weiss is making an error that is all-too-common regarding the role and the nature of Hamas.

First, there is the issue of what the end-game of Palestinian national strategy is, should and can only be. Obviously, Weiss’ formulation is somewhat contradictory in this regard, since the acceptance of Israel’s right to exist presupposes that the endgame is a Palestinian state to live alongside Israel. This doesn’t square with the notion of a civil rights struggle which implies the pursuit of equal rights in a single state (a view that Weiss has increasingly drifted towards in recent months). There is no question that Hamas, and all Palestinian organizations, should recognize Israel’s right to exist, just as all Israeli political parties should recognize Palestine’s right to exist, since the only way to end the conflict is for two states to live side by side in peace and security. However, given Hamas’ attitudes towards Israel and its imperative and paramount goal of replacing the PLO as the main Palestinian national organization, there is almost no chance of it doing so in the foreseeable future. It is rather odd, unfortunate and unhelpful that Weiss would focus on Hamas as if it were the standard-bearer of Palestinian national anything, but more about that a little later.

A civil rights movement against the occupation, highlighting the way in which the occupation impinges on Palestinian human rights has always been an excellent option for Palestinians in the absence of diplomatic progress. At the moment, the diplomatic push by the Obama administration suggests that there are much more fruitful avenues to pursue at the present time in the realm of international relations. However, should this process stall, or sputter out altogether, attention towards a nonviolent civil campaign designed to call international attention to the outrageous conditions imposed by the occupation would be a very serious option for the Palestinian national movement. The first intifada was something approaching this, and was extraordinarily successful in numerous ways, especially in contrast to the catastrophic, militarized second intifada. However, for a human rights movement in the occupied territories to be successful, armed struggle, terrorism, rocket attacks and other militarized strategies would have to be suspended if not renounced. Just as it has never seriously contemplated recognizing Israel’s right to exist, Hamas remains committed to armed struggle and "martyrdom" as the path to achieving their goals.

This brings us to the heart of the confusion in Weiss’ idea: like a lot of Western and Jewish sympathizers with the Palestinian cause, he does not seem to understand what Hamas is, what it wants and how it intends to get it. Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood party of Palestine, and that ideology and affiliation defines much of what it thinks and does. First, it is a theocratic organization that seeks to “Islamize” Palestinian society along ultra-conservative lines and to establish an Islamic state theoretically from the river to the sea and as a practical matter in any areas that fall under its control. However, Hamas is not simply the religious far-right of Palestine, it is also a part of a regional alliance which has both domestic goals within each Arab state in which it is organized, and a broader regional agenda. I think that the Gaza war was a painful and distressing demonstration of how that regional agenda can trump the most elementary aspects of Palestinian interests. Moreover, due to the aid it receives from Iran and the basing of much of its political leadership in Damascus, Hamas is also a part of a pro-Iranian alliance, which also complicates and sometimes compromises its role as a Palestinian national organization. In other words, Hamas is not only ideologically disinclined to recognize Israel, and politically unable to do so given its overriding aim of replacing the PLO and need to draw a stark contrast with and outbid it, it also has patrons and allies that play a significant role in its calculations that have no interest in any recognition of Israel or peace agreement of any kind.

While the prospect of Hamas recognizing Israel’s right to exist is extremely unlikely, especially as long as its main aim remains its replacing of the PLO as the main Palestinian national organization, the idea of it leading a “civil rights struggle” anywhere and under any circumstances is positively weird. Hamas does not believe in civil rights as Weiss and I am using the term, a concept that is meaningless outside of enlightenment-derived traditions embodied in documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other similar statements of principle. Hamas’ Muslim Brotherhood ideology is rooted in a very different understanding of the nature of individual rights and the relationship between the individual and both the state and society. Some well-meaning Western observers seem to think that Hamas and other Islamist groups are some sort of Islamic version of leftist revolutionaries of earlier eras, but they are not. Hamas’ agenda could be described as anti-colonial, but not as consistent with civil or human rights as they are commonly understood in most of the world. Hamas might be able to serve as the vehicle of an anti-colonial movement, but not a civil rights movement, and there is a vast gap between the two.

People have a right to be supportive of Hamas’ agenda if they want to, but they must be honest with themselves and others about what is it, in fact, that they are supporting and what this would mean for minorities, individuals, women and governance in general in Palestinian society. I understand that he has visited them in Gaza, but if Weiss can imagine a scenario in which Hamas serves as the vehicle of a “civil rights struggle” then he has simply failed to understand the nature, ideology and agenda of the organization. Palestinians, like all peoples, will have a reactionary religious right in its political life, and for the foreseeable future this will remain Hamas. However, Hamas is not, and must not be allowed to become, the main Palestinian national organization, if the Palestinian national cause is to survive as a viable, independent political movement that is pursuing a just and achievable goal.

A reader asks me: ?Why do you not support the movement for BDS [boycott, divestment, sanctions] a tactic that is non-violent, has had a positive role in ending other injustices, has begun to show significant results in the Palestine/Israel conflict and which terrifies the most regressive elements within Zionism, elements whose tolerance for endless ?peace process? jawboning seems limitless?? Thanks very much for this very interesting question.

In a nutshell, I just don’t think boycotts are likely to be effective, especially ad hoc ones, in advancing the Palestinian national interest. Some forms of boycott, divestment and sanctions aimed at the occupation and that are part of a clearly defined political strategy focusing on the occupation and designed to help end the occupation could conceivably be useful, at least in theory. As you say, these tactics have been useful in other situations aimed at challenging extreme injustice, as the occupation certainly embodies. However, effective boycotts would have to be an integral part of a well-conceived and coordinated strategy that is driven by a political and diplomatic agenda. Ad hoc boycotts are unlikely to be particularly useful or effective, unless they are consistent with an overall strategy whose ultimate goal is diplomatic and coordinated by the Palestinian national leadership. Right now, that doesn’t exist because the national leadership is pursuing a different approach, and so this project is entirely disconnected from the overall national political strategy.

It’s extremely questionable whether the Palestinian national leadership at this stage would be well advised to pursue a strategy that includes boycotts, since the project of institution-building in preparation for a Palestinian state would certainly seem to be among the most urgent tasks facing the Palestinian people. In fact, most of what the Palestinian Authority and the PLO are trying to do in terms of institution building and economic development in Palestine requires a certain degree of coordination and sometimes cooperation with Israel. Obviously, many people don’t like this, and it’s one of the bases for the fatuous “collaborator” calumny, but honestly, there is no choice given the facts on the ground, so to speak, if one wants to do anything constructive in the occupied territories in terms of building Palestinian institutions and infrastructure and pursuing economic development. A strategy that emphasizes boycotts against Israel would be hard to reconcile with one emphasizing investment and institution building in Palestine. Among many other problems, it would probably eliminate Israel’s inclination to cooperate in any way with Palestinian institution and economic development projects.

Of course, many people who are involved in the BDS project are highly unsympathetic to the project of institution building towards independence and economic development for the Palestinian people, thinking that all such efforts under conditions of occupation means unscrupulous collaboration and treachery. Indeed, much of this project tends to be aimed not at the occupation but at Israel as such, which is one reason why it is highly unlikely that it will ever gain much traction in Western societies, especially the United States. Any BDS project aimed at Israel as such will run into exceptionally powerful opposition in Western societies, especially the all-important (especially to Israel) United States, which I don’t believe can be overcome in order for it to become a major factor in the Israeli-Palestinian equation.

Insofar as the BDS idea centers on in effect “defeating” Israel through sanctions and boycotts, I think it has no hope of success whatsoever. It’s a feel-good fantasy, and a way for people to reject all things Israel and Israeli, and to feel that they are doing something useful in opposition to Israel, and to mobilize sentiment, but I really don’t think there is any realistic prospect of widespread divestment and sanctions against Israel as such in most Western societies, and certainly not in the United States. I have been to numerous divestment conferences and meetings on American university campuses, and I always advised that divestment rhetoric was a useful way of beginning the conversation about the conditions of the occupation, but that divestment itself was an unrealistic goal and that people should use it tactically in order to begin a conversation and not seriously pursue it as if it were realistically achievable.

Even if widespread BDS were accomplished in Western societies towards Israel, which is certainly a remote possibility at best, I think it is extremely doubtful that this would be sufficient to compel Israel to capitulate and agree to the mass return of refugees, the creation of a single state from the river to the sea, or any other measure that would be regarded as a form of national suicide by most Israelis. The Palestinians, after all, have been facing what amounts to an exceptionally ruthless boycott since at least 1948, and this has not weakened their national spirit or their commitment to their national project. I think expecting such measures to cause the collapse of Israeli national morale is deeply unrealistic, and reflects what I have written about before as the deep-seated and extremely damaging fantasy that Israel is a fragile, temporary entity that is about to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.

Historically, boycotts (along with armed struggle) have been one of the two principal elements of Arab resistance to Israel since 1948, and while it’s true that the so-called BDS project is a new version of Arab boycotts against Israel (now focusing on Western societies), it’s still the boycott tactic yet again. It hasn’t worked in the past, and I’m convinced that it won’t work at the present time, especially not when it is done by ad hoc groups of people not only without being part of a broad diplomatic strategy by the national leadership, but in contradiction to the diplomatic strategy of the PLO.

I don’t agree that Israel or most Israelis are “terrified” of boycotts, although some may no doubt be worried about their potential to cause harm, which is a realistic concern. However, causing this kind of limited pain to Israelis is not the key to achieving Palestinian rights, which can only be secured in practice through an agreement with Israel since neither a military victory nor political tactics such as boycotts and economic pressure, which have been used by both sides in the conflict for 60 years, have succeeded in defeating or breaking the will of either Israel or the Palestinians. Only through a negotiated agreement can Palestinians achieve the end of the occupation. Given this reality, the costs of a BDS campaign probably outweigh any potential benefits. It is more useful to look for ways of moving past the zero-sum equation towards some form of mutually acceptable win-win dynamic that can produce a lasting agreement that end the occupation.

I understand and share the reader?s frustration with “endless peace process jawboning,” and it’s definitely true that 16 years since negotiations began we still have no agreement, settlements have increased and the occupation has become in many ways more onerous, which produces inevitable skepticism about negotiations. However, it’s also still the case that negotiations could succeed where nothing else can. I’ll have more to say about the reasons why negotiations with Israel on ending the occupation must remain the centerpiece of Palestinian national strategy. But these boycotts, while they appeal to many grassroots activists, are not a serious strategic response to the occupation. They may make people feel good and help mobilize some energy, albeit in the wrong direction, but I am extremely skeptical that they will ever be a major factor in bringing an end to the occupation, and they obviously have no chance whatsoever of precipitating the collapse or capitulation of Israel as many of their proponents seem to imagine they could.

A recent exchange with several people for whom I have respect and affection regarding the question of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and the Palestinian national strategy and interest raises a crucial point that needs much more serious examination in the conversation among Arab-Americans and their supporters regarding the role of outrage in political life. It boils down to this: being upset is not a strategy, and outrage, however moral, is not a political program.

I am all for outrage. Righteous anger is absolutely essential to political life. If we are not upset by injustice and the wrongs and ills of our societies, we will not devote time, money and other resources to political struggle. Personally, I would never have become politically engaged had I not experienced profound and visceral outrage borne of countless personal experiences and the overall disgraceful situation facing the Lebanese, Palestinian and other Arab peoples I grew up surrounded by in Beirut. I don’t know too many people who have developed a keener sense of umbrage at injustice or a deeper commitment to creating positive changes for the better, although these are qualities I obviously share with countless millions around the world. Outrage, therefore, is what brought me to political life, and what I think will bring most people who become engaged, as I think everyone ought to be.

However, there are serious limitations to the practical application of outrage. Having served its purpose as an indispensable motivating factor, outrage must quickly be coupled with a clearheaded and dispassionate analysis of how outrageous circumstances came to develop and are maintained. This means separating, at an early stage, one’s emotions (which should not be jettisoned, but rather enhanced and refined by the facts) from our willingness to look at reality clearly, honestly and self-critically. This process takes time and is often painful, but it is absolutely essential. However, even this is not sufficient as an additional process that is even more significant to becoming an effective political actor is required. Motivating outrage and illuminating analysis must combine to produce a serious, practicable strategy for accomplishing realizable goals that take into account all the factors that help to shape political realities. This is the most difficult and painful step of all, for it requires unsentimentally assessing all the relevant factors in play, especially the factor of power, and distinguishing between achievable and unachievable goals, and effective and ineffective methods of pursuing them. It means making a clear distinction between words and deeds that advance an achievable goal and those that are counterproductive. It means determining a realizable objective, keeping one’s eyes on the prize, and not being distracted by any considerations extraneous to achieving the aim. This does not mean abandoning principles at all, it means working seriously to advance them in the real world and pursuing success as opposed to failure.

For supporters of Palestine, this process of honest political reflection is particularly painful, especially because the array of power in all relevant equations is not favorable. However, Palestinians do have their own forms of power, particularly as regards the question of ending the occupation, if they apply them wisely. It would be wrong to see the Palestinian people as powerless objects of history rather than subjects fully engaged in shaping their own reality, however constrained their options sometimes may be. At the same time, it is self-defeating and foolish to believe that Palestinian national ambitions, even those that can be defended as moral, just, and rooted in international law, are not constrained by certain irreducible realities for which there is no practical remedy.

As I have observed several times recently, the outcome of the 1948 war is, as a matter of fact, irreversible. The state of Israel is a fait accompli, and there is no realistic prospect for the refugees to return en masse to Israel proper. Outrage, moral principles, invocations of international law, steadfastness, etc., are not strategies for achieving this result. Indeed, no one has ever forwarded a practical strategy for implementing the right of return on a mass scale, because it is perfectly obvious that the Israeli state is unshakable on this issue and that there is no plausible exercise of actually existing power that could change this fact. As I have observed elsewhere, the right of return is a vital principle of international law that should be upheld as a principle. I believe that Palestinian negotiators should press for Israel to recognize the right of return in principle, that Israel should apologize and accept its responsibility for the creation of the refugee problem, and allow for a measure of return of refugees, even under the rubric of family reunification, that constitutes a limited application of the right.

However, expecting that there will be a mass return of refugees is, quite simply, unrealistic and if Palestinians make that an irreducible demand in their negotiations with Israel, these negotiations will fail and the occupation will continue into the indefinite future. It is clear that Palestinian negotiators have understood this for many years, but the public has yet to be properly prepared to accept this reality. The hegemonic Palestinian narrative brilliantly dissected by Hassan Khader in al-Hayat a few weeks ago reinforces an unrealistic set of attitudes and expectations that complicates the development of a sound national strategy and inhibits the kind of clearheaded, honest and self-critical analysis I described above. The idea that this painful and unfortunate, but undeniable and unshakable, state of affairs can be overcome through the cultivation of outrage, unity, moral lectures, or even boycotts and sanctions, is not only unrealistic, it is quite fantastic. Outrage, fantasies, wishful thinking, and repetition of slogans and deeply seated beliefs are not strategies. Anyone who thinks that the state of Israel is going to agree to dissolve itself or take steps that a virtual unanimity among Jewish Israelis regards as tantamount to the dissolution of the state because Palestinians and their friends insist on it or because of what will certainly for the foreseeable future remain extremely limited sanctions and boycotts (which most Western governments and institutions will not participate in) is frankly kidding themselves.

None of these are strategies. They reflect only the first element of what is required to produce an effective political position: outrage. Clearheaded analysis is missing, as none of these positions honestly accept the obvious fact that the Palestinian national movement does not have and will not be able to acquire the power or leverage to coerce or convince Israel to take this step. Most people who engage in absolutist discourse on the right of return seem either not to understand the concept of an actual, practical political strategy or reject the idea as some kind of debasement of a sublime moral principle. Under such circumstances, strategy is quite out of reach. The idea that underlies so much "one-state" rhetoric that Israel is an incredibly fragile, temporary entity that is about to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, and that all that is required to overcome it is determination, steadfastness and moral principles is a particularly self-defeating, if unquestionably appealing, fantasy. Wishful thinking is the very antithesis of clearheaded, sober and serious political analysis.

Those who place all their hopes in boycotts and sanctions are not being honest with themselves about what parties are likely to participate in broad-based sanctions and boycotts against Israel (going beyond settlements and the occupation) and how much effect such measures are likely to have in convincing Israel to take measures most Israelis would regard as an existential crisis. Hamas asks Palestinians to put their faith in armed struggle. The boycott and sanctions movement asks them to put their faith in social, economic and cultural pressure. In fact, these are the twin pillars of Arab and Palestinian resistance to Israel since 1948: armed struggle and boycott. I can find no reason to suspect that either of them will be any more successful or less counterproductive in the next 60 years than they have in the last 60 years. Outrage is not a strategy, and neither are steadfastness, unity, or measures like armed struggle and boycotts that have proven their ineffectiveness over many decades. They are not political responses. They are emotional reactions. This is understandable, but it leads nowhere. The Palestinians, the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian national interest cannot afford further decades of wishful thinking and outrage as a substitute for a real political strategy.

It is obviously very difficult for those outside Iran, and probably even for many of those inside it, to make coherent sense out of the dramatic political developments rocking that country since the presidential election nine days ago. The essential facts are well known. What is opaque is how they are operating politically within the country and what direction Iran is moving in. However, it seems increasingly clear that the regime in Tehran and Qom has doubled-down on everything from the election results to the legitimacy of the supreme leader, and has left the opposition and the protesters no choice but to view their relationship with the government as a zero-sum confrontation that has, perforce and by the deliberate choice of the government, become a revolutionary situation. Iranians are being told by their government: choose between us and the unknown, between us and chaos, between us and revolution.

The broadest outline of the facts is that following a disputed presidential election that appears to have been the subject of a rather crude falsification, thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets in daily protests that have grown in size and intensity over the days, culminating in significant violence yesterday. The question everyone had to consider and calculate has been, what is the fundamental aim of these protests? Are they essentially efforts to roll back one specific election result and a popular outpouring of support for Mir Hossein Mousavi, or even a broader effort to reclaim the authority of the ballot box? Or, more significantly, are they wittingly or unwittingly part of an effort by an old-guard revolutionary elite to push back what it perceives as a “coup” by upstarts from the military and intelligence services, especially the Revolutionary guard, using Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a puppet for their assertion of new power within the Islamic Republic? Or, most dramatically, are the protests essentially, or inevitably becoming, a rejection not of an election, or of a faction within the regime, but rather the rejection of the regime itself, of the Islamic Republic as such? In other words, how much is at stake for the government, and what is the extent of the ambitions of the protesters? Obviously, there are many organizations and motivations at work in the protests, but the question has been (and remains) what is the political direction this uprising is taking, in what direction is it shifting the Iranian state?

The government appears to believe that the protests are increasingly moving from more limited concerns regarding the election to encompassing a broader and completely unacceptable challenge to the system itself, and more significantly, and that they are making this a self-fulfilling prophecy. The regime has consequently become increasingly united in its response to the protesters. After initially suggesting that a recount was necessary or possible, the regime appears to have fallen back on the position that the election was above-board and must be defended at all costs. At this stage, the actual election and the political future of Mousavi appears to be almost beside the point. The violence yesterday suggests that we have moved beyond the phase in which some sort of climbdown from the government regarding the election would seriously address the dynamics fueling the protests, particularly since the government has taken the election results essentially off the table.

The more significant sign of a circling of the government wagons is the reported show of support for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by the so-called “Assembly of Experts,” an 86-member clerical committee in the “holy” city of Qom that has some degree of oversight on the activities of, and essentially appoints, the supreme leader of the vilayyat e-faqih. There were strong indications that former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani — widely considered to be the most influential figure in what might be called a “moderate” wing of the regime, or alternatively the “old-guard” of revolutionary elites as opposed to the new class of Pasdaran, military and intelligence elites supposedly tied to Khamenei and represented politically by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — was attempting to use the civil unrest to try to undermine Khamenei?s position in the Assembly of Experts and essentially remove the supreme leader. Indeed, it’s entirely possible to read the Mousavi-Ahmadinejad election as a proxy battle between an odd coalition of old-line conservatives and reformists cobbled together by Rafsanjani versus Khamenei?s increasingly entrenched and military-centered power base. Their personal and political rivalry has been a subtext of a great deal of Iranian political maneuvering for at least 15 years, but appears to have reached something of a decisive turning point.

If it’s true that the Assembly has issued a statement of support for Khamenei, it would appear that Rafsanjani, if there was any truth to the speculation about his intentions, has essentially been (again, and perhaps finally and decisively) defeated, and, for whatever reason, the highest level of the regime has rallied around the conservative ultra-right led by the supreme leader and his agent, the president. This scenario fits rather nicely with the news today that Rafsanjani’s daughter and at least three other members of his family have been arrested for taking part in “illegal demonstrations.” It would strongly appear that Rafsanjani’s efforts to use the election, and now the protests, to unseat his long-time rival have not only failed, but that they have exhausted themselves, and that, for the time being, efforts to undermine the authority of the supreme leader from within the regime are all but crushed.

Whatever details are confirmed when the full facts are revealed in time, it now seems clear that not only have events overtaken the issue of the election, but that any sense that one faction in the regime can successfully use the momentum and dynamic of the protests to force a change in leadership, especially at the supreme leader and Assembly of Experts level, is also now, it would seem moot (a report to the contrary from al-Arabiyya notwithstanding). It would seem, from the outside and in a (possibly vain) effort to cut through the fog of confusion and the overdetermined nature of these extremely dramatic developments that are almost certainly unfolding outside of anyone’s control, that we have now entered what can only be seen as at least potentially a revolutionary situation in Iran. I wouldn’t have said this until the bloodshed yesterday and the reported political developments regarding the upper echelons of the elite, but it strikes me that the regime is now united around upholding the election results, and therefore also around the power of the supreme leader and the legitimacy of President Ahmadinejad. It has made it clear that it regards the protests as a direct challenge to the regime itself, and the political system of the Islamic Republic, and not a challenge to one, isolated fraudulent election, or to a single, grasping political faction. The difference is all-important, for it means that either the protesters give up, and go home and accept the election results and Ahmadinejad?s victory, or they press forward on the terms now outline by the government itself, which has in effect declared the situation to be a conflict between the system itself and the protesters.

Having opted for an all-or-nothing approach to this outpouring of dissatisfaction, it seems to me that the regime has given popular discontent and all parties involved in the process little choice but to view the matter in the same light. It is becoming increasingly unlikely that an electoral recount or other half-measures would suffice to address this dissatisfaction, or that the regime can manage a shakeup at the highest levels on its own terms. The regime of the Islamic Republic has recoiled into its shell like a snail in the rain, and this simply hoping that it all stops as soon as possible. The Eastern European, “velvet revolution,” internal regime reform in the face of public outrage option seems to have been foreclosed, at least for the time being. It seems extremely unlikely that the Iranian people are going to be put off by police brutality or other forms of violence.

Two crucial questions remain to be answered in the coming days and weeks:

1) Is there a stomach among the population for a confrontation with the system itself, and a revolutionary spirit to match the revolutionary situation that has unfolded? Are Iranians really ready for another major domestic political upheaval? Can the regime simply tough it out until the protesters become exhausted, dispirited or too internally divided to press on?

2) If there is sufficient revolutionary sentiment to realize the potential of what is plainly a revolutionary situation, is the opposition too fragmented and contradictory to take advantage of it and unseat the regime once and for all? Or, will the regime have sufficient support to fend off a challenge from a fragmented and fractious opposition that will undoubtedly include many organizations and individuals with conflicting motivations?

If the regime is going to collapse, both Iranian history and other analogous situations such as the fall of communism in Poland (and elsewhere), suggests that this is likely to be a slow, spiraling process in which centers of opposition beyond street demonstrations spring up in unexpected and unanticipated locations, ebb and flow, and eventually coalesce around a central set of themes and personalities as yet probably unpredictable. Factors such as general strikes, non-cooperation with the government at various levels, defections of officials and clerics, and a unifying rhetoric uniting a very disparate set of opposition forces would all be indispensable features of such a process. The regime is hunkered down for the long haul, and the opposition should be thinking in similar terms.

As for the Obama administration, hands-off is the best policy. After a somewhat shaky start, the President seems to have his foreign policy approach well in hand, applying subtle pressure on the Iranian government and limited support for the protesters (or at least their right to protest and not be killed), without giving the regime in a credible basis for claiming US (or even more ludicrously, British) interference in domestic Iranian affairs. Conservatives always love to blame “outside agitators” for the consequences of their own transgressions. It’s important that the United States doesn’t do anything to provide a credible basis for such claims, as they may be one of the last, best hopes for a regime and the leadership that is massacring its own legitimacy, credibility, and, quite possibly, future.

Roger Cohen has written some interesting columns for the New York Times in the past few months, making many points I agree with, and some I do not. But his contribution to tomorrow’s edition written from a smoldering Tehran is his best yet:

"I’d say the momentum is with them for now. At moments on Saturday, Khamenei’s authority, which is that of the Islamic Republic itself, seemed fragile. The revolutionary authorities have always mocked the cancer-ridden Shah’s ceding before an uprising, and vowed never to bend in the same way. Their firepower remains formidable, but they are facing a swelling test."

Worth reading in its entirety.

A reader writes, "If any Palestinians who desire to are not allowed the Right to Return to homelands within the present state of Israel, haven’t the Zionists won? Wouldn’t the Zionists succeed in consolidating a racially supremacist ‘Jewish’ state that maintains Palestinians as second class, minority citizens?” [There was more to this question, but it essentially reiterated these two points.]

I think I dealt fairly thoroughly with the issue of the right of return in a recent posting on the Ibishblog. I’d encourage you and anyone else is interested in my views on the topic to review that, and if you have any specific questions based on that perspective, I’d be happy to entertain them. However, there are aspects to this question that are worth considering.

First of all, I think we simply need to accept the truth of the matter, however unpalatable: the state of Israel is not going to agree to any peace arrangement that involves the mass return of millions of Palestinian refugees into Israel. Anyone who holds out hope for this as a realistic possibility, or predicates their support for any conflict-ending agreement that could actually secure the end of the occupation, is tying their aspirations (and, more significantly, the aspirations, rights and living conditions of Palestinians) to an unachievable objective. I cannot imagine a scenario in which Israel would agree to effectively dissolve itself, which is what the mass return of millions of refugees would entail. If Palestinians were to make that a dealbreaker, then they would not be open to an achievable peace agreement, instead preferring occupation and conflict for the foreseeable future. The same applies to the Israeli position on Jerusalem, which is a sine qua non for Palestinians.

These are bitter pills for both to swallow on either side, but the political realities are such that there are deep-seated and in many ways legitimate aspirations that simply cannot be secured because one party considers them irreconcilable with their fundamental national interests. It is essential that any peace agreement correspond to the minimal national interest requirements of all parties, and any vision of the future that does not acknowledge these national interests in a serious way is not a serious vision and does not participate in what is called the real world.

The reader asks whether accepting this would mean that, "the Zionists have won?" I think this is a very anachronistic and reductive way of looking at the problem, although it is true that I think that the 1948 war demonstrates the effective limitations of Palestinian national aspirations. I would add that the 1968 war and its aftermath until the present day demonstrates the effective limitations of Israeli national aspirations, and that a healthy understanding of both of these limitations produces support for a two-state agreement that ends the occupation and allows for Palestine to live alongside Israel in peace and security. However, even though there will be people on both sides who will declare that a reasonable agreement means, in effect, that the other side "has won," the whole purpose of negotiations, an agreement, and developing a more healthy attitude on all sides towards the conflict means transforming a zero-sum equation into a win-win dynamic. Israel has much to gain from such an agreement, and faces grave dangers if it is not secured. Palestinians have much to gain, as well, and face a grim future if it is not achieved. Although such an agreement would not resolve all outstanding problems, grievances and issues, it would succeed in ending the occupation and the conflict, and would allow both peoples to go forward outside of the context of occupation and warfare. Maximalists on both sides will declare the other side victorious, but in truth, both parties, and all the peoples of the Middle East, and certainly the United States, will be winners in the sense that their immediate circumstances and long-term prospects will have greatly improved.

One final point: I don’t think that this agreement would necessarily mean that Israel will always be treating its Palestinian minority as second-class citizens. However, in the context of a two state agreement, relations between Palestinian and Jewish Israelis will be a matter for the political system in Israel, the law courts, and other measures through which Palestinian citizens of Israel can seek to secure full legal and political rights within that state. Netanyahu’s efforts to force Palestinians to declare their recognition of Israel as a "Jewish state" is a red herring, and a brand-new demand that has not been heard since Palestinian-Israeli negotiations began in 1993. Obviously, it will be up to Israel to define itself, as it does. This includes the perspective of Palestinian citizens of Israel, but should be entirely independent of the opinion of Palestine, the PLO, or anybody else. Obviously, there are extreme circumstances in which the domestic affairs of member states of the United Nations become international concerns, such as genocide at the most extreme level, but generally speaking questions of discrimination against minority groups are internal matters, particular to each state and society, and really this is the way that Palestine and Israel ought to approach each other. It is the only possibility for Palestinians and Israelis to achieve anything approaching a healthy relationship, through two states that are equally sovereign and relate to each other through the normal conventions of international relations and diplomacy.