89 Days to Go
Do We Know What we are Doing?

By Sherwin Pomerantz

There are now just 89 days left to the opening of the United Nations General Assembly’s 2011 session in New York and the vote on recognizing Palestinian statehood. To be sure the suggestions as to what to do are flying fast and furious.

What we see in the press and on the blogs generally falls into one of two categories, either (a) people are saying we absolutely must do something and not take a wait and see attitude while (b) others counsel that nothing will happen after the vote anyway so why not just stand on our principles and wait and see what happens next.

Over the last few days I’ve seen three articles that address the dilemma in three distinctly different, but all intelligent, ways.

Lazar Berman, Program Manager for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington DC think tank, has penned a piece entitled “Might Israel Know What It’s Doing?” (http://www.american.com/archive/2011/june/might-israel-know-what-it2019s-doing) In the article Berman analyzes a whole series of Israeli strategic moves including reactions to Hizbullah in Lebanon, last May’s attempt to break the blockade of Gaza by the Turkish vessel Marvi Marmara, as well as the Nakba and Naksa demonstrations earlier this spring. His conclusion is that while Israel operates in an atmosphere of “no good options” when it comes to these types of situations, he concludes: “Though its responses often seem haphazard and excessively violent, the long view indicates that Israel’s mix of diplomacy, deterrence and force keeps its citizens safe and minimizes extended bloodshed.”

Rabbi Berel Wein, who operates his Jewish Destiny Foundation from offices both in the US and Israel, had an op-ed in last Friday’s Jerusalem Post entitled “The Status Quo” (http://www.rabbiwein.com/Jerusalem-Post/2011/06/615.html) where he makes the case that Jews have lived with status quo situations for centuries and that there are, as well, plenty of examples of this in modern day Israel as well in areas such as religion, elections, the relationship with the Arab world, to name a few. He takes a current look at the logic of those who say, vis-à-vis the expected occurrences in September, that the status quo cannot continue and concludes by saying: “Over the last twenty years, from Oslo through Gaza, all promises of accomplishments and success have been returned as being empty ones. So maybe the dreaded status quo will have to suffice for us for some time yet into the future. Most of life is status quo. Let us make the most of what is given to us at hand.”

Finally, in yesterday’s New York Times Tom Friedman has a piece entitled “What to Do With Lemons” where he describes both Israel and the Palestinians as “lemons” using the vernacular for automobiles that are always troublesome. In his piece, he suggests that it would be a bad strategy to attempt to maintain the status quo as that is not something that answers anyone’s concerns. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/opinion/19friedman.html). Rather, he suggests returning to General Assembly Resolution 181 which, in November 1947, partitioned the former Palestine into two homes for two peoples, described at the time as “Independent Arab and Jewish States.” His proposal is to bring this existing resolution (which, presumably, is still binding) to the Security Council and update it by adding that the dividing line should be the 1967 borders (we all know, of course, that those were not borders at all but simply agreed upon armistice lines) with mutually agreed border adjustments and security arrangements for both sides. His position is that this would give an international imprimatur to a situation that both parties understand will be the end game in any event and something that has been more or less understood in all of the past peace negotiations.

So where does that leave us? Yes, Israel probably did know what it was doing in all of the earlier scenarios that Lazar Berman describes in his article. But just because historically we may have come out of the situations he describes relatively unscathed does not mean that this will obtain in the future as well. Those of us living here certainly remember the feeling of helplessness during the 2nd Lebanese War as rockets rained down on the northern half of the country and we were powerless to stop them. So being secure in the knowledge that we may have known what we were doing in the past is no guarantee that similar tactics will work in the present or the future.

As for maintaining the status quo, that generally only makes sense when either (a) all of the variables are under the control of one country or entity or (b) if others are involved, that they agree to this scenario as well. In our current situation it seems quite clear that there are multiple forces at work both within Israel and outside of Israel intent on making sure that the status quo does not continue. While I do, indeed, have great respect for Rabbi Wein’s intellect and commitment to the destiny of the Jewish people (remember he is the only one of the three writers cited who actually lives here), I’m simply not sure that we have the luxury of deciding to maintain the status quo and coming out of this whole.

That leaves us with Tom Friedman’s approach which is to update General Assembly Resolution 181, which is critical given that the original dividing lines were even narrower than the 1967 armistice lines. It is worth reading the op-ed and much of what he says would seem to make sense except, of course, that he does not mention anything about the status of Jerusalem, the refugee issue or the security situation in the Jordan Valley, all of which he lumps into a sentence that ends “the General Assembly urges both sides to enter into negotiations to resolve all the other outstanding issue.” What is really a bit humorous are the two words that follow that sentence, to wit: “Very simple.” Really?

I certainly believe, as the readers of this blog already know, that neither depending on history to repeat itself in our favor or attempting to maintain the status quo are the best choices for us. Tom Friedman actually seems to begin to address the probably in a manner that may have some potential but it still needs to go further in order to give those of us living here sufficient comfort to move ahead in this direction with a partner that has proven to be significantly unreliable over the last 63 years of our existence as a state. It will be interesting to see the reactions to this on both sides.