[WCUSP] Speaking the Unspeakable: Can Israel Survive?

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

> 
_http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucrr/20060916/cm_ucrr/speakingtheunspeakablecanisraelsurvive&printer=1_ 
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucrr/20060916/cm_ucrr/speakingtheunspeakablecanisraelsurvive&printer=1) 
> 
>  SPEAKING THE UNSPEAKABLE: CAN ISRAEL SURVIVE? 
>  By Richard Reeves
> 
>  Fri Sep 15, 8:07 PM ET 

>  NEW YORK -- At a book party in New York last Wednesday night, a former 
newspaperman came up to a Washington Post
>  columnist and said: "So, will there be an Israel in 2020?"

>  The columnist was Richard Cohen, who was getting holy Internet hell for 
writing a column, on July 18, that began: "The
>  greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel 
itself is a mistake. An honest mistake,
>  well-intentioned ... creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab 
Muslims ..."

>  The point of Cohen's column, "Hunker Down With History," was that this was 
no time for Israel to try to use military
>  power to regain control of territory it has already given up, the Gaza 
Strip and the buffer zone in southern Lebanon. It
>  was pertinent analysis by a talented pro-Israel writer. But I'm sure that 
is not what is being blogged around. One
>  e-mail I read said: "This is the first (current) case of a Jewish pundit 
desperately trying to feed Israeli Jews to the
>  crocodile in the hope that he will be eaten last."

>  The man asking the question about 2020 was Peter Osnos, a former foreign 
correspondent and foreign editor of the Post,
>  who has become an important publishing figure in New York. His tone was 
light, but he meant it.

>  "Nobody wants to talk about it, but nothing works anymore for Israel," 
Osnos said later. "The negotiated settlement
>  narrative that began with Anwar Sadat's visit to Israel in 1977 has been 
shattered. You have to begin with the
>  demographic facts. Even Israel will have a majority of Arabs within 15 
years."

>  Osnos, who became a vice president of Random House and then founded his 
own publishing house, Public Affairs, writes his
>  own column, focusing on media coverage of foreign affairs, distributed by 
the Century Foundation in New York. This is
>  part of what he has written over the past month:

>  "What we must finally recognize is that the rage of the Middle East -- 
Arab and Jew, Sunni and Shiite, fundamentalist
>  and pragmatist -- is intractable as other world conflicts are not. ... The 
historic and political case for Israel's
>  place in the midst of a deeply volatile and insecure region where hundreds 
of millions are taught to despise it is no
>  different now than it was at the time Israel was created in 1948. ...

>  "The optimistic view is that Arab pragmatists emboldened (and 
simultaneously intimidated) by their radical brethren's
>  sense of victory may now be willing again to negotiate broader peace. The 
pessimists say that Israel is running out of
>  time to secure long-term peace. ... Israel will mark its 60th anniversary 
in 2008. But it remains surrounded by
>  countries and movements that at worst are sworn to its destruction and at 
best merely despise it. Nations are not
>  immutable. The Soviet empire marked its 60th anniversary in 1977. Fourteen 
years later, it was gone, a parenthesis of
>  time in Russian history. ..
 
>  "Much of the Western world seems no longer to believe, more than a 
half-century removed from the Holocaust in Europe,
>  that civilization owes the Jews a homeland anymore. ... The image of 
Israel has gradually been corroded by the
>  consequences of 40 years of occupation on the West Bank and Gaza. The 
country is a vibrant democracy with a deeply
>  imbeddded dream of peaceful co-existence with its neighbors. Yet when 
security and dominance of its borders are at
>  stake, Israel suspends the pleasantries. The image of Israel in the rest 
of the world focuses on that ferocity."

>  The bottom line is that, sadly, the survival of Israel depends not on its 
own valor and might or justice of cause, but
>  on the friendship and support of one friend, the United States. And its 
friend has made all of these things worse by
>  invading Iraq, spreading ever more chaos and hatred throughout the Muslim 
world.

>  Ironically, some of the American planners thought our weapons of shock and 
awe would make Israel more secure. In fact,
>  our quick-strike aggression has done the opposite, and in many ways. As 
Osnos pointed out, Israel is richer and
>  stronger, but in terms of security it is no better off than it was in 1948.
>  
> 


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