The Jewish question
The old joke that never grows old
After my last posting on the subject, I suffered through a few more conversations that I found painfully disappointing. The source of my disappointment was the fact that they came from sources that I actually like and respect. They also made me realize, that I may not have been clear enough in my last post about my expectations for a rational discourse. I would like to remedy this shortcoming with an open letter to a fellow Substacker,
.Dear John,
I am writing to you to give voice to my disappointment and to ask you a very clear and straightforward question with the hope that the answer will be in kind.
I discovered you and your work shortly after the start of the Ukraine – Russia conflict. I appreciate greatly what I learned from you and I also appreciate your ‘realist’ approach to problems – to a certain extent, as I do not mind a little hope and speculation based on the realities and trends of the day. I welcome, for example, the possible multipolar world order emerging from the Ukraine proxy war. Even though I couldn’t possibly know exactly how it will turn out, I could articulate outcomes that I would find preferable and desirable. Speculating about the possibilities of the future is just another tool of understanding the present. But, Ukraine is not the subject of my question.
The source of my disappointment were the conversations you had with:
The Duran: Gaza & Ukraine Endgame - John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen (youtube.com) ;
prior to that, on Unherd:
John Mearsheimer: There is no two-state solution;
…and I did, of course, read your article that started, in a way, the above conversations:
Death and Destruction in Gaza - by John J. Mearsheimer (substack.com)
I found the stance you are taking in them a shameful betrayal of your principles and your scholarly stature.
After finishing the first draft of this post, I also read the book you wrote with Stephen M. Walt: The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy
It did not help my disappointment but at least it confirmed that your anti-Israeli sentiments are consistent over time.
Still, bitching about a problem does NOT help us to understand it or to solve it.
The number of footnotes does not make a book scholarly.
Your book gets a pass on problem description but a fail on both the analysis and a theory (suggestions) on solving it.
Now let me summarize your post:
First: Israel is killing civilians (On purpose, no less!)
Second: Israel is starving civilians (On purpose, again!)
Third: They are scaring them in ugly ways.
Fourth: They are destroying their homes too!
Fifth: They are humiliating them publicly as well!
Sixth: The Americans are helping them.
Seventh: They are doing it in the West Bank too.
In summary: Those dirty low-down no-good nasty bad Jew-boys are doing ugly things again.
In the end, your post reads like a propaganda piece, not an argument.
“Israeli settlers, working closely with the IDF, continue to kill innocent Palestinians and steal their land.”
Really? Is the Land Registry office in on it as well? It does not bother you how preposterous this sounds?
Where is the scholarly explanation? The analysis of the roots of the conflict, its history, its influencers and confounders? What are the possibilities and the directions?
Where is the brilliant analysis you were able to provide about the background of the Ukraine conflict?
What is different in this one? In the end, this is just another proxy war.
Just another game of global powers on the geopolitical chess-board.
What you do in your post and interviews is little more than what Bill Maher so aptly referred to as kvetching.
In my last post I quoted you from the Unherd interview you did. The point you made in other occasions as well, that you are a longtime supporter of the solution that wouldn’t actually work.
Shouldn’t that beg for the question – so, what would?
In Israel's Choices you say that Israel has two options, apartheid or ethnic cleansing. You find both of those unacceptable. If these choices are unacceptable, then what is?
Please try to understand that I am writing this with a very heavy heart. I feel that my trust in you was betrayed. You should also understand that I am not Jewish and have absolutely no skin in the game beyond my moral and intellectual integrity. I also share your belief that we should be realists.
What I would like to see is a dispassionate analysis and an equitable, practicable and morally acceptable proposal for a solution.
I believe that the first step toward any acceptable solution to just about any problem is a comprehensive vision. Working out the details is the easy part.
So let me ask you: what is your vision? What does an ideal Israel look like? What does ideal relationship with its neighbours look like? What should happen to the Palestinians?
Naturally, I have my own vision and an analysis of its practicability but I would like to hold onto it until I can see yours. It is not a secret; anyone can figure out the general idea from my last post.
Your taking this question seriously will be much appreciated.
Zork Hun
These are the same questions, by the way, that I would ask from any of you reading this.
What is your solution? I would ESPECIALLY like to hear from my Jewish friends.
Not by choice, but I do not happen to have Palestinian friends; but if you are a supporter of the Palestinian cause, you can also tell me what would you find an equitable, practicable and moral solution?
Just spare me the bromide of the two state kumbaya.
And if you would also like
to answer the question, let him know by restacking my question tagging him in it.
Oh so you are a Nazi
I suspect Mr Mearsheimer would say it is not his place to have or describe a vision, but merely to speak truths which may help those whose job it is to have a vision, develop one.
You make the same mistake many do of conflating Israel with Judaism and Jews. I know that is easy to do because Israel claims to represent the religion and its followers, Jews, even though it is an atheist political fascist entity which totally debases and betrays Judaism and Jews.
All Jews are not Zionists and all Zionists are not Jews. Many Orthodox Jews have always rejected Zionism and a literal Israel saying it ran counter to Judaic teaching.
Yes, many Jews, probably most, support Israel or rather, they support an idea and ideal of Israel which never existed. They support the dream, the fantasy and remain ignorant of the evil reality of the Israeli State, both in its planning and its execution.
Zionist Israel was founded on lies, the first being Jews, followers of a religion had a right to a State. No religion has such a right and if Jews did then all religions would.
Secondly that Jews had a need for such a State, comfortingly called a homeland even though religions do not get homelands. If they did all religions would have the same right. Most Jews do not live in Israel, never did and never will and even after WWII most Jews leaving Europe did not opt to become colonists in Palestine but migrated to many countries around the world where they continue to live happily and safely.
Thirdly, the Zionist lie was that Palestine was a land without people, despite the copious records showing their plans to rid Palestine of its native people because most were Muslims and a large minority were Christians. Citizenship would of course be given to Palestinian Arab Jews because being a Jew elevated the individual to superiority as a human who could comfortably live alongside the Zionists and Jews joining the colony. The 'subhuman' non-Jews were to be killed or driven out. That policy has not changed in more than 75 years.
Fourthly, that the Zionists and Jews had a right to set up their State because of the UN Mandate. That mandate was only ever a recommendation, never ratified, and it demanded the Palestinians not be ill-treated. Israel of course ignored all of that and one could argue made even the recommendation invalid. However, that Mandate was immoral and illegal so they had no right to create Israel in Palestine in the first place. However, the key point is the UN had no legal right to even suggest partitioning Palestine or to support a State for followers of a religion, Jews. In short, the plan and the process was totally illegal and no doubt the Zionists knew that which is why they invented themselves through genocidal violence and brute force.
Fifthly, as the powerful and 'successful' occupation colonial military regime, Israel has treated the Palestinians genocidally and violently in ways which make Israel the most venal and murderous colonial venture in modern history. In short, they put no effort into winning hearts and minds of the people whose land they had stolen, nor into providing justice, compensation, reparation and a chance of a decent life; instead they abused, murdered, imprisoned, tortured and continued to dispossess them.
All of that says the Palestinians have every right to fight their oppressor and Israel has no right to try to stop them. It also says the Zionist entity must end and if an Israel remains it will be in a small State with most of Palestine returned to its native people.
Either that or the sensible vision is one State, shared equally by the Palestinians and any Israelis who want to remain as Palestinians, a democracy where religion is secondary to citizenship and equality is a given. There would also have to be reparation paid for more than 75 years of holocaust for the Palestinians and the theft of land, homes, country, possessions. We have the precedent set for reparation to Jews who lost such things in World War Two so reparation for Christians and Muslims would simply follow that course.
An apology would also be good from every Israeli and every supporter who has enabled the atrocity of the State for so long.