Blog Archives
What Is a Settlement?
On Friday, March 9, 2012 I leave for Israel to teach at Ariel University for about two months. Ariel is a settlement and I will be blogging from there. Some thoughts are below from something I’ve been working on related to settlers and their discourse. I will take up related issues over the next few months. Please feel free to comment. The remarks below are the basic issues related to settlements beginning with “What is a settlement.”
Contiguous land can be claimed or annexed for any number of reasons including economic, security, or military defeat. Benvenisti argued that Israel’s position with respect to the territories was not ideological but purely economic and practical. He held that the land was legally available to Israel and Israel’s incursion into the territories was justified by economic interests. Israel also makes the distinction between pure colonization and the slow integration of a new population into an older one. The new population is typically more powerful and considered superior and they slowly overwhelm the older or indigenous population. This process mostly describes post-1967 settlement justifications. Israel has struggled with the definition of the territories as a frontier land that is subject to the legitimization process. This is one reason that various strategies have been used to justify land acquisition. Sometimes these justifications are political and economic and other times they are ideological or religious. My concern is with religious and ideological justifications. But in either case the “settlers” and their “occupying” behavior have become a part of Israel and restructured how Israelis define themselves. Lustick is interested in state expansion and contraction and describes stages of territorial expansion. He argues that Israel is in the throes of regime occupation and so increasingly intertwined with the territories that it cannot extract itself without violence. The conflict is at the intersection of the settlers desire to naturalize and justify their existence, and the fact that their project is opposed by many and will have to be abandoned or severely curtailed in order to secure a stable peace. In the face of this conflict, the settlers must work through discourses about the land, sanctity, Zionism, and the cultural “other,” namely, the Palestinian Arabs.
A settlement is a communal Israeli village purposefully located in the West Bank or what religious settlers refer to as the ancient biblical land of Judea and Samaria, land that is currently contested territory. The settlement represents religious and political significance in every manner from architecture to geographical location and design. Israel’s victory in the Six Day War in 1967 resulted in a return to holy places and thus reconnected the Israeli public with sacred places and religious feelings. Gadi Taub in his book on the settlements credits Israel’s literary figure Amos Oz with being the first to recognize in just a few months after the Six Day War the political division that would overtake Israeli politics for years to come. Oz wrote that Zionism in the future would either continue to be about democratic self determination in the best sense, or it would be about redeeming the land. Oz knew that if Zionism drifted toward religious redemption of the land then the Palestinian population would be under the boot of occupation and Israel would evolve toward a modern Sparta focused on military expertise and subjugating a local population.
Settlements are self contained communities that require roads, schools, buildings, and all the essentials of municipalities. Various religious and political organizations (e.g. the Gush Emunim, Yesha council) have taken the lead in promoting settlements by developing apparently normal communities in every way except location. Settlements typically resemble modern suburban bedroom communities where residents come and go at will. But these settlements are anything but innocent or normal. They are a discursive space for a counter Israeli society that has religious redemption and control as its goals. We will see below how the settlements have discursively constructed authenticity through language, symbols, and the creation of their own meanings. Settlers employ a discourse that is an interrelated set of practices that shape meanings. These practices, whether cultural or interpretive, are patterned and systematized within a social and political context. A critical point about discourse is its constitutive nature. That is, a discourse states how the world is, should be and what matters the most. It defines an acceptable way to talk and conduct oneself. By attending to the discursive practices that give rise to meanings we can reveal settler claims of rationality, the ways in which they relate to institutional norms, and the political implications associated with them. Discourses, then, exist at local levels of interaction but are also related to broad discourses that become historically situated and enduring systems that take on political and cultural significance.
Consequently, discourse constitutes relationships and meanings by prescribing what conforms to the dominant discourse. And, discourse can be transformative.
The Case for Bombing Iran: Tell Me What You Think
What do you think? Should Israel or the United States bomb Iran in order to prevent the development of nuclear weapons? Weigh in with your opinions by responding in the comment section. Here’s the case for stopping Iran:
Frederick Kagan and Maseh Zarif writing in The Wall Street Journal claim that America is being played for a fool. That we are naïve and there is no other case to be made other than Iran is preparing for nuclear weapons. Iran is doing nothing that would not lead one to conclude anything other than their nuclear program is moving forward and looking toward the day they are a nuclear power. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported last week that Iran continues to accelerate its enrichment program, and they are in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. And there is no evidence that Iran would stop its nuclear program simply if we lift sanctions.
But the US goes about its business with nothing but confused and superficial discussion. Some governmental leaders claim the Iranians are ready to talk and others are blind to what is right in front of them. The thought of war with Iran and the implications for Israel and the United States is so unpleasant that we are misinterpreting intelligence data. We are desperately, according to the authors of the Wall Street Journal article, trying to convince ourselves that there are no problems and Iran is a “rational actor.” The IAEA found that Iran’s collection of centrifuges is growing and their uranium is enriched to the point of weapons grade quality. They also reported that Iran has a hidden enrichment facility with installed air defense systems and new centrifuges can be brought online at that facility.
Iran also has facilities that the UN investigators expect is being used to prepare weapons grade uranium but the investigators have been denied access to this facility. The sanctions against Iran have been harsh but the Iranian leadership seems to be willing to sell out its economy for nuclear weapons. Iran claims that their interests are peaceful but the international community has offered Iran enriched uranium for peaceful use but Iran has refused.
Iran is also preparing wartime messages. They have threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz, attack ships passing through, and preemptively attack any nation that threatens Iran. Still, the US listens quietly and patiently. Only Iran is aggressive and one has to wonder why a state interested in peace would be working so hard to fan the fires of war. The Iranians are pursuing a weaponization program and any attempt on their part to negotiate with the IAEA is essentially designed to buy time. Soon they will reach what the Israelis call the “zone of immunity” after which military options will be more dangerous.
During the Bush administration it was easy to assume that the Bush-Cheney war mongers were just looking for more weapons to label as a threat. But now the pendulum has swung the other way. The Obama administration has been far more accommodating and taken a hands-off approach. But it seems as if we are trying to play catch-up by instituting tough sanctions, lobbying United Nations, and freezing Iranian assets. Perhaps diplomacy has not yet run its course but it’s nearing the finish line. Israel simply can’t wait any longer if they’re going to do something, and if Israel preemptively bombs Iran then the world is going to be an unstable place.
There are also plenty of good reasons for Israel to avoid a military confrontation with Iran. First, the Israeli bombers cannot attack with surgical precision. They might hit facilities but cannot eliminate them completely. Secondly, even after all the damages are tallied you cannot eliminate Iran’s nuclear knowledge and the military attack will only slow the process down. Third, an attack on Iran would justify retaliation. Iran would feel genuinely threatened and their arguments for defending themselves would be defensible. Israel is already a pariah nation in much of the Arab world and this would seal their fate. Israel would have to go to war perhaps with Lebanon, Gaza, and perhaps even Syria. Hezbollah has many rockets aimed at Israel and they would rain down on the country by the time Israel’s bombers returned to base.
The decision to attack Iran is one of those 1% decision problems. The probability of Iran actually using a nuclear weapon is small (1%) and a nation could assume that it is very unlikely. Sanctions and diplomacy continue with no plans for military action. But the consequences of being wrong are catastrophic. If that 1% possibility does occur, it’s a disaster.
So what kind of a decision do you make? Do you let sanctions play out and perhaps allow Iran to complete their nuclear program? Or, do you conclude that a nuclear Iran is simply unacceptable and stop it now?
I’m interested in your opinions. Weigh in on the debate in the comments section below.
Israeli Nationalist Legislation and Democracy
Even the staunchest defender of Israel is troubled by the approval of undemocratic laws designed to maintain the Jewish nature of the state. For some time now nationalists have been challenging the good nature of Israel’s democracy by passing laws that restrict the rights of the minority community, namely Arabs, from expressing themselves even symbolically. Here are a few examples: Israel’s war of independence in 1948 is called the Nakba or the disaster by the Arabs and it is against the law to use state funds to commemorate the Nakba. Small communities have been empowered to prevent groups from moving into the community. Some have suggested loyalty oaths and there have been laws passed that prevent Palestinian citizens from seeking rights in the courts.
Many of these laws are objectionable to most Israelis and have been rejected by the Knesset. But a certain number of them appeal to a wide variety of people. Israelis fear the loss of the Jewish particularity of the state and even though they struggle with these laws some argue for their necessity. One Israeli leader even proposed legislation that suggested the superiority of the Jewish nature of the state over the democratic nature of the state, and this included rejecting Arabic as a national language in Israel.
What motivates this sort of action? There are a few prime motivators the most important of which is the essential Jewish nature of the state. Israel simply cannot be a strong liberal democracy and privilege Jewish particularity. It’s a contradiction in terms on one level. But on another level Israel has a right to remain Jewish. There is a sense in which the state of Israel makes no sense if it is not Jewish. The question is how Jewish? The answer lies somewhere betweenIsraelas a Torah state sealed in orthodoxy, and Israel as a secular democratic state with the separation of church and state. The balance between the Democratic and the Jewish nature of the state will have to evolve over time.
But there are other causes which include a failed peace process, a public tired of violence and rocket attacks, and the distasteful experience of watching Israeli Arabs cheer Hezbollah rockets. Increasingly Israelis see all Palestinians, even Israeli Palestinians, as the same and do not assume that Israeli Palestinians have any commitment to the state.
Of course, one answer to this reactionary legislation is the two-state solution. But that does not seem to be something bound for the near future; moreover, even with the establishment of a Palestinian state there will be a sizable Palestinian minority in Israel proper. This problem will not go away. This sort of reactionary legislation will not go away but it is more exposed than ever because it promises to threaten the democratic nature ofIsrael. Threats to free speech and the disempowerment of whole groups of people have placed the problem at the forefront of the public’s consciousness. Israeli Arabs are about 20% of the Israeli population and the number is simply too big to ignore.
Israel should guarantee the symbolic rights of all minority groups. The key word here is symbolic rights, the rights to express themselves through protest and the right to propose alternative perspectives on the state. Any culture has a right to protect itself from a genuine threat and Israelis no different. In the same way that the skinheads were allowed to march in the United States, as long as they were not judged to be overly provocative or violent, minority groups inIsraelshould also be allowed to express themselves through acceptable forms of protest. Protected speech is sacred to liberal democracies and, as the observation goes, the best response to unpleasant speech is more speech. Israel should have nothing to fear from the rights of Palestinians to express themselves – again, the right to express themselves peacefully and under conditions that do not promote imminent danger. Stubborn resistance to the rights of Palestinians will only cause the conflict to spiral downward and make the two-state solution even more difficult to achieve.
Peace and Conflict Politics 