Roger Cohen Responds, Sort Of

Last week I demonstrated precisely why New York Times columnist Roger Cohen's thinking about Israel/Palestine, like many "liberal Zionists," was obtuse, antiquated, and well, wrong. Today, he (sort of) responds in his latest column which is, believe it or not, more diffuse than the last.

The theme is straightforward. Cohen laments the passing of good-ole fashioned realpolitik diplomacy. Right at the end he gets to my jab at his post last week which was clearly tweeted at him more times than he appreciated:

For diplomacy to succeed noise has to be shut out. There are a lot of pie-in-the-sky citizen-diplomats out there these days blathering on about dreamy one-state solutions for Israel-Palestine and the like. Social media and hyper-connectivity bring huge benefits. They helped ignite the wave of liberation known as the Arab Spring. They are force-multipliers for openness and citizenship. But they may distract from the focused, realpolitik diplomacy that brought the major breakthroughs of 1972, 1989 and 1995. It’s time for another.

There goes that damn Vox Populi again, getting in the way of Chairman Cohen's agenda. Seriously though, there are a couple points which are important to bring out here.

Generally, anytime your interlocutor has reduced themselves to responses that consist of nothing more than ad hominems, you are in a pretty good position. I've discussed the shortcomings of the one-state-solution-is-dreamy type arguments before so I won't go back into that here.

Rather, I'll focus instead on how the same problematic "liberal Zionist" departure point for thinking about Israel/Palestine rears it ugly head again in this most recent Cohen column. From the "liberal Zionist" viewpoint, the primary problem that must be solved as it relates to Israel and Palestine is the contradiction between Israel's military occupation of 4 million Palestinians and its Jewish democratic aspirations. This is a contradiction that Israel put itself in when it occupied the West Bank in 1967.

But anyone with half a brain and an interest in this issue knows that the origins of this problem preceded 1967 and are rooted in 1948. This reality is inconvenient for "liberal Zionists" because it forces them into an identity crisis where their ostensible liberal universalism clashes with their Zionist particularism. The reluctance to confront this inherent contradiction, whether out of fear or political inconvenience, forces them toward more personally convenient positions regardless of their merit.

In reality, successfully solving the issue between Israel and Palestine, like solving any problem between two parties, is about settling the claims of the majority of stakeholders on both sides. Yes, Israel has an identity problem that was exacerbated after 1967, but it is by no means the root of this issue. Still, this is the departure point for "liberal Zionists." Securing Zionism, for them, is more important than reaching a just and lasting solution. Since dealing with 1948 and the rights denied since (Right of Return) challenges Zionism, "liberal Zionists" opt for a Machiavellian approach that works through divide and conquer. This was the triumph of Oslo for "liberal Zionists." Oslo imploded the PLO into the PA and restructured Palestinian leadership away from representation of all Palestinian stakeholders and towards stakeholders only living in the West Bank and Gaza (and today increasingly only toward stakeholders in the West Bank, tomorrow it will be toward stakeholders only in Areas A and B of the West Bank).

Even though the chances of a lasting, claims-settling Israel/Palestinian agreement being reached dwindle exponentially as stakeholders are bifurcated, it is of less consequence to "liberal Zionists" so long as the Zionist premise survives. This is why, for example, the "state building" approach of Salam Fayyad, which further solidifies the Palestinian stakeholder divide by prioritizing Palestinian development in the West Bank over the long-standing, long-denied rights of refugees, is so cherished by "liberal Zionists" and far less so by actual Palestinians.

Thus, the view through the "liberal Zionist" prism requires marginalizing those who believe the legitimate grievances of the majority of Palestinians stakeholders should be addressed. Cohen does it by calling the claims "noise," the proponents "blathering" and their effect a "distraction."

Ironically, it is Israeli "realpolitk" supported by the US that has energized, created and necessitated the civil society movements he decries. If the voices of these stakeholders were appropriately represented in the diplomatic discussions he demands, there would be fewer incentives to mobilize around their claims through non-traditional means. Yes, that might make achieving an agreement more complicated in some respects. Yes it would be less convenient for "liberal Zionists" because they'd actually have to confront their identity crisis. But in the long term it provides a far greater chance of success because it demands a peace based on justice, law and rights, and not simply a peace of submission forced through military supremacy. 

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