Will future of Israel-Palestine become multi-ethnic and multi-religious?

In my view, it doesn't really matter if Netanyahu's slap in the face to [US Vice Prsident Joe] Biden derails the proposed indirect [peace] talks, writes the leftist journalist Juan Cole. The Likud-led government has no intention of allowing a Palestinian state, and there is now no place to put one. Israel-Palestine has unalterably entered the era of Apartheid (actually something worse), and it will spell both the end of dreams of peace in our generation, and probably over time the end of Israel as Netanyahu's generation knew it. The Palestinians cannot be left stateless (the legal estate of slaves as well as of Jews under Nazi rule, i.e. people with no legal rights) forever. If they can't have Palestinian citizenship, then they'll have to have Israeli citizenship. The future of Israel-Palestine is likely to become a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state like Lebanon. Ironically, it is Netanyahu who is in no small measure responsible for this likely outcome, the opposite of the one he aspires to.

Israelis claim a 'birthright' to do things like colonize Palestinian territory, based on romantic-nationalist reworkings of biblical narratives. But Canaan was populated for millenia before some Canaanite tribes adopted the new religion of Judaism, and it was also ruled, as Palestine, for centuries by Romans and Greeks, and for 1400 years by Muslims. The Palestinian Jews converted to Christianity and then to Islam, so they are cousins of the European Jews (who appear to have gone to Europe voluntarily as male merchants around 800 CE,, where they took local wives). European Jews are about half European by parentage and all European by cultural heritage, and it is no more natural that they be in geographical Palestine than that they be in Europe (where nearly two-thirds of their mothers were from and about a third of their fathers). From a Middle Eastern point of view, European Jews planted in British Mandate Palestine by the British Empire were no different from the million colons or European colonists brought to Algeria while it was under French rule from 1830-1962. (Algeria had been ruled in antiquity by Rome, and the French considered themselves heirs of the Roman Empire, so it was natural that people from Marseilles should return to 'their' territory. Romantic nationalism, whether French or Zionist, always has the same shape). I don't predict the same fate for Jewish Israelis as befell the French colons. Rather, I think they are likely to more and more resemble in their position the Maronite Catholics of Lebanon-- i.e. powerful and formerly dominant population-wise, but increasingly challenged by other rising communities.

Fisk holds forth on the Israeli Spy Ring & Hezbollah electioneering. Spooky.

To read the about the latest spy vs spy fiasco between Middle East neighbours, see veteran journalist Robert Fisk's latest piece in the London Independent. In the run-up to Lebanese elections, it gives local perspective on Spies, Lies, and Mr Lebanon's Demise, in the words of the Palestine Chronicle. More than 30 people have been detained so far as suspected spooks, and others suspects have reportedly been scuttling to safety across the Israeli border.

Meanwhile, the US President is approaching Cairo and the press corps in Jerusalem seems to be relocating en mass. His tough new line is not embraced by Bibi. On National Public Radio, Barack Obama spelled out why the United States' special relationship with Israel requires some tough love.

"Part of being a good friend is being honest," Obama said. "And I think there have been times where we are not as honest as we should be about the fact that the current direction, the current trajectory, in the region is profoundly negative, not only for Israeli interests but also U.S. interests. And that's part of a new dialogue that I'd like to see encouraged in the region."

Why Israeli Spin-doctors don't win Propaganda Battles in Foreign Media

Gideon Lichfield, a veteran Economist scribe who has been based in Latin America, Moscow and Israel, explains Hasbara for the diaspora versus Pallywood in a guest post below. (His article ran as an op-ed in today's Haaretz). Justifying apparent atrocities is not an enviable task. The IDF's dispassionate explanations, backed by uploads of YouTube "weapon porn" videos shown striking targets, penetrating, and exploding, draw fire in the world's media. Lichfield writes about the ins and outs of military p.r.:

It had to happen at some point. The army attacks a civilian building identified as a source of fire; dozens of civilians are killed, and what little sympathy Israel enjoyed in whatever war it's currently fighting evaporates. It happened in Qana during the Second Lebanon War, and yesterday a school in the Jabalya refugee camp became a global symbol of indiscriminate Israeli aggression.

When these things happen, Israel is quick to respond on the public-relations front. It didn't take long before we foreign correspondents started getting text messages from the Israel Defense Forces on our cell phones. One said that the school was targeted because it was "a source of mortar fire." Another informed us that video footage was available of rockets being fired from another UNRWA school several months earlier. A third told us the names of the Hamas operatives who were killed along with the children and mothers cowering nearby.

I frequently get asked by Israelis, "why aren't we winning the PR war? Why don't people understand that this is what we have to do?" Many are convinced that there is something wrong with Israeli hasbara (public advocacy), that the spokespeople aren't effective enough, or that the Palestinians have a huge and demonically efficient propaganda machine.

When I hear this I have to explain that Israeli hasbara is so sophisticated that there is still no adequate word for it in English; that some of Israel's spokespeople could talk the hind legs off a donkey and then persuade the donkey to dance the hora, and that the Palestinians barely even know what a spokesman is, let alone be able to provide one who is available when he needs to be and knows anything about what is actually going on. So why isn't Israel winning the PR war?

Partly, of course, it's because the numbers are against it. Six hundred Palestinians dead versus nine Israelis, as of today's figures: There's just no way to make that proportion look pretty. Retired generals can drone on all they like about what "proportionality" really means in the laws of war, ambassadors can helpfully point out that many more Germans were killed than British in the Second World War, but these are theoretical notions; on television, what looks bad looks bad. (Nor do I really buy the argument that if Israel's casualties were more visibly bloody - if, say, the media showed the gory pictures of the few people who have been hit by Qassams instead of holding them back to keep the home front from getting agitated - then you could counter the stream of barbaric images from Gaza. There's just no competition.)



But the deeper reason is this: Israeli hasbara is perpetually trying to answer the wrong question: "Why is this justified?" Of course, it's natural for either side in a conflict to try to explain why it, and not the other side, has the moral high ground. But, especially in a conflict where both sides have been claiming the moral high ground for decades, nobody in the outside world is all that interested. From a foreign correspondent's point of view, it makes for boring journalism: "The Israelis said this, but the Palestinians said that." And since we're all studiously trying to be "neutral," we'll always balance your view against theirs; so the fact that you make more of an effort to explain than they do doesn't really matter.

The question the foreign media really wants answered is invariably not "who's in the right?" but "how will this round of fighting improve the overall situation?" And on that point, Israel never has a convincing argument. Given the country's long history of engaging in wars that kill many more of its enemies than its own citizens but only buy a few months or years of calm, it's a tough call to explain how this latest escapade will change the strategic balance, bring peace and prevent the need for another such bloodbath further down the line. Often that's because there is in fact no good reason: Wars are fought for short-term gains. And it doesn't help that with the constant competition for power within Israeli coalitions, it's easy to interpret this war, like many others, as a political imperative, not a strategic one.

And so when the question the world is asking is not "who's right?" but "what works?" the consistent impression Israel leaves is that it kills people because, at best, it simply doesn't have any better ideas, and at worst, because some Israeli leader is trying to get the upper hand on one of his or her rivals. And no amount of hasbara can make that look good.

Gideon Lichfield, until recently The Economist's Jerusalem correspondent, will be moving to the weekly's New York bureau.

Izzy Bee's afterthought: note that cultural references can go terribly wrong and produce utterly the wrong message. Hence this dubious item, which was posted on the Facebook page of a humanitarian NGO in Ramallah by earnest American entrepeneurs.
Pro-palestinians were asked to buy these t-shirts for their pets, ostensibly as a means of showing support for the people of Gaza. A real dog of an idea, no? This pooch looks like he's in a sniper's cross-hairs. These guys should be hounded out of business.

Love potion Hummus from Abu Ghosh

Hummus con Amor...dip your pita here.
Ma'ariv's Roni Malul seeks aphrodisiac hummus in Abu Ghosh. It is reputedly a lip-smackingly good concoction laced with ginseng, ginger and other herbs with uplifting properties. No Spanish fly, as far as we can tell, in the "Hummus with a Smile" which Israelis (Hat tip to Checkpoint Jerusalem for the link.)

It may be embarrassing to talk about, but quite a few people have sexual performance problems. Even more embarrassing to talk about is the treatment and the medications given today to those who suffer from these problems. Some of the medications, it is said, don’t work, some are liable to affect the heart, and some are simply unpleasant.

But the Abu Ghosh Restaurant, near Jerusalem, claims to have found the magical solution to impotence. It’s cheap, it works, and most important—it tastes good.

As of today you can order “hummus with a smile” at the restaurant, which is composed of ginseng, ginger and other spices known to have aphrodisiac properties.

“For years we were raised on the old people’s stores of medicinal plants,” says Jawdat Ibrahim proudly, owner of the Abu Ghosh Restaurant. “For any problem like a stomach ache, headaches and even libido problems, they always had solutions that were proven to be right. A few months ago we tried to get back to the old people’s recommendation and worked on a new recipe to stimulate the libido. Then we included the recipe in the hummus we prepare in our restaurant, and the result is amazing.”

Ibrahim relates that his customers immediately liked the new hummus.

“Men would come and whisper to me that they want the hummus with the magical mixture,” he says. “Others thanked me and said that the hummus had changed their lives.”

In wake of requests and the positive response, Ibrahim decided to take the recipe out of the closet and to sell it along with the house hummus so that the entire people of Israel could taste is magic, which would be called “hummus with a smile.”

“I promise that everyone will leave my restaurant with a big smile on their face,” he says, and adds with a smile: “If not because of the hummus, then at least from the mixture.”

Adds author Shaykh ‘Umar Abu Mohammad, a 16th century North African Arab writer, in his tome, The Perfect Garden:
Chickpeas increase the energy and sexual desires of both men and women. Chickpeas (also known as garbanzos) are famed as a cure for impotence and as a first-rate sexual stimulant. In the eastern Arab lands, the peasants are convinced that chickpeas have qualities which give them the essential energy necessary for their lives of toil.