IF 'TWERE DONE

WHOSE 'ROAD MAP'?: George W. Bush has a 'road map' to peace in the Middle East - and so does would-be ethnic cleanser Benny Elon (Justin Raimondo, May 5, 2003, Anti-War)

An Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, is one of the few media outlets worldwide to focus on the Israeli far-right's effort to undermine the much-touted "road map" that Bush is throwing like a bone after a banquet to the family pet. The administration is touting its peace plan to give the appearance of the U.S. as an honest Middle East broker, but there's just one problem: that dog won't bark. The reason it won't is that the Israeli right-wing won't let it, nor will the American Likudniks in this country, who are far to the right of Ariel Sharon.

The former responded quickly to the Ameican initiative: neo-fascist National Union politician Benny Elon is on a tour of the United States, promoting his own ghastly program of ethnic cleansing as the only solution--one might even say the final solution--to Israel's Palestinian problem. Final in the sense that the Elon plan, entitled "In the Wake of the War in Iraq--A Historic Opportunity for a Regional Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," calls for the uprooting and mass transfer of the Palestinians to "neighboring countries," principally Jordan:

"The international community will recognize the Hashemite Kingdom as the sole representative of the Palestinians, and will help it economically as it absorbs a limited number of refugees;

"Israel will become sovereign over Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and the Arabs living there will be Jordanian citizens living under a form of autonomy to-be-determined;

"The exchange of Jewish and Arab populations begun in 1948 will be completed" [...]

As Elon puts it:

"People are saying we have had enough, we have seen wars and we have seen the Oslo agreement with all of its bloodshed. I want to remind them of this platform and to remove the taboo from public discussion."

All civilized societies have taboos, and, in the West, the taboo against these sorts of ideas is very strong. Given the history of the twentieth century, the reason for this interdiction is all too apparent. The degree that Elon's ideas become representative of Israeli opinion is the extent to which Israel ceases to be a civilized nation; and the poll numbers don't look good.

Though Mr. Elon's plan seems unlikely to work to Israel's benefit in the long run--it would certainly not reduce Arab violence directed at Israel and might isolate Israel even further in the international community, perhaps even creating some distance from America--it is a better solution than the one most hawks are proposing, of administering Palestine until some future date when the Palestinians are "ready" to do so themselves. Mr. Raimondo is just wrong that this kind of thing is taboo in the West, forcible relocation is in fact what we did with the Indians (though presumably in Palestine it might include killing fewer than we did), and one rarely hears a peep about that. Rather, the real taboo comes from maintaining control over a people but refusing them political rights, as Israel does today with the Palestinians and as we did with blacks in the South until the Civil Rights era and the Afrikaaners did with the blacks of South Africa. If history is any guide, even genocide seems to do less lasting damage to its practitioners than does prolonged repression. (As we've noted in the past, this is an insight of Machiavelli.) With genocide you can place the blame on just one generation and the bemoan what was done. Systematic oppression requires every generation to share the guilt. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 6, 2003 7:43 PM