I intend to write at some length about the Ze’ev Sternhell matter, with particular attention to its context. But for just now, I cannot refrain from calling our collective attention to the scandalous, even infuriating, rhetorical vacuity of at least two of Israel’s leaders.
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The immediate reaction is a sigh of relief: Shaul Mofaz lost his bid for leadership of the Kadima party, and lost big; Tzipi Livni defeated him convincingly. “No” to bellicose Mofaz, “yes” to sometimes pacific Livni.

But it’s not Livni’s pre-election hawkishness that prompts a sigh that’s on the shallow side. The reason for that is that the gathering momentum in the Palestinian community is for a binational state – that is, for a “one state” solution.

That handwriting has been on the wall for some time, but it is no longer in faded gray. It is in bold type. Soon enough, it will be surrounded by flashing neon lights.
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When the very first atom bomb was detonated, in Alamagordo, New Mexico, J. Robert Oppenheimer’s famously cited from the Bhagavad Gita: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Last week, Stephan Vanpeteghem was killed. Vanpeteghem, age 35 and the married father of two, was part of the Belgian contingent serving as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) clearing unexploded ordinance in South Lebanon. The destroyer of worlds that led to his death was part of the residue of cluster bombs Israel employed principally in the last three days of its war in Lebanon two years ago.
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1. “We don’t say yes or no to Israeli military operations. Israel is its own sovereign. We are in close contact with Israel and we talk about the diplomatic track we’re on… They’ve said diplomacy can work here, and I know they’re doing their part to talk with all countries with which they have diplomatic relations to explain why it is important to have a tough edge to our diplomacy.” Those were the words of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on August 7th, and it was reasonable to take them as a green light to those in Israel who advocate for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. They came in the lingering and sour aftermath of widespread reports that the United States had effectively vetoed any unilateral Israeli action, and diverse signs that the US itself was moving to a more nuanced Iran policy. In particular, Prime Minister Olmert had written a letter of alarm to President Bush towards the end of July, a letter protesting the American rapprochement with Iran and expressing Israel’s profound anxiety at the imminent existential threat of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

So the Rice statement could be seen as reassurance. If Israel was so disposed, America would not intervene to stop it.
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Gershon Baskin, below, writes a depressing column that will come as no surprise to our readers. Rather than add to our gloom, I share with you as well a rather upbeat appraisal by Aluf Benn – a lengthy interview with General Keith Dayton, the U.S. security coordinator for the Palestine Authority. It appeared in Ha’aretz on August 8.
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Prime Minister Olmert’s announcement that he will not compete in the Kadimah primaries on September 17th has generally been greeted on the Israeli Left with a version of “it’s about time.” True, the end of Olmert’s political career, which began with his misbegotten and misdirected Lebanon war and has been hastened by the mounting allegations of his personal corruption, has for some time now seemed imminent. And there’s inevitably a sense of relief when the other shoe finally drops.

Still, I cannot recall a time when I have more strongly felt the validity of the familiar caution – “be careful what you wish for.”
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[In my last contribution to the preceding round, I said I’d now turn to the Israeli Arab question. But that is, obviously, an ongoing issue, whereas rescue of Corporal Glad Shalit is an immediately urgent question. Accordingly, I turn here to that matter, postponing consideration of the Arab question for another time.]

Negotiations between Israel and Hamas (via Egypt) regarding the freeing of Corporal Gilad Shalit, now a Hamas prisoner for more than two years, continue. It is difficult to know whether a resolution is close or even whether it is likely. There are considerations that point in different directions, and even thinking about the matter is complicated by the anguished debate that surrounds the recent negotiations with Hezbollah that led to the return of the bodies of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser and the freeing of Samir Kuntar and others.
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Now and again, I step aside to enable someone else to take the lead in our conversation. This time, I do so with both pleasure and trepidation. Our guest is Bernard Chazelle, whose essay is a very dark and at the same time enlightening essay on Israel/Palestine. It appeared in Counterpunch last month; I am happy that Professor Chazelle has enabled us to reprint it here.

Why Israel Won’t Accept a Two-State Solution

By BERNARD CHAZELLE
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How to summarize a 16-day visit to Israel that was half political and half personal?

Four observations:

1. As I have been writing with ever-greater emphasis, political conversation is at the barest minimum. Save for the political class itself and the passionate few on either side of the spectrum, people are not tuned in at all. And the reason for that, I am convinced, is that there is nothing new to say. Nothing. Everything that can be said has been said, over and over. Does it really matter whether there are 550 check-points and barriers or 600? Even the announcement of thousands of new building permits elicits no more than a yawn. Sarkozy makes a very bold speech to the Knesset, affirming France’s enduring friendship towards Israel, denouncing Iran, and stating, quite emphatically, that there must be no more expansion of the settlements – and beyond taking vague notice that he has come and he has gone, little of substance is reported, less registers. (The splash of his drop-dead gorgeous wife is another matter.) The newspapers continue to scream their headlines, outrages of corruption here, new threats to Israel’s safety there, but it is as if they are trying to rouse a somnolent public. And who can say the public is wrong to display such massive indifference to daily events? News of corruption and threats is anything but new, hence not really news, Peace with Syria? Let’s wait to see whether the spastic talks go anywhere before we let ourselves get excited, before we become emotionally invested. Four members of the Knesset go to Hebron to assert the right to witness the indecency of Jewish settlement in the city’s heart, and very hot water is poured on them. The event is not regarded as worth reporting at all.
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Sanctions and such seem very far away just now, as I navigate my way through Israeli seas that can be radically deceiving, so calm on the surface, so churning just below. There are pinpricks of hope against a background of resignation. But even with a cease fire with Hamas now in fragile place, and even with a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah evidently imminent, and even with something new and possibly important developing on the Syrian front, and even with a sudden and unexpected turn towards Lebanon, and even with continuing negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Authority and now and rarely then rumors of some progress there, there’s little political conversation. And I think I know why: Everything that can be said about “hamatzav,” the situation here, has been said, long since, and again and again. For years now, experts and laypeople alike have claimed that “everyone” knows the parameters of the permanent resolution that remains so elusive. The Clinton parameters, or Geneva light, or call it what you will – a shared Jerusalem, no right of return but the admission to Israel of on the order of 100,000 refugees over, say, ten years, borders very near the Green Line, dismantling of all but a handful of settlement blocs, lots of technical stuff (water, security, and so forth).
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