Got EmmyLou singing Goodbye while I tap upon the keyboard and think about how it feels like the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Twenty years ago I blogged about a Benny Morris interview and today I read the piece again and shook my head.
A few things jumped out at me:
Morris told me that he was not a “determinist,” and believed that “a mindset can change over a generation or two.” The problem with the Arabs was cultural, not racial, he believed. But this did not make him any more optimistic. And it was his historical research for Righteous Victims that forms the basis of his pessimism. “I spent time looking at the whole thing, from its origins in the 1880s until the present day? and the thrust of Palestinian history from the beginning of the Palestinian movement in the 1920s? was rejectionist. It opposed the idea of Jews coming here, it opposed the idea of a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. ‘Not one inch’ – that was basically the slogan, and unfortunately, my study of the last 100 years shows me that they’ve been uniform, monolithic, linear about this.” He then recounted all the opportunities for the Palestinians to accept a compromise – in 1937 (when a British commission called for partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, and population ex-changes between them, with the former getting some 70 per cent and the latter 20 per cent), and 1947, and 1978, and, finally, four years ago. And each time “they reject a peace offer and a compromise based on two states, they lose territory. The Jewish population grows, Jewish greed grows, and Jews take over more and more territory. And then there’s less territory available for Arabs, and they’re offered less.”
and
Similarly, two thirds of Israelis told pollsters in June that they supported Sharon’s plan for unilateral Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza, and 68 per cent said they would be behind a plan to dismantle most of the settlements there and in the West Bank in the context of a peace deal. If there is no partner, then Israel has no alternative but to act unilaterally. Hence the broad support not only for the Gaza pullout, but also for the construction of the security barrier.
Morris is all for a withdrawal from Gaza: “I don’t think we should have 20 or 25 per cent of the Gaza strip’s land for 7,000 settlers when you have 1.5m really impoverished people there.”
Twenty years ago I was beginning to lose some of the optimism over Oslo. I hope the disengagement would lead to a better future but it is hard to see things that way, especially after 10/7.
****
And now we shift into a different world and focus below:
Audio PlayerThat is about a year or so old now but I figured I’d share it because some of you seem to have an interest in old material. Might offer a single comment that who I was isn’t necessarily who I am any more.
