Do we understand Israel?
William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, made the front page of The Times – and indeed headlines around the world – yesterday with his forthright comments on Binyamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government. “This should not be a time for belligerent language,” he said, in reference to the Israeli Prime Minister’s recent promise to “reinforce the might of the state of Israel.”
As Hezbollah continues to amass armaments in Lebanon and upheaval and uncertainty reverberate around Egypt, Israel finds itself in an increasingly alarming position in what is already one of the most fractious political environments in the world. Not that Israel is a passive party caught in the middle of all this, The Times notes that Mr Hague, “made clear that he regarded the Israeli attitude to settlements as ‘disappointing’, adding: ‘Within a few years peace may become impossible.’”
Mr Hague’s comments come as part of a wider narrative in which Israel is struggling not so much with its neighbours as with shifting priorities in its key Western allies. Richard Beeston, also writing in The Times observes that there is a “public relations campaign being waged to undermine Israel.” It is worth looking at this in a little closer detail.
Much of Israel’s story in the twentieth century focussed on its position as a morally righteous country surrounded by hostile neighbours eager to see it, in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s words, “wiped off the map”.
How that story has turned. Israel is now seen as the “belligerent” bully of the region and the contentious issue of the West Bank settlements has become the calling card of those wishing to cast the Middle East peace process in the easy listening terms of right vs. wrong.
Yair Lapid, Israel’s foremost political broadcaster and commentator (think a Tel Aviv Jeremy Paxman) with rumoured plans to enter Israeli politics with the formation of a new secularist political party before the next general elections, argues that this new twist in the tale has come to define how the British media portray contemporary Middle East politics.
His is an interesting voice to listen to – pro-peace, yet a supporter of a “strong Israel”; willing to dismantle most of the settlements to achieve the two-state solution, yet of the opinion that the Palestinians should “leave behind their Great Palestine dream”; a central-left liberal (“as defined by the British model,” he says), yet ever surprised at the narrow point of view from which the British are observing the conflict he lives in. As a result, whilst he is not supportive of much of Mr Netanyahu’s hawkish approach, he strongly feels that the British media does not fairly represent the story, and that consequently Britons, along with the inhabitants of other countries, do not fully understand the nuances of the situation. It is a position he likens to the perspective that outsiders had on the Northern Ireland peace process. Just as the obvious answer from the Western view is for Israel to stop settlements, relinquish the territories and support a free, independent and democratic Palestinian state, the Irish solution seemed similarly straightforward. As we know here from long and hard experience, it was anything but.
And so, it turns out, there are subtleties and hurdles at play in the Middle East also. An Israeli offer to cede 93% of the disputed territories, for instance, was rejected. The settlements too are not cut and dried. Although the settlers represent just 1.5% of the Israeli population and the issue is a constant thorn in the side to all involved in the peace process, Shas, the leading ultra-orthodox political party, holds 11 seats in the Knesset. This gives it the powerful ability to destabilise Israel’s coalition government and so affords the settlers perhaps disproportionate influence at the top end of Israeli politics. To complicate matters further, Ehud Barak’s decision last month to quit Labor, so dividing the party, has weakened a leading moderate voice in the coalition.
In addition to the complex internal politics, Mr Lapid suggests that at the international level, neither the current British nor US administrations appear to have the same intensity of interest as their predecessors. Both countries remain strong allies of Israel, of course, but Barack Obama’s background has not divested in him the same sense of unquestioning pro-Israeli drive evinced by the policies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush before him. In the UK the situation is slightly different and Richard Beeston hints at this also: “The deteriorating relationship with Israel is in sharp contrast to that with the Arab world, where British ministers have been focussing their efforts, particularly the Gulf, where Britain is chasing lucrative contracts.” From Mr Lapid’s position, as a high-profile Israeli observer, it is deeply apparent that this analysis is correct and that as David Cameron chases the dollars desperately needed by the British economy he simply cannot afford, literally, to be overly interested in Israel. It is a position in stark contrast to the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for whom a strong and able Israel was a foundation stone of Middle Eastern policy.
Quite where this leaves the peace process is unclear. And seeing things in this light, it is patently obvious that just as in Northern Ireland, the much-vaunted “road map” does not show a nice straight road leading from A to B. Instead there is something much more approaching Spaghetti Junction, and like that joyous bit of British transport planning, there are plenty of traffic jams wherever you look. Israel has a lot of responsibility on its shoulders, but it is not a case of over-simplified morality. Listen to Mr Lapid, and indeed Mr Beeston. It is about time that the mass media stopped printing stories in terms of black and white.
Yair Lapid will be speaking at Jewish Book Week on Sunday 6th March at 6:30pm.
Yair Lapid interviewing Tony Blair (website and trailers in Hebrew, interview in English).
His new book, Memories After My Death, is published on 18th February by Elliott & Thompson. It is the memoir of his late father, Tommy Lapid, a well-loved and controversial Israeli figure who saw the development of the country from all angles over its first sixty years. Following a high-profile career in broadcast, he co-founded the secularist Shinnui and rose to deputy Prime Minister under Ariel Sharon.
From seeing his father taken away to a concentration camp to arriving in Tel Aviv at the birth of Israel, Tommy Lapid lived every major incident of Jewish life since the 1930s first-hand.
This sweeping narrative is mesmerizing for anyone with an interest in how Israel became what it is today. Lapid’s uniquely unorthodox opinions – he belonged to neither left nor right, was Jewish, but vehemently secular – expose the many contradictions inherent in Israeli life today.
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