I don’t know what to make of this yet. The idea that a final deal would involve keeping most of the settlements, in return for some land-swaps elsewhere, isn’t a revelation. See for example “the outlines of an agreement” here

I’m quite prepared to believe these papers are going to reveal shameful behavior on the part of the Israelis (I haven’t read them yet) I just wish I didn’t have to read about them filtered by Seamus Milne.

My recollection may be faulty, but I thought that in 1967 the Israelis struck first, and that it was in the later 1973 Yom Kippur conflict that their Arab neighbours kicked off the fighting.

Tim,

In 1967, Egypt blocked Israel’s shipping lanes as preparation for an attack. Israel struck first and pre-emptively as regards Egypt, which led to the taking of Gaza. That led to advances by Jordanian and Syrian troops. Israel repelled these attacks and took the West Bank and Golan Heights.

Matt

Perhaps I should be more clear. There’s space for arguments about the intentions of the Israeli leadership, but 1967 was clearly a self-defensive war for Israel first. Nasser’s Egypt, with Jordan and Syria as partners, planned a massive attack that would avenge the defeat of 1956. Although Israel struck first with an air assault on Egyptian forces, triggering Jordanian and Syrian advances, I think the evidence shows clearly this was an Arab attack on Israel, not the other way round. However it didn’t take Israel long to decide to use its territorial gains as a form of colonisation.

I am impressed that Matt has managed to read and process 1600 documents in this brief time in enough detail to come to such emphatic conclusions, but, personally, I think I will wait for a bit longer before pronouncing.

This struck me as curious though:

“What’s clear … is this: there’s little riding on these ‘negotiations’ for Israel. If the talks fail, as they always do, the occupation continues: the routine humiliation and brutalisation of a civilian population; the demolition of homes to make way for more settlement building; the strangulation of Gaza; and all the while the threat of another onslaught like Operation Cast Lead, which brought death from the skies for 1400 people in 2008-2009.”

Surely avoiding occupation and military actions like Cast Lead which are expensive, unpleasant and demoralising as well as risky, would be a big gain for Israel and so there is a lot riding on the negotiations, no?

“Palestinian Papers show Israel never was a partner in peace”

What’s news? We have this on the Qibya massacre in 1953 from Avi Shlaim’s book: The Iron Wall (Penguin Books, 2000):

“. . Unit 101 was commanded by an aggressive and ambitious young major named Ariel Sharon. Sharon’s order was to penetrate Qibya, blow up houses, and inflict heavy casualties on its inhabitants. His success in carrying out this order surpassed all expectations. The full and macabre story of what happened at Qibya was revealed only during the morning after the attack. The village had been reduced to a pile of rubble: forty-five houses had been blown up, and sixty-nine civiliains, two-thirds of them women and children, had been killed. Sharon and his men claimed that they had no idea that anyone was hiding in the houses. The UN observer who inspected the reached a different conclusion: ‘One story was repeated time after time: the bullet splintered door, the body sprawled across the threshold, indicating that the inhabitants had been forced by heavy fire to stay inside until their homes were blown up over them.’”

Avi Shlaim holds joint Israeli-British citizenship and is professor of international relations at St Anthony’s College, Oxford. He sets out his position on Zionism at some length here:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/Zionism%20AS.pdf

Torquil,

If Israel finds attacking a defenceless civilian population and killing 1400 people excessively ‘unpleasant’, I’m sure the people of Gaza will welcome them to stop doing it.

By the way only a fraction of 1600 documents have been released so far. The 50 or so released last night were quite digestible, thanks.

“If Israel finds attacking a defenceless civilian population and killing 1400 people excessively ‘unpleasant’, I’m sure the people of Gaza will welcome them to stop doing it.”

I am not quite sure what your point is. You think Israel is at war with Hamas for fun? That no benefits would accrue to Israel if the struggle came to an end? What is it about Israelis that makes them so uniquely evil, I wonder.

8 – Who said anything about “uniquely evil”. Presumably you don’t think that Hamas has done everything it can to avoid conflict?

“8 – Who said anything about “uniquely evil”. Presumably you don’t think that Hamas has done everything it can to avoid conflict?”

I don’t believe that Hamas would continue to fight for the sake of it, no. If they could have peace on their terms I think they would take it (of course their terms would be barbaric). And they are just a political party, a small group that is therefore much more prone to extremist positions, to suggest that an entire country is dedicated to war and inflicting suffering for no other reason than they like it is amazing. What kind of people would want to do that?

Oi! Bring back our goalposts. As far as I can see Matt’s claiming that the Israeli state is not exceedingly concerned about waging conflict; not that they’re “dedicated” to it; “like” it or extract a great, sensual pleasure from it. And to have no huge compunction about violence isn’t “uniquely evil”: I think it’d go for the states of, say, Uzbekistan, America, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Georgia, Britain, North Korea, Columbia — I could go on but I suspect you all own maps.

“Oi! Bring back our goalposts. As far as I can see Matt’s claiming that the Israeli state is not exceedingly concerned about waging conflict;”

A strong claim in itself! But he makes a stronger one. He claims that it is ‘clear’ from reading 50 documents selected by Al Jazeera from 1600 that there is ‘little riding on these negotiations’ for Israel. But we know that there is the peace and security of Israel riding on them as well as a lot of money and unrest and, of course, its position in the international community. For most nations peace would be considered a good in itself. Not for Israel it seems. Strange. But who knows, perhaps there may be more to it in the 1,550 remaining documents.

“I am impressed that Matt has managed to read and process 1600 documents in this brief time in enough detail to come to such emphatic conclusions, but, personally, I think I will wait for a bit longer before pronouncing.”

And it would not make any difference if you did read all 1600 documents, you would still spout your pro Israel cobblers.

Ah Sally, the voice of reason at last!

Torquil,

What I mean is that it’s ludicrous to imply, as you did, that Operation Cast Lead was somehow an inevitable result of the ongoing failure to come to a final peace settlement.

Yes, in the long term, Israel has everything to gain from making peace with the Palestinians. At the moment, as a powerful client of the world’s superpower, Israel can keep the threat of attack to a minimum, at least by the standards of recent history. But one day Hamas or Hezbollah – or Iran – will get rockets powerful enough to threaten Tel Aviv. America’s influence will wane, and it won’t be willing or able to give Israel the unconditional support it currently does. So true friends of Israel – and I count myself one, despite your nasty slur about my regarding ‘Israelis’ as ‘uniquely evil’ – must hope it makes an equitable peace with the Palestinians. That won’t immediately eliminate the threat of terror: Hamas will likely try and sabotage any deal. But my expectation is that a peace deal will undercut support for the extremists as Palestinians realise their best hopes for a peace and security lie with compromise.

However, I don’t believe the Israeli leadership recognises the urgency of this logic. Their actions show that they are resolved to persevere with what Moshe Dayan in 1977 called ‘living without a solution’ – at least until Israel has taken all the land it deems necessary to carve the West Bank into a series of disconnected bantustans. Perhaps then it will come to the table in earnest, to get the Palestinians’ forced consent to their own subjugation. In other words, the Palestinians will get ‘peace’ – on Israel’s terms and in Israel’s good time – but what they are left with will be ‘more an entity than a state’, in the words of Yitzhak Rabin.

Matt, I am glad that you have dialled back a bit and accepts that Israel does have a lot riding on this peace process. I agree with you that it is of enormous importance to Israel’s future and so does the entire Israeli press and just about every other Israeli spokesperson you can find.

I didn’t mean to imply that there was anything inevitable about Cast Lead although I think that is is the sort of action that just about any state would have taken in similar circumstances.

The rest of your analysis is a bit strange though. Israel is not a ‘client state’ of the USA, it is just an ally of the USA (and the EU). Still, I suppose it is better than getting it wrong the other way round: imagining that the USA is a client of Israel.

And my analysis isn’t primarily based on 50 documents but nearly 50 years of history, going back to the 1967 war and the Allon Plan to carve up the West Bank. Israel’s negotiating strategy – in short, setting impossible preconditions, making nonnegotiable demands, banking all the Palestinians’ concessions and demanding more, all the while creating new ‘facts on the ground’ that must be taken into account in the next round of talks, whose failure will ultimately be blamed on their ‘intransigent’ opponents – is already very well documented. But these papers show in more detail how that process works. I defy you to read them and tell me that they show Israeli leaders more committed to finding a solution than the Palestinians.

“I defy you to read them and tell me that they show Israeli leaders more committed to finding a solution than the Palestinians.”

Israelis leaders, as should be no surprise, have been massively divided over the preceding 50 years on how best to secure a peace. As have the Palestinians, of course (and they still are). Which side is most divided is difficult to say. The argument that there is ‘no partner for peace’ does not claim necessarily that no Palestinian leaders sincerely want peace but that they cannot deliver it. And that does seem to be the case with the PA/Hamas split unfortunately. Israeli negotiators will of course have this in mind,.

I haven’t ‘dialled back’ – you’ve misunderstood me. In the long term, Israel has everything riding on finding peace, but it has nothing riding on these talks. They merely serve as a distraction while Israel continues to annex its chosen areas of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. They are a necessary fiction, whose purpose is simply to assure Palestinians and the international community that there may be some resolution in the offing.

“They merely serve as a distraction while Israel continues to annex its chosen areas of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. They are a necessary fiction, whose purpose is simply to assure Palestinians and the international community that there may be some resolution in the offing.”

I see, and you discern this from a certain ‘disdain’ that you think you detect in the ‘tone’ of some of the documents?

Quite the contrary – there is and has been a remarkable degree of consensus on the Israeli side about how to carry out the occupation. If anything territorial expansion has been worse under Labor governments: Allon, Dayan, Rabin, Shimon Peres and Barak have shown an amazing degree of continuity with the policies of Begin, Shamir, Netanyahu, Sharon and Olmert.

A good test of opposition to Israeli policy is the reaction to the Lebanon war in 2006 and the war in Gaza in 2008-9. Worldwide Israel attracted a great deal of opposition on both occasions, so you would expect a certain amount of domestic criticism if, as you say, there is serious division in Israeli politics. But of course, the opposite was the case. The left fell into line, and both wars were hugely popular. There was no serious dissent inside the Knesset and very little outside. The press is even more uniform in its unwavering support for government policy.

“does not claim necessarily that no Palestinian leaders sincerely want peace but that they cannot deliver it.”

This has been Israel’s excuse for generations. That is, they have stated that even if a palestinian leadership agreed a deal it would not be able to enforce it and clampdown on Hamas et al. It was the reason given by netanyahu in the late 90s for not implementing various agreements, and in the end the Palestinians had to agree for the CIA to become involved and give weekly reports to him, and subsequently trotted out every time an agreement looked on the cards (notice how it rarely applies in the opposite direction).

Of course this reason would be more credible if Israel hadn’t prevented the PA from building up the capacity to enforce an agreement on Hamas by bombing police stations and preventing the infrastructure necessary for a state to be built.

“I see, and you discern this from a certain ‘disdain’ that you think you detect in the ‘tone’ of some of the documents?”

No – from government policy stretching back many years. But the tone of some of the negotiations is remarkable. Why don’t you read them yourself (you obviously haven’t, or you’d know that nowhere near 1600 documents have been released) and come to your own conclusions. I

… If you haven’t read them, how can you be so sure that they don’t back up my argument?

“Quite the contrary – there is and has been a remarkable degree of consensus on the Israeli side about how to carry out the occupation.”

Quite the contrary, you only have to glance at the Israeli press to see the divisions of opinion and if you look at the press releases of Israeli human rights organisations it appears much more trenchant.

That is not to say that a large section of public opinion did not support Cast Lead, but that is democracy for you. The invasion of Iraq was hugely popular in the UK and supported by a majority vote in the Commons, but I doubt you would argue that there is no division of opinion on the matter.

“… If you haven’t read them, how can you be so sure that they don’t back up my argument?”

Neither of us have read them. There are 1,600 papers. But there are plenty of quotations I could pick out from the ones available to contradict your characterisation of ‘barely concealed disdain’.

Well this seems an appropriate time for me to bow out, since, given our respective positions, I suppose it’s inevitable that you’ll consider any small signs of dissent in Israel perfectly adequate and indicative of a healthy democratic society, whereas I consider the Israeli left/opposition to have lost any backbone long ago. Indeed the Knesset opposition is currently headed by Tzipi Livni, protagonist of these documents. I’ll let your notion that the Iraq war was ‘hugely popular’ in the UK stand as testament to your reliability on such issues. You’ll have to await my next article on the demise of Israeli democracy to hear the full case against your viewpoint, which I’m sure you’ll do with baited breath.

“I’ll let your notion that the Iraq war was ‘hugely popular’ in the UK stand as testament to your reliability on such issues. ”

You don’t have to take my word for it, look at he opinion polls in 2003.

I will indeed bate my breath waiting to hear from you how Israel isn’t ‘really’ a democracy. Haven’t had that one for ages!

@28 I just went and had a look at those 2003 opinion polls. That support was only there should evidence by UN weapons inspectors be found AND the UN security council votes in favour.
Guess what events didn’t happen?

No Cylux, the support in the general population was there al along, although I did overstate it. After the war began more than 50% were behind it. Goes to show doesn’t it. Only those Israelis it seems are enduringly monolithic in their opinions and the conspiracies and subterfuge. Funny that.

“After the war began more than 50% were behind it.”

Hugely popular!

Well yes, as I said, I did overrstate it (muddled with polls on Afghan war). More accurate to say the population was more or less divided between pro and anti, but that is not what you would think from the press today, is it?

the so called leadership of the palestinias is really the one who should be taking the blame for the situation of it’s citizens. face it, through out histroy jews and israel were not accepted (1948 war when 7 arab nations invaded israel).

i visited both israel and the west bank to see for myself what is going on. let me tell you it is not a pretty sight. hammas is holding their people hostage because it works. better off getting financial aid and living in chaos and ignorance than making peace. remember clinton slamming his chair on the floor in camp david? arafat was not interested in peace.

however you turn this thousands of years of animosity towards jews, the state of palestine will be announced at some point. borders will be defined and then the real race will start. bridging the gap of 200 years in literacy and science, medicine and so on. at some point the palestinian people will need to stand up on their own feet and make their lives sustainable.

looking up north to lebanon, who ever will rule that area is, and will continue to be the source of iranian manipulation. who is really surprised that israel is sieging gaza?

golda said is best: “when the palestiniens accept israel and jews and lower their weapons, there will be peace. when israel lowers it’s weapons, israel will stop to exist.”

torquil – i highly advise you go visit both countries, if you haven’t done so, to get a better and more objective perspective.

@30 Actually support for the war under the conditions in which we entered it was about 26% just prior to invasion. The increase in support after the war began probably had a lot to do with the “support our boys” rhetoric that conflated support for the war with support for our troops on the ground.

Incidentally those in favour of the war should the two pre-requisites I mentioned above have been met was over 70%, with only one pre-requiste being met support and opposition was divided at roughly 45% each.

ChrisM,

The standard narrative you trot out – that it’s the Palestinians who refuse to make peace, and are therefore to blame for all the punishment Israel heaps on them – was spurious enough before the publication of these documents, but looks utterly unsupportable today. The files show a PA negotiating team showering the Israelis with unprecedented concessions, and begging US representatives for help with Israel’s intransigence. Even Tzipi Livni acknowledges what lengths the negotiators have gone to to deliver everything Israel desires – before rejecting their offer and demanding further concessions.

And I’m afraid having visited the region once doesn’t give any more weight to your cliches. Some of us have visited many more times than that, and come away with the opposite impression. It may surprise you to know that, even amongst people who have spent their whole lives in Israel/Palestine, there are serious differences of opinion on this issue.

funny enough the documents were pulled off the air..

no matt, you are misreading my writing. first – i don’t think there are any sides that are right not wrong. with so many years of war there are no rights anymore. just losers.

i do think arafat had a great shot to bring peace to his people. heck, he won a noble prize for it, yet failed to follow through. i do think that the hammas as the interest of keeping the violence going and the people ignorant.

if you ever spent a week in gaza and talk with the locals you must know what i am talking about.

Yes, Arafat was highly blameworthy for his record in the Clinton-brokered talks – though the notion that it was simply his intransigence that caused them to fail is false – but that doesn’t justify the continued punishment of several million people for one man’s error. And I am no fan of Hamas. The irony is that Israel is strengthening Hamas by undercutting the moderates who might be their partners on the Palestinian side.

Only one answer to the Israeli peace just be like your ally the United states and take in more somalie refugees, Cubans ,muslins to minneapolis, and get use to sharing
for a change.

“I’ll let your notion that the Iraq war was ‘hugely popular’ in the UK stand as testament to your reliability on such issues. ”

You don’t have to take my word for it, look at he opinion polls in 2003.

I will indeed bate my breath waiting to hear from you how Israel isn’t ‘really’ a democracy. Haven’t had that one for ages!

it’s greates………….