Mr Brooks is wrong. The creation and the legal election of Hamas was a reaction to imprisonment by Israel. When Sharon evacuated Jewish settlers from Gaza he got rid of 2 million Arabs, who, should there ever have been a 'one state' solution, would have been potential voters.
Although those Israeli settlers left functional businesses, the businesses became instantly non-viable when the Palestinians couldn't get their produce to market, thus giving Israelis the line "see they can't even run a successful operation".
Once Israel acts in a decent, human manner, it can complain about Palestinian extremism.
14
The Israelis are extremists and should be cut off from all US aid--and Israeli leaders should be sanctioned by the US government, just like Russian/Putinist mobsters.
15
This my friends is the Big Picture. Extremists do not get it.
7
I would have loved to see an article by the editorial board of the New York Times condemning the Israeli violence in no hedged terms. The weak, the caged, the ghettoed needs protection and help from the strong and mighty. We did not do it when our brethren needed it in Warsaw and Łódź and Auschwitz and Buchenwald and Treblinka and Sobibor and Therezin and later our cousins in Sabra and Shattila. We are not doing it now. For me, there is little difference between Netanyahu and Nazis. And I am a direct descendent of Holocaust victims and survivors, and a direct descendent of the Spanish inquisitions and deportees. You won’t publish my statement most likely but it is worth the rolling of the dice.
35
Just change the name in the title to the United States, it fits.
Like any other country, Israel will continue to do whatever is in Israel’s best interest to do to protect their citizenry and sovereignty from attack, including mendacious attacks disguised as ‘unbiased criticism’. There’s not a country on earth that would put up with even one year what Israel has had to deal with for 70 years. The United States certainly wouldn’t....and didn’t!
10
Good points regarding extremism within both camps. I am still not sure where either sides goes from here. Israel has to protect her border and that requires force. If the Palestinians want to die for their magical beliefs in the destruction of Israel then the IDF has to be ready to send the martyrs to their eternal reward.
6
Brooks is wrong on history and analysis. He neglects to mention that in 1948 Arabs of the area and 5 Arab countries declared war on Israel to “throw the Jews into the sea”. The Arab refugees are the result. Had Israel sought to displace the Arabs there wouldn’t be nearly 2 million Israeli Arab citizens today. If he wants to review displacement he can start in the Europeans displacing by invasion the indigenous population of the Americas and Australia or the removal of 2.5 million ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland after WW II. He can also mention that after the creation of Israel 850,000 Jews were kicked out of Arab countries for no other reason that they were Jews. And yet in all cases except the Palestinians the refugees moved on. The Palestinians wallow in self-pity and rely on the media to paint them as innocent victims.
60 dead is sad, but not when compared to the millions European Christians and Muslims have killed.
As for extremism look at the A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when the war was already won.
An extreme country would have used machine guns to scatter the crowd attempting an invasion of most other countries.
Brooks, citing Amos Harel, claims Israel was unprepared. It is always Israel to blame – too few troops, too many troops.
The blame is on Hamas and the Gazans. Invasion of another country, whether by armies or minimally armed people cannot be tolerated. If they didn’t go near or attack the fence, no one had to die.
12
I will give odds that, once again, most readers will condemn Brooks with ad hominem attacks and without substantively refuting his observations or analysis. When he writes the following, Brooks succinctly describes not merely the Israeli/Palestinian conflict but many of today's disagreements, especially those within the very polarized United States.
"First, the question shifted from 'What to do?' to 'Whom to blame?”'The debates were less about how to take steps toward a livable future and more about who is responsible for the sins of the past. The central activity became moral condemnation, with vindication as the ultimate goal."
5
U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS SPOKESMAN: “Lethal force may only be used as a measure of last, not first, resort
and only when there is an immediate threat to life or serious injury,
not sufficient grounds [for Israel’s killings]."
May 15, 2018: Rupert Colville, U.N. human rights spokesman, told reporters in Geneva that Israel violated human rights laws with the Palestinian killings.
6
Mr. Brooks, the partisan and often extremist comments here, endorsing positions that cannot possibly withstand scrutiny by a truly objective observer, suggests strongly that you are writing for the wrong readership.
5
That Gaza/Israel border was open until Israel pulled all of the Jews out, 10 years ago, and then Hamas proceeded to bomb Israel. Up went the fence to protect Israeli towns which had been attacked, as well as the blockades. Egyptian also has a blockade. Yet no one is running to breach that border. Israel allows food, medical equipment and medicines to come into Gaza. Egypt does not. Yet Israel gets the bad rep and gets the protests.
Although Gazans elected Hamas, I believe that if the Gazans now revolted against Hamas, which calls for the destruction, in whole, of Israel, and which has done the Gazans themselves great harm, the Israelis would help them. Doesn't that seem to be a good idea for both?
14
The day that I find something David Brooks wrote to be rational is...today, apparently. The Palestinian people face an oppression born, in no small part, out of American apathy and geocentrism. History didn’t start in 1948, or 1976, but there is no doubting that far too much emphasis is arbitrarily placed on these two years. Reality is not zero-sum, nor is it as black-or-white as the Palestinian conflict may lead one to believe.
3
Mr. brook,
you really do not understand the Palestinian mind. A respectful offer response to an angry shout will always be considered a weakness that will invite additional angry shouts and more. Having said that still leaves me in a mess as to what is the right answer.
6
BISHOP TUTU: "I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces.
Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government."
March 9, 2014: Bishop Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate, press statement to News24, South Africa. Bishop Tutu claims Israel is a de facto apartheid-state.
15
" There was plenty of time to figure out how to handle the crowds without bloodshed."
How exactly would this be done? Have a pillow fight?
6
Forget historic tragedies and missed opportunities. The US embassy was moved by an ignorant, self gorifying, thuggish president. Violence was a foregone conclusion. Israel responded with an unimaginable, unjustifiable violence. This will beget more violence. The question is how to address and put an end to deep seated hatred and violence. Mr. Brooks...? If you have nothing practical to say about solutions you really add very little to the discussion. That violence begets violence is a truism. That the US contributes to this vicious spiral through presidential stupidity is tragic. Taking sides corrupts. Solutions Mr. Brooks...
14
After the cold war ended the neocon think tankers started thinking and came up with a new bogeyman to justify spending massive American defense dollars on, and they also cooked up a regime change plan for the Middle East to get rid of the bad guys. And the Israeli hardliners , part of the neocon crowd, got harder. Hence we need to consult the AIPAC who's who in the Middle East to determine who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.
2
I can't imagine that Mr. Brooks really believes that "extremism" is a recent phenomenon on the Palestinian side. The Palestinian attack on defenseless Israeli athletes occurred at the Munich Olympics of 1972.
7
Extremism is definitely to blame for the troubles, and I agree with your premise. However, there is another reason why extremist like to exacerbate issues, to maintain power. Rabin and Peres were about finding solutions so that they could improve their community and in extension their country. Eventually, Arafat wanted to right the wrongs of the 48, when Arabs and the vast majority of Palestinians turned down the two-state option, to create a Palestinian State. Both groups were realist. Each realized that history and culture dictated that these two groups would always differ on a lot of issues. Instead of focusing on the differences, they talked about what was most relevant for immediate change and progress. NOW, the leaders are not so interested in security, community enrichment and progress, or national accomplishments, but mostly in maintaining power. Ben isn't an idiot. During his first round as PM, he didn't succeed because he didn't create enough situations that forced Israelis to believe they needed him. Now, his administration is one of constant emergencies or "struggle." This helps him convince Israelis that he is needed. Same with the Palestinians. After years of Fatah dominance, Hamas was able to increase its power. There is a lot of money to be made, and power to be held and expanded when you are in constant struggle. So, in essence the issues are, yes, about extremism, but also, the maintenance of power.
On May 15 some Arabs and their supporters observed the 70th anniversary of the Nakba. But May 15, 1948, looked the first day of an Arab triumph. Five Arab armies equipped with tanks, artillery and airpower attacked the one day old state of Israel with the intent on destroying it and driving out the Jewish population. While the Egyptians swept up the coast toward Tel Aviv and the Syrians poured down from the north, the Jordanians were busy taking the West Banks and driving the ancient Jewish community out of eastern Jerusalem, the Israelis were the ones confronting a Nakba or Catastrophe. The real Nakba for some Arabs took place in 1949 when the truce talks ended. Instead of establishing an independent Arab state in Gaza and the West Bank, the Egyptians kept Gaza and the Jordanians made the West Bank and east Jerusalem a part of their Kingdom as could be seen when they changed the name of the country from Trans-Jordan to Jordan. The "refugees" were the result of the failed attempt of the Arabs to destroy the state of Israel. Everybody is entitled to their opinions but they are not entitled to create their own facts.
16
Trump is an extremist.
I share no love or empathy for either side, only contempt.
Seriously, man. How do you come out of this saying the Palestinians were wrong here? Whatever you think about what political party had been chosen in Palestine has no bearing on the act the IDF committed. What do you want Palestinians to do? Not have any say on what being done to them? For decades. It's like every time a police shooting against unarmed black people, here. If people get out in the streets to protest peacefully, they're too violent and should shut up. If there's no justice served for those killings, you expect the people affected to shut up, or they're too extreme. Has it occurred to you why people get desperate enough to march against a hilariously more powerful entity that has even more hilariously more powerful backing and enables violent action as long as they're allies (looking at you US and SA)?
2
Maybe Israel should consider getting water cannons to deal with unarmed protesters and stop blaming Hamas for inciting violence. After all they were elected by the people of Gaza to represent their interests. People living in dire conditions all over the world do protest and should have the right to do so to eventually improve their lives.
2
Brooks adds something new to this topic - that extremism must ultimately be met with reason. I don’t think Israel’s going to take the bait.
1
A "respectful offer" from each side to the other. David, what thoughtful words. I would add that Israel is in the power position and needs to make one type of respectful offer. The Palestinians are in the weak and abused position, but need to make a completely different respectful offer.
Like so many pro-Israeli commentators this week, Mr. Brooks has essentially blamed Hamas and the Palestinian people for the "extremism" that caused this. But my mind cries out: "If Hamas and extremists caused this, who for the love of God gave them the reasons and the motives to do so?" And please, please, America, and smart, sophisticated commentators, let's realize this: the whole world views Israel as essentially the 51st U.S. State. All 320 million of us get blamed for what Israel does. Who with a brain expects the American people to continue to tolerate this madness?
4
Why don’t we see suicide bombers in such enormous countries as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh? Far, far greater numbers of people were displaced by Partition then in Israel and
Jordan and remained displaced today. Yet, I know many adults my age (57) don’t even know what I mean by the phrase “the partition of India.” Why?
Why don’t we use the word racist or bigot to describe anyone in that part of the world. Noboby, and I mean nobody, talks of reunification. Why not, if there are no racists or bigots?
3
Sorry David, Israel-Palestine 101:
Israel did not dispossess 700,000 Palestinian Arabs in 1948. They became refugees because their leaders started a genocidal war in 1948 to destroy Israel - and lost, during the course of which 700,000 fled or were forced out. This followed the 1947 UN partition plan of the land into Jewish and Arab states to live alongside each other in peace. The Palestinian Jews accepted the partition and founded Israel, but the Palestinian Arab rejected it and chose to exterminate Israel instead. The Palestinian Arab Naqba (catastrophe) was the disastrous war they started which created their own refugees and their racist unwillingness to live in peace alongside a Jewish state, but mount terror attacks instead, which has persisted for 70 years.
The latest Palestinian Naqba (catastrophe) is Hamas' attempts to invade Israel using 40,000 of their own civilians as human shields for imbedded armed terrorists, intent on breaching the border and killing or kidnapping Israeli civilians on the other side.
If the media would tell these truths and stop blaming Israel for having to forcefully stop the invading Gazans that Hamas has weaponized and sent to their deaths, Hamas would stop sending them and their people would remain alive.
Your choice.
12
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for a very balanced, fair, objective and sensible assessment of the crisis. Both sides of the conflict have no desire for a just peace or a win-win solution. Extremists on both sides control the trajectory of the peace process. The situation has become more precarious with an extremist U.S. president pretending to be an objective mediator and Iran questioning Israel's right to exist.
The obstruction to peace seems insurmountable: Perfect conditions require the simultaneous existence of dovish Israeli and Palestinian governments, sincere American mediators and a non-aggressive Iran. It would take a miracle in the Holy Lands for those conditions to exist. But more objective assessments of the crisis, like the one by David Brooks, can change the bleak outlook.
Yes, just like the Iran Deal. "To answer the angry shout w/ the respectful offer." That "it feels unnatural" was President Obama's best forte MOVING FORWARD. Indeed I agree, Mr Brooks. "It's the only way." Especially here at home if we're to continue sparing our Gettysburg dead from EVER having died in vain.
In his fierce attempt to retain his position at the moderate balanced center, the author unfortunately engages in magical thinking. Even if some Israelis in response to a maximalist Palestinian outlook have also moved away from the “smart” center, when attacked by fifty determined members of Hamas some armed, shielded by tens of thousands, some also with weapons, there are no technologically amazing ways of deterring them and preventing infiltration and subsequent murder of Israelis. The Israeli Army built a solid fence, dropped tear gas, used rubber bullets and tried dissuasion, but to no avail. Could Mr. Brooks please tell us explicitly what non-lethal means could be employed in this situation? Explicitly. Water cannon? From where? How? Ultimately, it was the threat to Hamas leaders’ safety that probably stopped this invasion.
10
Electric fence, moat, wall ( thought they loved walls)... or here is an idea just let them in and siphon them to an area where you can better control them. There is always a choice. On that day they chose to kill.
Enough! Whether the Palestinians were members of Hamas or not is irrelevant. The fact that they had rocks to throw at soldiers that are stationed over 500 yards away isn't. The claim of self defense by Israeli security forces is laughable at best. This was bloody murder by a regime that has no consideration for the life of Palestinian. Hamas is in power not because the Palestinians share their fanatical view, but because Hamas built schools, hospitals and provided basic social services, while Fatah or the P.L.O. was corrupt and being held hostage by Israel, making them incapable of accomplishing such tasks . Is Hamas a detestable organisation with innocent blood on their hands? Absolutely. But so is Netanyahu and his government!
25
Be aware that 84% of Gazans at one point supported a then recent suicide bombing by Hamas and Egypt, also Sunni Muslim, blockades the southern border and helps Israel with the air and sea blockade. On rocks...how can we know how close each sling thrower was in that chaos. I wouldn’t want permanent brain injury getting hit with a two pound rock. Put yourself in the receiving end.
6
They were told to stop numerous times and refused. Originally, the IDF wasn't trying to kill them. They only used real ammunition after the tensions got worse. When a protest does get out of hand, either the police or military will come in to keep it under control, and this is the case in a lot of countries including the US. Whether or not the objects they threw could actually kill anyone isn't the point, it's the fact that they were assaulting them. Would you like it if someone threw something at you? I would think not.
6
The writer should have detailed what Israel could have done beforehand. He didn’t. It’s cloaked in mystery or it doesn’t exist.
Genteel educated males throughout the media, universities, churches are constantly alluding to the missed gentle solution...but none of them are joining armies, police forces or political office. Maybe they are hiding but not aware that they are hiding.
15
I agree with much of this article. It is important to always remember that Hamas was founded as an offshoot of the then peaceful Muslim Brotherhood, with the help of Israel, as part of a strategy to 'divide and conquer' and push back against Fatah and Arafat. Ironically, the now very 'terrorist' threads in Hamas were fed over and over again by Israeli actions.
4
Setting aside for now the role that Palestinians played in their own displacement, what would you have Israel do?
I am not enamoured of soldiers shooting at protesters, but neither am I happy with protesters sending burning kites into Israeli territory, storming the border fences or throwing Molotov cocktails at soldiers.
On balance, the fact that most of those who have died so far were members of Hamas says a lot. These are people who have tried every possible means to attack Israel, from rockets to tunnels under the border. They use their own people as human shields and then bemoan their deaths.
It's pretty much like the man who murdered his parents begging the court for mercy because he is an orphan.
There could have been a two-state solution decades ago, but Palestinians refused that because they want to drive "Jews into the sea."
Other than allowing protesters to overrun Israel, there is little that Israel can do right in this atmosphere. Hamas harasses Israel and then complains when Israel retaliates. Hamas needs to stop and to treat its own people as valuable. That would be a start to true peace.
26
The American Civil Rights marches, where well armed racists violently attacked and killed many civilians ... were they examples of "theatrical thinking" by a group of extremist organizers? Given that these marches played a substantial role in eliminating much racism, I am thinking that we should consider them in a positive light.
3
others would say that it was exactly these marches that impaired Dr.kings early attempts at ending racism. some even attriput his assassination as being due to disenfranchised whit victims. my point being there is no way you can possibly pretend that murder is Justified so long as things "work out okay in the end" because you're more likely to make things worse.
2
This perspective is totally unrealistic.
Israel has created a prison in Gaza, in which its residents do not have physical or economic freedom. They are being treated as a subhuman underclass. That situation boiling over periodically is inevitable.
Israel absolutely has the right to exist. But as the entity of power in this situation, the only one in this situation with a modern economy and military, it is incumbent upon Israel to treat others with respect, not contempt, and seek peace with honest intent. Israel has done the opposite. This massacre was unnecessary and inexcusable.
11
50 out of the 60 dead where identified as Hamas militants. Israel tried everything it could to prevent unnecessary death but when people are throwing Molotov cocktails you really don't have many talking points. but then again people don't realize that the protesters actually were armed and did present national security threat to Israel I really don't know what people expect of Israel Nea they would send would be stolen and used two fun terrorist attacks any dialogue his sessions they would make would be taken and then pockets they really do not have many options here because anything they could do as a very high chance of backfiring and making the situation worse. remember that before you cast stones
13
And so What? A 100% of the shooters were identified as Israeli military, that were stationed well out of throwing range. Were they all cowards, murderers, or good little Germans that were simply following orders?
Palestinians from Gaza were sneaking into Israel & murdering innocent Jews. That's why Israel built the fence.
Every time Israel offers to end the occupation, the Palestinians say “No!”
Even Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia (certainly not a Zionist) said that Arafat’s refusal to accept the January 2001 offer was a crime. Thousands of people would die because of Arafat’s decision & not one of those deaths could be justified.
As Clinton later wrote in his memoir:
It was historic: an Israeli government had said that to get peace, there would be a Palestinian state in roughly 97 percent of the West Bank, counting the [land] swap, and all of Gaza, where Israel also had settlements. The ball was in Arafat’s court.
But Arafat would not, or could not, bring an end to the conflict. “I still didn’t believe Arafat would make such a colossal mistake,” Clinton wrote. “The deal was so good I couldn’t believe anyone would be foolish enough to let it go.” But the moment slipped away. “Arafat never said no; he just couldn’t bring himself to say yes.”
5
The turning point was the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit.
1
Mr. Brooks, I respectfully disagree. The US didn't beat Japanese extremism in WWII by offering a 'respectful offer', we beat them by dropping two atomic bombs on them. Israel as tried to negotiate with the Palestinians. It hasn't worked. Sometimes you have to demonstrate to your enemy that, if they continue doing what they are doing, they will lose, and lose badly. Unfortunately, it's the innocent who suffer the most.
20
There is much to admire in Mr. Brooks's article, but not his history.
His "narrative begins with the idea that the creation of Israel was a historic achievement involving a historic wrong — the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians." Aside from the fact that, during that savage war, thousands of Jews were also displaced (and hundreds of thousands expelled from Arab-majority lands), there is the stubborn fact that, on the Arab side, that war was framed as a war of extermination (of Jews). The same was true of the Arab-Israel wars of 1967 and 1973.
Today, Hamas and Hezbollah use language that is more than tinged with exterminationism; their Iranian sponsors are blunt about it. When they and Fatah modulate the stridency of their language, or try to change the subject (as with Hamas's "March of Return"), the question still nags: what are their real long-term goals?
Murder and threats of extermination are nowhere in Mr. Brooks's narrative. If such talk has faded from most public discourse, it is because Israel has been armed to the teeth and able to defend itself — and because many "progressives" (including many in the EU) have made it impolite to bring up the subject. But it doesn't really go away.
Of course this does not excuse inhumane actions, when they occur, by Israel and Israelis. But it, nonetheless, remains a factor that, although often crushed to earth, rises again. It must not be ignored in realistic appraisals of Israel-Palestinian relationships.
19
my only issue with this is that I have no idea, nor have I heard any ideas, that Israel could have effectively and practically done to stop it. the status of Jerusalem is still up for debate, despite what you may hear, becouse moving the embassy there does not effectively prevent two-state solution. the terrible situation in Gaza is not the faults of Israel but the fault of Hamas's mismanagement and alienating it's only Ally Egypt. and any Aid sent into Gaza gets embezzled by Hamas to purchase weapons. Trump moving the embassy to Jerusalem was effectively signaling that Israel is here to stay, That's why Gaza turned bloody while the West Bank protests were peaceful and composed of far less people. so any steps Israel could have taken to reduce tensions had a very high probability of backfiring and making the situation worse so I simply don't see what else is real could have done.
10
The U.S. should stop sending money to Israel until Israel follows international LAW.
20
And exactly what international law is that?
4
Israel does follow international law.
3
It never ceases to upset that Israeli and Palestinian authority live by a code of terror. Mr. Brooks is right, the extremists have taken over the policy making on both sides. What is less mentioned however, is why the Arab world permits, neigh, actually makes a point of keeping the Palestinian a subjugated, sacrificial lamb. One thing Israel has done; if any Jew or sect of Jews has been persecuted throughout the world, they are practically airlifted, en masse, into Israel's protective borders. Arab leadership throughout the region are capable of giving shelter and offer a better life to those in distress, yet, they let their Palestinian cousins suffer as a symbol of the divide between Muslim and Jew, Arab and Israeli. Starting with Israel's War of Independence, the politics in the Arab world focused on Israel and the "Palestinian problem." In order to achieve the end goal of the destruction of Israel, the Arab refugees were kept in camps, with explicit instructions from the Arab League to keep them there and not to absorb them in other Arab countries. And this has been the policy ever since. The Arab leaders from wealthy countries have long been able to offer the Palestinians an alternative to a life of suffering, but have chosen to make their very real suffering symbolic. And so the cycle continues.
13
If the Palestinians were willing to freely give up their land, happily live under rations of meager provisions, limited medical supplies and restricted resources by a "peaceful" government, then they would qualify as mentally insane. The sobering reality is that the political insanity exists outside of its moving borders and its the norm.
10
If 60 unarmed demonstrators were shot dead in US, there would be a big problem. But when it’s ethnically different people across the border then somehow it’s like shooting a different species. Ethnically corrupted logic. Jews should know the consequences of allowing ethnically twisted “solutions”.
Ask yourselves how this would have played out if it happened here. 60 unarmed demonstrators killed by military gun fire.
Kent State was four dead. The students rushed the National Guard. Look at the outrage back then.
These are all different situations of course, but the result has a commonality. Many dead unarmed demonstrators.
7
Unarmed people can kill
Kerala man beaten to death by lynch mob | GulfNews.com
Teen Mob Randomly Beats Man to Death on NJ Street: Prosecutors ...
Mentally unstable man beaten to death in Thane - YouTube
Man beaten to death by mob for allegedly kidnapping girl in Jaipur ...
Tribal man beaten to death for allegedly stealing food, people click ...
Liveleak.com - Man Beaten to Death by Mob for Raping a 7 Year Old
Guttenberg Man Beaten To Death By Mob Of Teens | 1010 WINS
...
2
Over 30% of the Arabs, (and or descendants) that wound up living on the Israeli side of the 1948 line are Zionists. Palestinians living in Israel live well.
Oh, by the way, what's going on in Yemen? Syria? Myanmar?
12
And everything Mr. Brooks wrote about extremism applies to his Republican party here at home. Too bad he didn't stand up to be counted when it might have been stopped.
4
How does one compete with another's religious ideation? You tell me!
2
Through listening, willingness to understand, and compassion. Doing so creates strength and the opportunity to create solutions where none seem to exist. Lashing out with mindless fury and faux indignation adds no value.
2
while I'm glad you were civil I have to say you sound like a fortune cookie, no offense. but I'm not practically minded so I like to focus on specifics like,"maybe if we through more support towards Fattah to overthrow Hamas and twisted Israel's arm to remove its settlements, then we might actually be able to get working peace agreement we can build on" sorry to sound patronising but pretty words don't get things done.
Unfortunately Jefe', it's not about peace. When Arafat was PLO leader it was about him. To others it's about Islamic world domination.
Scott, folks that are willing to fly planes into buildings killing thousands, don't listen very well.
1
Despite this being one of the very few times I almost totally agree with Mr Brooks, I still must cite his last paragraph, and ask him why he does not practice what he preaches here at home in opposition to our own despot?
1
Mr. Brooks, you need to write article after article under the rubric, "The Trump and Netanyahu Administrations: How Extreme Corruption Corrupts." Because Gaza is NOT the real problem. Hamas is a not a good bunch. But they are choir boys compared to Trump and Netanyahu.
5
Hams is trying to exterminate the Jews.
Evidence that Trump or Netanyahu want to exterminate a people?
5
There's a marvellous expression in French which is "noyer le poisson" (drown the fish). It refers to evading things, creating confusion in the conversation to get rid of a situation that embarrasses us.
As I read Mr. Brooks's opinion piece I thought to myself, he's trying to drown the fish. (Il essaie de noyer le poisson).
11
I agree with Your framing of extremism as fueling these intractable issues. Missed opportunities are abundant for all sides. I admire your attempt to be balanced, however one comment really struck me as you trying way too hard. " Yasir Arafat ... at least he used terror to win practical concessions". I would not expect "at least" and "terror" to be in the same sentence from anyone at the NYT, let alone you.
3
Is anyone doing anything about this, David?
Is anyone producing a new set of behavioral norms that undercut the extremism, race toward fear-based boosterism, hatred, Manichanism, competition for victim status, tendency to self-segregate, and all the rest?
A sincere question. I hope you can find someone, somewhere, thinking this through and give them some columns of print.
1
Is it extreme to shoot to kill an unarmed person? How does a government or society get someone to shoot unarmed people who are not an imminent threat?
If the NYTimes had any rigor, this would be the question. What becomes of a society in which its soldiers will willingly kill unarmed people. What becomes of a news organization that does not address this directly? What will you do when they start digging trenches to bury the people they are shooting?
8
if you think the protesters were at any point in time "unarmed" or "non-threatening" then you clearly have been misinformed. this isn't the airport this is the middle east. you can't just assume a person is labeled a terrorist just neck is of some racist jerk. Hamas is dangerous. Every Arab Nation except for Iran has labeled them a liability and cut support front it. the only reason I ran still supports Hamas is because it creates problems for the US and Israel even Iran doesn't believe Hamas wants peace.
8
Tell me again how you find someone to shoot with a sniper rifle an unarmed person. Tell me again how you justify this. Tell me again how threatened you are sitting behind sandbags armed with a scoped sniper rile next to tanks and machine gun nests. Tell me again how everyone who disagrees with Israeli actions is a terrorist or dangerous.
What happened to humanity and a willingness to solve things without violence and murder? You should not normalize war crimes or murder.
Isrealis and Palestinians live in a two family house,they must figure out how to share the house that acceptable to both families.The Palestinians are not moving out and they want keys to their floor not Isreali control of the keys. See the solution is possible,they must share the house fairly.
1
This is amazing. Palestinians are the main extremists, and Israelis--great people in general--are simply responding to Palestinian extremism with an extreme response. That's all they are doing because they are always the real victims. This op-ed piece itself is a great exercise in fanaticism and extremism.
12
Matti Friedman (who wrote a great op-ed piece a few days ago) - cites the 1990s with Israel's withdrawal from Southern Lebanon as the point in which created the middle east we have today. He wrote that the withdrawal “not only failed to placate Hezbollah, but was interpreted as weakness and emboldened it and all of its allies.” He refers to this moment as the “tipping point” for jihadist groups across the Middle East - groups that had long advocated for the annihilation of Israel. In this context, it's no surprise that the PLO and later Hamas upped the violence and it's no surprise that with each attack - Israel's responses have grown tougher.
6
This, unfortunately, is one of your weakest pieces I have ever read. Do you honestly believe that Israel did not plan any response to what they knew would happen? That is a self-serving and extremely naive argument. In addition, perhaps you have a better suggestion of how to respond to hordes of people, some armed, some just misguided, from crossing the border and massacaring Israeli citizens.
I am disappointed in you
8
Left out of this discussion is the impact of members of the American religious right who have co-opted the mideast policy of the current administration for their own fantastical ends as well as that of the very small percentage of American Jews who support this President. The damaging nature of their input serves to validate Brooks' point that as long as we allow extremists of any ilk to drive political conversations, we will all pay the price.
8
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for a well-balanced column. Probably the only balanced column about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict I've read in the aftermath of the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.
3
Finally, a fair and well-balanced view of what is going on in the Israeli and Palestinian conflict.
5
With little attention paid to Syria's attack on a Palestinian refugee camp and the resulting murder of quite a few people, it is upsetting to read so many comments written essentially bashing Israel for the deaths of those allegedly peaceful protesters upset about the move of an embassy to Jerusalem. But, the march was to return "home" with home being the pre 1948 war territory from which refugees fled 70 years ago - i.e. a wish to destroy Israel. Many 19 year old refugees stand at the border between Israel and Gaza, some of them peacefully lobbying Molotov cocktails and others just trying to storm the border to capture or kill Israelis. David Brooks' column presents the issue fairly. I only take issue with his "original sin". I think the refugee issue should be considered in context with what happened when Israel declared independence as well as the huge dislocation of peoples in the aftermath of World War II. Did Arabs flee homes in 1948, because they were promised more land when the five invading Arab state armies pushed Jews into the sea? How many were actually forced out of their homes by Israeli forces? Of those, how many were warriors or in other ways supporting the Arab fighters? Those who fled went to refugee camps where they remain today. Other refugees from other countries went where? Jews pushed out of Arab countries and survivors of Nazis were resettled and started life over. How many other refugees still sit in camps 70 plus years waiting to go home.
10
I'm confused, is this op-ed about Israelis vs. Palestinians or Republicans (after Reagan and Newt), vs. Democrats. Yes, respond rationally, no matter how shrill and excessive the response or provocation from the "Other". Vote.
2
Nice column by one of the very few conservatives to whom I listen or read these days. Thought the Hamas led demonstrations were provocative and dangerous, while the Israeli shooting parties stood out as merciless. Meanwhile, Jewish leaders from around the world yucked it up at the embassy opening. At one time, most of the world saw plucky little Israel as occupying the high ground. Not so much under Bibi, Trumpsky's loyal buddy!
What's going to happen when the number of Arabs west of the Jordan outnumber Israeli Jews? Will the two-state solution be rejected by the Arabs as well? Demographics count!
We may look back on this day as an Israeli/Palestinian Soweto-like moment. The racial population rations were different, but the images were largely the same.
3
TJB ; "Will the two-state solution be rejected by the Arabs as well?" As well? They've rejected a 2-state solution numerous times. Have you just recently come to this situation?
5
Suppose tens of thousands of angry Mexicans were storming the U.S. border (instead of sneaking in peacefully) demanding their right to settle in the American southwest because it belonged to them prior to 1848. (Ignore the fact that it belonged to Spain before Mexico got it, and it belonged to various feuding Indian tribes before that.) But anyway, wouldn't the U.S. do exactly as Israel has done? Wouldn't any country try to defend it's border against a planned invasion?
9
Wouldn’t you want to go back to the land your family was ejected from and get out of a ghetto???
Here in he USA too.
'Extremism is naturally contagious. To fight it, whether at home or abroad, you have to answer the angry shout with the respectful offer.'
This is best exemplified in recent history by comparing how in the face of an identical body politic, the Obama Administration governed for the whole country vs. the Trump Administration which caters to its borderline fanatical base.
2
Well said. A wise cartoonist once famously quoted "We have met the enemy and he is us." And there was also a well-known quotation about beholding a mote in thy brother's eye. It is always easier to get a perspective on someone else, rather than on oneself or one's country.
2
So it has been at least 20 years since the Israeli side stated its move toward extremism. The difference between Israeli extremism and Palestinian extremism is that Israel can act on any extreme notion that it wants, given its massive military might and the total control is has over the Palestinian territories, while the Palestinians are pretty much limited to being pests.
Israel established a land sea and air blockade of Gaza which which cause severe deterioration of the health and well being affected the those in the Strip. Yet some feel that the impoverished Gazans should react in a dignified, diplomatic, peaceful manner, and then wait for Israel to treat them as fellow human beings. I wish Mr Brooks could give an estimate of how long the Gazans should be prepared to wait in a peaceful way for that to happen..
16
Yes, as you said, Palestinians elected Hamas. American elected Republicans. There is a parallel reality.
4
"There was plenty of time to figure out how to handle the crowds without bloodshed."
How would you do that? It's a question not an indictment of the statement. I think it's easy to say but more difficult to come up with a real solution.
8
David, your premise of the "displacement of 700,000 Palestinians" is wrong on a couple of fronts, so your entire column is faulty.
The UN Partition Plan offered a state to Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews to replace British Mandate Palestine. Jews accepted; Arabs didn't and went to war. The "displacement" was because Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon told the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes to make way for their armies destroy the Jews, where they then can return home. Of course the outcome of the war was that the Arabs lost and as such the Palestinian Arabs lost their possibility of a state -- for the first time.
The so-called 700K refugees number is highly inflated. According to sources, it was more likely 550K-600K in number https://goo.gl/1o6PLa.
Also, why are Palestinians the only group still "refugees", 70 years from the original refugees were granted that status? No other group receives such status. You don't hear about Afghan refugees from the wars we fought there. Most all refugees have been resettled in host countries. But since '48 NONE of their Arab neighbors who lost the '48 war let Palestinians resettle and used them as a tool against Israel. Most of those counties have now given up on this -- Egypt & Jordan signed peace treaties; Saudis and Qatar quietly work with Israel.
So your premise is flawed & the extremism is one the Pals side. The 2 other offers of peace were summarily rejected. So we can truly see the fault and extremism is one-sided.
17
It is a myth that’s Arab leaders told the Palestinians to leave before the armies invaded. Removal of the local Arabs had always been a goal of the Zionist.Ben-Gurion was for the compulsory removal of Arabs as was Berl Katznelson. “My conscience is clear. A distant neighbor is better than a close enemy. They will not lose by their transfer and we certainly will not. In the final analysis this is a political reform of benefit for both sides.
2
It's not a myth, Vincent. I suggest that you read George Deek's speech outlining, among other events, the fate of his grandfather's family. Here, I'll get you started.
"His grandfather George worked as an electrician and had some Jewish friends who even taught him Yiddish, making him one of the first Arabs to ever speak the language. He got engaged to his wife Vera in 1947. A few months later, when the United Nations approved the Partition Plan, Arab leaders warned that the Jews would kill them if they stayed home. “They told everyone to leave their houses, and run away,” said Deek. “They said they will need just a few days, in which together with five armies they promised to destroy the newly born Israel.”
His family, horrified by what might happen, decided to flee to the north, toward Lebanon. They stayed there for many months, and when the war was over, they realized that they had been lied to—the Arabs did not win as they promised, and the Jews did not kill all the Arabs, as they were told would happen. 'My grandfather looked around him and saw nothing but a dead-end life as refugees,” said Deek. “He knew that in a place stuck in the past with no ability to look forward, there is no future for his family. Because he worked with Jews and was a friend to them, he was not brainwashed with hatred.'” http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/190615/israels-best-di... The speech is available on-line also.
3
Two sources for these thoughts. Books by Shlomo Sand or ilan pappe For a complete history Tom segev “one Palestine complete”.
One of many important aspects of the recently released film "Killing Gaza" (available for free on Vimeo) is that it shows Israeli soldiers laughing, eating sushi and writing messages like "Happy Birthday to Me!" on missiles before they are launched into Palestinian residences. There is also footage of a celebration in which they sing gleefully, "There is no school tomorrow! There are no children left in Gaza!" Does this sound like people acting in self-defense to you?
You also get a glimpse of just some of the many, many civilian victims and get to hear their stories, such as a man who was gunned down while traveling with 3 or 4 volunteers to go to his home and try to recover his family members/their bodies. (That video apparently went viral years ago, but the Israeli government dismissed it by saying that there is no proof the video is "authentic.")
If your target is Hamas, why would you shoot an unarmed man walking through rubble with four unarmed volunteers? Why would you blow up a residential building where no opposition or resistance fighters live whatsoever? Why, after an old man comes out of his home because you are bombing it, with his hands in the air, repeating that he is surrendering to you, would you proceed to shoot at him anyway?
What's happening in Gaza is not a war; it is an extermination.
13
For all the posters who fault the Arabs for not accepting U.N. partition back in 1948, an analogy:
Let us imagine that in 1928 Mexico was pushing hard to get Texas back. It was, after all, theirs a few hundred years ago and they still claimed that land. Let us also imagine that Mexico had the ear of the United Nations and other powerful countries around the world. The U.N. decided to partition Texas and give half to Mexico. The Mexicans then began uprooting the Texans in their half and forcing them out. Would you expect Texans to meekly agree to the U.N. solution? Would they be pacified today, accepting “facts on the ground”, or would they still be resisting, still insisting on a right of return?
6
So many issues with this piece, but one thing at the very end sums up how wildly off based and ill conceived this entire premise is -- and that is, "But it doesn’t let the Israelis off the hook for their failure to properly confront extremism." My dear Mr Brooks, or anyone else, can you please explain how to properly confront extremism?
7
"To fight it, whether at home or abroad, you have to answer the angry shout with the respectful offer."
Yes, about 700,000 Arab people were displaced by the 1948 war. Yes, that was followed by about the same number of Jews from Arab countries were kicked out. The founding of Israel was just.
Now how do we fix the problems. Israel integrated all those that were kicked out of Arab countries. Those Arabs that were displaced and are now in other countries should also be embraced by their hosts.
The remaining Arabs that are in the Judea and Samaria deserve some form of self determination. An item that Israel insisted on for a Palestinian state was that the teaching of anti Jewish attitudes be stopped. It seems to me also reasonable that that body be also have no military capability.
What bothers me is that since 1967 all three of Abrahamic religions have free access to their places of worship for the first time that I can remember. However Joseph's tomb near Nablas under Palestinian control does not allow Jewish worship. It is this action that causes me to distrust a Palestinian state. Certainly Hamas wishes to eliminate the Jewish state. I have no idea how one solves that problem. the only hope is the overthrow of Hamas by its people.
9
Yawn. I'm tired of people talking about what happened on Monday like it was just a bunch of Hamas soldiers who were murdered and not any innocent civilians. And for those who like to parrot the "human shields" line against Hamas, two things are worth noting: a) Israeli soldiers use Palestinians as human shields, too-- not just in the metaphoric sense of mixing among civilians to sneak in places, but in the literal sense of standing behind Palestinians while shooting so that anyone who tries to shoot back will likely miss and shoot the Palestinian instead, and b) When someone uses an innocent person, particularly a child, as a shield, you have a choice: Let them both go or kill the child in order to kill your enemy. The life of the child, therefore, is still ultimately in *your* hands. You CAN choose not to shoot the shield. Anyone using children as shields is wrong, but that doesn't mean anyone confronted with this scenario has the "right" or is somehow exempt from the moral implications of shooting the child.
12
50 out of the 60 or so Gazans killed on Monday have been CLAIMED by a high-up official to be members of the Hamas militia with another three claimed by the Islamic Jihad. Pictures of these men in their uniforms have been released by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Unarmed civilians they were not. If you insist on claiming that they were not soldiers or militia men, you are willfully blind.
4
Excellent column. Extremists empower one another, and not just in this instance.
It was obvious from the very beginning that the far right Zionist element wanted all of the land they believe God gave them and would do anything to get it. It is not so different from the historic American belief in manifest destiny, which allowed those of European extraction to push the indigenous people off the land and take it for themselves.
Here is your extremism, David: “We are the superior or chosen ones and others are less than human, so what we do to them is of little concern.” With the ever increasing population of right wing Israelis, the eventual eradication of the Palestinians looks like the most possible outcome to me.
8
After reading this excellent recap, I need to juxtapose it with the guiding point of view of our latest miracle worker for the Middle East; Jared Kushner. It was reported some months ago that he told his team he wanted to approach his assignment not by looking at the past but how things actually are today. How can any effort to resolve this issue be undertaken by NOT looking at the past? The past is a driving factor for both Palestinians and Israelis. Both recent and ancient.
It is unlikely Israel will ever boot settlers off contested lands and Palestinians will never accept the current boundaries...imposed by Israel. Bibi claims Israel is a Jewish state (because God said so) and that immediately relegates Muslims to something less than full citizens in a land they owned until 1948. Who would accept that?
Israel has the military might and Palestinians have the terror. Nobody will ever win that battle. And neither will ever give up without taking history into account.
1
Palestinians need to get this through your heads. Palestinians are never going to get a state on the West Bank. That ship has sailed. There are too many Jews now in Israel to make a mini-state for Jews viable.
The best that Palestinians can hope for is full Israeli citizenship, some degree of autonomy similar to what French Canadians have in Quebec, plus payment of Just Compensation to those who lost land or property due to Israel's creation by the UN, the representative of the World Community, as under the legal doctrine of Eminant Domain. Let us also recall that Israel was created by the UN to make recompense for what the Germans did.
As far as Gaza goes, the UN should immediately recognize Gaza as an independent state whether Gaza asks for it or it. Right now Gaza is not Israel, it's not Egypt. It's a big nothing.
There's your Palestinian state,,, Gaza.
3
The fact remains that more Jews than Palestinians were displaced during the creation of Israel. As much as many of those 800,000 Jews would have liked to return to their homes in Iraq, Egypt, Palestine west of the Jordan River, Lebanon, Syria it is not going to happen. Borders have changed for millennia -the map of Europe is instructive in this regard, as well as more recent events such as the annexation of Crimea by Russia. The reason these border clashes immediately rise to front and the op-ed pages transcends the reasons on the ground. Hundreds of Syrians die most days, but the Syria reaches the front page it seems only when there is an Israeli angle, not because of the ongoing war crimes for which only what is happening in Myanmar can compare.
8
Thank you for your remarkably reasonable piece. I'm glad you pointed out that displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians was the original sin.
Your essay leaves out an important fact. The U.S. gives over $3 billion to Israel every year. This is an extraordinary level of support leading to a severe imbalance of power and resources.. Let's bear that in mind when we consider the situation of the Palestinians.
3
The leaders of Israel, Hamas, and the PLO do not have a vested interest in a peaceful environment. Both sides are not just extreme, but extremely wrong. The leaders are manipulative, self serving, and short sighted. It is no longer about right versus wrong, only about perception. Using the various media platforms to make the other side look bad. To persuade the rest of the world how bad the policies of the other side are effecting their respective population.
Both groups need new leadership with the practical need to create an environment with inter-generational forgiveness on all atrocities committed by both sides. Until both sides acknowledge the need to ask for forgiveness as well as truly provide forgiveness, this cycle of hate will never ever end. The destruction of both sides is not the right answer.
3
Mr. Brooks is correct in saying, "There was plenty of time to figure out how to handle the crowds without bloodshed." What Israel and the United States need to "figure out" is that you cannot continue to treat people like animals, enclosed in a densely-crowded toxic prison, blockaded from the rest of the world, and expect them to meekly submit or just go away. No doubt Hamas is exploiting the situation for political gain, but the tinder for an explosive situation has existed for a long time, with or without Hamas. If the people of Gaza were even relatively content with their lives, Hamas would not be able to "exploit" them. Israel and the US need to figure out something else also, What does the term Never Again, mean, exactly?
5
Hamas was created and sustained by Israel as a counterweght toFatah. Nobody mentions that anymore. Hamas won the election because the US and Israel wanted them on the ballot thinking that it would legitimize their Quislings in Fatah. The US sponsored an attempted Fatah coup in Gaza which resulted in the total Fatah- Hamas split.
Israel had a clear choice in 1967. They could have provided services and technical assistance to the Palestinians freed from their Egyptian and Jordanian YOKES, as the US did in Germany and Japan after WWII, or seize the best land , the water, and all the other resources and illegally transfer their own people to the land under brutal military occupation. They chose the latter course and now we have a hundred unarmed Palestinians from Gaza slaughtered and the likes of Brooks talking about moral equivalency.
7
For some the prisoners in Gaza are not human. Those holding such views put in question their humanity.
3
Leadership matters. Netanyahu and Abbas are no Rabin and Arafat. Sadly the US is not providing any either. Neither are the arab countries. Can Netanyahu emulate Sharon? Can Abbas learn from Sadat? Can Trump learn from Clinton and Carter?
All these suggest issues for another generation. Yet who would have thought that the iron curtain would have come down as quickly as it did? So again leadership matters.
2
Is it extremism? I think it is just the natural irrationality of religion. Religion has never been pragmatic. Belief is belief and not subject to rational criticism. All theocracies ultimately fail because they are inherently inflexible. Iran and Israel are the two modern examples of sclerotic theocracies that are finding cracks in their religious foundations and have reacted by grasping more tightly to their irrationality and nationality. I don't see good things in the future for the middle east unless Israel and Iran liberalize.
4
Unfortunately, as long as Hamas is ruling over the Palestinians, there can never be peace. The only Jewish state they will ever recognize is one that will no longer exist. If the Palestinians should be protesting something, it should be why Hamas continues to place them into harm's way as well as use terrorism as their only answer to everything. Another thing they should be really be protesting is why Abbas refuses to sit down and talk peace with any Israeli PM. More importantly, they should be protesting on why elections in the Palestinian territories are hardly ever held if any. However, I feel that this will never be done mainly because many of them know that if they speak to either Hamas or Fatah, they will most likely get killed for doing so. I won't argue that Israel does have extremists, but they are always being called out for their actions, being arrested for killing others, and even having their parties banned from ever running again in the Knesset, which shows how little Israel condones such groups yet in the Palestinian territories such groups are always welcomed with them. The only way to free Palestine is to free them from those groups. Until then, it will stay the way it always is. I still hope one day there will be Palestinians who stand up to those terrorist organizations, and they can't stop all of them if the protests against them become more constant.
8
I hate to bring up an old chestnut, but unfortunately, its an oldie but a goodie as far as making the point is concerned, and that is, that the Palestinian leadership, which is to a significant extent, polluted by the presence of Hamas, refuses to recognize the right of Israel to co-exist - their most fervent hope, and long term goal, is to drive Israel into the sea.
This is nothing new, and has never, EVER changed. And this is the problem. While the individual Palestinian, who has had experiences with individual Israelis, is as likely as not to view the Israelis as human beings like themselves (some better, some worse) with every right to exist and be happy, the extremism of the leadership does not, and are estopped from adopting this, which is one reason why negotiations for a solution have been so problematic - they're ultimately not negotiating in good faith.
You can't negotiate successfully (even if you want to) with a person who a) doesn't believe that you have the right to live, and who b) teaches young and impressionable generations of Palestinians this and related ideas, c) who hides saboteurs, spies, and fighters (as Hamas acknowledged doing in the recent clash at the fence) among civilians and d) who is OK with sending women and children in the front lines, knowing that there is a likelihood that they will be killed, and who e) callously views this as good media for their cause.
And more could be said.
13
Start by not seeing the Arab-Israeli conflict through *any* narrative. Else, you're going to hallucinate what likely is not there.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this conflict is very simple. The "Palestinians" and the bulk of Arabs and the bulk of Muslims around the world would like Israel wiped off the face of the earth. It wouldn't hurt if all Jews similarly disappeared. They used to be willing to do that incrementally, but that seems to have failed, so at least they can simply attack constantly to the best of their ability.
The Israelis on the other hand, hold to the quaint idea that they don't like being exterminated, and used to think they could deal with the Palestinians as reasonable people. That, too, has failed, so they simply deal with an iron fist.
If anyone thinks this conflict will ever be resolved, they are on a fool's errand.
10
“what did Israel do to prevent this blood bath before it happened? ”
Israel should do this. Israel should do that . Israel should do what. Ok. I’m open to your or anyone’s ideas. Please keep it to some level of reality.
6
More stupid blame the victim non sense. The Palestinians are an abandoned people and despite that we have Brooks taking the outsider bourgeois certitude that both sides are equivalent. Just try to sweep it under the carpet. Which certainly makes Netanyahu happy. While Jerusalem is corruptly handed over to Israel's settler gov't by Trump and Kushner completely abandoning 40 years of diplomacy Palestinians are brazenly killed by Israeli soldiers. A horrendous massacre and Brooks opines with ivory tower aplomb that Palestinians could have done differently.
4
It is so easy, and politically correct, to talk about the 1948 "expulsion" of the Palestinians (who at that time were called just Arabs) and to forget that Palestinian militias and several Arab armies tried to "throw the Jews into the sea". It is also easy to forget that the Palestinians that chose to stay in Israel still live there, they and/or their descendants, and do much better than most Arabs who live in their own countries and in Europe. Israelis always wanted peace with the Arabs, and still do. However in the 1990, after the assassination of Rabin, the Palestinians started a campaign of suicide bombings, which killed hundreds of Israelis, and Israelis realized that until the desire of the Palestinians to destroy Israel abates, peace is not possible. However, if the Palestinians at some point manage to convince the Israelis that they seriously want peace and are willing to accept compromises, the attitude of Israelis will quickly change. Golda Meir summarized this very nicely by saying: "When they start loving their children more than they hate us, we will have peace".
13
Always amazed in the Israeli Palestinian debate to see the victims portrayed as the problem. Bibi and cronies are not to be considered extremist I guess. The never ending expansionism and stealing of Palestinian land is also not a provocation. I despair
5
"... involving a historic wrong — the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians."
In Mr. Brook's guise as "neutral rationalist," he merely parrots those members of the Times editorial board who are not overtly hostile to Zionism and Israel.
While there may be a necessary political solution, there really is "a moral arc" in the Universe, and it is not on the Arab, nee Palestinian, narrative.
The Arab narrative is a good story if you are already predisposed to "anti-imperialist" ideology on ,say, an American campus. At such a place, pointing out that Jews are the indigenous people in the Holy Land, and that Arabs arrived about 1,500 years later under the "sword of Islam" from Mecca and Medina, is a non-starter. Identity politics demands that the Arabs be elevated to "supreme victims," regardless of historical accuracy.
Thus, Mr. Brooks confronts the Middle East, and specifically Gaza, as part of the false "cycle of violence" narrative also pushed by the Times whenever Israel defends herself.
Hamas is a terrorist organization, committed to Israel's destruction. Israel, on the other hand, is a flawed democracy which has never sought a war of extermination.
The fatalities in Gaza result solely from Hamas's purpose to push their "protesters" tot he border to win media sympathy on the day the US re-located tis embassy to Israel's capital, Jerusalem.
Thus, it was a "suicide bombing" by other means.
From the above premise, we can begin to move forward.
11
Thank you David Brooks. This is one of best op-eds ever and one of the best pragmatic, unbiased opinion essay on the conundrum which is the Palestine/Israel conflict. As you mention each side has contributed to the action- reaction and justified/unjustified actions. But the past, is the past, is the past. 1946 should'nt have happened but it did. No side was happy nor embraced the change. Israel was attacked from all sides by Arabs and were justified fearing for it's safety. But 1967 brought Israel into it's own. And then came another shift. Israel became the unquestioned power in the Middle East thanks to our economic, military and our vote in the UN Security Council. But with power comes responsibility. Therefore in the present it behooves Israel to take on leadership to prevent generations of a people being destroyed, even from themselves. Palestine should realize that Israel is here to stay and going back pre- 1947 is a mirage. So too Israel stop the mind-set of the time of it's creation. Israel should stop encroaching upon Palestinian land and stop pushing Gazans further towards the sea, choking them of a livelihood. So too Palestine stop resisting an all-powerful state to their own destruction. But Mr. Brooks you are so spot on. The extremists on both sides are winning with the majority looking hopelessly on.
2
David Brooks has the timeline wrong. Extremists on the Palestinian side (Hamas) rose to power after Israel dragged its feet for nearly a decade on implementation of the Oslo Accords. Frustration grew from seeing more and more illegal Israeli settlements established and no improvement in the lives of Palestinians.
5
Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson has studied alienation and its pathologies. In his interview with FOX he asked the interviewer the most perplexing of questions which stuns extremists whether they be the extremists of FOX, Hamas Likud or other extremist groups. Peterson asked what happens to the other side.
Without truth and reconciliation extremism only grows.
The USA seems to me that the USA is destined to become another failed nation state because the extremist GOP has destroyed the judiciary's integrity for the next generation and cynicism is the only sane reaction to today's legislative and executive branches.
Forty per cent of Americans do not feel themselves a part of Trump/GOP America. The GOP of Buckley, Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, McConnell, Ryan and now Trump does not represent the America my wife and family grew up with.
For those of us who believe in liberal democracy today's GOP is the embodiment of group think and tribalism. Elections no longer matter. For us there is longer a United States of America and we wish only to make the economy, religious, and racial segregation official. We wish to do it with votes but I fear the tragedy of Gaza will look like a Sunday school picnic when we realize America can never be put back together.
1
My guess is that the Israeli government's response to the reaction to the mass killings will be to build a stronger, higher wall between Gaza and Israel. The logic of Israeli policy both there and, more notably, on the West Bank, is to cordon off, not to compromise. The short-term result is the ghettoes (apartheid, whatever) we see now, with Gaza only the most extreme example; the long-term hope is for some event (a war) or process (desperation) that would lead to a Palestinian exodus - on the 1948 model - to Jordan.
1
In French, there is a proverb freely translated as You can bring the horse to the water but you cannot make it drink.
There is no strategy that could bring Hamas or even the PA to peace, the former aspires to immediately destroy Israel and the later to destroy gradually and eventually reach its dream of Palestine from the river to the sea as it appears in their maps and Arabic language statements.
The thinking that compromise is the road to peace is a Judeo-Christian concept which does not exist in the Islamic word which offers only “hudna” (temporary peace) and respects only invincibility.
9
You can add as much smoke to this issue as you care to inhale, Mr. Brooks--but there's only one way to look at this issue.
Who is the civilized society who only responds to violence--and never initiates it? Who had to build a wall for self-protection?
But for further validation on the legitimacy of the state of Israel: who has built a safe, clean, modern country--built on freedom, the rule of law, and free-market capitalism--where the rights of women are respected? It's Israel.
Just look at Palestinian society. It's a disaster. It's poor, violent, angry--and their people can think of little else, than committing acts of terrorism--of killing their innocent neighbors on the other side of the wall. They keep attacking....keep losing people...but yet they never learn that the price for committing acts of violence is death. It's difficult to feel sorry for stupid people.
Think people...THINK for once--instead of reacting out of ignorance and prejudice.
6
Unfortunately, Mr. Brooks compares the mindset of occupied with occupiers. People without a home are bound to act in extreme ways to get the attention. People who are helpless, voiceless and who get humiliated everyday should be give more leeway to protest and vent and not be shot at point-blank sitting on a hilltop with Israelis cheering from the back.
The main problem is occupation! People who were driven away from their homes, should at least have the right to protest expulsion.
Ever heard "Give me Liberty or Give me Death".
3
I feel this column is an example of extremism in political correctness.
4
“ the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians” comment should be put into context to be fair. It was not about the creation but about ending the British mandate a “partition” plan which gave Jews specific areas and Arabs their own and stipulated an Economic Union for economic cooperation and an international rule of Jerusalem. The Arab areas included substantial parts of what is now Israel and took into account the Arab population as well as the Jewish population.
The Arabs rejected this thus establishing Palestinian nationalism whereas Jews created Jewish nationalism (referred to as Zionism, rightly or not) thus starting a war which continues to this day.
The displacement occurs because of this war, considered a civil war, which is responsible for the upheaval and tragic displacement of Arabs whereas a Jews were expelled from all Arab countries also in great numbers.
It was not the intention of the UN to create Israel, it’s a slight but important distinction.
4
Mr. Brooks states that his "narrative starts with the idea that the creation of Israel was a historic achievement involving a historic wrong - the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians". Somebody help me here - didn't the Palestinians in 1948 reject the partition plan proposed and passed by the United Nations that the Israeli Jews were willing to accept? If the Palestinians had accepted that plan, might the two-state solution have been reality for the past 70 years?
6
Extremism has worked out very well for Israel. It is a prosperous and safe country. While the Palestinians have not literally disappeared, they have effectively disappeared behind walls for purposes of everyday life in Israel. Meanwhile, Israel got to take Palestinian land and resources for free and then decades of cheap labor from the people kicked off those lands. It is hard to imagine that people in Israel would be better off under a two-state solution that would require them to evacuate many of their settlements and give up control of Palestinian land and trade.
The lesson of the Israel-Palestine conflict is not that extremism doesn’t work; it is that extremism doesn’t work when you don’t have the military power to back it up. When you have that power, you can be extreme as you want and no one will care. You can still conquer territory and hold it even when every other country says it is unlawful, and blockade and bomb your enemies even as you insist you can have illegal nukes and any blockade on you is grounds for preemptive war. America and the UN’s statements about human rights are impotent at best and a cynical and meaningless ploy at worst. I can only hope the countries that replace the Pax Americana do not take that lesson to heart too much.
4
The Arabs live in a mythical past where there was once a state called Palestine and people called Palestinians who lived there. Of course, it is is all historical nonsense, but they cling to this pipe dream and do nothing else that might actually help their plight.
Israel, on the other hand has and had a plan. The plan was the two state “solution,” which turned out to be no solution. It was offered and offered and offered and rejected each time (without even a counteroffer). The Arabs were clearly not interested. When it was time to step up, they walked away.
Presently, two states is not feasible. There is no one on the others side who can or will deliver. The PA, which nominally controls the WB is weak, corrupt and incompetent and has no control over Hamas. Hamas, which controls Gaza, and would take over the WB if given the chance, is at war with Israel and openly committed to its destruction.
Israel’s plan at this point is to disengage as much as possible and do it’s own thing. It has mostly worked for Israel, even though there have been occasional flareups or wars,even. It is not something Israel is happy about, but it is probably the best it can do under the circumstances. Israel has learned the hard way that any easing of security restrictions inevitably result in violence against it. So it has walls, and fences and border security and so on.
If the Arabs choose to move forward instead of dwelling in their fantasy past, Israel’s plan will change.
7
"The Arabs live in a mythical past where there was once a state called Palestine and people called Palestinians who lived there. Of course, it is is all historical nonsense"
Right of return.
1
Incisive article, but another extremist motivation should be included. Settlers, when faced with simple demographic evidence, respond that God wants Jews to occupy the Territories, so God will protect them if they fulfill his command. The utter insanity of Jews claiming that God will protect them, not long after the Holocaust, is insane, but a great incentive for those who convey such thoughts.
2
In 2006, The Palestinians elected Hamas, a terrorist organization that brags about bombing family restaurants such as Sbarro in Jerusalem over Fatah, which renounced terror. Hamas is a terrorist organization according to the US, the EU and Israel.
Egypt has closed its border with Gaza thanks to terrorists from Gaza killing many Egyptian soldiers in Sinai.
The US should never, never bend to the will of terrorists. The moment we bend to the will of terrorists, simply encourages more terrorism.
NY Senator Schumer, the most powerful person in The Senate as Senate Minority Leader, agrees with President Trump that moving the US embassy to Israelis capital of Jerusalem was the right thing to do.
The Palestinians elected Hamas to lead them. They knew they were terrorists but elected them anyway. It is hardly Israel's fault or Trump's fault that The Palestinians chose Hamas.
2
The Oslo Accords, concluded in August, 1993, gave the Palestinians the hope and expectation of a state of their own. What followed over the next several years, however, was not movement toward statehood, but progressive expansion of Israeli settlements and Israeli blockades in the West Bank that caused increasing Palestinian frustration and a deterioration of their economy. Despite this, and despite the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in 1994, Palestine remained remarkably peaceful with little Palestinian violence directed against Israelis.
Until, that is, it became obvious (after 7 years) that Israel’s West Bank Occupation was open-ended and that Israeli assurances of statehood were a cynical ruse. What followed, not surprisingly, was the al-Aqsa Intifada( in 2000)
Gaza just now is merely the primary focus of Israel's continuing outrages against the Palestinians, here in the form of an open air concentration camp.
And Brooks wonders where Palestinian extremism comes from.
4
Israel could have preemptively avoided Hamas from attacking the border? Quite a conclusion David - please share with us the ways Israel could have done that..
Thanks
6
Try as I might, I can't think of any less bloody solution to large numbers of people attacking a border, with the aim of killing and kidnapping for ransom citizens within the border. Many, including Mr. Brooks, criticize Israel for not coming up with a better alternative but never put forward any options. The huge number of wounded people shows just how massive this border attack was, and the fact that all the wounds were in legs shows the attempt by the IDF to minimize loss of life. Thoughtful proposals to improve the situation are always worthy, but we should also give credit where credit is due.
4
Revive the Oslo Accords and move
forward from right here, right now.
1
It's long past time for Israel, Fatah and Hamas to start talking about a future instead of beginning and ending so much of their shared policy with the barrel of a gun.
I used to think that Israel was hope for Jews across the world. Increasingly, it seems to expose our tribalism and inner demons--and it increasingly means despair for millions of Palestinians.
I still want Israel to exist. I know it needs to protect its borders and its citizens. I know that Hamas still wants Israel gone. I know Bibi will remain a hawk. I know that many civilians just want to live and let live.
The bloody mess in the region is not a light unto the nations--it's a wound to scar the soul. And it saddens me immensely.
2
i believe you are mistaken that extremism accomplishes nothing. what it accomplishes is an excuse to keep"leaders" in power despite their inability to fix the problems that have presented themselves. So in Israel, extremism keeps bibi in power. in gaza extremism keeps hamas in power(or the plo) despite their inability to make the lives of their people better. The trouble is that the cynical ploy to maintain power requires painting yourself into a corner that makes improvement or resolution impossible (and its success would remove your raison d' etre). The republican party has been guilty of the same cynicism since Reagan was elected. Sometimes the progressive and left falls into that trap as well ( see #metoo excesses). as long as the citizens of these societies yield to sloganeering over solutions, their people are doomed to failures. The USA is not immune to this problem, although in the past a robust 2 party system used to keep most politicians in the center.gerrymandering and party media are now working against that middle.
3
Brooks seems to say that while all extremism is bad, Israeli extremism is only a response to the initial Palestinian extremism. Some would say he is putting the chicken before the egg, which is a fruitless argument. If the Israelis were only reacting to Palestinian extremism, what provoked that extremism? Was is created ex nihilo?
3
Non violence for Palestinians is the only way forward. It will expose Israel's hatred and brutality. An olive tree flag for everyday Palestinians should be the symbol for the wrongs brought upon them for over 70 years. The pain and suffering is coming from Israel, using Hamas, people in Gaza pay in blood, throwing stones for a better life no one will give them.
5
We don’t need narratives, we should just look at the current situation, it does not matter how we got there.
We see an apartheid state, where Jewish citizens thrive. We see millions of second class (or non) citizens rot away in detention camps.
We see Israel expanding settlements into foreign territories. We see poverty, despair, and illness prevent Palestinians to reach their potential.
We see a police and military state ruthlessly using maximum power in what they call is self defense. We see hundred thousands of young people raised in the shadows.
We see a growing economy pampered by billions of US dollars in subsidies. We see people cut off from basic humanitarian help.
We see institutionalized state extremism and nationalism systematically exploiting the weakness of its adversary. We see people driven to terrorism because they have noting to lose.
We see oppression and we see crimes against humanity.
We see injustice and inaction.
Shame on us.
8
No mention of the ceremony in Jerusalem or the giddy reaction of Netanyahu to the move. (Of course, regular readers of David Brooks could write a response to this observation precisely as David would compose it, e.g., " It was an American decision to move their embassy to Jerusalem--can't blame Israel...")
2
If I correctly recall, the British Mandate for Palestine included all of what is now known as Jordan. However, accuracy and fairness should take into account how much of the entire mandate wound up in Arab hands. I also recall that the original partition plan, which involved the creation of two countries, placed a considerable amount of the Negev desert (mainly uninhabitable) in the Jewish state. Therefore, when people want to play around with the numbers associated with amount of territory involved, these facts should be considered.
7
The leaders of Hamas have found a uniquely practical solution to the problem of starvation in Gaza. Encourage the people to attack the border installations, let them die, and leave more food for the survivors.
4
I admire this article. It's a fair setting out for both sides and the description of mutual extremism is right on. I can't expect David Brooks to come up with a solution but peaceful compromise seems out of the question at this point, and emphasizing that Israel should never have been created will not solve anything. But thank you, David Brooks, for not demonizing anyone.
4
Sounds liberal and erudite with a pulling headline, but shows little real understanding of the situation. It is in the tradition of since there are two sides they are both equivalent and we have to present the two sides. It is easy to take the extreme corruption and hatred of the Palestinians and tar Israel with it.
4
The Palestinians have been offered most of what they wanted many times but always refused. Their leaders say conciliatory things in English but in Arabic, it is death to Israel. They have lost many wars but Hamas still tell its constituents they will eradicate Israel. It doesn't matter what Israel does, the Palestinians end game is to make Israel and the Jews disappear. Hamas admits that these peaceful protests are just a cover for violently invading Israel to kill as many people as possible. Yet the media reports the Hamas deaths like they are innocent civilians, which they are not. It is time for the Palestinians to make peace instead of pretending to be refugees. A Swiss diplomat finally put his finger on the main problem; the UNRWA. They have allowed a burgeoning number of descendants to be supported for 70 years as if they are refugees. Let them stop pretending and start building a society.
13
Israel has extremist Prime Minister and America has extremist President and when this combination get together, there would be bloodshed. Both of them hate Muslims and love conflicts. Both of them are very cruel . In last few weeks, hundreds of Palestinian children and women were killed and thousands of them injured where as the number of Israeli killed and injured is zero. But Trump administration and some American pundits are blaming Palestinians for their death. Very strange.
4
Most of those who were killed, by Hamas own admission, were Hamas members. They were the instigators and leaders of those that went along since they had some incentive from Hamas. To say no Israelis are killed, therefore they are wrong, is just a ridiculous Palestinian/Hamas propaganda.
7
Yes, what a shame that those bad Israelis went and attacked the peaceable, law-abiding innocents of Gaza, who were just standing around doing nothing.
8
If Israel never existed, and instead there was an Arab state of "Palestine," it would be like virtually every other Arab country--poor, backwards, despotic, tyrannical, contributing virtually nothing of value to the world. Instead, Israelis created, against incredible odds and opposition, one of the world's most prosperous, advanced, and freest, nations. This is Israel's true "original sin," and it's what the Arabs will never forgive it for.
13
"Instead, Israelis created, against incredible odds and opposition, one of the world's most prosperous, advanced, and freest, nations."
But the odds were incredible because confiscating a piece of land in the midst of destitute Arabs and claiming it as the Jewish home state is madness.
Israelis are some of the most industrious and innovative people in the world and what's done is done. But ask yourself where we would be if we had no chosen to squander limitless time, money and diplomatic good will in order to maintain the proverbial flower in the desert.
1
Once again manyreaders condemn Brooks with ad hominem attacks and without substantively refuting his observations or analysis. When he writes the following, Brooks succinctly describes not merely the Israeli/Palestinian conflict but many of today's disagreements, especially those within the very polarized United States.
"First, the question shifted from 'What to do?' to 'Whom to blame?”'The debates were less about how to take steps toward a livable future and more about who is responsible for the sins of the past. The central activity became moral condemnation, with vindication as the ultimate goal."
1
David you are so right. Looking for a settlement in this mess is going to be very difficult, nearly impossible. This is the common reason for all the ills we see in the middle-east. There seem to be no place for the word known to all of us as "compromise". Sadly this is also slowly creeping into US politics. In some ways, I think, the black and white of Religion has something to do with it. In Religion there is sin and there is good and to make matters worse the "perfect" God is there to support your case. This makes it difficult for people of faith to compromise with people of other faiths. I am not blaming religion, but the middle-east is a cauldron of religious fervor what with multiple religions having their roots there. Each thinks they are right and the other is wrong and this puts everyone on edge. This is an age old problem and sadly no one has come up with a reasonable solution. There is always a stalemate and one spark sets the whole place on fire. It is a very gloomy outlook. I feel sorry for those who just want to have a peaceful life and who are caught up in the needless fighting and bloodshed. This is so true of the women and children there.
Brooks surprises once again, in a timely and incisive antidote to the recent partisan advocacy of Stephens. Though he sometimes wanders into the minutiae of academic psychology and social science of little interest to me, his sober, even-handed perspective on cutting edge politics and assorted outrages of the day make him my favorite conservative. The guy has a brain, a heart, a unifying judgment and a sense of humor, which puts him miles ahead of his competition. The NYT was astute in hiring him.
He offers a hugely important acknowledgment, that while the creation of Israel was a historic achievement, it does not justify or excuse what he is willing to call a historic wrong, the unjust concurrent displacement of 700,000 Palestinians. With that simple gesture, he gives both sides an opportunity to pause, stop shouting and recognize one another's humanity, and opens the door to reconciliation.
Of course, an open door does not guarantee that anyone will walk through it, and there are plenty of angry partisans around eager to slam it shut. Leading the refuseniks is Netanyahu himself, who assured his right-wing voters in the last election that there will be no Palestinian state on his watch.
A key constituency in the unseemly spectacle of an Israeli tail wagging the American dog, to the point of openly disrespecting an American president by trashing his JCPOA before Congress, are American supporters of Israel. Will we help keep that door open, or enable those who slam it shut?
1
Apparently Mr Brooks finds it easy to ignore Jewish 3500 years of history with Israel, a land partially known as Judea. Judea=Jews. Palestinian was a name to obliterate the Jewish connection to the land. Jews know their story from the Old Testament, not a recent book of fiction. Palestinians were not even referring to themselves as Palestinians until Arafat used the term. The “Palestinians” are Arabs, many from Egypt. Look at their names. Arafat himself was born in Cairo. In 1948, Ben Gurion begged the Palestinians to stay in Israel but their leaders convinced them to flee assuring them that after a short war they would return victorious to an Israel that had been pushed into the sea. It is a condescending liberal attitude that prevails that the Palestinian leadership and their people do not know exactly what they want, the destruction and elimination of Israel, not a compromise.
7
Do you believe all people have the right to return to land their ancestors once occupied? If not, tell me why your belief should disrupt the lives of so many and dictate our foreign policy. Israel is an independent state and it can do as it likes...but it is only through our unwavering support that it does so.
1
I am growing weary by the continuous “blame games” being played out by the children of Abraham.
4
The Palestinian blame propaganda seems to be ok with you
4
A few years ago, The New Yorker (or, perhaps it was in The Atlantic) ran a story about the origins of Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territory in 1948 following the misguided decision of the UN to establish a Jewish state of Israel. Jewish settlers used the argument (and the myth) that God had granted them all of that land more than 2,500 years ago and that is was their's for the taking, not the asking.
In order to launch their new country, Moshe Dayan, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon, to name just three men, made it their mission to rid the land of its Palestinian residents.
Make no mistake, there was never any "charm offensive" in forcefully moving people, at gunpoint, from lands their people had lived on, and cultivated for a few thousand years. This was a forced expulsion involving some killing of those who preferred to stay in their homes and villages. The "resistance" continues to this day. And despite an Israeli constitution filled with words of compassion, empathy, equality and so forth, Israel has, ever since been ruled mostly by ultra-conservatives bent on banishing the Palestinian people to distance lands.
As Jewish settlements continued to expand into Palestinian territory, there were reports of Israeli snipers killing Palestinians are common knowledge. One unknown group of settlers even cut down a Palestinian grove of olive trees estimated to be at least 1,000 years old.
There is blood on the hands of both sides. Hammas and Israel.
1
The displacement of 700,000 Palestinians cannot be mentioned without the displacement of close to 1 million Jews from Arab countries. Unless Palestinians show a willingness to move as every other displace people have they won't be able to live in peace. Israel calls pacifying Gaza as "grooming the lawn", an unpleasant chore that you have to do from time to time. There really nothing else anybody can do because Palestinians are not children, they are adults responsible for their own choices.
4
>
You don't need to go to Gaza to see extremism corrupts. The GOP has been conducting seminars on it for years in this country, with Brooks' Op-Eds putting a touch of fake intellectualism on it for shine.
2
Ahh - Mr. Brooks - so the people that lost their land and property are the one that are guilty according the general message of this article. I wonder if 1.8 million Americans (Democrat, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, Progressives, etc ....) would do if they were put in the situation Israel has put those Palestinians for the past 70 years. As an American (Independent with friends on all sides) I am certain that it wouldn't be much different than what we have seen from the Palestinians, if not worst.
Finally Mr. Brooks, if Israel wants to be treated is a member of the "Democratic World" is should act as one. For once let us treat Israel us a grown up country that is responsible for the colonial polices it the occupied territories and that those policies have blow back consequences.
4
Mr. Brooks seems to overlook the fact that extremism ceases to be extremism, and becomes a rational reaction when one is faced with an intolerable injustice. This, by the way, was the path taken in the 1770s by those extremists we now call our founding fathers.
1
And what of the approximately 700,000 Jews who were expelled from Arab and North African countries upon the creation of Israel? Why is this considered acceptable but the often voluntary exodus of Arabs from Israel at that time decried far and wide? Why were these Jews willingly accepted and integrated into the fledgling impoverished state of Israel yet to this day any Arab or descendant who left Israel is considered a refugee by many who should be allowed to “return “? Why don’t you talk about this David?
7
Reading the excerpts from Mahmoud Abbas's speech referenced by Brooks, even though they are translated and edited by a right-wing pro-Israel web site, leaves no doubt they are vile, anti-semitic tropes, invoking the age old claim: the Jews brought the pogroms and the Holocaust upon themselves. Any attempt to excuse or prettify this garbage as the rantings of a bitter old man are unavailing.
But isn't Brooks making a similar claim about the Palestinians? And yes, he is saying THE Palestinians, not merely Hamas, are to blame for last week's slaughter. The two million people in Gaza suffer Hamas to exist and therefore they are complicit in it's proto-genocidal aspirations, it is argued.
My critics will counter that Hamas is actually guilty of the charges, while the Jewish moneylenders of Europe were a threat to no one. Fair enough, if you accept the premise that Hamas seeks the annihilation of the Jews, and ordinary Palestinians don't object.
But is it possible that Yitzhak Rabin was right when he sat down with the Hamasniks of his day, that you make peace with your enemies, those who were a few days earlier trying to kill you? And in so doing you acknowledge that they are not proto-Nazis but a part of the Palestinian national movement, a movement that has legitimate aspirations?
As long as Palestinian resistance, which at times has included terrorism (just as the Jewish national movement did), is demonized as Brooks does here, there can be no new Yitzhak Rabins.
2
I wonder how Brooks would describe Gandhi and his followers getting beaten and killed by the British Army. Or John Lewis and MLK’s followers in Selma. Or black South Africans rising up in Soweto against militarized Apartheid forces. Blaming the unarmed victims in Gaza who are courageously putting their lives on the line for freedom and dignity is repugnant Mr. Brooks. Gandhi, MLK, and Mandela know which side of morality you’re on Brooks.
3
I get it.
Brooks thinks it's the Palestinians being shot like fish in a barrel that are the extremists.
No responsibility lies with Bibi or even the idiot in the White House?
Well done David.
YOU have failed again.
4
"There was plenty of time to figure out how to handle the crowds without bloodshed."
This is fantasy.
6
There is so much myth behind the Israel's creation, that few remember how it came to be.
For Jews throughout Europe and the US, the Balfour Declaration was a lifeline for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, but when the British broke promises (the final in 1942), The Irgun was formed and so began the Jewish campaign of terrorism against the British.
Concurrently, there was also a competing Palestinian nationalist narrative and after the creation of Israel, the new country descended into civil war. The Palestinians were routed and more than 700,000 were driven from their homes. Hundreds of villages and small towns were burned to the ground.
Now they have become living martyrs to a cause that has no real end and martyrs do have a tendency to fight back in the same way The Irgun did.
Mr. Brooks, is there any real difference between The Irgun and Hamas?
Both thirst for freedom and used the same tactics to achieve it.
Gaza City was never given real freedom. It was a token gesture on the part of the Israelis, when, in reality, it's function is no different from that of a ghetto.
Israel has forgotten its own bloody history and has played the role of a conqueror throughout. It's a willful negation and dehumanization of the Palestinians and it is shocking when you weigh the history of Modern Israel and how it came to be.
Until the Israelis realize that Gaza City and the West Bank are symbolically the Warsaw Ghetto, then no change will ever occur.
4
When the dust clears after any instance of lethal violence, the most pressing question in my mind is not about who's place in the dirt was intruded upon. I am more interested in a case-by-case justification for each fatality. If Hamas blows up a bus full of Israeli civilians, I have little interest in the follow-up propaganda video about reclaiming a mosque or other people not on that bus might have done to Palestine. Conversely, if a group of trained soldiers causes hundreds of injuries and dozens of fatalities in a crowd of civilians, simply saying that some miniscule group amongst 20,000 others posed a threat doesn't cut it.
Unlike my feelings towards Hamas, I would like to see Israel continue to exist. Hamas targets civilians as a strategic objective, so that is all I need to know to make up my mind about them. What leaves a bitter taste in my mouth is that the idea of supporting Israel is being rhetorically linked to turning a blind eye to increasingly indiscriminate actions.
Whether it's U.S. drone strikes or Israeli border protection, I am willing to accept that civilian casualties are inevitable. But I have become uneasy with the easy attitude with which some policy-makers brush aside the lives of non-combatants. Perhaps they do not affirmatively desire civilian deaths like Hamas, but the sheer firepower at their disposal means negligence/indifference is unacceptable on our (U.S./Israel) side as well.
74
Civilian casualties? Non-combatants? No, Matt. Hamas leader Bardawil has claimed that 50 of the 62 killed were Hamas fighters. Three others were Islamic Jihad fighters.
This action was not designed as a peaceful protest, which was acknowledged by Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar.
14
Matt's point is an important one. I for one am tired of the "either/or" rhetoric we have all been forced into: EITHER every civilian killed or wounded supported Hamas, which then justified any and all actions taken by the Israeli military; OR, the Israeli military is committing aggression on innocents and must be condemned for war crimes. No good can come from accepting a binary explanation--so why are we passively accepting simplistic arguments??
Perhaps Hamas’ claimshoul be viewed with a little skepticism, though.
Your narrative is a worthy one from the standpoint of a spectator, but does not suggest a path forward. Pontificating on the injustice inflicted by the creation of the Jewish state as the original sin is all well and good. But given the reality, perhaps another narrative could be constructed from the thought experiment of the balance of firepower being reversed. Is there any doubt that there would be no talk of compromise or coexistence, just the annihilation of the Jewish state with a Palestinian state in its place.
2
Israel has decided, correctly, based on realities apparent to anyone with half a brain, that there is nothing to be gained from engaging with the the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank. The PAwhich nominally controls the WB is weak, incompetent and corrupt and . Hamas, which controlled Gaza is openly committed to Israel’s destruction and the murder of Jews generally. Any past easing of restrictions on these Arabs
5
Why do jews all over the world have the right to live in Israel even if they have never visited and Palestinians uprooted from their villages have no right to go back to their lost homes. ?
3
Because Israel has the power to defend the land it claims and the Palestinians do not have the power to take it away from them.
4
Of course, might is right. Can't argue with that logic.
"Of course, might is right. Can't argue with that logic."
In the real world, that it is. In rainbow unicorn land, perhaps not.
The Arab population left Israel after attempting to destroy it at its birth. Their attitude continues through their children and grandchildren. They are not going to be allowed to bring their violence past the border fence. They would be best served by leaders that would dedicate themselves to the development of Gaza.
The recent loss of life, inspired by their leaders, is criminal. Their leaders should be jailed or worse for wasting these lives.
6
The two sides of this do not have the same goal. They both want the entire country from the river to the sea. Jews want a Jewish state that would make all non-Jews second class citizens by definition. Palestinians, a stateless people, want a state where Palestinians have a right of return.
People who say that Israel has traded land for peace to no avail are not looking at the map. Since 1967, Israeli settlements have eaten into the land that would constitute a Palestinian state.
I say and say again the only solution is one non-sectarian democratic state with equal rights and responsibilities for all, with a right of return for Jews and Palestinians. This will require that every one put down their weapons and commit to making a positive peace so that everyone feels safe.
It is difficult for me to get past the 'historic wrong' point! Correct me if I'm mistaken ... in 1948 approximately 700,000 Palestinians were essentially told where they and their ancestors had been living for the past 1,000 years was to become Israel, a Jewish state ... it would no longer be their land! And at least in part this was justified because the bible said this was the promised land and Jews therefore had the right to settle there. So, now the Palestinians should be looking to the future and work out an agreement somehow while accepting Israel?
2
And it now is clear that our country is siding with one side against the other. This will only raise the level of extremism.
2
A beginning, or, perhaps, even better, an end of the beginning.
Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Human atavism means that we forget certain past lessons as we revisit Martin Buber and the tendency to make the Other an It.
1
“Extremism is naturally contagious” is true and should always make rational, practical people everywhere ever watchful to keep it contained, before it reaches the critical mass and point of no return. Hitler. Religious fanaticism. Extremism’s greatest allies are a dismal economy and a life with bleak prospects. Wrap it with religious fanaticism and you have suicide bombers and easy-to-recruit terrorists on your side too.
Should we be worried in our own country, within our own borders? No matter how benign the issue, does Donald Trump know any other language but extremism? The Iran agreement was “a total disaster,” the “worst agreement in history,” etc, etc.
Rough estimates are that Trump’s base is about 25% of the electorate, with low educated white males the base of the base. Base meaning Trump can do no wrong and they will follow wherever he leads.
Imagine the impact of Trump’s comments about Muslims, Mexicans, immigrants if unemployment here was 15% instead of 4%. Is anyone else concerned that his Base might be doing more than hooting and hollering at the nectar of his extremism, i.e., his monthly rallies with his Base?
Yes rational, pragmatic people are needed in the Middle East for sure. But I find myself aligned with Trump’s America First rhetoric. And the way we put America First is at the polls, starting in November. November is the first step toward reigning in Trump’s extremism. Trump is not Hitler. But the bar should not be that low.
2
I find it interesting that David Brooks does not regard the expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948 to be an extremist act. Eighty-five percent of the Palestinians who once lived in what became Israel's de facto borders--the Green Line--became refugees, primarily as a result of a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign, as the archives show. In violation of international law, Israel would not allow the refugees to return to their homes and they remain refugees to this day and have never been compensated for their losses. Ridding the area of Palestinians was necessary in order to establish a Jewish-marjority state on land that extended beyond what the UN had recommended for the Jewish state.
This historic wrong must be acknowledged and atoned for, just as Germany acknowledged and atoned for the Holocaust. See Ilan Pappe's article on today's Mondoweiss.net.
The Arabs have made numerous offers of peace, but Israel has ignored or rejected them. Americans don't know about these offers and the effects of Israel's policies on the Palestinians because Israel and its partisans have intentionally, ruthlessly and successfully pushed their version of events in the media, textbooks and our government. Now Congress is being used to pass bills suppressing criticism of Israel and nonviolent actions to create a more level playing field so that a just and enduring peace can be achieved.
For an example of what a just peace might look like, see parityforpeace.org .
2
Paraphrasing this piece, Brooks is saying that sides have to keep their ultimate goals in sight, rather than let them be subsumed. Peace is the ultimate goal, yet ultimate peace is being sacrificed for the more immediate gratifications offered by extremism.
1
I appreciate David Brooks trying to write a nuanced piece on this topic and both spread the blame to all sides and indicate what has to be done going forward. That most of the ensuing comments want to blame only the Palestinians or only the Israelis shows how much work people like Mr Brooks has to do if there is to be any progress.
My only quibble is his portrayal of "progressives" as seeing the a narrative as one of colonial oppression. While there are some who do see it that way, I believe many progressives such as myself see the situation as needing compromise by all as the only way to improve lives of both Israelis and Palestinians - especially the latter who do suffer under Israeli control more than Israelis suffer from terrorism, rockets, and the stream of hatred directed at them.
Those who seek reconciliation despite the nasty vilification used by all sides deserve the respect of progressives and everyone else.
3
The "creation" of the state of Israel was one of the biggest, more ignorant, most thoughtless mistakes, made by western colonists, of the 20th century. Israel has been the impetus for much of the violence that has taken place, throughout the region, since its inception. Israel should be contained, in the interest of the majority of people in the Middle East. The United States of America has only made these problems worse, particularly recently. Israel does nothing for our country, and does not deserve our overwhelming support, morally or financially. Enough is enough.
4
The brilliant Jews were getting Nobel prizes wherever they lived and they thrived, they did not have to live in Israel to be awarded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates
3
Jailers and prisoners always come to look alike. That is the perennial problem with politics as resistance. The resisters come to look like the perpetrators. Nietzsche put it this way, “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”
2
Mr. Brooks, your article reads like someone who has never gone through the extensive application process to enter the Gaza prison. And after obtaining the entry visa, walked through the bombed out streets of Gaza. Nor visited the humanitarian projects helping the people of Gaza eke out a minimal living. Nor seen the faces of youth who have never seen freedom who were born into a prison for an uncommitted crime. If you had these experiences, you would hesitate to write such an article.
2
David Brooks writes about Israel and Palestine as if he’s never heard of Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, Avi Schlaim, Tom Segev, Norman Finkelstein, Hillel Cohen, Baruch Kimmerling, and Simah Flapan.
Does he know who they are? Or does he pretend he does not?
They're The New Historians of Israel and much of the Middle East, and of the American, English, and French empires, and though we call it The New History, the name “The New History” goes back to Benny Morris in 1988.
How about Ha'aretz, B’Tselem, Gisha, Mondoweiss, LobeLog, If Americans Knew, Mateh Chomat Magen, Israel Social TV, Yesh Gvul, OneVoice, Breaking The Silence, Yesh Din, Rabbis for Human Rights, Adalah, Ta’ayush, The Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, Coalition of Women for Peace; Gush Shalom, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Machsom Watch, Courage to Refuse, Hope Flowers School, New Profile, Combatants for Peace, Middle East Nonviolence and Democracy, Not In My Name, the Alternative Information Centre, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Zochrot, the Arab-Jewish Partnership, The New Israel Fund, HaMoked, Physicians for Human Rights (Israel), Kav LaOved, Windows – Channels for Communication, American Jews for a Just Peace, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Israeli Committee Against house Demolitions?
Ignorance? Or pretense?
There’s no way out of the Israeli mess without the truth and reconciliation. But The truth must come first, so it’s time to tell the truth.
2
Most educated gentiles view true Zionism and the creation of Israel as something necessary and good, given the unfair, often unspeakably violent, treatment of Jews during the centuries of the Diaspora.
We also recognized that displacing Palestinians from their home after centuries was unfair. It was necessary for the greater good of having a Jewish homeland of Israel, and that meant the Israelis needed to treat Palestinians fairly.
For more than twenty years, Palestinians and other Arab peoples unsurprisingly tried to dislodge the Israeli people militarily without success, and the ensuing peace efforts have been rocky.
Is Israel being fair now?
David Brooks notes that there was a “shift” in the 1990s when Yitzhak Rabin was murdered. A person who played a prominent part in the shift and indirectly in the Rabin murder was Benjamin Netanyahu.
For many Israelis and Jewish supporters of Israel in America, the bias against Muslims grew from that day and even a gradual dehumanizing of the Palestinians began.
Mr. Brooks writes, “Extremism grew on the Israeli side, … but it exploded on the Palestinian side.”
The treatment of Palestinians by Israel in recent years has been shameful, as the Likud coalition has abandoned a two-state concept. It culminated in Gaza in the lethal shooting of Palestinians in their open-air prison.
Yes, Hamas urged the suicidal protest of hopeless Palestinians, but that does not excuse either the provocation or the lack of concern by Israel.
Who and where are these educated gentiles who view
Zionism as Good? I believe just the opposite is True.
I will exclude the Evangelicals as they are a separate
group.
2
The piece states a "historic wrong" but it then devolves into yet another unilateral condemnation of the Palestinians. The narrative of Mr. Brooks sees as "theater" what should instead be seen as desperation. A desperation that moves members of an historically oppressed community to precisely do anything "spectacular" that would attract the attention of journalists –in other words, those in charge of crafting master narratives– to see just in what extreme pain they are. I work in the theater. I do know that behind any powerful performative action there is a need to symbolically communicate something of real importance that we have become blind and deaf to, in any other contexts. I understand how narratives work. Mr. Brooks, a master narrative craftsman, perpetuates in this piece a deeply distorted one, favored by state violence. It even has a name: "the theory of the two demons." It starts by stating some truth about two actors engaged in a disproportionate conflict, but then craftily weaves its argument to create the semblance of a sort of symmetry of power between the parts... "there area bad people on both sides..." The Israeli government and these desperate Palestinians are not equally matched, and they should not be equally critiqued by their wrong strategic thinking or lack of preparation. There is ample evidence that something else has been going on and for a very long time here. The unacceptable number of dead are all in one side, martyrs or not.
4
The good being prevented by insistence upon the perfect. The pursuit of peace under Rabin meant confronting a lot of unpleasant facts and painful choices. The result was what seems to be a march towards ruin for both sides.
1
What would you have preferred from Israel, David? That Netanyahu send flowers to Ismail Haniyeh? As for Israel segregating itself, Israel enjoys the greatest level of diplomatic recognition in history on all continents. It even enjoys good relations with both the US and Russia simultaneously. It's cooperation with the Sunni Arab states in unprecedented. Just last month, Saudi Prince Salman issued a public message to the Palestinians: "Make peace or shut up." I think you've been at the NY Times too long. It's messing with your head.
Please tell us how Israel ends this so-called occupation? It left Gaza totally in 2005. What did it get? Sign a new deal? With whom? A corrupt hopeless Holocaust-denier with no legitimacy now in the 12th year of a 4-year term who still claims the Jews have no history or right to be in the Land of Israel? An jihadi group for which Israel's existence is an unforgivable affront to its religion?
It's so easy to assume the progressive posture that you know better than the Israelis, whose hide ultimately is on the line (not anyone at the NYT) who still choose Netanyahu as the best choice available under the circumstances.
Since the Oslo "Peace" Accords, more Israeli civilians have been killed by terrorism than in any time previously. Recently, Labor MK Eitan Cabel said that if the late Yitzhak Rabin had known the toll the Oslo process would take on Israel, he never would have adopted it. So please spare us with any more Rabin what-ifs.
11
It is rather difficult to see the Palestinians as other than victims from the 1948 War to the present, and the Israelis as their persecutors.
The Israelis who dispossessed the Palestinians at gunpoint in 1948 were nearly all Jews who had immigrated to the Holy Land after 1900, or descendants. The Palestinians had been there for centuries.
The Zionists claimed that their ancestors had been the original inhabitants of the territory, that the Palestinians were squatters and had to move over for the Jews.
There are three problems with this claim.
One, as evidence the Zionists adduce the Old Testament: God gave the land to the Jews. The modern world does not normally accept scripture as factual evidence. The claim could only have been justified by documents, archaeology, skeletal DNA, etc.
But, the majority powers in 1948 were Christian, sincere or feigned believers in the Bible, and thus accepted the religious story, legal procedure be damned. Let me mention that, a six-year-old country boy, I was very happy that "the Jews got their land back."
Two: Palestinian DNA shows Canaanite traces, suggesting that they have a prior claim. BTW, thus it seems some of them survived the genocide reported in the Book of Joshua. Of course, Israelis might deny the genocide with "that's just scripture."
Three: Unlike Palestinians, Americans don't have to return the land to the Native Americans, who have a much more solid legal claim than the Jews. Equal justice?
6
“Extremism is naturally contagious. To fight it, whether at home or abroad, you have to answer the angry shout with the respectful offer. It feels unnatural. But it’s the only way.”
If only Trump would get this.
1
The idea of turning Palestine into a safe haven for European Jews was based on Imperial power assumptions, that Palestine was British territory to do with whatever they wanted. It would get the Jews out of Europe where they were hated. Hitler chose a different approach but basically the same goal. So when David calls the creation of a Jewish state in Israel he perhaps displays nostalgia for imperial England. After WW II the empires collapsed and the local people regained sovereignty. I suspect David applauds that reality. But Israel is an exception. It is a remnant of imperial England, much as South Africa was before apartheid was eliminated. Israel is similar an apartheid state controlled by secret police, brute force, extensive imprisonment and a clear objective to keep the majority Palestinian population weak, poor and divided. The Jews are stuck in a position where they are hated. But how could it be different now or ever? Yes the Jews would like Palestinians to accept permanent serfdom, permanent second class life. That’s an occupier’s dream. But short of total genocide, where has that ever worked? The Jews of Israel are rich, powerful, dominant, and justifiably hated. That’s as good as ever gets for an imperial power
2
The NYT will never release its vise-grip on the idea that the Israelis - because they are successful - are wrong, and that the Arabs in Palestine - because they are devoted to death and destruction thanks to their blind devotion to a 7th century violent tribal witch doctor - are right. The NYT, because it is a Progressive institution dedicated to the Progressive idea that everyone must be equally miserable, is devoted to cheering on any failure and vilifying every success. Wake up. The Arabs in Palestine are devoted to death and destruction - not peace and production. Perhaps they should turn their swords into plowshares? Unfortunately, their 7th century tribal witch doctor was also a warlord, who created a religion of violent conquest from its first days. So no, they have no incentive to change their ways. It's not the "extremists" - it's the rank and file who believe that it's okay for Hamas "extremists" to setup rocket launchers in civilians' houses, hiding behind women and children.
9
Dear David Brooks:
I always thought the creation of the State of Israel was an historic achievement which was based on righting a major historical wrong--the slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews during the Holocaust.
8
False equivalency. You cannot right a wrong by creating another land grab wrong. "Rob Peter to pay Paul?. To take from one merely to give to another; to discharge one debt by incurring another." That is endless robbing...
Barbarism works. Just ask the native peoples across the world, from Canada to America to Australia to...
Kill, steal, ethnic cleanse, it worked for America, for England, so it is the murder of choice for all nation building people with advanced weapons and no conscience.
That is what is happening in Israel. All else is just propaganda.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
2
Your analysis is good, but incomplete. To me, the defining feature of the extremism is that both sides have ceased to view the other as human, and consequently have not a shred of empathy for the other. The Palestinians have come to view the Israelis as not just "infidels" but "oppressors." And the Israelis have come to view the Palestinians as criminals.
Compounding matters is the fact that Trump shares this mindset in, well, just about everything. He's not just taken the Israeli side; he's egging them on.
There are no good guys here. Until somebody learns some empathy, it won't change.
'Zionism' started in the 19th century with a Scot, Alexander Keith, and the British Lord Shaftesbury, who wanted all the Jews living in the UK to go to Palestine and farm products needed by the UK. Few Jews accepted. Balfour's declaration was that Palestine would be a British Mandate where Jews in the UK and Jewish traitors to the Kaiser could have farms to grow tropical crops. Again, few Jews accepted. When Hitler started abolishing Jewish civil rights, German Jews tried to leave, but no one would accept them, including the US and British Mandate Palestine. After WWII, the King of Transjordan offered to take some European Jews, but not all of them. Truman and Stalin did not give the King a choice: almost all the Jews in Western European 'Refugee ' camps were sent to Palestine, displacing a million or so Palestinians, who, like the European Jews before them, had no place to go. Many Arab countries expelled all Jews, who had nowhere to go but Israel. Almost everyone shares some of the guilt for the problems now in Israel except the Palestinians and the Jews who were offered no reasonable choices by the rest of the world.
1
"Conservatives see it through the “front line in the war on terror” narrative and defend Israel’s actions on the Gaza border fence this week. Progressives see it through the “continued colonialist oppression” narrative and condemn those actions."
Huh? Most of the people I know see it as religion and politics don't mix.
What is going on in Gaza that may still evolve into something far more unsettling to All is the natural, but delayed instinctive reaction of, part of, the Palestinian people for the deliberate mode of mos life imposed on them: blockade, restriction of movement, random massacres by aliens, , absence of electricity, hampered economy Are all the inevitable consequence of DEFEAT brought about by:
*****failed organized resistance led by incompetents, some of dubious loyalty and personal honesty !
*****underestimate of the strength and determination of the enemy, Israel, and his major ally thr USA to establish a forward base for the Judeo/Christian alliance to dominate the region
****** unrealized “nationalist” expectations .....
BUT more than any single factor :an unrealistic assessment of the balance of local, regional and international balance of power
By any standard Defeat was inevitable and delayed opposition of a Palestinian almost miraculous resurrection which is going on now in Gaza .
There is absolutely no unwarranted Extremism in it except , possibly , the absence of a realistic outlook for regional developments,
Extremism in defense of evil corrupts. Extremism in defense of humble humane empathy enobles and exalts justice and morality.
The founders of America and Israel employed violence in order to obtain freedom and liberty for their kin, kith and kind. The hypocritical moral degenerate notion that draws an extremist equivalency between fighting against evil and for justice is ludicrous. There can be no compromise with inhumanity.
The American founders did not consider women, Africans and Natives human beings who were divinely naturally created equal with certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Confederate States of America and Jim Crow America were extremists who sought to perpetuate this injustice.
The Israeli founders did not consider Christians nor Muslims nor Africans nor Arabs nor Asians nor Americans equally worthy of the land that they invaded and occupied by ethnic cleansing terrorism claiming divine ethnic sectarian Zionist Jewish European supremacy. The Holocaust was not perpetrated in the Middle East by Christian Muslim Arab Palestinians.
The 'Gaza violence ' was an Israeli Defense Force massacre of 100+ unarmed human beings and the wounding of 10,000+ unarmed human beings who were peacefully protesting their concentration camp ghetto prison reservation life under the dominion of Zionist Jewish Israel. This was a crime against humanity.
4
Despite being a Jewish state, Israel does give a lot of rights to minority groups, which is a lot more than what the Muslims countries give for minorities living in their countries, but you don't seem to care about what goes with them while just grilling Israel only.
2
Hamas would be nothing without the cooperation of Israel. Of course both sides are to blame for the present state of affairs but in the end, one needs to understand that Gaza and the West Bank are at the heart of the problem, not Israel's existence.
Moreover, Trump's crazy move to Jerusalem, and Netanyahu's crowing about it like the cock o' the walk, sparked off what has happened last week. It was a disaster.
Modern Israel was born with its own Original Sin, as you mentioned. The question has always been about those 700,000 displaced Palestinians you mention. They and their progeny have not forgotten. Nor will they ever.
When you have the likes of Netanyahu and his nutcase religious fanatics running the show, aided by someone like a Trump, abandon all hope, ye who enter there.
The two state solution is still the only solution. Stop. And as if now it is as dead as Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's last best hope, which was snuffed by, yes, an Israeli.
It's not about ideas, or extreme ideas.
It's about policies and deeds.
Like locking up 2 million Palestinians in the world's largest concentration camp and then using snipers to murder those brave enough to try to escape.
4
I have come to strongly suspect that the persistent failure to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace, is largely due to it (as of yet) not really being well *defined*- for it’s hard to strive for something, that hasn’t even been tangibly conceptualized. And so I outline a fairly just, concrete, & feasible solution in the following essay (please note though that The Daily Kos is a site for Democrats, hence the references in this to the Democratic party platform): https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/22/1758556/-Envisioning-the-Isri...
Fundamentalism is a sickness and a means for a few to manipulate the masses. Whether it be Zionists, Hamas, or Trump's friends the evangelicals- it's never good for humanity.
2
History is witness to rise of fundamentalism in every corner of earth where humans have inhabited. Yet humans fail to learn lessons from the sad outcome of fundamentalism. Looks like every generation wants to repeat the same mistakes of their human forefathers.
1
The specific situation in a particular region, behind lies *the* history, is a point of the writer’s discussion. Let me comment selectively on his “shifts” argument in more general terms. ***** In the first shift to explain, “livable future” is contrasted against “responsible for the sin of the past”; as the positive vs the negative, respectively. In my humble view, the expression- “the sin of the past” can be used rethorically for anything, either negatively or less negatively. In either case, “livable future” does not exist without looking into the past. In addition, the “what to do?” - or - “whom to blame?” binary appears to be directly from expedient debates on social media. ***** In the third shift to explain, “strategic thinking” is contrasted against “theatrical thinking”, as the positive and the negative, respectively. In my paraphrase, the writer indicates the former to be rational pragmatism; the latter, dramatization aiming at sporadic effects. That obviously implies the binary of the modern vs the pre-modern. To me, the idea seems to come directly from a certain mainstream of academias. ***** As for the “cynical” part, that is a perplexity. Above all, the most perplex in this piece for me is the content defying the title, or vice versa. I sincerely ask whomever. Please stop confusing the columnist for your gains. I respect him a lot. He is a very decent person with a top ranked professionalism.
The Israelis first used Tear Gas ...and used deadly force when left with no other choice...
How do you deal with a mob 0f 35,000 people attempting to “crash” the border?
How would other Countries dealt with such a situation ?
The Liberals criticize Israel for using Force.... but no one that I know has provided an alternative method of dealing with such a situation.
7
I don't understand why Brooks abuses the word "narrative". Good writing rejects hackneyed words and phrases. Doesn't it?
Extremism is the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure, sewage system, airports and power plant by Israels bombing. Israel has made Gaza like the Warsaw Ghetto. Only instead of sending the Palestinians off to die, they are just letting them die in place. Gaza is the worlds largest open air prison. Because of the Israeli blockade, Gazans are not allowed to travel. Water is too poor for irrigation and 97% is contaminated with sewage. Severe restriction on goods entering and leaving. Unemployment is 44% and poverty rate is 63%.
Over $3.8 US tax dollars go to Israel each year, yet they become more extreme. Taking over ever more territory.
3
Thank you David. If I was a better writer, this would have been my comment to Bret Stephens column of a couple of days ago.
After seventy years defending their right to exist, Israeli Jews are still having to defend themselves against people still determined to expel them from their homes, and slaughter them. The 'World Community' still does not seem to understand that the Holocaust had consequences. After 1900 years of being aliens wherever they where living, and being forced to accept routine displacement and death, in 1948 Jews at last had a place where they could live in safety and where their very existence would not be at the convenience of others. I do not apologize for being a Jew - I was born one and had no choice - but the days when I and my descendants can be killed and assaulted are over. The Palestine Arabs have got the short end of the stick this time, but they have their own state, it is the predominantly Palestinian state of Jordan.
6
Thou Shalt Not Kill:.....that is one of the Ten Commandments
; Does Netanyahu...believe in the Ten Commandments..
I do NOT think so...: so this Hebrew State; ISREAL is led by
a heretic..
that is my point of view: as a Christian who believes in the
Law of Moses; and the interpretation of Moses Law by Jesus.
That is my view of why the falseness of Trump/Jared Kushner/and Netanyahu should be exposed ...because they
are neither abiding by their avowed allegiance to Judeo-Christian morality.
1
I've read many opinions and columns on the violence this past week in Gaza. About how the Israeli response was disproportionate and that a better response could have been achieved. However what I haven't heard is one actual suggestion! It's very clear what Hamas wanted and you have to give them credit. They know western media all too well. March women and children up to the front lines and that will play very well. Declan Walsh of the NYT reported that Hamas told their fellow Gazans that the fence had been breached and people were entering Israel. All lies but calculated to get as much bloodshed as possible.
As Mr. Stephens column noted, when will Palestinians finally be held responsible for their own actions? isn't 70 years more than long enough?
5
As if dispossessing another people of their country and property was not an extreme act. Eight-five percent of the Palestinians who used to live within the ceasefire lines became refugees! The population of Gaza quadrupled because of refugees, and there they remain. Jews wonder why Palestinians can't get over the Nakba (which is not a day, but months of expulsion). It's because Jews like David Brooks have not acknowledged this crime. The Jews must acknowledge, apologize, and atone for this crime, just as Germany did for the Holocaust. Please read "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," by Ilan Pappe. He tells you what the expulsion order were.
Rabin is hailed as a peacemaker, but he ordered the expulsion of the Palestinians from Lydda and Rhamle in 1948. Many of the expelled died of thirst on their way to Jordan. Later, when Palestinians resisted the occupation, he ordered the soldiers to break the Palestinians' bones.
Israel provokes violence and then escalates it. Always, the Israeli propagandists portray Israel as defending itself, and our cowed media echo the propaganda. The Great Return March was not organized by Hamas, but Hamas participated in it along with all other parties and groups in Gaza. Yet it was Hamas that was demonized by the media. If Israel was able to identify "most" of the people it killed on May 14 as being members of Hamas, surely they were able to identify the press and the medics, but they also got killed. Whatever for? It is sheer cruelty.
3
About the original sin of 700,000 or whatever the correct number of refugees who fled when Arab counties decided to push Jews in Israel into the Sea, put this in context. Please. First, why did they flee? How many just left, hoping to come back when all Jews were drowned and their property available for the taking? How many were actually pushed out by Israelis. Were those pushed out peacefully minding their own business or actively supporting and participating in actions against Israel? Then, why were these folks cornered in refugee camps and promised for generations that they would go “home”- be where they woul have been had the Arab armies succeeded in 1948. Then, compare these refugees to the other refugees trying to find homes to replace what they liost. After World War II, there were millions of refugees fleeing from homes that no longer existed or countries whose boundaries have changed. Leave aside Jews, who were specifically targeted for total destruction by the Nazis, whose former neighbors often tried to murder them when they attended to go back to their homes to see if any family survived and who were left out of discussions about atrocities immediately after the war because they were Jews. Forget also the Jews pushed out of Arab counties and resettled in the US or Israel How many of these refugees from seventy plus years ago sit in camps, supported in their homelessness by a UN agency? The real question is why are you blaming Israel for this refugee issue?
5
Extremism is usually caused by desperation. Irgun and Hamas are close relatives. Their causes are comparable. History is written by victors so Irgun (among its leaders Begin - Nobel Peace Prize - and Shamir) is mentioned as the ultimate freedom fighter organization (blew up King David Hotel, British Imperial jerks and innocent bystanders). David Brook is not the type to understand this.
3
Requiring rational behavior from people who have lived in a concentration camp for three generations betrays a wilful blindness. Israeli extremism is the natural consequence of unimpeded dominance. They use overwhelming deadly force because they know their allies (overtly The United States, covertly Saudi Arabia) have need of their alliance against Iran, and (certainly the current U.S. administration and the Saudi Crown Prince) are fine with crimes against humanity.
1
Unfortunately, extremism is becoming normalized. Initially, it started out with hijackings, then terrorist attacks on civilians, then suicide bombings and then suicide attacks in Europe and US. Only one side has used such tactics over the last 50 years. The Israel/Palestinian conflict is a microcosm of a conflict that started with the religious confrontation of the middle ages (Christians vs. Muslims). The Israel/Palestinian conflict is also religion based. Muslims do not want any one other than other Muslims living in their neighborhood. Look at Iraq and what happened to Yazidis during ISIS occupation; or to the Coptic Christians in Egypt last year and in 2018. Even among them, they hate each other (Shite vs. Sunni) and are willing to kill them in the thousands. The world never condemned such barbarism. It would require Muslims to really re-examine their beliefs whereby tolerance of other religions could open the doors to peace.
I do not have any reason to believe this will change. The extremism has part of their DNA.
The Sri Lankan Tamil separatists were the first to introduce suicide bombing. Their actions pushed the Sri Lankan sinhalese majority to further extremism. Your statement extremism is part of their DNA, fails to understand the why. The Persian Muslim and Arab worlds were advanced sophisticated empires that stretched across continents. Yet they collapsed. Today, the Arab world is rich enough to provide for all its citizens yet wealth remains in the hands of oil moguls and royalty, while the rest of the populace live in dire conditions. The Arab spring hoped to bring light to this gross inequality but it got side tracked. By politicians and religious zealots.
1
Mr. Brooks, I am still waiting for someone to tell me the name of the first king, sultan whatever of the legendary nation called Palestine, best I can come up with is an Egyptian wanna be leader of Palestine named arafat? NO mention of the 800,000 Jews evicted by Arab countries on mass, only for the crime of being Jews?
6
Is there a "non-Extreme" solution to robbing 700,000 people of their homeland? This happened in our modern age---not some distant, historical past.
Israel wants us to remember the Holocaust but forget its own actions which were just as bad.
And you will notice in these comments that those supporting Israel's right to use violence to protect its borders will conveniently omit reference to those 700,000 souls. That is another form of Extremism---extreme denial.
3
The uprising in the Gaza Concentration Camp is not much different from the uprising of the Jewish people in the Warsaw Ghetto. Oppressed people have nothing to lose. The Israelis with help of the Trump regime did what the Germans did, killing innocent, helpless people.
The embassy was moved in order to provoke the Palestinian people, Snipers killed and insured unarmed people while not one Israeli soldier was hurt. The IDF was well prepared with snipers in position, ready to go.
Kudos to the Democrats, at least they did not celebrate with Netanyahu and Trump. But western powers must take responsibility for the crimes against the Palestinian people, they finance the crime and keep moral silence.
1
The timing of the embassy moving to Jerusalem is suspect. Couldn’t have been worse. It was meant to demean Palestinians. Brainless heartless planning. Niki Haley who descends from sikhs shoulda know her own history, how Khalistan separatists were silenced and how that’s led to Sikhs migrating to other countries seeking refuge.
1
Gaza is a hopeless sewer of uselessness.
However, if the UN creates a new country called West Palestine and the wealthy Arab states fund a rebuilding project that primary focused on water treatment and urban vertical horticulture and the entire hapless society there turns it around and becomes self sufficient based upon agriculture, and food export, not arms import and violence, there could be a glimmer of hope.
Otherwise, the Israels should build a tall virtual drone wall that when encroached releases knock out gas.
3
Eventually Muslims will outnumber Jews in what is now Israel, even within pre-1967 borders. At that point a Jewish state will become ultimately unsustainable, much as a British ruled Northern Ireland will and a white ruled South Africa has. The Muslim Middle East never had and never will have any intention of tolerating a non-Muslim state in its midst, whatever its borders, and violence perpetrated by Israel, whether one views it as unfortunate but justifiable or purely evil, merely hastens the inevitable as world opinion turns against it. I have no idea what will happen to the six and a half million Jews now living there; the world was indifferent to their plight in the 1930s-40s, refusing to provide safe haven, and doubtless the same attitude and policies will obtain again.
5
We can conclude that what Extremism means for Brooks is that which he feels is 'extreme'.
Otherwise, the seizure of a people's land to form one's own political entity seems rather...extreme.
We might also conclude that Palestinians remember the catastrophe of 1947 extremely well.
Perhaps that doesn't fit well with NYT watercooler philosophy--whose sole purpose is to forget and move on...
1
"Bothsides-ism" at its morally vacuous finest. Brooks manages to write hundreds of words without ever picking a side or taking a stand beyond "extremism is bad."
Where's the analysis? Where's the insight? What's the point?
It was in 1964 when extremists like Goldwater, Nixon , and Reagan took over the Republican Party and Goldwater uttered those famous words as he accepted the GOP nomination.
"I would remind you extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
Goldwater spoke these words in response to the recently passed Civil Rights Act. We know what those words meant in 1964 and in 2018 those words mean exactly the same thing. The Republican Party would be as relevant and important in American politics as the Greens if it wasn't for the legacy of white supremacy it took over in 1964 with its appeal its new base back in the Cow Palace in 1964 while outside the Klan, Nazis and John Birchers marched outside in support of men like Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan.
https://mashable.com/2016/07/21/1964-gop-convention/#PnF5L1lSmkqL
1
While 700,000 Palestinians gave up their homes, so did even more Jews who for centuries lived and thrived among Arab lands. They were either killed or forced to leave their property and belongings as part of the Arab war effort against a newly established Israel and the Jews. Instead of being held as refugees by their own people, they built a green country in the middle of the desert, and created prosperity and industry to support their population. They also realized that loosing any war with their enemy was not an option.
The goal of Hamas is to destroy Israel. They sent throngs of people not only to demonstrate, but to mask the invasion. Those killed were armed and would kill Israelis without hesitation. Gaza has miles of Mediterranean Sea frontage. What a paradise it could be....but instead its filled with garbage and sewerage because the money is spent on tunnels and missiles which help no one, least of all the Gazans.
Winston Churchill said you can't negotiate with a tiger while it has your head in it mouth! I ask what anyone would do if their home was invaded. The answer is to fight back as your life is on the line.
2
Palestinians are being slaughtered like birds by the Israeli military. Israeli military occupation has been captured on video as gleefully using Palestinians for target practice as sitting ducks! Our collective humanity is being demeaned and devalued daily with the unchecked murders of Palestinians by the Israelis.
The world appears to have made peace with the unsanctioned and uncensored murders of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers as the United States enjoys and basks in scuttling every effort to check Israeli military excesses, extra judicial killings and war crimes. In effect, efforts at the United Nations and elsewhere to restrain Israel have been blocked by American vetoes.
On May 14, 2018 over 60 Palestinians were killed by Israel in one day - these Palestinians were civilians without guns!
What other nation on earth would kill 60 civilians engaged in peaceful protests and no eyebrows are raised? But, a slap on the wrist as always, is what Israel gets? https://www.modernghana.com/news/854368/grieving-in-gaza-and-jubilations...
3
So exactly what was Israel supposed to do? I'm very disappointed in David Brooks' column.
1
I will not say more than state that a honest and open discussion of the actions of Israel is not possible in the western media.
3
Western media, just like western entertainment industry has long been monopolized by successful and influential Jewish folks. Even Rupert Murdoch has jewish roots, surprise!
"While Murdoch may have “tried to hide” his Jewish roots, he has been quite forthright about his support for extreme right-wing Zionists, such as Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon.
Netanyahu, who wrote a book entitled The War on Terror: How the West Can Win in 1986, is a frequent commentator on Murdoch’s Fox News.
Murdoch’s support for Zionism extremists is well known and a matter of record. As New York Governor George Pataki said, “There is no newspaper in the U.S. more supportive of Israel than the [Murdoch’s] New York Post.”
2
"First, the question shifted from “What to do?” to “Whom to blame?” . . . . Second, the dream of total victory became the only acceptable dream. . . . . Third, extremists over time replace strategic thinking with theatrical thinking. . . . . Finally, they lost any strategic consciousness . . . "
I'm a bit confused. I thought this commentary was supposed to be about the Middle East. But it appears, instead, to be an excellent analysis of the ideological trajectory of American Conservatism and the Republican Party.
1
Israel IS pure extremism.
Maybe the best "homeland" for Jews is NYC and LA, where they seem to be perfectly happy.
"Israel" is actually a global arms sales and surveillance services enterprise, with built-in sites for testing on a captive human population. "Battle tested" is the slogan for their wares. They will sell anything to anyone. Same as the USA.
Other issues are just distractions.
4
In 1973 I met this very nice Egyptian (born in Palestine) pediatrician and ask him what the solution to Israel was. He said drive all the Jews into the sea.
My father said in the 1950s WWIII would start in the Middle East.
The Jews were in Israel 1000 BCE until 100 AD when the Romans exiled them or sold them as slaves after seeral large revolts Then there was peace until the Muslim conquests in 800 and they demanded conversion or higher taxes. Zionism in 1890 started the liberal Jewish return. The Arabs totally rejected the UN division in 1948 and lost to conservative extremism on both sides.
1
Is there a message here for our own Country?
1
The Palestinian leadership and political climate has been maximalist (no Jews!) and extremist since at least 1929, when Hebron was "ethnically cleansed" of its Jews, many of them massacred (one of your fellow NYT op-ed writers wants to keep it that way). Leaders (going back to Abdullah in 1951, Sadat of Egypt later) who were interested in negotiating a compromise were murdered, discouraging any others. There never was an opening for a compromise settlement.
However, Gaza is a place where a wall would help. No mob can break through a tall concrete wall, so there would be no need for gunfire to stop it.
3
Another masterful "both sides do it" narrative from Dave.
How about "ethnic cleansing and collective punishment are both war crimes, and that's what we need to stop supporting."
~
1
"There was plenty of time to figure out how to handle the crowds without bloodshed."
Do you have a specific method that could have been tried? It seems grossly unfair to condemn the Israelis for not doing something that you have no idea how to accomplish. Amos Harel, too, pointed the finger of blame - "almost nothing was done" - but had nothing to say about what could have been done.
If you have no constructive alternative to offer, perhaps you should restrict your condemnation to the confines of your comfortable armchair.
1
Now, 70 years out, we have to ask the question whether the whole Zionist experiment had any hope of a peaceful result. How anyone could think that Palastinian Arabs would give up their most valuable asset - land- to Jews just because those Jews had been subjected to German genocide. (please spare me the religious gibberish about the return of the Messiah) The Palastinians have been fighting for their land back since 1948. They have nothing else, so they're not going to stop. The two state solution could never have succeeded. Both sides want a one state solution. Land disputes nearly always persist and end very violently. To end it, one side has to convince the other that it is so powerful and will remain so powerful that they have no hope of ever getting any land back. The isn't the case here.
We should stay out of it. This is a land dispute between Jews and Arabs. Every ambitious Muslim and non-Muslim within 10,000 miles will try to use this dispute to get something they want from us or the Saudis or the Europeans or eventually the Chinese. The Jews have nukes which gives them an advantage at the moment, but that gap is narrowing. There are only 6.5 million of them. There will never be peace in Palestine and there is nothing we can do about that. We should stay out of it.
2
David, you focus on the extremism of Hamas. What about the shocking comments of Israeli parliament member and law-maker Ayelet Shaked who has stigmatized all Palestinians as terrorists and who said: ""the entire Palestinian people is the enemy including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure." she also called for the slaughter of Palestinian mothers who give birth to "little snakes." From Daily Sabah, July 14, 2014. She is one of many Israelis who , like Trump, has referred to human beings as "animals".
What happened Monday and the last several weeks in Gaza has historical significance with other massacres - Amritsar (1919 in India) , Sharpville (1960) in South Africa and Pine Ridge-Wounded Knee (1890) South Dakota. Most of the thousands who were wounded and the 100+ killed were young -- many just children and even babies. The Canadian Doctor Loubani and other medics and journalists were clearly marked as MEDICS and PRESS. The IDF has disgraced the name of the Israel military and its people. It is time to swallow
your pride. Forget the hateful words and get an honest mediator - sadly the United States no longer qualifies. The woman of Israel and American Jewish woman need to rise up and demand PEACE. The men have disqualified themselves in this effort.
4
I think David is correct, it boils down to the Jews just want the Palestinians to disappear while the Palestinians want Israel to go away. The problem is in 1948 to different but equal states were to be created, what we now have is one powerful state occupying the other , cutting off the other, so it stays as a very poor, captive, prison camp type place. I believe the first step is for the world to acknowledge two states, two independent peoples and for the USA to but out and stop arming Israel.
3
David, your column on this subject is in your usual meachy on-the-one-hand-on-the other-hand take on this oozing sore of what I call the Tragic Triangle: Israel devouring what's left of "Palestine": aided and abetted by the US with money, weapons, and tut-tuts or support from most US media.
2
"To fight [extremism]...you have to answer the angry shout with the respectful offer."
Sure, like ISIS. If you are Israel, how is Hamas very much different?
To fight extremism you need moral clarity.
1
Can the following arguments be easily dismissed:
1.) Jerusalem and Israel are historic lands of the Hebrew people.
2.) Islam's origins are estimated to be 570 - the birth of Mohammed. Therefore, all Moslem aritfacts in Jerusalem could be considered the relics of an occupying force.
3.) The Palestinians (todays) are mostly descendants of Greater Syria (and Syrians wanted no part of them).
4.) The Arab world has an interest in stirring up trouble in Israel to detract from their corrupt and incompetent governments (exceptions of course).
5.) Islam is incompatible with modernism. Israel is a surrogate for fending off western modernism.
6.) The Arab world has not taken in Palestinians. Why is that? Why would they not help their religious brethren. Their ethnic brothers. Is is because the Palestinians are considered an undesirable group who might start trouble in their land. The Palestinians are the untouchables of the Arab world.
7.) The modern west's assault on Israel is the ultimate demonstration of political correctness. To me it represents the greatest failure of the west on the international stage. For shame.
I am a liberal/progressive and I am not Jewish.
1
Thoughtful but lacks empathy, and so ultimately chills my blood. Read “A suicide in Gaza” in today’s Guardian newspaper, for example. I hold that with power comes responsibility, and those with greater power, in this case Israel and also the USA, which subsidizes those lethal bullets, have greater responsibility. I know that Israel has the holocaust in its founding history, a trauma that will be figuratively until “digested”, as Jungians would say. When, oh when, will we value human life and love to the point where there are true steps towards peace?
1
Let's be clear. The Palestinians are 100% blameless in everything they have done since the Zionist movement began the process of robbing their home. They were right to reject colonization during the Ottoman era, right to fight the Balfour Declaration, right to resist under the British, to reject the 1947 partition, to fight the Zionists in 1948, and to resist in all the years since including both Intifadas. All of the blame belongs to the colonist settlers who flooded into a country that isn't theirs, intending to displace, kill and rule over those who were there and make themselves the masters.
2
“After Israel withdrew from its settlements in Gaza, the Palestinians could have declared a new opening”
Someone needs to call into question false statements slipped in by Israeli apologists. Gaza was never in control of its borders. Its airport was destroyed by Israelis. They cannot go beyond 6 nautical miles in the sea.
Unless you are honest about the facts, you are also another type of extremist.
1
Gaza is an open air prison. Riot IS the language of the oppressed Mr. Brooks. This silly, namby pamby having-it-both-ways article (classic Brooks) ignores that. The creation of Israel in the wake of the moral disaster of the Shoah--by western powers ignoring local histories --fostered another moral disaster, and simultaneously handed Israel US-approved blinders. With our approval, Israel has treated it's neighbors and its Arab citizens with disdain, disrespect, lack of opportunity and in Gaza, denies even basic needs (health care, education, a functioning economy, a future). And THIS corrupt administration and Netanyahu (with multiple investigations/indictments) lecture Palestinians about their leadership? As they throw the match (moving the embassy) onto a tinderbox? Be honest, the only leadership that Israel and US approve of is leadership that would not rock the boat. As for Incrementalism? Really? Look at the map of Israel over time: the only incremental movement is of settlements claiming more land for Israelis. Look at South Africa. Look at our own Civil Rights movement...) those who say 'incremental' mostly mean "delay as long as we can." Good leadership for the Palestinians is needed, but as happened in South Africa and elsewhere, the ruthless suppression of an entire people will lead to explosions. Under the guise of 'moderation' Brooks has produced a simpering, morally sloppy and intellectually dishonest article.
4
Well said.
I have one question to ask Brooks.
You say the Prime Minister of Israel could have stopped 40.000 people from crossing the border without using violent methods.
Tell me what do you think he could have done as you do not even suggest a way.
The only method I can think is to build a bigger fence.
Something the Times tell us won't work and even if it did still shouldn't be built for other reasons like it is too expensive.
Really please answer this question.
I believe there is nothing that could have done that would stop that many people.
I believe if a different method had been used and it didn't work than hundreds of the Palestinians who had crossed that fence would be dead now.
I am surprised you wrote this article.
You know liberals will use this as a way to claim Israel murdered these people when in fact they had no choice.
There is a history of Palestinians who, have crossed the border in the past, have bombed passenger and school buses.
Israel will not let that happen again.
You can not understand why Israel had no choice if you do not understand this.
The thing is that you do know this but didn't mention it.
Why.
2
Far from "absolving" Palestinians (as if you could, as if you have the moral authority...), your analysis is clearly pitched against them. First, you write as if Israelis and Palestinians are two equal but opposite powers, ignoring the reality that Israel is colonizing Palestinian land, oppressing its citizens and depriving Arab Israeli citizens of democratic participation. Second, you conveniently leave out that Rabin was killed by an Israeli Jew.
3
Once again, we are told the Palestinians want to "desh-troy" Israel, meaning annihilate the Jews of Israel by exterminating them.
With that as your premise, Mr. Brooks, the slaughter in Gaza last week did not go nearly far enough. 100 dead and 1000 maimed? You need ten, a hundred, a thousand times that number, if preventing the next Shoah is actually what Israel is doing.
With that as your premise, Mr. Brooks, there is no limit on what can be done to crush Palestinian "extremism."
I predict that when Israel realizes that the Palestinians (including Hamas) seek not the destruction of the Jews, but the destruction of the injustice that is the apartheid state of Israel, we will have a chance for peace.
Would you agree, Mr. Brooks, that if it were in fact true that Israel is an apartheid state, that such a state (and not a single of it's citizens) must be "destroyed", in the manner in which the Soviet state was destroyed? Is it not the case that you call for the destruction of all unjust states, from North Korea to Syria, to Iran? Does that make you a Hamas-loving genocidal maniac? No, it makes you a fighter for freedom and justice.
2
"It's a shift from tough realism to the magical thinking that Palestinians are somehow going to go away." Pretty rich from a guy who was assuming that the settlements were somehow going to go away and babbling about a two state solution decades after it became obvious that was just propaganda from Zionists who were actually after something very different. Ethnic cleansings isn't magical thinking. It's tough realism and it's a strategic plan to blend it into the apartheid slowly enough for people like Brooks to lie about it but quickly enough that Greater Israel remains safely Jewish.
1
When will the liberals begin to comprehend that you cannot win over the hearts or minds of terrorists with hugs?
There simply is NO compassionate means to deal with people who are rabidly intent on annihilating you, your people, and your country.
Anyone with half a brain KNOWS that the Hammas regime carefully orchestrated the attempted invasion of Israel by clueless pawns, simply to generate the completely justifiable response by Israel, solely for the predictable outcry from the left and the idiotic media, who would portray Israel as the "bad guy" in this conflict.
There is only one "bad" side, and it is the Palestinians.
Israel could offer up every inch of their nation but a single acre, and the evil Palestinians would not be satisfied until every Israeli is extinguished.
End Of Class.
Mr Brooks,
Nice move with subtle passive voice: historic achievement involving an historic wrong? INVOLVING? You should say: the historic achievement was the willed CREATION of the historic wrong. You try mightily to write a both sides do it type of essay, but you play on the Israeli team.
4
Sigh. Rather than publish an editorial apologizing to Israel and "Times" readers for its misleading, deceitful, hysterical (dare I say "theatrical?") and now proven inaccurate coverage of the border confrontation --- almost all "victims" were Hamas members who had meant to breach the border and enter Israel with meat cleaver and knives to kill (as any viewer of Hamas videos now knows) -- it continues excoriating Israel by placing it on the same level as Hamas terrorists. Brooks seems more irenic but is equally hostile. He employs another classic "Times" motif when covering Israel: compare the lost peace-loving idealist Israel to the brute Prussian state into which it has morphed. This critique is invariably tied to condemnation of Israel's failure to enter into agreements with the Palestinians which would have been suicidal to Israel. The simple truth is that no solution offered by Israel apart from disappearing would satisfy Hamas -- as its leaders and followers attest in no end of statements. One observation by Brooks is sufficient to suggest the monumental idiocy of this happily detached BIG THINKER. He says, "Surely there was a way to deal with the Nakba march that would have been peaceful." This assertion is absurd, even loony. The purpose of the march was -- as its leaders admit -- to breach the border and kill Israelis, to "tear out their hearts," as a Hamas leader proclaimed. No, the one thing that's certain is there was never a peaceful alternative.
2
Excellent piece Mr. Brooks. Perhaps reflection on the pivotal role of the Boston Massacre in US history is appropriate. Since the US is no longer actively seeking a peaceful just solution we have blood on our hands in all the deaths and maiming and many will hold us just as responsible as the shooters. Freely shooting protestors also creates a precedent that the DC regime looks forward to exploit.
2
There is so much wrong with this column that I'll ignore. There's something else. We have heard for years, "where is the Palestinian Gandhi?" It would be snide to say, "Dead." or "In jail with the teenaged Jean d' Arc." How did Gandhi operate? Huge protest marches in rows confronting colonial forces, row 1 dragged away after after being beaten and bloodied, row 2 then stepping up, and on it would go. There were charges of "extremist!" and I suppose that Gandhi manipulated his ignorant followers to protest. So in Gaza we have Gandhi's tactics, except instead of the Brits' clubs there are high powered scopes and rifles pouring bullets into legs and hearts. Gandhi's way will work. Be careful what you wish for.
2
I am trying to figure out how the "both sides narrative and the blame place on the Palestinians is justified".
The Palestinians were kicked off their lands 70 years ago.....
In the US, we had a similiar experience with the Trail of Tears and the Native Americans more than 150 years ago.
And the negative effects (economic, mental and physical) of that disgraceful episode is still being felt by the descendents of the Trail of Tears
How are people supposed to react when violently displaced from their ancestral lands?
How does one negotiate with those who did the displacement and how does one accept it? How would you react if you had very little resources in terms of money, political capital or technology to address a humanitarian wrong that was visited upon you or your group/family/neighbors?
The limited choices given to the Palestinians are to fight and get slaughtered or to accept terms of a political solution that reinforces their perpetual debasement as well as ensures their social, political and economic marginalization.......all in the name of peace.
You can't give people horrible or no choices and then blame them for the "bad" decisions that they make..................
3
SO RIGHT !
David, why are you perpetuating the myth that a "historic wrong" was done to the Palestinians with respect to 700,000 Arabs fleeing or being expelled from Israel? did you forget to mention that 700,000 Jews faced a similar situation in 1948? Did you forget to mention that tens of millions of people suffered from population transfers in the late 1940's, and only the "Palestinians" had chosen an ethos of rejectionism, victimhood and eternal war? To the extent Israelis have become more "extreme", it is the inexorable result of a century of terrorism, duplicity (remember Arafat's English words vs. his Arab words), absolutism, anti-Semitism and incitement.
1
Brooks is very smart. There are a lot of very smart people. However, no one has suggested a way for Israel to push back thousands of people rushing a fence that is different from what they did. First try water cannons, then try rubber bullets, and if those things don't work, then use live fire. At least they focused deadly live fire on people who are identified as members of terrorist groups. 90% of the dead were members of those groups, by those groups' own admission.
Israel made peace with Egypt. Israel made peace with Jordan. Israel is making peace and accommodations with many other Arab countries at this point. When the Palestinians begin to act like they deserve a country, they will certainly get a country of their own.
Land which is won in a war cannot be claimed by the victor for their own. That is international law.
Even if Israel won the war against the Arabs, they are not entitled to keep and occupy that Arab land. We are disobeying International law when we recognize Israel as the rightful owner of the land captured in the 1967 war. That would be like the US and their allies claiming Germany, Japan and Italy after World War II.
To the victor go the spoils is not a tenet of international law.
2
"How do we create a martyrdom performance that will show the world how oppressed we are?"
Pretty cynical David, also just plain wrong. If your employer reported on the Palestinian situation honestly over the last 70 years we would be in a different place. But since it will not the Palestinians have no choice, but to, as you shamefully put it —
Create a martyrdom performance.
What happened to the pilastienens was and is just plain wrong. And someday this truth will be universally recognized.
2
A thoughtful approach to this tragedy is rare. Mr Brooks deserves credit for the attempt.
1
The history of Israel and the rest of that area is far more complicated. About 700,000 Jews were thrown out of their homes in the surrounding Arab countries at the same time as Israel's formation. Jordan was designed by the Brits to be the "palestinian" state, and to this day, it is the only country among all of the Arab nations, that will (or at least used to) accept palestinians as citizens. Many of the 700,000 palestinians who departed Israel, left because they were encouraged to do so by the surrounding Arab countries....encouraged to join the Arab armies that were going to take Israel back. The hundred million or so Arabs in the countries surrounding israel have done nothing for the palestinians except pay extortion money to Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, virtually none of which has been spent to help the palestinian people. It is complicated.
Yasir Arafat was once a terrorist, but at least he used terror to win practical concessions.
Ah, so Arafat's terrorism was OK and excusable? Please tell Mr. Klinghoffer's family and those of the Israeli Olympics team in Munich. Perhaps they will rejoice over the "practical concessions".
But more to the issue: The big divide between Israelis (and their supporters) and the "liberal" West is that the West just pretends the Palestinian eliminationism doesn't exist or is really not important. I believe most Israelis just can't seem to get over how the other side wants them gone. So it's Israel's fault, right?
I have never read either a columnist or an editorial or an article in the Times which even acknowledges that rabid Jew hatred even exists among Palestinians (and Arabs, of course), let alone informs their policies.
1
Every so often, Mr. Brooks gets it right. As a supporter of Israel, it is hard for me to tolerate the non-democratic policies of its current government and its apparent strategy of provoking Palestinians so as to make difficult situations even more difficult. Of course, Palestinians have been irresponsible and short-sighted but the cynical exploitation of these traits by Israelis interested in more nationalism and more discrimination is tragic.
2
David, and others here, say Israel could have done something different. But they never say what Israel could have done that would have prevented an invasion and greater bloodshed. Clearly, Hamas could have done something different, like not attack, not embed fighters, etc.
It is far to easy to say that one party’s defense against attack was too effective, without ever saying how it could have been otherwise effective.
I hear the whole litany of excuses: the US Embassy in West Jerusalem is the problem, more building of Jewish dwellings in East Jerusalem is the problem. But these attacks are in Gaza, which clearly shows the above to be mere excuses.
Everyday Gazans are living a miserable existence, but the keys to unlocking the solution reside in Hamas’ hands, not Israeli or Egyptian ones.
While reading Brooks' description of "extremism" I couldn't help thinking it fit the American Tea Party.
Demonizing, blaming, zero-sum politicking, fact denying, cynicism rotting our discourse.
Who will broker the American peace deal? Or will a border wall be needed not between the US and Mexico, but to separate Red from Blue?
Sadly, most of what Brooks says about "extremism" can also be applied to the Republican-Conservative movement in America (dating back to Newt Gingrich):
"That’s the problem with extremism: It is a flight from reality. It makes you stupider. Instead of cleverly working to advance your own interest in a changing context, you end up shouting your own moral justifications into a whirlwind. Instead of restating your own values — for pluralism, for a compromise, for peace — you end up another soiled part of the climate."
Unfortunately, Brooks and the rest of the "reasonable" Conservative punditocracy are guilty of doing exactly the same thing in America that he's decrying for happening in the Middle East.
1
If as you say “extremism corrupts everybody” we need only to look at the current White House. As to theater that is all we get 24/7 from trump and his minions. This extremism is embraced by his millions of flowers. I work with several of his ardent supporters who are prone to anger and repeating the trump lies. I have tried respectful dialogue to no avail. We need to bury them in the elections. Sometimes David, people need o be sent to the woodshed.
1
All of the talk and reporting about this sad conflict is useless in the service of a solution so far.
Even the respected and leading news organizations like NPR do not attribute a basic human value of a specific number but use the verbiage of “dozens dead” instead of individual number for an individual life.
Each person dying in a conflict is a human being dying. I am waiting to see when we will all talk about xyz pounds were dead.
Human solutions will occur when we accept that all parties of the conflict are humans.
The day we will think of Palestinians and Israelis as humans, the solutions will be self evident, easy and will be done.
Are they all human or only some?
The salient problem both sides are dealing with is religion---when whose god is the real god enters into the conversation reality based strategies are unable to gain a footing in the discussion.
Netanyahu is the extremist, who plays hard and fast on fear. Like Trump, his extremist rants against Iran and Palestinians seek one end--absolute power. Palestinian resistance manifests as the only available means. That's all they have on their menu, so call it extreme as you will. David's sling shot resists Israel's war machine. Extremely disproportionate, yes.
2
I can see extending this line of thinking into our (American) current politics...
The main problem is that extremist positions on both sides are not taken equally by American media and political bodies. Israeli government officials can openly wish and call for the destruction of Gaza and still be considered reasonable partners in the US---indeed given even more support. But similar statements from Palestinians are taken as evidence of terrorism. In the end it is not radicalism. The Gaza open-air toxic prison and the whole Palestinian situation only persists because the US (and our tax money) enables it. Same as Apartheid did: Reagan in the 80s (And Buchanan and most of the GOP) labelled Mandela a terrorist as well. Things only changed when the US suddenly could not continue to pretend it believed in human-rights in the face of support for Apartheid. Same thing here; the facade of human-rights/democracy pretense in the US continues to stink. Doublespeak has never been more alive. But in the end, history will not look lightly on this and the people who enable such injustice.
1
David Brooks lays out a thoughtful analysis of the current political situation in Israel. Right wing politics have infected Israel and the U.S. Such politics demonize the “other” and excuse mistreatment and violence toward them. Human life has no value, unless that life is in the majority ruling group. Clearly, Israel, with its stellar military and weaponry is in the driver’s seat in the conflict with the marginalized, desperate Gaza residents. The world has turned their back on the Palestinian people and Israel is now the 51st State of Trumpistan.
1
I don't doubt Brooks' sincerity, but this view is badly skewed. If Palestinian questions shifted from "What to do?" to "Whom to blame?", it is because Israeli intransigence -- combined with overwhelming dominance -- made it impossible to DO anything! The attitude is not "theatrical;" it is a bitter despair born of hopelessness. It is not a rejection of "incrementalism," but rather a recognition that the increments of progress the Israelis have typically envisioned have been so minuscule as to amount to little more than perpetual stalling. When all practical hope is vacuumed away, all that remains are bitterness, anger, and witness; and witness is inherently "theatrical."
Looks like a good time to revisit W.H. Auden--
"I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return."
People never seem to learn. It's so sad.
2
As with all Jewish writers when commenting on Israeli/Palestinian, any condemnation of Israel is applied with a velvet glove. Brooks, more or less, sums up as Palestinians being the extremists and Israel's failure to handle the extremists.
Mr Brooks, extremism is confiscating people's homes and orchards that have been theirs for hundreds of years and forcing them into squalid camps. Not allowing International, humanitarian aid to reach a desperate people. Denying potable drinking water to thousands of displaced people. If a multitude of Jews were treated as Israel treats the Palestinians, Americans would be horrified.
Trying to justify Israeli treatment of the refugees is as extreme as denying the holocaust.
2
For a long time, throughout both Democratic and Republican administrations, Israel has enjoyed the fundamental support of both political parties. Thus, when Israel repeatedly defied the expressed policies of the United States to halt the expansion of settlements into the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel never felt any real consequences. Even when Netanyahu made it obvious that he supported the Republican party and preferred that Romney win the presidency in 2008, a re-elected President Obama took no punitive actions against Israel.
However, as Netanyahu and Israeli ultra-nationalists have conspicuously aligned themselves with Trump, knee-jerk support for Israel is eroding fast among Democrats. When, Trump loses power another loser will be Israel's political free pass. This to be welcomed for it is in the best interests of the U.S.--and of Israel--for an ultimate two-state resolution between Israel and the Palestinians.
1
The article stops short of the common driver for this form of extremism that is the same whether we discuss the Israeli-Palestinian or the Liberal-Tea Party conflict.
That cause is the unfiltered nature by which communication flows these days that prevents a measured, thought-out approach to a compromise solution. Tribalism naturally drives humans into camps and those camps demand unconditional allegiance. Once in there, any deviant behavior or thought is punished. That's how this dictatorial systems, whether in the Middle East or in the good old USA survive these days. Political correctness, in whatever couleur, carries the day.
That's how totalitarian regimes have functioned since the dawn of time, that's how democracies die.
The accelerant of the blaze these days is the internet.
Well, at least David admits that he is adopting a reductionist narrative. But viewing Israeli policies as an understandable reaction to Palestinian extremism is misleading. The use of disproportionate force, the expansion of settlements, and the view of Palestinians (perhaps complicated but still wrong, in my opinion) as deserving of fewer rights and protections than Jewish Israelis has a fairly long history. David also neglects to address Netanyahu's ability to speak to the U.S. political audiences to gain a freer hand, and the role of pro-Israel advocacy organizations here in managing criticism of Israel and limiting U.S. constraints on Israeli policies. (BTW, I recommend Anshel Pfeffer's column on Netanyahu in this morning's online NYT for those who haven't read it).
I consider this to be one of your most thoughtful editorials, David.
It highlights the increasing radicalization of Israel's policy for dealing with its "Palestinian problem." I would suggest that when Netanyahu convinced Trump to build a new American Embassy in Jerusalem, he destroyed all chances of reaching a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians and created a horrible problem for the nation of Israel. The ceremony opening the new Embassy began and concluded with prayers by radical Evangelical Christian pastors whose messianic hope is that Jesus will reappear in Jerusalem in the very near future to fulfill the prophesy of the final judgement and the end of days.
I wonder whether David Brooks's "How Extremism Corrupts" regarding Israel/Gaza is a template for and perhaps is prescient of other avenues of extremism. I refer to the NY Times front page article (May 18) on on the Trump administration's plan to further attack abortions by defunding certain Planned Parenthood activity. Seems to me like an almost perfect fit. Perhaps Mr Brooks might care to comment.
Mr. Brooks is right on when he talks about extremism and martyrs. When you look at a map from the forties that designates where the Palestinians live from where the Jewish population was and compare it to one today, it's no wonder the Palestinians are mad. But their leadership has been horrible. Arafat walked away from a deal that might have helped and in its place violence became a business that poured billions into both sides' bank accounts. Both sides also painted themselves with color of victim. One of the organizers of the recent Gaza confrontation bragged about his accomplishment which included loss lives. But these leaders don't lead from the front. You didn't see Arafat strap on a bomb and walk into a restaurant a blow himself and those there to smithereens. Someone has to stay at home to count the money. Israel gets over $3 billion dollars a year from us. The self proclaimed victim business is good.
I share your viewpoint about the current state of Israel and Palestine relations falling victim to the choices made by extremists who have taken center stage. I am reminded of the Biblical story of Elijah. He wanted to prove the God of Israel is better than Baal. So there was this contest of building altars and seeing which offertory sacrifice would be accepted. Elijah's caught fire signaling singular acceptance and he then proceeded to slaughter all the priests of Baal! This resulted in him being a wanted man, so he fled to the hills and hid in a cave. There, Elijah had a religious epiphany, God asked him what was he doing there. Zealotry attracts enthusiastic followers and repels many others; it isolates and divides, and it comes at a great cost. But, this does not have to be. There are examples of Israelis and Arabs coming together. I point to the creation of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra made by Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim. There is a YouTube video of this orchestra performing at a BBC Proms concert. This is one ray of hope for the possible living together in peace and harmony; avoiding the extremes and sharing common goals.
Mr. Brooks, the mid-east trouble started after the San Remo international meeting of 1922 decided that the British-mandated land should be divided between the arabs and the jews. However, the Arab League of Jordan grabbed most of the land (which became Trans-Jordan), leaving the jews to re-take some of it, including the West Bank, in the war of 1948. It was this war that caused displacement of Palestinians, later followed by a million jewish refugees from other arab lands.
1
Isn't the ultimate existential question, apart from this clash of extreme policies, is how will Israel, in its present configuration, be able to survive given the wide demographic disparities on the ground, particularly Palestinian and Israeli-Arab birth rates versus those of its Israeli-Jewish population? Some dire commentators have speculated about the potential implementation of an apartheid system in Israel, which would indeed stand history on its head.
The Gaza situation is caused by the leadership on both sides.
The Israeli government needs to show its right wing supporters that it is "tough on terror" and so unleashes an army instead of a police force. It is the job of a soldier to kill the enemy while a policeman is charged with arresting criminals with the least force necessary. Israel has sufficient security forces to mount a police action against the Palestinian actions.
The Hamas leadership has an interest in generating anger against Israel and promotes the use of violent force whenever possible. The demonstrators are portrayed as "peaceful", yet they launch burning kites to destroy Israeli crops, burn a fuel depot, and throw rocks at the Israelis. Not to mention the rockets previously launched against Israeli civilians. Clearly, force will not win against the much better armed Israeli Army, but an angry population keeps Hamas in power.
Plenty of shame to go around.
Another way to look at this sorry situation is to count the number of nations supporting either side. I don’t need to tell readers of The NY Times which side comes out on top.
Another perspective, as the US grows more energy independent, and in fact becomes an energy export power, our interest in what happens in that, as you quoted Obama Brooks, toxic mixture of religion, oil, centuries of warfare, etc., wanes each and every day. And I don’t need to remind NY Times readers of which side will suffer.
What we seem not to mention is that the match that started the fire here is moving the American Embassy. That was Donald Trump. The outcome was entirely predictable and perhaps even calculated. Trump is all about incendiary, confrontational politics. It is a path to brinksmanship which teeters on the edge of violence and often tips into it as it did in Gaza. It is the tactic of a bully who hopes that the other side will back down. On the complex international stage this will probably not work.
152
There was plenty of terror activity before the embassy and before there was even an Israel. Google "Hebron Massacre".
5
@Ron Koby:
The most powerful democrat in The Senate, NY Senator and Senate Minority Leader Schumer completely agrees with President Trump moving the embassy to the Israeli capital of Jerusalem.
We can't let Hamas, a terrorist organization which brags about blowing up family restaurants such as Sbarro in Jerusalem, dictate American policy. The Palestinians democratically chose Hamas which is their problem.
In fact, I applaud a President who does not fold to the demands of terrorists and so does Sen Schumer.
6
That is not a corrct statement. Hamas has been planning this for months given the 70th anniversery of Israel's founding. The embassy issue just created another excuse for protesting
9
Maybe there is another way out?
Return to the budget table: where is the money coming from and where is it going? Make an agreement for one year to redirect those assets to a greater need that benefits more people...the current squandering is unacceptable and sinful when suffering is so prevalent and solutions intractable. Escalating extremism can be reversed when there’s a better felt return on efforts.
What changed in recent years is the Palestinians have more allies including the American left and believe that their goal of ridding the area of the Jewish State achievable. Seems to me they are patient and committed to paying a high price rather than giving up the goal. With Trump and Bibi in power how high a price will be further tested. Maybe a peace agreement can be forced but I'm skeptical. In the meantime the status quo is preferable to both parties over any deal the other side would agree to.
1
A long time ago a bunch of old white guys did the old white guys like to do and went on a nation building benge. Old white guys like building nations in other peoples nations. They created Isreal. Gave it to their Jewish friends.
Big problem. The old white guys built Isreal based on religion with no clear seperation between church and state. Their strategy was the world deal with this mess until the mess goes away. It hasn't gone away. Its only getting worse.
4
Whether returning to the events of 1948 as justification for the Palestinian resistance to the existence of Israel (three wars by their allies and periodic violent protests over 70 years, Gaza's being the latest) or the defense of Israel's military response to these Palestinian efforts that have moved Israeli governments policies more toward expansion of settlements into the West Bank, the fact remains that on the Palestinian side there is no leader with sufficient public backing to enter into meaningful negotiation with Israel. In Israel, at least there still is a political faction willing to accept a two-state settlement (see publications like Haaretz). The Palestinians' best hope for such leadership exists in its young educated community that has retreated from political participation. To do so it will have to persuade neighbors that their enemy today is not Israel but Hamas.
Extremism is contagious, it is a simple solution to a very complex situation.It has the effect of trapping opposing sides in a no win position.This has been the "catch 22" in recent years in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.The fact that Mr.Trump has joined Mr.Netanyahu in his "ethnocentrism and magical thinking"( your words) has not helped.For years the U.S. While supporting Israel has worked tirelessly to find a solution, just ask Dennis Ross.Now is not the time to walk away from the very challenging task of finding an accommodation which will allow peace for Israel and Palestine.The absence of any effort towards solutions only exacerbates extremism.
1
By and large I agree with this column. Yes, there are some things said that I cannot agree with, like:
"Extremism grew on the Israeli side, exemplified by the ultranationalist who murdered Rabin, but it exploded on the Palestinian side. Palestinian extremism took on many of the shapes recognizable in extremism everywhere."
To say that extremism "exploded" on the Palestinian side while it only "grew" on the Israeli side is to liken the assassination of Rabin to another killing at the wall, but it was not - it was an explosion of extremism that ended all hope for peace.
1
The only way to resolve this Palestinian wrong by the United Nations and the USA is to abrogate the resolution that created what is the " terroristic State of Israel". Once this state is dismantled, all the evils surrounding it will evaporate. The world committed a wrong against the Palestinians just like it committed a wrong when the Colonial Imperialistic powers created all the countries in the Americas , Australia, Africa, and Asia. The only difference in the Middle East we see the palpable injustice against a native people and they can get and will always get the guns to defend their rights as opposed to the native populations of the Americas, et al that were supine with their bows and arrows. But the greatest catastrophe or calamity is yet to arrive when the wrongs of the colonial and imperialistic past are corrected. The Middle East is merely child's play.
3
Two wrongs don't make a right. While I agree that the Palestinians were wronged by the international community in 1948, dismantling Israel and displacing its current population would be a crime against humanity. A successful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if one is possible, must recognize the right of everyone living there to remain there and to enjoy equal rights with everyone else living there.
I wonder , talking about dismantling the consequences of conquering colonial powers , does this also apply to the time the Arab tribes of Arabia spread around the Middle East , conquered and colonized all , and forcibly converted most of the local population to Islam ? ( example - Egypt , who was Christian , and of which the Egyptian Copts of today form a proud continuation ) .
Or, to the Turkish tribes who came from Central Asia , conquered and settled Anatolia , and used it as a base for the ottoman empire ?
Probably the only column David Brooks has ever written that I entirely agree with. Thanks for this balanced assessement.
It is ironic that the Palestinians, armed with little more than a sling shot, have become the Biblical equivalent of 'David', the oppressed little guy with the slingshot, and the Israeli State 'Goliath', the malevolent ogre. Sadly I think the outcome will not play out as it did in that Biblical fable.
2
Well done, Mr. Brooks.
The Israelis have made the calculation based upon history that the Palestinians will never bargain in good faith for a "two state solution" until they are either completely "broken" and/or a truly courageous and pragmatic leader along the lines of a Sadat emerges for the Palestinians that they can actually work with.
Until that time, they will do whatever they need to do to insure their survival for one more day, which always insures the predictable universal condemnation.
They understand that only too well, they are Jews. They get that they are for some mysterious reason the only country that isn't allowed to really "win" a defensive war or defend themselves without having to make excuses for it.
All that being said, their relentless settlement expansion over the years has been a catastrophic blunder from every conceivable angle. It serves a purely inflammatory purpose which increases the inside and outside pressure on their state.
1
And the problem with extremism is righteousness. The righteous cannot yield the right of way, ever, nor compromise. The Jews cannot be made whole for the way they were treated historically and certainly not for the Holocaust. The 300,000 Palestinians will not be given back land that has now been Jewish for decades. So instead of both sides accepting that there will be no victory (there never is in war, declared or not, once you count the bodies) and trying to find a compromise that will make everyone's lives safer and better, we slog on.
Very very well said David.
My only critique is that you subscribe too casually to the narrative that the Gaza protestors are Hamas plants. There is something very genuine about 40,000 people marching to make their voices heard. Intentionally confronting your oppressor is no different than any anti-establishment or anti-police march here in the US. Gaza's plight is not of primarily or even mainly of the Palestinians making.
What is distressing is one would expect more from a nation as advanced as Israel, let alone one that aspires to the morality legacy of its ancestors having suffered the Holocaust.
This is very sad
A reminder from David Brooks to place some spring flowers in this small garden in remembrance of Shimon Peres.
I think there's plenty of extremism to go around, don't you? Why do predominantly villify the dispossessed and not call out those in league with the powerful? https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-david-friedman-behind-anti-semi...
1
Brooks, you talk about extremism, yet you begin your article dividing and deriding people's view into two banal categories. I would say I lean conservative, but I know a massacre when I see one and that is what Israel does to its neighbors. What is extreme is that the UN hasn't treated Israel the same as other murderous nations and sanctioned or occupied them.
2
so well said. Thank you.
1
By golly David you got this one mostly right! As a conservative and at least a cultural Jew, being even handed here wasn’t easy. But you did it. I hope the same spirit can inform your work on other topics. And I hope your example encourages others across the board. It certainly encourages me.
1
Democracy, as we like to think about it, began in Greece about 2500 years ago. It was short lived and totally destroyed by Alexander the Great. It raised its head again in the last couple of centuries but in between has been extremism, What are empires, monarchies and confessional religions if not institutions of extremism. You either believe - or you are out in the cold. Romans often chose death rather than exile.
It would be interesting to know you if you have ever adequately intellectualised what faith actually is, or, to what extent you have interrogated the content of your beliefs.
"How do we create a martyrdom performance that will show the world how oppressed we are?"
I was looking for my words on this. The author found them for me!
This is all a show. You are the audience. Your clicks and likes are applause, and your disgust and dismay are the prize.
You want to stop the violence? Stop caring. It may seem couter-intuitive but the main differences between now and the hopeful 90's are the efficiency with which images travel, and the astoundingly short attention span of the average media consumer. Both sides are trying to make headlines to try to get you outraged, knowing full-well that you will never read past the third paragraph.
So if you really want to understand the decades of ongoing Middle East crisis, take a college course, or go live there for a few years.
Otherwise, don't support the producers of this movie by buying the tickets.. it will just make them all the more likely to produce a sequel! One thing the last Avengers has in common with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - the sequels are much worse than the original.
1
And the extremism in DC? Solve that one first!
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David: Offer what to whom?
Israel claimed that Iran fired missles from Syria and Israel retaliated. This is the only news we Americans get, Israeli reports only. There is no independent verification of whether Iran fired any missiles from Syria. America and is media is beingused by israel to promote its propoganda. The same thing used to happen 0 years ago when and since then when Americans got their news by autocratic regines who joined US against Russia and autocratic regimes in Africa and South America who called any opposition as Comunists. American Media and government puts on blindfold and reports the news as their "friendly corrupt governemnts" provide the reports.
2
I wonder if any member of Congress will read this, and if they do, will see themselves in the description of extremists and the consequences of their actions?
Brooks likes to occupy the smug but unstable view that "both sides do it". The problem here is the utter failure to consider proportional response. Can you understand that it is immoral for Israel to pit live ammunition against a mob armed with slingshots? Lacking that, your view will not bring peace.
2
A pox on both their houses. Getting in bed with either side (or Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or Egypt) will leave us corrupted and diseased, ashamed for our support of whatever the next atrocity may be. Strategic Distance is the only viable foreign policy for the Middle East as it fights its version of Europe's 30 year war. No military support, no economic support, no friendship deals to either side. Humanitarian aid only, because there certainly will be a need for it. If we must sup with this nest of vipers, we should do so with a very long spoon.
As Brooks mentions, the Palestinians missed an opportunity to build a prosperous and peaceful mini-state in Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal, or as Abba Eban put it, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
2
Your colleague Bre Stephens addressed this issue more coherently in my opinion:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/opinion/gaza-palestinians-protests.ht...
No false moral equivalency there!
3
Mr. Brooks quotes Amos Harel: "....what did Israel do to prevent this blood bath before it happened? The answer is, almost nothing was done.”
This is a question that is being asked repeatedly by the Israel-bashers.
The meaningful response is: "What else could have been done?" So far I haven't heard a reasonable idea about what else could have been done. All we hear is vague blame: they didn't need to use "excessive force;" the army shouldn't have shot at demonstrators' legs; they shouldn't have wounded women and children. What is excessive force against a mob of thousands? Is it better to aim for the chest than for the legs? What are women and children doing in the front lines anyway?
In my opinion, the Israeli forces were quite restrained. Compare them to the actions of Bashir Assad's army against his own people, which are never brought up in any of these discussions.
4
Apparently, Israel literally believes that they really are the "chosen" people. How sad that they can treat others in ways that they have been treated in the past, and not seem to care.
6
Interesting analysis, but there is a political calculation that is also at play.
Israeli and Palestinian (Hamas) politicians hold on to power by demonizing the other side. Hamas casts Israel as an interloper with no right to occupy the land which 70 years ago was Palestine. Having defined the goal as return of heir stolen home land, they have determined that long term violent resistance can achieve that goal. Hamas sells itself as the fearless agent able to attain that goal. Right wing Israelis cast the Palestinians as terrorists and Bibi and his allies have proven that they possess the ruthlessness needed to contain a mortal threat to Israel's existence. They have succeeded in dehumanizing the Palestinians. The tactic is similar to Trump's demonizing of immigrants. These tactics serve the politicians well, even if their citizenry suffer.
Peaceful coexistence can only occur when each side looks at the human needs of the other side. Sadly, this will not occur until some horrible event occurs, one far more devastating that the slaughter of hundreds of Palestinian protesters. It will have to be horrible enough for the people to reject current leadership.
Sigh. You had me until "It is clearly in Israel’s interest to maneuver the Palestinians away from extremism and to weaken the extremists in its own ranks". Once again we are back to Israel somehow being responsible for fixing the Palestinian dysfunction.
Peace will happen when the Palestinians decide that it's more important to live in peace with Israel than to die as martyrs but that is a decisions that the Palestinians need to make on their own, not one that can somehow be foisted upon them by Israel. Until that time Israel has no choice but to defend itself from terrorist theatre even if that does prove to be suicidal to the Palestinian actors and move forward in its own national interest.
4
The middle path defuses the madness. It vaporizes extremism. It becomes a meeting place for the two extremes to meet.
We humans are so hung up on identity we do whatever humanly possible to preserve our identity. Even you columnists identify us as democrats republicans whigs and so on. You are not content viewing us as mere humans, you need to view us with labels. As though we were born with labels, this child is Muslim this child is Jewish, this child is Palestinian, this child is Israeli, I am a better Israeli than you because I donate more to the cause, I am a better Muslim than you because I donate more to the Palestinian cause. Not realizing we are the ones who are fueling this extremism. Instead of de escalating the situation, we further provide fuel. Now with social media this has escalated million fold. You can be brushing your teeth in the morning and posting tweets about your views on Gaza.
Elsewhere in the world, people are paying scant interest to how many people died in Gaza. Hundreds died in bridge collapse due to human error, or a train accident, but you see those lives are disposable, they are not white privileged folks dying from preventable accidents diseases tragedies.
1
I agree with David Brooks. The Israeli government like many of its citizens has moved further to the right and become more autocratic over the years. The Israel of the 1950s was a land of liberty, light, and learning. It had world famous physicists and biochemists, one of whom Ephraim Katzir became president of Israel. Now its scientists and engineers work on tactical nuclear weapons, nerve gasses, and deadly pathogens. Then an American did not require a visa to visit the country. Now Israel refuses to admit world famous Jewish scholars, including Noam Chomsky, and members of Jewish Voice for Peace. A few years ago, a distinguished Israeli legal academic told me that Palestinians were "animals."
Earlier Israeli governments were equally friendly to Republican and Democratic leaders in the United States. Now they align themselves with the Republican Party,most notably Donald Trump, who , after he moved the embassy to Jerusalem, is being referred to as the King of Israel.
This is what happened. Now we have to explain why. Why has Israel changed from an Athens to a Sparta?
2
Mr Brooks makes some good points. But changing demographics will slowly make Israel's positions look more and more like South Africa's during the apartheid era, and therefore more extreme. Meanwhile the Palestinians, or more specifically Arabs living in Israel, will become more sympathetic.
Israel will never give Arabs the right to vote within its borders, and it will need to develop a brutal security apparatus to manage its own growing Arab population. More checkpoints. More restrictions. More demonstrations, eventually joined by more non-Arabs. More crackdowns. More expulsions. And eventually boycotts of Israel's economy. At some point, it will be Israel that is the extreme outlier. Not the Palestinians.
1
Ummm.... Arabs already have the right to vote in Israel, and there are Arab members of the Supreme Court and of the legislature. A little less than a quarter of the population already is Arab. It probably would be good for a new Palestinian state to have a quarter of its population Jewish.
Extremist has certainly corrupted Netanyahu, or maybe he's corrupted extremism. Either way, the other op-ed in today's NYT saying "It's Netanyahu's world now" may prove to become a very small world indeed if he is jailed for corruption.
1
The Israel and Palestinian battle is hot cold, warm, hot, warmer, hotter, and on and on. This one was predictable. Negotions over peace have long since become a battle for public sympathy and punishment for one's enemy. Both sides really, tit for tat. On and on.
At some point, finding other ways as David puts it, seem futile and then harsh responses prevail. In some ways the promise that the invasion was coming signals the willingness to put people at very high risk... get the innocents out front, great publicity...and dares the other side to respond. Israel responded, many died. Taunting eventually gets a fatal response.
In the world today the push is for human rights, freer movement of people. Stateless people need that kind of right and protection. Before Israel, the Jewish people as a people were stateless. With Israel, they have a state. The sticking point now is that they want that State for the Jewish people. Bringing back those displaced in the early wars to establish that state amounts to essentially a re-invasion which would endanger the Jewish nature of that state.
Each nation that sets out to restrict its population to the current natives ((many well established be wars,)) essentially bars the reinvasion of others. Isreal fears that reinvasion. So this shooting episode goes a lot deeper than merely a tacticle error. It reinforces the very high stakes for the Jewish nature of Israel: reinvasion. So the war escalates, more will die.
1
David, you write as if the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin was the turning point towards extremism. This ignores certain key subsequent events. In 1999 Ehud Barak was elected and at Camp David in July 2000 he offered Yasser Arafat far more than Rabin had envisioned. This offer was rejected and the Palestinians launched a four year terror war with horrendous suicide bombings of buses, cafes, and pizza places, killing hundreds of citizens and severely inhibiting public life in Israel. In 2008, Ehud Olmert offered even more than Barak, this time to Mahmoud Abbas. Again, rejection.
The Israeli public turned rightwards, not towards extremism but towards a pragmatic realization that the conditions for mutual acceptance don't exist, and because the example of Gaza means that a Palestinian state in much of the West Bank would most likely threaten Israel, given the continuing Palestinian rejection of Israel's legitimacy.
The problem is not just Hamas. Please reread Mahmoud Abbas's speeches in recent years, most lately his April 30 address to the Palestinian National Council. In his view, Israel is simply illegitimate.
4
those who wish to condemn Israel all use the same rhetoric, oppression. No details, no analysis. Gaza a prison, but who is the jailor? The West Bank stayed quiet. Is there not some difference between the two, even with the "occupation" (whatever that precisely means anymore)? Gaza is a prison of the Hamas's making. There is no progress in the West Bank, because the PLO's corruption would be revealed. There is no progress on the Israeli side, because, apart from Bibi's maneuvering to retain power, almost all, if not indeed all, the solutions have been tried and offered, viz., Camp David. Anybody who thinks just pulling out will do it has no idea of what Israel would be "pulling out" from, a tiny territory that will never be able to stand on its own, in the West Bank; and from Gaza, oops, Israel pulled out years ago, to much, much, more anger and rancor, dear reader, than you can imagine if you were not here, And look at the results!
Just what then could have been done? Amos Harel says more or less nothing more than was done. Concessions? What, the kind Hamas asks for, which is to allow it to import military hardware or concrete to build attack tunnels? Was there a better military solution? Let us hear it from all the armchair generals. In fact, Israel did do something. It shot at Hamas members. "Collateral damage" was limited, twelve people. Senior commanders oversaw everything, not fresh second lieutenants. Not doing something might have cost hundreds more lives.
3
The U.S could have helped counter extremism by not moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Instead we had the spectacle of Ivanka and Jared participating in the obscenely triumphal preening celebration of the embassy move. As if that was not enough, we topped it off with John Hagee and Robert Jeffress two of the most bigoted extremist evangelical the U.S. has to offer. The U.S. has clearly become an exporter of extremism to the rest of the world.
3
yes, and our chaos president did his best to help fan the flames..... but other thoughts occurred to me. from what i have read at least 50 of the palestinians killed at the border were unarmed members of hamas. as i read your words i wonder were these 50 the equivalent of suicide bombers? was their purpose to exhort the crowd to rush the border all the while knowing that they would be the first killed? i have heard nothing quite so explicit in the reporting but i have to wonder. it is all very sad but i feel the worst for palestinian people.
How exactly should Israel have confronted Palestinian assault on its internationally recognized borders? Invade Gaza and arrest every Hamas militant? Drop smoke bombs on the protests to force mobs away from the border? Offer to cede Gaza (not just remove from it all Israelis) as the first step towards a peaceful two-state solution that Palestinians now reject? Or just recognize the so-called "right" of return that no other country has ever granted to those seeking to destroy it? Another Palestinian apologist. We thought maybe David could do better (like his colleague Brett).
3
I think that this piece is also a reflection of where our country is headed, if cooler heads than Trump and Company do not prevail.
This latest violence could have been prevented if Trump did not move the American Embassy to Jerusalem. It also could have been prevented if Netanyahu did not head the State of Israel. He and Trump are soul brothers. They have been shown themselves to be extremists in their views.
There is no real desire on the part of either man to critically think about how to solve problems. They just continue to add salt to the wounds.
Both need to be removed from leadership.
3
What a brilliant suggestion for a solution.
Demilitarized countries living peacefully side by side and anyone causing terror in the others citizen will be universally condemned as terrorist.
Mr. Brooks, there's a couple of interesting parallels here. First, from Irish history we learn that a completely dispossessed people will quite naturally turn to the men with the guns to defend themselves from genocidal oppressors. It's the wrong choice, of course, but all too often the only one. In Ireland's case it eventually forced England into "pragmatism," and won their independence.
Secondly, we see the parallel with the USA, where extremists (and here I refer to #45, his hate cult of citizen followers, and the GOP congress) are intent on destroying everything this country holds dear (the constitution, freedom of speech and a free press, the rule of law, separation of powers, peace in our time). I see no gesture towards pragmatism coming from the Trump GOP. I see only tacit approval of fascism, bullying, sexual assault on women, abolition of civil and human rights, assistance in genocide.
In the USA, those of us moving toward the fences aren't guided by the men with the guns. We're moved to do so by our moral consciences.
it would seem that your narrative is spot on. The commentaries I am reading prove that much. This is not a Israeli- Palestinian issue only: for far too long the African continent has suffered from tribalism, David Brooks narrative applies there as well. Thank you.
1
The Palestinians really do not matter to America.
Consider how the Gaza slaughter has fallen off news cycle. Recall how the Vegas hotel shooting that killed about the same number of people had huge coverage for weeks investigating the shooter motives, minute-by-minute reenactments, heart-retching personal stories of tragedies, and the like.
The Gaza killings are barely mentioned now...being replaced with Trump antics such as Stormy Daniels payoffs. And articles like this try to disguise (and play down) the fact that a slaughter took place.
Finally, the silence by our elected leaders on this matter is deafening.
2
David: Good to know that the next time a government is accused of negotiating with hostage-taking terrorists it can deflect that criticism by claiming that was merely responding to "extremism" by making a "respectful offer."
3
As I've been writing all week, there are no "good guys" to root for here.
Everyday Israelis have to start understanding that they are being used by conservative religious extremists to pursue a goal of "greater Israel" that involves complete dominion over the West Bank. And the Everyday Gazans have to realize they are being used by conservative religious Hamas extremists to pursue THEIR goal of maintaining power and influence by ramping up hatred of Israelis instead of trying to work on problems of Gazan infrastructure and governance.
This will continue until Israelis throw the religious fanatics out of their government, and until Gazans throw the religious fanatics out of THEIR government.
4
Imagine thousands of people, sworn enemies who seek your destruction, are charging your border. Which country would allow these armed, and yes they were armed, militants to enter your country. To suggest that Israeli Army did anything but defend the citizens of Israel is an out and out lie. To suggest that these armed Hamas operatives were peacefully demonstrating is another lie.
Mr. Brooks, you can't just throw out a sentence that there was plenty of time to do something. What is that something?Do you have the correct strategic response ?
Your words are insufficient.
Israel acted responsibly and cautiously, killing as few Palestinians as possible while protecting their own citizens and soldiers.
These 18 and 19 year old soldiers are to be commended for their restraint and courage. Clearly some soldier could have indiscriminately opened fire on hundreds. Instead they carefully and judiciously used their power to control the situation. God Bless the State of Israel that no longer allows Jews to lay victim to the anti-Semites of the world.
5
As even handed as possible considering the usual expectations of Conservative on this subject.
Take away the physical violence and concentrate on the political philosophies and Democrats and Republicans could be substituted.
They are only in it for short-term gains in order to get elected again to then make more short-term policies.
This article shed so much light on such a bipartisan and decisive situation. Thank you for a great article and putting to words what I so badly have wanted to articulate to those who discuss the situation with me.
One of Brooks's better articles and a nice counter to Stephens's one-sided polemic of a day ago. It's also interesting to read beside the editorial by Anshel Pfeffer on Netanyahu.
We are at an interesting point in history. In the decades after WWII a liberal democratic order prevailed in the West. In China and the Soviet Union an autocratic order prevailed—but it too was ostensibly liberal and idealistic (socialist) in orientation. Now it seems many of the world's established states seem lurching toward a new right-leaning synthesis of nationalism, autocracy, and crony capitalism. Netanyahu may indeed have been its earliest practitioner as Pfeffer argues, but I prefer to call it Putinism, as Putin is its most accomplished practitioner.
One of the primary characteristics of these new right-leaning states is their utter lack of regard for those who have grievances against them. There is no sense that they should ever put aside their own interests to promote fairness, justice, and the universal good. This intransigence may have evolved as a reaction to threats, seen as existential, from extremists in the Muslim world and elsewhere, but it also becomes a fuse that will spark even more extremism from these same groups. If there is no other way to air legitimate grievances and reach fair compromises with the strong, the weak will fight back however they can. And the strong will react by becoming even more immovable and more brutal. Our future seems increasingly bleak.
Here’s a novel thought to make a move toward peace: have the West, if not the international community writ large, tell the Palestinian Arabs that the only cause they will support, financially and otherwise, will be to build a civil democratic and demilitarized country along the lines of Costa Rica within borders agreed to by Israel. A population exchange (Arabs in Palestine and their descendants for Jews expelled from Muslim lands) has already taken place so there will be no "return." Universal principles will be universally applied, so from now on "one man's terrorist is everyone's terrorist." Jerusalem remains undivided as Israel's capital because, aside from historical considerations, only under Israeli sovereignty have all religions' rights been respected. The Palestinians have show themselves to be untrustworthy as future custodians, Temple Denial, anyone?
The Arabs have definitively lost their war against Israel and it is past time to admit it so that all sides can move the region forward. But the peace train is now ready to leave the station. The Palestinians should get on board to salvage what they can. Their continuing rejectionism will come with a cost. It’s time to take responsibility for their choices.
Sadly, nothing remotely like this will happen and, with misguided support, Palestinian aspirations, maximalist and otherwise, will fester mostly to the detriment of the Palestinians themselves.
8
One of Mr. Brooks' best articles in years. Sadly, as I read it, my mind kept wandering back to our domestic politics and how much the Republican party reflects the behaviour of extremists described here.
6
The Black Power Movement of the early 1970''s took shape by young Black leaders ( Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party, to name a few) because a segment of the black population grew tired (exhausted?) by the exceedingly marginal gains realized in the long struggle by Dr. King and others to take small gains in civlil rights through non-violent passive resistance.
It is impossible to quantify which of the two approaches ultimately netted the most positive 'gains' but it's obvious that neither came close to achieving their ultimate goals. We are now more openly racist than at any time in my 64 year American experience. We have a President who openly embraces and encourages racism and xenophobia (the dreaded 'other').
The radicalization of Palestinians is an expected consequence of decades of Israeli oppression which is not only unchecked , but aided and abetted by its strongest ally, the United States government.
All of this could have been avoided.
Tolerance is the key.
Tribalism and Nationalism are the enemies of peace.
5
I was born in 1948, the same year as Israel. In my formative years I strongly admired secular Israel. I admired the demonstration of commitment to gender equality and a passion for freedom and human rights. The stunning progress and innovation. I don't recognize any of those things any more. Netanyahu is a bully just like Trump is a bully. I have no solution. This kind of atavistic thinking is so sad I could cry.
12
David Brooks always tries to take practical issues and make them into some kind of meta discussion about how to look at things in a new way. Sometimes this succeeds and sometimes it fails. This article was a massive failure. The entirety of the international system is based upon some bedrock concepts of national sovereignty, such as the right to defend your border against people who would cross it with intent to do harm. If you remove this cardinal rule you have a return to a free for all, where power is all that matters. One may make a case about how extremism corrupts, but to conflate that with the Gaza border attacks is ludicrous. No nation, not a single one, would accept the idea that their borders may be violated and their citizens put in jeopardy because of some sort of scruple about being perceived as extreme.
6
I agree and disagree with what you are saying. Of course Israel has every right to defend itself from terrorists. But I believe the point Brooks was trying to make is that there was warning that Gazans would be attempting to cross the boarder and have some sort of uprising. Why was their nothing done by Israel before hand to avoid all of this, or at least partially prevent it?
I agree with your first sentence (Brooks is so 1980s University of Chicago it makes me sentimental for my college years every time I read him). But I disagree with your second. I think this is one of Brooks's successes. What has distinguished the post-WWII liberal Western system—and made it so great—is the emphasis on establishing a global community whose commitment to human rights, justice, and freedom transcends national interest. Maybe in reaction to Muslim extremism or maybe in reaction to the economic disruption created by globalism, we seem to be entering a period where nationalism is again rising to predominance. Our scruples about rights and justice made us great. We seem now to be entering a new era of the unscrupulous. What rough beast, it's hour come round at last . . .
The problem is calling the boundary between Gaza and Israel proper, a border. What other sovereign country is there? There is no state of Palestine. A country can defend its border but only an oppressor defends a ghetto. Yes, Hamas is odious and mal-intentioned. However the citizens of Gaza suffer. Israel needs to actively seek a two state solution or grant full, voting Israeli citizenship to those souls living in its ghettos.
Excellent, non-ideological column. Unfortunately, I don't see a solution, but rather a catastrophe as the extremists on both sides refuse to address the future of the millions of imprisoned (West Bank and Gaza) Palestinians.
And, matters aren't helped by those who both falsely claim that there are no Arab or Palestinians with which to negotiate (that's you and your fellow travelers, Bibi), and that "Palestine" and "Palestinians" have no historical existence.
3
I suspect many Israelis, who understand only too well the mistakes made, will condemn this recent slaughter more harshly than the average American. Most marches--civil rights, labor actions, Gandhi's supporters being clubbed senseless--have an objective that will likely provoke a violent reaction from the ruling power or its constituents. The goal is to establish that an obstacle is artificial and intolerable and that people are willing to face injury or death to confront it. For a variety of reasons we have trouble imagining Palestinians in this provocative but essentially just role.
David - A homeland for the Palestinians will put a dead stop to extremism. Instead of an effort to hurt the Jewish state, the Palestinians focus there effort on building a sovereign country. Seventy years of oppression would turn anyone to extreme thinking and action, Nothing to lose.
7
That’s just wrong. Look at the rest of the Middle East. Look at how their terrorist activities that target young children and the elderly are lauded. These are not a people that will just be happy and leave the Israelis alone once they have a sovereign state. Be real.
4
The Americans who keep sending their kids to join the Israeli defense forces will never agree to giving Palestinians a homeland. Let the refugees rot in refugee camps - "During the 1948 Palestine War, around 85% (720,000 people) of the Palestinian Arab population of what became Israel fled or were expelled from their homes, to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and to the countries of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan". We are all witnessing in real time what is happening in Syria. And these former Palestinian refugees have now become perennial refugees from Syria....
1
Brooks states..."After Israel withdrew from its settlements in Gaza, the Palestinians could have declared a new opening, taking advantage of the influx of humanitarian aid. Instead, they elected Hamas, an organization that lists the extermination of the state of Israel as an existential goal. They expended resources that could have improved infrastructure to fund missiles and terrorist tunnels."
The Palestinians could have built the Singapore of the Eastern Mediterranean. They chose war.
The Israeli people were the victims of Roman genocide and the destruction of Jerusalem and then 2000 years of Antisemitism. They were a culture and religion. Have the Israelis no "historical rights"? The Palestinians are squatting on land that was part of a Jewish civilization.
The Palestinians were given a homeland in 1947 and went to war and lost. Repeatedly. They vow to destroy Israel. Imagine 25,000 invaders armed with knives, some with guns rampaging through Israeli villages and cities. Imagine that carnage.
16
Michael, imagine that the 25,000 "invaders" are not coming over the fence to stab Jewish children, but to free their own children from the ghetto Israel has put them in.
Instead of slaughtering them, why not invite them to sit down for a cup of coffee and talk about how they can live together in that narrow sliver of land in peace?
1
Et Tu ... ?......David Brooks
Let me ask you a question .... Had the mob of Palestinians gotten through the border fence and managed to kill Israelis... Would that have changed the mind of yourself and other Liberals ?
13
let's get real. Although it makes for some interesting wordplay, to suggest that in 1948 the "displacement" of 700,000 Arabs( (Palestinians as a separate identity did not come into being until 1964) was an historic wrong to be attributed to the creation of Israel is abysmally inaccurate. The "wrong' was the attack by five Arab armies seeking to extinguish the fledgling State. and it would have been a far greater "wrong" if they had succeeded.
9
Extremism, like corruption, is in the eye of the beholder, You call Palestinians extremist for calling for Israel's destruction, when most want a two state solution so they can stop living in ghettoes. You use Hamas as a whipping boy in this argument.
The recent bloodbath lies at the feet of Netanyahu and Trump, The embassy faux pas was surely meant to cause an uprising; as was the Iran faux pas to ratchet up the war Bolton and Pompeo have been advocating.
This is political theater at its worst, involving living human beings. The hatred caused leads to more tragedy, such as ISIS' burnings and beheadings.
Let's see if your "respectful offer" ensues.
5
What a glib column. No recognition of the fact that the people in Gaza are basically locked in a cage. Extremism erupts when a people's rights and freedoms are taken away and they have no other recourse. This can only be tolerated for so long. Extremism erupts when a colonized people have no other recourse in their quest for freedom and dignity.
8
I'm beyond weary of this topic, and never ending, escalating conflict. I'm as far left as it gets, but THIS is not OUR problem. Let Israel fight its own battles, with its own Money. We have our OWN welfare states, and our own problems. Severe problems. And the worst problem is that creature in the Oval Office. This latest catastrophe is absolutely on HIM, and Netanyahu.
Period.
7
Extremism is an excuse. The main problem is the Israel has been corrupted by the occupation. The occupied territories have been free land to the Israelis, and justified by regarding the Palestinian aspirations and Palestinians as subhuman and unworthy of consideration. There is nothing the Palestinians can do to change this because the availability of free land is too attractive to ignore.
5
Well, if not the only way then surely - even as a gentile I venture to insist - the right way and the Jewish way.
1
My problem is, that i never get an accurate story, just fragments and a lot of aggressive emotions. I tried to understand what happenend up to the eviction.
Further back, there had been the Balfour Declaration from 2.nov.1917 which allowed jewish settlers to purchase land in the (at that time nonexisting) palestine from the now defeated ottoman empire. At this point there had been no arabic country, britain was in charge. After that the emerging arab nations confirmed this with Faisal–Weizmann Agreement of 3.jan.1919.
In the Battle of Tel Hai 1.mar.1920 arab nationalists tried to 'acquire' jewish settlements, the same happened with the Nebi Musa riots, where british troops were in charge to keep the peace, but remained absent. Then it goes on with the Jaffa riots 1.may.1921,...
Sometimes it is the fine print like in the Haycraft-Commission of 1921, where the british authorities blamed arabs for raiding jewish settlements, but blamed the jews for not allowing arabs to settle in their purchased areas. This plea seems absurd even today, and it didn't work out back then.
The jewish settlements already began in the ottoman empire, and was done in some kind of a political framework. This framework was permanently violated by arab nationalists, which made an eviction finally inevitable.
History tells me, this has started stupid a long time ago, and this is not just extremism, but more likely the inheritance of conflicts, that are neither understood, nor solved.
2
I understood that Israel covertly created Hamas as a counterweight to the secular PLO? Am I wrong? And now Israel's creation is the insurmountable obstacle to peace?
1
Hamas was actually created by the same people who faked the moon landing .
1
Chalk up a major victory for Hamas. They deliberately timed the rioting to coincide with the opening of the new American embassy. The desired result was achieved--in the media the Americans were portrayed as frivolous while desperate Palestinians were dying as they fought their oppressors miles away. Why should the Palestinians want a state now? They couldn't buy publicity like this and they're going to milk it for all it's worth. Desperate Palestinians vs Evil Israelis. Priceless!!
5
Brilliant David. You must agree with me, that logically sir, extremism is just terrible and to be rejected everywhere. We see extremism on the left, on the right politically, in all religious orthodoxies, Christian evangical, Muslim fundamentalist, Jewish Orthodoxy. These all reject each other. Well, actually they mostly despise and wish destruction from time to time upon each other.
Orthodoxy means intolerance of those not like us.
Fortunately, our America was founded upon tolerant secular principles, albeit unevenly applied over our history.
1
How do you stop an armed mob of Hamas fighters who may be wearing suicide vests who have announced they intend to kill from charging past your clearly marked and fenced border and murdering your soldiers, short of lethal force? Salah Bardawil said 50 of the 62 protesters killed by Israeli Defense Forces were members of the Iranian-backed group.
That 50 of the 62 killed were Hamas,and that Israel alleges that every lethal shot is approved, leads to the speculation that facial recognition software is in use.
Tying a spotters scope images into a data bank is a doable trick, and may be the reason for Hamas casualty percentages.
3
Israeli extremism is not equivalent to Islamic extremism in Gaza. Hamas would obliterate Israel if it could. Israel could obliterate Gaza but won't..when extremist led mob crashed the border,injuries incurred indicated many non lethal wounds ...purposely so.
7
"There was plenty of time to figure out how to handle the crowds without bloodshed."
Please write a column on this topic David. I would like to read it.
14
Yes I would be very interested to read what he proposes as a solution that wouldn't result in violence.
3
So Mr. Brooks, what operational plan would you have suggested Israel should have followed?
10
Israel is supposedly the big kid on the block. Sadly, instead of being an example, it is a big bully that is getting worse the more Israel is controlled by its extreme right/extreme fundamentalists. Of course, out extreme right and president enjoy aiding and abetting this bully.
1
It's really a sad story. Basically it's the vicious circle "the dog is mad so it must be in cage - the cage makes it mad". Gazans suffer a brutal blockade so their anger and attacks grow against Israelis, which gives them reasons to maintain or increase the blockade. The most worrying is that all columns focus on who’s to blame, who through the first stone, or what are the causes, but I still haven’t read any proposal for a solution from any side. Neither do I have one. So sad.
1
Beware PM Netanyahu: If a conservative like David Brooks think that "The shift from the politics of Rabin and Shimon Peres to that of Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman is a move from pluralism to ethnocentrism, from relentless engagement to segregation", it makes clear that not only American liberals - leftists according the Israeli political jargon - are so critical of the Israeli government policy, but also centrists and rightists. That is a real threat, even an existential one. The history of the last 70 years proves that without a massive American public support Israel is not safe. Michael Karpin book "The Bomb in the Basement – How Israel Went Nuclear and What That Means for the World" was published by Simon @ Schuster.
1
The Jews of all people should understand the effects of blockades, systematic persecution and ghettos. Their collective experiences of WW2 and the successful resistance movements they created should have taught them that oppressed people everywhere will rise and fight when there is no alternative other than slow extermination. Dying is not a problem when there is nothing worth living for.
Israel could ease the blockades that are denying a whole race of people the basics for survival and a dignified existence. If Israel were to give peace a chance and extend a hand of forgiveness instead of violence there is just a chance that it might be reciprocated in kind. After seventy years of continued confrontation it might be worth giving peace a chance.
5
Yeah, that's the problem with passion, it's just so extreme and so indecorous. As if cynicism was a value worth dying for?
The most passionate and extreme point of view is peace. Peace, not just because war is such a rotten thing, but because (and this is most extreme!) it's actually worth it, on its own merits as an intrinsically good thing. Peace isn't the freedom from inconviences of war, it's an extreme. What isn't extreme is war, in fact, it's the most mediocre thing there is. Badly done, wasteful, and accomplishes nothing, except to add more useless wealth to the military-industrial complex. David Brooks, you just like to egg on your liberal readers with pseudo-reasonableness. A hawk in an ivory tower. Real peace, as an extreme point of view isn't sexy, but it's also the only value worth the paper it's written on.
4
The other day I read an article by Brett Stevens who blamed the Palestinians for their own fate. I took the time to look up a few things. The per capital personal income in Gaza is $1990, while in in Israel it is $40,000, greater than Japan's and about the same as France. That is a 20 fold difference in income. Israelis sit on beaches, Gazan's sit in squalor. I've not been there but this is a big humanitarian problem. If you accept that the "original sin" was the displacement of hundreds of thousands, then the diagnosis is correct. I read other's who talked about this being an "invasion", I wonder where they would go once they breached the fence? I imagine there is a large security zone so my image is these few thousand people running helter skelter until they run out of energy and water and then have to go home.
My family is Irish, and we are told that in the great famine, the rivers and streams were guarded lest the starving get fish to eat, after all the fish belonged to the rich landowners.
The problems don't change, just the characters. I feel sorry for the honorable Jewish people who hate this situation, but no sympathy for Netanyahu.
6
The Jews were not always wealthy. They were slaves laborers in Pharaoh times. They were persecuted in Nazi Europe. But within them they always had that spirit, resilience that drives entrepreneurs to success. They have succeeded despite all the atrocities committed on them. As much as they face anti semitism, they are equally stubborn identifying themselves as Jews, this is their own bondage, perhaps just to feel secure somehow. Being identified with whatever they believe in, it provides them with some kind of comfort. I heard a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon on NPR mention that his grandparents had fled to Lebanon, his parents had never stepped into Palestine and he himself wished that he will one day die in Palestine. To that refugee his homeland is so important that he wishes to be buried there. He spends his whole life as a refugee in this bondage, that one day he will be free in his homeland. It is such an artificial identity. The same refugee could spend his entire life focusing his energies on making the most of all the facilities available to him in Lebanon and making a success of it.
1
When the first reports came out of Gaza I felt that it was simply a matter of Israeli atrocities. After seeing the injured pre-schoolers and a report of an infant with a heart condition killed by exposure to tear gas I had to ask what would make a mother and father intentionally take their small children into a combat zone. Hard to imagine the mentality that deliberately carries a sick infant into a full scale riot. The goal seemed to be to create martyrs. Shame on the shooters but also on the parents and Hamas politicians who endangered the innocents to make a political point.
2
“Extremism is naturally contagious. To fight it, whether at home or abroad, you have to answer the angry shout with the respectful offer. “
Sure David. That’s what the Spanish decided to do after the Moors conquered Spain by killing any living being that did not agree to become Muslim, and, drove the remaining Spanish into the mountains. When those Spaniards, after 400 years of breeding to rebuild their ranks, came down out of the mountains to retake Spain, and Europe, they started out with a respectful offer.
That offer?? Become Christian, or, …….die.
The truth is, when life and death are in the hang, David, everyone becomes an extremist. Because, staying alive is a powerful force within.
4
To be locked up in a rat-cage for ever naturally leads to extremism and perpetual violence.
Give the Palestinians a chance by giving them a choice: incorporation in to Egypt or become the Singapore of the Middle-East for Gaza by giving them more than humanitarian aid. And the hardest but unavoidable part:
Incorporation in to Israel for Judea and Samaria or/and in to Jordania as mr.Bolton suggests for the West-Bank.
1
Mr. Brooks says everyone has their own view, but like many of the manipulated his is devoid of reality. The creation of Israel was an historic wrong? The Jews had laid claim to Israel for 3000 years, they had been slaughtered, but most importantly they paid with their blood against overwhelming odds. His 70 year restrospective is as meaningless as it is devoid of facts.
Place the displacement of Arabs in the context of everyone who was displaced by war or nationalism in the era: Millions of Indians and Pakistanis, Cubans, and more Jews from Arab countries than Arabs from the one Jewish country. Every one has been resettled except the Arabs who died as refugees and have been replaced by generations of refugees who live off our work and are taught with our tax dollars to hate.
Just as he was manipulated to believe this premise he is being manipulated into seeing any wrong in the actions of the Israeli army. Hamas calculated if they incited enough people to be killed, deluded people like Mr. Brooks would feel sympathy for them and blame Israel. It worked, he's an enabler.
No one has made a suggestion of how Israel could protect the '67 border without endangering its own people. If Israel has to bury its children to get Mr. Brooks' support it rightfully will forgo his support.
I thought the solution was 2 states based on the '67 borders. If Israel can't protect the '67 border without being criticized what could it possibly do and not be criticized?
5
But Israel does not respect the 67 borders. Stop and dismantle the settlements. Create a viable state of Palestine.
Israel withdrew from Gaza. They voluntarily withdrew to the 1967 border. They left their economic infrastructure behind, the Palestinians destroyed it. Hamas destroyed the border crossing where Israel donated tons of food and medicine every day. Then Hamas claims it's desperate and incites people to kill themselves. When Israel defends its border, you condemn them.
Why would Israel ever voluntarily withdraw to the 1967 border again?
How can there be a viable state of Palestine if its leader isn't elected, calls our ambassador "the son of a dog", blames the Jews for the Holocaust, names public squares after terrorists, and pays the families of terrorists with our tax money?
The Palestinians killed their future state with their behavior. Those of you who criticize Israel for defending the border you want them to retreat to are enabling the death of the state you want so badly.
When the "angry shout" is "rip the hearts out" of your citizens, it's hard to make a "respectful offer".
Hamas has admitted that 50 of the 60 dead were militants and Islamic Jihad has claimed another 3. This was not a protest but an attack on Israel's border. The real barometric question is, would any other country, including the United States, defend its borders from such a mob any differently?
6
As to the "Historic Wrong" of displacing 700,000 Palestinians ....
This "displacement" took place because the Palestinians , Egypt , Syria , Lebanon , Iraq and Jordan declared war , on May 14 , 1948 , on the newly-founded State of Israel , and invaded its territory .
When it ended and the dust settled , and tiny new Israel survived , 700,00 Palestinians were displaced .
If that war ended with the Palestinians and the other Arabs winning , likely the 600,000 Jewish citizens of then-Israel would have had today a lovely marble memorial somewhere in Washington DC...
When you start a war and lose , there are consequences . Ask the Germans and the Japanese . Cards cannot be reshuffled .
The option the Palestinians and Arabs should have chosen in 1948 was to welcome Israel ( declared in the UN Resolution Partition borders ) , and to cooperate with it . With that , no 'displacement' would have happened .
They chose instead war , and lost .
Those ( including me ) who benefit today from the 'fruits' of colonial settlements and conquests and decimation of local populations ( "Historic Wrongs" perpetrated by our own forefathers ) - North America , South America , Africa , New Zealand , Australia - should look in the mirror and not point fingers at others , and reflect on where we came from , and what human cost was paid by somebody along our way .
The reality of history is that EVERYBODY at some point was a villain who has done wrong to others .
Where to start ?
6
Shouting vs offer is still bilateral thinking
1
"...extremists over time replace strategic thinking with theatrical thinking." Sound like someone we're dealing with here in the U.S.?
1
Israel's 'original sin' (displacement of native population). There's hardly a nation on this planet that isn't guilty. The U.S. was founded on the genocide of it's native population. Britain was founded on the displacement of the native Celts. How many 'native' populations have been supplanted by new 'natives', and then again, and again (e.g. China?). It's the nature of the human beast. And if the Palestinians ever achieve the upper hand militarily, we already what the result would be (hint: not simply 'displacement').
3
The problem is here you cannot justify in any way the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians. Portraying Israel as a history ignore the largest part of it. The creation of Israel was fundamentally wrong. It was based in two things the ability of white people to take anything they wanted from brown people, and the inherent inferiority of Arab lives to white lives. Until this wrong is restored there can be no dialogue going forwards. Palestinians shouldn't be expected to negotiate with a symbol of their inferiority and worthlessness.
Peace will only come when Israelis and the rest of the world are willing to acknowledge this fact. That asking Palestinians to admit the existence of Israel is asking them to admit they possessed no rights as humans, to land, safety, or freedom. Americans would never agree to this and to expect Palestinians to do so is unreasonable.
3
This is the kind of essay that gives genuine evenhandedness a bad name. I won't cite capable histories by the likes of Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein because Brooks will undoubtedly regard them as extremists, although they are nothing of the kind. But he should at least read former President Jimmy Carter's book "Peace, Not Apartheid" to realize the unmitigated ignorance of his equation of Israeli and Palestinian extremism. The simple fact is that the Israelis kept almost none of the agreements made with the Palestinians at Oslo. And the sentient world well knows what Brooks dare not mention--that the 2014 Israeli invasion of Gaza was a near genocidal campaign that used the murder of three Israelis by Palestinians as a pretext to kill thousands of them and destroy massive sections of their housing and their infrastructure, including schools and hospitals.
It is well-known that today large segments of Israeli society regard the Palestinian people as subhuman. The casual murder of even wheelchair bound Palestinians by Israeli soldiers have raised virtually no public protests in Israel.
Brooks should have written about the very grave threat to America created by the Trump administration's move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem and its overt encouragement of Israel's savage reprisals against unarmed demonstrators who have done nothing more than demand the world pay attention to the horrors of an occupation that he himself admits began with Israeli terror.
3
Sigh. Disguise it as you will, this is just another opinion piece portraying the Palestinians as the bad guys, when the subject at the moment is injuring thousands and killing 61 peaceful demonstrators. Where, in this article, is there any consideration of the brutality Israel has used for years, where is any discussion of the vastly disproportionate power of Israel? I have lost my patience to read articles like this anymore. One would think Gaza has no real human beings, only Hamas, only terrorists. And, oh, there wasn't any real protest, no real people expressing their desperation — there were only robots manipulated by Hamas. Oh, and they were violent, these protesters. They threw rocks and sent a few flaming kites. Let us not recall that Israel shot people's legs off with live bullets. Brooks says that Palestinians shifted the question from “What to do?” to “Whom to blame? The debates were less about how to take steps toward a livable future and more about who is responsible for the sins of the past." In other words, let's not look at root causes of the conflict, let's waltz on. I think that real victims have a justifiable reason in considering root causes, whereas real perpetrators have a reason to want to waltz away into a brighter future — for them. Honestly, I want to scream from reading nothing but Hamas, Hamas, Hamas when in fact mothers, fathers and children are laying on the ground dead and people are having legs amputated.
336
Disguise it as you will, this is just another comment portraying the Israelis as the bad guys, when the subject at the moment is a country's borders being attacked by tens of thousands of "peaceful" demonstrators.
I didn't see a Martin Luther King in that crowd.
42
Sigh...why can't you recognize the reality of the situation. 61 peaceful demonstrators? Are you kidding me? Hamas has admitted that 50 were from its ranks. We know that another 3 were from Islamic Jihad. This was nothing more than another version of Hamas's well worn tactic of using civilians as human shields. The reality is that it is Hamas, Hamas, Hamas and until you are willing to confront that reality there will be more and more carnage.
61
Interesting definition of peaceful, especially in light of the murderius violence the Hamas leaders, hiding well behind their civilian shields, keep openly inciting. Then there is the not inconsequential fact that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have openly confirmed that 53 of the 60 claimed dead are members of their terror groups. What a coincidence! Then there’s the issue of the 8 month old girl whose death does not seemed to have been caused by Israeli tear gas (the very type of non-lethal response anti-Israel partisans claim should be used rather than any live fire, regardless of circumstance) after all.
Honesty is the crucial first step in any fair analysis. Please direct your anger where it belongs, to Hamas. British Columbia should be a safe distance from which to do it.
51
David: You say that to fight extremism you have to answer the angry shout with the respectful offer. That may be good advice for how a parent should respond to a child's temper tantrum but it doesn't work in the world of international conflict. Should Israel make a "respectful offer" in response to Iran's threat to wipe it off the map? Nuclear war between the US and the USSR was averted because of the concept of mutually assured destruction, not because respectful offers were made in response to extremism. In fact, I challenge anyone to name an instance where responding to extremism with a "respectful offer" led to any long term resolution of any international conflict.
4
David is correct, Extremism corrupts. The history he describes is correct .
But lets look at Gaza today. The people are in a prison, without enough to eat, without any hope for themselves or their children.
They have not been represented well by their leaders. The USA has abandoned them by no longer making any pretense of being neutral.
When faced with this, some have become extreme, but their government cooperates with Israel against Hamas.
It's time for Israel to recognize that their might now gives them the choice to be generous and moral in their control.
Show the Palestinians the fairness that was denied the Jewish people in modern history.
Then maybe we can make progress in finally achieving a solution .
3
It's actually Hamas that treats those living in the Gaza Strip like a prison, not Israel, which makes them responsible for having them live in such conditions.
1
David, you are wrong that creation of the State of Israel was an historic wrong that hurt Palestinians.
UN resolution 181 proposed creation of Israel AND OF AN INDEPENDENT ARAB STATE for the Palestinian Arabs on November 29, 1947. On December 1, Arab attacks on Jewish settlers began. The Arabs and surrounding Arab states rejected this partition plan, including the creation of an independent state for the Palestinians. And immediately after the proclamation Of the State of Israel by Ben Gurion in May 1948, all surrounding Arab countries attacked israel.
It was the Arabian rejection of the creation of an independent state for Palestinians that was the historic wrong------NOT the creation of Israel!
2
Although you pretend to reject extremism, if you read your own column carefully you will see that you yourself can not help but resort to it. You think you know who is (more) to blame and you can't resist saying so. Therein lies the problem. That prevents a negotiated solution.
1
True, "extremism corrupts everybody" you need only to look at the evangelical embrace of the "extremely" morally unfit president to make your point. But, I prefer the more existential point made by the late Christopher Hitchens when he said "Religion ruins everything". Think where we would be if we just followed the one common thread of most religions, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"and just left it at that. No sects, no tribes, no strict adherence to books written before the world was round. No rewards for following paths that lead to separating mankind from itself. No promise of a specific afterlife better then this one with virgins or angels. The Evangelical leaders who were invited to speak at the opening of the relocated embassy were there to celebrate a step towards the end times where all unconverted Jews will be condemned to eternal hellfire. How sick is that? I encourage spirituality that connects one to all living things but religions, by their nature, cannot do that.
3
The Israelis will NEVER give the Palestinians a homeland, never. Where does that leave the Palestinians?
Meantime the US has now given Israel carte blanche. No one can even imagine where this policy will go.
3
Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza are one country called Ismael. Ismael is democratic and socialist with a constitution guaranteeing a shared economy and minority protections. The interests of Jews and Palestinians are provided for through negotiations between the parties without interference from 3rd parties, including the US. The nation is secular with freedom of religion. Ismael has complete control over its borders, with Jews and Palestinians given equal and preferred preference. One state for two peoples as opposed to 50 states with winners and losers.
The Palestinians are victims. Victimized by oppressive Israeli policies. Victimized by an inept and misguided leadership. Unwelcome by neighboring Arab countries.
In a perfect world, Palestinian leadership would recognize Israel’s right to exist, disavow violence and forego the claim to return. Israel would give up settlements on Palestinian lands and provide economic aid to their now friendly neighbor. Arab countries would welcome immigration and provide a path to citizenship.
But alas…
4
The problem is that the Israelis want extremism. They prefer it. Why? Because they think they can win on that plane. They use the pathetic Hamas threats against them to galvanise their over-the-top responses knowing full well that Hamas is no real threat. No, Brooks. It's no accident Israel became more extreme. That's their existence of choice and they think it will reward them. After all, they already have the other guy's land.
5
Mr. Brooks tells us that we need to bell the cat, but he doesn't tell us how to do it. Yet that little omission does not keep him from kvetching at length about what hasn't been done right.
Sigh . . .
2
Just asserting that a less bloody alternative could be found to repel mass attackson the border doesn’t make it so. Advancing an actual alternative would be far more persuasive.
3
And what can we learn about the state of our own politics from this extremist standoff? Republicans, despite losing the popular vote even with the help of the Russian's tinkering and a near split in congress, seem to think their manifesto of the right way forward has no obligation to what the other half-plus thinks or needs. Theirs is the same zero sum game. the Popular vote wants more gun control, affordable healthcare, environmental protections, fair immigration concessions, fair taxation and representation, net neutrality, while the extremist right (corporate 'swamp' lobbyist) demand no concessions that will cut into their profit margins and compromise their absolute control. In the meantime we separate even further as the majority and the growing ranks of the poor suffer the consequences. A morally despicable, extremist deal faker president of ours offers no solution to our own two state dilemma! Look into the mirror!
2
Israels enemies have judged to respond to injustice inflicted on them in the past by war. They did this so twice and lost. If you start war, you have to accept the outcome and face the consequences. If you loose and you are not suicidal, adapt to the new reality. A way forward has been offered in the form of the recognition of Israel and a two-state solution.
1
As other writers, I agree with David Brooks. But it is hard to blame the Palestinians for choosing Hamas, we chose Trump, the Italians chose Five Star, the British chose Brexit, the Turks chose Erdogan, the Egyptians chose el Sisi, the Philippines chose Duterte. The sad fact of life is that when choices are left to the general voter pool, they often choose badly. I was playing tennis in our suburbs and overheard a conversation about Israel. The “informed” conversant was explaining the whole Israel problem, his facts were fuzzy, but he was clear on his, let’s call it bias.
When Israel extends the nautical "fishing limit" Hamas tries to smuggle in weapons by sea. When they let concrete into Gaza Hamas diverts most of it from the civilian sector in order to build terror tunnels. When Israel opens a clothing factory on the border that can employ many people from Gaza Hamas threatens the people and they stay home. So what exactly does Mr. Brooks suggest Israel offer now? And what about all the billions of dollars that have flowed into Gaza over the years - it should have become Singapore by now. Mr Brooks can stay safely in the U.S. & write about "extremism". He should read "Haaretz" less & the mainstream Israeli press more & then he might understand that the 700,000 Palestinians in 1948 lost a war they started and the our current PM & Defence Minister represent most Israelis - who are not extremists but just everyday people who want to be able to live their lives free from Palestinian terrorism.
3
Mr. Brooks, I’m not going to lie. I disagree with your columns almost every time I read them. I sometimes find you out of touch with reality, and, as much as I hate to trot out the tired old talking point, find that you don’t understand the “real America.”
That being said, this column encapsulates exactly how I feel about the Israel/Palestine issue. Both sides are to blame. The Palestinians fostered an environment of hatred and terrorism. The Israelis created a heavy handed, overly policed state. No one is perfect.
1
"Yasir Arafat was once a terrorist, but at least he used terror to win practical concessions."
What concessions? The billionaire's famous Rolex watch collection? Religiosity and logical reasoning do not mix very well. The zealous mind is easy to manipulate and there are enough monsters ready, willing and able to do so.
Peace in the Middle East? We first need to find life on other planets!
2
I think Israel, like America and Canada and Australia, must honestly acknowledge some ugly truths about its founding. Native Americans were forcibly expelled from their lands so that America could attain its manifest destiny; Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their lands in 1948 so that Israel could be a majority Jewish state. By UN resolution 194 the Palestinians should be able to return, but we know that the situation will never be turned back to 1967, nevermind 1948.
After 10 years of siege, reports from Gaza indicate a significant shift toward nihilism and suicide. Bright young Palestinians are able to obtain scholarships abroad but are not permitted to leave. Does Israel have a plan for Gaza? It seems not. So what is the best realistic outcome for the Palestinians in Gaza and how can the nations of the world help? I would suggest that nations, especially developed nations, accept the people of Gaza as refugees and that Israel pay significant compensation, admit the truth of the Israel's founding, and receive a guarantee from the departing Palestinians to no longer pursue claims to a right of return. Not justice, but what else can be done? (Genuine question)
1
The Palestinians, after 1948, are and continue to be in the same position as the Germans and the Japanese were in 1945, with one difference, the State of Israel was never powerful enough to obliterate all of its enemies, in one fell swoop, as the allies did with respect to the axis powers. There was no coming back, the ideologies that drove the Germans and the Japanese died in 1945.
The Palestinians believe mistakenly that their revanchism has a chance of success, which the Israelis stoked by embarking on an endlessly provocative and misguided program. The endgame, however, will not change until the Arabs have learned to accept the consequences of waging a war of extermination against Israel, in 1948.
2
David thank you for taking a brave stance on a very complicated situation. I always feel that if I say anything derogatory about Israel that I'm an anti-somatic. This nice Irish born from St. Mark's Parish dated many a Jewish las. The love of my life, the one that makes your heart skip a beat, did her doctoral degree at Harvard while riding around on this bad boys Harley. Marsha G. family took me in like I was one of theirs. I found that many an American Jew were always scratching their heads around the politics in Israel. Being disappointed by the lack of compassion for both races. Like the "Pope said on 60 Minutes" " the most important things are respect/manners, and a sense of humor. I believe these are ultimately the highest goals one should try to achieve. We are so far from that, and then ad Trump wanting to build a hotels
because let's face it, our president is using his office only to make money. Mr. Mueller please please hurry.
I think Israel did a lot that David Brooks doesn't credit it for. Thousands of Arabic language leaflets were dropped to say that approaching the fence was dangerous and war-like behavior. Most mothers in the world would heed such warnings and stay home rather than bring their sick babies. Israel killed (only) 60 people out of the reported thousands who listened to Hamas and went to the fence. And Hamas itself acknowledged that at least 50 of those killed were Hamas members, some acting quite violently/ destructively when they were killed. What, if not that, is restraint by an army tasked with protecting civilians?
4
"Instead they elected Hamas"...and Israel elected Netanyahu and the US elected Trump. Elected extremism matters most when it is done by the powerful rather than the powerless.
1
That David Brooks, a supposed American liberal can write that the mass shooting of unarmed Palestinian protesters by Israeli security forces might not be 100% the victims fault and the people who pulled the trigger might in some small way bear some indirect responsibilty is evidence enough that having the United States as a biased interlocutor is the main reason that their has been no resolution found.
1
"The creation of the state of Israel was a historic achievement involving a historic wrong — the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians." At what point, exactly, does the historic wrong become so great that it turns the historic achievement itself into a historic wrong? 700,001 displaced Palestinians? 6,000,001? Somewhere in between? From one Jew to another, Mr. Brooks, and remember what the word "displaced" means to us: how could we expect anything other than extremism from Palestinians? The burden of history is on us.
2
Absolutely agree!
However, what we see as "clearly in in Israel's Interest" involves a belief in the preeminence of world peace as the natural goal of geopolitics, yet this is not what the Israeli government wants for itself. The hubris of their outdated claims to Judea and Samaria and all the land up to the Jordan River has destroyed their credibility on all fronts when it comes to the land once known as Palestine. The Israelis sneak in more settlements, ignore humane concerns, keep people from natural citizenship, but only in the territories they want to permanently fold into their national boundary. They are engaged in a form of slow conquest.
This article is the best articulation yet, by anyone getting paid by the NYT, of the multidimensional problems in Israel and a clear-eyed look at why unconditional support for Israel is no longer justified.
Extremism is a vice, moderation is a virtue.
I'm not proud of the response, and what It means.
Hamas has won the público relations propaganda.
The immoderates win.
As an onlooker, I grant liberalism and humanism lose.
To be as clear as I can, my fears are that Israel has lost
its reason to be, but of course I am hoping that I am
being foolish.
Morality is ... subjective.
1
I couldn't agree with you more, Mr Brooks.
I would extend your analysis beyond the Gaza: the world is in the throe of extremism. At all levels. From the international arena to the local neighborhood.
To the extremists, having an inch is for the patsies. This is the either-I-am-right-or-you-are-wrong world. Sure, there are definitely right or wrong cases. However, there are also situations in which two wrongs don't make one right. The OWS gang thought they could copy the Tea Party but from the other end of the political spectrum. Alas, whoever who is more evil wins! The lesser of two evils did accomplish something: they torpedoed the Obama Administration by trying to force it to the left. In the end, the middle lost!
Decades if not centuries of progress down the drain. Remember the inclusion of China and the Berlin Wall coming down? Those were the good old days. Alas, people haven't bothered to tend the garden of the best of all possible worlds. Instead, they have allowed it to be overgrown with weeds. When victims like Israel have transformed themselves into bullies, they forget the real meaning of their struggle. And fail to extend their passion into compassion. This is narcissism at global scale.
Sadly, we as a species may be responsible for not just the rise but also the fall of civilization by returning to a brutal world so fear by great philosophers like Hobbes
The Israelis have a fundamental problem. There are roughly 13 million people living between the Jordan river and the sea and almost half of them are Palestinians. 20% of the citizens of Israel are Palestinian and the rest live in the occupied territories. Demographic trends suggest it's not going to be long before Palestinians are more than half the total. Do the Israelis really believe hold all these people in an apartheid type subjection forever? This does not seem likely to me.
6
As long as people keep holding steadfastly to their identities, there is no resolution for they will fail to look at each other as "human" first and foremost. We are all fellow travelers, our journeys on planet earth are not always easy, the least we can do is make it easier for each other, instead we are hellbent on making it harder on each other, violence murder and killing seems to be the easiest way out for these strongly identified beings. They would rather die for their "religion" or "homeland" than live as a human, with a fellow human. The stronger their identity the harder it becomes to rationalize or help them see from the other's point of view. Messiahs come and go, mystics universally teach brotherhood and love thy neighbor. Meh, that is all in theory. My strong identity can not love that other strong identity of a different kind. Human beings have learned ZERO from history and are bent on repeating the same stupid mistakes for themselves, in each generation.
1
Europe used to be what the Middle East is now: a ceaseless struggle as every princedom and duchy able to raise an army fought to take as much for themselves as they could.
But Europe has shown that peace can take root.
The Israelis and the Palestinians need to share not just the land, but respect, mutual aid, and the kind of near universal prosperity that has let Europe finally put down its guns.
Israel has the economic might to get that started. Palestine does not. The Israelis will need to take the first steps, even in the face of the extremism that will continue to dominate Palestinian politics for years to come.
2
It is my understanding that the Palestinians are living under extreme oppression: extreme poverty, extreme lack of health care, extreme hungry, extreme freedom to travel.
Extreme oppression often requires extreme measures to alleviate it. By no means do I support the ongoing conflict, but the Palestinians need to do something along with the help of the world.
3
"The debates were less about how to take steps toward a livable future and more about who is responsible for the sins of the past."
AMEN, Mr. Brooks.
The world is doomed.
2
Sure, extremism is bad, pragmatism is better.
But, at what point is something extreme? Which action is pragmatic (in relation to what standard)?
Reason and logic applies to a something about which you are reasoning. What is that something?
This is where knowledge and wisdom come in. And both require a good grasp of history and psychology.
So now the David Brooks-, and Thomas L Friedman-, sort of Rodney King view of the world becomes not very useful. It is not a matter of good people finding ways to get along, while avoiding extremism. It is how did we get to this point, and how can we better understand the situation to defuse it, and then work on finding a better way to live with each other.
The narrative of peaceful nice Palestinians being disturbed by fanatical Jews with their European problem does not cut it. Neither does the narrative of Jewish victims desperately finding a homeland where they have belonged since time immemorial.
And we cannot forget the nature of our cultures today -- foundationed on mostly false nationalist notions, ancient religions getting in the way of clear thinking, a brutal history of imperialism, colonialism, forced diasporas, impersonal international markets messing with locals' lives, and horrible leadership by the likes of Abbas, Bibi, and now Trump thrown into the bizarre mix.
We need more history and subtle understanding of current conditions. (The extremists are not listening.)
We all own a piece of this. We all need to help.
4
David Brooks expresses the truth that the hardening of the maximalist positions of the antagonists is reciprocally reinforcing. Leaders in the past have expressed valuable insights, however, that are worth repeating. Abba Eban once famously said, "The Arabs have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity." And Hosni Mubarak observed that the more the Palestinians dither, the faster Israelis will settle the territories. Historical perspective sheds light on a basic underpinning of Zionist thinking--for me "Zionist" is not a dirty word but a quasi-sacred ideal--going back to the 1880s and 1890s; the idea of "creating facts." "Facts" are population growth, technological development, resisting boycotts, improved relationships between Israel and Sunni Arab countries, and maintaining strength vis-a-vis Iran. The real Israeli extremists are those who want to overthrow the government and reinstitute the Davidic monarchy. To a significant extent, what critics of Israel call Israeli extremism is not really that at all. They are simply rankled by Israel's gritty, slow-and-steady progress in the five areas listed in my antepenultimate sentence.
4
Mr. Brooks suggests that somehow the growth of extremism on both sides could have been avoided. That's hard to believe, given the way Israel was created in the late 1940s.
Brooks notes: "the creation of the state of Israel was a historic achievement involving a historic wrong — the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians." Both the Palestinians (by virtue of their current numbers) and the Israelis (by virtue of their weapons and American patronage) are currently viable entities. Each is on the opposite side of that historic wrong of monumental size.
There isn't a compromise in wrongs of that size. One side completely defeats the other. In the American West in the 1800s, the white settlers supported by the US Army completely subjugated Native Americans and took their lands. Whites won not because of right or wrong and certainly not through compromises of equal forces but because white forces were overwhelmingly stronger.
Who's stronger, the Palestinians or the Israelis? Clearly as long as America supports the Israelis, they will hold their own.
But the American empire, of which Israel is a part, is crumbling. There will come a time when American wealth and weapons will mean much less, and Israel will have to fend for itself. Economically it can't, but militarily it can with -- Heaven help us -- its nuclear weapons.
Evangelicals believing that Armageddon will start in the Middle East are probably right.
6
And the Evangelicals are eager for Armageddon to happen, so encourage the conflict.
1
esp,
Sorry I gave the impression of encouraging the conflict. The point I should have made is that if the Palestinians and Israelis are left to resolve their conflict among themselves, the resolution will be the destruction of one side or the other by whichever side is stronger.
If that undesirable resolution is to be avoided, some outside force -- the UN or group of nations -- needs to step in and enforce a settlement that leaves the people on both sides alive and secure.
If that's not possible, then realistically history shows the stronger of the two sides will destroy the weaker.
Now I have to apologize for offering little hope, but there doesn't seem to be any.
David, your analysis minimizes and neglects two strong motives behind Israel abandoning any honest commitment to a two-state solution and to peace after the Rabin assassination, which shifted the balance of power to the authoritarian right. They are the religious motivation of Eretz Israel and the profit motivation of Jewish development in the disputed territories. Each is a firm impediment to resolution. At least you acknowledge the ethnic cleansing carried out by Israel in the 1948-9 era - most American commentators sanitize and gloss over those inconvenient issues. The Palestinians are by no means without sin, but at least their violent resistance can be ascribed to oppression and despair. To what are Israel's sins ascribable, hegemony and profit?
5
He didn’t acknowledge any such thing as ethnic cleansing. And that’s because there was no policy of ethnic cleansing.
It’s true that many Palestinian Arabs of that era were expelled, but the majority of historians place the onus on the Mufti of Jerusalem. He zealously encouraged the Arab residents to temporarily leave their homes for the purpose of making it easier for Arab armies to kill all the Jews.
And anyway, does anyone seriously think that Israel, with its economy, military, tech and science know-how, and overall civilization is going to say, oops, we goofed? Let’s pack up and move out so that the Arabs can have our nation.
What IS the Palestinian end game, exactly?
2
You may want to consider whether you're buying into propaganda and revisionist history. History is written by the "victors," those putatively with the "economy, military, tech and science know-how," no?
The answer to the following question may be illuminative: If Israel was an innocent bystander to a voluntary Palestinian diaspora, why then is there no right of return for Palestinians?
David Brooks glosses over important facts in what is an airy big-picture historical discussion applied to the recent violence.
The Gaza fence is not an international border. The people in Gaza are under blockade by Israel...land, sea, and air, and a blockade is an act of war. They are sitting ducks, largely unarmed people being gunned down, and the world sees it. There was no excuse to use live bullets, as several Israeli commentators have also pointed out.
Plying the "two sides" narrative doesn't work when Israel is clearly the occupying power and the Palestinians are the occupied. The asymmetry is extreme, and this is increasingly difficult to cover up who bears primary responsibility.
4
You have it backwards, no blockade (even though moist goods come in from Israel, not through Egypt) till Hamas comes to power. Hamas quite honestly does not hide the fact they are at war with Israel and want to eliminate Israel. Blockade comes into effect due to Hamas's intentions and stated goals. Do you believe a peaceful group coming to power in Gaza bent on recognition of Israel and not it's destruction would be blockaded (search blockade of Gaza prior to Hamas-it doesn't exist)?
2
Your column completely ignores the fact that Israel has been offering the Palestinians almost everything short of dismantling the state of Israel. This only caused further rise in Palestinian rejectionism and extremesim.
As long as the Palestinians continue to deny the right of the Jewish people of any part of the country, nothing will work.
And as long as goodwilling people continue to turn a blind eye towards this fact, and suggest offering more concessions (what exactly?) to the Palestinians, their extremism will only get tougher.
And last point - Being aware of the inevitable media assault, do you really believe that the Israeli army did not do anything possible to avoid the killings? When Hamas itself declares that 80% of those killed were its operatives, how blind of the facts can one be?
11
Daniel: Wow!! Would everything "Israel has been offering the Palestinians" include lifting the embargo? Providing health care and food?
I will give odds that, once again, most readers will condemn Brooks with ad hominem attacks and without substantively refuting his observations or analysis. When he writes the following, Brooks succinctly describes not merely the Israeli/Palestinian conflict but many of today's disagreements, especially those within the very polarized United States.
"First, the question shifted from 'What to do?' to 'Whom to blame?”'The debates were less about how to take steps toward a livable future and more about who is responsible for the sins of the past. The central activity became moral condemnation, with vindication as the ultimate goal."
2
Generally agreed, David. I'm disgusted with these vision of Trump talking about peace by backing up Mr. Yahoo as I call him and watching this horrendous response. Continuing on this path, I fear, will end with Iran starting a nuclear war with Israel, and what possible good could come of that?
As people of small tribes, we're so unable to contemplate really complex fights between large factions.
I agree with David, that the movement of the stealing of the Palistinian's lands to create the Jewish state was WRONG, but what do we do now. The world did a lot of things wrong in the wake of WWII, and we can't seem to get a handle on most of them.
There aren't 2 sides to every issue. Sometimes there's about 100 valid sides to an issue, and so how do we as humans evolve to use the internet is it is intended to allow such large numbers of valid poisitions to create peace and understanding?
I tried. I guess I failed. But at least I tried. Somebody else, please try to think about this... It won't go away.
We are well beyond the issue of stealing Palestinian land to create Israel in 1948 being right or wrong. What we are not beyond is the continual theft (the only word for it) of Palestinian land for new settlements.
If we need to correct old wrongs let us return all the land we stole from Native Americans.
This is a pleasant surprise. I don’t agree with Brooks on some important points, but unlike Stephens he isn’t denying any Israeli responsibility for the death toll. If more people approached the subject with a recognition that their favored side isn’t perfect, maybe there could be progress. Don’t shoot at unarmed people even when they are hundreds of feet from the boundary. Baby steps.
1
Yes extremism corrupts our own thinking when we are a party to the conflict, but if we take a birds eye view of the situation and not emotionally involved in it our rational mind certainly would work. What has happened in GAZA during the last few weeks which started as a nonviolent protest against occupation by Israel, the most powerful nation in Mid-East, to say the least is abhorrent if not criminal?
It is rather refreshing to see that even you got to a point where you had to write this op-ed when not very long ago even your child participated in training with IDF, This specific relationship between many opinion makers in the US and IDF is one of the main issues that must be addressed if we are going to help resolve this 70 year old issue we call the Two State solution. Two State Solution has been dead for many decades now. Israel cannot be a theocratic (Jewish) Democracy on one hand and keep the Palestinians under occupation.
Yes the Arab rulers have used the Palestinians for their own reasons either directly or through proxies such PLO or Hamas. Factually as you rightly pointed out Hamas came into power as a result of free and fair election in GAZA in 2006, although it was founded in 1987.
Historically there is blame on all sides, but as Israel is the Goliath in this case, it behooves them to do the heavy lifting. It will only happen if we also withhold our unconditional support for every act that Israel commits.
1
The both sides extremist claim is a cop out. There was no violence from Hamas in this case; it was a case of mass murder of unarmed people (51%children) forced to live in horrific conditions. Equivalence narratives absolve perps, and pave paths to justice. It's almost impossible to believe such cruelty can come from a group whose forebears suffered so much and similarly.
5
“And so the main question,” Amos Harel asked in Haaretz, “is what did Israel do to prevent this blood bath before it happened? The answer is, almost nothing was done.”
And how much is necessary to do in order to be let off the hook for "what did you do to prevent"?
Hamas has never recognized the 1948 State of Israel and calls for its destruction. The Jewish inhabitants of 1948 have no place in their future Palestine/(former) Israel and will be removed or killed.
Let us assume that Israel removed the blockade and helped the Gaza economy? Would that make Hamas accept Israel? Unlikely. Their opposition is religious and theological, which nobody ever bothers to point out. If things got better would that weaken Hamas? No. Probably just strengthen Hamas, after all it they would say that their policies are working.
So then you would have a stronger Gaza still intent on destroying Israel.
The position of Hamas is religious, not political as is the Palestinian Authority. That is also why these two groups cannot get along.
So Mr. Brooks, you have a lot of pilpul and platitudes (and a few mistakes, but I ignore them), but really nothing viable.
Hamas is not just about extremism, but religious extremism and religious Islamic extremism, endemic to the Middle East. It is not a flight from reality, it is a be-all engulfing reality.
As long as the world grants them their reality, photo-ops, monies, publicity, symbols and hope of a 1948 return, there will be no change.
8
Thank you for a very perceptive view of a terrible situation. You clarified my thinking and perspectives.
"I see the situation through the 'extremism corrupts everybody' narrative."
Why am I not surprised?
Yes people don't face the reality that their kids will pay the greatest price for everything when we are gone. The consequences of hate are lived by the next generation.
1
While I appreciate the way Mr. Brooks has framed the situation, I believe he engages in his own flight from reality when he saddles the Israelis with the burden of having to "prevent" violence. Not one single person or country has ever been successful in preventing violence there. Wouldn't it be more honest to hold those perpetuating the violence responsible for it? Putting this onus on Israel is engaging in an equally unrealistic type of thinking.
4
Israel is a nominal democracy; like the US, Israel has shifted to the extremist right in its policies towards immigration and defense in the past few years. The responsibility for these changes in policy lies with the people, not with the leaders, since the people voted for them. It seems that the logical conclusion is that in certain situations, people will gravitate towards extremism. Those "certain situations" include a fearful populace, and exposure to extremist propaganda to the exclusion of rational discourse. Sadly, we now have Fox News exposing us to extremist propaganda here in the US, and people who willingly shut themselves off from rational discourse. In Israel, I'm sure they have their own extremist propaganda mills. The solution is openness and transparency.
4
Hamas, the effective Palestinian government in Gaza, is at war with Israel. Period. Full stop. They are irrevocably committed to the destruction of Israel. Israel has no option in dealing with them, except to defeat them, and this will inevitably involve a lot of death and suffering for the Palestinians. Israel has repeatedly been willing to give up land to achieve peace. And every time their Arab enemies have genuinely been willing to let Israel live in peace--Egypt and Jordan--it has worked.
Hamas instigated an invasion of Israel, and the result was that Palestinians died. To suggest that the country being invaded is any way culpable is grotesque. Mr. Brooks brings his own twist to the incessant leftist accusation against Israel that they used disproportionate force in countering an invasion of their country by people committed to killing Jews. Yet, he, like all the other critics, fails to articulate how Israel could have countered the threat more humanely. Proportionate force is defined as the amount of force reasonably needed to neutralize a threat--and has nothing to do with the amount of force used by the threat. This was not a matter of crowd control, it was an attempted invasion. Until someone can articulate a clear and reasonable alternative, the conclusion must be that Israel used proportionate force to defend its nation and its people--and they should be commended for doing so.
194
This comment proves Brooks' argument. Each side has its own rigid account which it repeats, without thinking about practical solutions that could end the bitter stalemated.
29
Given that a single gunman in Las Vegas killed five times more people in 30 minutes than an entire army facing thousands of rioters killed in two days, logic dictates that the army was holding back. Maybe Israel could have planned better, but those soldiers were obviously trying to avoid killing people when possible.
17
Not sure this analysis holds water. The Las Vegas situation was tens of thousands of concert goers gathered into a crowded space. The Palestinian teens throwing rocks and bottles were likely more dispersed, harder to hit.
I do wholeheartedly agree that "Maybe Israel could have planned better". You think?
Political extremism by any other name is inevitably and irrevocably called murder, Mr. Brooks. Your attempt to create and argue for some gray when black and white exists in such high contrast in this case, and your attempt does nothing to deny the facts. Shooting people who are angry and, for the most part, unarmed, is murder, and the contrasting irony of Trump's emotionally unfathomable foreign policy, which is a mix of appealing to the apocalyptic Christian fundamentalist base, and his disruptive chaos theories have put us on the brink yet again.
1
A few questions :
-Who is willing to break this escalating spiral of violence?
-What would have been the reactions of American citizens, and institutions if the army of the United States had firedon a crowd demonstrating on the Mexican side of the border with bone shattering ammunition and shooting above the waste in a majority of cases?
-Reactions to expropriations of Canadians' lands and houses along the Vancouver border?
-Reactions to endless occupation of foreign territories?
What makes this all the more painful is that this is the behavior of an ally and a democracy, infinitely more powerful than its adversary.
So I repeat, who has the courage to break this spiral of violence? It spreads hatred around the world, making it unsafe for Americans.
Not an enlightened policy, this, our unquestioning defense of "an eye for an eyelash" policy of retaliation.
David, I started reading your column, knowing, just knowing, you would take the same opinion as Bret Stephens, and yet I was pleasantly surprised. Thank you for this honest appraisal of the terrible situation in this region. As I said in my comment to Bret’s column, there’s plenty of blame to go around, but at the end of the day, the group with the most power should show the most restraint, and plan a strategic next step in order to avoid just what happened last week.
You, of all people, who have great ties to Israel, are exhibiting exactly what is needed in the region. Until Netanyahu is kicked out, however, this won’t happen. The Israeli people need to “man-up” and get rid of this despicable man, just as Americans need to do at home. Only when there are thoughtful non-extremists in charge, will the ship get righted. And then the hard work of repairing the damage begins. It probably won’t be in my lifetime, but maybe there will be a day when there is peace in the Middle East and respectability back in the United States.
1
Extremism and religious fanaticism. Once the gods have decided to give some group land, political power, and a sense that they alone are right on matters of life, death, or whatever, that belief in gods justifies and corrupts everything and everyone involved.
I have no idea what to do about this. I stay away from religious people of any kind. Once a person speaks of their belief in gods, they are off my list of reasonable people worth knowing. There is no reason to continue to interact with them. It's easy to do that here in America but with fanaticism and violence so "extreme" in the middle east and other parts of the world, it seems like the rest of us just need to keep our heads down. If the fanatics and extremists want to have a go at each other, there is little we can do about it. I'm not even sure it is worth talking about. It's what they do... let them do it and stay out of the way as best you can.
6
This vituperation against religionists has turned into extremism. Surely there must be some compromise along the lines of secular humanism. You needn't believe in god, but you can work for a better world along with those of us who do. It's "us against them" along with naked greed that has caused religious wars.
Can we drop "us against them?"
2
This is a well written statement of the rational path to the best outcome. Its problem is that its foundation in rational strategic thinking misses some of the deeper instabilities in the human psyche. Long term living in communities fractured by opposing competing world views doesn't stay in the rational optimal track. People eventually conclude that their personal psychological health is better served by a simplifying extremist approach which offers hope of salvation even if it is disconnected from reasonable possibilities of achieving it. The question of how to support people to maintain psychological health in the midst of political, economic, and social dysfunction hasn't yet been answered, although Brooks has written helpfully about the topic with some regularity.
2
David Brooks makes some very good points here. People do need to avoid extremist thinking and learn to negotiate differences.
But I also think both sides in a confrontation need to actually "hear" the grievances of the other side. This point was strangely missing from the article. Non-confrontational listening has been shown to have a healing effect in the contexts of abuse of power or long standing conflicts.
The Jews and Palestinians in Israel of course know the claims and arguments of each side. But they are so caught up in the feeling of being the aggrieved party that they don't really understand the other's point of view or experiences.
The situation in Gaza is intolerable AND Hamas is a bad actor. The Israeli policy of settlements when seen over decades has been to effectively annex the West Bank. So today, an independent state for the Palestinians seems a lost hope as does peaceful co-existence for the Israelis. Fear, anger, me and mine - not so much empathy for suffering.
The solution for self-determination and a state for the Palestinians, coupled with Israeli security I think must start from hearing, with an open heart, the suffering of individual people's experiences - with no judgement or response. Of course, people such as Netanyahu are the last to implement something like this. But in this age of global interconnectedness and mass media - can't such reconciliation meetings be started and broadcast to the people? It would require great courage to participate.
1
Mr. Brooks offers a reasonable analysis. And so what? -- When will Trump and Hillary make up? When will the lion lay down with the lamb without eating it?
1
A well written thoughtful article. Too many journalists and people online are falling for the 'whose side am I on' narrative without recognizing that both sides are at fault. Both sides have leadership that are holding on to power tooth and claw. Hamas refuses to call elections, blames Israel for every death when they orchestrate the events leading to those deaths and Israel has fallen into learned helplessness. David, I do disagree with you that there was anything to be done. What could possibly be offered to a government that still aims to destroy you? What concession can be given when every concession so far has been seen as a sign of weakness and taken as a chance to build up methods to infiltrate and kill Israelis? I appreciate the thought you have put into this but the issue is Hamas, a terrorist organization who puts the destruction of Israel above the prosperity of Gazans. I do not say Palestinians because the leadership in the West Bank has chosen a different approach and is doing well for it. The issue is that Hamas is in power and will not be removed and if there is any threat to their power they agitate the crowds, create a crisis and then scream about how they are oppressed
115
It would appear to me that the leaders of both Israel and Palestine are bent on destruction. Neither of them care about the lives of their countrymen, women or children
8
It isn't just the leadership that "offers a different approach" in Gaza. Hamas was initially elected by Gazans, even though their political platform at the time called for killing Jews (see the section in the Hamas Charter about killing Jews, even when they hide behind trees).
Gazans don't seem to worry about Hamas' Jew obsession. The Gazans wanted better trash collection and schools so they ignored the racist stuff. They are responsible because they initially elected a group akin to The Klan.
3
It's a better piece than one typically sees in NYT.
But Brooks repeatedly conflates effect with cause and displaces actions or motivations outside their context in order to explain matters in ways that serve his argument but fails to find accord with actual facts.
I see an analogy in this conflict with the way the US has dealt with Native American tribes since colonial times.
The pattern was pretty consistent. Push the people off lands they had used for generations. Depict those who resisted as bloodthirsty devils. Use overwhelming force to confine those who survived and weaken the cultures that sustained the tribes.
One difference is that the colonists and later the people who were seeking Manifest Destiny were so much more powerful that the fragmented tribes had little hope of any kind of victory once a tipping point was achieved.
The Palestinians have been used and manipulated since the creation of Israel in 1948. That part is true enough.
If only "they" had made better choices, "they" would not be suffering today.
A lot of what's wrong in the Middle East today is rooted in its own colonial history. People who were pursuing empire often made mistakes. I don't know how we can change that, but killing unarmed protestors doesn't seem to be the best path to peace.
8
David, my narrative focuses on antisemitism - beginning as far back as Martin Luther and the Spanish Inquisition - and explores how indefensible forms of human ideology lead to collective misery and unimaginable tragedy.
The state of Israel was created in the aftermath of the Holocaust - which itself was merely the culmination of centuries of Christian antisemitism.
Christian Europe and America asked the Palestinians to accept a land sacrifice because we had not done the right thing for literally centuries - that is, explore how Christian antisemitism, as encouraged in gospel narratives and latter day theological and cultural attitudes, had sowed such an existential sense of terror in Jews that they concluded that only a homeland would suffice.
America has taken in a greater number of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, over the past twenty years than all the Jews in Israel.
Maybe a Jewish state wasn't the answer. Maybe the answer was for Europe and America to ruthlessly decontaminate the religious texts and traditions that gave succor to the poison of antisemitism, even that required discarding certain of them completely.
David, honestly, given how attitudes have continued to harden on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, I can't see how this ends well for the ideal of a Jewish state - particularly as the Palestinian population increases. I just wish that it hadn't been thought necessary in the first place.
7
amen.
Brooks is 70 years too late.
The contradictions and unfairness have been obvious to both Jewish and non-Jewish persons from the start.
4
Yes. A lesson we need to learn in our own politics as well.
8
I agree with David 110%. Without compromise, there will be no peace.
The Palestinians need to produce their "Mandela"; their "Gandhi" (think of the Salt March); even their "Begin": a former terrorist now committed to peace.
And the Israelis must let-go of the delusion that they will occupy the entirety of what was Palestine.
Until then, there will just be more bloodshed and tragedy.
15
Mr. Brooks ignores a few details in his writings. Many of the displaced arabs were told to leave their homes by their fellow Arab countries., with the assumption they could return when Israel lost the war. Luckily, Israel amazingly survived. Those arabs who stayed were not displaced from their homes. In addition, after 1948, approximately 800,000 Jews were displaced from the Arab countries. The difference is that Israel absorbed these refugees, and they became active, vibrant members of Israeli society. The displaced Palestinians were never absorbed into any of the multitude of Arab countries, nor allowed to become citizens of any of those countries. If they went anywhere else in the world, they were allowed to become citizens. This was the political ploy to pressure Israel. Had they been absorbed into the other Arab countries there would not be this problem.
39
Perhaps your last sentence should read " Had they been absorbed into their own country, there would not be this problem".
Should there not be two states?
2
Well, on this one, I completely agree with you. And also, don’t let the Trump off the hook, either. Moving the embassy at this time was not going to bring about peace.
15
In an otherwise even handed analysis, David does accurately point to the "original sin" - the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians. This matter has been drowned by many, many subsequent events, so much so that each side is doubling down more frequently and more vehemently even as they point a finger at the other side.
This is not the first time that an "original sin" has mushroomed into a major social malaise in the long run. We don't have to go too far to think about how the effects of slavery is casting a long shadow over American society and politics even today. Just think about the issue of Civil War statues in the deep South.
Such a shadow hangs in Kashmir, the state hotly contested by India and Pakistan. The "original sin" was the that of drawing a border line by a British civil servant (Cyril Radcliffe) who had no idea of ground reality. In fact he came for the first time to the then British India, stayed for less than one week, drew a line without visiting the ground, and went back in a hurry.
But I believe there is a way out. It is for the powerful to give to the powerless, the landed to give to the landless, the rich to give to the poor. Shooting bullets at the impoverished, homeless, indigent folks is not a solution.
248
Regarding your proposed 'way out:' how much of all this would those with give to those without? Is the goal roughly an equal distribution of power, land, wealth? So some would have these things through work or inheritance, and others would have them through receiving a transfer? As I search in my mind for a setting -- 'natural' or 'unnatural' -- in which this approach currently works, I am coming up only with a family, one in which the adults willingly provide the children (or the 'disabled' adults, or the aged) all that which they need to flourish. In this 'family,' the particulars of who 'owns' the food, land, etc., is not really relevant, although a power differential certainly still exists. Power is as real as voltage or pressure. I think maybe nonviolence is the only way, but in all directions. Most of the folks I know who gather wealth and power do so because, at their root, they fear not having them.
6
The so called displacement is a completely false narrative. Had the Arabs accepted partition in 1948 many Jews would have relocated as well. instead thy declared war,attacked and lost. Boundaries are drawn routinely around the world and refugees are absorbed. If the Palestinians learn to look forward they can have a thriving vibrant nation. As long as their goal is the destruction of Israel they will suffer.
21
chikenlover, they have land. They have squandered resources including billions in aide. They have no power because they use energy in hatred, rather than education. And what you refer to as original sin (a loaded term, wonderful for propaganda), was much due to fear mongering from Jordan and PLO, driving out vilagers which now you call "displacement". So ironic, and yes tragic.
How about the hundreds of thousands of Jews driven from Iran, Syria, and Iraq during the same period when Jews suddenly went from neighbors to hated.
20
Most liberals who condemn the Israelis have no idea what the Israelis face, day-in and day-out, an existential threat that most Americans cannot conceive of. It is a threat that can only be deterred by lethal force, the Israelis know from long experience.
Millions of dollars have been sent to Hamas by the international community for infrastructure rebuilding and social services. What has it been used for? Ever-more sophisticated weapons, and tunnel-building, as Bret Stephen itemized for us in his column this week. Even Muslim Egypt sees the threat, and has boycotted Gaza. http://tinyurl.com/y7ltzwl3
The present government of Israel has no intention of negotiating a two-state solution. We all know that. But there were decades when such an offer was on the table, and such a solution was possible. The Palestinians rejected every offer of compromise. "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity," Abba Eban famously declared.
Now, the Israelis see what a two-state solution looks like in Gaza. Why should they agree to it in the West Bank?
What we’re seeing is a war waged by Hamas against Israel using terrorist tactics. This so-called "protest" at the fence was stage-managed; it was an act of war.
Liberals can talk all they want of the Gazans’ frustration at their condition, but it is largely of their own making. They play the victim card, because they know it plays well with Western liberals, who effectively have become their enablers.
47
Everything you say is true about the intractability of Hamas but your conclusion seems to fault Western liberals who are "enablers." Nice try.
Any Palestinian rejection of some meaningful Israeli solutions still doesn't justify the expansion of settlements, the lack of restraint (and planning as Brooks notes) of Israel defense forces when everyone knows they have the upper hand in weaponry and the ability to slaughter innocents and combatants alike. Liberal enablers do not justify these poisonous activities now deeply embedded in Israel political culture. People are right to speak out against them and wrong not to -- including you.
8
"Most liberals who condemn the Israelis have no idea what the Israelis face"
These actions aren't condemned by "liberals" but by every other nation state on earth that also faces the same potential violations of their borders.
Israel is certainly a unique country but Reality itself does not have a unique Israeli interpretation that exempts them from the same international law that everyone else follows routinely.
3
What could Israel do? Israel could stop throwing gasoline on the fire by agitating for the Trump Administration to declare Jerusalem its capital and allowing the U.S. embassy to move there--absent a two-state solution. Also Israel can stop meddling in U.S. affairs: dictating policy in the M.E., agitating for war with Iran, investigating and seeking to reduce the credibility of the Obama Administration's Iran negotiators, etc. Palestinians and neutral observers can see that the U.S. is not a neutral player in this conflict. The U.S. sends billions in aid and military weapons to Israel and Trump undercuts the Palestine refugees, by cutting aid "undermining stability in the entire region".
http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/02/the-unintended-consequences-of-trump...
26
The argument about effective non-lethal means being available at the border is false. They either aren't available there or aren't effective under the conditions there. The border area isn't a small urban area, and the distances involved also play a role. The numbers of rioters at each attack point was often massive.
The IDF was given the mission of not just preventing infiltrators from crossing the border, but of preventing Hamas from pushing down whole sections of the fence, which was their declared aim. They successfully completed their mission, and under the conditions, the amount of casualties was much lower than it could have been.
Imagine how many casualties there would have been if hundreds or thousands had crossed over, some of them terrorists, and some others armed with knives and determined to kill.
David Brooks point about Israel taking steps to improve the situation beforehand is a much better point.
If the so-called "international community" actually cared at all, they should stop the crocodile tears and instead:
1) Force Hamas to disarm and become only a social organization. Then the blockade can end; 2) Together with Egypt, build electric generation and water desalination plants - improve conditions and lessen dependence on Israel; 3) Invest in infrastructure in Gaza, which Hamas hasn't done.
77
who do you think you convince with the rhetoric of hamas? the reality is that israel continues to humiliate and colonize lands that do not belong to it.
4
Even if you believe that those people "swarming" the fence were savages bent on roasting the livers of Jewish babies, as one of Netanyahu's spokesmen said, I still can't buy the claim Israel used proportionate force.
But, of course, those people are not savages. They are doing what Jews would do if it were they who had the misfortune to be inmates of the Gaza camp. The Jews would resist, using both armed and unarmed means.
And building power and water plants (with money from everyone except Israeli taxpayers) won't change the fact it's still a prison camp. Until the Arab children on the other side of the fences you have erected have the same justice freedoms as your children, you will not have peace, nor should you. There is but one state between the Med and Jordan River. The only question now is will it be a democratic state or an apartheid state.
2
I almost never agree with you, Mr. Brooks, but this time you are exactly right. Unfortunately,
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst/
Are filled with passionate intensity." (Yeats)
18
I don't see either of those narratives.
I see over 100 military sniper teams lined up with a plan, and then according to plan shooting down hundreds of unarmed people including women and children. I see more dead and wounded than in the invasion of Gaza, all on one side, in a mass slaughter.
The extremists I see are justifying that.
185
@ Mark, although I appreciate writers trying to find a way to present a balanced view, as concerns this shooting I finally support your and Richard Luettgen's comments. He surprised me.
Here in Sweden Swedish public television is showing The State, apparently not yet appearing in the US. Some scenes in that too horrible to watch probably show what went on on the Gaza side of the fence.
I no longer see any hope for a solution, none. It is simply impossible to believe that there can be any presentation of firm proposals - take back the settlements, create an Israel with full citizenship rights for all, not just for those who are following American Census Bureau practice designated as "Jewish by law".
Strangely, during all the post Saddam years in Iraq, terrorism took place during Ramadan at the hands of people professing to be Muslms. Now in this Ramadan, the Israelis terrorize people who have no power.
We need a memorial with the names of all killed on stone tablets and their histories, lines of descent, and other information at a website.
Larry
9
Clearly, you see only what you want to see. And that is part of the problem.
2
Me with a rock in my hand, running toward a guy with an automatic rifle, that is an extreme act.
4
The biggest and most dangerous enemies of extremists are the peacemakers, the people who avoid playing the hate game. They are demonized as cowards and traitors, and often the extremists will work together to bring them down and get them out of the way so the "real" battle can begin. Except that the real battle is against the peacemakers and not the other side's extremists.
14
What brought on this paean to evenhandedness of David’s was the death-and-catastrophic-injury toll occasioned at the fence. Israel basically declared war and used the kind of ammunition one army uses against another … on civilians.
That was a grave mistake. Israel’s legitimate interests could have been protected using non-lethal means. They chose another path. This one act has energized the global movement against Israel really created by Abbas over years of careful steering, one that could damage Israel’s economy if repeatedly given this kind of sustenance; and put pressure on its relationship with us. Trump’s sympathy and support, that saw our capital moved to Jerusalem as a clear act of brinkmanship to shock a frozen peace process loose will be threatened the microsecond that polls of his base conclude that strong support for Israel is flagging. Trump has thrown MANY close allies under the bus over the years when individual interests were seen to clash with his own.
The Palestinians are on the ropes. They’ve largely been abandoned by their Arab allies, who are as bored and wearied by this endless hatred, intractable Authority-Hamas schism and pointless violence. They can be forced to the table when sources of serious financial support start to wither. But not if Israel continues to kill Palestinian civilians wantonly, unnecessarily.
37
Someone or some people made the dreadful decision to shoot down civilians at the fence with lethal ammunition. He or they need to pay a price. If that was Bebe Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, then it may be time for both to go, in the greater strategic interests of an Israel that was and still is WINNING, and in the name of simple humanity.
When Israel risks the loss of ME in this forum for what amounts to a heinous and criminal act that either actively targeted CHILDREN, or was blind to the obvious potential consequences of firing live ammunition into a civilian mob … then they risk losing the support of MANY others.
36
"Israel’s legitimate interests could have been protected using non-lethal means."
So we've been told. What exactly should Israel have done? Please follow all options to their likely conclusions. Hard to imagine one that didn't result in violence of some kind. Certainly anything that Israel did would have been met with international condemnation. Israel, in the end, took the steps that best protected itself, circumventing all of the above.
3
Wow, pretty much agree with you, except for this:
“Trump’s sympathy and support, that saw our capital moved to Jerusalem as a clear act of brinkmanship to shock a frozen peace process loose”
That’s is just not true...a spiteful act by a spiteful man. That’s it.
"There was plenty of time to figure out how to handle the crowds without bloodshed."
With an estimated 40,000 protesters massed near the border fence, determined to reach the fence and destroy it, I am surprised the death toll was not considerably higher.
Once the decision had been made by the people of Gaza and their Hamas leadership to engage in this demonstration, I don't see what more Israel could have done to ensure the safety of its citizens while minimizing deaths at the fence.
Certainly, allowing the fence to be breached and letting the protesters spill over into Israel would have resulted in far more deaths.
62
When WILL Israel deal with its expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians into a permanent concentration camp? Gaza is only 140 miles, its people trapped, no jobs, no future. Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, much like our own President, seem oblivious to the morality of such situations. There is always a better response than the slaughter of unarmed people, including children. "When we ever learn? When will we ever learn?"
2
but is your premise sound, David, that two generations tried?
Unlike every other population shift or land loss of the twentieth century, Palestine's has generations labeled as refugees with aged towns labeled as camps. Small children are told they belong elsewhere. Arafat et al never accepted half a loaf. There's been no "the Elbe is it" consensus in that body politic.
The delusion of being a refugee, "returning", that has to end for all this carnage to end. Kant's descendants are not going back to Konigsberg and Abbas' won't repossess Haifa.
55
But using your argument Israel should not have been created in the first place. Why were the Zionists right but the Palestinians wrong?
3
If Jews who have been absent for millennia have an absolute right of return, why not Palestinians who are only a generation away from their own diaspora?
2
because the argument has nothing to do with whether the Jews returned or not - migrations happened all over throughout the 20th century, for one reason or another and with different levels of carnage. They're done - Indians, Germans, Armenians, Jews, Russians. It's done. Where you are, you are. The only alternative is to unravel Europe and India and half of Turkey and Israel too ... on and on. And who in their right minds would do that?
I doubt that David Brooks’s colleague Bret Stephens would agree with such an even-handed portrayal of the current situation in Israel. And even though I’m usually to the left of both of them, my sense is that Stephens and I are more aligned on this issue.
Why? Because even during the era of “pragmatism” on both sides that Mr. Brooks describes, one thing remained constant: the Palestinians were never really committed to negotiating a two-state solution in good faith. Their ingrained rejection of Israel’s existence and unreasonable demands (such as a right of return for all Palestinians — which Israelis see clearly as a liquidation plan for their country) got us to where we are today.
Indeed, Palestinian rejectionist extremism and terrorism fueled the ultranationalist settler movement long enough to make a two-state solution untenable.
86
I have to agree as I don’t really see that the Palestinians are changed in their motivation but their total accepting of representing themselves that way and the world keeps going along. I can send children to be shot and not be blamed or I can shoot someone on 5th Avenue and still be loved. Trump unknowingly is playing that part and too many Israelis are buying into it.
3
Bret And David were asked by NYT to do the good cop bad cop routine.
1
"the Palestinians were never really committed to negotiating a two-state solution in good faith"
Since neither you nor nor I nor any other human being has ever seen Israel really commit to negotiating a two-state solution in good faith, the best conclusion is that these two entities are equally morally culpable (and that I am a far more honest person than are you).
1
Great column finally a balanced view! I dont really see that kind of thing any more in anything I read
34
To date this is among the best analyses of the Israel-Palestine relentless and often violent conflict. The bottom line, to which I fully agree, is the extremism on both sides. To paraphrase David Brooks, Israel needs to find a way to assuage Palestine's extremism while curbing its own. Otherwise there will continue to be more vengeful acts, more deaths, more hostility. In my mind, I would take it one step further...a two-state solution must become a reality.
I have one further thought, and it pertains to our own country, not that our present paradigm is nearly as devastating as the above. But if we stand back and be an observer rather than a participant we can not help but see how our opposing political and social policies are ominously dividing America in half. This division is not only corrupting our treasured and time-tested institutions of order and stability, but it is also eroding our very foundation as a thriving democracy.
15
David, that was a thoughtful column. Thank you for it.
Here are some additional observations:
(Full disclosure: I was a U.S. Marine shooting instructor so I know about these things). What kind of ammunition were the IDF forces using? They were shooting Palestinians in the legs, but if they were using AR-15 .223 type ammunition then it means that a leg shot would result in catastrophic damage as the bullets shattered on impact and tore through flesh, bone, muscle and tendons.
The shocking scale of death and injury left me reeling. I have not seen statistics of this order since the Soviet invasion of Hungary in the 50's when Soviet forces slaughtered and arrested thousands. The United Nations MUST investigate this incident and present a full and unbiased report of their findings.
217
Rigoletto,
You are right about the need for the intervention of an outside force like the UN. Left to themselves, the resolution of the Palestinian - Israeli conflict will only come with the complete destruction of one side by the other. A greater outside force needs to impose peace on both sides.
3
Right on. As a teenager in Detroit I knew families who sponsored Hungarian freedom fighters fortunate enough to reach the US and claim asylum. Few, if any, of those injured in the protests will be fortunate enough to escape Gaza.
2
This was an attempted invasion by a populace committed to the destruction of Israel and the extermination of Jews anywhere they are to be found. Having read very many articles from very many sources, I have seen not a single alternative submitted by any writer or reader as to how Israel was to protect its border and its citizens. Very easy to criticize from afar- would any other nation tolerate a violent horde at its border? Live ammo- perhaps it was the only means possible to prevent a massive breach and the resulting disaster that would have ensued. Very sad....
2
Your column is spot on, as far as it goes. But to understand why the Palestinian narrative has shifted from 1967 to 1948, one has to consider the relentless proliferation of Israeli West Bank settlements. I suggest that you and any interested reader Google a map of West Bank settlements to see what the Palestinians clearly see: the impossibility of assembling a contiguous or even coherent second state of Palestine. The settlements enjoy private fortified highways to "mainland" Israel and these highways slice up the land into a web of isolated islands and impede transit from anywhere Palestinian to anywhere else. The two-state option has already been precluded, showing that for a long time talk of peace and a Palestinian homeland has been a ruse and a fraud that the Israelis have no intention of honoring. The settlements have, from the start, told the Palestinians that there is no compromise solution that Israel will accept. Hence, they are left with but two choices, abject submission to military rule or the path of nihilistic terrorism and apocalyptic dreams.
228
Thank you. Many who write about this conflict aren't in touch with the all the facts and lived reality.
13
I have always thought from the start that the solution to settlements would be for the Israeli army and government to not be involved in settler protection. Make the authority be responsible for policing. This is of course a pipe-dream but it would force 1) the lack of resultant security to factor into the desire to live on the west bank 2) encourage the settlers to have good relations with the surrounding Arabs, and 3) expose the venality and incompetence of the Authority. It would encourage less settlement and a demand for the Authority to develop. A number of monetary methods could be utilized to ensure at least partial compliance.
3
You forget to mention that these most of these developments were largely taken after Israel becomes disillusioned from the Palestinian. Specifically, after removing 40000 Israelis from the Gaza Strip and receiving Hamas.
4
David Brooks, I agree with everything you wrote here. I've been coming to your conclusions on my own while thinking about the latest border clash. I didn't see the root causes in extremism so clearly if at all.
I've been sensing this exact tired pathos in the contemporary Middle East peace scene. Like no party to the mess is genuinely working for a just peace. Or even for an end to high anxiety status quo extremism.
Where's the hope in any of this? I'm mystified.
15
Historically, hope exists independent of current reality.
"Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us."
-- Golda Meir
Having said that, the Israelis need to defer to rubber bullets, tear gas and other non-lethal forms of self-defense.
There's no excuse for spraying real bullets into a sea of people....unless you're a white, male Christian terrorist celebrating your 2nd Amendment Derangement Syndrome in one of America's town squares.
“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”
~ Albert Einstein
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
270
Arabs love their children more than they hate Israelis. The Jews that were members of Irgun loved their children more than they hated the British who promised the promised land to more then a couple of nations. Dear Mr. Socrates, I admire you comments in the Times more than any of the articles themselves most of the time. In this case the world is more complicated than the wonderful quotes from Golda Meir (a distant relative of mine), Einstein and MLK.
14
Along with Socrates, I question David Brooks' deflection to write about a foreign country to which the US gives an obscene amount of money and which is turning increasingly into a fascist theocracy instead of calling out the white faux christians in our country who have had their hatred and bigotry promoted by the current president and congress.
Socrates usually points out how Lord Brooks prefers to write columns that, in essence, say, "Look over there, not here."
About a week ago I read an interesting report by Uri Avnery about his confrontation with Golda Meir during their Knesset time.
Avnery described her despise for Arabs and everything Arab. I was shocked since I knew that she had come from the USA to Israel.
The feeling to be something better by race, nationality, education and/or religion is a harrowing thing in mankind.
12
An effective psychological antidote to extremism is to adopt as a mantra the line from Daniel Kahneman's excellent book, Thinking Fast and Slow:
"Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it."
Seeing and understanding this is the opposite of extremism, which is the overvaluation of some considerations to the exclusion of all others, of which there are many.
50
The problem is that sometimes extremism arises when no solution can be found to resolve the underlying problem. It is easy to ask "what did Israel do to avoid the {Gaza fence] bloodbath"; it is much more difficult to come up with a practical suggestion for what Israel could have done differently. Similarly, if Arab countries (or Palestinians) refuse to accept the initial creation of Israel, it is difficult to find a compromise that includes the existence of Israel.
149
Pete,
I agree.
Some wrongs are so great that there is no compromising of the two opposing sides. In WWII the allies wanted unconditional surrender from both the Germans and the Japanese. Compromising on something less was unthinkable for the allies. Nuclear bombing of Japan and firebombing of Dresden were certainly extreme actions, but apparently justified extremism, given the wrongs the Japanese and the Germans committed.
Some wrongs are so extreme that they lead to extreme reactions. Displacing 700,000 Palestinians in Palestine with Europeans might be one of those wrongs. And the only apparent solution seems to be unconditional surrender by one side or the other.
10
No one can or will look to find a solution for the underlying problem(s). All the "parties" to the situation have gore-able oxen.
Had Israeli soldiers viewed the Gaza border protests as the legitimate expression of individuals with human rights, they could have stayed on their side of the border, and detained those who crossed it. We see this strategy at work in the United States during political demonstrations. Arrested means you get cuffed behind your back with plastic bracelets, not crippled for life with live bullets. Why did Israel fire over the border? why did they use live bullets? Why did they use extreme military violence against unarmed demonstrators who did not cross their borders? I think there were many possible answers to the question of what Israel could have done differently.
23
Mr Brooks makes a lot of good and important points about "extremist" positions and how they play out over time. It gets complicated when one considers that in many states someone who proposed inter-racial marriage in 1860, or gay rights in 1960, would have been seen as a crazy extremist rather than a voice from the future.
Sorting "extremists" from those who are ahead of their time requires assessing how much effort they put into dehumanizing those on the other side and shutting down non-violent disagreement (or at least how well they tolerate others who do this).
8
There is a lot wrong in the Middle East. Like the Balkans were (and could still be), it is a troubling place on the globe. You may talk about identity politics in America but in the Middle East everything is identity politics. In the Middle East it prevents them from understanding or caring about the other side's point of view, experiences, or lives.
No one wants to compromise. (Like our Congress, they all believe that they have truth on their side.) The Arabs have kept this conflict alive by refusing to offer citizenship to the Palestinians. The Israelis, under the leadership of Netanyahu, keep on building settlements. No one wins, nothing positive is accomplished, and the fight goes on.
65
You´ve just illustrated a good reason to reject the term "identity politics". In the Middle East and Balkans it makes some sense, as a descriptor of religious and ethnic tensions. In the USA it just describes the ongoing battle for civil rights.
2
one thing i don't read or hear mentioned , and maybe because it is stating the obvious, is that in the middle east we have some of the original tribes of humanity. it is made even more intense because it is the cradle of at least three major religions with their differing ideas about what actually happened so long ago and what was important about those events. many speak about the palestinians and the israelis but do those words really ring with the depth of their meaning? this is not some 60 year old conflict it goes back thousands of years and i am not sure that all of the participants really know exactly how it all started. if there is ever peace here it will only happen when humans finally relate more to the things they share than old grudges.
4
How would "Arabs" offer "citizenship" to Palestinians that has any relevance to Palestine?
That's sort of like saying the solution to DACA kids would be for Bolivia to offer them citizenship.
What's more, the problem is not merely people but also land. Are these "Arabs" also going to gain sovereignty to (at minimum) Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem? If not, then you've proposed nonsense that solves nothing.
2
As a student of history, it seems to me that the past is filled with bright horizons that were unfulfilled because of extremists who promised the sky. Iran had decent people who could have created a better future from the wreckage of the Pahlavi regime, but they were devoured by extremists who believed a religious fanatic could give them paradise by creating a "Government of God." Ethiopia had real reformers and democrats in the group who overthrew the monarchy, but they were bulldozed by people who believed that hard-line Marxism could lead to instant glory and prosperity. And look at this country. Look at how many people believe that paradise is right around the corner if we just tear down the whole system and put a "Disrupter" in charge, or do away with nearly all laws and conventions, or adopt socialism tomorrow, or go back to a romanticized 1950s. Lots of people are promising the sky in this country, but history is littered with bright horizons destroyed by extremists who believed they could have they sky. It reminds me of an curious line in an obscure Tom Petty song I've long wondered about: "Where the sky begins, the horizon ends." ( From the song For All the Wrong Reasons.) He sure had that right.
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There is another kind of extremism that Mr. Brooks could investigate, but this would require travel to Gaza to experience it. It is the extremism of hunger, poverty, lack of electric power, running water, shelter, vulnerability to violence (whether by the actions of Hamas rockets provoking Israel, or Israeli missiles and gunfire killing innocent civilians) lack of medical supplies, etc. Many things the middle classes and upper classes of America (surely Mr. Brooks belongs to the latter) take for granted are of course missing in Gaza, in Ethiopia, in Yemen, in Afghanistan, and so many other places. Sometimes, when disaster such as a hurricane or fire strikes a community in America, we experience loss for a bit. Our massive electronic media can focus on such momentarily, but not so much on the incremental gathering of suffering through low wages, dead-end jobs, pollution, medical expenses, and so on that are the gathering storm here. Regardless of where incrementally increasing suffering is, here or abroad, sooner or later it brings unrest and a search for 'saviors' who promise the moon.
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The U. N. Relief and Works Agency helps feed the poor, educate children, and care for the sick. One million Palestinians in Gaza survive on food provided by UNRWA. In February, the Trump admin announced it would reduce its UNRWA contribution by 83 percent from $360 million in 2017 to $60 million. For vulnerable Palestinians, such cuts have real costs and are another kind of violence for a population who have endured 50 years of occupation.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/02/the-unintended-consequences-of-trump...
Well yes, of course, the Gaza Strip is a bloody mess. The aquifer is depleted. The rebuilding from the last war has hardly begun. It's overcrowded. Unemployment is abysmally high.
But the laws of cause and effect must be attended to. Rather than the relatively porous borders the Gaza Strip might have had after Israel closed up shop, Hamas's behavior forced a partial blockade.
More recently the Kerem Shalom border crossing has been attacked three times in as many weeks, preventing the passage of hundreds of trucks carrying food, medicine, and building materials.
This is a fair of analysis of the politics of extremism that has escalated conflict. I hope that people on both sides of this conflict can read and reflect on this.
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Since Israel turned Gaza into a ghetto on the pretext that Hamas was elected, the IDF has killed nearly 15,000 Gazans (versus about 450 Israelis -- stats from B'Tselem web site).
Those 15,000, and the 100 more Israel added to their number so far this week, will not the "reflecting" on anything.
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David:
Brilliant. And so sadly true.
One would imagine that the fact that $1.69T in worldwide arms sales, of which 50% go to the Middle East, might have some enjoying the endless violence on all sides. Mr. Trump and his sidekick Pence, surely unknowingly, have been made sure that the profits of the military-industrial complex will continue to increase for many more years to come. On the other hand...it may be possible Trump got a bribe from them to move the embassy....maybe we should look at his inauguration donor list again. Or hire Avenatti to dig connect the dots.
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do not kid yourself, this is not being done "unknowingly". the one thing you can count on with trump is that when things look really bad? he will make them worse.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-arms/trump-launches-effort-...
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I thought that extremism was the result of colonization. I try to be neutral in this conflict but I just can't. Historically, many sides took advantage of this conflict (or maybe think they're taking advantage). Extremism is a very vague term for me in a world of self-interest, gaining power and influence !
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