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I note that, on the very day after the attack, there was an article in Haaretz - the equivalent of the Israeli NYT, essentially, for Israel - the Haaretz had an article that said that Barak’s popularity had surged as a result of this attack and that he was now back in the political game, whereas before, for the last two years, he has been held largely responsible, along with Olmert, for the tremendous failure of the military up till now. Since Barak was the head of the Labor Party, the Labor Party had been very, very low in its public support, so this move may increase the support for the Labor Party.
KALL: Where does Livni fit in with this?
LERNER: Well, Livni also would have benefited from anything making her look like she’s the foreign minister of this current government. Her Kadema Party is standing also for elections – she’s running, like Barak, for Prime Minister. Both of them are facing the much more popular Netanyahu and Netanyahu is the most – or, I shouldn’t say the most, because Israel continually produces yet more extremes – but he’s the most extreme of the likely Prime Minister candidates. His support has come from more and more movement in Israel towards right wing solutions to its problems, towards extremist solutions to its problems. So here comes Livni, and Livni and Barak together, both of them being able to say “See how tough we were. We were able to stand up to Hamas and wipe them out. What exactly could Netanyahu do more than what we’ve done?” In that sense, the current attack on Gaza has to be understood as connected to the coming elections.
KALL: Well, I have to wonder… given the reality there in Israel, what could moderate politicians do, other than this kind of response, to prevent Netanyahu from taking the reins in February? Could they have not responded militarily and had any chance of winning the election and keeping Israel more moderate if they didn’t respond with a violent military response to those 80 rockets?
LERNER: Israel… depends on when you’re thinking of - if you’re thinking of after the rockets were launched, then no. There was nothing inevitable about that. That was because they didn’t negotiate a new cease fire. It couldn’t negotiate a new cease fire because Hamas put forward terms that said here, this is what we need for a new cease fire: We need you to totally give up this attack on militant leadership both in the West Bank and Gaza. We need you to open the border and not close it again, so that we can get food and we can get vital supplies into Gaza without it being dependent on the Israeli Army when they decide to cut it off. And we want to exchange Gilad Shalit [wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilad Shalit] for a thousand of our prisoners who are held in Israeli jails.
These were terms it was putting forward as a way to negotiate an ongoing cease fire. Were those reasonable terms? This is a matter of debate, but they were prepared to negotiate a continuation of the cease fire. It wasn’t that they were saying “Under no circumstances will we have a cease fire.”
KALL: Well, because there are people saying that Hamas refused to continue to renew the ceasefire.
LERNER: Well, they refused to continue it under the terms that currently existed because those terms were, for reasons that I've said, they were not reasonable terms for the Palestinians, but a ceasefire would have been possible and could have been negotiated, if Israel had made it clear that it wanted to do that, and wanted to make the concessions necessary to make that happen.
But in a more general way, of course there's something that moderates could've done; the moderate government could have said, "Look, we've just received a clear indication from Syria that Syria wants to negotiate a peace treaty with us, we'll negotiate that, we've just received in the last two months a restatement by the Saudis that the twenty-three Muslim countries that supported the Saudi initiative several years ago have re-signed on to it are asking once again for Israel negotiate a final peace settlement that would include the creation of a Palestinian state and Israel could have jumped at that and said “Wow, here, we’re going to have permanent peace with all of our Arab neighbors. They’re offering that peace. Now let’s sit down and see if we can negotiate the terms in ways that are acceptable to us.” But of course, the moderates didn’t do that.
From my standpoint, that wouldn’t have been sufficient. From my standpoint, what would be sufficient is if Israel were to take the next step, a step that I believe will only happen once the United Sates itself changes its orientation towards matters of war and peace. From my standpoint, let me start from the United States, that the fundamental error of American foreign policy as a contemporary in the 21st century is that it is based on a 19th century conception of homeland security that says that security will come when we dominate others, either through military means, economic means, or diplomatic means. This I call the Strategy of Domination.
I believe that in the 21st century, the only possible way for the United States to achieve security, or for anybody else to achieve security, is through a strategy of generosity and caring for others. That is, instead of domination, we need to show generosity towards others in the world. That’s why we at the Network of Spiritual Progressives and Tikkun Magazine, have been calling for, and have been starting a campaign for, a global Marshall Plan, to once and for all end global poverty, homelessness, hunger, inadequate education and inadequate health care and to repair the global environment. That approach would provide the United States with far more security than all the military spending that we are doing and will continue to do under the Obama government, because the Obama people still are stuck in the old paradigm of domination rather than of generosity and caring for each other.
In Israel, it’s the same issue. I would love to see the United States say,
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Ok we’re going to start the global Marshall Plan and the place we’re going to start is the Middle East. We’re going to help fund a major plan for rebuilding the Middle East and providing the economic infrastructure, as well as taking care of eliminating the extremes of poverty that people face in that area.
For Israel, the same thing; Israel could now end all of this by announcing that it would accept the basic structure of the Saudi plan, which would mean the creation of a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders of Israel with minor border modifications; and it would also involve a solid agreement of peace and not just tough peace, but an open hard peace between Israel and the surrounding Arab states.
KALL: I believe the conflict in the Middle East is the hardest problem in the world.
LERNER: I’m sorry you believe that. I don’t believe that at all.
