Is President Obama turning his back on Zionism?

According to Akiva Eldar writing at Haaretz, the answer is that indeed he is. However, Eldar’s column is not the standard fare one would see from Republican Hate Sites, or the Emergency Committee on Israel, or those sites promoting Obama Derangement Syndrome. In fact, it’s a column that makes a certain amount of sense and whether one agrees with the Eldar’s premise his argument is compelling.

That’s what an American administration does when it wants to do the best for Israel. Really? Does President Barack Obama not know that a two-state solution and expanding the settlements in the heart of the occupied territories are, as they say over there, an oxymoron? Does he not understand that Har Homa’s constant encroachment upon Bethlehem and the penetration by right-wing extremists into Sheikh Jarrah are designed to wipe out the last chance for a reasonable arrangement in Jerusalem?

Does he believe there is a Palestinian leader who is willing to hold negotiations with Israel at a time when Jewish thugs, if they aren’t busy chasing Palestinians off their lands, are setting fire to mosques or chopping down olive trees? Is the leader of the free world blind to the fact that when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks about two states, he is referring to a Palestine without the Jordan Valley, Gush Etzion, Ariel, Ma’aleh Adumim and, of course, without one grain of sand from the eternally holy soil of [the East Jerusalem neighborhood of] Shuafat?

Obama is not blind, and nor is he deaf or dumb. He is just another politician who has turned his back on the values with which he grew up and the people who believed in him, in order to remain in office.

Now Akiva Eldar is no anti-Zionist, nor is he an anti-Israel zealot. He is a Center-Left columnist at Haaretz and biographer of Israeli President Shimon Peres. He is a man that Bradley Burston (one of my favorite columnists) says is knowledgeable all things Israel. He is also known as being very much against the Occupation but I don’t think there is anyone that can accuse him of being against Israel or the vision of Zionism as espoused by Ben-Gurion and the original Yishuv.

Now no one with an ounce of sanity doubts that President Obama is a friend to Israel.  I mean, since the President is in office there have been multiple attempts to revive the Peace Process, security cooperation is at an all time high between America and Israel. The Americans have fully funded Israeli anti-Missile defense systems (the now proven) Iron Dome, and Magic Wand. Funding for Israel has increased, and the two countries have been working together to stop Iran’s blatant attempts at establishing  a presence in the Near East. Not too mention the Presidents support in the United Nations against unilateral Palestinian attempts at Statehood.

So with that in mind, how can one honestly say that the President has abandoned Zionism? Well, first of all, in Eldar’s mind (according to his article) he claims the Israeli Right and those supportive of the Prime Minister’s plan for a quasi independent Palestinian State, have abandoned the original tenets of Zionism and have embraced the ideals of “Post Zionism” and a One State solution. In this column (which is a spirited defense of Peter Beinart’s book “The Crises in Zionism“, Eldar takes on the right wing establishment.
Here is the crux of the argument;

At best the Prime Minister and his Rightist allies propose a solution where in the Occupied West Bank is divided into Security Zones (the entire Jordan Valley), Israeli Settlements (and including ALL of East Jerusalem) and about 50% of the land with no reliable water source for the Palestinians. At worst, the Prime Minister believes in a Two State solution with Jordan being recognized as a Palestinian State. Either way… this involves serious messing with the original Zionist dream which was to create a Jewish Democracy within the boundaries of the traditional lands of the Jewish People.  How does it do this?

1. Annexation of the West Bank and full granting of citizenship to the people there (Arabs) would immediate shift the demographics of Israel to a 58%-42% majority of Jews to Arabs in the state.  Given birthrates between both peoples (including the Haredi), it is estimated that by 2030 Israel would cease to have a Jewish majority.
2. If one includes the Gaza Strip (which is not seriously being discussed but would be an issue should militants continue along their merry path of rocket attacks and terror the demographics immediately change to 50%-50% Jews and Arabs.

Both of those options force Israel into a bind which would cause it to have to (at the very best) dismantle it’s democracy OR down the line, cease to be a Jewish State. It really is that simple.

Now let’s say that the Israelis follow the Prime Ministers plan which has been laid out for years. That is keeping the entire Jordan Valley as a Security Zone, Keeping the Settlement blocs that are already in place AND never dividing East Jerusalem. Well, that would set up a situation where no peace plan would be possible. And would cause the International community to look at Israel as they did like South Africa with Bantustans, nor would they be far off. Were the Palestinians ever to get serious about Peace (and I think it is safe to say that they are in no way serious about it now), their appeals to both the United States and future international powers would most likely NOT go unanswered.

Consider a Palestinian Polity that actually sat down and said… “Ok, give us parts of East Jerusalem and 96% of the territory that consists of the West Bank (along with Gaza) and in return we will recognize Israel as the National Homeland and State of the Jewish people AND we will sign a permanent peace treaty”. There would be no country in the world that would not support that. The Palestinians were close once but if they really wanted a State that is what they would do. Then what would Israel be faced with. Even the U.S. could not support Israeli intransigence at that point in time.

Here is where Eldar and Beinart (since Eldar’s column is a defense of Beinart) are right. The policies of the current administration in Israel can only promote permanent conflict or the destruction of Jewish Democracy (and possibly Israel itself). So.. in that sense their arguments are completely on target.

HOWEVER, I don’t think that one could make this argument and apply it to President Obama turning his back on the Zionist dream. Remember the Zionist dream is also about a sustainable state in the Near East. Security-wise given Palestinian maximalist demands and political instability, Israel cannot simply return to the 1967 borders, it just doesn’t make sense. Further, the task of displacing 350,000+ settlers is now almost impossible without touching off an Israeli civil war. The President seems to be,  in many ways, thinking solely along these lines. It seems he realizes what is at stake, but does not feel comfortable cracking down on the Israelis seeing as how there really seems to be no one on the Palestinian side that will forego their ultimate demands to reach a compromise.

In this sense I think one can argue with Eldar and say that while President Obama is possibly assisting in the demise of Israel as a Western democracy he has not turned his back on Israel as a nation. And thus, I think one can say that he has not turned his back on the Zionist dream of Israel as a Jewish State. I think Eldar’s (and Beinarts) claim in this is far too simplistic. It has far MORE credibility than the Rightists version of the same thing but it is in my mind simply not correct.