Hey Folks, happy new year! If you believe the Mayans, this might be our last one, so listen up.

I have not been posting much of late which is the bad news. The good news is that I have been making slow but steady progress on my dissertation and, despite my lack of regular updates, the readers just keep coming.

Here’s a summary of some of the more interesting statistics from the past year. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more posts about politics, history, culture, and academia in the near future.

Top 5 Search Terms for 2011:

1. gazimestan
2. pristina
3. ariel zellman
4. kosovo polje
5. eretz shalom

Top 5 Posts for 2011:

1. סקר
2. Анкета
3. Day 6: Caglavica, Gracanica, Gazimestan (Kosovo Polje)
4. Curriculum Vitae
5. Review: Sovereignty by Stephen Krasner

Top 5 Visitor Countries for 2011:

1. United States
2. Israel
3. Canada
4. Serbia
5. United Kingdom

I am thrilled to report that I will be attending next year’s annual International Studies Association Conference in San Diego as a panel chair and presenter. This conference brings me full circle from my first ISA conference in San Diego in 2006, when I was doing my Master’s degree at the University of British Columbia, to what I hope will be my final year as a Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University in Chicago.

The panel, entitled “Nationalism, International Recognition, and Domestic Legitimacy,” will will take place on the first day of the conference, Sunday, April 1, at 1:45 p.m. Participants include senior and junior scholars as well as advanced graduate students who have an interest in the place of nationalism in global and domestic politics. My paper, “Security or Identity? State and Homeland in Israeli Politics and Public Opinion” will draw on the research I have been conducting over the last year in Israel. I have included abstracts for the panel and my own paper after the jump. My colleagues’ abstracts can be viewed through the ISA conference website panel link here.

Panel: Nationalism, International Recognition, and Domestic Legitimacy

In a world of putative nation-states, nationalism may be used by states to both secure international recognition of their inviolable right to self-determination and unify the domestic body politic under a single purposeful collective identity. However, if nations are “imagined communities,” it is hardly obvious that states should be entitled to such recognition or that domestic publics will affirm such official renditions of the “national interest.” These challenges are particularly acute when the state is faced with domestic opponents who dispute the authority and legitimacy of the governing regime and receive international backing for their aspirations either to break away from the state or assert control in their own right. Whether the longstanding China-Taiwan and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, continued inter- and intrastate conflicts in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, or the relatively new crises in Egypt, Libya, and Syria, each party has turned to national identity as a means to mobilize popular support, claim international legitimacy for their cause, and challenge the national vision of opposing parties. This panel examines how and why states and opponents turn to these nationalist mobilization strategies and under what conditions they are likely to be successful in the domestic and international arenas.

Paper: Security or Identity? State and Homeland in Israeli Politics and Public Opinion

This paper investigates why Israel has been willing to withdraw from some disputed territories and not others over the course of the Israeli-Arab peace process. In particular, it focuses on how traditional Jewish narratives of homeland and popular public discourse on national identity have shaped Israeli attitudes toward territorial compromise. These constructions of national identity, rooted in historical, cultural, and religious bonds to the Land of Israel, have been instrumental in determining the location and territorial boundaries of the State of Israel. Utilizing survey data and controlled individual-level experiments administered to diverse populations across Israel, it is found that publics are less susceptible to elite rhetorical manipulation than commonly assumed by nationalism and ethnic conflict scholars. Rather than being “agenda setters,” political elites’ rhetorical scope for popular mobilization, particularly on issues of national identity and homeland, is strongly constrained by pre-existing public knowledge. Although politicians may stir domestic nationalism over international territorial disputes, the claim that such lands are integral to the historic national homeland have only gained traction where this is already believed to be the case. Only by understanding these sources of public opposition to territorial compromise, it is argued, will long-term conflict resolution be possible.

Yesterday evening, after my first Shabbat living in Tel Aviv, I joined 250,000 to 300,000 other people in the “March of Millions” at Kikar HaMedina. The Tel Aviv protest was one of several large protests held yesterday evening across the country, totaling some 400,000 to 450,000 people, demanding that the Israeli government readjust its agenda to dealing with socioeconomic and welfare problems which many believe to be the most pressing issues in Israeli society today.

The rally follows two months of widespread protest, largely in the form of tent cities which have cropped up all over Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, and other towns across the country. Although the tents have been largely broken down and the daily protests have reduced to a trickle, last night’s rallies were meant to demonstrate that the demands of “the people” had not been silenced. Since I have addressed the basic substance of protesters’ demands in my previous post covering a recent poll of national priorities, I will not rehash them here. Rather, I will share my reflections from the rally itself.

As I was running a bit late for the march which began at 9 pm at Kikar Habima, I walked directly from my apartment to Kikar HaMedina, an enormous traffic circle/park in the middle of the city surrounded by high end shopping. On my way, I crossed Ibn Gvirol, one of the major thoroughfares in Tel Aviv, which had been completely shut down for the rally and on which thousands of people were already marching. I took the side streets up to Arlozoroff, another major street which had also been shut down, to Weizmann, which lead directly to the Kikar. All were full of people and positively packed by the time I arrived at the main rally site.

Although most of the people I saw were young, early 20s to mid-30s, there were plenty of parents pushing strollers, middle-aged couples, and at least a few senior citizens. The crowd appeared to be predominantly secular; I saw no more than one person wearing a kippah the entire evening, but this is not surprising given that the rally was in Tel Aviv soon after the end of Shabbat. So too, the religious sectors has largely stayed away from the protests with the haredim (ultra-orthodox) already largely poor but with considerable pull in terms of government subsidies and the national-religious seemingly suspicious of the leftist overtones of the protest organizers’ rhetoric.

That said, I did not come away from the rally feeling that any particular political agenda was thrust upon me. Yes, there were plenty of placards calling for Netanyahu’s resignation and demanding a more encompassing welfare state. The speakers spoke primarily in generalities: we are the new Israelis, we are the future, the people demand social justice, etc. But these messages bore very little resemblance to the kind of extreme leftist ideologies that some have attempted to paint the protesters of employing.

Mostly, I saw normal people who are frustrated with their current living situation and want to see “change.” Certainly the students in the crowd were among the most enthusiastic, belting out the chants and carrying the placards. One may also say that they have the greatest stake in the outcome of these protests: low wages, high housing costs, and weakened social services affect young people’s willingness to stay in the country, pursue their livelihoods, and strengthen the economy and society. For better or worse, they may also be the most likely to simply go back to business as usual when school begins again here in a few weeks’ time.

From the standpoint of people’s expectations, a majority of Israelis do believe that these protests will have an impact. In the July 2011 Peace Index survey, among the Jewish public, 13.4% strongly expect that the protests will lead to a significant improvement in the housing situation while 40.7% believe there are at least moderately high chances that it will. 33% expect moderately low changes and 11.8% believe that there is a very low chance that the protests will have any effect. Although only a bare majority expect significant change, enormous demonstrations like these serve as critical signaling mechanisms to those in power. If it ever was true, it is certainly no longer so today that security is the only issue on the minds of Israelis. Priorities in this sense may not have totally shifted, but they have definitely been reapportioned. Again, note the previous post on Israeli domestic priorities.

Even if the messages and demands of the protesters are heterogeneous and too broad in scope to be addressed entirely as a package, they are likely to have an impact. The governing coalition led by Likud has responded by setting up a commission which will soon be finalizing its recommendations to address the protesters’ demands. Although the leaders of the protest have dismissed this as a “stalling tactic” off-hand, it is indicative that these rallies are having an affect. So too will the messages of the protests, particularly if sustained beyond September’s upcoming test of a Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence, have an effect on the rhetoric of political leaders in the next election, government and opposition.

The summer here in Israel has been eventful to say the least. With the Arab world in turmoil, conversations here have often turned of late to the regional implications of protest, government repression, and revolution in two of Israel’s four immediate neighbors. Yet by mid-July, these discussions largely melted away with the emergence of large domestic protests over a host of social issues including high housing and consumer goods prices, low wages, eroded social services, and the current government’s free-market approach to managing the Israeli economy.

With thousands of protestors across the countries organizing marches, rallies, and tent cities particularly in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the government too largely shifted its focus from the Palestinian diplomatic front to these pressing domestic concerns. Unfortunately the distance between the government and the protesters remains quite large, with representatives of the various organizations which have joined the protest dismissing early initiatives put forward by the government appointed Trajtenberg committee.

The protests have also been used as a platform by Kadima chairwoman and opposition head Tsipi Livni as well as the long disaffected Labor party to attempt to reclaim political power for the left. Indeed, the presumed leftist tilt of the protests have kept many away who might otherwise identify with their broad social agenda. The religious and the middle class, upper and lower, all have an interest in improving social services, lowering costs, and raising wages. The protesters calls, “The people demand social justice” (העם דורש צדק חברתי) does not fall on deaf ears with these audiences. Many are, however, skeptical of those who have attempted to capture the energy of these protests for their agenda or public visibility, whether it be the New Israel Fund, the Labor Party, or Peace Now. 

While the tent protests seemed to embody a hope to redefine politics in Israel, many predict that its momentum is now all but lost in no small part due to the movements own lack of clarity of agenda and inability to productively interface with the government bodies which could begin to address their demands. So too as students return to the universities, people end their vacations, and attention shifts back to the international diplomatic front, the protesters’ collective vigor is fading. So too, with renewed missile attacks from Gaza and the recent terrorist attacks along the Israeli-Egyptian border over the past few weeks coupled with renewed Palestinian diplomatic pressures at the United Nations, domestic attention has shifted back to equally pressing issues of security.

With people breaking down their tents and heading home, it now may be easy to dismiss the movement as something ephemeral, a hiccup in an otherwise surprisingly quiet summer in Israel. Yet public opinion polls suggest otherwise. Although collected in July when protest was at its height, the Peace Index reports that a solid majority believe the protests were an expression of real housing distress (55% in complete agreement and 19.7% in agreement) and a distinct minority believed the extreme left to be behind the protests (8.9% in complete agreement and 8.8% in agreement). A very strong majority also expressed their belief that protest was inspired by domestic Israeli concerns rather than inspired by the “Arab Springs” in the Middle East (71.9% versus 22.1%).

July 2011: Among the following goals, which in your eyes is the most important for the government to promote at present? The second most important?

In terms of priorities which Israelis feel the government should be pursuing, 46.1% of the general population agreed that addressing socioeconomic gaps should be the state’s number one priority followed by reducing the price of housing at the most preferred second priority. Peace with the Palestinians ranked third as an expressed first priority and fourth as a second priority while improving Israel’s international standing ranked last of five and third respectively. Increasing Israel’s military power ranked fourth as a first priority and last as a second priority.

This pattern was followed closely by the Jewish sector which more strongly ranked addressing socioeconomic gaps at 49.7% as a first priority and housing prices as the most strongly preferred second priority at 27.6%. Peace with the Palestinians ranked a distant third as a first priority and last as a second priority while improving Israel’s international standing ranked fourth and third respectively. Increasing Israel’s military power was ranked last as a first priority and second to last last as a second priority.

Only the Arab sector expressed slightly different priority preferences ranking peace with the Palestinians as their most preferred first and second goal at 38.9% and 28.9% respectively. However they too ranked reducing socioeconomic gaps high, second as a first priority and a close third as a second priority. Housing was right behind as the third preferred first priority and second preferred second priority. Perhaps surprisingly, military power was preferred over improving Israel’s international standing as a first priority, fourth to a very distant fifth, while the ranking was reversed as a second priority, fifth to fourth.

Overall these statistics paint a picture of Israeli society concerned first and foremost with getting its domestic house in order, irrespective of international pressures. So too, the Arab sector which would be expected to prioritize a peace agreement with the PA is, aside from this, closely aligned with the rest of Israeli society on the question of domestic priorities. One may need to take this polling data with a grain of salt in that surveys were conducted when protests were at their height and not at their current dénouement. Perhaps if conducted today, Israelis would more highly prioritize security or Israel’s diplomatic standing.

Given the initial thrust of the protests and the magnitude of popular participation across the country however, it is hard to imagine that these social priorities are not in fact highly valued by Israelis across the board. There will likely never be a time when security and diplomatic concerns will not dominate Israeli politics, but the dramatic emergence of socioeconomic considerations as a cause for popular mobilization cannot be ignored. Whether these values translate into new directions for Israeli politics remains to be seen, but it does seem to be that the government can no longer put social issues on the backburner while it engages in the international diplomatic arena.

On Thursday, I attended a conference put on by the Women in Green in cooperation with Arutz 7,  Professors for a Strong Israel, and the Machpela Visitors’ Center in the Machpelah Visitors’ Center next to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. The conference was entitled “Regaining the Initiative: Applying Israeli Sovereignty Over Judea and Samaria” or in Hebrew: היוזמה בידינו: ריבונות ישראל ביהודה ושומרון, meaning “The Initiative is in our Hands: Israeli Sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.” 

The event was attended by hundreds of people from all around the country, largely of a religious demographic, to explore the idea of how and why formal Israeli sovereignty should be extended over the entire contested West Bank. Speakers included Ministers of Knesset Tsipi Hotovely (Likud) and Aryeh Eldad (Ichud Leumi), journalists Caroline Glick (Jerusalem Post) and Eran Bar-Tal (Makor Rishon), former diplomatic Consul to the United States Yoram Ettinger, and Professors Dr. Rafi Yisraeli, Dr. Yitzhak Klein, and Dr. Gabi Avital, and was moderated by Women In Green co-chairs Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katsover.

As the organizers asserted, “The purpose of the conference is to declare, again and again, that Eretz Israel is ours, and because it is ours, Israeli sovereignty is to be applied to it.” Although the underlying motivation for the extension of Israeli sovereignty among the speakers was certainly religious, cultural, and historical claims to the land, they focused on varying justifications beyond these including ensuring security for the state of Israel and preventing the rise of a “terrorist state”, improving the economic status of Jewish and Arab residents of the territories, clarifying and protecting the legal rights of residents, and preserving pioneering gains from settlement of the land.

It goes without saying that the vast majority of the participants and certainly the speakers were opposed to the idea of a Palestinian state if such a state were to be located in what was identified repeatedly as the biblical heartland and Jewish homeland. The most often articulated reason the speakers had for opposing such a state aside from such historical-cultural claims was the security threat it would pose to Israel. The most adamant of the speakers on this theme was Carolyn Glick who insisted that there existed only two options in the West Bank: the State of Israel or a State of Terror. Using the Israeli retreat from southern Lebanon and the disengagement from Gaza as examples, she argued that withdrawal is a statement of weakness which invites Arab violence.

This theme was reflected in the talk given by Professor Klein who shared recent public opinion data gathered by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs which shows that Israelis are increasingly reticent to withdraw from territories which are perceived to compromise Israeli security. Topping this list was the areas bordering the Ben Gurion Airport (90%) from which many fear terrorists would launch rocket attacks on airline traffic coming in and out of the country. This was followed by other strategic areas including areas bordering Route 443 (80%) and Ariel and western Samaria (78%) as well as Gush Etzion (75%), the Temple Mount excluding the Western Wall (75%), and even the conventionally suggested withdrawal from 95% of the West Bank (74%). This was followed by Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem (65%), the Jordan Rift Valley (65%), eastern Jerusalem excluding the Old City (65%), 50% of the West Bank (55%), and the Temple Mount under international control (44%).

Further on the question of security, the point was raised by Glick and MK Aryeh Eldad that if a “Tahir Square” occurs in Jordan, the current regime is likely to fall and in its place a predominantly Palestinian controlled government is likely to rise which may be home alternatively to a new failed terror state or a renew center of Palestinian nationalism and political power. With regard to the former point, it was suggested that such security instability of Israel’s eastern front simply negated the possibility of territorial withdraws in the near future. Likening it to the current situation in Gaza, speakers noted both the high potential for weapons smuggling into the West Bank and for the now largely-quiet territory becoming a base for rocket attacks and other terrorist attacks on the remainder of Israel.

To the latter point, several speakers suggested that this may actually help resolve the Palestinian dilemma in Israel’s favor. There is a popular trope among the Israeli right that “Jordan is Palestine” owing both to its majority Palestinian population (between 60-70%) and to the territory of Jordan comprising the eastern 77% of the originally designated British Mandate closed to Jewish settlement in 1922. Some on the Israeli far right would prefer to encourage Palestinian Arab emigration to Jordan (often termed “transfer”), a theme touched upon by both MK Eldad and Professor Avital Yisraeli as a means to ensure two-states for two-peoples without dividing the land currently controlled by Israel. Eldad in particular highlighted that should Palestinians achieve political power in Jordan, they may receive international diplomatic recognition there theoretically obviating the legitimacy of territorial sovereignty in the West Bank.

However, excepting Eldad, none of the speakers were particularly enthusiastic about a “transfer” solution to the conflict. Many were however keen to address the question of what Israel should do if it were to formally politically both the territories and their Arab populations. Yoram Ettinger here addressed the popular fear that Israeli is under demographic threat from a growing Arab population and apparently relatively shrinking Jewish one. Drawing from both his  research on this question as well as new data gathered by the Institute for Zionist Strategy, the trends in his estimation are actually in reverse favoring a sustained Jewish majority complimented by a falling Arab birthrate particularly in the West Bank. I would certainly encourage those who are unfamiliar with this debate in Israeli politics to read my interviews with both Ettinger and Professor Sergio DellaPergola for contending perspectives on the demographic question.

Demography aside, Carolyn Glick argued that the challenge of absorbing 1.5 to 2 million Palestinians even with some form of citizenship pales in comparison to the threats posed by the formation of a Palestinian state. Also insisted Professor Yisraeli, there is nothing which would require that Palestinians accept Israeli citizenship. Indeed, they as well as Israel’s northern and southern Bedouin Arab populations should be open to choose either to take no citizenship or take Jordanian citizenship to be politically represented in a solidly Arab state. Eldad too suggested that Palestinians and Israeli Arabs might be able to take foreign citizenships such that they might secure political representation without threatening the Jewish character of the Israeli state.

Observers external to this side of the debate may be quick to note several problems with this approach. First and foremost, although Jordan may have a Palestinian majority, it hardly represents Palestinian interests at home or abroad. Lacking significant changes in Jordanian political institutions, awarding Jordanian citizenship to Palestinians living in the territories controlled by Israel would amount merely to transferring responsibility of this population to another state in which they would be effectively politically powerless. Secondly, even if Jordan were to even symbolically represent their interests, it would be unable to guarantee their political rights on foreign soil. For this to work, some kind of confederation would have to be created between Israel and Jordan.

Although creative solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are welcome given the current political impasse, such a move would require a Jordanian partner. At present, however, Jordan is adamantly opposed to any political resolution in which Amman would take responsibility for the Palestinian polity. With a restive Palestinian majority already challenging the legitimacy of the Hashemite political dynasty, the justification for their hands-off approach is obvious. The only speaker to explicitly recognize this reality was MK Tsipi Hotovely. One of the youngest MKs for the governing Likud party, Hotovely has been a strong proponent for the extension of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, a vocal supporter of national religious agendas, and one of the more thoughtful voices in Knesset with regard to a future for Palestinian Arabs in Israel.

Like the other speakers, she ultimately believes that the Arab population of Israel, non-citizen Palestinians included, have three realistic political options: live in the country in peace, fight the country in war, or leave the country to pursue their lives elsewhere. Unlike the other speakers, however, it seems that she has given serious thought to what Israeli citizenship for Palestinians might mean both in terms of implementation and in terms of the contours of Israeli domestic politics.

Beginning with Ettinger’s premise that there is no pressing demographic threat, Hotovely believes that Israel should begin with a formal annexation of Area C in the West Bank, the area which has remained under complete Israeli control following the Oslo Accords. Accordingly, those 100,000 or so Palestinians who live in this area would also be given Israeli citizenship. Such a relatively small number would not be an undue challenge for Israel to absorb and it would give Israel the opportunity to experiment with the further integration of Palestinian Arabs before attempting to address the entire population of the West Bank.

So too should Israeli Arabs be expected to engage in some form of national service as is required of all Jewish Israelis. This would address what many particularly on the right see as a disjunction between the rights demanded by Palestinians (citizens or otherwise) and their lack of responsibilities vis-à-vis the state compared the country’s Jewish citizens. Argued Eran Bar-Tal, an economic analyst for Makor Rishon, extending Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank would also have the beneficial impact of raising property values for both Jewish and Arab Israelis. It would also open up largely underutilized land for housing development in the center of the country, where it is needed most and provide for greater commerce between Jewish and Arab sectors of Israeli society.

But what of the possibility that Israeli Arabs, even if not the majority, might organize politically to democratically challenge the Jewish character of the state? Here, Hotovely noted that Arab citizenship in Israel might be of a different character than the citizenship enjoyed by Jewish Israelis. Perhaps Arabs could be given broad communal autonomy or some form of local control which would give a measure of independent political authority aside from sway over the state. Such proposals have resonance with those of former Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir who proposed that Palestinians be given political autonomy short of statehood obviating the need to divide a seemingly undividable land.

As a matter of academic curiousity, conferences such as these are certainly interesting, but what bearing if any do they have on mainstream Israeli politics? For those who demonize the State of Israel as a land-hungry colonial-imperial power (and there are no shortage of these people) the narratives explored above only confirm their estimation of the character of Israeli politics and society. However, for those who are familiar with Israeli political discourse, they will note that the two-state solution has, at least since the Oslo Accords, become deeply engrained in the mainstream as the only plausible solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the very least, the “2-for-2” solution remains the most strongly preferred outcome to the conflict although strong uncertainty pervades recent polls.

Drawing from my previous post, those who strongly reject territorial withdrawal from the West Bank under any circumstance represent just 21.9% of the Jewish population. While this is hardly an insignificant sliver, it does leave nearly 80% who are, to varying degrees, open (or at least not strongly opposed) to the possibility of some form of territorial withdrawal, particularly if Israel were to retain control over the major settlement blocs and the Palestinian Authority were to recognize Israel as the “State of the Jewish People.” Seen through this lens, it would seem that the voices explored here are a marginal minority in Israeli politics, largely represented by the small opposition party Ichud Leumi with 4 seats and the perhaps more moderate Habayit Hayehudi with 3 seats in government as well as a small “Land of Israel” faction in the governing Likud party.

To this there are at least two critical responses. The first and most obvious is that if one is to dismiss these voices, one too must dismiss those of the opposite extreme: Israelis eager to withdraw from the West Bank with little or no reservations or conditions. Among the Jewish sector, this group comprises no more than 10% of the population; less than half of that represented by the “hardline” position against withdrawal. If one is generous regarding Knesset representation, this perspective is represented by the socialist Hadash party with 4 seats, the liberal Meretz with 3, and tiny contingents from the Labour and Kadima parties. Although it is clear that these voices do not represent the Israeli mainstream, they are more often than not accepted, at least internationally, as legitimate and invaluable to understanding the contours of Israeli society. If those who endorse a full withdrawal without preconditions are worthy of serious consideration, than so too are those who oppose withdrawal under any condition.

The second and perhaps more relevant point is the one made by many of the speakers at the conference: the two-state solution was not always considered the political consensus solution and there is not reason it must remain so. In a time when Israeli uncertainty about its future relationship with the Palestinian Authority and the international community at large is greater than any time in the past three decades, the political environment may be ripe for a paradigm shift. This is not to say that formal annexation is likely to soon become the new political consensus. However, in the face of political deadlock and diplomatic unilateralism by the PA, annexation may be the only proactive alternative to acquiescence to the immediate rise of a Palestinian state.

If not recognition or annexation, the option remaining seems to be what Efraim Inbar has termed “muddling through”, preserving a shaky and increasingly unsustainable status quo. Unfortunately for all parties involved, the “status quo” has been anything but with Israel becomingly increasingly diplomatically isolated and the PA increasingly unilateral translating into a complete negotiation deadlock despite the expressed desire of both sides to return to the negotiating table. Radicals from all sectors of Israeli and Palestinian society have also been emboldened by the lack of diplomatic progress and are seeking to impose facts on the ground which contribute to rather than avoid conflict intractability.

Just as the PA establishment has grown increasingly impatient and threatened a unilateral declaration of independence or alternatively to dissolve the PA altogether should its bid fail, the Israeli mainstream may too begin fracturing along the lines of recognition or annexation. The Israeli left is preparing their contingency plans for the “day after” with their push for recognition of the unilateral Palestinian bid. This conference clearly represents a comparable push by the Israeli right to sway public opinion in their favor. Given a complete lack of enthusiasm by most Israelis for the establishment of a Palestinian state absent negotiations and lacking other credible options, some limited version of annexation may become increasingly palatable to a frustrated Israeli public. In preparing for such a possibility, serious analysts must take note of these voices.

In the previous two posts, I have explored the Israeli public response to the Palestinian Authority’s intent to unilaterally declare independence and seek international diplomatic recognition at the UN General Assembly in September 2011.

Monthly public opinion data gathered by the Peace Index over the last six months indicates that Israelis are increasingly of the belief that the PA’s efforts are credible and that Israel will suffer international condemnation, greater diplomatic isolation, and potentially a new Palestinian intifada if it refuses to recognize a Palestinian state in the territories of Gaza, the West Bank, and eastern Jerusalem. However, polling also indicates that Israelis believe that international pressure will not increase significantly nor would greater political moderation by the Israeli government result in a Palestinian return to negotiations or the aversion of a new violent Palestinian uprising, particularly if Israel still refuses to withdraw from the West Bank.

I closed the previous post with this question: How can the desire to both preserve Israel as a Jewish state and the achieve peace with the Palestinians be reconciled with apparent Israeli unwillingness to accommodate the declaration of a Palestinian state in the near future? Although there is a general belief that Israel’s diplomatic isolation will not be significantly worsened by PA efforts and that popular Palestinian violence is inevitable, this is not sufficient to explain Israeli hesitancy to reach a final peace settlement on the seemingly internationally popular Palestinian terms. Surely some gains would be made domestically and internationally by bringing the conflict to an end?

Israelis’ hesitancy to withdraw from different disputed territories can be explained only in reference to a complex mix of emotions, historical experience, and strategic rationalizations often particular to each of the territories under examination. However, when asking why Israelis are apparently willing to bear international sanction and internal violence as a result of not recognizing a Palestinian state, the best explanation appears to be that Israelis themselves are not convinced that such recognition would bring about a true end to the conflict.

January 2011: Do you accept or not accept the claim that most of the Palestinians do not see the two-states-for-two-peoples solution as the end of the road, and even if a permanent peace agreement with them is signed, it will not end the conflict because they will continue the struggle for a Palestinian state in all the Land of Israel?

As of January 2011, most Israelis were of the opinion that it is the Palestinians’ intention to continue to fight for a Palestinian State in all of the Land of Israel even after achieving a “permanent” peace settlement. This claim was accepted by 63.5% of the general population and 68% of the Jewish population. Of these measures, strong profession of this belief was the plurality of responses at 34.2% and 36.9% respectively. Opposing this view was the Israeli Arab population with 58.9% rejecting this belief and only 37.8% accepting it. Of this, the plurality of responses was with weak rejection at 31.1%.

The general and Jewish sectors’ outlooks on this question have been remarkably consistent over the last decade and a half. Tracked by the Peace Index at least since the signing of the Oslo Accords, it has found that Israeli perceptions of Palestinian hostility have remained high with disagreement with the statement that “most Palestinians do not accept the existence of Israel and would destroy her if they could,” only outpacing agreement in 1999, although even in this period strong agreement still making up the strong plurality of the sample.

This perception has been regularly bolstered by internal Palestinian public opinion polling in which majority rejection of a two-state solution as a basis for conflict resolution is the norm. In a June-July 2011 survey of 1,010 Palestinian adults in the West Bank and Gaza conducted by an American pollster in partnership with the Beit Sahour-based Palestinian Center for Public Opinion and sponsored by the Israel Project, a mere 34% accepted the notion of a two-state solution while 61% rejected it. Much more worrisome was the survey’s finding that 73% of those surveyed agree with the hadith quoted in the Hamas charter about the need to kill Jews hiding behind stones and trees. By contrast, 65% preferred the route of negotiations to violence while 20% preferred violence over talks.

May 2011: In your opinion, will the Palestinian leadership try to prevent or, alternatively, encourage the outbreak of a third intifada in the event that an independent Palestinian state is declared?

Popular Palestinian perceptions aside, the Israeli public has also made clear its belief that the Palestinian leadership too is not interested in peace on the ground. Asked by the Peace Index whether the PA would prevent or encourage the outbreak of a third intifada, only 36.1% of the Israeli public believed they would prevent such violence while 56.1% believed they would encourage it. Amongst the Jewish public, 33.7% expected the PA to engage in prevention while 58.2% expected they would encourage violence. Among Israeli Arabs, 49.9% expect prevention but 44.5%, a reasonably large number, expect encouragement of violence.

May 2011: It emerged from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to the Knesset that Israel will insist on retaining the large settlement blocs in the West Bank and on retaining military control of the Jordan Valley. In other words, Israel would be prepared to evacuate the rest of the settlements in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. What is your view of Netanyahu’s position on this matter?

It follows that when considering the possibility of territorial withdrawal to accommodate a Palestinian state, many Israelis oppose such a move on the believe that any withdrawal at this point would be dangerous, even one in which Israel retains control of key strategic points and Israeli population centers. In May 2011, the Peace Index asked for Israeli responses to PM Netanyahu’s speech before the Knesset in which he laid six basic issues of “national consensus” with regard to the formation of a Palestinian state. Among them were the demand that Israel retain control of the major settlement blocs and maintain a long-term military presence in the Jordan Valley.

The Peace Index poll suggested that this meant that the current government was prepared to withdraw from the rest of the West Bank. Would this be an insufficient move to advance peace, an appropriate move, or a dangerous one? Among the general population, 36.5% believed it to be dangerous followed by 31.8% as appropriate, and 23.6% as insufficient. Among the Jewish sector, a strong plurality at 41.3% believed such a move would be dangerous, followed by 33.1% as appropriate, and 17% as insufficient. This trend was dramatically the opposite among Israeli Arabs of whom a strong majority at 61% believed the gesture to be insufficient, 24.5% to be appropriate, and only 8.9% to be dangerous.

The responses to this question highlight at least two significant things: first and foremost, it would seem to confirm the maxim that the majority that the Israelis are willing to offer to the Palestinians is less than the Palestinians are willing to accept. If 61% of Israeli Arabs are of the belief that a gesture largely in line with the Israeli consensus is insufficient for peace, and if a plurality of 41.3% of Jewish Israelis believe this gesture to be dangerous at this time, there does not seem to be much space for negotiation.

Secondly, the spread of opinion even within the Jewish sector highlights that although many fear the consequences of territorial concessions, a not much smaller percentage believe such concessions are ultimately appropriate. Those who are of the opinion that such a move would be insufficient cannot be clearly distinguished between those who believe that the Palestinians will accept nothing less than the end of the State of Israel and those who believe that much more far-reaching concessions by Israel are necessary for peace.

In June 2011, the Peace Index asked a series of questions aimed at gauging the particular conditions under which Israelis would agree to a withdrawal from the West Bank. First they asked if those polled would support a complete withdrawal from the West Bank in exchange for a full peace with the Palestinians. Of those who opposed or were undecided, it was asked if they would support a withdrawal from the West Bank except for the large settlement blocs in exchange for peace. Of those who were still opposed or undecided, it was asked if they would support a withdrawal from the West Bank excepting the large settlement blocs and if the Palestinians would declare an end to the historic conflict with Israel and recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people (מדינת העם היהודי).

June 2011: Support for peace agreement with the Palestinians involving withdrawal from West Bank

Unsurprisingly, the poll found that support for withdrawal increased significantly as the conditions of peace were specified in greater detail. Even the Arab sector, in which support for withdrawal comprises the vast majority regardless of the terms for peace, found increasingly unqualified support as the terms came to include explicit recognition of a Jewish state. Among the Jewish sector, opposition to withdrawal comprised the significant majority, at 70.2%, where the withdrawal would mean leaving behind large Israeli settlement blocs with a significant plurality of 42.5% strongly opposed and only 25.8% in support.

Yet when suggesting a withdrawal which excluded major settlement blocs, opposition dropped to 45.1% while support grew to 49.8% where the plurality of support shifted to weak support at 34%. These results are mirrored in an October 2010 peace index survey in which support also rose when settlement blocs were proposed to be retained. More significantly in this June 2011 survey, when peace included an explicit Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, support rose to 61.7% and opposition dropped to 34.3% where the plurality of weak support grew to 42.7%.

These results highlight at least two significant findings. First, that no matter the conditions, there remains an approximately 20-30% “hard core” among Israeli Jewry that is simply opposed to the idea of territorial withdrawal from the West Bank regardless of conditions for peace. Such opposition can be attributed to a number of factors, including deeply ingrained skepticism that peace is possible, a religious, cultural, historic, and perhaps nationalist opposition to territorial withdrawal from any part of the “Jewish homeland”, and a belief that Palestinian political claims should be resolved either elsewhere (often Jordan) or under different terms (a bi-national state, a regional political confederation, or Palestinian autonomy short of independent statehood).

Secondly, and slightly more relevant to mainstream Israeli society, the majority of Israeli Jews would in fact be supportive of a territorial partition of the Land of Israel and a two-state solution if such a solution in fact meant an end to the historic conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab world at large. It is by this facet of the conflict which Israelis have been consistently frustrated at an apparent lack of international understanding or sympathy. Prime Minister Netanyahu is not lying when he contends that Israel is ready for peace with its neighbors but nor is he exaggerating when he expresses Israelis’ expectations that such a peace will mean the end to all further claims on the Jewish state.

The wave of terrorism, suicide bombings, and rocket attacks which have followed every major Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative, from Oslo to Camp David to Annapolis have done much to undermine Israeli confidence in any peace deal. Regular pronouncements by Palestinian leaders that the two-state solution is a stepping stone to a single Palestinian state in the whole of “historic Palestine” coupled with popular Palestinian expressions that reject the existence of Israel even under peace and the realization of Palestinian political sovereignty undermine what little confidence remains. This is hardly an environment in which Israelis can be expected to be willing to risk  “painful compromises” for peace.

International campaigns bolstered by prominent human rights NGOs and regular and disproportionate diplomatic condemnations not only by UN bodies chaired by states in the developing world but by liberal European governments to whom Israel once felt close diplomatic, security, and cultural ties have further isolated Israelis and fostered a growing mentality that no level of moderation, concession, or appeasement will bring Israel international approval. With the expectation that Israel will be condemned no matter its course of action and bloodied no matter its efforts for peace, it should come as no surprise that many Israelis are prepared to shoulder greater costs of international isolation rather than pursue a chimera of “peace”.

Not all hope for peace should be considered lost however. Even as Israelis express their intense skepticism at peace with the Palestinians and seem to be thumbing their nose at world opinion, they are also sending clear signals regarding the conditions under which peace as well as territorial concessions would be possible. If there is to be a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it must include an unequivocal declaration by the Palestinian Authority of their recognition of Israel as a Jewish state against which it will have no further claims upon the establishment of Palestinian statehood.

This will require a “painful sacrifice” by the Palestinian national movement: the abandonment of a vision cultivated by both the PLO and Fatah since their inception (not to mention Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad) that the Palestinian state will displace an Israeli one, not exist alongside it. It will also require confronting a disappointed public, particularly the large population of the descendants of the Palestinian refugees of 1948-49, which has been spoon fed this myth without regard for and often in intentional spite of its plausibility or impact for peacemaking.

Those who believe that a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood and diplomatic recognition by the UN General Assembly will only help resolve this longstanding conflict should take note. Lacking such critical assurances that a Palestinian state will mean peace rather than continued warfare and international delegitimization of the Jewish state, Israelis are prepared to oppose Palestinian diplomatic maneuvers at high costs to the Israeli state and society. For those international players who seek real peace in the region, they need not abandon their concern for the humanitarian well-being of Palestinians. They must, however, recognize the roots of Israeli intransigence do not lie in a desire to perpetuate Palestinian suffering but rather in an inalienable right of self-preservation.

Analyzing recent public opinion data, it is clear that Israelis believe that the PA will go forward to the UN while continuing to avoid negotiations with Israel. It is also clear that Israelis believe that UN General Assembly recognition for a Palestinian state will cause Israel to become more diplomatically isolated, potentially be subject to international economic sanctions for its continued presence in the West Bank, and potentially even face a new violent Palestinian uprising. Given these pressures, I posed the question: why does Israel not simply accede to Palestinians demands, withdraw from the West Bank, and recognize a Palestinian state?

As with most issues in the Middle East, nothing between the Israelis and Palestinians is that “simple.”  In this post I will attempt to delineate some of the more pressing reasons for Israeli intransigence based on monthly Israeli public opinion polling conducted by the Guttman Center for their Peace Index Project. First and foremost, it is notable that while Israelis do believe that Israel will face pressure both internationally and domestically following presumed UN General Assembly recognition of a Palestinian state, they are skeptical that the results will be catastrophic. While Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s statements earlier this year that the country will face a “diplomatic tsunami” if it does not “advance peace” in response to international pressure received considerable press, as a whole Israelis disagree.

June 2011: With which of the following two claims do you agree more – that if the United Nations recognizes an independent Palestinian state, Israel will face a political and economic “tsunami”; or that even if the UN recognizes an independent Palestinian state, Israel will not face a tsunami but merely an occasional change for the worse in relations?

Indeed, this claim is overwhelmingly rejected by the general and Jewish public at 65.1% and 70.6% respectively. Such a strong rejection from the Israeli Jewish public in particular is notable given that it is this sector which would be most directly targeted by the moral opprobrium of international isolation. By contrast, the Israeli Arab public expressed a stronger belief that Israel does face a tsunami at 47.8% as opposed to 34.4% that Israel only faces worse diplomatic relations. This sector’s level of uncertainly, however, is significantly higher than among Jewish Israelis.

June 2011: How would you describe Israel’s standing in the world today?

Israeli skepticism toward the “tsunami” claim may be partially reasonably explained by the fact that Israelis, on the whole, already feel that their country is relatively isolated on the international stage. Indeed a plurality of both the general and Jewish population specifically agree that Israel is “somewhat isolated” at 43.8% and 47.6% respectively followed by “fairly unisolated” at 34.6% and 34.4% respectively.

For many, the pressures which threaten Israel following UNGA recognition of a Palestinian state are perceived to be not much of a deviation from the norm. Given highly disproportionate condemnation of Israel in multiple international diplomatic fora and open sympathy for the Palestinian cause (often coupled with hostility toward Israel) in Western Europe, not much is expected to change. This may also be why a slight majority of Israelis believe that they can avoid recognition of a Palestinian state after September 2011.

May 2011: If there is a Palestinian declaration of independence without an agreement with Israel, and a UN majority recognizes the Palestinian state, in your opinion will Israel then be able or not be able to allow itself to refrain from recognizing the independent Palestinian state?

Opinions are obviously split but still a plurality of the public are of the belief that such pressures can be resisted. Among the general public, some 48.8% believe Israel can refrain from recognition while 45% believe it cannot. Similarly among the Jewish public, 48.1% believe it can resist these pressures while 46.8% believe it cannot. While the strongest responses come from those in the “no” category, the “definitely no” category received a disproportionately weaker response than the other three. The greater belief that Israel can withstand pressure from the general public relative to the Jewish sector may be attributed to a skeptical Israeli Arab public which agrees at 53.3% and disagrees at 34.5%. Again, note their highly level of uncertainty.

May 2011: From what you know about the current Israeli government, in your opinion, will it recognize or not recognize a Palestinian state in the event that such a declaration is made and receives the support of most of the states in the UN?

As to whether or not the Israeli government will recognize a Palestinian state in September, most strongly believe that it will not, with 70.2% among the general population, 71.2% among the Jewish sector, and 64.4% in the Arab sector. This does leave the question open of what position a different government, say one headed by Kadima or Labour, would take. However, an election does not appear likely in the near future, and, in any event, even in projections about the next election if several new/old players were to enter the arena indicate that although Likud may lose seats, Kadima and Labour would lose even more.

Coupled to expectations of relative political stability and little change on the international stage, there is a strong belief among Israelis that a Palestinian declaration and the international pressure and violence which may accompany it are all but inevitable.

May 2011: In your opinion, could Israel or could it not have prevented the Palestinian push for UN recognition of an independent state if it had shown greater flexibility in the political negotiations in recent years?

In the first instance, Israelis are relatively strongly convinced that even if Israel were to have shown greater flexibility in negotiations in the past with the Palestinians, it would not have avoided the PA’s current push for UNGA recognition. Among the general population, belief in this inevitability is reported at 52.6% compared to only 42.2% believing that such an outcome could have been prevented. This is complimented by a stronger belief of inevitability among the Jewish population at 54.9% to 39.6%. Notably, the “yes” response still received almost as strong percentage in the Jewish population as the “no” and “definitely no” responses highlighting that a not insignificant number of Israelis still believe that negotiations may be moderately efficacious at least in preventing the Palestinians’ current diplomatic offensive. Unsurprisingly, Israeli Arabs demonstrated a nearly mirrored responses to the Jewish sector professing the efficacy of greater flexibility at 56.8% versus 38.8%.

May 2011: What, in your opinion, are the chances that if Israel indeed moderates its positions significantly in its dealings with the Palestinians, the latter will not declare an independent state in September nor seek UN recognition if an agreement with Israel has not yet been reached?

Now that the PA push is already in full swing, Jewish Israelis in particular believe that, no matter Israeli moderation, a declaration of statehood is inevitable at 64.4% versus only 26.4% believing this outcome was avoidable, closely mirrored by the general population at 60.9% to 30.9%. As before, the percentage of those Jewish Israelis who believe avoidance is possible is not insignificant at 21% but this contingent is much weaker than in the previous question. The Israeli Arab population is here more divided at 40.6% believing a declaration to be inevitable and 56.1% believing it to be avoidable.

May 2011: If there is a declaration of an independent Palestinian state, could Israel prevent such intifada-type events if Netanyahu presents a political program that could lead to negotiations with the Palestinians? Or at this stage, is it impossible to prevent such intifada-type events?

Perhaps more critically, Israelis have expressed the belief that a new Palestinian intifada following declaration of statehood is more likely than not regardless of Israel’s political program. Although less pronounced that the expectation that the declaration itself will go forward, that over 50% of both the general and Jewish populations believe a new intifada to be unavoidable may also help explain Israeli unwillingness to accede to Palestinian demands. Notably, even Israeli Arabs more expect a new intifada to break out than not regardless of Israeli policy contrary to their belief that Israel might be able to avoid a declaration of state with greater moderation.

May 2011: Assuming that it is not too late, in your opinion, should Israel or should it not significantly moderate its political positions in its dealings with the Palestinians over the coming months so as to prevent a Palestinian declaration of independence without an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians?

	Yes	No	Don’t Know
General	40	55	5
Jewish	36.5	59.7	3.8
Arab	59.9	27.8	12.3

Even as expectations of consistent domestic and international pressures and of a Palestinian declaration of state and violence, on the whole Israelis still do not believe that Israel should moderate its position vis-à-vis the PA even if it were to lessen the chance of a unilateral declaration and, as a result, a new intifada. Indeed, opposition to further moderation is quite high in the Jewish population at 59.7% at opposed to 36.5% in favor of such moderation. As expected, Israeli Arabs mirror this sentiment at 27.8% opposed to further moderation and 59.9% in favor. Uncertainly, however, is much higher in the Arab sector at 12.3% versus 5% and 3.8% in the general and Jewish populations respectively.

Yet we are still left at an impasse of understanding. Israelis certainly oppose the PA’s withdrawal from the negotiating table and their subsequent unilateral moves to receive international diplomatic recognition for statehood within the whole of Gaza, the West Bank, and eastern Jerusalem, however they are more opposed to the idea of a bi-national state, strongly prefer a two-state solution to the conflict, and remain strongly supportive of continued negotiations with the PA. How can this desire to both preserve Israel as a Jewish state and the achieve peace with the Palestinians be reconciled with apparent Israeli unwillingness to accommodate the declaration of a Palestinian state in the near future?

It is this theme which I will explore in greater depth in tomorrow’s post. Stay tuned for part three.

Will the United Nations General Assembly extend diplomatic recognition to a Palestinian state in the whole of Gaza, the West Bank, and eastern Jerusalem in September this year? This question has perplexed Israeli policymakers, worried the general public, and invigorated a lively debate in Israeli society on Israel’s international diplomatic standing, its relationship with the Palestinian Authority, and on the question of territorial withdrawal.

With negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in a deep freeze since September of 2010, Mahmoud Abbas has turned to the threat of a unilateral declaration of independence in September 2011 and to request diplomatic recognition from the United Nations Security Council. Expecting an American veto, the PA plans to refer their request to the UN General Assembly in which most expect that they will easily secure majority approval. In a May 2011 op-ed in the New York Times, Abbas claims that negotiations remain their first option, the Palestinians can wait no longer “while Israel continues to send more settlers to the occupied West Bank and denies Palestinians access to most of our land and holy places, particularly in Jerusalem.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has countered that Israel is fully open to negotiations and it is the Palestinians who have abandoned them. He has further insisted that unilateral moves by the Palestinians will only lead to a diplomatic impasse whereby compromise will become even more difficult. Indeed, more right-wing Israelis have suggested that a proper response to Palestinian unilateralism is Israeli unilateralism; Likud MK and deputy speaker of the Knesset Danny Danon even suggested in a recent New York Times op-ed that Israel should simply formally annex Jewish communities in the West Bank should the PA bid move forward. Meanwhile, Palestinian efforts to form a united front have faltered as Fatah and Hamas spar over who will head the new unity government and Hamas officials accuse Abbas of having “fallen in love with the enemy” and calling the PA’s bid for independence a “mere mirage” opposing this move as an abandonment of “resistance.”

Outside of the domestic arena, Israeli and Palestinian diplomats have been jetting around the globe trying to drum up opposition and support respectively for the recognition bid. Yet even as Israel is perceived to be the loser in this fight, with a guaranteed bloc of support from Arab states and much of the developing world, Europe has remained divided with most EU states expressing support for Palestinian independence, but within the framework of negotiation. Indeed, while many officials including Abbas have been vocal in their intentions to go through with the big, there is evidence of internal concern and dissent. PA Prime Minister Salim Fayyad has warned against raising the expectations of ordinary Palestinians while Nabil Amr, a member of the PLO Central Council, has called on the PA to delay the bid altogether fearing it would alienate the US and the EU. He warned that “the leadership does not have any guarantees that it would be able to climb down safely from the tree.”

Even with some splintering within the Palestinian Authority, it would appear that Israelis are taking the possibility of General Assembly recognition increasingly seriously. In polling conducted by the Guttman Center’s Peace Index in January, May (once before and once after PM Netanyahu’s visit to the United States), and June of 2011, the Israeli public has grown in its belief that the Palestinians will go through with their September plans.

January, May, June 2011: In your estimation, what are the chances that the Palestinians will declare an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders even without an agreement with Israel, and will ask the UN General Assembly to recognize it?

In January 2011, soon after the PA first publically threatened to go directly to the UN to achieve diplomatic recognition, the general public was more skeptical than not with some 42% believing that the PA would move forward and 53.1% believing that they would not. Among this group, only 8.2% strongly believed this would occur while 33.8% believed it was possible. Come May 2011, belief in the general public grew to 60.3% and then to 61.3% although this shrank to 55.2% in June. This drop was likely fueled by growing dissention evident within the PA. Trends specifically within the Jewish public were quite similar. Conversely, the Israeli Arab public has been consistently more skeptical of the PA bid with skepticism outweighing belief in every period, although belief has followed a steady upward trend.

May, June 2011: In your opinion, will there or will there not be a large majority of states in the UN General Assembly that recognizes the Palestinian state, even if Israel opposes it?

Interestingly, the opposite trend has followed in terms of belief that the Palestinians will easily secure a majority in the UN General Assembly. In both the general and specifically Jewish sectors, belief that the PA will secure a majority has dropped between May and June nearly 10% although 2/3 still firmly believe the Palestinians will receive a majority. Again, Israeli Arabs demonstrate an interesting trend in that they too have become more skeptical, they were much more skeptical to begin with. Whereas the Jewish population slipped from 75.4% to 66.6%, the Arab population slipped from 47.8% to 43.3%.

Israeli Arab skepticism aside, it is clear that the majority of Israelis do believe that September will bring with it widespread international recognition of a Palestinian state. What is more, most Israelis seem to agree that the state will face increasing international diplomatic isolation, potential economic sanctions, and a renewed Palestinian intifada.

To what extent will UN recognition of an independent Palestinian state damage, benefit, or neither damage nor benefit Israeli interests?

If there is a Palestinian declaration of independence in September, and most of the states in the UN General Assembly recognize the new state but Israel announces that it does not accept the decision, in your opinion is there or is there not a chance that the international community will exert substantial pressure on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank, for example, by imposing painful economic sanctions or other to cause Israel to leave the territories?

In your opinion, what are the chances that a popular intifada will break out in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip if an independent Palestinian state is declared and a majority of UN states recognize it, but Israel does not withdraw from the West Bank?

On the question of whether or not UN recognition of a Palestinian state will damage, benefit, or have no effect on Israel in May 2011, most agreed that Israel would be damaged with the strongest belief that Israel would be damaged coming from the Jewish sector. Again pointing to domestic Arab belief in the lack of efficacy of international pressure on Israel, Israeli Arabs were split but with their largest response that there would be neither effect.

As for economic sanctions, most Israelis do believe that some form of substantial international pressure is coming, with about 33% believing this to be highly likely and almost 40% believing it to be somewhat likely. With regard to an outbreak of a new intifada, Jewish and Arab Israelis were largely in agreement that, should a Palestinian state be declared, violence will follow if Israel does not withdraw from the West Bank. Given the pressures that Israelis expect to face, how could it be that they would not be eager to concede a state immediately to the Palestinians? Would this not be better than to face greater international pressure and isolation?

These questions are ones I will try to address in tomorrow’s post. Stay tuned…

Since returning from Serbia in mid May, I have been working hard on developing and publicizing surveys which examine domestic attitudes toward political language in both Israel and Serbia respectively.

I am happy to report that the response to the Israel survey was very strong. Between its launch on May 11 and its close on July 1, over 500 people participated from all sectors of Israeli society. Now what remains is to examine the huge amount of data collected and formulate it into a publishable academic paper. This is already well underway and has been taking a considerable portion of my time of late. The Serbia survey, launched on May 23, has already garnered over 300 respondents with more coming in every day. In this, I must offer an enormous thank you to all my friends and colleagues in Serbia who have done much of the distribution as well as a number of Serbian websites and blogs that have generously hosted invitations and links.

In other academic developments, I am also pleased to announce that I have been awarded a Schusterman Israel Scholar Award from the American-Israeli Cooperative Initiative and Schusterman Foundation to continue my research based here in Israel in the coming academic year. The Foundation is one of the biggest financial and academic supporters of Israel Studies, and I am really quite flattered to now be one of its beneficiaries.

Last but not least, I have doing a bit of traveling in the United States and Canada visiting friends and family and meeting with my advisers at Northwestern University. Since returning to Israel in the beginning of July, I have been again hard at work as noted above primarily with the results of the Israel survey. I have also had the pleasure of celebrating the birth of my cousin’s new baby boy, going to my first Israeli wedding, and signing a lease on a new apartment in Tel Aviv.

In the meantime, thanks for bearing with me during my absence and “off-screen” work. I promise that new academic posts will return to the site shortly.

Published in 1951, McDonald hardly enjoys the benefit of hindsight in his assessment of the future of the region, but as a commentary on the turbulent politics of the period, his account is invaluable. Appointed first as the US Representative to the newly declared State of Israel on July 23, 1948, he had the distinction of being one of the first international diplomats to interface on an official government-to-government level with Israel’s early leadership.

As such, he was present for the development of Israel’s political institutions and was witness to the internal political wrangling and often open conflict between PM David Ben Gurion and President Chaim Weitzman regarding the role of presidential versus parliamentary power, between Ben Gurion and Moshe Sharett on the place of domestic politics versus international diplomacy, between the secular establishment and religious authorities regarding the place of Judaism in the new state, and for the transformation of rightist Revisionist Zionists from “terrorists” to “politicians”.

More interesting than his thoughts on internal Israeli politics, however, is his insight into the place of international diplomacy in the dissolution of the British Mandate, the founding of Israel and its war of independence, the armistice agreements which eventually followed, and how international interests, particularly American ones, engaged on the question of Israel’s post-Mandate borders and Arab refugees. Often ignored in contemporary discussions of the conflict, McDonald highlights how international engagement even then centered on the questions of borders, Jerusalem, and refugees.

Many forget that the American political establishment was ambivalent regarding Israel’s demands for “defensible borders” insisting at first that Israel concede the Negev in the south to Jordan or Egypt in exchange for its capture of the Galilee in the north, not originally allotted to it in the UN Partition Plan. Israel, having secured these borders only following attacks by Egypt in the south and Syria, Jordan, and Iraq in the north, was not prepared to concede territory arguing it would “reward aggression” which continued even during UN brokered ceasefires.

So too, did the United States originally take a less than soft line on the internationalization of Jerusalem, as did much of Christian Europe, the Vatican, and Catholic Latin America. Here, McDonald highlights how Israeli leaders of all political inclinations recognized the “special significance” of the city in the national imagination which they were unwilling to concede despite potential strategic and economic advantages for pursuing such a course. Even though “new” Jerusalem lacked the vast majority of Jewish holy sites, the symbolic importance of Jewish presence in and control of the city, if only in part, overrode such concerns. Paradoxically, because Jordan too rejected international efforts to internationalize the de facto divided city and the Arab world rejected any form of Israeli control, the matter was abandoned.

On the question of Arab refugees, McDonald is openly sympathetic to their plight and bemoans the fact that Israel, the Arab states, and the international community at large chose to treat the issue as a political question rather than a human tragedy. In this, he notes that there is plenty of blame to go around, but presciently argues that Arab states used this issue to distract from their own internal problems while Israel would continue to insist that a resolution of refugee claims could only be in the framework of a general peace in which return would not simply be a means for continuing the conflict.

In a manner quite inconsistent with western diplomats in the Middle East today, the former ambassador’s language is heavy with Christian overtones. His religious beliefs have an unmistakable impact on his assessment of the politics of Israel’s founding. While he is certainly sympathetic to the Zionist project, it is even more evident that he sees the establishment of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical promise; as he puts it, “Isaiah fulfilled.” As I have noted above, a Christian bias does not necessarily here indicate an uncritical approach to Israel. On the question of Christian holy sites and Christian heritage, while McDonald seems to put more faith in Israeli stewardship than those of Arab states, he too appears to prefer internationalization. As an advocate of the state, however, he does recount his efforts to lobby the Vatican on Israel’s behalf. He also notes how he pressured Israel at critical points during the War of Independence to agree to international negotiations when Israelis felt doing so was hardly in their best interests.

Regarding Israel’s future, McDonald believed that a looming “second round” of war would not be forthcoming and that Israel would be able to make peace with Arab states within the decade. As evidence, he details early efforts by King Abdullah of Jordan to broker a separate peace or, at the very least, a non-aggression pact. These expectations were clearly spoiled by the revolutions which swept the Arab world in the 1950s (Abdullah himself was assassinated while visiting Jerusalem in 1951) which replaced monarchs and elected leaders with military coups, demagogues, and autocrats which became the standard of Arab leadership from the 1950s until this year’s apparent “Arab Spring.” He also argues that Israelis were prepared to accept the post-1949 borders as final in any peace settlement. The reality of constant “fedayeen raids” throughout the 1950s, the Suez Crisis of 1956, and the 1967 Six Day War too seemingly erased the possibility of peace on these formative borders.

If anything, these realties confirm the maxim that it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future and for that McDonald cannot be faulted. That he should be so optimistic when so many in the region itself were anything but is however surprising. Perhaps, it should serve as a caution to those who take the opinions of those perceived to be on the inner circle of any given political situation as the truth. Few people were more in the know about the politics of the Middle East in these formative years than McDonald, and even he got it completely wrong. Regardless, as a commentary on the diplomatic micro-history of the Middle East at this time, his memoirs are an indispensible resource and well worth the read.