Far Past The Day

Jack Ross writes:

We have, of course, seen countless sign posts of this just in the last year. But now of course comes the news that the U.S. is giving up the ghost of the “peace process” by dropping its demand for a settlement freeze. I will again repeat what I have always said, that Obama never seriously believed he could stop the settlements, that it was only a smokescreen to buy time as the world prepared for a universally acknowledged death of the two-state solution.

Which makes the pathos of those pleading to save it all the worse. I was exposed to this once again when I went to hear Peter Beinart speak on Tuesday at the final session of the annual conference of Rabbis for Human Rights. In the above link I recount what I can only describe as the Don Quixote quality to Beinart’s efforts to breathe new life into progressive Zionism, with a far more emotional appeal than the awkwardly calculated politics of J Street and before a far more radical audience. This morning, Beinart has responded to the recent developments with an unstoppable righteous anger.

Obama and his Jewish allies such as J Street have been General Kornilov to Netanyahu’s Kerensky – the one force that can save the regime from its otherwise inevitable downfall only to be persecuted as traitorous, with Netanyahu and his American amen corner, like the Wilsonian Kerensky, drunk in equal measure on power and ideology.

Committed anti-Zionist though I am, what is happening to Israel has been an avoidable tragedy. In my forthcoming book I recount one or two cases as early as the 50s where Israel squandered incredible opportunities to secure its future. But the most recent history has been the most alarming, with some dreadful implications for America.

The downfall of the contemporary Israeli political class is that they are believers in the propaganda of the neocons whom they historically regarded as their useful idiots. Ariel Sharon, I believe, was the last Israeli leader who knew better than to believe it, which is why at the time of his incapacitation he appeared to be moving swiftly toward a genuine two-state solution.

There are ominous parallels in the trajectory of the American right. We are, to be sure, far past the day when the Republican establishment and its allies looked upon the neocons as little more than useful idiots, but they are not quite yet past the same point of no return as the Israelis. Indeed, let us remember that we are more or less talking about the very same individuals in both cases. We might well cast Sarah Palin – whose true believership in, and intimacy with, the neocons makes George W. Bush pale in comparison – in the role presently held by Netanyahu.

In short, the self-delusion that had doomed the Israelis will next befall the partisans of the American empire.

Will Jack's book be published in Britain?