Dilemmas

Bernard Avishai argues at TPM Cafe that the West Bank settlements have got Israel in a box that it can't escape from on its own. Israel's colonies in the West Bank are small, absorb a dispproportionate share of Israeli resources, are a primary obstacle to peace and behave badly. Unfortunately, they are also very difficult to dislodge.

No Israeli leader wants to deal with facing down the new Judeans--or can, without destroying Israeli social solidarity. I have written here before about how all fanatics live within concentric circles of support. No matter who wins a majority in the next election, about half of Israeli Knesset members will be from circles which the settlers count on--National Orthodox, Shas, Leiberman's Russians, Haredi--people concentrated in and around Jerusalem, whom the settlers will tell you would be in settlements themselves if they had the guts; people who will nevertheless apply the "values" the settlers stand for to Jerusalem.

The problem with conquered people is that you need to either absorb, expel, or exterminate them. Israel is not will to do the first, since if it does it will soon become just another Arab state, and the latter constitute genocide.

WHERE DOES THIS leave us? The simple fact is, this problem is too big for Israel. We will need the world's involvement; anyone who tells you something different is either covering for the settlers, or afraid for electoral reasons to appear squishy about Israeli autonomy, or arrogant, or ignorant, or thick, or all of these at once. This post is not the place to describe what involvement means, though the contours of a two-state deal have been obvious for many years. The point is, what Hebron represents cannot be solved by this deal in a few decisive months, like the evacuation of the Sinai was. New changes to the landscape will take years. Or the landscape will look like Bosnia

But if Israel can't do it, who can?

Who are you lookin' at?