Ben Buckman.net

Newsweek has a piece on Israel-Palestine this week, Who Needs Peace, Love, And Understanding, Anyway? (subtitle: Why many Israelis now believe that pursuing peace with the Palestinians is passé).

Conclusion:

On some level, the changes Israel is undergoing are part of the normal evolution of a Western democracy. It makes sense that Israelis over time would become less obsessed with politics, more cynical about their neighbors, less trusting of their leaders. But for Palestinians next door, nothing is normal. Hamas has rebounded from the Gaza war and is once again smuggling in weapons. In the West Bank, Israel's one reliable peace partner, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has vowed to resign. Farther off, a conflict with Iran looms. Many Israelis know it's just a matter of time before another bomb blows up in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. But as one Israeli put it to me: the medication has become so effective at relieving the pain, there's little incentive to actually cure the disease.

Also this week, This American Life's latest episode, of semi-whimsical predictions for 2010, includes an Israeli forecast for the breakout of a third Intifada.

Whatever one thinks of Netanyahu, the Gaza war, the peace process, or whatever, I think it's pretty clear that despite the current calm (which is undoubtedly a huge tactical victory), nothing fundamental has improved between the Israelis and Palestinians. Which goes to the observation from Andrew Sullivan that I quoted recently (which several people reacted to out of context)... if one acknowledges some legitimacy (or more cynically, the mere existence) of the Palestinian struggle, then one has to wonder where the energy formerly devoted to violence has gone; have they given up, have they shifted to other methods, or is this just a lull before the next storm. On the other hand, if, like the extreme right in Israel, for whom "Arabs are non-persons; they do not exist in their narrative so they are utterly invisible" - rejecting any claim of grievance and considering their whole movement a fallacy to be corrected - then short-term victories are the only kind possible, and peace will only ever be a lull between battles.

I see the conflict with two premises: First, the Palestinian struggle in many ways mirrors the Israeli cause pre-1948; the arguments made for a Jewish state apply similarly to a Palestinian one, and the arguments for Israeli democracy apply equally to the neighbors. Second, eventually the Palestinians will outnumber the Israeli Jews, and will realize a non-violent drive for full representation is the best strategy, and that could destroy Israel as a Jewish state. Given those two premises, and the prevalence of apathy/complacency on the one hand and grievance-rejection on the other, I think the "painkillers" now aren't doing anything good for the patient in the long run.