2013-05-22T01:58:49-04:00 John Lyndon http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=john-lyndon Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for John Lyndon Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1588818 2012-06-13T16:27:04-04:00 2012-08-13T05:12:05-04:00

John Lyndon http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-lyndon/ Knesset vote on the illegal Ulpana outpost seemed like a vindication of Israeli democracy for many of its citizens. The Supreme Court ruling to evacuate 30 families living on Palestinian land was upheld, as was the notion that Israel's democracy and the rule of law can exist side by side with its expanding presence in the West Bank. This is a fiction.

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's forceful opposition to the law did perhaps indicate that he was willing to take on the extremists within the settler movement when the rule of law was at stake, his reasons for doing so gave away his true agenda. "The solution we found strengthens settlements and preserves the rule of law," said Netanyahu directly after the vote. And in case anyone doubted the truth of the first half of his statement, he promptly announced the construction of 300 new settlement units in Beit El, before almost trebling that number to 851.

The 'solution' has indeed strengthened settlements, as well as the extreme political bloc that promotes them. It has also fundamentally damaged the rule of law and Israel's hope of a truly democratic future.

A poll commissioned by OneVoice and published last week found the general public's attitude echoed Netanyahu's thinking. While 64 percent of Israelis oppose illegal settlements in the West Bank, only 41 percent of Israelis think they present a risk to the future viability of the two-state solution. The international community considers all settlements built on occupied Palestinian territory illegal.

There is a profound cognitive dissonance at work here. The two-state solution is the only way to secure Israel's democracy for future generations. Equally, the greatest threat to that solution is continued settlement expansion on land earmarked for a Palestinian state in any future agreement. While Israeli democracy would indeed be greatly tarnished by the government running roughshod over a Supreme Court ruling, it would be crushed forever by the closing of the window of opportunity for two states.

Many Israeli politician continue repeating the mantra "Jewish democracy" to describe the type of state most Israelis want, but at the same time, they acquiesce to facts on the ground that would require an impossible choice between those two values.

Without a settlement freeze, millions of Palestinians residing in cities and villages where settlement construction encroaches heavily on their lives would either have to become citizens of Israel (much like the Palestinians of '48) or else remain stateless forever. The first option results in an unworkable bi-national state that is no longer Jewish. The latter could possibly mean an immoral and certainly undemocratic government reminiscent of apartheid.

The pressures Netanyahu endures from an increasingly powerful lobby of the extreme right have left him trying to muddle through by following the court order on illegal outposts, but at the same time not confronting the real challenge of Israeli democracy, presented by his own policy of settlement expansion.

A counter lobby of Israelis must exert even greater pressure on Netanyahu to realize the two-state solution. As suggested by Professor Alan Dershowitz's latest article in the Wall Street Journal, Israelis need to join in a sustained campaign across the country that calls for a settlement freeze. This would not only serve to restart negotiations with the Palestinians, it would also ensure that when talks resume, there is enough belief among them in the possibility of achieving a viable state.

The alternative makes the debate of last week on illegal outposts a marginal issue, facing as it does an obvious need for Palestinian civil rights, either as citizens of a yet-to-be-established Palestinian state or as citizens of a bi-national Israel. This is the real choice for Israelis: settlements or democracy. Israel cannot have both.

This piece was co-written with Tal Harris, executive director of OneVoice Israel, leading grassroots efforts in Israel toward the two-state solution for Middle East peace.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1246094 2012-02-01T03:23:43-05:00 2012-04-01T05:12:01-04:00

John Lyndon http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-lyndon/ "We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late."
-Martin Luther King

2011 was the most tumultuous year in the Middle East in recent memory. Long-held assumptions about the entire region were turned on their heads, with dictators falling, societies rising up, and diplomats, experts and statesmen scrambling to make sense of a new reality that is still shrouded in uncertainty.

On the surface, Israel and Palestine largely seem to represent a rare exception to this region-wide phenomenon. Whilst places as geographically disparate as Tripoli, Sana'a and Manama were rocked by historic events and profound change, Jerusalem - for so long the political fault line on which the rest of the region is precariously balanced - appeared to remain relatively sanguine, all things considered.

Yet this analysis makes the same mistake that coloured much of the pre-2012 Middle East thinking. It is the sort of analysis that, as late as 1 January 2011, led to confident conclusions that President Mubarak was unassailable, and the Middle East was largely immune to tides of public protest. Previous historic shifts within this conflict, including wars, peace agreements and intifadas, have often taken seasoned analysts by surprise. Events and trends below the surface often conspire to create unexpected conclusions. The last twelve months have seen some very significant developments in both Israel and Palestine; winds of change that, if left unchecked, could have us all reaping whirlwinds before too long.

In Israel, the marked shift to the right has continued, augmented by a genuine and understandable nervousness about the profound uncertainty in the region, and the potential rise of governments much more hostile to Israel than those that preceded them. The Likud-led coalition under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has brought forth a wave of legislation that has been increasingly nationalistic, insular and troubling.

The widespread protests on the streets of major Israeli cities last summer showed a young and politically forthright society that is willing to organise and mobilise on an enormous scale; but around social and economic issues rather than Israel's greatest threat, the continued conflict with the Palestinians. If this groundswell of public mobilisation can be directed toward the occupation and the threat it poses to Israel's very nature, we could perhaps see a situation transformed.

In Palestine, some of the lowest levels of violence in recent times belie a society that is divided. Divided physically, between the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the diaspora; politically, between Hamas, Fatah and a growing non-aligned movement; and existentially, between the two-state solution that the PLO has advocated since 1988, and an uncertain alternative that has yet to be fully articulated.

The 76 year-old President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has signalled repeatedly that he will not run for office again and has no obvious successor within the Fatah establishment. With long-postponed parliamentary elections tentatively scheduled for May, underpinned by a shaky reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas, it seems as though Palestine is on the cusp of some sort of political change. The type of change which emerges will depend not only on the events in Palestine, but also on the behaviour of Israel and the international community, particularly the United States.

Both parties have disempowered the Palestinian moderate leadership over the last twelve months. The US effectively contradicted its own stated policy with regards to Israel's settlement programme in the UN when it vetoed a resolution condemning building in the Occupied Territories. It then set its stall out in firm opposition to the Palestinian bid for statehood in September, exercising quite a bit of diplomatic muscle to convince other states to follow its lead. Meanwhile, Israel negotiated the release of captured soldier Gilad Shalit with Hamas, releasing over 1,000 prisoners as part of the deal, and giving Hamas a huge political boost in the process. For too many Palestinians, the lessons they draw from these events are that Fatah's strategy of non-violence, negotiations and international diplomacy bears no fruit, whilst Hamas' more forthright and confrontational approach pays rapid dividends.

Taken together, these events should inspire a sense of urgency and commitment amongst those who care about the peaceful resolution of this conflict. The two-state solution, which has moved over the last two decades from being a radical position on the fringes of both societies into the mainstream with much consensus both in the region and internationally, is at risk. It has taken a generation for this consensus to be painfully built up, but it will take a fraction of that time for it to be shattered, with no workable alternative waiting in the wings.

In Israel, despite Netanyahu laudably committing to a two-state solution over two years ago in a speech at Bar Ilan University, many doubt whether the commitment is genuine and purposeful, and feel that the government that he leads is structurally incapable of affirming such a deal, with many Members of Knesset within it vocally and ideologically opposed to the very concessions that would be necessary to deliver an agreement.

Within Israeli society, the separation wall and the reduction in violence has allowed many people to push resolution of the conflict further from the forefront of their minds, which allows politicians to do the same.

Similarly, in Palestine, popular support for two states has dropped significantly, with many people so disenchanted with stalled and fruitless negotiations and the continued growth of settlements that they no longer believe it is possible. People need to pay attention to this phenomenon. If the two-state solution begins to look like fantasy, then people will mobilise behind other rallying calls, like a one state outcome or a bi-national state. These options are considered by most to be practically impossible, but people are increasingly saying the same thing about the two-state solution too, which - with its painful compromises and essence of mutual recognition - is a less intoxicating dream than more maximalist alternatives. Yet the two-state solution remains the only viable option that ends the occupation, allows both peoples to peacefully express their sovereignty, and reduces rather than increases the potential for future conflict. Ensuring that it remains viable is a priority of the very highest order.

Negotiations themselves have become debased, with the collapse of the talks held in Amman this January illustrating just how far the process has fallen. Palestinians have seen twenty years of negotiations coincide with a huge increase in settlement activity, and are deeply suspicious of a long-running process that has yet to pay dividends. For Israelis, the taboo of talking to the enemy has long been broken, with discussions between Israelis and Palestinians now barely troubling the front-pages of many national newspapers, and expectations for progress at an all-time low.

With both the desired destination (two states), and the preferred mechanism to get there (negotiations) suffering from such a crisis in public confidence, it is clear that there needs to be an effort to revive both, instilling new purpose and commitment into any future attempt to break the deadlock. A clear timetable for talks, terms of reference that guarantee that the right issues will be addressed, and a suspension in settlement activity for their duration will go some way toward reversing this trend.

It is within this uncertain but shifting context that the role of civil society becomes crucial. Both societies have the potential, within themselves, to challenge expectations and contradict many observers' grim analysis. If the two-state solution is indeed under threat, it is the responsibility of ordinary people, both in the region and internationally, to compel their leaders to act with the urgency that such a situation demands.

In March of last year, OneVoice Palestine activists in Nablus participated in a sit-in, demanding national unity as a crucial step to ending the conflict, whilst many more marched in Ramallah under the same banner. Town hall meetings across the West Bank have engaged hundreds of people at a grassroots level, inviting political leaders to come and debate the issues that must be addressed if statehood is to be achieved. OneVoice Palestine mounted a campaign that supported and explained the Palestinian bid for UN membership, taking their message to Palestine's towns and villages.

In Israel, OneVoice mounted a campaign during the autumn, calling for brave and urgent action from the government, culminating in an open-air roundtable discussion connecting over 650 people with 50 prominent Israeli thinkers. This month, they have been calling for a freeze in settlement construction in order to restart negotiations, illustrating their point with a flash mob in Jerusalem's Zion Square.

Bit by bit, organisations and individuals are increasingly setting the context in both societies. It is this flowering of people power, the same force we saw in Egypt or Tunisia, which should give us the greatest hope for a breakthrough. The flaws and challenges within both leaderships are well known, with every detail of the elite political context pored over by the world's media. What are much less clearly understood are the capacity, intent and potential of civil society. If 2011 taught us anything, it is not to underestimate this force. If 2012 is to see the politicians take a step back from the political precipice and meaningfully re-engage with this process, it will need to be with the backing and encouragement of both their societies. Solving this conflict is a profoundly urgent priority. If this sense of urgency becomes more pressing amongst citizens, such a force can radically change the behaviour of even the most stubborn of leaders.

John Lyndon is the Executive Director of OneVoice Europe www.onevoicemovement.org
OneVoice are holding a Gala Dinner on the 19 March with David Miliband and activists from their Israeli and Palestinian movements. For tickets or further information email: Europe@onevoicemovement.org.uk
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1080216 2011-11-07T18:00:00-05:00 2012-01-07T05:12:01-05:00

John Lyndon http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-lyndon/
It is a very real electoral issue in America, where President Barack Obama's Israel policy seems to carry more political weight than many key domestic priorities. Even at a civil society level, events in far-away Israel and Palestine polarise communities, university campuses and sometimes even families.

Everyone, it seems wants this solved urgently; not just for the benefit of the people living between the river and the sea, but also so that the toxic consequences felt far further afield can be halted and rolled back.

OneVoice recently led a delegation of American and British business leaders and philanthropists, including actor Jason Alexander, on a week-long tour of Israel and the West Bank. We visited Sderot, where children live under the constant threat of rocket fire, overlooking Gaza, where many more children live under an ever-present threat of attack, a crippling Israeli siege and a repressive Hamas government. In Qalqilya, we met people whose lives had been torn asunder by settlement expansion and land annexation. Everywhere we went, we spoke to people who were tired, frustrated and fearful, longing for an end to a conflict that never fails to impinge on their lives each and every day.

Our delegation very quickly felt a collective sense of urgency and a genuine willingness to play an active role in bringing this about. In many of the meetings we held with political leaders, however, there was a marked disconnect between the realities faced by ordinary Israelis and Palestinians and the words, deeds and demeanour of their leaders.

The rationale for an urgent move toward a two-state solution is well known and compelling. The potential fruits of such an agreement would be shared equally in both societies just as the fallout of continued occupation may well be. So then why did it appear as though many of the leaders were more interested in talking about problems rather than solutions?

In separate meetings with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, we heard about how close both sides had come in finalising a deal in 2008. Yet Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told us that "the time is not right; not on our side, not on their side, and - if I can go above my pay grade for a moment - not in the US either." Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon spent the best part of an hour telling the delegates all of the reasons why Israel should be cautious, move slowly, and wait and see how events play out.

"The world is in a hurry. We are not in a hurry." These words were uttered a few years ago by senior Hamas official Abu Bakr Nofal. It is easy to imagine them being spoken privately by most of the men and women currently in charge in both Israel and Palestine.

Time, however, is not on the side of the two-state solution, nor is it the ally of the moderate voices that hope to bring about such a solution. The political gravity within both societies is increasingly tilted in favour of hardliners, who seem to be actively engaged in a race to the bottom.

In Israel, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, representing the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu, outflanks Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, forcing him to bring his government (already the most right-wing in Israel's history) further to the right in order to placate his base. Similarly, Hamas wins a tactical victory through violence, so President Mahmoud Abbas feels like he needs to harden his rhetoric in order to regain legitimacy.

The tragedy is that each party is doing this at the expense of their potential partner. Domestic legitimacy is increasingly becoming a bilateral zero-sum game, and recent events illustrate this all too acutely. The Gilad Shalit prisoner swap deal may have empowered Netanyahu, but it also boosted Hamas at the expense of Palestinian moderates. Similarly, whilst the Palestinian UN declaration buoyed President Abbas' domestic position, it was - rightly or wrongly - seen as mud in the eye to many of the oppositional voices in Israel urging for a resumption of negotiations.

Waiting in the wings in both societies are those that hope to benefit from the status quo persisting, and the evaporation of what little trust remains.

In Israel, the nationalists, who want to step up settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, know that political polarisation and time are the ingredients necessary to do so.

In Palestine, Hamas has long-preached a strategy of gradualism and steadfastness, seeing demography and a gradual sapping of Israel's strength as the best route to success. These twin agendas - each driven by a particularly racist brand of religious nationalism - are irreconcilable, and they set the entire region on a collision course in which compromise is impossible and tragedy is certain.

There is still time for the moderate camps in both societies to wrestle the agenda back from the hardliners, and to agree on a deal that ends this conflict and results in two states at peace with one another.

But in order for that to happen, the leaders must recognise the same disturbing reality and unsettling future that their citizens, international onlookers and everyone concerned with this conflict feels intensely. If they seem incapable or unwilling to do this on their own, then those very same citizens and international supporters,

OneVoice's key constituencies, need to mobilise to make sure that the leadership feels the conflict as acutely as they do and wants an agreement just as urgently.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.924431 2011-08-15T13:42:53-04:00 2011-10-15T05:12:02-04:00

John Lyndon http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-lyndon/ lighting himself -- and then the Middle East -- on fire, any claim that the Tunis ripple would lap the shores of Tel Aviv was, until very recently, met with a kneejerk dismissal and a rolling of the eyes.

Yet the seemingly spontaneous eruption of public anger in Israel has caused many to rethink things. People have taken to the streets in unprecedented numbers, motivated by a whole host of quality of life issues that strike at the core of the social contract that many believe Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has violated.

I just hope the protestors don't end up missing the point, and squandering this unprecedented momentum by pointing it in the wrong direction. In the Middle East, far too many people too often confuse symptom with cause. They would do well to look to Egypt, and learn from the mistakes that their counterparts in Tahrir Square made in the initial phase of their protests. Mubarak, as Egyptians are learning now, was not the cause of Egypt's problems, more a particularly virulent symptom. At the height of their momentum and influence they directed their demands toward him, rather than the system that he presided over, a decision many of the activists now seem to regret.

The tangled web of military dominance in the politics and economy of Egypt, as well as chronic nepotism, elitism and lack of competitiveness, now looks a more difficult problem to solve than the ousting of one man from a presidential palace. The symptom has been removed, but the underlying sickness remains.

I would argue that the underlying, causal, issue for much of Israel's ills isn't housing policy, educational standards or the quality of public healthcare. It isn't even really the economic policies of this government or its predecessors, nor nebulous concepts around the deterioration of societal bonds.

These are all issues in their own right, with complicated factors feeding into them, but there is one common underlying illness that compounds these problems, augmenting their impact and rendering them chronic, rather than temporary ailments. The underlying malaise that is producing or worsening many of the symptoms currently bedevilling Israel's justifiably impatient youth is the occupation, and the socio-economic consequences that it produces in Israel, rather than those it produces in the occupied territories themselves.

Settlers get heavily subsidised transportation on settler-only roads, while residents living in Israel-proper endure an outdated public transportation system and traffic-clogged highways. Settlers enjoy subsidised and incentivised housing schemes in the West Bank, while young couples struggle to live within Israel itself. All in all, Israel has spent over $50 billion on settling and controlling the West Bank and Gaza. Considering that many of these homes are doomed to be destroyed or handed over in the advent of peace, this is a poor investment of public money and the wrong place to invest Israel's limited housing budget.

Equally, Israel has serious security concerns that justify a well-resourced military. But many now recognise that these security concerns are aggravated, not eased, by the continued presence of soldiers and settlers in land destined to form a Palestinian state. The resources needed to keep Israel secure are surely not best spent on controlling another population - a process that foments anger and resentment amongst Palestinians and the wider Arab and Muslim world, creating more insecurity for Israelis. Considering a substantial part of the security budget seems to arguably create insecurity, this too is a poor investment of public money and the wrong place to invest a large chunk of Israel's security budget.

An ultimate goal for Israel should be that the defence budget does not dwarf every other national priority ad infinitum, thereby proving that the country's existence and sustainability is finally secure, its status cemented. But so long as Israeli soldiers and settlers remain in the West Bank, that reality will never materialise.


Paradoxically, whilst the Palestinians are perhaps guilty of blaming too many of their society's ills on the occupation, Israelis recognise too few. They must acknowledge its cost on their lives and make a self-interested decision based on socio-economic priorities as much as all of the other well-known and deeply compelling arguments, and put an end to it once and for all.

Israel - for all its faults - is a democracy where people can take to the streets without fear of reprisal. Citizens can organise and mobilise to replace their government with one that looks after the best interests of the many, rather than the destructive agenda of the few. Most would prefer to see a light-rail system connect their cities, rather than another hulking settlement in the West Bank. Most would like to be able to comfortably bring up their families in the town that they were born in, rather than subsidising extreme ideologues to live far beyond Israel's border. Balancing a budget is all about priorities - you can't do everything you would like - and most Israelis on the streets right now seem to agree that the current government's priorities are catastrophically misplaced.

OneVoice Israel's youth leaders are out in Tel Aviv's Tent City, as well as protests across the country, making this case and urging young Israelis, some of whom are now finding their political voice for the first time, to think about these issues with depth and clarity. Opportunities such as those being created on the streets of Israel's cities do not come along very often. They must be seized by those with clarity of vision and unity of purpose to cure the illness rather than simply attempt to treat some of its symptoms.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.744064 2010-09-29T15:11:45-04:00 2011-05-25T17:50:22-04:00

John Lyndon http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-lyndon/
The following evening, we were in Tel Aviv, enjoying dinner with OneVoice Israel's youth leaders. On their faces, we saw the very same cynicism at the mere mention of direct talks. They too were old enough not to hope too much.

While some international news reports have expressed measured optimism at the resumption of direct negotiations, the feeling on both the Israeli and Palestinian street remained cautious at best and cynical for most. The message: Talks are meaningless without sustained and real progress that can be seen and felt by the people living the conflict.

This lack of faith is borne out of the countless failures of previous direct talks. There is a sense on the Palestinian street of being "blackmailed" into entering these talks; in Israel, hope for success is apathetic at best. The most common question we heard from both sides: "What will be different this time around?"

It's important to realize that negotiations for negotiations sake will not only stall progress and reinforce the toxic status quo, but also will do irreparable damage to the already frail two-state solution. It took 20 months to get each side to sit down again. If these talks merely amount to posturing and fail, reviving them yet again could take years. It is imperative that both negotiating teams realize that they could be playing with the very last reserves of their respective peoples' faith in this process and in each other.

Infusing the negotiations with purpose and legitimacy requires unprecedented commitment by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to go beyond talk of compromises, to actually make compromises. Hope cannot be created out of mistrust; it must be built and earned.

Do not waste our time, Mr. Netanyahu, if you continue to say you support the two-state solution, while at the same time insisting on settlement expansion in the West Bank and maintaining Jerusalem as the undivided and eternal capital of Israel.

Do not waste our time, Mr. Abbas, if you continue to say you support the creation of an independent, viable Palestinian state, while at the same time insisting that all Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return to the state of Israel.

The burden of ensuring that the direct talks succeed does not fall on the leaders alone. The people on the ground must be a part of the solution. Israelis and Palestinians must make a giant leap -- not simply accepting a deal but, rather, demanding one. For too long, both peoples have been treated as passengers in this process. It is time for them to rise up as the guiding force and the voice of expectation and conscience, weighing heavily on their leaders' minds as they sit around the negotiating table.

Resuming negotiations may seem like a success in its own right to policymakers in Washington, D.C., London, or Brussels, but the people on the ground, whose lives and futures are hanging in the balance, are not as easily impressed. There will have to be bravery, compromise, leadership, and, above all, results.

OneVoice is in the final stages of launching an ambitious project called "Imagine 2018." Using videos and other media, Israelis and Palestinians will share their visions of the year 2018. There will be positive visions, depicting a Middle East where peace has been secured, and negative visions, illustrating the result of eight more years of this toxic status quo -- or worse.

Both futures are entirely possible, yet incredibly different. This multiplatform campaign can actually serve as a constant reminder of the crossroads lying before these leaders as they meet face-to-face to discuss the intertwined futures of their respective peoples.

The choices, and consequences, are clear.

Darya Shaikh is executive director of the PeaceWorks Foundation and chief operating officer of OneVoice. John Lyndon is executive director of OneVoice Europe. In 2010, OneVoice is focusing on the need to instill urgency into the peace process by launching Imagine 2018, a multiplatform campaign that depicts visions by Israelis and Palestinians of 2018 if a peace agreement is signed versus maintaining the status quo or worse. To learn more, visit http://www.onevoicemovement.org.]]>