I wanted to make some observation on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s recent speech on Israel. The full text of it is here, made available by the Times of Israel.
My immediate reaction to his speech was that as a good Democrat he was attempting to do damage control for President Biden’s, frankly, confused or conflicted policy with respect to Israel. As such his speech reflects the fantastical view towards Israel of American Jews and, indeed, many non-Jewish Americans. On the one hand there’s the fantasy Israel, a liberal democratic country, a sort of paradise on earth. On the other there’s the real Israel which, while more liberal and more democratic than its neighbors, is not that liberal or democratic and is far from a paradise and in which public opinion, under the repeated assaults of Islamist terrorist groups, has grown increasingly hostile to those groups.
I wanted to call attention to these passages:
Hamas has knowingly invited an immense civilian toll during this war. Their goal on October 7 was to provoke a tough response from Israel by killing as many Jews as possible in the most vicious manner possible — by raping women, executing babies, desecrating bodies, brutalizing whole communities.
Since then, Hamas has heartlessly hidden behind their fellow Palestinians by turning hospitals into command centers, and refugee camps into missile-launching sites. It is well documented that Hamas soldiers use innocent Gazans as human shields. The leaders of Hamas, many of whom live lives of luxury in places far away from the poverty and misfortune of Gaza, do not care one iota about the Palestinians for whom they claim to nobly fight.
and
The only just solution to this predicament is one in which each people can flourish in their own state side-by-side.
But for a two-state solution to work over the long term, it has to include real and meaningful compromises by both sides.
and
Right now, there are four major obstacles standing in the way of two states, and until they are removed from the equation, there will never be peace in Israel and Gaza and the West Bank.
Those four major obstacles are:
Hamas, and the Palestinians who support and tolerate their evil ways.
Radical right-wing Israelis in government and society.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Does anyone else see the cognitive dissonance in those statements? You can not coherently insist on a “two-state solution” and reject both Hamas and Palestinian Authority. Those are the alternatives for Palestinian governance. With whom would such a settlement be negotiated? There are no liberal democratic Palestinian parties with anything resembling majority support waiting in the wings.
And, of course, he’s assuming that whoever would replace Benjamin Netanyahu would be less “right-wing” and nationalistic than Mr. Netanyahu. IMO that reflects the fantasy Israel again. IMO Netanyahu’s bad polling numbers are due to the attack on 10/7 not because he’s not liberal or democratic enough.
