On Israel, John Kerry made the mistake of telling truth
The classic mistake of diplomacy is to tell the truth. In warning that Israel is at risk of becoming an apartheid state, a state that survives by repressing a permanent ethnic underclass through violence and the denial of basic human rights, Secretary of State John Kerry this week told the truth.
For that, he was forced to apologize.
The truth that Kerry told has also been told repeatedly by Israeli politicians and commentators. As Kerry noted in his apology, “Justice Minister (Tzipi) Livni, former prime ministers (Ehud) Barak and (Ehud) Ohlmert have all invoked the specter of apartheid to underscore the dangers of a unitary state for the future.”
The Israelis see it and can talk about it. We see it and cannot talk about it. Because once the United States officially recognizes the reality of what is happening, the political consequences are profound.
Let’s talk this through, because it’s pretty simple once you do:
1.) There will either be a one-state solution or a two-state solution, with the two-state solution meaning a nation of Israel and a nation of Palestine.
2.) A two-state solution requires Israel to surrender claims to the West Bank territory needed to form a Palestinian state, and a significant portion of Israelis, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, cannot bring themselves to take that step. The Occupied Territories are the apple that they are sorely tempted to pluck, even if succumbing to that temptation might end in their eventual eviction.
3.) If a two-state solution is not possible, there will be one state. One state that contains Israel and the West Bank and six million Jews and 4.5 million Palestinians, with the Palestinians gaining population and headed toward a majority.
4.) As Kerry noted, this “Greater Israel” could survive by offering its Palestinian citizens the vote and other human rights, but that would fatally undermine its role as a Jewish homeland. Its other choice is to try to preserve that Jewish character through an apartheid approach that permanently represses the Palestinians. That would turn Israel into an international pariah.
Either way, Israel as we know it dies, and that would be a mistake of historic, tragic and almost unthinkable proportions.
If we’re honest, we should also acknowledge that Israel is not a net strategic asset to the United States; it is a strategic burden. For decades, we’ve been happy to bear that burden because it has been the right thing to do, and because we and Israel share democratic values that we do not share with other countries in that region.
But we do not have shared democratic values with an apartheid state. Supporting a state that survives only through cruel repression of a significant minority contradicts everything that we Americans claim to represent. As Israel moves in that direction, the foundational bedrock of our relationship with Israel would erode into sand.
The break may not be immediate, but it would be inexorable. Other nations without the special relationship that exists between Israel and the United States would begin to separate themselves from Israel politically and economically, and in some instances have already begun to do so. Over time, the cost to the United States of supporting Israel would grow, and the realization that we are paying that cost to support a nation that directly contradicts our own values would grow as well.
And while the cultural, religious and political ties that bind the United States with Israel are deep, they are not unconditional.
