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At a Thursday lecture, an Israeli history professor at the University of Maine didn’t shy away from criticizing his country over policy regarding Palestine’s recent United Nations request for statehood.
Alexander Grab’s speech in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union was titled “The Israel-Palestinian Conflict, Palestinian Statehood, and the Crisis of Israeli Democracy,” chiefly sponsored by the Socialist and Marxist Studies Series.
Israel is divided into three major regions, the largest of which is Israel Proper, declared an independent state in 1948 in response to World War II. The other two regions, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, are inhabited mostly by Palestinians.
Palestine’s goal is to achieve independent statehood in those two regions.
Jerusalem, Israel’s internationally unrecognized capital, is at the heart of the controversy: Christians, Jews and Muslims all deem it a holy city.
“They are fighting over a piece of land which both of them see as their [homeland],” Grab said in a pre-lecture interview.
Conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has been going on for more a century. Religious persecution of Jews in Russia and Europe in the 1870s and 1880s spawned a strong Zionist movement, comprised mostly of Jews seeking a homeland in Israel, where their religion was born.
The conflict reached a watershed moment last week.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas delivered the statehood bid Friday despite staunch United States and Israeli opposition.
Grab predicted that an overwhelming majority of all world countries would vote in favor of Palestine — a “symbolic victory.”
But the vote that matters is that of the Security Council, made up of five permanent countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China. Other countries rotate in voting.
Unfortunately for Palestine, the United States has already said that it would block a vote. With that, the two-state solution couldn’t pass.
“It will further erode the position of the United States in the Arab world,” Grab said.
In 1967, Israel began forming Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, taking the land away from the Palestinians. Israel hasn’t stopped since; there are over 600,000 settlers in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which Palestinians see as a theft.
Grab described the situation as “immoral, but also illegal.”
“International law states very, very specifically, very explicitly, that if you conquer a foreign territory you cannot make any changes there,” he said. “You cannot establish settlements.
“This is called colonialism.”
Obama has long made speeches saying that he believes Palestine deserved an independent state.
“Palestinians hoped over the years, especially over the last three years since [President] Obama was elected, that the United States … a good ally of Israel … would [advocate] for Israel to evacuate those territories … and allow Palestine to establish a state,” Grab said.
In a Wednesday speech, however, Obama said UN resolutions weren’t the proper forum for a two-state solution.
“One year ago, I stood at this podium and called for an independent Palestine,” Obama said. “I believed then — and I believe now — that the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own. But what I also said is that genuine peace can only be realized between Israelis and Palestinians themselves.”
The main problem is that Palestine has said it won’t continue negotiations with Israel.
Grab said stopping any American work toward a two-state solution is a staunch pro-Israel network in Congress. According to a May article in U.S. News and World Report, 350 senators and representatives attended the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s 2011 annual conference. The group effectively functions as Israel’s lobbyist.
“Obama by himself, being the executive, simply cannot overcome the overwhelming support of Israel in Congress,” Grab said. “The reason that we don’t is because the House and the Senate are very much for Israel. It is pretty much a blank check for whatever Israel does. Nobody challenges them.”
Grab said with the upcoming 2012 elections, Obama does not want to criticize Israel and risk losing Jewish votes.
He emphasized, however, that not all Jews think alike. Some are very critical of Israel.
Grab called Israel’s government “very rigid” and “very uncompromising.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud is a center-right political party. He presides over a broad coalition government with radically conservative components.
One party, Yisrael Beiteinu, or “Israel is Our Home,” is a nationalist group representing Jewish settlers in the West Bank. It was founded and is led by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s foreign minister.
Despite the fact that one can speak and demonstrate freely in Israel, there has been what Grab described as an “erosion of democracy.”
One law passed prohibits Palestinian public commemoration.
“In 1948, the Arabs lost to Israel. For them, it is a disaster. They commemorated,” Grab said. “Now, it is forbidden to commemorate this event.”
Another law allows Israeli communities to set up commissions with the right to veto any new residents.
“This is particularly anti-Arab. They can deny the Arabs from settling in a certain [community],” he said.
While Grab says that he does not know what the outcome will be for the Palestinians, he said there is one basic truth at the conflict’s heart.
“Ten or 15 kilometers from Tel Aviv — in the West Bank — is an entire population of Palestinians who do not have basic human rights.”
Editor in Chief Michael Shepherd contributed to this report.
