DOCSLIB.ORG

Ayalon Stars in J St.’S ‘

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Ayalon Stars in J St.’S ‘ Ayalon Stars in J St.’s ‘2 Campaign’ Event in NYC The pro-Israel/pro-peace lobby and national constituency organization, J Street, is engaged in its “2 Campaign” of forums around the country to generate support for a negotiated two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. On the evening of March 10th, it was the turn of New York, in front of a large friendly audience at the New School. Ami Ayalon The event featured J Street’s president Jeremy Ben-Ami with guests Ami Ayalon and U.S. Congressman Jerrold Nadler. Nadler has advocated a two-state solution in principle but has also been a sharp critic of the Palestinian Authority; at this panel, his criticism was not in evidence. Ayalon, the Israeli, had to be considered the star — not for his talent as an orator, but for his background: an ex-commando and commander of Israel’s navy, a retired head of the Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security service), a former prominent Labor Party politician and now a veteran campaigner for peace. Among his remarks, gleaned from a lifetime devoted to Israel’s security, were the following observations: Palestinian cooperation on security and peace is correlated to their hope for a state. It’s important for Palestinians to see peaceful negotiations as gaining them adequate territory for their state, as opposed to what they might gain from returning to violence. During the Q & A, Ayalon answered affirmatively that an explicit Palestinian acknowledgment of Israel as a Jewish state would be “important,” but he did not emphasize it as all-important, i.e., a stumbling block. Here’s the YouTube video of the entire New York “town hall” event: The following are from a variety of media sources on Ayalon’s visit to the United States. This is from Alan Elsner’s “View from J Street: The Wisdom of a Former Shin Bet Chief,” at the Jewish Currents website’s Blog-Shmog: . [Ami Ayalon] is unafraid of confronting the truth as he sees it, no matter how controversial, as was proven by his participation in the movie documentary The Gatekeepers, which comprised interviews with all six of Israel’s living former Shin Bet chiefs. Strikingly all six, in their own words, articulated the need to end the occupation and make peace with the Palestinians. When an audience member in the Town Hall meeting in Boca Raton, Florida asked Ayalon how Israel could possibly trust the Palestinians when their textbooks were full of hatred for Israel, he had an interesting two-part answer: “I raised this with one of the Palestinian partners I negotiated with. He told me, ‘Ami, our children don’t learn to hate from textbooks. They learn to hate from watching their parents being humiliated at Israeli checkpoints. When you stop controlling us, over time we will stop hating you.’” Ayalon’s second point: “I never said we should trust them. This is not what we base our security on. But the Palestinians right now feel they have nothing to lose. If you have a people who feels they have nothing to lose, nothing on earth will stop them. We have to help create incentives so that people in the West Bank do have something to lose. If they have their own state and we can create some economic prosperity and hope for the future, this will begin to happen.” And it’s hardly as if Israel is blameless, Ayalon said. “We send mixed messages to the international community and to ourselves. If we are ready for peace, we have to explain why we keep on building settlements.” Forward columnist JJ Goldberg provides an excellent capsule bio for Ayalon in “Could ‘Framework’ Offer Elusive Breakthrough as Peace Talks Sputter?“: . Ayalon was a career naval commando who rose to become commander of the Israeli navy. In 1996 he was tapped to rescue the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, which had been shattered by Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. Retiring in 2000, he partnered with Palestinian academic Sari Nusseibeh to form The People’s Voice, which collected nearly a half-million signatures on both sides for a model two-state peace agreement they drafted. In 2003 he gathered his fellow ex-Shin Bet chiefs for a group interview in Yediot Ahronot that eventually inspired the film “The Gatekeepers.” In 2006 he entered the Knesset with the Labor Party, narrowly lost a leadership bid to Ehud Barak, briefly served as a minister and left politics in 2009. Since then he’s been working with an organization he created with several partners, Blue White Future, to promote constructive unilateralism. An example of a constructive unilateral step, he suggests, would be “for Palestine to become a member of the U.N. — on condition that it be committed to negotiate a final settlement based on the framework.” . WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show (a public radio talk show) featured Ayalon on the Two-State Solution; this is the segment’s description from J Street’s News Roundup: In the US as part of J Street’s 2 Campaign, former Shin Bet Chief Ami Ayalon said that if Secretary of State Kerry introduces a framework that is accepted by both sides, it will change the paradigm of the peace process..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Spoiler Behavior in the Israeli Palestinian Conflict: the Emergent National Religious Demographic Within Israel
    Spoiler Behavior in The Israeli Palestinian Conflict: The Emergent National Religious Demographic Within Israel Introduction The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is one of the most studied and intractable conflicts in the modern era. The actors involved and the stake holders are myriad, resulting in a wide range of peace spoilers and spoiling behavior. This study focuses on the spoiling effects of Israeli settlements in the West Bank with a particular focus on actions by a national religious contingent within Israel who work to maintain and extend Israeli settlements in the West Bank. National Religious ideology and supporters thwart the potential for peace negotiations by negatively influencing Israel’s political ability to agree to a peace agreement and diminishing Palestinian trust in Israel’s ability to agree to and implement a peace agreement. The term national religious refers to an ideology that calls for the expansion of settlements and the idea of ‘Greater Israel’ that embodies both the West Bank and Gaza Strip; thus they tend to be ardently against territorial withdrawal and settlement dismantlement. Once the domain of secular Zionists, settlement of the West Bank is now dominated by national religious Israelis. They comprise upwards of 80 percent of the 70,000 settlers residing outside the separation barrier in the West Bank and are becoming increasingly anti-statist. International Crisis Group reports that former Israeli Intelligence Chief Ami Ayalon estimates that eight percent of the West Bank’s 250,000 settlers are militantly anti- state.1 This case was written by Laura Nash and was created for the Spoilers of Peace Program in Spring 2010 .
    [Show full text]
  • 'Mowing the Grass': Israel'sstrategy for Protracted Intractable Conflict
    This article was downloaded by: [Bar-Ilan University] On: 27 February 2014, At: 05:21 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Strategic Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fjss20 ‘Mowing the Grass’: Israel’s Strategy for Protracted Intractable Conflict Efraim Inbara & Eitan Shamira a Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Israel Published online: 10 Oct 2013. To cite this article: Efraim Inbar & Eitan Shamir (2014) ‘Mowing the Grass’: Israel’s Strategy for Protracted Intractable Conflict, Journal of Strategic Studies, 37:1, 65-90, DOI: 10.1080/01402390.2013.830972 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2013.830972 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
    [Show full text]
  • Israel's Struggle Against Hamas
    Università degli Studi “Roma Tre” Scuola Dottorale in Scienze Politiche XXV Ciclo Israel’s Struggle Against Hamas Supervisore Dottorando Prof. Leopoldo Nuti Niccolò Petrelli Coordinatore della Sezione Prof. Leopoldo Nuti Introduction The PhD research, ‘Israel’s Struggle against Hamas: Strategic Culture, Adaptation and War’, studies the impact of cultural factors on the Israeli counter-insurgency vis-à-vis Hamas in the period comprised between 1987 and 2005, analyzing to what extent the peculiar traits of the Israeli approach to security and military affairs account for the shaping of a distinct ‘way of war’ and for the successes and failures of the Jewish state in countering the Islamic Resistance Movement’s insurgency. The concept of ‘counter-insurgency’ is logically contingent on that of ‘insurgency’, to which it applies. Being insurgency a protracted struggle to control a contested political space conducted by one or more popularly based non-state challengers1, ‘counter-insurgency’ could be defined as all those measures through which elements of national power are applied for the purpose of suppressing an insurgency. From this definition it appears clear how the concept constitutes an analytical paradigm through which scholars and practitioners approach asymmetric warfare (or war against ‘irregulars’, ‘partisans’ or ‘guerrillas’), that is struggles between non-state and state actors.2 Although old as human civilization, asymmetric warfare rose to prominence after 1945, coming to represent the norm, rather than the exception, of war.3 The end of the Cold War and the last two decades seemed to confirm the ascendancy of this specific kind of warfare over ‘conventional’ or ‘symmetric warfare’ and the setting of a pattern that will probably continue for some time.4 Counter-insurgency represents therefore a topic worth to study not only by virtue of its prominence in the history of warfare, but also in light of the nature of the conflicts confronting the international community, either currently and possibly also in the near future.
    [Show full text]
  • Just Wars? Israeli Society Through the War Lens
    The Crisis of the Zionist Left Oz Aruch Just Wars? Israeli Society through the War Lens Ami Ayalon What Happened to the Israeli Peace Camp? | PEACEMISM 1/9 Just Wars? Israeli Society through the War Lens Ami Ayalon Since the birth of Zionism in the 19th century, Defense is something that can be measured. and from the moment this ideology first took You can check yourself against your effect, Israel has been at war. War is an all- goals every day. You can outline plans for consuming experience for any society, and defending against specific threats. You it is what shapes our identity as Israelis. War can create a system for dealing with such is the lens through which we see the world, threats and test its success. Security, on and through which we frame our past and the other hand, is an abstract notion. It is present realities. War is the measure by tied to the anxieties formed by individual which leaders are elected, children raised, and collective experiences, in Israel’s case and national priorities decided. throughout Jewish history. An allegory may illustrate this point. Tradition tells of a Jewish town in 17th-century Europe that Security & Defense was ravaged by a pogrom. As the assailants swept through the town, an elderly Jewish The constant state of war also drives the man stood at the doorway to his empty most painful conflicts within Israeli society. store, inviting passersby to come in and Pressing questions such as what is morally make a purchase. When asked what he was acceptable in war, who bears the burden of selling, he replied: “Security”.[1] Indeed, the fighting, how various parts of society should Yiddish word for security (bitokhen) also conduct themselves in wartime, and what means faith.
    [Show full text]
  • Israel's Religious Right and the Question Of
    ISRAEL’S RELIGIOUS RIGHT AND THE QUESTION OF SETTLEMENTS Middle East Report N°89 – 20 July 2009 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................... i I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 II. NATIONAL-RELIGIOUS FRAGMENTATION AND RADICALISATION............ 3 III. THE TIME OF THE ULTRA-ORTHODOX............................................................... 12 IV. JEWISH ACTIVIST TOOLS ........................................................................................ 17 A. RHETORIC OR REALITY? ............................................................................................................17 B. INSTITUTIONAL LEVERAGE ........................................................................................................17 1. Political representation...............................................................................................................17 2. The military................................................................................................................................20 3. Education ...................................................................................................................................24 C. A PARALLEL SYSTEM ................................................................................................................25 V. FROM CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE TO VIOLENCE ....................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Examining Israel
    PAGE 2 p Fall 2014 PRESIDENT'S MEMO Itamar Rabinovich on Israel and the Middle East PAGE 6 WHAT'S NEXT FOR ISRAEL? After summer conflict, experts ISRAEL debate the way forward PAGE 10 INSTITUTE LEADERSHIP SUMMIT 2014 MAGAZINE Building a Community of Israel Experts IN THIS ISSUE: Examining Experts discuss Israel's Israel policies, laws and regional challenges KOLDIRECTOR'SSPOTLIGHT: HAMACHON LETTER ACADEMIA Welcome to the first issue of Israel Institute Magazine! The Institute was founded in 2012 in a partnership between Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich and the Charles and Lynn Schus- terman Family Foundation in order to expand the field of Israel Studies and enhance knowl- edge of modern Israel. The Institute does not engage in political activism or advocacy. Rather, we aspire to advance excellence in scholarship, as well as to promote high quality resources for professors, students and others curious about Israel to study the country in a deep and well-informed way. We believe that our mission can best be achieved through robust support for exceptional, academically rigorous analysis on a range of topics, and the Institute partners with elite universities, think tanks and cultural institutions on a variety of programs in order to strengthen the development of a broad and multi-faceted field of study related to Israel. Israel Studies is an interdisciplinary field that draws on experts who examine the coun- try through numerous different lenses, from the social sciences and law to the humanities, cultural studies and the arts. Taken together, these experts illustrate the myriad ways that research on Israel can be relevant to the broader pool of knowledge on domestic, regional and global subjects, not only in the Middle East but around the world.
    [Show full text]
  • C2. Ami Ayalon, Orni Petruschka, and Gilead Sher, Call for Israel to Adopt
    DOCUMENTS AND SOURCE MATERIAL 197 C2. AMI AYALON, ORNI PETRUSCHKA, AND settlement construction east of the secu- GILEAD SHER, CALL FOR ISRAEL TO ADOPT rity barrier and in Arab neighborhoods “CONSTRUCTIVE UNILATERALISM” TOWARD of Jerusalem. And it should create a THE PALESTINIANS, NEW YORK TIMES, plan to help 100,000 settlers who live 24 APRIL 2012. east of the barrier to relocate within Is- rael’s recognized borders. Former lead Israeli peace negotia- That plan would not take full effect tor Gilead Sher, former Israeli Security before a peace agreement was in place. Agency head Ami Ayalon, and Israeli But it would allow settlers to prepare for entrepreneur Orni Petruschka (organiz- the move and minimize economic dis- ers of a new group called Blue White ruption. Israel should also enact a vol- Future) made the following proposal in untary evacuation, compensation and a New York Times op-ed titled “Peace absorption law for settlers east of the without Partners.” While most of the fence, so that those who wish can be- steps recommended by the authors are gin relocating before there is an agree- already being undertaken by the Ne- ment with the Palestinians. According tanyahu government or have previously to a survey conducted by the Israeli been discussed among Israelis in the pollster Ra! Smith, nearly 30 percent of course of the peace process, the initia- these 100,000 settlers would prefer to tive is notable for openly labeling them accept compensation and quickly relo- as unilateral steps to determine !nal cate within the Green Line, the pre-1967 status and urging the Israeli imposition boundary dividing Israel from the West of a solution “regardless of whether the Bank, or to adjacent settlement blocs Palestinians leaders have agreed.” The that would likely become part of Israel op-ed appeared online on 23 April, and in any land-swap agreement.
    [Show full text]
  • Democracy, Identity and Security in Israel's Ethnic Democracy
    DEMOCRACY, IDENTITY AND SECURITY IN ISRAEL’S ETHNIC DEMOCRACY: THE IDEATIONAL UNDERPINNINGS OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE By Dubi Kanengisser A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Political Science University of Toronto © Copyright by Dubi Kanengisser, 2016 Democracy, Identity and Security in Israel’s Ethnic Democracy: The Ideational Underpinnings of Institutional Change, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016, Dubi Kanengisser, Graduate Department of Political Science, University of Toronto Abstract This work expands on the growing ideational institutionalist literature by proposing that institutional change and stability are influenced most substantially by changes to the underlying ideational network which link core societal ideas. These core ideas create the framework on which institutions are built and in which form they are fashioned. Changes to the ideational network lead to adaptive changes in institutions, but the difficulty in completely removing core ideas from these networks protects the institutions from substantial change. The theory is demonstrated using the case of the surprising stability of ethnic democracy in Israel in the wake of the substantial changes to the country’s economic and security realities. Small adaptive changes in the institution of ethnic democracy are traced back to changes in the balance between three core ideas: democracy, Jewish identity, and security. The overall stability of the institution, however, is linked to the enduring linkages of the three core ideas even as they experienced changes in their individual meanings. ii Too many years the Israeli left also accepted the separation between Jews and Arabs. First by looking away, then through submission, and finally wholeheartedly, it adopted the racist world view that the Arabs are not part of the political game.
    [Show full text]
  • The 2014 Gaza War: the War Israel Did Not Want and the Disaster It Averted
    The Gaza War 2014: The War Israel Did Not Want and the Disaster It Averted Hirsh Goodman and Dore Gold, eds. with Lenny Ben-David, Alan Baker, David Benjamin, Jonathan D. Halevi, and Daniel Rubenstein Front Cover Photo: Hamas fires rockets from densely populated Gaza City into Israel on July 15, 2014. The power plant in the Israeli city of Ashkelon is visible in the background. (AFP/Thomas Coex) Back Cover Photo: Hamas terrorists deploy inside a tunnel under the Gaza City neighborhood of Shuja’iya on Aug. 17, 2014. (Anadolu Images/Mustafa Hassona) © 2015 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs 13 Tel Hai Street, Jerusalem, Israel Tel. 972-2-561-9281 Fax. 972-2-561-9112 Email: [email protected] www.jcpa.org Graphic Design: Darren Goldstein ISBN: 978-965-218-125-1 Contents Executive Summary 4 Preface 5 Israel’s Narrative – An Overview 7 Hirsh Goodman Telling the Truth about the 2014 Gaza War 31 Ambassador Dore Gold Israel, Gaza and Humanitarian Law: Efforts to Limit Civilian Casualties 45 Lt. Col. (res.) David Benjamin The Legal War: Hamas’ Crimes against Humanity and Israel’s Right to Self-Defense 61 Ambassador Alan Baker The Limits of the Diplomatic Arena 77 Ambassador Dore Gold Hamas’ Strategy Revealed 89 Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi Hamas’ Order of Battle: Weapons, Training, and Targets 109 Lenny Ben-David Hamas’ Tunnel Network: A Massacre in the Making 119 Daniel Rubenstein Hamas’ Silent Partners 131 Lenny Ben-David Gazan Casualties: How Many and Who They Were 141 Lenny Ben-David Key Moments in a 50-Day War: A Timeline 153 Daniel Rubenstein About the Authors 167 About the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs 168 3 Executive Summary The Gaza War 2014: The War Israel Did Not Want and the Disaster It Averted is a researched and documented narrative that relates the truth as it happened.
    [Show full text]
  • Palestinian Manipulation of the International Community
    PALESTINIAN MANIPULATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY Ambassador Alan Baker (ed.) Palestinian Manipulation of the International Community Edited by Amb. Alan Baker ISBN: 978-965-218-117-6 © 2014 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs 13 Tel Hai Street, Jerusalem, Israel Tel. 972-2-561-9281 Fax. 972-2-561-9112 Contents Overview: Palestinian Manipulation of the International Community Amb. Alan Baker................................................................................................. 5 Manipulating International Law as Part of Anti-Israel “Lawfare” Prof. Robbie Sabel...............................................................................................13 Universal Jurisdiction: Learning the Costs of Political Manipulation the Hard Way Dr. Rephael Ben-Ari...........................................................................................23 The Demonization of Israel at the United Nations in Europe Mr. Hillel Neuer.................................................................................................47 The Role of NGOs in the Palestinian Political War Against Israel Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg...................................................................................65 Politicizing the International Criminal Court Prof. Eugene Kontorovich....................................................................................79 Degrading International Institutions: The United Nations Goldstone Report Amb. Dore Gold .................................................................................................91
    [Show full text]
  • How Peace Can Come to Israel. Beware the Quick Fix
    Opinion How Peace Can Come to Israel. Beware the Quick Fix By Ami Ayalon, Gilead Sher and Orni Petruschka / On May 22, 2017 As we in Israel watch the events unfolding in Washington with consternation, and wonder what they and President Trump’s visit to our region will bring, it becomes more understandable that Trump wants to make the “ultimate deal” – an Israeli- Palestinian peace agreement -- in order to secure a historic success. We welcome this ambition. However, Trump and his team need to learn the lessons from his predecessors’ failures and use a different approach to achieve an accord. Moreover, they need to accept the likelihood that a comprehensive peace agreement is not possible now. In fact, if Trump will be able to redefine the process so that progress will be made that will be hailed as a major success and widely welcomed here. President Trump's visit here in Israel occurred two weeks short of the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War when the Israeli army defeated the combined armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan that attacked the 19 year-old nation. This admirable military victory, unfortunately, also marks the beginning of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its effective rule over the Palestinians living there, now numbering some 2.7 million. …. Ami Ayalon is a former director of the Israeli Security Agency Shin Bet. Gilead Sher, a former Israeli senior negotiator, heads the Center for Applied Negotiations at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. Orni Petruschka is a high-tech entrepreneur in Israel.
    [Show full text]
  • THE ENDLESS, DECEPTIVE PEACE PROCESS We Cannot Negotiate
    CHAPTER 8 THE ENDLESS, DECEPTIVE PEACE PROCESS We cannot negotiate with people who say what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable. -RKQ)LW]JHUDOG.HQQHG\1 To plunder, to butcher, to steal: These they falsely name empire: they make a desolation and they call it peace. Tacitus We win every battle, but we lose the war. Ami Ayalon, former head of Israel’s Shin Bet Eve’s Story The first time I visited Palestine my hosts, who were forbidden to enter Israel, called a yellow-plate taxi to take me directly from Ramallah to Ben Gurion Airport. We passed many checkpoints en route, the first of which was Qalandiya, where every car was stopped and searched. As we pulled into one of the lanes I remarked to the driver, a retired engineer who spoke impeccable Arabic, Hebrew, French, and English that the 18 year old IDF soldier motioning us to halt probably had more rights in Palestine than he did, although she was clearly a recent Ethiopian immigrant while he and his ancestors had been born in Palestine. When it was our car’s turn to be searched, this young woman, communicating mostly in gestures, demanded that we open the trunk and both of my suitcases. When she finished inspecting them, she turned to me and with a clearly ironic grin said: “Have a nice day” in halting English. Tense though I was, this parody of American politeness surprised a chuckle out of me, and without thinking much about it, I said: “Oh my god, you are so ready for the streets of New York.” I saw the shock of that remark go through her: she inhaled sharply and stood stock still, looking completely startled.
    [Show full text]