Follow news of my US speaking tour - the tour program can be seen at:
http://www.ipcri.org/files/usprogram-09.html
Gershon
Gershon Baskin, who'll speak here (in Kansas City) Nov. 1, says Israel
must end its occupation of the West Bank to have peace and security. Do
you agree?
553
So near, yet so far: Veteran Israeli peacenik to speak here
<http://www.kcjc.com/200910238816/news/so-near-yet-so-far-veteran-israel
i-peacenik-to-speak-here.html>
<http://www.kcjc.com/pdf/200910238816/news/so-near-yet-so-far-veteran-is
raeli-peacenik-to-speak-here.pdf>
<http://www.kcjc.com/200910238816/news/so-near-yet-so-far-veteran-israel
i-peacenik-to-speak-here/print.html>
<http://www.kcjc.com/component/option,com_mailto/link,aHR0cDovL3d3dy5rY2
pjLmNvbS8yMDA5MTAyMzg4MTYvbmV3cy9zby1uZWFyLXlldC1zby1mYXItdmV0ZXJhbi1pc3
JhZWxpLXBlYWNlbmlrLXRvLXNwZWFrLWhlcmUuaHRtbA==/tmpl,component/>
Written by Rick Hellman, Editor
Friday, 23 October 2009 12:00
Even though he admits there is no Israeli-Arab peace process worthy of
the name, Gershon Baskin calls himself an incurable optimist.
"I am always an optimist," said the 53-year-old founder of the
Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, who'll give a talk
here next month as part of a coast-to-coast swing. (See below for
details)
"I believe that in a strange, bizarre kind of way, it's actually closer
than it's ever been before," Baskin said. "And that is mostly because
the parameters of a solution are accepted across the board. There is
international consensus, as well. The problem ... is to convince
people's it's doable. When we started 21 years ago, we would sit with
the Jerusalem working group, or the water group or the economic group,
and we had lots of questions. Today there are no questions; every single
issue is resolvable."
Baskin was born in New York and moved to Israel in the late 1970s. He's
been a peacenik ever since, even serving as an adviser to the late Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin during the Oslo-Accords era. His opinion articles
appear frequently in the Jerusalem Post. He now serves as co-CEO of the
IPRCI (www.iprci.org) think tank with longtime Palestine National
Council member Hanna Siniora. Siniora is a Christian and a former
journalist.
IPCRI is a staunch advocate of a two-state solution, and has been since
its formation during the first intifada, or Palestinian Arab uprising,
in 1988.
"We were created during the first intifada, and survived the second,"
Baskin quipped in a recent telephone interview from his home in
Jerusalem.
A fly in the ointment
Baskin said supporters of Israel who argue against a Palestinian Arab
state should think again.
"For Israel, sitting on the Jordan River and having 2.5 million
Palestinians in the West Bank under its occupation is not security,"
Baskin said. "We need different definitions of what security is. A
Palestinian state needs to ensure there won't be terror attacks against
Israel. The Palestinians need to be ready to make a 100 percent effort
... to make sure its eastern border is secure. Because today, the real
threat is not from Ramallah, but Tehran. So the continuation of the
occupation is not the answer to Israel's security needs."
There is one new and deadly fly in the ointment, however, since the
first intifada, and that is Hamas, the militant Islamist organization
that now rules Gaza. And while he alluded to "ways of dealing with
Hamas," Baskin also expressed frustration.
"It's not a serious military problem to get rid of Hamas in Gaza," he
said. "The cost is the reoccupation of Gaza. And at this point, no one
in the military, no one in the security establishment and no one at
political level wants to pay that price.
"The real problem for the military in the last war in Gaza was that it
couldn't use all the force at its disposal. The Hamas leaders were
hiding under Shifa hospital ... and Israel decided not to get them. Abu
Mazen (Ed. note: West Bank PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas) can't go riding in
there on the coattails of Israel tanks."
'We don't need more negotiations'
Even the optimistic Baskin is thus far unimpressed with the Obama
administration's efforts to revivify the peace process, led in the
region by former Sen. George Mitchell.
"I had a meeting with a senior Obama administration official the other
day, and he said Israel wants negotiations without results, while the
Palestinians want results without negotiations. So it's difficult to
call it a peace process," Baskin said.
"I have gone through a lot of U.S. administrations doing this work, and
I have never encountered a U.S. administration that gives out as little
information as these people do. They are extraordinarily engaged. They
are open to receiving e-mails and phone calls, and you get zero
response. I used to get responses all the time from Elliott Abrams."
(Ed. note: A Bush administration official)
That said, "I don't think anything serious is going on, based on
conversations with Israelis, Palestinians and U.N. officials. The sense
of everyone is that Mitchell is persistent, determined and will chip
away a piece at a time ... like he did with Northern Ireland. ...
"My own assessment is that that's not really going to go anywhere. We
don't need more negotiations. It's been negotiated to death. Everyone
knows what the issues are. We need direction from the U.S. and the
international community; we need answers on how they'll provide the
guarantees required to get the parties to do what needs to be done."
Kicking the can down the road will do the Jewish state no good, Baskin
said.
"What's that Paul Simon song? It's slip-sliding away. No doubt we are at
some kind of breaking point. In my view there is no other option; there
is no one-state option. People who talk about that are deluding
themselves to think some new reality could be created. ... We are not in
conflict with the Palestinians over us or them, it's us and them; the
question is how. If we turn this into a conflict over identity, we are
finished. It will be unending and carry a much higher price. The moment
of truth, really, is not about demographics, although that pressure
pushed (former prime ministers) Sharon and Olmert. Really, it's about
whether we, as Jewish state in Israel, can be what we think we should
be; what we want to be proud of; part of."
Baskin at Campus Nov. 1
Gershon Baskin will visit greater Kansas City as part of a 10-city U.S.
fundraising and speaking tour. Baskin's visit was arranged by the late
Allan Abrams, a former member of the national board of Brit Tzedek
v'Shalom, before Abrams' recent death.
Baskin will speak at 1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, in the social hall at the
Jewish Community Campus. The event is free and open to the public.
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