OLD NEW LAND

Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, published a book of fiction in 1902 with the title Old New Land in which he envisioned what a Jewish Nation in Palestine might be like. Herzl was a secular Austro-Hungarian Jew. He died in 1904 before World Wars I and II and before the British Mandate. He never lived to see the Holocaust, and never lived to see the creation of the modern State of Israel. The book is written through his eyes.

At the time he wrote the book, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. It is not clear to me whether Herzl was describing a completely independent nation state or a semi-autonomous province in the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish community in the book is envisioned as a society created by Jewish immigrants in which the Arabs and people of any religion or origin have equal rights and participation. This idea is reinforced in the story by an election in which those inhabitants who favor inclusion and equal rights for all (portrayed as the good guys) triumph over those who favor an exclusively Jewish government (portrayed as the bad guys). The Jews bring modernism to the land which benefits all the inhabitants including the Arabs.

In real life, one often sees the picture of Herzl hanging on the wall in photographs of Israeli government offices and political events of both the Right and Left. Perhaps many of those nativists in the extreme Right who favor the recent Israeli Nation State Law don’t realize that their position contradicts the vision of the founder of Zionism. Perhaps those Arabs who say they oppose Zionism don’t realize the inclusiveness of Herzl’s vision of Zionism. Perhaps the extremes on both sides either never read or never comprehended what Herzl said in Old New Land.

RIVLIN AND ISRAELI PALESTINIAN CONFEDERATION

Reuven Rivlin is the president of Israel. He has at times advocated one bi-national Israel with equal citizenship for all Jews and Arabs in that state, and at times he has advocated a confederation between Israel and Palestine. The Israeli government has the parliamentary system. In that system, the president is mainly a ceremonial position (similar to the monarch in a modern constitutional monarchy like Britain but without the pomp and circumstance). The real administrative power belongs to the prime minister (at the present time Benjamin Netanyahu). At times Rivlin and Netanyahu disagree, often severely. Israel is a multi-party country where the prime minister has to cobble together a coalition to form a government and stay in office. Netanyahu’s coalitions have tended to the Right and have become especially Rightist recently. His coalition mainly includes nativist parties and religious parties. The nativists in the minority extreme Right (including the Settler Movement) believe Israel is a Jewish state including the West Bank as well as Israel proper with little regard for the Palestinian Arabs living there. Hamas in Gaza takes the position that Israel is illegitimate, Israel should be destroyed, and all (or most) Jews should go away. Many (how many?) Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and a maybe a minority of Israeli Arabs share that view. But the Arabs and the Jews do exist, they are both there, and neither are going away.

There was a period in the 1990s when there appeared to be a warming of relations between Arabs and Jews in Israel and the Palestinian territories, both at the governmental level and at the level of ordinary people. At the end of that period, Ehud Barak, the prime minister of Israel, offered the Clinton/ Barak Plan to Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinians for separating the land into 2 states, Israel and Palestine. The terms of that plan were unacceptable to Arafat who flatly rejected it without a counter proposal. At that time an unannounced visit to the El Aqsa Mosque located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem by Ariel Sharon (who at the time was a right wing fringe member of the Israeli government) triggered an Intifada by the Palestinians and encouraged by Arafat. This resulted in harsh retaliation by Barak and ended the peace process. Why did Arafat react with an intifada instead of continuing negotiations? Perhaps he thought that would be the best way to negotiate better terms? Perhaps he was pushed by his hardliners? In any event it was a miscalculation. Perhaps Barak over-reacted and might have gotten a better result by reacting firmly but less (or perhaps there was no alternative to harshness?). Anyway the good will between the ordinary people on both sides disappeared overnight. Later Barak attempted to push forward the 2 State solution again by pulling Israel out of Gaza unilaterally. The thinking was that because Gaza is farther from the population center of Israel than the West Bank, it would be a good place to test the idea of an independent Palestine. Unfortunately the Gazans elected Hamas to be their government. Hamas does not recognize the State of Israel, promotes the destruction of Israel, and furthers that position by shooting rockets over the border into Israel and at times sends terrorists into Israel. Israel responds by walling off Gaza and limiting movement into and out of Gaza. Hamas also opposes the Fatah leadership on the West Bank.

So we now have a situation where many (probably most) Israelis do not trust the Palestinian Arabs to maintain a terrorist free peace. They look around them and see chaos in many of the surrounding Arab states like Syria, Iraq, and even Egypt. The Israeli government has maintained an under the table alliance with the surrounding Arab governments because of their common danger from the government of Iran. A kind of peace from terrorism exists for the time being although its stability is questionable. On the other hand the Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank experience a lack of independence and respect along with a progressive encroachment by the Israeli settlements.

The challenge now is to create a relationship which will protect the security of the Israeli people (real peace) and still give honor, independence, and self government to the Palestinian Arabs.

One possible solution that has been proposed might be a Confederation between State of Israel and the West Bank which could be called The State of East Palestine. Gaza would have to accept the legitimacy of Israel and it would also have to accept the West Bank government as their state government if there were to be one unified State of Palestine (which does not appear to be in the near future). Gaza could join the Confederation at a future date by rejecting Hamas and accepting the West Bank as their state government or perhaps joining as a third State of West Palestine. Gaza would have to stop attacking Israel and accept their border with Israel to be included. The confederation could be called the Confederation of Israel-Palestine or perhaps a new name altogether. A name like the Confederation of Abraham would recognize what both people recognize as a common ancestor.

One issue that would have to be resolved would be the status of the Israeli West Bank settlers. The non-contiguous smaller settlements should be disbanded. Israel is not going to give up all the Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem that have sprung up since 1967.  The parties will have to negotiate which East Jerusalem neighborhoods are neighborhoods and which are settlements. As for the status of Jews who remain in the West Bank, they could become citizens of the State of East Palestine and not the State of Israel (therefore could vote in East Palestine elections and not Israel elections). Any Jew who moves his or her residence (not just visiting temporarily) from East Palestine to Israel under the Right of Return would become an Israeli citizen and not a citizen of East Palestine. Whether that Jew might someday return to East Palestine citizenship would be up to the East Palestine government.

The process of moving from the present situation to confederation would be gradual, but gradual movement in the right direction would be an improvement over the present situation. The process would depend on changing of attitudes of the ordinary people on both sides. The populations on both sides would have to be educated and nudged into more favorable attitudes towards each other and will have to build trust in each other. One organization that is working toward that goal is Hand in Hand which builds schools in Israel in which Jewish and Arab children study together in the Hebrew and Arabic languages. Hand in hand has the support of President Rivlin. I don’t know what Prime Minister Netanyahu thinks of it, but googling Netanyahu and Hand in Hand together comes up with nothing. Perhaps Hand in Hand or a similar organization could exist in East Palestine. There is a long history of conflict that will have to be overcome. But Confederation would greatly benefit both sides in the long run, greater security for the Israelis, greater self determination for the Palestinians, greater stability and prosperity for all.

 

 

SPECIAL TAX ON LARGE POLITICAL DONATIONS

Senator Elizabeth Warren has stated that rich donors should not be allowed to give huge donations to candidates which allows the richest people in America to buy elections to the detriment of ordinary people. I would suggest that rather than preventing billionaires from giving large donations, there should be a special graduating tax on large political donations. In other words, a political donation of $10 or less in one year should be tax deductible. Political donations above $10 in one year should be subject to a graduating tax increasing according to the size of the donations in one year going up to 90% for the highest annual donations. This would not only limit the billionaire donations, but it would add money to the treasury to help the deficit and free up dollars for programs that would increase the quality of life for ordinary people.

HAND IN HAND

I sent my end of the year contribution to Hand in Hand today. There are so many worthy causes that are important, but unfortunately my budget is limited and therefore my contributions must be focused. I am a Jew concerned for the safety of my fellow Jews and all other people on Earth everywhere, but I am particularly concerned with Israel which has the greatest concentration of Jews (about 40 per cent of all the Jews in the world) and where that population still faces an existential threat. Israel/Palestine (the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River) also is home to a large number of our cousins, the Palestinian and Israeli Arabs. After about a century of conflict, bringing permanent peace and equality to the people in that land must come primarily from the bottom up, not just from negotiation by politicians at the top. Hand in Hand is supported by Reuven Rivlin (the president of Israel). Googling Netanyahu (the prime minister of Israel) and Hand in Hand comes up with no result, positive or negative.

HEALTHCARE

During his 2 terms in office, President Obama, despite obstruction by the Republican Congress, was able to craft a system of mandated, affordable, comprehensive quality health insurance which resulted in coverage for most Americans. It had a rough start but ultimately took root and became successful. During the 8 years of the Obama administration the stated goal of Senator McConnell the leader of the Republicans in the Senate was to make the Obama presidency fail. They failed in that goal despite controlling both houses of Congress by the end of the 8 years.
The goal of Trump during his 2 years as president has been to undo all accomplishments associated with the name Obama including Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act), but they failed. The American people had tasted Obamacare and they liked it. The people who especially benefitted from it included the blue collar Whites who had voted for Trump. When they realized that Trump wanted to take away their health care they rebelled. No matter how hard they tried, Trump and the Republicans could not come up with a replacement for Obamacare. So Obamacare remains, perhaps a little weakened but still there.
So now the task of the incoming Democratic Blue Wave House of Representatives will be to revive and enhance Obamacare. Some say the goal should be Single Payer. Although I would be OK with Single Payer health insurance if that is how it ultimately plays out, I don't think that should necessarily be an ideological goal. The goal should be, as it was under Obamacare, mandated, affordable, comprehensive, quality health insurance with no precondition. It has to be mandated because that is how insurance works. Well people have to pay in as well as sick people. If a person does not join and develops a potentially fatal illness or injury would he then say "let me die because I did not join when I was well?"  It has to be affordable so that everyone can participate. It has to be comprehensive and quality to include maintenance of wellness which will keep down the costs as well as making a better life for the population. It should not be a cheap predatory plan which does not produce the necessary services. I also think a public option would be a good idea to fill in the gap where effective private insurance is not available. It also would insure competition with private insurance. If the public option drives out private insurance because the private can't compete OK, but I doubt that that will occur in every case everywhere. In any event the goal should be mandated, affordable, comprehensive, quality health insurance with no preconditions however that comes about.

AFTER THE 2018 MIDTERM ELECTIONS

Now that the mid-terms are over and as predicted the Democrats won the House of Representatives, the Republicans kept the Senate and even gained a few seats there, and of course Trump is still the president, where do we go from here? What the Democrats in the House do over the next 2 years might be more challenging and consequential than winning the House. Some think the House needs younger, more Left leadership, but I think Nancy Pelosi is an experienced old warrior and the right person for the job. The Blue victory in the house was not just a victory for Democrats, but rather for reason, truth, compassion, and real American values. It included not just Democrats, but also anti-Trumpism Republicans and Independents. The challenge is to promote those values and negotiate with Trump and the Republicans without giving in to Trumpism.

Since I wrote the above first paragraph, Trump fired Jeff Sessions (resigned at request of the president = fired by the president) and almost immediately replaced him with Trump’s lackey Whitaker who has stated that he opposes the Mueller investigation and is known as a hard line Trumper. I was going to say that the Democrats in the House of Representatives might work in a bipartisan way while staying firm on the important issues. Well, this is the most important issue. Polls have showed that the most important issues to Americans are first of all healthcare and second immigration, but above all we must save our American democracy and system of laws. For Trump, law is whatever he can get away with. Trump knows what misdeeds he has committed. He is desperate to hide what he has done (which might actually be criminal) and is now going over the line to obstruct the Mueller probe which equals obstruction of justice. This is the point at which we must protect our democracy. Trump appears to be at the point of trying to turn America into a Putin-style dictatorship.

Let’s hope that Mueller has anticipated this event and has a plan. What has Mueller found concerning Trump? (obstruction of justice? using his position for personal financial gain? acting as an agent for Putin, a foreign dictator?). Americans (Democrats, non-Trumpian Republicans, Independents) must stand up for Mueller and do peaceful protest. Things apparently are coming to a head. Will American justice, freedom, and honesty prevail or will we descend into a Trumpian/Putinian dictatorship?

EVOLUTION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

The Republican Party began in Lincoln's time as a party that was the financially conservative party of the Industrial Northeast and the socially liberal party to end slavery. The Democratic Party was the financially liberal and socially conservative party of the rural South in which slavery existed. In recent years the Republican Party has remained the party of the very wealthy but has increasingly become infiltrated by people who are to the far right socially as well as financially. With the election of Trump, we now see a marriage between extreme nativism and a financial policy that serves the very wealthy big donors at the expense of ordinary citizens. Financially Trump especially represents the fast buck wealthy. A perfect example is the Republican plan to deregulate health insurance to the benefit of cheap fly by night junk insurance plans that lure in the unsuspecting with skeleton insurance policies that do not provide comprehensive health care. This is typical Trump. Do what looks good but is rotten underneath (whatever you can get away with). There are so many other things wrong with the Trump (formerly Republican) Party, but they are too numerous to mention here.
VOTE ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, TO THROW TRUMP'S GANG OUT OF CONGRESS AND BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR GOVERNMENT!