Today's Stories

June 21 / 22, 2008

Chris Floyd
Torturegate

June 20, 2008

Robert Oscar Lopez
Brownout in Black Camelot: Obama and Latino Voters

Paul Craig Roberts
John Yoo, Totalitarian

Bouthaina Shaaban
The Real Arab AIPAC

Bill Quigley
The Big Lock-Up

Moshe Adler
Is Cuba Done With Equality?

Patrick Cockburn
An End to Iraq Contractor Immunity?

Andy Worthington
John McCain, Torture Puppet

Norman Solomon
Health Care and the Ghosts of War

Martha Rosenberg
Can Wyeth Fool American Women Twice?

June 19, 2008

Ralph Nader
Why Won't Corporations Take On Big Oil?

Chellis Glendinning
Techno-Fascism: Every Move You Make

Neve Gordon
Learning to Drive in Rafah

Dave Lindorff
Killing the News in Iraq

Sheldon Richman
Habeas Corpus Saved--Barely

George Bisharat
Obama's Missteps

Jackie Corr
Dear Mr. Kilowatt

Farzana Versey
Will Gorkhaland Become a Reality?

Website of the Day
Trouble on the Range

June 18, 2008

Nicole Colson
Hunger and Humiliation in the Belt-Tightening Economy

Rev. William E. Alberts
The "F" Word and the White Press

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Genuflections to the Swing Lobby

Parvez Ahmed
Oil Prices, Market Regulation and the Election

Bob Moss
Judicial Warfare in Boumediene

Dave Lindorff
The Elephant in the Room

David Wilson
Bush in London

June 17, 2008

Conn Hallinan
The Brain Trauma Vets

Wajahat Ali
Chomsky Speaks: On Iran and Iraq

Marjorie Cohn
Reviving Habeas Corpus

Uri Avnery
Two Professors: Mearsheimer and Walt in Israel

David Macaray
Adversarial Relationship

Rannie Amiri
Forgotten Lives in a Forgotten War

Website of the Day
Pentagon Money

June 16, 2008

Uri Avnery
An Apology

Corey D. B. Walker
The Racial Politics of Symbols

Howard Lisnoff
Files Upon Files

Dennis Loo
2008 Elections: Of Whales and Worms

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama and the Fall Into Tyranny

June 13 / 15, 2008

Douglas Valentine
McCain: War Hero or Go-To Collaborator?

Alexander Cockburn
Change, What Change?

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft

Peter Linebaugh
On Wat Tyler Day

Ishmael Reed
The Colossus: Sonny Rollins, Take One

Joe Bageant
Old Dogs and Hard Time

Harry Browne
Ireland Shows the Way!

Andy Worthington
The Supreme Court's Gitmo Decision: What Does It Mean?

Jeff Sharlet
The F-Word

Binoy Kampmark
They Gassed Us: Agent Orange in OZ

Alan Farago
His Little Piece of the Pie

Brian Cloughley
America the Detested: the Pakistan Airstrikes

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
How to Stretch Gasoline

Reza Fiyouzat
Oil and Racism

Patrick Bond /
Richard Kamidza
How Europe Underdevelops Africa

David Yearsley
Music in the Rubble

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Thank You, Dennis Kucinich!

Ronnie Cummins
Don't Panic; Go Organic

Dan Bacher
Bush Tries to Raid Salmon Disaster Funds

Michael Dickinson
Jesus in Megiddo Prison

Seth Sandronsky
My Father's World

Poets' Basement
Tu Fu / Rexroth

Website of the Weekend
Torture and the American Psyche

June 12, 2008

Judith Levine
As Cranes Fall and People Die

Patrick Cockburn
Amid Iraqi Fury, U.S. Offers Concessions on Military Bases

Saul Landau
The Iraq War Becomes Suicidal

Christopher Brauchli
Bush Bling-Bling: Government by Crony

Norman Solomon
Deadly Diplomacy

Helen Redmond
Why Can't We All Get KennedyCare?

Laura Carlsen
No Rest for the Working Poor

Jeremy R. Hammond
Threats Against Iran Escalate

Anne Landman
Pinkwashing: Can Shopping Cure Breast Cancer?

Website of the Day
Fire in Watts

June 11, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Why Oil Prices Are So High

Ralph Nader
Wall Street Gamblers

Joshua Frank
Why I Can't Support Barack Obama

Clifton Ross
Conversation in Miami: the Neoliberal Left and Socialism

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Whatever Happened to "Democracy Now?"

Stephen Lendman
Exposing Pentagon and CIA Corruption

Diane Farsetta
Talking Back to Bill O'Reilly

Ron Jacobs
The Sixties Painted Black

Deborah Rich
Hay Belly Nation: the FDA and the O-Word

Hop Wechsler
A Friend of Women? My Bill Clinton ... and Ours

Website of the Day
A New Path to the Waterfall

June 10, 2008

Alan Farago
John McCain and the Company He Keeps

James G. Abourezk
Deadly Fallout From Obama's Groveling Before Israel Lobby

Saree Makdisi
Banned in the U.S.A. (Almost)

Malini Johar Schueller
A Picture From Beirut

John Ross
Killing Foods, Killing People

Wajahat Ali
Rumi and Sufism

Peter Morici
Bernanke Aggravates Recession Risks

Jordan Flaherty
Inside Angola Prison, Louisiana's Last Slave Plantation

Gary Macfarlane
Collaboration on the Clearwater: Is It Legitimate?

Joanne Mariner
The Gitmo Trials: an Inglorious Start

Website of the Day
The End of the Clinton Machine?

June 9, 2008

Uri Avnery
No, I Can't: Obama, Israel and AIPAC

Nikolas Kozloff
McCain & the Republican Insitute: Promoting Iraqi Occupation for "a Million Years"

Allan Nairn
Drawing Your Last Breath Hungry

Dennis Loo
Threats on Iran and the "Batterer's Defense"

Harry Browne
Irish Euro Vote Comes Down to the Wire

C. Hand
U. S. Bid to Hike Iran's Gas Prices Seems Doomed

Peter Morici
An Unsustainable Trade Deficit

Kenneth Couesbouc
A Ripe Time for Inflation

Martha Rosenberg
The Inconvenient Senator Grassley

James L. Secor
Chinese Superstition or Unconscious Oracle?

Website of the Day
Pay Bo Diddley!

June 7 / 8, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Obama Goes Over the Top

Ishmael Reed
How Miles Davis Changed My Life

Jeffrey St. Clair
What a Miner's Life is Worth

Nikolas Kozloff
Meet the King the Beers: John McCain and Latin America

Dave Lindorff
The High Cost of a Single War-Like Remark: Oil Prices, Israel, Iran and the U.S.

Robert Fantina
When Truth is the Casualty

Conn Hallinan
Iran and Rumors of War

Neve Gordon
The Occupation and the Politics of Death

Tom Barry
The Deterrence Strategy of Homeland Security

Patrick Irelan
Raiding the Packing House

Tim Wise
Your Whiteness is Showing

David Ker Thomson
The Hard Question

Joshua Frank
"Socialist" Wins Republican Nomination in Montana

David Yearsley
Disaster Music

James T. Phillips
1968: Year of the Rat

Joe Allen
The Real Bobby Kennedy

P. Sainath
Making Life Brighter in Kondapur

David Macaray
Should Unions be More Democratic?

B.R. Gowani
Experience and the Two-for-One

Fred Gardner
What Happened (at the DA's Office)

Peter Harley
Technology to the Rescue? Kurzweil and the Human Machines

Michael Dickinson
Surrender the Bones of Geronimo!

Jen Roesch
Where are the Real Women in Sex and the City?

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Landau, and Buknatski

Website of the Day
Partying with the Waltons

June 6, 2008

Frank Barat
An Interview with Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky on the Future of Israel / Palestine

Patrick Cockburn
U.S. Extorts Iraq to Approve Military Deal

Gary Leupp
Cheney Enrages Iraqis Over Security Deal

James Abourezk
Name That Terrorist

Peter Morici
Recession Grips the Jobs Market

Faheem Hussain
What is NATO Doing in Afghanistan?

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Britons Go on Hunger Strike

Ayesha Ijaz Khan
How Will Musharraf Go? Impeachment or Safe Exit?

Dave Lindorff
Congress Needs to Defend Itself

Website of the Day
Backstage with Bo Diddley

June 5, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Bush's Secret Deal Would Ensure Permanent U.S. Occupation of Iraq

Sharon Smith
Hillary's Wreckage

Nikolas Kozloff
Obama's Electoral Dilemma: Latinos or Reagan Democrats?

Linn Washington, Jr.
Police Brutality and Cover-Up in Philly

Omar Barghouti
60 Years of Nakba, 41 Years of Occupation ...

Scott Pellegrino
Jim Crow Radio: Bob Grant's Lifetime Achievement Award

John Walsh
Obama Woos AIPAC

Dan Bacher
The Parching of California

DC Larson
Nazi Rockers ... F-Off

Robert Jensen
Masculine, Feminine or Human?

Website of the Day
Ohio Cops Attack Long Walkers

June 4, 2008

Eric Walberg
Princess Patricia and the Taliban

Gary Leupp
Iran and EFPs: Chronology of a Lie

Ralph Nader
Disenfranchised Youth

Dave Lindorff
Of Whiners and Poor Losers

George Wuerthner
Farm Economics

Victor M. Rodriguez
The Puzzle of Race and Politics

Remi Kanazi
Why a Cultural Boycott of Israel is Needed

Stephane Luçon
Renault's Romanian Fairyland Suspended

Farzana Versey
The Tablighi Jamaat Movement

Laray Polk
The Militarization of Space

Website of the Day
Red State Rebels

June 3, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts /
Lawrence M. Stratton
Legislating Tyranny

Mike Whitney
The Withering Economy

Steve Early
San Juan Showdown

Manuel Otero
Why Hillary Won Puerto Rico: the View from the Colony

George Bisharat
The Hope of a Victimized People

Nikolas Kozloff
Obama's VP Quandry

Dan Bacher
Death on the Salmon Highway

Website of the Day
Censoring Bill Knott?

June 2, 2008

Uri Avnery
The Olmert Scandal

Nikolas Kozloff
Obama's Latino Problem Getting Worse

Allan J. Lichtman
Revisionist History: Bush, Borah and Hitler

Malini Johar Schueller
The Color of Randomness: Returning to the US From Beirut Via Syria

Robert Weissman
What's Driving Skyrocketing Oil Prices?

Peter Morici
Bailing Out Wall Street

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Don't Get Burned: How to Protect Yourself From Raytheon's Pain Gun

John Ross
Celebrating Catholic Fanaticism in Mexico

Ahmad Al-Akhras
Encounters with the Watch List

Website of the Day
Man on Earth

May 31 / June 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Worst is Yet to Come

Jeffrey St. Clair
Arkansas Bloodsuckers

Gary Leupp
How McClellan Prettifies Bush

Stan Cox
Broken Agriculture

Rannie Amiri
Lebanon: the Domino That Wouldn't Fall

P. Sainath
A Guaranteed Day's Work--in the Fields, at 110 Degrees, for $2 a Day

Binoy Kampmark
Going Bankrupt in Vallejo

Robert Fantina
Bush, Rice and McClellan

Seth Sandronsky
Will There be Water Riots, as Sacramento Goes Dry?

Corporate Crime Reporter
Death Penalty for Bush?

Anthony DiMaggio
Gaming the Ghetto: Grand Theft Auto IV, Racist Media and the Concrete Jungle

Karl Grossman
A Half-Trillion for Nukes

Matt Reichel
From Vegas to the Heartland and Back Again

Paul Myron Hillier
Of Gas and God

Andy Worthington
Suicide at Guantánamo

David Yearsley
And the Winner is ... Wayne Shorter

Daniel Cassidy
Free Lunch

Charles Thomson
If Hitler Had Been a Hippy ...

Gary Corseri
A Dream Deferred: Activism and the Arts

Wajahat Ali
Sex and the City Through a Man's Eyes

Ron Jacobs
Robins Weep

Poets' Basement
McNeill and Davies

Website of the Day
Last Charge of the Light Horse

May 30, 2008

Bassam Aramin
Here's the Truth You've Been Running From

Andrew Cockburn
Petraeus' Iran Obsession

Saul Landau
How We Got Into This Mess

Nikolas Kozloff
Meet South America's New Secessionists

Robert Sandels
Turning Back the Clock on Cuba

Dave Lindorff
Talk is Cheap

Martha Rosenberg
Raiding Big Meat; Arresting the Wrong People

Harvey Wasserman
Lieberman & McCain: Linking Internet Censorship and Atomic Reactor Terror

Doug Giebel
A Plague on Both Your Houses (of Congress)

Shaun Harkin
The Trial of the Raytheon 9

Website of the Day
The Once and Future Environmental Movement

May 29, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Bill Clinton and the Rich Women

Nikolas Kozloff
Puerto Rico, Obama and the Politics of Race

Col. Dan Smith
Deceiving the Dead

Karl Grossman
The Most Lucrative Incentive for Nuclear Power in the History of the United States

William S. Lind
Inside the Washington Game

Robert Weissman
What to do About the Price of Oil

Dave Lindorff
Why Puerto Rico Won't Matter

David Macaray
A Union Fable

Chris Genovali
Fear and Loathing in the Northern Rockies

Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Battle Over Oil

Website of the Day
Support Antiwar.com

May 28, 2008

Wajahat Ali
The Libertarian Dark Horse: An Exclusive Interview with Ron Paul

Ralph Nader
What's Really Driving the High Price of Oil?

Brian McKenna
Why I Want to Teach Anthropology at the Army War College

Corporate Crime Reporter
Why Vincent Bugliosi Wants to Prosecute George W. Bush for Murder

Brian Cloughley
The Attack on Damadola

Eric Walberg
Opium for the Masses from Afghanistan

Michael Dickinson
Raytheon's Pain Ray: Coming to a Protest Near You

Ijaz Khan
Opening Windows in Pakistan

Website of the Day
Older Than America

May 27, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
In Her Mind She's Killed Before: the Plot to Assassinate Ralph Nader

Greg Kafoury
Is Obama Turning (Further) Right?

Jean Bricmont
Western Delusions

Tim Wise
Farrakhan is not the Problem

Ricardo Alarcón
Puerto Rico's Turn

Stephen Soldz
APA Supports Psychologist Engagement in Bush Regime Interrogations

Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo 16

Alan Singer
Vapid, Stupid and Insulting: Chuck Schumer Speaks to the Graduates

Richard Neville
Storm in an A-Cup

Susie Day
Gone with the W

May 26, 2008

Uri Avnery
The Syrian Option

Bill Quigley
War Immemorial Day

Col. Dan Smith
Retreating from Hell: a Different Memorial Day

Cindy Sheehan
Why Memorial Day is a Double-Whammy for Me

Marjorie Cohn
Hillary's Assassination Politics: Her Last Shot?

Fred Gardner
Does the VA Care?

Raymond J. Lawrence
Pain Pays: Getting Rich at NY Presbyterian Hospital

Harvey Wasserman
Mugging the Election System

Moncia Benderman
Truth Matters

David Rovics
In Praise of Utah Phillips

Website of the Day
Fox News Jokes About "Knocking Off" Osama and Obama

May 24 / 25, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Death-Wish Hillary Primes Manchurian Candidate

Jeffrey St. Clair
Yellowstone: How Sununu Shrank the Ecosystem

Barbara Rose Johnston
Dam Legacies, Damned Futures

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. Fourth Fleet in Venezuelan Waters

Adriana Kojeve
The Environment and the 2008 Elections

Robert Fantina
Justice Department's Revelations on Torture

Dave Lindorff
Bush's War on Children in Iraq

David Yearsley
The War on Kitsch

Nelson P. Valdés
The Buying of "Democracy" Agents in Cuba

Kathleen M. Barry
Celebrating Ethnic Cleansing

John Ross
Mexico's Narco Opera Reaches for High Point

Allison Kilkenny
Apathy Doesn't Live in Bronx

Fred Gardner
Orangeburg, 1968

Elizabeth Schulte
Can the Whole World be Fed?

Daniel Gross
Remembering the Wendy's Massacre: the Dangerous Side of Retail Work

Christopher Brauchli
The Search for a Token Right-winger

Richard Rhames
A Nation of Sheep

Daniel Cassidy
My Mother

Poets' Basement
Davies, Klipschutz and Willson

Website of the Weekend
Happy Birthday, Bob

May 23, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
War Abroad, Poverty at Home

Alan Farago
The Radical Extremists of the Building Industry

Conn Hallinan
Ballots and Bullets: From Beirut to Bolivia

Mark Engler
The World After Bush

George Wuerthner
Cars and Cows: Living Large in America

Kamran Matin
The Kurds and American Neo-Imperialism

Sandy Boyer /
Shaun Harkin
The Long Incarceration of Pol Brennan

Robert Weitzel
A "Holey" Instrument of Peace in Iraq

Cindy Sheehan
An Uphill Battle

Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Futile Constitutional Amendment

Website of the Day
A Message from the Moral Compass of the McCain Campaign

May 22, 2008

Vijay Prashad
Racist Grammar

Joanne Mariner
A Military Commissions Cheat Sheet

Sharon Smith
60 Years of Apartheid

Jeff Birkenstein
Disaster Redux: Some Early Thoughts on the Earthquake in China

Brendan McQuade
From Obama to the PRTs in Iraq

Peter Morici
The Sorry State of the Banking Industry

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Restoration Boulevard

Dave Zirin
What I Want to Ask Mary Tillman

Ron Jacobs
CPR for the Antiwar Movement

Stephen Lendman
Immoral Hazard

Website of the Day
Hagee: God Sent Hitler to Drive the Jews to Israel

May 21, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Gothic Politics of Hillary Clinton

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. Military Bases in South America

Alan Farago
Miami, Cuba and the Presidential Campaign

Dave Lindorff
Big John and the Scary, Scary Iran Threat

David Model
Genocide in Iraq?

Eric Walberg
Afghanistan: Who is the Enemy?

Franklin Lamb
Lebanon Gets a President

Kenneth Couesbouc
Tax Against Tyranny

Website of the Day
Child Labor and War-Affected Children: a Photo Essay

May 20, 2008

Ralph Nader
A Trip Inside Google

Uri Avnery
With Friends Like These

Patrick Irelan
The Empire and the Fleet

Ray McGovern
Come Out, Admiral Fallon, Wherever You Are

David Macaray
The UAW Strike Against American Axle

Chris Genovali
Big Oil on the Water: Skating Around the Tanker Issue

Ibrahim Fawal
Birmingham, Israel and the Nakba

Christopher Ketcham
Let Us Now Praise Famous Suicides

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo Trial Delayed

Martha Rosenberg
Merck is a Repeat Offender

Website of the Day
Defend the Students Who Pied Tom Friedman

May 19, 2008

Saul Landau
Cuba Will Live

Paul Craig Roberts
The Metamorphosis of the Conservative Movement

Brian McKenna
Brotherly Love in Philly's Badlands

Patrick Cockburn
City of the Dead: Mosul on Lockdown

B. R. Gowani
The Central Problem Pakistan Needs to Tackle

Dr. Trudy Bond
Psychologists and Torture: If Not Now, When?

Cindy Sheehan
Whose War is It?

John Mohawk
The Warriors Who Turned to Peace

Remi Kanazi
When Free Speech Doesn't Come for Free

Robert Day
I Get a Horse

Website of the Day
Evolve or Die

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The Painful Road to Taba

Why Israel Won't Accept a Two-State Solution

By BERNARD CHAZELLE

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often narrated as a morality play, where offers are generous, lessons are taught, consciousness is seared, terrorism is rewarded, etc. Let's quit the blame game and focus, instead, on what's feasible and what's not. For starters, one can safely notch the right-wing fantasy of a Jordanian absorption of Palestine in the "Dream on, settlers" column. Ethnic cleansing is passé.

What about a one-state solution? Within 10 years, Jews will be a clear minority in the population west of the Jordan, so a democratic unitary state (eg, modeled on South Africa) would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state, an outcome not everyone would greet with cartwheels. Though rarely discussed, a federal alternative could be envisaged. Besides the sticky issue of land division, however, the physical laws of politics work against it. Absent a modicum of trust and a desire to share a common fate, centrifugal forces might prove too powerful to forestall an eventual breakup. If Belgium, a model of harmony by Mideast standards, can barely pull it off, what chance does a (con)federal "Isratine" have? Don't expect a democratic binational state any time soon.

The two-state solution has its appeal. It would please a majority of Palestinians and confer upon Israel the statehood legitimacy that it craves. It would bring the Jewish state peace with the Arab world along the lines of the 2002 Saudi Initiative, as well as a recognized right of self-defense against Palestinian cross-border attacks. Unfortunately, 40 years of history have gamed the system against the two-state solution. Once the only realistic road to peace, it is now a challenge likely beyond Israel's ability. This leaves the region with two options: Apartheid or war. Barring a miracle, it will get both. So let's talk about the miracle.

With its popularity fading rapidly, the main asset of the two-state solution is its consensual delineation: Taba '01 or any '67-border variant that ensures the viability of a Palestinian state. Opponents cite the failure of the 2005 Gaza evacuation to bring peace to the Strip as Exhibit A. They conveniently forget that the occupation continued and the total number of settlers was actually higher after the withdrawal than before. They ask, How do we keep a two-state solution from turning into a Qassam launch-pad expansion program? Such concerns must and can be addressed. But the stumbling block lies elsewhere—specifically, in a game-theoretic deadlock.

To understand this, it is best to begin with a paradox. Everybody knows that to "rewind to '67" would be a risky move for any Israeli leader and that the risk increases with every settlement expansion. Why then has the number of settlers doubled since Oslo? The never-say-die E1 project threatens to cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank and divide a future Palestinian state into 3 (and arguably 4) noncontiguous parts. As I drove recently by the giant settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, I wondered how a Palestinian capital could ever be wrested from that urban octopus of Israeli control now girding East Jerusalem. Condoleezza Rice's latest bit of cheerleading was promptly acknowledged by an Israeli Cabinet decision to build hundreds of housing units in Givat Ze'ev. The number of checkpoints and obstacles was supposed to go down after Annapolis: it went up by 51.

Can Israel be serious about a two-state solution?

When someone embarks on a diet and then proceeds to double his food intake, it is reasonable to wonder if he doesn't secretly enjoy the extra weight. Reasonable, yes; but, in this case, wrong. The crux of the paradox is not that Israel enjoys the status quo but that it has no incentive to play a land-for-peace game incrementally. Three reasons for this: Israeli aims are intangible (eg, promise of peace) but Palestinian objectives are concrete (eg, land handover); settler withdrawal is irreversible, whereas a lull in violence can be broken at any time; finally, the two-state solution is an asynchronous trade, ie, an exchange of a present good (land) for a future one (peace). Instead of addressing these deal breakers head-on, the Road Map tossed in a goodie bag full of sops (eg, governance reform, trade offices, demonstration of good faith), which only gave Israel political cover for sitting on its hands.

Incrementalism runs against Palestinian interests as well because what they have to offer, peace, is not splittable into tradable chunks.
Besides ruling out a phased process, a highly asymmetric deal of the land-for-peace type requires either trust between the parties (nonexistent) or a mutually trusted arbiter with coercive power. Israel trusts only the US and coercion is not an option. Why not? Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar tells this joke:

"Mr Prime Minister, would you like Israel to become our 51st state?"

"Thanks but no thanks, Mr President."

"Why not?"

"Because, as a US state, we would have only two senators."

The tragedy of US-Israeli relations is that AIPAC has deprived Israeli leaders of one of the most potent arrows in their political quiver: the "option" of letting Israel be (or appear to be) coerced by the US. Whether the US would ever acquiesce is another matter.

Some context: The US has always opposed national liberation movements that got in the way of its hegemonic aims, so why would it suddenly make an exception for the Palestinians? It is convenient to exonerate US policymakers by pointing the finger at the Israel lobby, but the root of the problem goes beyond AIPAC. Mearsheimer and Walt correctly answered the wrong question: Congress, indeed, takes its marching orders from AIPAC and US-Israeli relations are bad for both countries (though excellent for their establishments). No doubt the Israel lobby has stood in the way of a fair settlement. But to lay the blame squarely on it, one would need to make the case that US policy would be notably different in its absence. The evidence is unpersuasive. Israel has been the linchpin of Pax Americana in the Middle East since June 1967: Cold War then; Carter Doctrine now. The lobby may rejoice in this but can hardly take credit for it. In fact, if it ever deviated from US hegemonic goals (which might eventually happen over Iran), it would quickly discover the limits of its power.

It is undeniable, however, that efforts to stifle public criticism of Israel have created a climate of intimidation. Not everyone enjoys being called an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew for accurately describing the West Bank as an Apartheid society. Media gatekeepers and college administrators have been kept in line. The cranks at Campus Watch are shameless thugs, but what do we call the self-censoring academics and cowed public intellectuals who toss overboard any shred of moral courage to speed their ascension to power? Why must the New York Times feature opinions about Israel that cover only a fraction of the range on offer in Haaretz?

Intangibility, irreversibility, asynchronicity, plus the lack of mutual trust or of a trusted enforcer: these are the strategic reasons all incremental approaches to the two-state solution have failed so far (eg, Oslo I/II, Wye River, Road Map). As if this were not enough, two more disincentives have kept Israel from playing along. One of them is the paradox that, by curbing terrorism, the separation barrier has diminished the short-term added value of peace, a commodity whose market price tends to vary in proportion to its distance to the buyer's present sense of security. (Growing missile threats may soon mess up this calculus.) The other disincentive is Israel's lack of bargaining power. How so? To be effective, a peace agreement would require overwhelming support among Palestinians (whereas majority support in Israel would be sufficient). This niggling detail all but decimates Israel's bargaining power, as it presents it with a "binary" negotiating stand, where wresting the slightest concession quickly becomes counterproductive. Think of it as negotiating the purchase of a parachute: settling for half a parachute at half the price might be an option for the seller but not the buyer. For Israel, it's all or nothing.

What's wrong with "nothing"? Nothing, of course, is the current policy. It is also Zionism's death march. So you'd think Israel would have ditched the "Road Map to Nowhere" long ago and hurried to cut a two-state deal. Ah, if only it could, but you've heard it before: Hamas must recognize Israel; Abbas is a weakling; the terrorist infrastructure must be dismantled; etc. Hogwash. Israel drags its feet because it finds the peace pill unbearably bitter. How bitter? At the very least: dismantling 120 settlements; relocating 110,000 settlers; swapping pre-67 land for settlement blocs already in Israeli hands; rerouting the separation barrier; ceding control over 40% of the West Bank; sharing Jerusalem as a capital; letting in 10-50K refugees; giving away vital water rights; returning the Golan to Syria (no comprehensive peace without it); engaging Hamas; facing violent domestic opposition; endangering the careers and lives of Israeli leaders; last but not least, implicitly admitting that two-thirds of Israel's history has been a monumental blunder.
Whether these costs are just deserts or unfairness incarnate is not a subject I wish to address here—just as I will not discuss whether ceding a mere 22% of historic Palestine (a lousy deal by '47 standards) is an equitable compromise. These are the cards on the table today. To borrow a bon mot from his former chief of staff, Sharon pickled the peace process in "formaldehyde." In truth, Oslo was an incremental process doomed from the get-go, regardless of Rabin's fate. (Only Arafat could manage to make his people swallow such a stinker.) The parties could have changed tack along the way, but they didn't. No doubt the Palestinians did their part to undermine the peace process: wicked attacks against innocent civilians; failure of the PLO, like Algeria's FLN before it, to grow from a revolutionary movement into a governing institution; etc. Yet, like France in Algeria, Israel bears the ultimate responsibility for the conflict: occupiers always do.

That said, critics of Israel tend to underestimate the barriers to peace.

This is not an excuse but a statement of fact: the two-state solution demands of Israel the kind of concessions history wrests from nations defeated at war. Having been defeated at peace, not at war, Israel is psychologically unequipped for the task. All the giving must be, de facto, Israeli and the taking Palestinian—the neat thing about having nothing is that you have nothing to give. Of course, Israel would be "giving" nothing—only returning what it grabbed in contravention of international law—but it is indicative of its delusions of innocence that it should always speak of generous offers, never of legal redress. Peace requires quick, painful surgery. The Road Map? Think of it as handing the patient a Swiss Army knife and asking her to cut off her own leg. Is it any wonder Israel has opted to live with the gangrene and cement the current Apartheid regime in the territories?

If Israel's 60th anniversary proves anything, it is that the Palestinian problem won't go away on its own. Sounding like a pyromaniac warning of the dangers of fire, Olmert put it bluntly: "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses [...] the State of Israel is finished." Squelched in 1948, the two-state idea began to gain mutual acceptance barely two decades ago; it took 15 years for Arafat to sell it to the PLO. It was not even part of Oslo and it has never captured the Palestinian imagination. Today, it elicits among Israelis not a sigh of hope but a collective yawn. The two-state solution may be that rare idea that goes directly from "futuristic" to "obsolete" without stopping at the intermediate stage called "timely."

Geopolitics is changing, too. Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, the region's ascending power, now loom larger in the Israeli psyche than the Palestinian conflict. Israel has never lost a war against the Palestinians but it got bloodied twice in Lebanon. Peace with Syria has a low cost/benefit ratio for Israel and it appears to be back on the agenda. A deal would frustrate Washington because it wouldn't break the Tehran-Damascus axis, just as Jordan's normalization with Israel didn't hurt a bit its relations with Saddam or Hamas—who can forget King Hussein's ordering Bibi to provide Meshaal an antidote after Mossad botched his assassination? America's waning influence in the region may prove a blessing. It may force Israel to ditch its endless excuses and realize it is powerful enough to take the risks of peace: deal with Syria; engage with Hamas; and, crucially, end the occupation. One can dream. The evidence is somewhat less oneiric: unless Palestine accepts to become a client state of the US, Israel will never be leaned upon to set it free; and it won't do it of its own volition.

Approaching the two-state solution as an incremental exchange of piecemeal concessions is doomed. Outside coercion is ruled out, so a successful implementation would require of Israel to assume voluntarily the submissive posture of a vanquished nation: an unlikely scenario for a country unaccustomed to defeat and the behavioral exigencies that go with it. (Losing wars is bad, but that's how nations grow up.) The two-state solution calls for visionary leadership that Israel does not have, international prodding that is nonexistent, and an obliging enemy that has never much been the obliging kind. The final nail in the coffin might be its dwindling popular support.

Ominously for Israel, the military deterrent of a small country stuck in the heart of the Muslim world will not last. The clock is ticking. If Israel ceases to be a Jewish-majority state, what will Israeli parents say when their secular children ask them what's so cool about being a minority in a small country next to Syria when one could be a minority in a big country next to Canada? Israel must travel the painful road to Taba: all the way, all alone, and all at once. The odds are stacked against it. But then the odds of Moses parting the sea were never that good either.

Bernard Chazelle is a professor of computer science at Princeton University and author of The Discrepancy Method: Randomness and Complexity. He can be reached at: chazelle@CS.Princeton.EDU 

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