Yossi Beilin, former Israeli Justice Minister, Calls on Norway to 'get involved' in Gaza
This just in, courtesy of state broadcaster NRK, incl. a (projected) warning that 'religious extremism' is 'destroying their people'--he means Palestinians, yet it also applies to Israelis
As always, translation, emphases, and bottom lines mine. References and linked content omitted, which are, of course, available in the original.
Israel's former justice minister asks Norway to get involved in the Gaza conflict
By Julia Kirsebom Thommessen, Sidsel Wold, and Gunnar Bratthammer, NRK, 26 Jan. 2024 [source]
One of the architects of the Oslo Accords believes the time is ripe to talk about a two-state solution in the Middle East again. He wants Norway to take the helm:
‘The need for a solution between Palestinians and Israelis is greater than ever, and Norway has shown that it can facilitate negotiations between the parties’, says Yossi Beilin to NRK.
Beilin has previously served as both Deputy Foreign Minister and Minister of Justice in Israel, and participated in the negotiations on the in the 1990s. Few have made as many peace proposals over the years as Beilin.
‘These are difficult days. We are in a period of collective mourning that began on 7 October.’ Does this mean that the chances of peace are less than before? ‘Not at all’, says Beilin.
He believes the war in the Gaza Strip has brought the two-state solution back on track:
The leader of the free world talks about it at least twice a day. There is international consensus that it is the only solution.
is a proposal to divide the areas where Israel and Palestine are currently located into two independent states—one Israeli and one Palestinian.
Beilin wnts Norway to take the helm
Recently, a number of world leaders, including US President Joe Biden, have come to the defence of the two-state solution. Especially after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that he does not support a two-state solution.
His party, the right-wing [ahem] Likud, has stated in its programme that it does not support the establishment of a Palestinian state.
However, Beilin believes that most Israelis are ready for a two-state solution and that Netanyahu's time in Israeli politics is coming to an end:
His popularity is almost zero. He can be blamed for the support Hamas has received, because he has favoured Hamas over the PLO. Hamas never talked about a two-state solution, whereas for the PLO, it's all been about that.
I think we have a better chance now. I'm not sure we'll get a two-state solution soon, but I don't rule out that possibility [talk about carrots and sticks].
The Oslo Accords, as the name implies, were negotiated with the help of Norwegian diplomats. Historic meetings took place in Norway, and Beilin was one of the participants. He is described as the architect of the agreement.
He believes that Norway, then as now, is in a good position to invite new negotiations: ‘Norway was open to us. They took the chance and hosted us. They were facilitators rather than mediators. It was a sober Norwegian way of handling things, if I can put it that way’, says Beilin, and encourages Norwegian authorities to invite informal talks.
Barth Eide: The two-state solution is on the agenda
However, Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide (Ap) is not quite ready to send out the invitations. He refers to initiatives among Arab foreign ministers, and believes it is important that Norway supports the plan being worked on among them: ‘But Norway can, they say, play a role in this’, he tells NRK.
He mentions that Norway can help the Palestinian Authority to strengthen and modernise itself. Does that mean Eide shares Yossi Beilin's belief that there is a different approach now?
I feel very strongly that there is a completely different international pressure. Even the countries that said they were in favour of the two-state solution, but didn't do much about it, are now very concerned about the situation and have put it high on the agenda.
So I actually believe that this deep crisis can lead to an opportunity [for whom?].
Researcher: must put force behind the demands
History professor and senior researcher Hilde Henriksen Waage says Beilin is probably quite alone in Israel in his views.
However, she believes that the fact that the two-state solution has been put on the international agenda is important:
It means that politically, the two-state solution has now sailed to the top of the agenda. Everyone believes that this is the only alternative [that is, except for Mr. Netanyahoo; note the invocation of Ms. Thatcher’s TINA]. What remains is for the international community to put power behind the demands and show the will to implement this.
She says the important thing for Norway now is to gather support for a two-state solution so that powerful international players, such as the EU and the US, commit to it [talk about wagging the dog, eh?]
Believes the war is necessary
More than 25,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since 7 October, when Hamas claimed around 1,100 lives in a terrorist attack in Israel.
Although Beilin believes the losses in the Gaza Strip are tragic, he believes that the war there is the only way to fight Hamas:
As long as the Hamas leadership is not willing to leave Gaza and give up on ruling there, we have no better solution than to fight as if it were the Middle Ages [we note, in passing, that Hamas ‘won’ something called ‘elections’ back in 2007; yes, there were none since then, but that doesn’t make Gaza less ‘democratic’ than, say, Ukraine, right? Right! as an aside, Mr. Beilin apparently believes in ‘democracy’ to the extent that he doesn’t like results that contradict his beliefs].
A negotiated two-state solution cannot include Hamas, and their government in Gaza must end, he says:
I don't think we can eradicate Hamas. It's idiotic. There are so many people who support Hamas in Gaza, and not only there unfortunately. But preventing them from ruling the Gaza Strip is possible.
There are high death tolls. But it is unfortunately the only way to prevent them from repeating what they did and from destroying their own people. They are an extremist religious group. They are like ISIS [takes one to know one, eh?].
Bottom Lines
Why do I bother translating these pieces? It’s not the first such item in Norwegian legacy media, and it won’t be the last. See, e.g.:
So, why bother? Mainly, to showcase the delusion that’s reigning in ‘the West’, I think.
There’s no way to put the proverbial lipstick on a pig (nope, no anti-semitic slur) and consider the result more ‘pretty’. Look at what Mr. Beilin says, and do so carefully:
This is an anti-Netanyahoo/Likud hit piece, with some bells and whistles, which incl. references to the unwillingness to accept Hamas rule over Gaza. While Mr. Beilin acknowledges that Hamas and the inhabitants of Gaza are, nolens volens, tightly intertwined, Israel will never accept Hamas rule over anything.
Hence, what happens in the case of a) implementation of a two-state solution followed by b) another election victory (or coup) that brings Hamas or some other faction like to power?
Will Israel be a good neighbour and stand by?
In the grander scheme of things, though, Mr. Beilin’s consideration show both alarming levels of condescension for what used to be called ‘international law’ as codified by the UN Charter. This does not bode well.
One could even infer, from his statements, that he’s a Neocon in the worst sense of the term:
A negotiated two-state solution cannot include Hamas, and their government in Gaza must end.
‘Ending states that support terror’ or the like was the creed of the Project for the New American [sic] Century. It would seem that ‘Palestine’ has jumped the queue of ‘statehood’.
One last thing to note is the seeming ‘inevitability’ of ‘collateral damage’, which Mr. Beilin considers ‘unfortunate’:
There are high death tolls. But it is unfortunately the only way to prevent them from repeating what they did and from destroying their own people. They are an extremist religious group.
This means, in terms of projection, that we can see more clearly what is happening. Religious extremism, of the kind pushed by both Islamist factions and Israeli factions, are ‘destroying their own people[s]’.
This is very much in line with my earlier analysis from mid-October:
There are but two conclusions to draw, and this has become more obvious since last autumn:
Whatever happens to the Moslem population of Israel/Palestine, they can, theoretically (as well as will, practically speaking) be able to move elsewhere, most likely to neighbouring countries. It is my sincere hope that these countries will finally (!) treat their fellow Moslems as equals and stop putting the Palestinians in ‘refugee camps’ (where they’re stuck since 1947/48).
As regards Israel, well, its Jewish inhabitants face a much harder choice: where to go once the all-but inevitable end result will dawn on them. I suspect it’ll be a replay of the 1930s, with few, if any, countries willing to open their borders for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Jewish refugees fleeing, yet again, persecution.
It's even easier that that:
While Beilin doesn't seem to be a friend of "Bibi", there are other reasons western nations are clinging to the illusion of a two-state solution:
One obvious is oil and shipping/transports through the arab-controlled areas. Israel isn't a factor in this at all and is - as a nation - unimportant re: transportation and logistics between West and East.
The less obvious issue is of course that in western democracies, all votes count the same, and jews are few and far between while arabs and other moslems are everywhere nowadays, and all main-stream parties /must/ pander to the moslem vote to stand any chance.
In Sweden, about 65% of Middle Eastern migrants bother to vote, and of those 65%, ca 85% or more vote Socialist Democrat or Communist, ticking the boxes of people from the same clans or regions they themselves come from, and voting according to the instructions issued by clan leaders and imams (this has been documented several times for ca twenty years, including clan members supervising voting to ensure everyone picks the selceted party/candidate).
Therefore, in accordance with the tenets of capitalism and democracy, the jews can "go hang" to be vulgar about it.
Beilin knows this, but it cannot be spoken out loud; it would infuriate anyone in the West sympathetic to him, his nation and their cause. We don't like to see how the sausage is made, after all.