Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon is following me. On twitter.
Was it something I tweeted? Or didn’t tweet? I didn’t even know I was posting on twitter (or apparently Facebook also ) until Mr. Ayalon was nice enough to let me know he is a follower of my IT guy’s machinations. Well good for Ayalon. If he wants to be a follower, I’ll play the leader. Someone needs to lead.
As Ayalon was supposedly engaging in his bi-national state statement contretemps with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad Tuesday — we ONLY discussed the concept of two states; no, we ONLY discussed the concept of two states for two people, not your implied bi-national state — I received an email that my new friend Danny was watching me.
Imagine paying attention to a blog with 20 subscribers — I’m moving on up baby, now that the Palestine Note features me as a blogger, too — instead of exercising laser focus on what is essentially the after party to the actual talks. What a surprise that at the early stages of these old but new peace negotiations, the parties involved would let their discussions devolve into a disagreement over a press release. Next thing, a la Vietnam negotiations, they’ll be arguing over the shape and size of their negotiating table and hummus spread instead of the shape and size of Palestine and Israel.
But I digress. Ayalon expects me to lead. So here I am and here I go…
J Street, the undeservedly (ok, usually undeservedly) controversial 160,000 member pro Israel, pro two state, pro counting email subscribers as members Washington based organizational creation of founder Jeremy Ben-Ami, has just placed two huge ads in the NY Times and Wall Street Journal. Huge in size and huge in importance. Follow me on this Danny…
The essential message of the ads and Jeremy’s sentiments — Jeremy isn’t a follower so I am not trying to lead him, just interpret — is that Israel and the entire region are at a bumpspot. (Plug completely intended.) As a result of the conflict we have now witnessed approximately 8,000 Palestinian and 1500 Israeli deaths since 1987 (and somewhere between five to ten times that in injuries). There is enough blame to be be shared and depending on the issue the blame may tilt more one way than another — I”ll take your historically corrupt Palestinian leaders and tactical use of terrorism and raise you with our less corrupt leaders and their use of tactical assassinations and blockades — but the reality is that the Palestinian and Zionist visions are running short on execution time.
The message of the ad is a good one: Time is not on anyone’s side. Sacrifices must be made by everyone to achieve a final peace agreement. Leadership will be critical. Now you may not like the next to last paragraph where J Street focuses on stopping settlement growth and doesn’t address any specific moves the Palestinians should make, except to make “sacrifices.” Some might argue that this makes the ad a tad unbalanced. I would agree. But, Danny, this is just an ad. You’re doing the hard stuff. (No, not following my tweets or worrying about press releases — the really hard negotiating stuff.) And it’s important we not let minor issues get in the way. That includes ads placed by a solidly pro Israel, deeply important organization like J Street and it also includes West Bank settlements that aren’t truly strategic to Israel’s security interests and are, in fact, a real impediment to reaching a final stage peace agreement.
I’ll tell you this though. As soon as I get my “Jeremy Ben Ami is following you” notice I’ll be happy to work on J Street’s ads on your behalf. You just have to promise me you’ll stay fully engaged in the peace negotiations before you start following me and my tweets around again.
