Gershon Baskin, co-CEO with Hanna Siniora of IPCRI, the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, has written a provocative article, Planning for failure – how to end the occupation, create the Palestinian state and make peace with Israel without negotiations. I offer his theses for consideration. Plainly, the current situation and the parties' approaches are not bringing the Palestinians closer to statehood or the Israelis closer to a secure peace.

Reading I-P discussions confirms James Carroll's observation that "no question is more polarized than" the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Accordingly, it may be worth taking note that two active I=P discussants -- Heathlander and I -- despite opposite primary sympathies, agree on (what Heathlander recently called) the essential embodiment of a peace settlement, namely, the Geneva-Accord, a joint Israeli-Palestinian model peace treaty, agreed in October 2003 by senior Israeli and Palestinian figures.

Please read on

There is a partner.  There is a plan.

Professed partisans of the Palestinian cause have assured us that "What Hamas won't do . . . is start physically arresting or fighting IJ [Islamic Jihad] members who do decide to violate the truce," and that Hamas has no commitment to enforce the truce in the Gaza Strip, an that "It is dishonest to pretend otherwise." Indeed, we've been told that "it seems remarkable to assume that Hamas has both the will and ability to do so [control violence] with factions in its own territory.

But does Hamas really believe it has no stake in the survival and success of the cease fire? While there is evidence going both ways, recent developments are cause for hope on the part of those who, in the interest of both Israelis and Palestinians, hope, pray, and work for a comprehensive peace settlement based on the principle of "two states for two peoples" and, at least in the short run, full implementation of the calm and an improvement in the daily lives of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and Israelis in the Sderot-Ashkelon area.

In Monday's diary, I asked, considering that Tibetan peoplehood, culture, and society are inextricably bound up with Lamaism, and that the Charter of the Tibetans in Exile, a constitution guaranteeing the usual democratic rights, also recognizes special roles for the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism, Can there be a Tibetan democratic state?

Over 60% of those polled answered, yes it can.

Today, I want to focus attention on Greece, which became a state in 1821 after gaining independence from the Ottoman Empire. Its constitution and laws give special recognition to the Orthodox Church and specially privilege ethnic Greek non-citizens in becoming Greek citizens. So, today's question is

Is Greece a democratic state?

Tibetan peoplehood, culture, and society are inextricably bound up with Lamaism, as Tibet's distinct form of Buddhism is called. The Dalai Lama is both the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people. Imagine, if you can, Israel's head of state being, by law, a descendant of a High Priest from the days when the Temple still stood.

The question sometimes arises in discussions about Israel whether it is possible for a state to be both Jewish and democratic. Tibet and many European democracies provide interesting case studies that uniformly suggest an affirmative answer. Let's continue with Tibet before moving on to Europe.

Inspired by heathlander
Dedicated to Red Auerbach

Questions sometimes arise about American Jewish attachment to Israel. In Arab and Jewish Americans agree, I discussed a Zogby poll commissioned  by Americans for Peace Now and the Arab American Institute, which uncovered considerable agreement between the two communities. (See Tables 9 and 10.)

This diary discusses American Jewish Attachment to Israel (pdf), a recent study from social scientists at Brandeis University. One interesting discovery is that, "[t]o the extent that American Jews participate in the broader political culture, the increasingly pro-Israel orientation of the American public likely provided support for specifically Jewish feelings of attachment."

The study also undermines the claim that younger American Jews are becoming less attached to Israel.

Actually, the headline at Afrik.com, an aggregator of news from Africa, reads President plans to kill off every single homosexual. The sub-head reads

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh says he will "cut off the head" of any homosexual caught in his country.

The Gambia, a former British colony in West Africa, already has made homosexual conduct a felony punishable by imprisonment for a term of 14 years.

Now, Pink News reports,

Gay men and lesbians must leave the country within 24 hours or face "serious consequences," the President of Gambia said on [last] Thursday.

So reads the headline on the current Ynet front page, the web page for the Israelis newspaper Yediot Ahronot. The article itself is entitled US left-wing bloggers to visit Sderot.

Prominent writers, members of progressive American organizations known for their heavy criticism of Israel will tour the country, meet with top officials. 'We want to provide them with an eye-opening experience that will help them better understand the complexity of the Arab-Israeli conflict,' says trip organizer Ira Forman

The Guardian reports the verdict, by a 9-2 majority, of the jurors in the inquest into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and her companion Dodi Fayed. The inquest, which lasted about six months, heard more than 240 witnesses and is estimated to have cost about $10 million pounds.

The verdict:

Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed were unlawfully killed by the reckless driving of their chauffeur, Henri Paul, and the paparazzi who chased them, jurors in the inquest into their deaths decided today.

"The coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, set a very high threshold for returning an unlawful killing verdict on the deaths, saying it would be equivalent to a finding of manslaughter. It is one of the most serious verdicts they could have delivered."

Yesterday, a new report from Peace Now, led me to diary Increased Settlement Construction Since Annapolis.

Today, I’m prompted by the New York Times. Steven Erlanger writes In Gaza, Hamas’s Insults to Jews Complicate Peace.

Since Hamas took over Gaza last June, routing Fatah, Hamas sermons and media reports preaching violence and hatred have become more pervasive, extreme and sophisticated, on the model of Hezbollah and its television station Al Manar, in Lebanon.

  * * *

"If you take a sample on Friday, you’re bound to hear incitement against the Jews in the prayers and the imam’s sermon," said Mkhaimer Abusada, a political scientist at Al Azhar University here. "He uses verses from the Koran to say how the Jews were the enemies of the prophet and didn’t keep their promises to the prophet 1,400 years ago."

The Settlement Watch team of Peace Now, the largest extra-parliamentary movement in Israel, the country's oldest peace movement, and the only peace group with a mass base, has released a new report, The Death of the Settlement Freeze - 4 Months Since Annapolis (pdf), covering the period from August 2007 to February 2008. Excluding East Jerusalem, construction occurred in 101 West Bank settlements, primarily west of the security/separation barrier; not a single project was frozen.

[C]onstruction continued in all of the construction sites that already existed. Construction of at least 220 buildings continued in 37 settlements (in each building several housing units), 94% of that construction was in settlements west of the separation barrier.

[A]a larger number of new buildings began to be constructed over the
last few months in 53 different settlements. Construction began on approx. 275 new buildings (in each of them several housing units), only 81% of these in settlements west of the separation barrier. In addition, land has been prepared for the construction of at least another 7 buildings.

In today's Boston Globe, Mario Cuomo, the former three-term governor of New York, argues that

A DEMOCRATIC disaster in the November election looms, but it can be avoided by a demonstration of true leadership by the two candidates.

The problem, of course, is the bitterness being created by the long primary campaign between Senators Clinton and Obama, while McCain "gathers strength unmolested within his own party and comforted by the squabbling among Democrats."

Polls show that if the battle continues to a conclusion at the convention, a significant portion of the constituency supporting the loser will refuse to vote Democratic in November. That could cost the Democrats the election and bring back "Bushism," assuring the continuance of the tragic Iraq war indefinitely.

Cuomo's proposed solution: an act of statesmanship by both Senators Obama and Clinton. Ideally, they should agree "to end the hostilities and form a ticket that offers both of them, a candidate for president and a candidate for vice president who is clearly good enough to serve as president[.]"

The headlines speak for themselves.

Study: Israeli Jews becoming increasingly racist toward Arabs

Poll Shows Most Palestinians Favor Violence Over Talks

My own view is that the primary cause on both sides relates to the parlous state of the peace process. Actions and inaction on each side saps belief on the other side in the possibility of a realistic peace settlement. The US government has failed miserably in building support for negotiating and implementing a peace settlement based on the international consensus of "two states for two peoples," whose outlines have been clear since at least the closing days of the Clinton presidency. The present impasse provides an additional reason for electing  Barack Obama over John McCain next November.

Two recent stories from The Times (UK) and Der Spiegel provide a few rays of hope in an otherwise stormy situation.

In Hamas-Israel: a tiny ray of hope, Times reporter David Byers tells how "the rescue of one, dying, Palestinian baby . . . last week threw a ray of light on a little-known humanitarian agreement between Israel and Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, at a time when they are locked in a state of conflict."

And in Palestinian Twins Under Rocket Fire from Gaza, Der Spiegel reporter Christoph Schult tells how "When a Palestinian woman gave birth to twins in an Israeli hospital she experienced what it is like to be the target of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip."

Meanwhile, Ha'aretz reports on "the Facebook of peace" -- mepeace.org -- a social networking website that brings together Israelis, Palestinians, and others.

Soon, if not already, progressives who supported other candidates -- or hoped-for candidates; I wanted Al Gore and then supported John Edwards-- ought to reconcile ourselves to Barack Obama becoming our Party's nominee for president. More than reconcile ourselves, we should commit ourselves to work enthusiastically for his election next fall.

This may be a suitable occasion, therefore, to look back on this remarkable contest for the nomination and recognize that Geraldine Ferraro is right, but not in the way she means: Barack Obama is "very lucky to be who he is." Hoping that his luck continues, let's review Obama's remarkably lucky political career.

long enough to make it a success. Today's Boston Globe reports on an audiotape of statements by Barack Obama at a lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

"The failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster," Obama said. "It would dishonor the . . . men and women who have already died. . . . It would be a betrayal of the promise that we made to the Iraqi people, and it would be hugely destabilizing from a national security perspective."

Before accusing the Globe of fabrication, or me of snark, let me add one relevant point: the lunch took place, in Boston, in July 2004, the day after Obama's speech to the Democratic National Convention.

We all know about Obama's strong speech, as a State Senator in 2002, against going to war. But these equally strong words against simply getting out once the US had invaded, show that Obama's views changed over time. While honoring Obama for his foresight in 2002, members of a reality-based community need to recognize that, taken as a whole, the differences between Obama and Hillary Clinton on Iraq are much smaller than we might think, and neither can claim a perfect track record.

Yesterday, in (the rescued diary) Stop the UK from sending a gay teenager to his death, I asked community members to communicate respectfully with the UK government about the case of Mehdi Kazemi, a gay Iranian teenage student who sought, and was denied, asylum after learning that the boyfriend he had left behind in Iran had been executed. Homosexuality is a capital crime in Iran.

Today's Independent (UK) warns us that a similar fate awaits a 40-year old Iranian lesbian,, Pegah Emambakhsh,

who fled to Britain after her girlfriend was arrested and sentenced to death faces being forcibly returned after losing the latest round in her battle to be granted asylum.

Gay rights group claim there are dozens more cases of gay and lesbian asylum-seekers living in Britain in fear of persecution and facing harsh punishments if forced to return to Iran.

Before telling you her story, I want to give you information you can use to contact the UK government. Please follow me over the flip.

Mehdi Kazemi is a gay teenager from Iran. He sought sanctuary in Britain after his boyfriend was hanged for homosexuality. (The Independent, UK; see also Gay City News.)

In 2004, Kazemi's family sent him from Iran to London to study English. Kazemi left behind a boyfriend, Parham. They had begun dating at the age of fifteen, and became intimate some eight months later. Kazemi and Parham kept in touch through e-mail, but then Parham's e-mailing abruptly stopped. In March 2006, Kazemi learned that Parham had been arrested by the Iranian authorities and mentioned Kazemi's name. In April 2006, Kazemi learned that Parham had been executed.

Homosexuality remains a capital crime in Iran.

Kazemi sought asylum in the UK, but in late 2007 was refused. Desperate, he fled to Holland. The UK now is demanding that the Dutch government extradite Kazemi to the UK so that it can deport him to Iran.

An online petition for Mehdi Kazemi by Gay Asylum UK can be signed here.