A public exchange has been taking place between Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken and the paper’s columnist Ari Shavit over Mahmoud Abbas’ refusal to recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.” According to Shavit’s latest piece, supporting peace means forcing the Palestinians to accept Israeli preconditions, otherwise there will be no agreement. This has always been the logic of the Israeli center – we will make up our mind over what to do with the Palestinians, and they will just have to accept our decision. Otherwise, the occupation will never end. Then, as always, comes the line about Israelis being the real victims of this unpleasant situation.

I would not have written this piece if I didn’t hear people refer to Shavit as a peacenik, or even as a “lefty” (twice!) in the past week. You just don’t hear that being said in Israel, mostly because Shavit is too busy attacking the left. However, that is the kind of language used to describe him in the United States.

Shavit needs to be congratulated for using the term “occupation” in an Israeli political climate that is all about denying reality, but this is where his activism ends. I cannot remember a serious political issue over the last decade in which Shavit didn’t parrot Netanyahu’s line, not to mention Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak’s before him. Sure, Shavit can comment about the need to halt settlement construction and bring about a two-state solution, not to mention his repeated line regarding the inevitable “moment of choice” on Iran. But whenever there is a concrete issue at hand, something that requires taking a side, Shavit retreats into his comfort zone as the spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office.
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As negotiations head toward their only possible outcome – the U.S. working with Israel to keep the Palestinians negotiating over nothing, rather than turning to the international community for recognition – it is time for some soul-searching among those who thought that without confronting the issue of Jerusalem, neither a just nor sustainable solution could be achieved.