Fathoming Fathom

I just received the hard copy of Fathom, which is the new organ of BICOM (the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre, an independent British organisation founded in 2001 to foster a more complete understanding of Israel).

Why Fathom?  Why a new quarterly journal of "expert analysis, informed opinion and genuine debate about Israel and the region".

They presume that

Today’s discussion about Israel is too often supercharged with emotion and underpowered in expertise and nuance. It is time to confront this challenge. We stand at a crossroad and in need of tough-minded and expert intellectual analysis.

First, there is a desperate need for a deeper understanding of Israeli society itself – complex and fast-changing, commanding global attention, yet often reduced to a mere caricature by parts of the mass media, civil society and intellectual culture. Fathom will present Israel in HD.

However, the editorial board is playing from a stacked deck:

Two states for two peoples remains the only way to balance Jewish and Palestinian demands for sovereign independence and national self-determination, but there has been a waning of support for this project,  among intellectuals especially. Fathom will be a partisan and artisan of the two-state solution, helping to put some intellectual substance back into the project of mutual recognition and peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.

There is no "only one way".  There can be a kaleidoscope merger of methods and approaches, or a diluted ideological position or some form of compromise on the mechanics of administration.  But there can be no yielding on the requirement for the retention of Judea and Samaria.

Two states already exist, indeed two Arabs states of Palestine: Jordan and Gaza.  The Palestinian Authority, if you wish is the third statelet in the area.  That's 3:1 against Israel.

The Pals. refuse to recognize two states where one is the nation-state of the Jewish people, since Jews are not a nation.  And they have not yielded on the right of return.  And Mashal declares all of "Palestine", i.e., no Israel, as the future Arab state.

This "Palestine" is not democratic, is not transparent.  It oppresses.  It tortures.  Its own.

It incites.  It misleads.  It misrepresents history and archaeology and promotes discord and terror.

It does not adhere to commitments, obligations and responsibilities.  It is an anti-Jewish regime, one that practices apartheid.

It is one thing to promote intellectual discussion and exchange of views.

It is another to argue from an indefensible framing of the conflict's solution.

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