I was saying to a co-worker a couple months ago, during the most recent round of violence in Gaza, that the Palestinians needed some sort of Muslim Gandhi; someone to lead a non-violent opposition to Israeli occupation.

Could the latest events in Iran spark a non-violent Palestinian movement?  It’s impossible to tell at this point, and I think it will depend a large part on the success of the current “Green” movement in Iran.

A reader writes to Sullivan with similar thoughts:

I had a conversation at lunch yesterday with a friend, a neocon Jewish American, that fascinated me.  We were getting ready to get up from the table when he said, “Hey, wait a minute, do you want to talk politics for a minute?”  We proceeded to discuss the events in Iran and at one point I brought up my amazement at the protesters’ embrace of non-violence and their courage in the face of aggression.  I said, “I wonder if this will be a lesson to the Palestinians.  That perhaps if they renounce violence and embrace peaceful resistance they too could garner more international support for their cause, a la Gandhi.”  His reaction fascinated me.  He got this very serious, dour look on his face and replied, “That’s what worries me.  The biggest existential threat to Israel is that the Palestinians will realize the potential for non-violence and embrace it.”

I finally understood why some of the more cynical neocons cannot stand the Green Revolution.  Without a conflict, without a bogey man to demonize, they are scared to death.  In their minds their legitimacy comes from the fact that they are better than the bogey man, that they are necessary to keep the bogey man at bay.  I don’t think that the nation of Israel is so fragile that it could not come to terms with a peaceful movement for Palestinian statehood.

As soon as the Palestinians realize the power of a non-violent approach, the two-state solution will materialize in a flash.

Yglesias advocates a more blunt approach to the settlement problem:

To be maximally effective, I think the United States need to commit itself publicly to this goal as well as raising it privately. Israelis need to understand that their leaders are under pressure from their country’s most important ally and that ordinary Israelis need to choose between the settlers and the United States. Second, a big part of why the U.S. needs to be involved in Israel-Palestine issues is the role the conflict plays in driving perceptions of America in large swathes of the world. So to get the maximum effect out of a serious drive for a freeze on new construction within settlements, we need to be seen as exercising pressure not just pleading behind-the-scenes.

Practical politics, I understand, pushes in the other direction. Lots of Americans who have no particular brief for the settlers are nevertheless very touchy about Israel being subjected to any kind of strong criticism and are very wedded to a narrative in which the failure of Oslo rests 100 percent with the Palestinians. Under the circumstances, speaking bluntly about the settlements is politically risky. But it’s much more likely to work, and much more likely to advance American interests.

This whole settler thing just drives me nuts, because it’s usually the part of the negotiations that completely breaks down.  I just don’t understand how anyone could think that these settlers should not only be allowed to stay where they are, but actually expand what they already have.

This is pretty clear cut to me.  Eventually, we’ll make two states.  One part will be Israel, the other(s) will be Palestine.  If you want to be an Israeli citizen, make sure you live in Israel.  If it were me, I’d do it sooner rather than later, not build new homes in a place that will never be Israel.

This needs to stop.  Is it really incovenient and destabilizing for tens of thousands of families?  Absolutely.  But a continuing conflict that erupts into open war every 2 years is pretty destabilizing for hundreds of thousands of people in the region.

No way.  No how.  No settlements.