It would be fair to assume that Gershon Baskin’s recent article in theJerusalem Post – “Encountering Peace: Obviously no peace now, so what then?” (June 24) — is not a mere intellectual exercise aimed at finding ‘creative’ solutions to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Baskin is a regular contributor to the Jerusalem Post, a right wing newspaper. He is more or less embodied in the Israeli political establishment, otherwise, he would have never been allowed to initiate the “secret back channel for the release (of captured Israeli soldier) Gilad Schalit” as he proudly states in his bio.
In the article, Baskin offers a way to manage the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem. Not an end to the occupation, but a gentler way to sustain it, if not profit from it. The co-chairman of ‘Israel Palestine Creative Regional Initiatives’ is indeed being ‘creative’, the kind of creativity that brought about the Village Leagues, Oslo and the Geneva Initiative without truly delving into the heart of the matter — the illegality and brutality of Israel’s occupation, sieges and wars.
Baskin’s reading of the situation is quite bleak. He carefully tries not to place any responsibility on any side for the lack of any political horizon, as a way to gain credibility. “Neither side seems to be particularly interested in escalation and violence,” he wrote, reaching a puzzling conclusion that seems at odds with reality, at least Palestinian reality: “Noteworthy is the sense that the young people on both sides have of being more interested in their daily lives than in national causes.”