The New GM: Maker Of Mobile Devices

Wilmot, New Hampshire. It is hard to think of a more wrong-headed take on the new GM than today's Times report on how a new muscle car will save the company. Imagine someone writing that a new Bee Gees will save Warner Music; imagine a government stupid enough to be 2/3 owner in such a venture, especially a government committed to reducing global warming and greening the economy.

In fact, the government gets one real prize with the new GM and that's Voltec, the working name for the electric power-train that is being integrated into the Chevy Volt, Cadillac Converj, and other vehicles scheduled for release over the next couple of years; a power-train whose 40-mile range will be extended by a 1.4 liter engine, acting as a dynamo when the battery pack runs down. (The tough little engine, by the way, was snared from Opel before its sale, a good example of finding components from within the global GM group, something the company will have to be great at in the future.)

I'll be saying a lot more about this electric vehicle and its commercial "ecosystem" in the weeks ahead (I'm writing a feature for Inc., and will be blogging about it with the magazine's permission). Suffice it to say for now that Voltec has a fighting chance to remake GM the way cell phones remade Motorola in the 1980s (a failing consumer electronics company in the early 1970s). Indeed, GM has a chance to be the first to reconceive the car as a the ultimate mobile device, embedded in both a rich information network and a smart electric grid; the first, that is, to set standards for the operating system that will manage the battery pack, and the communications protocols that will allow millions of electric vehicles to syndicate information and communicate their requirements to smarter (hence, greener) public utilities.

In short, GM has a chance to become the software powerhouse of the newest new economy, not just a manufacturing and assembling company (margins from these activities will drop to near zero, as with the manufacture of laptops and cell phone handsets), but primarily a design hub and anchor for hundreds of new software solutions companies that will focus on the tiers of communication the electric car portends: battery-pack to vehicle, vehicle to electric utility, and utility to sources of renewable energy. (Think of GM's OnStar's global positioning platform migrating to a communications platform that collects and interprets information about the timing of recharging of vehicles for power companies; think of, say, Accenture working with a half dozen start-ups to smarten Duke Energy's grid in a way that communicates with OnStar.) This would mean tens of thousands of new economy jobs, and little companies going global, much like Qualcomm did. It means utterly transforming what GM means by a supply-chain.

Of course, GM could blow it. Apple was hardly the leading contender to launch a digital music player and, hence, come to dominate new generation mobile PDAs. For GM to win, it will have to think of the car in the context of its various networks, much like Apple did with the iPod. The fact that the government both owns GM and also has the capacity to create convergent standards for environmental and safety reasons should give GM a great initial advantage. But none of this will happen if GM management, and the business press aiming to keep it honest, thinks about (or with) muscle.

Chess, Not Checkers

The following notes may be found in President Obama's breast pocket.

Opening: Make Hilary Secretary of State (that is, remove the leader of the opposition from New York). Show the Arab and Muslim world--a place where honor matters--an abiding respect. Embrace the Arab League peace initiative of 2002 and frame the Israel-Palestine conflict in regional terms. Set out the long range goal of a Palestinian state, albeit in vague terms, but along with the insistence that settlements cease--code for some variation on the 1967 border. Draw Egypt and Jordan into the mix, implying their participation as forces on the ground. Open a diplomatic channel with, and through, Syria.

Middlegame: Cultivate the Palestinian Authority's new government, providing training to its police forces, while providing the promise of new investments to its business class. Use channel to Syria to bring Hamas into negotiations with the PA. Encourage rejection of Islamist radicalism in Palestine by implying American pragmatism; leave the Iranian regime to discredit itself and, in the process, the democratic pretensions of Hamas and Hezbollah. Challenge Israeli government on settlements' "natural growth" to establish future position on a 1967ish border. Work with Quartet to establish a consolidated front of world opinion and great power fiat; imply complete diplomatic isolation of groups in Israel/Palestine that defy the "peace process."

Attack: Broker a deal, with Egyptian participation, for the return of Gilad Shalit, in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners and the opening of the Gaza crossings. Visit Russia. Visit Damascus. Prepare the ground to isolate Iran diplomatically. Welcome the creation of a joint Palestinian negotiation team, led by the PA, but including Hamas officials; accept the principle that any deal will be put to a referendum; accept that all groups that agree to abide by a referendum can enter into a dialogue with Washington. Call for renewed, bilateral negotiations between Israel and the PA presided over by George Mitchell.

Endgame: Present American formulations (Clinton parameters, etc.) to resolve the problems of Jerusalem, refugees, and borders; make these public as the negotiations proceed. Announce that the result of the negotiations will be presented to a regional peace conference, including the Saudis and the Syrians. Meanwhile, the latter establish low level diplomatic and commercial contact with Israel under American auspices. In advance of the conference, announce a Syrian-Israeli peace deal based on a demilitarized Golan, returned to Syria, but open to Israeli tourism and including Israeli commercial interests. Rally Europe and the Quartet to Marshall Plan scale investment package for the Palestinians. Provide for a three year plan to isolate the settlers who must be repatriated and compensated. Announce inclusion of Israel in NATO, and sign Israel to nuclear non-proliferation agreement. Prepare speech for Oslo prize ceremony.

Switching Gears

We are off to New Hampshire for the summer, where I'll be refocusing on the electric car: its commercial "ecosystem," the implications for public policy, and so forth--about which more soon. Watch this space also for updates and reflections on Obama's Middle East peace initiative as seen from the other side of the world.

If you've been thinking about becoming an email subscriber, you might pull the trigger. I expect posts will be more infrequent during the summer. Also, if you'd like to drop a line with suggestions, or simply to tell me how the blog is working for you, I'd be grateful: bernard.avishai@gmail.com.

I confess I am looking forward to spending time in America, to feeling the ambient pressure of ordinary liberalism, rather than the pressure of heroic solidarity. At the same time, I shall miss the narrowing instances of their combination, as captured in this marvelous poem by Lea Goldberg:

Is it true - will there ever come days of forgiveness and mercy?
And you'll walk in the field, and it will be an innocent's walk.
And your feet on the medick's small leaves will be gently caressing,
And sweet will be stings, when you're stung by the rye's broken stalks!

And the drizzle will catch you in pounding raindrops' folly
On your shoulders, your breast and your neck, while your mind will be clean,
You will walk the wet field, and the silence will fill you -
As does light in a dark cloud's rim

And you'll breathe in the furrow in breaths calm and even,
And the pond's golden mirror will show you the Sun up above,
And once more all the things will be simple, and present, and living,
And once more you will love - yes, you will, yes, once more you will love!

You will walk. All alone. Never hurt by the blazing inferno
Of the fires on the roads fed by horrors too awful to stand,
And in your heart of hearts you'll be able to humbly surrender,
In the way of the weeds, in the way of free men.

You can hear Chava Alberstein's wonderful rendition of this song-poem here. Take the time: it is lovely. (My thanks to Ganze Jahr Freylach, whose translation I am poaching.)

Al-Safa, June 27, 2009

This, from my friend David Shulman, an activist in the Israeli-Palestinian peace group Ta'ayush, who has written widely about acts of witness in the South Hebron hills--including in this blog:

While Prime Minister Netanyahu scoffs at Ahmedinajad’s beatings of peaceful demonstrators, here is what happened yesterday, in broad daylight, at the village of al-Safa, inside occupied Palestinian territory. I am reporting the testimony of Dr. Amiel Vardi, and many other supporting testimonies. There is graphic photographic documentation, including a live video clip, which can be seen here. The pictures seen here are part of a series that can be viewed at this Flickr site.

Further photographic evidence will become available within the next day or two. (Israel has so far not resorted to blocking internet sites.) What Amiel reports is incontrovertible.

The activists arrived in the morning at al-Safa to accompany Palestinian farmers to their fields, since it is nearly impossible for these farmers to work their land without the physical protection of Israelis: violent settlers from nearby Bat 'Ayin invariably attack the farmers and chase them away. This time, however, the army and Border Police were waiting, in force—dozens of soldiers (the Border Police are part of the army), including two Brigade Commanders. As usual, they declared the area a Closed Military Zone.

But they also immediately arrested the activists and then attacked several of them brutally with fists, rifle butts, and other weapons. They rammed their heads repeatedly against the sides of the military jeeps (you can see this clearly on the Walla video). They severely beat the detainees while the latter were hand-cuffed and defenseless. Even worse, they continued to beat them while transporting them to the police station—stopping the jeeps on the way and attacking their helpless prisoners with clubs. One Palestinian activist, Yusuf Abu-Maria, suffered a broken leg. An Israeli activist, Sahar, had her armed savagely twisted, though fortunately not broken. Many were injured.

Incidentally, while this was going on, settlers from Bat 'Ayin set fire to Palestinian olive trees only a few hundred yards away; but of course the soldiers saw no reason to interfere.

This was not random violence. It’s the kind of thing that is directed routinely at Palestinian detainees, but this is perhaps the first time Israeli activists have been assaulted so brutally. The sense is that the Border Policemen were acting under direct, premeditated orders. The two Brigade Commanders—the senior officer in this zone, commander of the Etzion Brigade, and the commander of the Kfir Brigade— stood there overseeing the assault. Perhaps they had their orders from above. Internal Security in Israel is now under the direct control of the proto-Fascist party of Lieberman, the Foreign Minister.

Let no one claim that such things happen only in places like Iran but never in Israel. Let no one claim that Israel is an enlightened, free country, the very opposite of places like Iran. Let no one claim that the Israeli army is incapable of inhuman cruelty inflicted on innocent victims, whether they are Palestinian civilians or Israelis demonstrating peacefully against the occupation. Already now, as I write, the system Israel has put in place in the occupied territories is barbaric, in every sense of the word. Unless there is massive international pressure and effective protest, that system is not about to go away. Indeed, in the meantime, things are getting worse, on the ground, day by day.

Presence Of Justice - The Sequel

I noted back in March that Israel's High Court of Justice has been the only firewall Israel has against encroachments on civil liberties; that defenders of human rights have relied, in effect, on a self-perpetuating community of liberal-democratic jurists, enjoying (by means of law and precedent) the ability to remain self-perpetuating. (Former Justice Aharon Barak gave voice to the unique status of the court rather poignantly a couple of days ago, when he argued that Israel must be, after all, "a state of its citizens," code for the equality of Arab citizens--which caused a storm of criticism.)

Two votes in the Likud-controlled Knesset this past couple of weeks will almost certainly end this run of liberal-democratic jurists. Think of it as a quiet coup by the Judeans. The first is the appointment of Uri Ariel of the Kahanist National Union to the Judicial Appointments Committee. "As of today," writes Haaretz's Yossi Verter, "the committee has a bloc of four rightist and radical-right politicians, including Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) and Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman. All they need is a fifth member, probably one of the Israel Bar Association's two representatives, and they will have a majority on the committee and be able to do as they please. The three Supreme Court justices on the panel will become a negligible minority."

The second vote is an amendment that will require a majority of seven out of nine members of the Judicial Appointments Committee. If the amendment becomes law, which it almost certainly will, the government will have, in effect, a veto over appointments to Israel’s highest court, "the most significant change," says the Israel Policy Center, "in the balance of power between the branches of Israel’s government since the current system of judicial appointments was put in place in 1953."

State Of The Jewish People? Yes and No.

The demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as "the state of the Jewish people" has at least three layers to it: The first is symbolic, without practical significance, and understandable. The second is partly symbolic, is meant to have future practical significance, and is contentious (though resolvable). The third, however, is legal, has great practical significance, and is, for any Palestinian (or democrat, for that matter) unacceptable. It is time to stop working through symbols and start saying what we mean.

1. Israel is obviously the state of the Jewish people in the sense that vanguard Jewish groups in Eastern Europe dreamed a Hebrew revolution, which launched the Zionist colonial project, which engendered a Jewish national home in Mandate Palestine, which earned international backing to organize a state after the Holocaust--a state that became a place of refuge for Jews from Europe and Arab countries--that is, a state with a large Jewish majority whose binding tie (to bring things back to Zionism's DNA) is the spoken Hebrew language.

When Palestinians say they recognize "Israel," they are implicitly recognizing this reality; they are acknowledging, to paraphrase Irving Howe, the name of our desire. At the most visceral level, when Israelis insist Israel be recognized as Jewish, they mean they want this narrative recognized, the same way they implicitly acknowledge the peculiar formative sufferings of Palestinians at the hands of Zionism when they say "Palestinians" and mean "not Jordanians or southern Syrians." When Palestinian spokespeople speak to Israeli reporters in Hebrew, they are recognizing Israel in the most poignant possible way.

2. Why is this not enough? Because, claims Netanyahu (like Olmert and Livni before him), in any negotiation with the Palestinians it must be understood in advance that there can be no "right of return" for Palestinians to Israel--that accepting this formulation, "the state of the Jewish people," really means precluding a flood of Palestinian refugees into Israel's borders and onto its electoral roles.

But the claim is false and puts a stumbling block where a pathway needs to be cleared. You can obviously find a formulation for the refugees which does not ruin Israel's Hebrew character; one that preserves "the right of return" as a seminal piece of the Palestinians' narrative, the name of their desire. You can say the refugees have a right of return to their homes but that the forms of compensation, the number, etc., must be agreeable to Israel, and that, in any case, the vast majority will exercise that right by returning to the Palestinian state. The contradiction between "the recognition of Israel" and "the right of return" may sound impossible to resolve. In fact, it has already been resolved at Taba in January 2001. Why resort to distracting principles when a little tact will do?

3. Unfortunately, however, Netanyahu cannot, or will not, simply leave things there. For the phrase, "state of the Jewish people," also has legal ramifications dear to the heart of Israeli rightists (including old Labor Zionists in love with the saga of the settler state); ramifications that derive from the historical application (some would say misapplication) of Zionist ideas over two generations and which seriously impinge on democratic standards. It is one thing to think of Israel as a democratic republic whose citizens speak a dominant language inflected by Jewish nuances--you know, poetic allusions to classical Jewish texts and liturgy and the like. It is quite another to think of Israel as state that represents, or embodies privileges in law for, certified members of a world Jewish people:

I mean (as I've said often before) a state that allocates land almost exclusively to certified Jews, empowers the Jewish Agency to advance the material well-being of certified Jews, appoints rabbis to marry certified Jews only to one another, creates immigration laws to bestow citizenship on certified Jews, founds an educational system to produce certified Jews, assumes a sacred capital to be a kind of theme park for the world's certified Jews--indeed, a state that presumes to certify Jews in the first place. Such a state must be anathema to Palestinian leaders, who cannot but notice that a fifth (soon, a quarter) of Israeli citizens are Palestinian in origin: they can recognize Israel but cannot possibly accept this Jewish state. But then, neither can Israeli Jews with ordinary democratic instincts. I, for one, do not.

By the way, if you want a poster-child for this creepy, growing Israel within Israel, you could do worse than Natan Sharansky, who has just been "elected" president of the Jewish Agency; a man who preaches Jeffersonian democracy to the world, but whose conception of democracy in Israel is, shall we say, squishy Rousseauian; a General Will interpreted by, well, generals.

"We're in a world where Jews are losing their identity," Sharansky says, "Israel and world Jewry are like receding galaxies, floating apart at a time when contact is easier than ever...Abroad there is the problem of assimilation, but in Israel, too, young Jews are growing away from their roots...The Jewish Agency is [a] meeting place, the ideal tool for developing that connection."

The disease that presumes itself the cure.

Military Intelligence

As I write, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of mainly young Iranians are deciding whether or not to risk going out into the streets. There is little someone like myself can add regarding the poignancy of their decision. Yet one thing seems obvious: a generation of Iranians has been changed by these rallies--changed in roughly the opposite way they would have been had Israeli military intelligence got its way, and won American and IDF agreement to an aerial strike on Iranian nuclear facilities earlier this year.

Even in the face of mass protest, not only did Mossad chief Meir Dagan refuse to admit the obvious--that an attack would have caused widespread carnage, put Iran on a war footing, and preempted its twittering liberalism--but he's had the audacity to predict to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee what nobody could possibly know at this point, that the protests will peter out; that, anyway, a Mousavi government would be worse than Ahmadinejad's regime, for it would give Iran's nuclear program a prettier face. ("To hell with those students; the PowerPoint is done.")

Still, it is not military planners like Dagan who seem reprehensible to me. It is the politicians and writers who channel them. We pay people like Dagan to sum the weapons of potential enemies and come up with ways to foil them. (The only reason we'll be able to live with a nuclear Iran, should this become necessary, is because military planners will have figured out how to position Israel's own nuclear deterrent.) And Dagan's main job is to think like a "made man," turning worst case contingencies into scenarios, and scenarios into "predictions." Mossad people say they also look at motive, not just capability. But who doesn't know how easily military people assume that capability translates into motive, much the way economists assume big money translates into investment. Motive? We are not talking about James Joyce here.

On the other hand, nothing seems more irresponsible to me than politicians and political analysts who lack the poise to stand up to military intelligence when important policy decisions are taking shape; politicians so eager to prove that they are not still trusting children that they remain forever sophomoric, defining the world as a test of wills, fearing (as Orwell did in "Shooting an Elephant") looking like a fool; writers so eager to prove that they are not just brainy wimps that they hang out with, and flaunt being respected by, officers.

So before the moment passes, we should give thanks that, owing (among other things) to McCain's defeat, this was one attack that never took place--and now never will, since it is obvious, even to the mullahs, I suspect, how the regime can simply be waited out, much the way Communist regimes were waited out; how they have lost the young.

And before the next moment of crisis, we should not fail to note some of the most irresponsible journalism of the last couple of years: Benny Morris' call for a limited nuclear strike last July, and, more recently, Jeffery Goldberg's implied endorsement of some kind of attack. (Both were given enormous space in, of all places, the New York Times op-ed section, so the editors should probably be remembered, too.) And who can forget Haaretz's Arie Shavit, who is silent about Iran this week, but is already taking credit instead for Netanyhu's policy of a demilitarized Palestine?

This accounting may seem small of me, but the celebrity culture being what it is, the periodic violence of extremists being what it is--and the fears summoned by ordinary neurosis being what they are--these writers will no doubt hang on nicely, cultivating their reputation for toughness (though Goldberg, to his credit, is repulsed by Dagan's statements, and seems to have come around to the idea that warning against the reckless use of force is not the same as weakness). Anyway, there is often credit for talking tough, while warning against violence is thankless. Just not at this moment, surely, and not in this case.