By Elyakim Haetzni
The Left lives on slogans. Ever since the time of the Communist Manifesto, with the brilliant catchphrase, “You have nothing to lose but your shackles,” their flock yearns for political sayings created by masters of brainwashing and psychological warfare. The Israeli Left, for some time now, has not been part of the social or socialist Left. It has become bourgeois and rich, but it has not lost its passion for ideology and for debate and controversy. Its spiritual homeland is no longer Soviet Russia but Palestine, and at the heart of its new argument is not the distribution of wealth but the distribution of the land. They also require, as always, someone who they can condemn as a reactionary, living in the past, who is the object of their hatred.
Formerly, it was the contemptible capitalist; in our day it is the relentless settler, and the red ideology has been replaced by a new belief – the cult of “peace on our enemies’ terms.”
As is their habit, they found a catchy slogan for their new belief system – “Land for peace,” but this slogan now lies buried in the sands of Gush Katif (Gaza), where the Israeli public learned that the true quid pro quo for territories is Hamas rule and rockets, not peace. But slogans are plentiful and so we have had to endure “Shall we forever live by the sword?”, ” A horse and its rider”, “Peace is made with enemies”, “Window of opportunity” , “No free lunch “, “The demographic demon” and “Time is in favor of the Arabs.”
With time, these slogans have worn out because the facts have flown in their faces. Now only one slogan remains, to which television’s Channel 10 just devoted a special program: the threat that if Israel is not divided, the State of Israel will become ‘a bi-national state.’ Yossi Sarid, (a well-known journalist and former Knesset member of the left) elaborated in that broadcast with the words “the end of the Jewish State” , and Meron Benvenisti (a writer and journalist) added, “the train has already left the station.”
Is this panic justified? If the fear is that the State of Israel will lose its Jewish majority, then the question is primarily a demographic one and, in this regard, the past years have brought good news. As opposed to the situation in the middle of the last century whereby there were, on average, six children more in Arab families than in Jewish families, today the Arab family has an average of three children and the Jewish birthrate has grown to an equal number. Moreover, the Jewish birthrate is on the rise while the Arab birthrate is declining, and the latter is the situation in almost the entire Middle East. The trend in Israelis characteristic not only of religious Jews but also of the secular population, and this is contrary to the decreasing birthrates in the entire Western world. Today, forty-six years after the reunification of Israel, the Jews are still a majority in all of western Israel, the Gaza Strip included, and this majority is not in danger.
Furthermore, we are not obligated to grant all the Arabs of Judaea and Samaria Israeli citizenship coupled with the right to vote for the Knesset. And as long as they have not been enfranchised, all talk about “the end of the Jewish State” is demagoguery. As long as there is solid Jewish majority in the Knesset, the state is Jewish.
Here the Left introduces the argument that if we do not grant the Arabs of Judaea and Samaria citizenship, our state will no longer be democratic, and the world will not for long abide a situation of “occupation” without rights. This claim deserves serious consideration. Let us begin with the fact that for the Arabs the situation today in Judaea and Samariais not one of “occupation.” Only the Jewish settlers are subject to the rule of the military government and its regulations, that is, held under occupation. All the Arabs, including those in Area C, are under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Albeit, the Arabs in Area C are under the authority of the Israeli civil government in matters of planning, construction, traffic etc. but their lives are essentially governed by Ramallah. Furthermore, there is no disagreement in the Jewish public that, were Area C to be annexed to Israel, its Arab residents should be granted Israeli citizenship. Their number is estimated at 70,000, and that number would certainly not endanger the Jewish majority.
Approximately half of the Arabs of the disputed territories live in the Gaza Strip where, in effect, they are living in a separate state. Nobody can claim that “Hamastan” in Gaza is under Israeli occupation. On the contrary, there the Left’s dream of dividing the land has already taken place on a small scale. The Left can therefore relax –Gaza will certainly not be the cause of diminishing the percentage of Jews in the State of Israel..
Areas A and B too, are not ruled by Israel. True, sometimes the IDF does arrest suspects there, but that is done across other borders as well, and it happens only because the Palestinian Authority routinely violates its obligation, in accordance with the Oslo Agreements, to arrest terror suspects.
The Arabs of Judaea and Samaria have a parliament, a government, a flag, a national anthem, representation in all the countries of the world including in the United Nations, they have security forces which deploy automatic weapons, including machine guns, they have independent radio and television broadcasting systems and total economic freedom. Their government offices function in every imaginable sphere. What don’t they have? Jerusalem. Also, heavy military armaments and authority over the approximately 400,000 Jewish settlers. The border crossings are under Israeli authority, as are the skies, and the Palestinian Authority is not permitted to enter into international agreements which are of a sensitive nature vis a vis Israel. The reason for this is clear: without these limitations we would have Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on the border of Petach Tikva, a military pact would have been signed between Ramallah and Teheran and at Ben-Gurion International Airport no flights would be able to take off or land. The current situation in Ramallah is called Autonomy. Even the disrespected Oslo Agreements were resolute in not granting full sovereignty to the Palestinian Authority. In effect, the Israeli Military Authority was not dismantled, it just “retreated.” What remains is a rather limited Israeli affinity. Does this endanger the Jewish character of the State of Israel? Nonsense!
And still, the Left will insist, why do not the “Palestinian people” in Judaea and Samaria, in addition to the local matters over which they were given full democratic rule by the Oslo Agreements, deserve to receive full political sovereignty – a state, and not just autonomy? To this there is a very clear reply – because they already have such a state, but they chose to call it Jordan.
The territory of “Palestine” which the League of Nations gave the British in trust – mandate – to administer for the purpose of establishing a “National Home for the Jewish People”, stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Iraqi border, including today’s entire Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. However, a few months after the ratification of the Mandate (1922), the British requested from the League of Nations, and received, permission to remove the entire area east of the Jordan River from the territory being considered for the Jewish National Home, and that, in order to be able to reserve this territory for the Arabs who were already rebelling against the very idea of a Jewish national home. The British were indebted to the Hashemite dynasty, which fought alongside their armies against the Turks. Therefore, they rewarded the older brother with the Kingdom of Iraq and the younger brother received the Transjordanarea which was designated an emirate and its new ruler, Abdullah, received the title of Emir and eventually became King. The area was declared closed for Jewish aliya and settlement and as the secretary to the Emir, Sir Alec Kirkbride, wrote in his memoirs, it was designed to fulfill the nationalist aspirations of the Arabs, which had recently awakened and found their expression in bloody riots.
Here, then, obviously, was the foundation for the realization of the great vision of the Left (and of Benjamin Netanyahu), “two states for two nations”, one to the east and the other to the west of the Jordan River. And in this vision the Arabs, which later were to name themselves “Palestinians”, were not short-changed at all since the eastern portion comprised more than three-fourths of the entire original mandatory territory and what was left for the Jews, the area between the river and the sea, was only one fourth of the whole.
At that time, the local Arabs came up with two brilliant schemes:
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1) They re-invented themselves as a separate people, which they named after the British Mandate territory of Palestine– the ‘Palestinian People’
2) They created, out of thin air, a new national designation which they named after the new Jordanian Emirate – the
‘Jordanian People’.
From then on, even though the Arabs of the Jordanian Kingdom continue to identify themselves as Palestinians, they concurrently have acquired an identity as Jordanians. As a result, anyone who believes that the vision of a national state for the Palestinians should be fulfilled in Transjordan is immediately accused of trying to steal that country from its rightful owners, the “Jordanians.” Against his will he is forced to search for an alternative territory for the “stateless” Palestinians within the small quarter of the mandatory territory which the British left for the Jewish homeland – that is, to subdivide the area a second time and thus to render questionable the sustainability of the territory which remains as a Jewish State and turn it into a caricature of a state.
It is also important to point out that in Jordan there is only one people, a people who call themselves ‘Palestinians.’ There are also Bedouin living there but they do not see themselves as a separate nation. As a result, in that area, which historically is the Land of Israel, and among themselves is called Palestine, there lives a people who identify as Palestinians – and nevertheless, it is called Jordan. This enables the Palestinians to claim that they have no home and that the Jews are the ones who must supply one for them out of the small portion which was left for them. Those Jews in Israel who are not ready to play along with this comedy and claim that one partition was enough – are called fanatics, messianic, dreamers and even Fascists.
In summation, I am willing to take a risk and say that all the Arabs in the biblical Land of Israel, on both sides of the Green Line, can live a full life under Israeli rule, and a part of them in the framework of autonomy. They will vote for their local autonomous Home Rule, but not for the Knesset in Jerusalem. They will vote in their national elections for the parliament in the eastern part, whether it will still be called ‘Jordan’ or the name will be changed to ‘Palestine’. The logistics were already worked out by the sages of Oslo. Thy allowed the Arabs living in East Jerusalem, which was annexed to the State of Israel, to vote in the elections for the Palestinian Authority – in Jerusalem in the Salah a’Din Street Post Office. In the same way, American, Russian and French citizens living here vote in the elections in their countries.
Will this lead to the loss of a Jewish majority in Israeli elections? Most certainly not!
CuriousAmerican Said:
What akes you think anybody cares about you opionion on anything.
bernard ross Said:
Krauthammer calls it “word salad”
@ bernard ross:
@ CuriousAmerican:
LATMA The Kerry Peace Plan,
CuriousAmerican Said:
ethnic cleansing is the last thing you should imply. tha arabs need to go live in the homes of the jews they cleansed. I have no problem being criticized by the christians, euros and muslims for any charges of ethnic cleansing. I would dance in the streets to see them transferred across the borders and laid in the laps of the christians and muslims who started and sustained the problems. I would simply say Pot??? Kettle?? Black?? and treat them all as the con artists which they are.
CuriousAmerican Said:
One thing is certain you are most definitely a repeated intentional purveyor of “linguistic befoggery”. However, your “befoggery” is transparent, obvious and childish.
CuriousAmerican Said:
I never cease to be amazed at the disingenuous rubbish you spew. I know you have more knowledge of logical reason than you demonstrate therefore I must label your absurd comments as disingenuous. I have never heard of the freedom to issue entry permits listed in the US bill of rights. You appear to intentionally confuse individual civil and human rights with rights reserved to the govt. They have no less rights than in Lebanon or saudi arabia. govts issue residency, bldg permits and licenses. you apparently also belong to the crowd that calls gaza a prison. I know of no restrictions on imports to PA which are out of the ordinary or abnormal in various parts of the world. gaza restrictions would occur even if they were a recognized state due to their state of belligerency. the PA though less belligerency is still a terror supporting collective. The US also has restrictions on its residents which violate the bill of rights legally. Did you protest the lack of freedom in the US. You actually have less freedom of dissent than in Israel because your secret police is monitoring your communications and harassing dissenting individuals and orgs. I just read about a college girl who was attacked by ATF agents who smashed in her vehicle windows and then arrested and held overnight because the agents sought to cover up their police state abuse. The dummies thought a case of bottled water was a case of beer, which also would have been absurd. She was released by the prosecutor the next morning but there is no excuse for their behavior except that the US Justice dept is providing the example of a police state. Please, the US does not even have near the real terror that Israel does but it limits freedoms more. Look to your own nations excesses first.
CuriousAmerican Said:
what actually is ridiculous is this absolutely ludicrous comment which puts you in the same category as the usual loony tunes on the libeling left. Prison trustees do not go to the mall. Grow up please and stop the hysterics.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Guess you could not hold it in any longer, try to avoid the Ex-Lax 🙂
It may be necessary to blockade the Arab, but do not call it freedom.
My objection is that he is calling it freedom. It is not. It may be necessary, but it is NOT freedom.
Haetzni starts out with what he wants – which may be a good thing – but then redefines the Arab situation to make it look less severe than it is.
It is severe. A slave in shackles is not free if you keep him in shackles, no matter how free you call him.
If Areas A & B had freedom, why can’t they issue residency permits without Israel’s permission?
This is ridiculous.
They are NOT free. NOT AT ALL!
The PA is just a bunch of trustees in a prison.
PAY THEM TO LEAVE, but don’t call them free.
This whole thing is a concoction. You want the Arabs out, but do not want to be criticized for ethnic cleansing, so this bizarre arrangement is set up. May their lives a living hell -checkpoints, permit requirements, permit withdrawals, housing demolitions, military courts – in the hopes the young will leave.
Then you want to redefine this bureaucratic tyranny as freedom. IT IS NOT!
PAY THEM TO LEAVE, but don’t call them free.
I am not against Israel; I am against this linguistic befoggery.
CuriousAmerican Said:
even recognized nations can be blockaded and occupied in hostilities. hence the legality of the gaza blockade. freedom for aggressive arabs is of no importance, only those who do not seek the destruction or theft of others should be free: hence the global acceptance of jails. all of your concepts can only be applicable to normal people but not to people who teach their children to kill jews, have a charter to destroy the jews and celebrate the murder of jewish children. Such people deserve imprisonment, suffering, torture and death. Your statements are meant to confuse the humanitarian nature of jews who make the mistake of considering the condition of their own killers. The arab justification for killing jewish children is that they will grow up to join the IDf. when seeing the hamas camps to raise jew killers I do not empathize with pal children who are collaterally damaged. i also do not agree with treating them in Israeli hospitals, but many jews do. Go figure, gluttons for punishment, suicidal tendencies, habit of pleasing masters??? Perhaps when more jewish children are slaughtered by arabs they will ultimately act in self defense to pre emptively destroy their enemies.
gaza, the existent, defacto pal state with recognized de facto boundaries should be to israel what siberia was to russia: a place to quickly send hostiles. They can occupy the land of the jews removed by the IDF. no one realizes that the 2 state solution within the post 67 borders has already been created. the only reason it has not been declared is because they are not in possession and control of the west bank.
CuriousAmerican Said:
this is where you go wrong. you believe there is a rule which must be followed. what can happen is what Israel decides must happen. all the laws of the geneva convention have been violated by the other side with the ethnic cleansing of Jews from arab nations who participated in the same conflict. The world has accepted transfer as legal and acceptable, de facto. There are no jews in any arab controlled area of former palestine mandate. the west bank arabs were citizens of jordan until jordan rescinded that citizenship unilaterally, this unilateral rescinding confers no obligation of Israel to grant them citizenship: they are jordanians or stateless. there exist many stateless arabs from the former mandate territories in the surrounding arab nations therefore they can be considered to be continuing stateless refugees. they have 2 existing palestinian states at this moment jordan and gaza. No one mentions gaza but it is a defacto palestine within the original pal mandate borders and within the pst 67 borders thus satisfying any assumed agreements regarding the creation of a second pal state. there is no obligation to enfranchise simply because they are currently there, ask all those refugees in the surrounding arab countries who give them no enfranchisement. The now have more than enough land, they need to get out-of-the-way and occupy the vast lands already falling into ruin under their care. there are few rights for jews in many arab nations, I believe that in Jordan it is still illegal for a jew to own land. the application of this example in Israel would solve many ownership issues; after all there should be no double standards.
The fall of the wall in Berlin and the talk of “glasnost” and “perestroika”did not end the massive programs of dezinformatsia favored at the kremlin. A new book by Major General Pacepa discloses this. The Israeli left just as the left all over the world continue in their role as “useful idiots”
Also, at San Remo the French tried to amend the Balfour Policy as adopted in the savings clause for non-Jewiish communities. The other Principal Allied War Powers did not agree. What they did agree to was a side agreement in the minutes of the meeting in which they agreed on the meaning of the savings clause: that it’ did not require the non-Jewish communities to surrender any of their rights. In the 400 years of rule by Colonial Turkey the Arabs in Palestine never voted in Turkish elections. So, giving the Arabs Home Rule would be perfectly consistent with Israel’s obligations under the San Remo Resolution and the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.
CuriousAmerican Said:
OR Transfer/deportation OR We destroy all illegally built dwellings, tax them to the fullest with 100% enforcement OR 3 years of national service as a precondition to rights. They will be mobilized into work brigades building and repairing all public works in the country. Buildings/roads and repair/ agricultural workers for our farmers/environment cleanup etc. All the necessary jobs foreign workers now do. They will be put at the discretion of the government to be used wherever it’s deemed necessary.
They will be paid the equivalent of what soldiers doing national service are paid.
No Arab male or female not doing National Service will not receive citizenship or rights as citizens. They will be denied all entitlement payments and will be barred from employment by any government institution National or local or by private contractors employed by the government. Failure of payment on time for all utilities and services afforded their towns villages and cities will be cut off as are Jewish communities. Today they don’t pay or collect properly local taxes and are seldom penalized for their non payment . It’s Israels version of American affirmative action. This will stop.
They will be given a reasonable time to get retroactively approvals for all their illegal construction and if denied those structures will be destroyed. A privately endowed fund will be made available that in-lieu of having their homes and business construction torn down they will be paid a market price, paid when they leave the country. Once out they will be barred from ever returning and they will all sign waiver of rights before they receive payment. All land occupied by them where no legal proof of ownership can be produced will be confiscated by the State with no compensation paid. There are hundreds of thousands of acres falling under this stipulation that need rectification. Again Here affirmative action is in play.
All current Laws not applied and enforced on Arab citizens will be strictly enforced and all minor infractions of the law less than felony where jail term are imposed deportation will be offered in place of prison.
new laws will be enacted where current laws are difficient allowing them to circumvent the intent of keeping the Jewish State Jewish.
They will go believe me they will go but only if ther is a consistent policy a national consensus and a will. Then offering them citizenship under these conditions is a positive.
That is not a risk. That is what you want. Giving them the vote would be taking a risk.
LOOK, ISRAEL MAY HAVE TO TREAT THE ARABS THIS WAY, BUT DO NOT CALL IT FREEDOM
Nonsense. If a pioneer (settler) is arrested, he goes before a civil court, while a Palestinian is tried in a military court.
Nonsense, enfranchising 70,000 would set a precedent for the rest of them, In fact, the precedent was set in 1949, when the Arabs were given the vote.
You cannot get out of the fact. Annexation = enfranchisement.
PAY THEM TO LEAVE.
But they do not have open borders? Do they? Switzerland, though landlocked, still takes in open airflights from around the world. Can Ramallah? Without outside checks? Can boats freely enter Gaza?
They do not have economic freedom if Israel controls what is allowed into their areas.
I DO NOT MIND IF YOU POLICE THE ARABS BUT DO NOT CALL IT FREEDOM.
Among all the nations it is only us ‘clever’ Jews who can be so deliberately insane as to NEVER understand the obvious solution. The is NO historic, legal, religious or moral claim by one Arab to one inch of the Land of Israel. There is EVERY reason to move the Arabs elsewhere in the interest of peace and also in the interest of the Arabs as well. Relocation of peoples has occurred in many countries over the centuries including in the U.S where we evicted the native Indians and even murdered them by the millions. Relocating the so-called Palestinians would liberate them for self government and allow control over their own future, free from interference by anyone else.
There is no reason for Israel to be more generous to the Arabs than the Arabs are generous towards their own people.
I’m gone over everything else in previous threads but here I want to draw attention to something forgotten by Israeli elites: Israel’s obligation is first and foremost is to secure the future of the Jewish nation. Of no one else’s! Israel is not obligated to build anything for the Arabs.
This foolish obsession with committing national suicide must stop before it gets out of hand.