The Trump administration’s historic recognition of the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria is another, perhaps even the last nail in the coffin of the Palestinian state idea.
By Prof. Eyal Zisser, ISRAEL HAYOM
Some in Israel sought to question the motives and significance of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s declaration that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria do not violate international law. But the fact remains that the United States – the top world power holding the key to any move in the international arena, and certainly the Middle East, has pulled the rug from under the Palestinians’ prolonged attempt to force Israel to accept the Palestinian claim to withdraw to the 1967 lines and allow the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Much like with its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, the American administration did not seek to impose or create a reality, but rather to acknowledge existing reality on the ground, in other words, that the Israeli settlement enterprise had long crossed the point of no return. The fact that Pompeo’s statement was barely contested by the “usual suspects” – the Palestinians, Arab states and some European countries – only goes to show that many in the world have already accepted the fact that the two-state solution is questionable and may have even become defunct.
Today, the Palestinian national movement is plagued by one of the most difficult crises it has known and it has no answer to the challenge it faces, nor can it counter the US decision or Israel’s moves.
But the challenge the Palestinians are facing does not necessarily lie in the UN or in Washington, but rather among the Palestinian public itself.
Although the Palestinian youth remain committed to the idea of the Palestinian state, they are clearly interested in integrating into Israeli society. This is how it is in east Jerusalem as well as in other parts of Judea and Samaria.
This is seemingly a first-rate Israeli achievement, at least from the perspective of the current government. But if we are honest, this also poses a real challenge to Israel. After all, many in Israel, in government and in public, have opposed the idea of establishing a Palestinian state, but at the same time have refrained from presenting an alternative to the two-state solution, preferring to postpone any debate on the issue of the distant future, if at all.
But the future is here. In light of the collapse of the idea of the Palestinian state, Israel must come up with a policy that will allow it to continue and maintain its identity as a Jewish and democratic state. After all, the day when the Palestinians themselves will raise the demand for a single state solution is not far. In fact, even without an explicit demand, this idea slowly becomes a fact on the ground. Israel has a duty to look for a creative solution to this new reality, and if we hold a third election, this question should be put to the candidates wishing to lead the country.
In essence there are already two Pal-Arab entities. One is Jordan which is majority Pal-Arab. Second is Gaza which is entirely run by the Pal-Arab terrorist group Hamas.
These entities are Jew free. Israel has the legal rights to all of Judea/Samaria.
Israel can not allow another terrorist State in Judea/Samaria next to its population centers and keep Israel livable and safe. It would be suicidal for Israel to allow a Pal-Arab state there and not allow the IDF free reign for security. Almost nightly the IDF and Shin Bet round up terrorists in Judea/Samaria preventing terror attacks.
Israel needs to build out the plans in E1 to complete and secure the way from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. Illegal Arab building in Area C must be destroyed and all Jewish Towns, roads, military installations and nature preserves in Judea/Samaria must have Israeli sovereignty applied immediately while Trump is in office.
One of the reasons all the territories that figured in the Anglo-French deals of 1916 through 1922 are now unstable and experiencing civil wars is that only Israel was actually created by a people with independent nationalist aspirations, rather than being created by the colonial powers for their own purposes, with little meaningful input from the “natives.” Israel is in effect the only state in the region that can also be called a nation. The other states are just agglomerations of people who happened to be living in the borders drawn up by the colonialists, who had no feeling of common nationhood. “The evil that men do lives after them.”
@ Edgar G.: Edgar, the reservation made by Faisal was that if the Arabs didn’t get an independent Syria, the agreement with Weizmann was null and void. Faisal’s warning was really directed at Britain and France rather than the Zionists. In particular, I think Faisal was directing it to T.E. Lawrence and Richard Meinertzhagen, the two British intelligence officers who brokered the Faisal-Weizmann agreement. They had promised Faisal an independent Syria with himself as king, provided he agreed to a Jewish home in Palestine (the Faisal Weizmann agreement did not specificially mention a Jewish state). But Faisal was sophisticated enough to know that Lawrence and Meinertzhagen might not be able to “deliver” Syria to him (in all fairness to them, they did their best to persuade the Brits and the French to accept the Faisal-Weizmann accord when they were part of the Brit delegation at Versailles–but failed, much as Faisal feared).
Everything else in your post agrees with what I have read about this period over the years.
Each person is limited by their personal world view. Well-meaning Westerners, no matter how sympathetic to Jews in general or Israel in particular, are apparently blind to the reality in front of them. No amount of economic prosperity or even national sovereignty can ever compensate for the establishment and continued existence of a non-Islamic country in the heart of what is considered “sacred Islamic lands.” All the more so, a blatantly Jewish country. To acquiesce to such a reality would be tantamount to a believing Christain accepting the mortality of their “savior.” It will never happen as long as Muslim’s remain adherent to the teachings of their Quoran.
@ Josephus:
I don’t believe they messed with Balfour, (talking about that, I’m sure I saw a picture of the declaration, and the agreement with Faisal, on which Faisal had written on the margin that everything he agreed to was valid…”unless” the agreement was not kept by the Jews..when it would all then be cancelled. (Paraphrasing). Nobody mentions this. nowadays.) They altered the core of the Mandate, having got a kind of assent from the other nations of the League, at least the major ones. Britain, as the BIG mover in the League could more or less cut-and-sew as it wished, and took outrageous advantage. Ruthless actually. Really only had the French (always distrustful of Perfidious Albion) to deal with, which is what Churchill did. After flying out, on hearing the the French were very upset, because Lawrence’s friend Faisal had proclaimed himself king in Damascus. Of course they kicked him out before his tucchas got comfortably seated on the throne, but remained aggressively distrustfu
In the meantime, the second son, Abdullah, had straggled up as far as Amman with abut 900 bandits, on his way to attack the French, to avenge the family honour..etc…and was resting there. Churchill made that deal with him to rule the area as Emir, and then went about placateing the French.
It was a matter of two crooked gangster Bosses each trying to do-in the other .So that’s how Britain got Mesopotamia and Trans-Jordan, and the French got Syria, Lebanon and the Golan attached to Syria, as their “spheres of influence”…They got other goodies but I can’t recall what they were..(I think part was a share in the Mesopotamian oil)….
So that was that..until …..
Its a 3-state. Jordan, the first 2-state, was and remains an illegal creation. Britain altered the Balfour texts when oil was discovered, after agreeing, along with Emir Faisal, Palestine would be only one state for the Jews, with partitions expressly forbidden.
• “The original text of the Balfour Declaration had read “Palestine should be reconstituted as the National Home of the Jewish people.” The text was changed to read “the establishment in Palestine of a Home for the Jewish people.” The single word “in” was used subsequently to justify removing all of Transjordan from the British Mandate that resulted from the Balfour Declaration. – [President of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error, 1949, p 257]
Only 4 things left to do. Annex all the land to the Jordan and retake Gaza and proclaim all the former Jordanians and Egyptians as resident aliens with no voting rights. Provide great incentives for the resident aliens to emigrate to Jordan or anywhere else. And then the conflict is over forever.
@ Jerome Verlin:
Zisser (G-D Bless him) sounds like, and I’m sure is, a very clever man…scholastically that is….. He sees that the young Arabs want to integrate into Israeli society……and then what happens, they go to a mosque, the crazy imam who rules them by their koran, says, it’s now time to strike.
ARABS can NOT be trusted. ESPECIALLY in large numbers. G-D forbid, that we Jews, with our stupid “repair the world” mishugas, (without making sure to repair ourselves first, and safeguard our eternal existence) are always the first to fall for a con job.And the Arabs don’t even disguise their intentions…they are set plain in print, and HAVE NEVER CHANGED. I suppose you’d also like them integrated into the IDF getting full modern military training, so they can slaughter us more easiy after catching us “napping”.
Unlike Jews, who are cerebral enough to have got over the Torah injunction “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”…. except to regard it as metaphor, the Arabs are FAR more primitive in their thinking. So Zisser. Go home, take your thinking cap off.(hide it) put your feet up, fil and light your pipe, then fall asleep (after making sure your pipe is OUT)…..and leave the political Israeli problems where they should be…with our politicians and our survival with our Defence Forces.
Aside from the Jews’ continuous presence, the Palestine Mandate provided for reconstituting in Palestine the Jewish national home. The excision from the Mandate of 78% as Arab Jordan divided Palestine, equitably to Arabs, between Arabs and Jews. That Palestinian Arabs aren’t in charge of Palestinian Arab-majority Jordan is to be resolved in that Arab 78%, not by again dividing between Arabs and Jews the 22% the first division left for the Jews.
Schechem, Jericho and Hevron must be returned to full Israel control as these are at least Schechem and Hevron Jewish holy cities.
Israel did not seize any land in 67 that was not allocated prior to be part of Israel. The so called 67 lines are the arab/Russian surrender lines.
God is at work like always
He never abandoned/forgotten He’s covenant with Abraham and he’s seeds the chosen people as long they (the chosen people) obey/follow God’s rules
THE SOLUTION IS SIMPLE, IS IN ACORDANCE WITH GREAT TRADITIONS: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/14857