The two-state solution would endanger Israel’s safety. The one-state solution may endanger Israel’s Jewish identity.
The two-state solution would create an independent Palestinian Arab state approximately along the pre-1967 lines. It would occupy all, or almost all, of Judea-Samaria (the West Bank) and be linked to Gaza.
So Israel would be just nine miles wide at its narrowest point — virtually indefensible. Israel’s major cities and Ben-Gurion Airport would be within easy range if a Palestinian terrorist army should arise — an unprecedented danger. Also, there would be a mass expulsion of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of Jews in existing settlement towns — which would be utterly immoral.
Two-state advocates say the only alternative to their plan is a one state solution. Which, they say, means granting Israeli citizenship to the Palestinian Arabs and turning them into a majority; or depriving them of citizenship and having an apartheid-like regime. But that’s just a hypothetical issue that they use as a talking point. In reality, not a single mainstream Israeli party calls for either making those Arabs citizens of Israel or having an apartheid system.
So what’s the alternative?
The real choice is not between two states and one state. It’s actually a choice between two states; the status quo; and a third way, which my movement, Herut, advocates.
The status quo refers to the existing situation: the Palestinian Authority (PA) rules about 40 percent of Judea-Samaria, which includes all the major cities where Palestinian Arabs live. Hamas rules 100 percent of Gaza. Under the status quo, the Palestinian Arabs do not pose a demographic threat to Israel, because they’re not Israeli citizens and never will be.
Herut’s approach takes the status quo and builds on it in three important ways.
First, the Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria would live under Israeli law, just as the Palestinian Arab communities live under PA law. This would not create a demographic problem for Israel, since it would not impose Israeli citizenship on the Arabs living in the Israeli-ruled sections of Judea-Samaria.
Second, Jews would be free to live anywhere in the Land of Israel. This is not a right-wing position, but rather a sacred Zionist principle that has been at the center of the Zionist movement since its inception.
There’s no reason to fear that such Jewish communities would obstruct peace. If the Palestinian Arabs genuinely want peace, they should have no objection to Jewish neighbors, just as Israeli Jews live side by side with nearly two million Arab citizens of Israel.
Third, Herut’s plan proposes to focus Palestinian Arab aspirations on Jordan. That’s the country that is in an area historically called Eastern Palestine, until the British decided in 1922 to unilaterally change its name to Transjordan and later to Jordan. But changing a name doesn’t change the identity of its citizens. The vast majority of Jordanians are Palestinian Arabs; Jordan is already the independent state for Palestinians that everyone is demanding. The only obstacle to Palestinian statehood is the king of Jordan.
Like the one-state solution, not a single mainstream Israeli party calls for this option. But if the Palestinian Arabs ever decide they actually want a state — rather than the destruction of Israel — then 78 percent of historic Palestine awaits them, just a few miles east.
Until then, Israel must be guided by the principle of steadfastness — what Herut’s ideological forefather, the legendary Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky (1880-1940), called “the Iron Wall.” We know that Israel’s enemies of will never love the Jewish State. But they can be forced to respect Israel — by remaining steadfast in the both the defense of Jewish rights and in the integrity of the Land of Israel.
Moshe Phillips is national director of Herut North America’s U.S. division; Herut is an international movement for Zionist pride and education and is dedicated to the ideals of pre-World War II Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky.
Despite a lot of noise, the “international community” has tolerated the “status quo” in Israel/Palestine for the past twenty-six years. They had tolerated the Israeli “occupation” with no Palestinian government between 1967 and 1993 as well. Before the Israelis made the insane free choice to invite a PLO government and a PLO army into Eretz Israel west of the Jordan. Despite the intense verbal hostility of the “international community,” Israel probably could have continued the “occupation” indefinitely without either permitting a PLO or a Hamas government in Eretz Israel, or giving the Palestinians Israeli citizenship (which they never asked for).
The realistic “solution” would be for Israel to take measures that would acknowledge that both the Ramallah Fatah regime and the Gaza Hamas regime are waging war on Israel. That would involve strict economic sanctions and the military operations needed to destroy and disband the terror organizations. In order to avoid harsh punitive sanctions from the “international community,” it might be necessary to implement these measures gradually–while swearing up and down that if the Palestinians would agree to stop terrorism, stop inciting it in their schools and mosques and with their mass media, and disband their terror organizations, these Israeli counter-measures would end. At some point, most of the Palestinians would either leave the country or accept some kind of peacful autonomy under Israeli rule, perhaps with Jordanian and Egyptian citizenship options. The important point is that the only “solution” to Israel’s security problems is to defeat its enemies militarily, diplomatically, and propagandistically. If and when that is done, Israel can dictate any “solution” to its national security problems that it wants, and the Palestinian (and other) Arabs will have to accept it. But if Israel does not at some point defeat its Arab and Muslim enemies, they will defeat and destroy it. Then will be only Hitler’s “solution” to the “Jewish problem.”
Why should the sodomites be entitled to Israeli citizenship? Most have/had jordanian citizenship. Why should arabs muslim or christian be allowed to live to own property on Jewish land when Jews are not allowed to live own property in jordan + Jewish tourists are made to fill unwelcome?
All entries to from Israel from Gaza be shut down only way in out via sinai . Every rocket stone scrap of paper thrown over the fence be met with dunam of land being removed to state Israel land bank.
Let egypt e u provide all supplies via Sinai.