T. Belman, As I have written before, what does confederation mean and what will be confederated? It is my belief that the only lands to be “confederated” with Jordan are Areas A and Gaza and such lands won’t be a state but will simply territories over which Israel is sovereign and Jordan replaces the PA and Hamas as the administrator.
By Daniel Gordis
With President Biden’s visit to Israel and Saudi Arabia this week, the future of the Palestinians—an issue that to their frustration has mostly disappeared from the news—may return to the headlines once again.
Many people’s “mantra” is that the only possible resolution of the conflict lies in a “two-state solution.” But as popular as the “two-state solution” is in European capitals, in Washington DC and among many Diaspora Jews, the harsh reality is that the two-state solution may be dead.
Only a minority of Palestinians support a two-state solution, and contrary to what many believe, the same is true in Israel. A majority of Israelis no longer support the idea, either.
What, then, might be an alternative? There are several (including, in the minds of some, doing nothing, and letting the status quo continue), but one that has been around a long time is now getting a bit more traction than it has in recent years. The proposal involves not two states, but a confederation of Jewish and Arab entities.
How would a “confederation” work? How would it be different from the two-state solution? Why might its chances of success be greater? What are its weaknesses? To get a sense of all this, we spoke with Dahlia Scheindlin, a respected journalist and activist in Israel, who has of late been trying to help revive the idea.
Agree with it or not, it’s important to understand the idea since it may once again be in the news.
Seems like a step in the right direction:
60% of Israel is desert. Thus 8,800 Sq Ki is useable
90 % of Jordan is dessert but Jordan is almost 4 times as big. The useable 10% amounts to 8,800 sq ki.
Thus the useable part of Jordan is approximately equal to the useable part of Israel and the populations are about the same.
But Israel is favoured with energy and water and so is much better off.
Nevertheless both Jordan and Israel benefit from the Jordan Option.
Jordan gets the support it needs and Israel reduces its Palestinian population particularly in the territories.
@Reader
Fair enough, it was my understanding of your words as I really don’t know what other meaning you might have had by making the statement that
You explain what was not your meaning/intent here, but not what was your meaning/intent by making the comment, ie how are you suggesting the welfare laws should/would be changed and how is it relevant to our conversation regarding letting the Arabs seek their welfare checks in Jordan?
Regarding this statement
I am truly puzzled. No one is throwing the Arabs out of Israel, period. They will stay or they will go under their own personal motivations given a myriad of considerations. Since this is the case, why would you suggest that anyone is contemplating throwing the Jewish poor out of Israel. It is a facetious, ugly, and completely contemptible suggestion, which seems to have no other purpose than to undermine the entire conversation. I know you to be an intelligent, if argumentative at times, person, and I have come to believe that you are easily not so dim witted as to really believe this suggestion is remotely relatable to the topic of the JO. So, do tell me what you meant by this if you would, or are you going to tell me it was just my UNDERSTANDING again.
The Arabs are not being motivated to choose to leave Israel because they are poor, and you know this full well to be the case. It is because they are a violent group of Arabs, acting as a cleft within the Jewish state. Furthermore, they stand as stateless only due to the Jordanian whim of abandoning them with the revocation of their passports. The JO would simply rectify this vicious betrayal and restore their citizenship, providing them with passports, and allowing them what aid they qualify for in their homeland of Jordan. Nothing similar could possibly be contemplated for the Israeli poor, the haredim, or the Holocaust survivors, again, of which you doubtlessly are aware.
@peloni
When I said that the welfare laws are not carved in stone, I didn’t mean that they may be changed for the Arabs ONLY – that was your “understanding” of this sentence.
There are many Jews in Israel who are poor (over 50% below the poverty level among the Hareidim, 20% of the Holocaust survivors, etc.) – should we throw them out also?
BTW, if you offered every Jewish Diaspora family $40,000.00, I am sure they would love to make aliyah!
I think this would be a lot more constructive than handing the money over to the people the majority of whom would rather the Jews didn’t exist at all!
All this talking about the impossible in all respects task of getting Arabs out of Israel avoids the real problem which can and must be solved RIGHT NOW:
The country which calls itself a Jewish country which was created to save the Jews from the next Holocaust (“Never again!” – that’s what the Law of Return was about) gives preferential treatment to the Arabs and slowly but surely is handing the country over to them!
I already said several times what needs to be done, and soon, before the changes become irreversible but NO! We keep dreaming the impossible dreams instead while Shaked, et al. are planning to start bringing Moroccans(!) and Arabs to Israel to work because Israel needs workers (see: the British Mandate policies) and while antisemitism is raising its head again in the Diaspora to the levels similar those before WWII!
@Reader
Well, to be fair, I don’t believe I said this, and I certainly didn’t say that the Arab doctors and nurses were on welfare. What I did say was
Generalities, such as this, are generally provably false statements as they speak of truths that exist in general, but which can easily be proven false by using extreme examples. Given that this statement I made was a generality, it too is easily proven to be inaccurate by pulling out extreme examples such as the Arab doctors and Arab nurses, for whom this statement is easily not true. But then again, surely you do not believe that the Arab doctors and Arab nurses represent the routine elements of Israeli Arab society, do you?
Whereas I don’t really care to get into a spitting match over the stats, here is one to chew on:
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/212-percent-of-Israeli-population-lives-below-the-poverty-line-new-report-575883
So, given what I stated was a generalized statement, I would say my statement was fairly accurate given about 1 in 2 Arab families are in poverty. I also found that 66% of Israeli Arab children live in poverty as well, but let us not dwell on gaining too granular an image here. The Arabs are basically poor people – not including the doctors, or the nurses or the 90% of pharmacists who are Arabs or…. let us move on to a more meaningful point.
I recently read
So, it isn’t just the welfare checks, as I suggested previously.
Your suggestion that
takes us back to the Judiciary’s ability to cancel any action that ISRAEL controls such as changing welfare laws with respect to Arabs, and you know darn well that they would prevent such a thing as you are suggesting, plus how would it benefit Israel to have a bunch of starving Arabs living in their cities. It would increase crime, and certainly increase violence which is not the result for which you were aiming. Now, if these stateless fellows were granted statehood in Jordan, well, the Judiciary could hardly force Israel to provide welfare to Jordanian citizens, particularly if they had it waiting for them in Jordan.
@peloni
If all the Israeli Arabs live on welfare, how come 9 out of 10 pharmacists there are Arabs?
Also many doctors and nurses are Arabs, and it is next to impossible for a Jew to get a medical degree in Israel.
I think you are misinformed.
Anyway, welfare laws are not written in stone and can be changed.
What you are proposing is changing one set of “freebies” to another MUCH more expensive and obligatory set of freebies which is absolutely impossible for Israel to provide or support.
@Peloni I can’t top that.
@Ted Belman
So were are these folks going to live in Jordan?
And who is going (sorry for being repetitious) to pay for the construction (or for the tents in the desert) and supplying them with food, water, and shelter?
Saudi Arabia has to buy its water because there is practically no rain there (it could be dry for over a decade).
You cannot have an exodus into Jordan because they’ll end up dying in the desert – unless it takes many years (or even decades) for them to move there while creating an industrial miracle in Jordan.
Don’t you think that the Jewish priority should be Eretz Israel?
That’s why I think that the best solution is intensive aliyah, Jewish settlement, Jewish construction, and return to the concept of Jewish labor in ISRAEL – Jordan is not our Promised Land.
@Sebastien
How about sending them on fire balloons? Even better poetry wouldn’t you agree?
@Reader I wrote:
which raises the question of how or by what mechanism these terrorists should be deported to Gaza. And it came to me – wait for it -balloons. A case of poetic justice.
Jordan has two physical problems. 1.) Amman is 777 meters above sea level. (2500 feet) That means that all desalinated water has to be lifted greatly adding to its cost.
2.) 90 % of the country is classified as desert.. I sent these videos to Mudar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST0VFtfk3XE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAeQX5goPA4>
The acquifier is about 1700 underground.. Thus the distance to lift it is shorter than desalinated water and the cost of desalination is avoided. But this water is only good for agriculture.
I suggested if it can work for Israel it can work of Jordan.
@Reader
The current king-thief and his family have been stealing the Jordanian budget. So there has been no reinvestment in the nation year over year and therefore no industry etc. Jordan is not some black hole where these things don’t work, but like anything there is a cost and the king-theif kept the cash flow to pay for his family’s lavish lifestyle and filled his bank accounts with the excess.
They have free will. They can come or stay as they will, but if they stay, they will have to pay for their living expenses, something they have never done, ie they will receive no free welfare, no free healthcare, no free education…they will have to pay their way to stay and few of them will find this possible. So they have free will, and they will exercise it as they cross the Jordan.
You are assuming:
They will have no choice if they want the freebees, see my earlier post that you didn’t read. They will go, not because they want to go, but many of them will. They will go because the accommodations that made their living possible will be in Jordan, again read the earlier post for more detail.
See 1 above. They will accept it gladly. These are poor people who will have no economy to support them staying in Israel. The money they receive will create an economic barnstorm in Jordan. This and the construction of a new city will generate wealth production in Jordan by govt, foreign investors and local entrepreneurs.
The Jordanian govt will take these people and the aid and they will modernize their economy with both. They will develop trade with Israel and Israel will help them with their water problem. They will have a economy dependent upon Israel. They will join the Abraham Accords and the increased economy and stability will attract greater international travel, ie more income. They will do all of these things because they have a nation to feed and currently can’t feed it because these things were not done in the past 70yrs, even with all the aid – which was dumped into that nation going to the Hashemite family pockets – and as a consequence, the people want a different govt.
They will go or they will stay as foreigners, without the social amenities afforded to Israeli citizens and without the ability to vote.
I made a mistake in my calculations – the expense was per family and I multiplied it by the total number of people to be moved out but the amounts are not final anyway, you may halve them, if you wish – the gist of it remains the same.
TED-
Thank you, I see it has re-appeared.. like “The Vanishing Lady”..(which was a brilliant piece of cinematography for 1895-6….)
@Ted Belman
@Sebastien Zorn
What about the expenses of keeping Jordan afloat?
What are all those people going to do in Jordan?
Where is Jordanian thriving industry, agriculture, hi-tech, pharma, healthcare, etc., etc. – they had 100 years to develop it – where is it?
Israel’s GDP is ~$500 billion, Jordan’s GDP is about $50 billion.
It will cost $20 billion to just get 5 million of them to move at the “cheap investment” of $40,000 per family, and at $300,000 per family (which is closer to reality to include payments to Jordan) the “cheap investment” becomes $1.5 TRILLION or 3 times the GDP of Israel!
Another thing – I find it astonishing that you assume that you are dealing either with small children or with some creatures who have no minds and no free will.
You are assuming:
1) that they will agree to this whole project;
2) that they will accept the amount of money you offer;
3) that it will be OK with the Jordanian government and population to take all these people in even if Israel agrees to support them and Jordan indefinitely (which is impossible) – I myself am assuming here that Jordan will NOT expand into Judea and Samaria, otherwise this is just the TSS under a different title;
4) that whoever refuses to leave J&S will agree to be treated with all the harshness of the military law which is something that is not done anywhere these days except during war time.
In my opinion, it is not even a dream, it’s a nightmare.
In conceiving the Jordan Option, My primary goal was to enable Israel to extend Israeli Law to all of Judea and Samaria.. The problem was that 2 million Arabs lived there and I didn’t want to offer them a road to citizenship as Glick did. Thus i had to address the issue of being called Aparthied if we didn’t give citizenship to them..
In researching the problem I found out that we only had to give citizenship to stateless people. So I got Mudar to agree to give all Palestinians Jordanian citizenship. He readily agreed to do that and to invite them all to emigrate to Jordan.
How the Jordan Option will Impact Israel
That article sets out the whole plan.
It is wrong to look at this as an unwanted expense. I see it as an investment.. The return on investment will be a massive reduction in our expenses for keeping the PA afloat and keeping Israelis safe. Plus it certainly is cheaper than Sherman’s offer of $300,000 per family. The JO will cost less than $40,000 per family. In addition once we extend Israeli law, the territories will no longer be disputed territories and will no longer be “occupied territories”.
It was not part of my plan to get the Arab citizens to emigrate but the same incentives to the refugees could also be available to Arab citizens.
Once the Palestinian cause is snuffed out, the Arab citizens will be more compatible.
@Reader But none of this is going to happen in the forseeable future, you know. Israel is too divided. The JO, if it comes about, will circumvent all that. As for who pays for it. Well, you know, “Pay the Two Dollars?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKT8QoboD1g
@ Reader I also think that even if Israelis don’t want to personally govern the Yesha Arabs, the IDF should be the ultimate authority over what they are allowed to teach, preach, and broadcast and that includes naming public places. Before Oslo, antisemitism was not tolerated. Garbage collection and other municipal functions can continue to be delegated to the local Arabs in areas A and B. The model is McCarthur in Japan. Above all, and immediately, only Israel should have final say over the airwaves and any unapproved Arab broadcasts blocked. Israel must make it clear that conditional and oartial autonomy is the most theycan eect.
@Reader
Yes. Murderers should be executed and all other rioters and terrorists should be imprisoned, expropriated without compensation, stripped of citizenship or legal residency, and deported, in the short run, to Gaza, and in the long, to Jordan, if the JO goes through.
I also like Stephen Plaut’s plan.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2013/01/time-annex-judea-and-samaria-steven-plaut/
Perhaps in conjunction with Mordechai Kedar’s Emirates plan in the short run and the JO, in the long, and simultaneously.
TED_
I posted a comment directly after Sebastien’s 4.16 post, which was right at the top, now second from the top. I saw my comment printed and watched until about 35 secs were left.
It also supported READER’S opposition to having Israel paying for anArab exodus, and boosted the Jordan Option as the only real OPTION.
It has now disappeared. It also remarked on the yearly Gaza emigration that they knew where they were heading for, and how they could afford it. …..and more.
@Sebastien Zorn
A “Palestinian” village in Canada is not the same as 5 million Arabs.
You are suggesting that Jordan take in another 5 million people to add to its 11 million.
No money in the world is going to make this work.
Yo do agree, I hope, that rioters and terrorists must be punished?
ONE THING I HAVE NOT SEEN MENTIONED IS……
The 18,000 Gaza Arabs who emigrate every year. How do the afford it??
I would suggest that the millions of pseudo-“refugees” living abroad, and doubtless in jobs or professions making tons of money, are well able to finance Arabs who which to leave Gaza. They are more than likely related
family members to some degree.
I see no reason to finance these people. Israel could EASILY take over Gaza and open the gates to allow the oft repeated 50% who want to leave..to leave. They must already know where they would head for. The Jordan Option, which would provide free housing, social benefits, jobs in newly financed industry sounds munificent to me. And no doubt International money would pour into Jordan to finance it.
Bur the stupid damned benighted Israeli bean heads, are busy shmearing the Arabs up and down with benefits, jobs creative advantages..so why should they leave???
Israel HAS to decide if the want the Arabs to STAY put, like that Socialist lunatic Ben Gurion wanted,…..
( imagine the fool giving their mortal enemies the franchise which by documented International agreements they did not need to do)
…… or to go back where the came from -or anywhere but Israel. Jordan is indeed their best OPTION.
@Reader
In “They must Go” Kahane laid out a detailed plan of compensated emigration by paying them to leave or paying other countries to take them. He wrote of a proposal to resettle an entire Palestinian village in Canada and both the villagers and the Canadians were on board as an example. He wrote this in 1980 in prison
You raised some real possible pitfalls but unless the Arabs can be induced yo pay for it, what’s the alternative, paying even more to keep them relatively quiet through appeasement or suppression, like now, with them constantly murdering Jews and every attempt to do anything about it is stymied by the left ensconced in the deep state, including the courts, military and security.
@Sebastien Zorn
@peloni
I responded to peloni instead of Sebastien by mistake.
@peloni
I am opposed to the Jews and Israel having to pay for it.
What do you think it is – a Jew tax?
Besides, even if Mudar Zahran is who you think he is (someone genuine and not just a mental patient or a charlatan) and he will succeed in making Jordan “his”, who do you think he is – Moshiach?
I suspect that even if he manages to take power there, he won’t last a week because of his lovely subjects who will hate the whole project as a surrender to the “Zionist entity”.
I am not even talking about the rest of the Muslim countries, etc.
Thank you Ted. Mudar really does present the best possible chance to resolve a great many problems, problems for Israel and problems for Jordan and problems for the Sunni nations, which will otherwise remain unresolved for the foreseeable future. I emphatically hope for every success in his and your undertakings to resolve the cleft that has been employed to abandon the Jordanians, abuse the Israelis and leave the possibility of any real peace in the region hopelessly impossible. Should the JO be successful, it will change the region for the betterment of everyone, and this is quite an enviable goal, I believe.
@Peloni
I sent your comments to Reader to Mudar.
I am so happy that you get it.
@Reader
Are you opposed to making Mudhar Zahran’s (not the King’s) Jordan an attractive place for them to move to if and when that day comes?
@Reader
I simply responded to each of your many comments in turn, and there weren’t a few of them to address, as you can see since I quoted your many comments in the quote boxes, with fairly short responses under each of them, save the last.
In any event, you just keep adding to that list of yours which is not a plan. As aimless as it is to the issue of the Arab refugees and the Arabs ability to vote, it may have some use someday dealing with something even given you have no expectation of it ever being passed.
@peloni
I will not read your latest outburst.
It is some sort of a stream-of-consciousness win-the-argument-by-the-sheer-number-of-words routine.
You fantasies have even less chance of materializing than Israel acquiring a spine and getting tough on the rioters and building up a Jewish state instead of handing it over to the Arabs.
(3 of 3)
Wrong. The Arabs will never leave. They are paid to remain. They are motivated by the very institutions of cash, opportunity, education and healthcare to remain. Boxing the territories will motivate them further to violence, marginalize the less violent factions to the periphery while promoting the most violent factions to power. This outcome can be avoided, as I have summarized earlier. Wick them to Jordan, support Mudar’s vision, promote the peace, and intertwine the economies and seek a better future for two peoples on two sides of the Jordan.
The proof lies in the belief that the Arabs will follow the handouts, and they will as they will have no alternate choice. Those who remain will be faced with an isolation from their own people. Hence, while they are left alone among the most violent of their people, they will suffer an increasing financial plight, having lost all access to the care packages now issued from Jordan, but they will also be suffering from the weekly calls from families and friends, telling of the better life they lead in Mudar’s Jordan among their own people, where their children will be free to thrive in a peaceful environment.
The violent leadership who routinely pushed the masses to violence, will find they have far smaller masses to push to violence amid a growing discontent with the reality that they have no means by which to remain and fulfill their jihadi hobby. The well diminished ranks of the protesters will reduce both the effect and the zeal of the protests as they feel the emptiness of their streets grow emptier still as the masses emigrate to Jordan.
The voting Arabs will be in one fell swoop removed from the Israeli body politic overnight. From that day forward, whatever they decide, whatever they do, it will be the decision and action of the Jews alone to command these facts, finally curing the treasonous poison injected into the Jewish State by Ben-Gurion’s betrayal of offering the Arabs citizenship, which has plagued the Israeli state with far too great an effect for far too long.
The more long-term effects will be the increase in trade between Jordan and Israel, increasing the interdependence of the commingled economies of each nation while also creating a dependency for Jordan upon their Israeli neighbors. This will aid the establishment of a real peace between Israel and Jordan with the expansion of the Abraham Accords with Jordan’s membership. Israel, the Sunni states and the international financing community will aid in the financing of the new city where the emigres will live, and the city’s construction will create the beginnings of an economy in Jordan, something that has always evaded that nation over the past decades. The ensuing peace and economy will draw tourism to Jordan, further raising their economic position and potential. There is more, but I will leave it here as I think I have made some valid points for you to consider. This is not, however, an exhaustive answer to your question, but it presents at least some of the most compelling features which support the pursuit of the JO, IMHO, in any event.
/3
(2 of 2)
Jordan will be issuing passports to all the Arabs in Israel, those in Gaza, those in Ramallah and those in Jerusalem. Overnight they will all be foreigners living on Jewish lands, even if they own the home that sits upon the land. They will not have any right to free welfare, free healthcare, free education or the vote. Their property rights and right to civil law will remain unchanged, as they live in a civilized nation, but even in a civilized nation, public subsidies and the right to determine the legal and political framework of the nation is denied to foreigners.
Muslim countries won’t. This is the Jordan Option and predicates the fall of the king-thief Abdullah, second of that name who is a poor imitation of the original who was himself a model of timid mediocrity, gross mismanagement and mendacious tendencies, but I digress. The JO requires the replacement of this brigand masquerading as a monarch with a man who has the interest of his people at heart, no hatred for the Jews or Israel, and a decided intent to draw his people into the modern era, providing them with an interdependent economy, a true history based upon unpropagandized education, and a prosperous future based around peace, trade and security. In short, the JO requires Mudar.
On this we certainly do agree.
Well, the things you suggest are irrelevant to the issue that you and Ted were discussing. In fact your list was provided when Ted inquired
In light of this, I suggest your list is not incomplete but fairly irrelevant and has the potential of securing the Arabs in Israel due to the fact you can not prevent the govt grants supporting Jewish education and housing from being trans-pollinated to the Arabs by Judicial fiat.
How will you deport them? If the JO is not the plan you are supporting, where will you be sending them? Yes, love to see the back of them just as you suggest, but you offer no process or destination for them to be sent. Hence, they will go nowhere and the Court will not allow an Arab to be stripped of his right to vote because he is rioting. Marshal law related to the riot will not have the authority to over-ride the courts once Marsal law is ended, and the High Court will certainly not support a ban on an Arab’s voting rights for being involved in a riot.
I don’t want to reduce the Arab voting power, I want to end it. Aliyah will not solve this problem, any more than it will end the Arab violence. The initiating source of these problems lie in the physical presence of the Arabs in Eretz Israel and the existence of Arab citizenship, for which aliyah offers no option from which to eliminate these factors. The JO specifically addresses each of these directly and with an expedient effect.
/2
(1 of 3)
@Reader
The Arabs live on wellfare. They are provided funds, education, healthcare, cellphones and free internet now. The JO ends this, or rather it redistributes the allocation of these freebees from Ramallah, Jenine, Gaza, etc, to Aman. They have been well conditioned to expect these commodities and will follow them to where they are distributed. Are they dying to leave? I believe many would rather not live in a war zone, perhaps you would challenge this. Lets ignore this aspect of the debate and simply agree that everyone of them will want their charity check and care packages. They will follow the money, or they will suffer until they do.
No debate here, but it is irrelevant to our discussion as the most radical will likely remain but their cannon fodder followers will be trekking across the Jordan River seeking their status quo and finding a far far better life. Word will trickle back to those left behind, and many more will follow. A perfect example of a positive feedback loop.
Which is why the govt needs to turn off the charity tap in Israel, install an extension with a better faucet – end UNWRA and replace it with a process that instills an identity, wealth production, opportunity and a hopeful future – but in Jordan, which is why it is cleverly named the Jordan Option.
Which is why the Arabs need to leave. The need to be given the means to leave, the opportunity to leave, and the motivation to leave. They will be happier, live more productive lives, and produce a successful future for their people when they do, and by doing so, they will do the same for the Israeli’s just by leaving, or at a minimum, stop voting in Israeli elections(more on this in the next post). This is how you cure the cleft.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but it really does seem as if I am explaining the JO to you for the first time. Motivation makes them leave. The means provides them the ability to leave. The increased opportunity/productivity/livelihood and better education and lack of bunker busters disrupting the family meal are the glue that keeps them gone, that and the border guards on either side of the Jordan.
Your faithful return to this topic is distracting to the purpose of solving the problem at hand. The Arabs are not killing the Jews because there are too few Jews in Israel. They do so simply because the Arabs are in Israel. Their desperate lifestyle and Jihadist education motivates them to gain the financial and religious and social rewards of joining the ranks of the Murdering Marters(I change the spelling since it means something else). Increasing the number of Jews thru Aliyah will not change anything that motivates the Arab terror, or their ability to vote in Israel, nothing at all.
/1
@Peloni @Reader @Edgar Purely as a cathartic fantasy, every time I read of the latest murder or attempted murder of Jews by these miscreants, I find myself enjoying the idea of a more antique form of democracy asnd a more antique form of Confederacy complete with Middle Passage. Maybe sell them to China. Or Muddle Earth if the Hobbits can find a use for them. Tee Hee. Comic relief called for.
https://youtu.be/j_QLzthSkfM
@peloni
And how, pray tell, Israel would grant the Arabs citizenship in a foreign land?
You said yourself that the Muslim countries would not do so and would not give them any help.
First of all, I never offered a “plan”, I suggested a few things that I thought the government should be doing and it wasn’t a complete list, and where is the proof that your fantasies will work?
Declaring a national emergency or martial law in the case of a major riot does not turn a democratic state into a military fiefdom.
It shows the Arabs that rioting and terror won’t work in Israel, period.
Rioters and terrorists will lose their citizenship and will be deported (this will certainly prevent them from voting).
Drastically increasing the number of Jews coming in (aliyah) will cut on the proportion of the Arab population and on their voting power.
If the government behaves the right way, the Arabs will realize that they will not be able to take over and destroy the state and have fun terrorizing Israeli Jews, and then they will be motivated to leave for the greener and more liberal pastures.
@peloni
What you are suggesting would only work for people who are dying to leave but need some help to do so.
The Arabs do not want to leave.
They want to take over the Jewish land and destroy Israel
(which they have been doing quite successfully by establishing facts on the ground, terrorizing the Jews of Israel, and conducting a successful propaganda campaign the world over painting Israel as a colonial apartheid state devoted to the genocide of the poor “Palestinians”) and, having done so, to force the Jews to leave and thus to destroy the Jewish state.
The bizarre thing is that Israel encourages them in this endeavor.
People only want to leave for other countries when their lives become sufficiently miserable and they feel that they have no future in their current country.
At this point, it is the Israeli Jews, not the Arabs who tend to leave Israel because they feel that their lives in Israel are miserable – some estimates claim that up to 1 million Israelis now live in the US.
Many Israelis have applied and gotten German, Austrian, and other passports to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
Your suggestion that the Arabs just need some money and support to emigrate is based on denial of reality.
Israel needs aliyah like air to breathe and you can’t even understand why?!
Anyway, the word “aliyah” is now taboo even among the self-professed “Zionists”.
@peloni
What you are suggesting would only work for people who are dying to leave but need some help to do so.
The Arabs do not want to leave.
They want to take over the Jewish land and destroy Israel
(which they have been doing quite successfully by establishing facts on the ground, terrorizing the Jews of Israel, and conducting a successful propaganda campaign the world over painting Israel as a colonial apartheid state devoted to the genocide of the poor “Palestinians”) and, having done so, to force the Jews to leave and thus to destroy the Jewish state.
The bizarre thing is that Israel encourages them in this endeavor.
People only want to leave for other countries when their lives become sufficiently miserable and they feel that they have no future in their current country.
At this point, it is the Israeli Jews, not the Arabs who tend to leave Israel because they feel that their lives in Israel are miserable – some estimates claim that up to 1 million Israelis now live in the US.
Many Israelis have applied and gotten German, Austrian, and other passports to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
Your suggestion that the Arabs just need some money and support to emigrate is based on denial of reality.
Israel needs aliyah like air to breathe and you can’t even understand why?!
Anyway, the word “aliyah” is now taboo even among the self-professed “Zionists”.
@Reader
What do you mean so what? So you are content with the Arabs in Area A and Gaza and the voting Arabs in Israel? Correct me if I am mistaken but your plan seems to plan to ignore the problem of the Arabs as actually being a problem. Yes, I am concerned about the Arabs because they are killing innocent people on the street and preventing good governance with their votes. You mistake my concern of the consequences of your ‘plan’ as being a form of affection for these people who mean to continue murdering our people. How’s that for so what. Lets not be children here, this is not a problem that will solve itself as you seem quite willing to suggest with your plan of succeeding in nothing. As you advocate to leave the Arabs to care for themselves you note that the plan advancing this policy will never be passed which means they won’t be caring for themselves and nothing will change. So what does your plan solve, or is no change the actual function of your plan?
You further acknowledge that even should a miracle take place and your plan were passed, you would need to declare marshal law to enforce it. Under marshal law, the citizens may be stripped of their civil rights as is taking place in Judea now for years. Ignoring this for a moment, though, the marshal law currently in place in Yesha is the toolbox which is currently being used to resuscitate the TSS. And you would expand this? You are correct, democracy and the rule of law are not a suicide pact, however, I believe your plan might actually be one, as it promotes eliminating both democracy and the rule of law to enforce an outcome you desire and for which you lack any rational manner by which to obtain it.
One more point to consider
This is wrong. Israel is failing as a Jewish state because it has many Arabs on Jewish lands and many Arabs casting votes to undermine capable governance of the state. Any method or process or plan which ignores these two issues, can never change the fact that Israel is failing as a Jewish state. If they are not addressed, as you seem incapable of even approaching with your proposals, the underlying issue will not be solved. You say Israel is failing as a Jewish state, and yet the plan for which you advocate, would accomplish nothing, literally nothing, as it would never pass. When you strip the JO to the bone, is not about being loved, nor is about the antisemites, or even the Arabs themselves. It is about motivating the Arabs to emigrate from the Jewish side of the River by providing them with a method to leave and a support structure on the other side leading them to the other side. In doing so it accomplishes what plans such as yours are incapable of doing – solving the problem. Additionally, it immediately returns the process of capable governance to the state by granting the Arabs, who fail to emigrate, citizenship in a foreign land, thereby stripping them of their ability to block the formation of a govt. It is quite a bit more complicated than this, but it is also precisely as simple as this.
Now, describe for me how a plan that has no chance of passing and which requires turning a democratic state into a military fiefdom might accoplish these two basic requirements:
1. reducing the Arabs in Israel.
2. preventing the Arabs from voting in Israel.
I keep stating it does neither of these, and you have yet to respond. I would be curious if you see these as issues at all, and how you would actually achieve this without a military occupation of the entire state.
@Reader
What do you mean so what? So you are content with the Arabs in Area A and Gaza and the voting Arabs in Israel? Correct me if I am mistaken but your plan seems to plan to ignore the problem of the Arabs as actually being a problem. Yes, I am concerned about the Arabs because they are killing innocent people on the street and preventing good governance with their votes. You mistake my concern of the consequences of your ‘plan’ as being a form of affection for these people who mean to continue murdering our people. How’s that for so what. Lets not be children here, this is not a problem that will solve itself as you seem quite willing to suggest with your plan of succeeding in nothing. As you advocate to leave the Arabs to care for themselves you note that the plan advancing this policy will never be passed which means they won’t be caring for themselves and nothing will change. So what does your plan solve, or is no change the actual function of your plan?
You further acknowledge that even should a miracle take place and your plan were passed, you would need to declare marshal law to inforce it. Under marshal law, the citizens may be stripped of their civil rights as is taking place in Judea now for years. Ignoring this for a moment, though, the marshal law currently in place in Yesha is the toolbox which is currently being used to resuscitate the TSS. And you would expand this? You are correct, democracy and the rule of law are not a suicide pact, however, I believe your plan might actually be one, as it promotes eliminating both democracy and the rule of law to enforce an outcome you desire and for which you lack any rational manner by which to obtain it.
One more point to consider
This is wrong. Israel is failing as a Jewish state because it has many Arabs on Jewish lands and many Arabs casting votes to undermine capable governance of the state. These are the problems in Israel and if they are not addressed, as your plan seems incapable of even approaching, the underlying issue will not be solved. You say Israel is failing as a Jewish state, and yet the plan for which you advocate, would accomplish nothing, literally nothing, as it would never pass. When you strip the JO to the bone, is not about being loved, nor is about the antisemites, or even the Arabs themselves. It is about motivating the Arabs to part from the land by providing them with a method and the support to do what plans such as yours are incapable of doing. Additionally, for those Arabs which remain, it immediately returns the process of capable governance to the state by granting the Arabs citizenship in a foreign land and stripping them of their ability to block the formation of a govt. It is quite a bit more complicated than this, but it is also precisely as simple as this.
Now, describe for me how a plan that has no chance of passing and which requires turning a democratic state into a military fiefdom might accoplish these two basic requirements:
1. reducing the Arabs in Israel.
2. preventing the Arabs from voting in Israel.
I keep stating it does neither of these, and you have yet to respond. I would be curious if you see these as issues at all, and how you would actually achieve this without a military occupation of the entire state.
@peloni
So what?
Let them care for themselves, build their own prosperity, industry, economy, better lives, etc. just like the Jews did when they were drying out the swamps and dying like flies from malaria in Palestine.
Israel is failing as a Jewish state because, like you, it cares more about the Arabs than about the Jews, and about wanting to be loved by all the antisemites.
In fact, it cares more about the Arabs than the Arabs themselves, as you correctly pointed out.
Democracy and the rule of law are not suicide pacts.
The more Israel appeases the Arabs and mistreats the Jews, the closer we are to the next Holocaust – both in Israel and in the Diaspora.
@Reader
Where to begin…
The Arab nations will neither aid the Arabs in the territories nor take them into their respective states. Furthermore, your own plan, if passed, would prevent any aid from being passed to the territories. Additionally, your final statement is quite a statement, as you acknowledge that only a miracle might support the passage of your proposal, rendering it but a fruitless, toothless and useless description of an unfulfilled fantasy that couldn’t achieve the stated goals, even as it ignores part of the goals (voting rights) and would only be enforcible under the required state of marshal law. For a democratic people to subscribe to marshal law as the solution to a problem is a problem, in and of itself. This should be considered doubly true when you consider the fact that marshal law is already being used, and its intolerable presence is part of the problem which the plan you were proposing was suppose to eliminate, and instead you are expanding it. Consequently, with respect, you have some serious problems with this plan, which, as presented, is long on generating problems and short on solving them.
@peloni
There is no “status quo”, Israel is losing the information war and ceding the land (including the state land) to the Arabs by letting them and their earnest supporters (the EU and the US) to create facts on the ground while pretending that nothing has changed and Israel is a sovereign state even capable of fighting Iran.
All this blah-blah-blah and being nicey-nice is designed to put the public to sleep and to ruin the Jewish state (besides, it’s simply humiliating) while employing the demagoguery during the elections about “the Jewish character of the state”.
I already said that neither the Jews nor Israel have any responsibility to the refugees or deportees – let their Muslim brethren who have over 20 countries take care of them and their needs just like the nascent and poor Jewish state managed to take care of nearly a million Mizrachim expelled from the Arab countries with just the clothes on their backs.
In terms of the Supreme Court – next time there is a major riot declare a national state of emergency or martial law and forget the Judges of the court.
Can’t means won’t.
I don’t “envision” any enlightened coalitions who will pass the right laws, I am hoping for a miracle which seems to be badly needed at this point.
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On #6, I hardly believe that this is relatable to the standard of dealing with the Arabs in the Territories, but I like it none the less. Though I am still curious what govt coalition you envision will pursue this more than it has been pursued in recent years – the Right wing govt dependent upon the heredi and the Left wing govt dependent upon the Arabs will both oppose removing the barriers you discuss, albeit for differing reasons.
#7 and #8 both seem also extraneous to the Arab problem, so you could pursue these as best you can, but they do not address the issue of the Arab cleft. Cheap homes for Jews and increased numbers of Jewish professionals will not drive a single Arab across the Jordan. In fact, the financial subsidies which would be involved in these projects would quite certainly be extended to the Arabs by way of Judicial mandate and lead to fewer Arabs departing as a consequence of your efforts.
#9 is well and good, but the resulting political pressure will prevent it from ever taking place.
Your plan to remove the Arabs from Israel is largely a pipe dream based upon desires but lacking realistic methods of establishing such dreams as tangible, workable, or doable, while also failing to achieve the goals of removing the Arabs from Israel or their ability to vote.
Also, the harsh restrictions on the Arabs would not be permitted, even if you could find a govt to legislate your designs and, let’s face facts, you wouldn’t find such a govt, not any time soon, not on the Right, not on the Left, not in a Bennett redo govt (shutter the thought), and there is no functional or representative center to speak about.
Perhaps you care to address some of my objections or concerns, such as they are.
In any event the JO is a doable project, based around a workable model with a cooperative ally in Mudar, and the benefits of its success would be far greater than simply moving the Arabs eastward and rendering those Arabs who remain as politically impotent. The resulting increase in trade, travel and interwoven economies would benefit the two peoples on either side of the River as well as the Region as a whole. A great deal more to support the JO, but you can read these in my earlier posts.
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(1 o 2)
@Reader
Actually, my comments were directly responsive to the limited statement you posed as your strategy. It was not my intention to misrepresent what you wrote, but your very terse statement did leave a great deal to be inferred. Thank you for taking the effort of providing a far more representative explanation of what was meant by your words that
I strongly disagree with much of the list of items that you describe as “stupidities” but these are off topic and seem quite unrelatable to the issue of remedying the Arab problem, so I will address these on another occasion.
Regarding your 9 points, you render a plan that is harsh and rigid which would never find a govt coalition capable of passing the relevant legislation, and since this would be an Israeli-only enforced policy, the policy would again be subject to the Arab-philic High Court, which would never tolerate much of what you list.
On #5, I am curious to where you would be deporting these stateless souls, who will be too toxic a commodity for any sane nation to reasonably care to offer them residence.
So, lets get this straight. You would prevent them from working in Israel, prevent families reunifying, prevent trade with the Arab territories, prevent any supplies entering the Arab territories and prevent any possible financing for the Arabs, all the while you are also providing them nowhere to go. You do not address the issue of UNWRA, but your policies alone would replace the need of it. Bottling the Arabs into a haven void of an economy, empty of commodities that they themselves do not produce while also preventing them from any access to find some form of financing for these things that they lack would seem an overly harsh manner to address the problem which could be handled much more sensitively, humanely and effectively with the JO. In fact, your plan would be the complete opposite of the JO, as it would leave the Arabs no choice but to go to war with whatever means the might have, as you give them no opportunity to even reform or exist as I understand the description of your model. Honestly, the abuses the Arabs have exercised against the Jews would support such a vicious response, but it would simply drive the Arabs towards more radical measures of violence, not less. It would also maintain the presence of the Arabs not remove them, beyond the few affluent leaders who could afford to flee your measures. Additionally, nothing you state here addresses the Arabs in Israel voting. Achieving this would be a requirement to return sovereignty to the Jewish State, but whatever measure you would enact would be subject to the opinion of the High Court since it would be a political action by the Israeli Knessett alone, to which the High Court would clearly leverage their input. In the JO, all these issues are addressed with greater tact, better outcomes and prevent Judicial, while also avoiding the war your plan would secure if it were remotely possible to pursue, which it would not be.
/1
@Reader
Blame is irrelevant to the discussion of policy. Indeed it is a separate topic from the policy itself. Furthermore, the “status quo” is not a vague abstraction nor is it an amorphous entity or gaggle of people as you suggest, hence, you will not need an Epi-pen to treat your allergy while we discuss the matter further. It is the policy that has been in place to serve as a bandaid to remedy the need to define what Israel’s policy is on a host of topics including its border, the TSS, and Judean sovereignty, all of which would present some unpleasant consequences to actually defining these parameters, but would likewise prevent foreign nations and NGOs from filling the resulting vacuum with their own policy proposals, (read as dictated peace proposals), that greatly disadvantage Israel. The policy of maintaining the status quo provides a line, the current status, upon which nothing changes so as to not address these pivotal but difficult issues so as to not concede ground and thereby push the discussion to a later date while expending political capital on more intrinsically existential threats such as the Obama Iran policy, for example.
Hence, I once again assert that my statement was a fair one, and that it is not contradicted by your own mention of the setbacks to this policy, which are, again, also quite true.
The Deep State is also not an abstraction, but a group of administrators, well beyond the control of the electorate who set policy as I explained in detail when we spoke last on this topic. Here are my previous comments which you may have missed as you did not respond to them, so if you have the time or interest feel free to do so as it suits you:
https://www.israpundit.org/the-invisible-power-controlling-the-us-government/#comment-63356000251553
and
https://www.israpundit.org/the-invisible-power-controlling-the-us-government/#comment-63356000251554
@peloni
I am allergic to the arguments which place the blame on abstract entities such as “Deep State”, “status quo”, etc. instead of on the actual people who should take the blame for their faulty and misguided policies.
From the outside, it looks like Israel forgot what it is there for and the politicians are handing the place over to the Arabs and getting ready to say “OOPS! It didn’t work! Bye-bye, guys, we are leaving for the US and you are on your own! Welcome your new Arab government and make sure and be good dhimmis.”
They had decades to encourage real aliyah, to settle Judea and Samaria faster than the Arabs, to fight the NGOs like Peace Now, etc., to train the Jews in important professions, to teach Jewish history, etc.
Instead, they seem to have created a Middle Eastern shtetl/ghetto of good boys and girls and to have lost a whole generation of the Diaspora Jews who don’t care about Israel because Israel doesn’t care about them.
@Reader
There is no myth of the effort to maintain the status quo, only of the wisdom to do so. While Israel has tried to maintain a position of not addressing the hard questions before her, she has laid herself open for complete destruction at the whim of her enemies due to the manipulation of her ‘allies’. There was, of course, a purpose motivating this policy of holding things fast, proving the protection of not making things worse at the expense of not making them better as the Americans applied their pressure to do the former. The setbacks in this adopted policy by Israel, for which your statement only partially describes, was not the only source from which this policy of maintaining the status quo damaged Israel while strengthening her enemies. The Arabs persisting and controlling the land, all by itself, provided them and their allies with an image of ownership, feeding the fables which were sold as history by both the Arabs and their allies. Hence, my statement was a fair one, and is not contradicted by your own mention of the setbacks to this policy, which is also quite true.
Proves my point:
How about giving those 20,000 jobs to Jews?
Why is Israel supposed to take care of the Gazans who shoot rockets at Israel?
@peloni
It is not the mythical “status quo” that presents the Arabs with a claim to the Jewish lands – IT IS the Government of Israel which has been freezing the Jewish settlement and handing over the Jewish Biblical lands (including the state lands!) to the Arabs.
@peloni
As usual, you write a dissertation about what you thought I said.
When I said I would do exactly nothing with the refugees, I meant that I would do exactly nothing FOR the refugees.
Jews spend enough of the good Jewish money for the stupidities such as “fighting antisemitism”, “reviving the Jewish life in Europe”, building expensive “Jewish centers” and museums of the Holocaust all over the Diaspora, ”establishing links between Israel and the Diaspora”, making large donations to the Diaspora universities, libraries, and to the “oppressed minorities” who end up hating our guts, etc., etc. – we don’t need (and can’t) to start financing the “Palestinian” current or potential refugees to make it more attractive for them to leave.
Let the 2-billion strong “world Muslim community” finance the ME refugees and their new lives.
What will induce them to leave:
1) no Israeli work permits;
2) no family reunification or visitation other than the Israeli families joining their families in the territories, selling their properties in Israel, and forgoing their Israeli citizenship, etc.;
3) no trade with Gaza and J&S Arabs;
4) no supplies for Gaza and the PA and no financing for them;
5) rioters losing their citizenship and getting deported;
6) a huge aliyah to settle J&S and the “periphery”, removing the insane aliyah barriers for the non-observant Jews and “selection”, and telling people that they are needed in Israel to settle and develop the country and that no one owes them the same or better life than they had in the Diaspora;
7) fast quality construction in Jewish neighborhoods in order to lower the price of housing and where it wouldn’t take 3 years to raise one building;
8) training Jews as doctors, pharmacists, nurses, etc. and restoring the old concept of “Jewish labor” instead of shipping in “Moroccans” (Shaked), Arabs, and foreign workers (as was done by the British under the Mandate);
9) standing up in the UN and telling the whole world that Israel is here to stay, that we repudiate all the “Oslo”, etc. agreements because we view them as an existential threat, and that the “conflict in the ME” would not exist if the EU and the US didn’t want it to continue, in part, because they want an excuse to make profits for their weapons manufacturers.
Etc., etc.
If they wish to call this “apartheid”, let them.