By Ted Belman
Ahmed Qureia, of the PA, recently warned,
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“The Palestinian leadership has been working on establishing a Palestinian state within the ’67 borders,”
“If Israel continues to oppose making this a reality, then the Palestinian demand for the Palestinian people and its leadership [would be] one state, a binational state,”
I also want a “one state” solution, but not a binational state.
Ami Isseroff delves into Qureia’s threat in Palestinians: Our way or the highway
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Those who blame Israel for the perennial impasse in peace negotiations, including the Palestinians themselves, are fond of portraying the desperate plight of the Palestinians under the supposedly oppressive occupation. One would think that a desperate person or a desperate people would seek to improve their lot by any means possible, and would be eager for the chance for peace and freedom. That is evidently not the case for the Palestinians.
Despite their supposed desperation, the Palestinian Arabs are curiously consistent in imposing impossible conditions for peace, conditions that amount to unconditional surrender for Israel. Palestinians and their supporters appear to be unconcerned about the contradiction. One condition that has stood for years is the so called “right of return,” a stipulation which would flood Israel with refugees of the Israeli War of Independence, their descendants, and many who falsely claimed refugee status. This would turn Israel into an Arab country and deny the right of self-determination to the Jewish people. “Right of Return” is dubiously touted as a right anchored in international law. Surely, it cannot take precedence over the right to self determination, which is Jus Cogens (see Palestinian Right of Return in International Law. [..]
As the “Right of Return” fraud is gradually recognized for what it is, a new one has taken its place. Palestinians have devised a new impossible condition for peace: Israel must return precisely to the borders of the 1949 armistice lines, which it pleases the Palestinians to call 1967 borders.
The “1967 borders” were negotiated as armistice lines with Jordan, Egypt and Syria. Along the frontier with Jordan, they reflected no justice or demographic realities. They reflected the achievements of the Trans-Jordan Legion, made possible by arms and officers supplied by the British, in order to further their imperialist designs in the Middle East. No Arab country, and no Palestinian Arab group ever recognized or honored these borders while they existed. These borders, in the version of the Palestinian authority, put East Jerusalem in “Palestinian” territory. But officially, Jerusalem was to have been internationalized. As that was never implemented, owing to Arab and British opposition, Jerusalem is a subject for negotiation. It is unimaginable that Israel would agree to surrender all national rights to the old city of Jerusalem and environs. The Palestinian claim to Jerusalem seems to be based on the fact that no Jews lived there before 1967. Evidently, the Palestinians think the world has a short memory, and it might be so. The Jewish community of Jerusalem, which had lived there for hundreds for years, was forcibly “ethnically cleansed” from Jerusalem by a series of racist pogroms, culminating in the removal of the remaining Jewish population when the Jewish quarter was conquered by the British officered Trans-Jordan Legion in the Israel War of Independence (see The Ethnic Cleansing of Jerusalem).
The insistence on a one state solution is not new. It was the “solution” offered by that great progressive, the Nazi Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin El Husseini and his followers. As part of the life of coexistence contemplated by the Mufti, it is claimed that he planned to build an extermination camp for Jews near Nablus. After World War II, he told the British that the solution for the Jews of Palestine should be the same one adopted in Europe. It is interesting that this solution is now the favorite of many “right thinking” liberals like Tony Klug. Klug also makes the interesting admission that the two state solution was never considered to be a final step in the resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict. This admission reinforces the assertion of those Zionist opponents of the peace process who insist that the entire peace process is a trick to destroy Israel according to a staged plan. Perhaps Klug himself, an Oxford adviser on Middle East affairs, has no problems with wiping out Jewish nationhood.
Those who seriously consider this solution or threaten Israel with a one state solution if she does not accept Palestinian terms, are either trying to force Israel to accept humiliating and impossible conditions under the threat of extinction, or they are extremely naive. For there is no way that a serious person could imagine that at any time in the foreseeable future Jews could live safely in a state dominated by Palestinian Arabs. Surely, that is the only sort of state that Mr. Qureia and his followers contemplate, since they have already declared that they are unwilling to accept Israel as the national home of the Jewish people. It is not likely that, like normal citizens, they would be willing, for example, to serve in an Israeli army that fights enemy Arab countries, or to participate in all the duties of citizens in a state.
All this is well said.
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Ironically, the pro-Arab advocates of a one-state solution may find a welcome among Zionist extremists, who likewise advocate a single state. In their version of the single state, however, it is the Palestinian Arabs who would be perpetual underdogs. Each set of extremists imagines a “utopia” that would be a nightmare for the other side, and proposes it as a “peace” solution.
Such is life. This is the price the Arabs must pay for their intransigence. Israel must impose a solution. One to its liking that would result in the resettlement of the Arabs elsewhere with compensation. So the choice for the Arabs is whether they want the present situation to continue or whether they want compensation to leave.
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The “1967 border” ultimatum, like the “Right of Return” ultimatum, is just a flimsy pretext for refusing to agree to reasonable and livable terms for peace. It seems that a large portion of the Palestinian population and leadership do not, cannot and will not accept the existence of Israel. That is what the conflict was always about. The various “conditions” that are advanced by the supposedly desperate Palestinians are really nothing more than pretexts to prevent peace.
This is what we on the right have been saying all along. That is why I maintain, “There is no diplomatic solution.”
What I am concentrating my efforts on is how best to impose a Jewish one-state solution on the Arabs in Judea and Samaria and possibly in Gaza too.
Such a solution would involve the following
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1. Israel must change its rules for citizenship, namely all citizens must speak Hebrew, pledge allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state, do national service and pay taxes. Jewish immigrants would continue to have automatic citizenship. Arabs from Judea and Samaria must wait 15 years before they can apply for citizenship. (Switzerland requires twelve years residency.) Arab citizens in Israel would also be required to do national service.
2. All Arabs should be offered significant cash inducement to leave. Assume for the moment that there are 400,000 Arab families in Judea and Samaria and they were each offered $100,000 to emigrate. The total cost would be $40 billion. This is much lower than the cost of inducing Israelis to leave Judea and Samaria and we get to keep the land as a bonus. Furthermore, any country which accepted them would get an influx of $40 billion in Capital. For many a country that’s quite an inducement.
3. All members of terrorist organizations or those committing terrorist acts would be expelled.
4. Oslo would be abrogated. This would bring about the end of incitement.
Sure there would be much opposition from the Arabs and from “liberals” but it can be done. There would even be opposition from the State Department but israel would have many allies among Americans to support this solution.
The debate would end over dividing Jerusalem and the right of return.
But why resort to a new definition of a Jewish state. Why not resort to the British Mandate for Palestine which is still operative. It endorsed a Jewish one state plan in which the non Jews had no political rights.
This Mandate was unanimously endorsed by the US Congress and Senate in 1922.
This is what Representative Walter M. Chandler from New York had to say at the time.
– I want to make at this time, Mr. Speaker and gentlemen of the House, my attitude and views upon the Arab question in Palestine very clear and emphatic. I am in favor of carrying out one of the three following policies, to be preferred in the order in which they are named:
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(1) That the Arabs shall be permitted to remain in Palestine under Jewish government and domination, and with their civil and religious rights guaranteed to them through the British mandate and under terms of the Balfour declaration.
(2) That if they will not consent to Jewish government and domination, they shall be required to sell their lands at a just valuation and retire into the Arab territory which has been assigned to them by the League of Nations in the general reconstruction of the countries of the east.
(3) That if they will not consent to Jewish government and domination, under conditions of right and justice, or to sell their lands at a just valuation and to retire into their own countries, they shall be driven from Palestine by force.
Sounds good to me.
Uhm. God said that when He sent Hagar and Ishmael into Arabia:
Hagar and Ishmael Sent Away
Ge 21:8 The child grew and was weaned, o and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast.
Ge 21:9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham p was mocking, q
Ge 21:10 and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman r and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.” s
Ge 21:11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. t
Ge 21:12 But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring 100 will be reckoned. u
Ge 21:13 I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation v also, because he is your offspring.”
Ge 21:14 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. w He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba. x
Ge 21:15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes.
Ge 21:16 Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there nearby, she 101 began to sob. y
Ge 21:17 God heard the boy crying, z and the angel of God a called to Hagar from heaven b and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; c God has heard the boy crying as he lies there.
Ge 21:18 Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation. d ”
Ge 21:19 Then God opened her eyes e and she saw a well of water. f So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
Ge 21:20 God was with the boy g as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer.
Ge 21:21 While he was living in the Desert of Paran, h his mother got a wife for him i from Egypt.
Why should that change today? It shouldn’t and by golly I agree with Sarah’s policy!
Rep Chandler must have studied our Torah and our Sages:
The Real-Politik of Our Sages
by Dr. Israel Eldad
I just amended and extended the article.
This reply is a little bit tangential but I will offer it anyway. I am an American Jew who has always had a strong Jewish identification and positive feeling for Israel, though—like many in my generation—I have not been very religious in a formal sense. As I get older the desire to return to my religious roots has stengthened—and that is also common, of course. You speak of changing the rules for citizenship. I hear about a number of Jews who get Israeli citizenship and nonetheless continue to divide their time between Israel and their other nation. Often the reason is economic. I probably could not make a living in Israel and yet I would like to have a presence there and participate in what I actually look at already as “my country” (however much that might annoy some Israel citizens). Though this is a bit counter to what you are proposing, I think that it would help to make it easier for Jews to excercise their dual citizenship rights. For example, if all of the 7 million or so Jews living outside of Israel were currently Israeli citizens and able to vote in the elections, then there would be little chance that non-Jews would take over the country politically any time soon. I do not think that is realistic, but it might help to do more to encourage American, European, South American, and Asian Jews to make Aliyah and gain Israeli citizenship as they approach retirement. For Israel the lack of the fulltime committment would probably be compensated by the additional tax money, donations, and political weight of the additional Jewish citizens. Plus, younger family members of the “part-time” citizens might be encouraged to come to Israel and make a full life committment.
I know people can do this already and there are some programs encouraging Jews to immigrate to Israel. But I think there should be more emphasis on involving non-residential Jews and making it easier for them to come. If a person is already in his or her 50’s or 60’s, there is not really much they could do about the military committment, though they could give some time if they had a needed professional skill such as medicine or engineering. But it would be impractical to require real military service for older immigrants. Many prospective immigrants may well be willing to give the $100K that you propose to buy out an Arab. There probably are some programs to facilitate immigration that I do not know about. But, overall, it seems that the idea of dual citizenship, for most American Jews, is not a simple thing to accomplish. I would hope it could get easier rather than harder and I think that making it easier would be in the best interests of Israel.
You’re touching on the heart of the matter. At this point, I think the Israeli Jews are merely deluded into thinking that creating another Palestinian state will make them more secure than creation of the previous Palestinian state (Jordan) did. the creation of “Transjordan” by the British, in the early days of the mandate, came to roost on the Jews in 1948 — when, as you have pointed out, British officers and supplies made the Jordanian “Arab Legion” Israel’s most powerful foe. Without that cocession, the “1967 borders” would have been attained in 1948. The new state that Rice, Bush, Olmert et al propose, would:
1. Put all Israel within EASY striking range of even the most primitive Arab armaments.
2. Strip Israel of its main aquifer, in a time when water is becoming as valuable as oil, and
3. Create a demographic problem where none exists today, allowing millions of Arabs to flood into the new “state”. This would, of course, create an INCREDIBLE humanitatian crisis, which, of course,…
4. …Israel would be blamed for. With these new “facts on the ground”, the Arabs would INCREASE pressure on the international community to force Israel to receive the new “refugees”. Israel’s standing in the world would DECREASE to a lower point than it is now.
Your proposals are more than generous to the Arabs. Once the great delusion (hopefully) is lifted from the Jews in Israel, that they can ever attain a workable “two-state solution” of any kind, the reality will start to sink in: Israel and the international Jewish community have to decide whether they want to have a Jewish state of ANY kind, or whether they want to return to living as minorities at the beck and call of Gentile masters. It’s better that this become plain to Jews now, rather than after they’ve they’ve made the security, demographic, political and economic situation in Israel intolerabe.
If the Jewish people want a state at all, and if they create the new, proposed “Palestinian state”, they will find in the near future that they have to fight to regain what they have given away: very dangerous fighting, house-to-house, while getting bombarded at extremely close range by the most advanced weapons the Arab would can come up with.
Wake up, Israel…
Time to get up!
Time to go to work!
Shalom shalom 🙂
Nice try, Ted. But there would be rampant opposition from the left in Israel, the liberals including Jews here in North America and Arab Israeli citizens who plot sedition against the Jewish state. A trial experiment might be made with expulsion of members of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement who fit all the criteria of sedition under any decent constitution, save the Basic Law of Israel. I wrote about this nefarious band in a piece last summer in the New English Review: “Man Plans, God Laughs”, about the idiocy of the “peace process”. Removing 50 to 100,000 ‘affiliates’ of the Ikhwan-the Muslim Brotherhood, who are the equivalent of Hamas with an Israeli passports, might be a start, and would send a telling message to the balance of Israel’s Arab population. A message that would communicate consorting with Israel’s enemies for the overthrow of the Jewish state would result in deprivation of your citizenship and a one way ticket to a neighboring Arab Muslim country of the government’s choice. Instead of compensating these miscreants with taxpayer funds, why not facilitate the sale of their homes and businesses and transfer of the proceeds and other assets to a bank of their choice? But then the High court might object to this ‘ethnic cleansing’ of jihadi fifth columnists, eh?
Lets add a few more conditions to Ted’s list above.
Severe and enforced penalties for any violent civil disobedience. (15 years automatic but will be vacated if they agree to leave the country.)
Enforced confiscation of all lethal firearms in their possession.
destruction of all homes and residences built without legal permits
enforced tax collections.
no government welfare payments unless they adhere to all of the above stipulations.
Heads of households or members of immediate families living with in same family residences under the age of 25, and convicted of any crime above misdemeanor’s , will cause any government social benefits to cease to any immediate family member.
drug trafficking- 50 years or they agree to leave the country.
any and all of the above will force many Arabs to leave legally without the use of force. Most of the laws or some facsimile, are already part of our law statutes but not enforced.
Besides all of the reasons Ted and other have enumerated above The most important reason which almost nobody ever mentions is that none of the pali leadership wants a state where they and only they will be responsible for such mundane things like full responsibility for sewage, water, infrastructure trade, industrialization, general welfare, education and hundreds of other normal functions of statehood. Nobody will pay them squat, the billions they now receive as mafia type bribes for playing and for perfecting their protection scam on the world and on Israel. Most of those billions wind up in the pockets of a select few in and out of the PA. State hood would entail maximum responsibility and severely reduces income to most of the Individuals now fattening up. Peace with Israel would eliminate not only most of their excuses for administrative failure but might just prompt some reformers to demand some fiscal accountability for past excesses (thievery). Their days would be thus numbered as in this part of the world justice is applied at street level.
It matters not a bit what Israel offers they will always up the ante so no final deal can be made. They will pocket every concession and always keep some others in reserve.
One need not be a rocket scientist to see the obvious it is just the accepting of the only real solution to alludes otherwise intelligent beings. It is hard for some to admit that for most of their lives they have been wrong, even if it means more death and destruction to their fellow countryman.
Good analysis Ted.
A differing strategic approach to achieve the same end would be that Israel plays its hand in such way that serves to illustrate, if not increase Palestinian radicalization such that Egypt and Jordan recognize that an independent Palestinian state would be as existentially dangerous to them as it is to Israel.
Getting Egypt and Jordan to see that a strong and larger Israel sharing borders with them not only stabilizes the region but assures they can realize their own destinies in peace, without having to worry about interminable threats to their own stability from radical Palestinians.
If Jordan and Egypt came out against an independent Palestinian state, surely that would likely be the impetus for a change in perception of other relgional nations as well as the international community.
As for paying Palestinians to relocate, the billions now given to the PA to squander could be used to put into the pockets of every Palestinian family if they choose to emigrate to other nations.
As we have seen already the squalor of the Palestinians has been moving some to move from the region without compensation. Imagine how many would voluntarily leave if given money to do so. Compensation should not be out of Israeli pockets alone, if at all.
Would the Vatican give up its control over their land and settle for a home rented from the Disney Corporation on their most sacred location? Would the Saudis agree to share Mecca and Medina with people of all faiths as an open, multi-cultural museum owned and operated by John Hagee? No. Then why would Israel, a people with one country and one country only, allow Arabs who hate them and want to destroy them to settle anywhere near the historical, spiritual and economic home of Jewish people?
What we have witnessed over the decades is the colossal greed of a collection of despotic countries that are unwilling to accept non-Muslims in their neighborhood. Too bad – they had their chance at a two-state solution and they went for war instead and now events have changed facts on the ground from a time when there were too few Jews in Israel (who were ethnically cleaned by almost every tyrant who occupied its land, including the most recent – the British) to defend their rights to their own land.
The solution to the situation is partly Ted’s idea of offering the Palestinians money to resettle but I am afraid that any such offer will mean 12 million Arabs turning up on the doorstep to claim their free cash and then go back to insisting on “right of return.”
The only real and meaningful way to a fair and just resolution is for the world to pressure and throw some resources behind the idea of having Arab countries resettle and give permanent citizenship to their brothers. Now the Gulf States have more money and resources than they know what to do with. They also need workers and all kinds of professionals and non-professionals. The Arab states could easily absorb 3 million so-called “Palestinians.” If Iraq for one – a country in need of all kinds of reconstruction – cannot welcome their Arab brothers with open arms, then what the hell good are the 4000 American lives and billions of dollars lost to a war in which the West gets another terror state at the end of the day – a state which has done nothing to help solve any problems or issues – theirs or ours.
The remaining Palestinians could easily be incorporated into Israel if they fulfill some basic requirements as Ted alluded to.
The basis for all this is the fact that there were two Nakbas and that Jewish compensation and resettlement is just as important as Arab compensation and right of return – but the two claims would nullify each other. There is no stronger argument than that. Centuries of Jews being treated as Dhmmis and then evicted to satisfy the hate-infested edicts in the Koran and the politics of Islam must be made part of the argument to support the case for resettlement in Arab countries too.