By Ted Belman
Obama is insisting on the creation of Palestine with a border separating it from Israel based on the ’67 lines plus swaps. In doing so he is ignoring UNSC resolution 242 which grants Israel the right to secure and recognized borders and does not demand a full retreat to the ’67 lines. He is also threatening to allow the UNSC to impose such borders on Israel thereby circumventing his oft stated insistence that all matters are to be negotiated between the parties.
Ben-Dror Yemini, writing in YNET, which is left of center and Netanyahu’s arch enemy, makes the case, “Given the upheaval in the Arab world, Obama needs to ask himself why he thinks a Palestinian state is viable right now; meanwhile, Israel’s right needs to understand that its actions are leading to a bi-national state.”
According to Hamas’ official television station, “Christians, Communists and Jews must be eliminated down to the very last man.” Hamas has the support of 61 percent of the Palestinians. Even if we assume that support for Hamas will fall, Hamas will take a violent stand against its opponents. Some of the Hamas leaders are talking about “the conquest of Rome and Andalusia.”
Is Obama listening? Does Obama know that Hamas won the last election? Is it hard for Obama to understand that a Palestinian state would mean, in all likelihood, another Jihad state and more bloodshed? What gives him the illusion that a Palestinian state will become a model of stability? Where is there stability under one of the Jihad movements?
Will Qassem Soleimani sit by quietly and allow peace to flourish? And what kind of agreement could be achieved anyway? Is there a Palestinian leader – even just one – who is willing to accept the peace proposals submitted by Obama, J Street or Meretz? After all, over the past decade or two, the Palestinians have rejected every offer of a two-state solution. So what agreement is Obama talking about?
What is needed, therefore, is a reevaluation. We don’t need another failure. And this reassessment must take place both in Washington and in Jerusalem. A sober look at the situation will lead to the obvious conclusion – that under the current geopolitical circumstances, talk of a Palestinian state, which is likely to turn into a Hamas state, is delusional and evidence of a detachment from reality.
Sounds a lot like the case that Netanyahu always makes. But contrary to Netanyahu he avers that “A peace settlement is a necessity”.
Yes, given Israel’s increasing defamation and deligitimation, a peace settlement is needed but it is not available even on Obama’s terms. Furthermore any “peace settlement” would not be bankable or dependable. As Bibi never tires to repeat, although in another context, no deal is better than a bad deal. And that’s why he prefers to manage the conflict, rather than to solve it.
Yemini continues:
The Palestinians need to be given a political horizon and hope – by means of an agreement that will be implemented gradually and cautiously, in keeping with changing circumstances. But for now, a Palestinian state is a recipe for endless bloodshed.
How blind can Yemini be? The only political horizon the Palestinians will accept is one which wipes Israel off the map. Their goal is not to found a state, but to destroy a state. It is a total lie to say that that “Palestinians need to be given a political horizon and hope”. What they need is to abandon their goal of destroying Israel and to be liberated from their leadership who misdirects them and steals them blind. Even so he writes, “But for now, a Palestinian state is a recipe for endless bloodshed.”
Nevertheless, he argues that this doesn’t make the Right, right.
“Does this mean that the Israeli right is right? Far from so. The right is leading Israel into a reality of one large state. Rather than a Jewish state, Israel would become a bi-national one. Mixing populations that demand an expression of national independence – with each population group having a different ethos, a different language, a different religion, a different culture – is a recipe for bloodshed.
“This is what is happening in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. This is exactly what is happening now in eastern Ukraine. This is what happened in the 1990s in Yugoslavia. A brotherhood of nations was a nice idea in theory. But Yugoslavia split up, after years of bloodshed, into seven entities. It doesn’t work and it didn’t work in the heart of Europe.
“Why does the right want to force this mixture onto Israel?”
Martin Sherman shares this belief and accordingly, he is adamantly against giving citizenship to qualified Arabs in Judea and Samaria, were Israel to extend sovereignty to these lands as proposed by Caroline Glick and originally proposed by Mike Wise. He writes “The only thing more dangerous, delusional and disastrous than the Left’s proposal for a two-state solution, is the proposal now bandied about by the Right – for a one-state solution.”
Instead he advocates for The Humanitarian Solution, as opposed to the Two State Solution which he calls “the political solution”. In it he proposes to pay the Arabs to leave voluntarily.
Yes, its time for a reevaluation.
In Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan speech of 2009, in which he supported “two states for two peoples”, he argued “The simple truth is that the root of the conflict has been – and remains – the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish People to its own state in its historical homeland…. The fundamental condition for ending the conflict is the public, binding and sincere Palestinian recognition of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish People.”
Without this recognition, there can be no peace. That is why Israel insists on it.
@ diana:
We’re talking $100 billion for all Arabs in J&S. That’s 1/4 of our GDP. Do it over 10 years so its only $10 billion a year. In the end we will own all the state lands and we will save much on our defense budget.
I made an important typographical error in the above paragraph in my comment from earlier today. The first sentence should be:
“Those Arabs would not be Israeli citizens, and their behavior would be largely controlled by their local leaders.”
Please take due note that when I discover one of my own mistakes, I take steps to correct it immediately, with no argument or cover-my-ass tactics, which I abominate. That’s my own personal way of practicing Tikun HaOlam, a slogan so beloved bit misunderstood by Western liberal Jews.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Nobody needs to re-evaluate very deeply, regarding what Israel must do in order neither to shrink itself back into the suicidal armistice lines of 1948-1967, on one hand, or to become a truly binational state by annexing the whole of Shomron and Yehuda, just to get rid of the Fatah gang.
The best answer — and I think the only solution — is to populate all of Area C with Jews, putting that area under Israeli civil rather than military control. That step must be followed by bankrupting the “Palestine Authority” then negotiating separate autonomy agreements with the hamulas (blood-related clans) and significant families in each of the present Area A Arab-populated cities, including Jenin, Tulkarem, Nablus, Kalkilya, Ramallah, Jericho, Hevron, and, following appropriate and short-term military measures, Gaza and he other urban places in the Gaza territory. These moves should also include an Israeli takeover of the lightly-populated Area B villages, who would be offered Israeli citizenship, possibly in multiple stages.
The result of implementing all these related changes would, for the first time, provide Israel with a workable — and mostly working — de facto and relatively peaceful arrangement with the local leaderships of most of the non-Israeli Arab populations living west of the Jordan River. Those Arabs would be Israeli citizens, and their behavior would be largely controlled by their local leaders. Such an arrangement would not hardly be acceptable by standards of Western liberal democracy, but would be fully in keeping with Arab sociological standards and expectations.
The time has come for everyone to start thinking outside the various constraining boxes of failed prior policies.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Just 50000 would be 1.5 billion , yes?
@ diana:Read Sherman’s Humanitarian Solution. I linked to it in my article. They will go to the US or EU . Many will take them in especially if they bring money. Sherman is talking $300,000 per family.
Ted: Where to? ( meaning where are they going to go). We are not talking about 50000 + people………The best thing is to be sure the ones that stay have well paid jobs, good health care, etc. etc. A lot of them will wise up to the “beauties” offered by Israel as oppose to what Abu Mazen will steal from them………………
The government of Israel is not willing to remove illegal trespassers that broke through the border fence in Sinai and now assault and steal in Tel Aviv. Africans. One of my son in law Aunts was murdered by those criminals less than a month ago.
Why, then, does anyone expect that the same government will act decisively against internal Muslim saboteurs?
On the contrary. the renegade, unJewish strata selected “supreme courtiers” back the Muslims and harm Jews.
BTW. After living for 25 years near Muslims in nearby villages, there is certainly an ice cover to what used to be more or less normal relations.
@ diana:
The question of what to do with undesirable populations in the Middle East has a long and very well established tradition – you get rid of them. You can cut off their heads,you crucify them, torch them, masacre them, rape them, sell them as slaves or just drive them out. Israel being a civilized nation should do the same by assisted emigration and settlement and being a civilized nation only displaces “undesirables” that want to kill you and your nation destroyed. The path is clear and if we had a smidgen of the backbone of these Jihadis, it would have been done long ago. Instead we opt for death by a thousand cuts.
Bibby is not a two stater. He would be better described as a person who is for Israel and an autonomous PA run entity (something in reality less than a full state) provided that the
PA agree to be demilitarized, Recognize a Jewish Nation State, agree to end the conflict including all claims which includes recognition that the Palestinians have NO right of return and Jerusalem, plus Israeli security as needed in Judah/Samaria
The Palestinian belief system means they can NOT agree to the foregoing. Most of this was in US framework to finalize the negotiations and hence they walked from the negotiations.
Bibi says I have not changed my mind on the above.
People do not misread me I am not for Bibi’s proposal because I believe we need to get away discussing the two state paradigm.
@ diana:The article does propose a solution.; pay them to emigrate. How could you not see that.
One state? Two states?
So what do you do with the Israeli Arabs. I refuse to call them Palestinians. As an Arab friend of mine said to me once: Before the June 10th. 1967 War I was Jordanian. On the 11th. I became a Palestinian?
Well anyhow enough “kvetching”. Bring and propose solutions.
I am not saying anything is going to happen.We know that Bibi won ‘t accept the ’67 lines and that the PA won’t recognized Israel as the Jewish state. So basically Bibi is running out the clock. Obama has to settle for maintaining the possibility of the TSS.@ NormanF:
Ted,
That is never going to happen. If Netanyahu and his ideologically fellow committed two staters in Israel and abroad entertain that fantasy, they might as well keep waiting for Godot.
Israel keeps on paying a high price in exchange for zero Palestinian Arab interest in peace.