T. Belman. This proposal is totally in line with the policies of the Zionist Union which Israelis have rejected. Their goal is to advance the creation of a Palestinian state along the lines of what Obama has suggested i.e., ’67 borders with swaps and eastern Jerusalem its capital. It ignores Israel’s right to defensible borders and Israel’s right to keep some of the land. It also ignores Israel’s security.
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In a rare and sharp split with Israeli government policy, a group of Jewish community leaders wants to get a proposal for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the next president’s desk.
Two complementary U.S. and Israeli working papers to be launched next week propose immediate actions Israel can take to prepare the ground for two states and a longer-term security structure that aims to satisfy Palestinian ambitions for sovereignty and Israeli security needs.
Elements of the proposals, including relocating settlers and preparing for Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem, are radical departures from the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government, perhaps the most right wing in Israeli history. Tactically, getting the next president to kick-start new talks is also anathema to Netanyahu, who regards outside pressure as counterproductive.
The organization behind the push, the Israel Policy Forum, is not new to such initiatives. It was established in the early 1990s at the behest of then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who went over the head of what was then a hawkish pro-Israel establishment to seek U.S. Jewish backing for his peace talks with the Palestinians.
This time, however, the party doing the reaching over is not the Israeli prime minister but Jewish community heavyweights who have helmed major Jewish organizations, from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to the Anti-Defamation League.
In the last 18 months or so, the Israel Policy Forum has signed to its board Alan Solow and Robert Sugarman, past chairmen of the Presidents Conference, the Jewish community’s foreign policy umbrella group. Sugarman also is a past president of the ADL.
On board, too, are Robert Elman and Robert Goodkind, past presidents of the American Jewish Committee, and Susie Gelman, a past president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington and an early major funder of The Israel Project. Solow, Sugarman and Gelman, with Israel Policy Forum staff, met last week with JTA.
The Israel Policy Forum has never disbanded, but the new heavyweights represent the kind of clout it hasn’t seen in years.
The initiative will formally launch at a conference here on May 31, showcasing proposals for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from veterans of the Israeli and American diplomatic establishments — represented by Commanders for Israel’s Security and the Center for a New American Security, respectively.
Mainstream Jewish groups have long been resistant to openly challenging Israel on security issues. Solow said that was less of a consideration in Israel’s volatile political climate.
“One doesn’t know what Israel’s government is going to look like in a week,” he said.
Solow also noted the stasis following the collapse of the last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks in 2014 that has driven Democrats to criticize Israel more freely as they see the prospects of two states diminish.
“Taking on the perspective from those in the pro-Israel community, the only reasonable Zionist solution is to have two states for two people,” Solow said.
Both likely presidential nominees, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, have said they would like to address Israeli-Palestinian peace.
“Every time a new administration comes into office, these issues get a fresh look, that’s a historical fact,” said Solow, probably the Jewish leader who has been closest to President Barack Obama.
The board members lend the initiative political clout in an election year in which much media attention on pro-Israel voices is focused on Republican mega-donors such as casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and hedge funder Paul Singer, who have sharply hawkish outlooks. Adelson, who endorsed Trump this month — reportedly to the tune of $100 million plus — is often depicted in the media as the bellwether of the “pro-Israel” donor class.
Adelson is close to Netanyahu and has called a Palestinian state a “steppingstone for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.” He broke with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 2007 when he discovered it was tacitly backing then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s peace initiative.
While Trump says he is eager to see if he can bring about a two-state solution, most of the Republicans he defeated had all but abandoned the idea in the near term — a skepticism that still prevails among congressional Republicans.
David Halperin, the Israel Policy Forum’s director, said he had secured meetings with Republicans to discuss the project, but with more difficulty than he had with Democrats.
“In the current political climate, we would like to make this more bipartisan,” he said.
So is this initiative, at least in part, about making it clear that the pro-Israel buck does not start and stop in Adelson’s suite at his Las Vegas Venetian?
“You’re not going to get disagreement from us,” Sugarman said.
Solow said the polling demonstrates that the “overwhelming number of American Jews support the position we’re taking.” The fact that members of the IPF board have held significant leadership roles in American Jewry “will provide additional credibility” to the initiative, he said.
The Israel Policy Forum is planning private and public presentations for Jewish community leaders and members of Congress. The board members will be a key presence.
“We are the connector to the American Jewish community on all of this,” said Gelman, the incoming IPF chairwoman.
Sugarman said the plan for two states would couple with a robust and detailed effort to keep Israel secure, a commonplace posture in Israel — at least on the center and left — he said was missing from the American Jewish conversation. Much of Israel’s right now rejects the two-state solution.
“It’s never been pushed here the way IPF is pushing it,” he said.
AIPAC in principle is in favor of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, but the prominent pro-Israel lobbying group would never consider getting ahead of the Israeli government in advancing how to define two states as these plans do. For J Street, the organizing principle is two states, and since its 2008 founding the more liberal lobbying group has made inroads among Democrats. But its tough criticisms of Israel have alienated the same Jewish institutions that the IPF board members have on their resumes.
The emphasis of the proposals is on preparing Israel psychologically, politically and militarily for two states while countering what the authors of the Israeli plan describe as “fear mongering” from those who oppose Palestinian statehood.
Israel “must seize the initiative to determine its destiny and shape a better future for our and our neighbor’s children,” the 67-page Commanders for Israel’s Security plan says. “There is no exclusively military solution to the conflict or to waves of terror.”
The Israeli team’s proposals include, among other recommendations for immediate action, a settlement freeze, encouraging settlers who live outside the West Bank security fence to move back inside its perimeter and setting up a precursor for Palestinian sovereignty in predominantly Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
The Center for a New American Security proposals to be unveiled May 31 will focus on the long-range security underpinnings of a peace plan.
“We want to make sure that there are real tangible plans out there, that there are options to deal with security,” said Michael Koplow, policy director for the Israel Policy Forum.
@ woolymammoth:
And what are YOU doing?
I was in d.c last week…and have followed-up with dozens of calls and e-mails since; diagnostic efforts continue…as fresh interventions are being formulated.
@ rsklaroff:
So what Doc, are you going to do something to upset their applecart with respect to their misguided agenda and twisted reasoning, huh.
You made quite a splash with your efforts to stop the Iran Nuclear Agreement, what do you have to show for it? More importantly what do WE have to show for it?
We seem to specialize in two attributes;
#1 Talk
#2 Coffee Cake
Talk is okay, but how about substituting some of that coffee cake for a bit of sustained action. You tried your best, that is clear and you have novel ideas, so I guess you deserve a piece of cake. At least you actually did something. I think we need massive numbers of craniotomies, unfortunately you are ortho….do you do spines as well, because we are overrepresented in the community by invertebrates.Nothing a good Midas Rex can not “cure”, in theory.
The so called Two State Solution has a strategy connected to it, which I do not see The Israeli Government deviating from for the near term, at least until Obama is OUT.
Until then, the issue is JUST MORE TALK and cigar ashes. There are more important issues to tackle right now. so, it is a diversion. Israel has working relations with The Gulf states and need them for the Iran issues more than pissing them off over the moribund dead peace process, who the hell cares what these rich arrogant self appointed mental midgets think or advocate. Who may i ask voted for them to represent us? I never received a ballot.
I guess these Jewish Leaders never read the Torah. Just how many times was Jerusalem mentioned? Surely it was more than one thousand years of prayers at home and in the synagogue.
Ohh they say, it’s inconsequential.
ADL: one of those fake jewish orgs which spends most of its time fighting islamaphobia and supporting muslim immigration… their israeli branch is more interested in fighting zionist settlers anti arab comments than the organized muslim jew killing incitement… apparently they get some arab funding but dont tell the jewish donors that they are no longer a jewish org.
WHICH “PEACE” TALKS, AND WITH WHOM???
With Hamas, who is committed to Israel’s destruction based on unbending Jihadist dogma?..
Or with Fatah, who aspires to same results in stages, and would be overrun by Hamas soon after Israeli military vacates the West Bank anyway?..
2-State Plan doesn’t make sense only if you think its aim is Peace. It makes a lot of sense if you realize its aim is to destroy Israel!..
Since the Arabs can’t destroy Israel all at once, they always saw a 2-state solution only as the necessary transition toward their goal of a 1-state solution.
In fact, by reducing the Jewish state to militarily indefensible borders, it is the necessary next step for the Arabs in order to advance from Phase II to Phase III in their 1974 Phased Plan for dismantling of Israel.
http://www.acpr.org.il/resources/plophased.html
Once Israel was to be pushed to indefensible pre-’67 boundaries as a result of the so-called 2-state process, the Arabs would use the “Right of Return” claim as their “casus belli” toward pushing for the 1-state solution…
Both Pal-Arab political movements are not nationalist in the “Palestinian” sense. Fatah (part of secular Baath movement) is staunchly Pan-Arabist, while Hamas (part of Muslim Brotherhood movement) is staunchly Pan-Sunni Islamist…
Accordingly, any single single state would become a Palestinian Muslim-Arab state that would engulf today’s PA and Israel at an initial stage, Jordan at an intermediate stage, and at an ultimate stage would aspire to become part and parcel of either a Pan-Arab empire (in case of Fatah) or Pan-Sunni Islamic Caliphate (in case of Hamas)…
If Arabs really wanted Peace, they would not invent a separate Palestinian identity, while Jordan already covers nearly 80% of Mandatory Palestine and most Gaza Arabs are indistinguishable from Egypt’s Sinai Bedouin…
They would instead pursue the only logical co-existential path:
A 3-state solution composed of Israel, Egypt, Jordan!
get moving jews, grab your begging bowl and join the line with blair to celebrate this manna from heaven… what an opportunity… the arabs might one day let you open a consul in return for giving the greedy fat gluttons the bulk of the historic Jewish homeland. the fat pigs who rule and ruined 22 nations, contributing nothing to the land want more of it to rape. come on Jews… you should be happy to get some crumbs from fatty’s table.
I see no value in talks with those who teach their childrenn that jews are sons of apes and pigs. the egyptians and jordanians after decades still teach their children hatred. There is no upside because Israel will always have to maintain an overblown military but will glean no fruits of a war machine that normally are the spoils of war. give them only peace for peace, no land…. Israel is in a position to completely destroy the assets of those fat pigs and make them run to the west leaving their burning oil fields behind. If one has to continue to maintain a military machine then make it pay for itself… after all the fat bedsheets are the cause of the problem… let them make the sacrifices… why would a jew want to talk to a piece of shiite who teaches their children that jews are sons of apes and pigs. there are many ways to deal with them…. much can be made in the lab if they seek war.
Sure there’s a split between the clueless “American Jewish community” and the rapidly maturing Israeli population. The two are moving apart at warp speed. But why make it a bad thing? American Jewry’s loss is a net gain for Israel. Faster, faster please!
What these people drafting a so called peace plan, which would surely lead to a major war due not realize. That the core of the conflict is the refusal of the Arabs to accept a Jewish State no matter the size of it. These Arabs tried to destroy Israel several times before their was one Jewish Town (settlement) in Judah/Samaria. The conflict is not about borders but about the acceptance of a Jewish State in the middle east. The goal of these people is to erase Israel. This is demonstrated in part by the new Chairman of the PLO and lead negotiator the Palestinians Ereket in the following statement.
They can not even say Jewish State without getting near hysterical and extreme in their contrasts.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/05/24/chief-palestinian-negotiator-whats-the-difference-between-someone-calling-himself-leader-of-jewish-state-and-someone-calling-himself-leader-of-islamic-state/
Concur with publishing this piece because, if nothing else, it names the perps…such as Gelman.
Someone needs to tell these self important American Jews that they were not elected to the Knesset to formulate policy positions for the state of Israel.
What right do they have? Do their children serve in the IDF. Did they serve in the IDF?
Do they live in Israel? Yet they are calling for Jews to move out of their homes in Judah/Samaria in order to give Jewish land to terrorists.
My answer to them is you might mean well but no thanks! You do not understand the reality of the middle east. Your ideas would lead to a war and a horrible tragic situation for many Jews.
This is utterly idiotic, as is the article about Lieberman wanting to divide Jerusalem and create an Arab state.
God has already via His prophets defined the borders of the kingdom of Israel, and this cannot be undone. There is no human agency that is capable of it, and no matter what people, either Jews or non-Jews, will try, this will not happen.
And Americans, regardless of being Jewish or not, are particularly useless in this process since they are not even in the Land.
It seems to me Ted is wasting much energy in posting articles that are just more ‘shoveling sand into the sea’. Would much rather see some positive and relevant news about Israel. Just sick of American-this, American-that, or news of Left-this, Right-that.
If anyone seriously believes this “new” intiative has any chance of bringing results, I have several bridges in prime locations to sell him or her for a good price. Talk of lacking creativity, imagination and above all lucidity. Problem no 1: as long as the Palestinians refuse to play ball and negotiate in good faith, there is no point discussing even the idea of two states. Problem no 2: these fine individuals have apparently learned nothing from the failure of J Street, which arrogantly gave itself the right to decide for Israel what is the best course of action, contemptuously ignoring in the process the will of the Israeli electorate who chose the government it has now.
If left-leaning American Jews have a problem with that, they have only one option: make aliya and join the party of their choice over there, not put pressure on the Isralei government from America. That is the worst way to honor the much vaunted only democracy in the Middle East. Oh yes, it’s the only functional democracy in the Middle East! Sure, except that a majority of American Jews would prefer to use dictatorial means to impose views that are thoroughly rejected by a wide majority of Israelis. Who these self-appointed do-gooders think they are, and who do they think they’re fooling?
Instead of wasting their time making the exact same mistake so many before them, especially Obama, have made, i.e. pressuring Israel, they would have much better chances of getting useful results if the party they pressured was the Palestinians. The PLO, the PA and the Palestinian population ruled by the PA are completely dysfunctional, totalitarian, intolerant, and in a constant state of belligerence against Israel. Before anything else, they need to stop terrorism and stop their culture of hate, both of which they had promised in writing in the Oslo Accords and in the Road Map, and we know how well they honored these promises. Let’s start there. Everything else is a total waste of time.