By Joel Fishman
For some time, the slogan of the so-called “Two-State Solution,” has constantly been presented in the media as a desirable goal, one that Israel and the Palestinians should implement in the interest of peace. Whenever one raises this idea, it is implied that Israel should make major sacrifices in exchange for an unclear benefit. During the Obama administration, Secretary of State, John Kerry, bitterly accused the Government of Israel of not being committed to the “Two State Solution,” and even last week in London, Prime Minister Theresa May declared that she favored the “Two-State Solution.” She asked Prime Minster Netanyahu if he were also committed to this formula. For his part, the Prime Minister did not respond directly but stated that Israel is committed to peace.
This proposition completely lacks merit. The PLO first introduced the “Two-State Solution” formula as a stratagem, and its real purpose has been to conceal their true aims and those of their successor, the Palestinian Authority. Those who launched the idea of the “Two State Solution” intended that it be understood differently by the Israelis, — their potential victims, — and other well-meaning outsiders who seemingly would want a fair solution to this war.
During the war in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese originally launched the “Two-State” formula in order to disguise their strategic goal. They adopted a strategy of phases which, by devoting attention to the intermediate stages of their struggle, would enable them to reach their goal by gradual steps. Their real intention was that North Vietnam would conquer South Vietnam, but they spoke of the “Two-State Solution,” a tactic whose purpose was to mislead world public opinion. In the end, Communist North Vietnam subdued and conquered South Vietnam, and in 1975 the last Americans fled by helicopter from the rooftop of their embassy in Saigon. This was a major defeat both for the South Vietnamese and for the United States of America.
During the early 1970s Salah Khalaf, known as Abu Iyad, led a PLO delegation to Hanoi to learn from the North Vietnamese. There, they met the legendary General Vo Nguyen Giap and political advisors who coached them on presenting their case and changing their image of being terrorists in world public opinion. Abu Iyad described this important visit in his book, My Home, My Land (which he published with Eric Rouleau in 1978). Abu Iyad recounted that the North Vietnamese advised the Palestinians to devote attention to the intermediate stages of their war and to accept the need for “provisional sacrifices.” “Without ever referring explicitly to Fatah or the PLO, the Politbureau members gave a long exposé of the various stages in the Vietnamese People’s struggle, explaining why they had had to resign themselves to various concessions, sometimes important ones such as the division of the country into two separate, independent states.”
Independently, in 1997 Yossef Bodansky, an intelligence analyst, published more information on this meeting. “The Vietnamese suggested that seemingly accepting ‘the division of the land between two independent states,’ without stressing that this was only an interim phase, would neutralize the PLO’s opponents in the West.”
We live in a high-technology culture of sound bites and SMS’s, of quick and simple communication, of oneline messages, and such habits discourage the public from the careful study of past experience. In order to understand what is wrong here, we must remember the history of this slogan, which was designed from the start to be a swindle. It began as a tool of political warfare, and its purpose never changed. Its potency has remained, because people do not know the past or have been lulled to sleep.
By tracing and documenting the origin of the term, we can know with certainty that it is a fraud, and those who advance it cannot wish Israel well. For the same reason, no Israeli who wishes his country well should ever advocate the “Two State Solution.” Its program means nothing less than the politicide of Israel. The idea may have been fashionable during the Oslo era, but it is still necessary to listen carefully to what the enemy is saying and what he means.
Dr. Joel Fishman is a member of a research center in Jerusalem
Edgar G. Said:
My Father and I once had scheme to squeeze money from insurance companies. We would open a recover facility, in a remote part of the Rocky Mts, to treat bibliophiles. A timber lodge, stocked with comfortable chairs, good lighting, warm fireplaces and stout whiskey. Of course, lots of storage space. You, my Dear Edgar, would have made a wonderful patient.
larry glovin Said:
yamit82 Said:
“It made sense to those who though it made sense” Dicha of Deborah
@ Edgar G.:
Wait a minute. I just took that in. You have to drive 100 miles and look through 7,000 books in a storage building to recall a reference? Serious?
@ Edgar G.:
That’s because I footnote almost everything. I took the trouble to type out what I had from Peters and Katz, did you read them? There appears to be no agreement on the numbers. But 150,000? Never seen an estimate that low.
Not a slippery insinuation. An illustration of the practical reason I need to know where to find these assertions. I happen to think what we are doing here might make a difference. I wouldn’t bother, otherwise. I don’t bother reading the comments on most other sites. I never would have known that Breitbart had some anti-semitic commenters if people here — and later the dems — hadn’t pointed it out. Most commenters on most other sites are uninformed fools. I expect more from you. Don’t be lazy.
@ Edgar G.:
“In 1947, there were approximately one million Arabs in the whole of western Palestine. (British figures, certainly inflated, put the number at 1,200,000; independent calculations claim 800-900,000). Of these, the total number actually living in that part of Palestine which became Israel was, according to the British figure, 561,000*. Not all of them left. After the end of hostilities in 1949, there were 140,000 Arabs in Israel. The total number who left could not mathematically have been more than some 420,000.
‘At the time, before the policy of inflation had been conceived, these were the commonly stated proportions of the problem. At the end of May 1948, Faris el Khoury, the Syrian representative on the UN Security Council, estimated their number at 250,000. The even more authoritative Emil Ghoury (who twelve years later, talked of two million) announced on September 6, 1948, that by the middle of June, at the time of the first truce, the number of Arabs who had fled was 200,000. “By the time the second truce began (July 17)” he said, “ their number had risen to “300,000.” Count Bernadotte, the UN Special Representative in Palestine, reporting on September 16, 1948, informed the United Nations that he estimated the number of Arab refugees at 360,000, including 50,000 in Israeli territory (UN Document A/1648). After July 1948, there was a fourth exodus of some 50,000 Arabs from Galilee and from the Negev.
‘The inflation may at first have been accidental. The United Nations at once provided the refugees with food, clothes, shelter, and medical attention. There was no system of identification; any Arab could register as a refugee and receive free aid. Immediately, a large number of needy Arabs from various Arab countries flocked to the refugee camps, were registered, and thenceforth received their rations. Already, by December 1948, when their total could not have reached the maximum of 425,000, the Director of the United Nations Disaster Relief Organization, Sir Rafael Cilento, reported that he was feeding 750,000 refugees. Seven months later, the official figure had increased to a round million in the report of W. de St. Aubin, the United Nations Director of Field Operations…
* This figure was compiled by Dr. Oscar K. Rabinowicz on the basis of the statistics in the British Survey of Palestine, Vol. I, and published in “Jewish Social Studies” (October 1959), pp. 240-242 (quoted by Schechtman, p. 195). The Shechtman reference is: “Joseph B. Shechtman, “The Refugees in the World” (New York, 1963) pp. 197-198.)
” PP. 23-26.
“”Of the real refugees, nearly half were in the Gaza Strip – 155,000 out of 367,000…” p. 27
He has a whole chapter on this, much more detailed than Peters, everything documented and substantiated. He also points out that the Yishuv begged the Arabs to stay, but many preferred to heed the calls of their leaders to leave for a short time and make way for the Jews to be slaughtered by the invading Arab armies.
Katz, Samuel. “Battleground – Facts and Fantasy in Palestine.” Taylor Productions, NYC. 1973, 1977, 1978, 1985, 2002. Typed by hand from paperback edition, SZ.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
xxx
I haven’t yet seen anyone ask you where you got your information, so why the pother…??
And contrary to your slippery insinuation, it is not correct, as I just gave you the UN Mediator (that’s how he was described in the report but didn’t give his name-LOOK HIM UP) I also gave you Joan Peters whose Best Seller book was highly acclaimed by nearly all except the likes of Finklestein and Chomsky, the 2 stooges. a very famous book which is still being discussed over 30 years after it was published; she died about 3-4 years ago.
In I think, 1932 or 1933, the British Colonial Office reported that in the one single year over 30,000 Arabs crossed the Jordan coming into Palestine looking for work. They were pouring in during the British Mandate in varying amounts yearly, but that particular report is SOLID and that SOURCE is The British Colonial Office.
But I don’t mind if you quote me also, because anything i say I have seen elsewhere in a book or authentic report. I have no computer skills like you for instance, and life is too short to waste it in looking for references when I know my account is accurate, and neither can I recall if I read the accounts in my own books or a public library. I’m not going to drive 100 miles to the storage building and look through 7000 books just to supply you with a link. And not only because I don’t drive any more. 60 years is long enough to drive. In Ireland when I first drove, at barmitzvah age, licences were not required, and traffic lights were years in the future, but policemen at point duty…Very nostalgic. Some of them were quite acrobatic and artistic. One could watch them for hours.
I see you are still bothered by the fact that The Sevres Treaty and Lausanne didn’t directly mention San Remo….. But if you look it up, as I did just before I wrote my reply to you, you can find what I found and included in my post..
I wonder why you were taken off the White List…Maybe Word Press got tangled up trying to find secondary sources.
We are not writing for posterity, but for interest, and (for some I’d say) catharsis.. Unfortunately I left my stone carving chisels at home..
Edgar G. Said:
Peters, Joan. “From Time Immemorial, The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine.” JKAP Publications. Chicago. 1984. PP. 17-18.
Typed by hand from paperback copy. SZ
@ Edgar G.:
Can you give me a secondary source? when people ask me where I get my information, I can’t very well say, “Edgar G. told me,” now, can I?
2 state solution is over.
The 2 state solution is not realistic at this point. Perhaps a deal with. Jordan can be worked out.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
xxx
I think you’re wrong about the number of Arab refugees. The UN Mediator said there were 472,000 and Joan Peters in her book “From TIme Immemorial” said there were 370,000, (I think) but I’ve seen reliable figures (forget whose) that announced that the total number of Arab Refugees was no more than 320-325,000, and that many had moved less than a few miles away, meaning still in the same vicinity.
All agree that there were around 900,000 Jewish refugees.
It’s interesting that the UN census showed that in 1945 there were fewer Arabs in Israel than in 1948 (when they should have been fleeing by the hundreds of thousands) by over 50,000. This confirms the reports that Arabs from all the surrounding countries poured into the country when they heard that UNWRA was giving out freebies which most of them had never had in their typically sordid Arab lives.
@ Grand Mufti: Thank you. I’ve been the only one bringing up the Phased Plan. It’s never stopped being the crux of the matter. Paraphrasing that song, “There’s nothing going on but the rent” it’s “There’s nothing going on but the Phased Plan.” Incidentally, I notice I am off the “White List.”
Can you name a single thing the PA has done (or said in Arabic and now in English) since 1974 that deviates from the following ten points?
“Through the “armed struggle” (i.e., terrorism), to establish an “independent combatant national authority” over any territory that is “liberated” from Israeli rule. (Article 2)
To continue the struggle against Israel, using the territory of the national authority as a base of operations. (Article 4)
To provoke an all-out war in which Israel’s Arab neighbors destroy it entirely (“liberate all Palestinian territory”). (Article 8)
To reaffirm the Palestine Liberation Organization’s previous attitude to Resolution 242, which obliterates the national right of our people and deals with the cause of our people as a problem of refugees. The Council therefore refuses to have anything to do with this resolution at any level, Arab or international, including the Geneva Conference.
The Liberation Organization will employ all means, and first and foremost armed struggle, to liberate Palestinian territory and to establish the independent combatant national authority for the people over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated. This will require further changes being effected in the balance of power in favour of our people and their struggle.
The Liberation Organization will struggle against any proposal for a Palestinian entity the price of which is recognition, peace, secure frontiers, renunciation of national rights and the deprival of our people of their right to return and their right to self-determination on the soil of their homeland.
Any step taken towards liberation is a step towards the realization of the Liberation Organization’s strategy of establishing the democratic Palestinian state specified in the resolutions of previous Palestinian National Councils.
Struggle along with the Jordanian national forces to establish a Jordanian-Palestinian national front whose aim will be to set up in Jordan a democratic national authority in close contact with the Palestinian entity that is established through the struggle.
The Liberation Organization will struggle to establish unity in struggle between the two peoples and between all the forces of the Arab liberation movement that are in agreement on this programme.
In the light of this programme, the Liberation Organization will struggle to strengthen national unity and to raise it to the level where it will be able to perform its national duties and tasks.
Once it is estabished, the Palestinian national authority will strive to achieve a union of the confrontation countries, with the aim of completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory, and as a step along the road to comprehensive Arab unity.
The Liberation Organization will strive to strengthen its solidarity with the socialist countries, and with forces of liberation and progress throughout the world, with the aim of frustration all the schemes of Zionism, reaction and imperialism.
In light of this programme, the leadership of the revolution will determine the tactics which will serve and make possible the realization of these objectives.”
http://www.mefacts.com/cached.asp?x_id=10221
They are a fake people created by the Arabs and their Muslim allies to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. They have no other frame of reference. They must be driven out. Or they will continue to be “a thorn in our sides.”
Two-state Solution for whose problem?
Is it the solution to Israelis problem as expressed in its foundation document, its Declaration of Independence? It speaks of fulfilling end-of-conflict goals of peace, reconciliation, and cooperation with all the region’s people for the common good,
Or is it the solution to the Arabs’ problem
as unambiguously stated in the foundation documents of most of their major organizations? They speak of destroying the infidel Jewish state and/or slaughtering every Jewish man, woman, and child
Lest we forget, a two-state phase is clearly spelled out as an intermediate step in the Palestine Liberation Organization’s official Phased Plan for the Liberation of Palestine, a.k.a. the Plan of Stages. It’s critical to recognize that it was written at a time when Arabs completely controlled a Jew-free “West Bank” and Gaza. Both Arafat and Abbas referred to that plan in public speeches.
What grounds are there for putting faith in a fourth land-for-peace two-state solution when the first three that were actually implemented were disasters? They led to failed wars of Arab aggression and intensified terrorism.
The 1923 two-state solution which divided the Mandate for Palestine into Arab and Jewish states on either side of the Jordan River didn’t work any better than the 1993 Oslo Accords.
The third attempted land-for-peace solution was instituted in 2005. Israel’s bold unilateral disengagement from Gaza gave the Arabs an opportunity to demonstrate their true intentions – building a state of their own or the destruction of the Jewish state.
All three two-state solutions included the total ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Arab entities and left the Arabs masters of their own fate. They led to wars and more intense terrorism against the Jewish state.
That is why the Western world INSISTS on preserving the delusion! It was thought to be the ultimate solution to the Jewish problem. (The Holocaust failed!) But it failed! The Sunnis of IL (the Pal) want a Judenrein OSS! And most of the world/UN approves including BHO, JK and Samantha!
Bibi will NEVER EVER have another chance like this one!
@ larry glovin:
It never made any sense
the two state solution, after 70 + years still makes no sense.
@ JoeBillScott:
Yes, you may. But only after you wash the dishes and do your homework.
I had never heard of the Vietnamese TSS so I googled it. According to this book excerpt, The Soviets proposed it but the N. Vietnamese never accepted it. I mean what was the war about?
Soviet-Vietnam Relations and the Role of China, 1949-64: Changing Alliances
By Mari Olsen
https://books.google.com/books?id=C4kanNJCmc0C&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=vietnam%27s+two+state+solution&source=bl&ots=F0SiSysDzc&sig=daJhY-SCD_rsU3PpXwj9sKVQev8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQjcrepIvSAhXljlQKHVeHBZk4ChDoAQgZMAA#v=onepage&q=vietnam's%20two%20state%20solution&f=false
I would still like the primary source for the 150,000 pal refugee instead of 800,000 UNRWA figure. I only know the latter. What I have read from everybody is that the population transfer was roughly the same number of Jews and Arabs in the population transfer in 1948. About that number, maybe 750,000 Arabs and 850,000 Jews.
Well then, I guess that’s that.
Can we start throwing the squatters out of Israel now?