President Obama will meet a week hence with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Israel’s premier, Benjamin Netanyahu, says he is prepared to make a “historic peace.” The White House reckons his choice is limited. “What is his long-term answer for Israel,” asks the New York Times in an editorial, “if not a two-state solution?”
WOMAN WITH A PLAN: Caroline Glick, famed columnist of the Jerusalem Post, whose new book, “The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East,” deserves to be widely read on Capitol Hill.
How about the Glick Plan?
No one is calling it that — yet. It is being advanced by one of Israel’s most brilliant journalists, Caroline Glick, in a new book, “The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.” It sketches an alternative to America’s pursuit of a two-state plan in a region where only one state has managed a real democracy.
Ms. Glick’s idea is for Israel formally to incorporate the West Bank into its sovereign territory and govern it as part of a single state. It’s a radical proposal advanced in time’s nick for those who doubt the framework Secretary of State Kerry is seeking for talks about a two-state solution. She lays the arguments out beautifully, and her plan deserves attention on Capitol Hill.
No doubt it will be attacked as a flirtation with bi-nationalism, a movement that would end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state and establish a secular state that, in theory, has no religious identity. Bi-nationalism in recent decades has been embraced by scores of foes of Zionism, including Edward Said, John Mearsheimer, and Tony Judt.
Ms. Glick’s vision is different. She is for a single Jewish state. She calls the two-state solution — the idea of a Palestinian Arab state beside Israel — “among the most irrational, unsuccessful policies the United States has ever adopted.” She counts more than a dozen efforts to advance it over the past 90 years. Between 1970 and 2013, she reckons, America alone presented nine two-state peace plans.
One part of Ms. Glick’s book reprises how the movement for Palestinian Arab statehood was poisoned by the collaboration of the Jerusalem mufti, Haj Amin el-Husseini, and Hitler. I’ve long thought this element of the story is too little appreciated. Why should the Palestinian Arabs be the only ally of Hitler to be shielded from the consequences of the Nazi defeat?
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@ dweller:
She would be our best choice for government. There are many good people like her as well.
Now that the book has been released, I assume she’ll be making the rounds of the radio talk shows, and (one would hope) doing a stateside tour in person.
It would be good to see how she handles the campusards. I think she’s got the grit for it.
A bold plan. Makes sense. Current demographic trends are in Israel’s favor and previous population estimates of Arabs in Judea and Samaria have been exaggerated. Much better than the TTS.