Zehut: Israel’s Security and Diplomatic Plan

T. Belman. This is an excellent plan. The Jordan Option does not conflict with it but in fact makes it easier to facilitate. While Martin Sherman pushes the policy of Compensated Emigration, he goes no farther and doesn’t deal with anything else. The Jordan option improves on Sherman’s idea by providing a friendly Jordan as a receptical for emigrants. Feiglin’s Plan is a stand alone plan that will benefit from Sherman’s ideas and the Jordan Option.

In fact Both Feiglin and Sherman aren’t close to having their ideas implemented. Thus the Jordan Option will give a boost to both.

Zehut’s Peace Plan

As a background to the plan, we must examine the process that the State of Israel has undergone since the signing of the Oslo Accords. Ostensibly, the purpose of these agreements was to end the conflict by establishing a Palestinian state, thereby achieving peace. But this goal has not been achieved. Rather, the opposite is true: the number of people killed in terrorist attacks increased fivefold (1552 between 1994 and 2015, compared with 357 between 1977 and 1994). More and more cities in Israel began to be bombarded with missiles and Israeli citizens were expelled from their homes (during the Disengagement in 2005). In addition, the Oslo Accords were supposed to bring economic well-being as a result of the anticipated cut in defense spending, but in fact the state paid more than NIS 1 billion for implementing the agreements.

?In light of all this, the question arises: Was the purpose of the Oslo Accords really to achieve peace?

The answer to this question is clear: the ultimate goal of Oslo was not peace but the “Israelization” of society, or as Dr. Ron Pundak, one of the Oslo architects, admitted in an interview: “Peace is not an end in itself, it is a means … to Israelization of society rather than its Judaization …”?

In other words, the Oslo planners saw the two-state solution as a means to resolve the struggle for identity.

Zehut challenges this “Oslo concept” and proposes an alternative political plan called “one state for one people”. The program is based on loyalty to the Jewish identity of the state and the justness of its path, and at the end of the process will lead the State of Israel to a reality of peace.?

 The program’s basic assumptions are:

• The Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel alone by Divine choice.

• International law recognizes that the territory of Judea and Samaria is designated for a Jewish state, as Justice Levy’s report showed.

• The demographic trend is in favor of the Jews, and by 2035 a majority of 80% of Jews are expected to live in Israel, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.

• Most Arab residents of Judea and Samaria want to emigrate and many already do so.

The Stages of the Program:

Stage One: The Oslo Accords will be canceled and the legal situation restored to its pre-Oslo status.?

Second stage: The terrorists will be offered a peaceful withdrawal, similar to the PLO withdrawal from Lebanon in 1982.?

Third stage: The IDF will take over the territory as it was able to do in Operation Defensive Shield, and the State of Israel will apply its full sovereignty over all parts of the country. No element except for the IDF, the Israel Police and authorized civilians (see above) will carry arms.?

Stage Four: Non-Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria will be offered three options:

• Assistance in immigration: The state will enable interested residents to sell their property, and will help them emigrate to the destination of their choice.

• Residency: Those who wish to remain and declare their allegiance openly will receive the status of permanent residents in the Jewish state. All their human and property rights shall be preserved in the same manner as permanent residents of other Western countries (as the United States does with the inhabitants of Samoa, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, and Britain with the Cypriots remaining under its control).

• Citizenship: Those who wish to be loyal citizens and serve in the army (such as the Druze, for example) will be able to receive full citizenship after a long and thorough examination track.

• ?

When the people of Israel adopt their true identity and stop seeing themselves as an occupying force in their own country, the rest of the world will leave the conflict behind and accept our legal sovereignty. In addition, the full implementation of the plan will open Israel’s heartland to settlement, construction and development. The future generations will not inherit the problem of the territories and terrorism, but will receive a sovereign, secure and prosperous state.

Israel’s Foreign Policy

The State of Israel must be a moral role model for the rest of the nations. According to this view, Israel will continue to develop many ties with foreign countries but will not compromise on moral principles. For example, the State of Israel will stop selling arms and military knowledge to regimes that commit crimes against humanity and violate human rights.?

Jerusalem and the Temple Mount:

Jerusalem in general and the Temple Mount in particular are at the core of Jewish national existence throughout the generations.

Zehut will work to develop Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. With the realization of its political program (see above, “The Diplomatic Plan”), the conflict will disappear, and the non-Jews who will remain in Jerusalem are those who will accept the sovereignty of Israel. In light of this, it will be possible to expand the boundaries of the city in the east and north, in order to create “greater metropolitan Jerusalem”. The Jerusalem Metropolis will include Bethlehem and Gush Etzion in the south, Beit Shemesh and Modi’in in the west, Ramallah in the north, and Ma’aleh Adumim and Jericho in the east. In addition, Zehut will improve access to Jerusalem through a variety of strategic infrastructures such as ring roads, construction of an international airport, improvement of the mountain road and roads in East Jerusalem, especially around the Old City.?

Zehut will strive to transfer the government complex, the Knesset building and the Supreme Court from the west of the city to the Old City in the areas adjacent to the Temple Mount.

?The Temple Mount is not the epicenter of a religious conflict, but the beating heart of the entire nation. There is a direct connection between the loss of Israel’s hold on the Mount (since it was actually handed over to the Moslem waqf) and the loss of the international legitimacy of the State of Israel. Over the years, Israel’s leaders, Left and Right, have done everything possible to “escape” from dealing with the Temple Mount. Zehut strongly opposes this policy, and sees the return of full Israeli control over the Mount as a national goal of the highest order.

?Accordingly, Zehut intends to distance the waqf – or any other foreign entity that is not subject to Israeli sovereignty -from the Temple Mount. The Israeli police will be permanently stationed on the Mount – not at its edge, as is currently the case. Visits to the Temple Mount will be possible at all hours of the day without restriction, and the security of the citizens of Israel on the Mount will be absolutely assured, with the recruitment of all the necessary police forces. Access to the Temple Mount for Jews will be permitted through all the gates, without any reservation.

?By virtue of the Law for the Preservation of the Holy Places, Zehut intends to hand over the Temple Mount to the Chief Rabbinate, which will also be able to regulate the ascent and prayer of the Jews on the Mount to the permissible areas within the framework of Jewish law and demarcate those areas.. A Jewish synagogue will be built on the Mount. In addition, the Temple Mount will be opened for archeological research without the current restrictions.