WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: Different folks have different views on what both states of the “two-state solution” should look like – demilitarized Arab state?, recognition of Israel as Jewish state?, etc. Peace Now-and-J Street-backed Jewish Congressmen have just introduced what the liberal Dershowitz calls an “Israel-endangering” Two-State Solution Act bill. Here’s how I see where pro- and con- folks stand, and where American Jews should come out.
This Week: Not Just Two Takes on “Two-States”
You’d think the range of views on a western Palestine “Two-State Solution” would be binary – zero or one, against or in-favor. But as Prof. Dershowitz, who favors “two states for two peoples” but strongly opposes a “Two-State Solution Act” just introduced into Congress by J Street-aligned Jewish Democrat House members, put it on Gatestone last Sunday (Mainstream Democrats Introduce Bill Endangering Israel, 9/26/21), it’s “more complicated.”
On the Pro- Side of the “Two-State Solution”
*** International Community: The lead international player championing “The Two-State Solution” is of course the UN. Operative paragraph 1 of UNSC 2334, adopted 14-0-1 with US abstention in the Obama administration’s final days, charmingly states that the Security Council
“[1] Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;” [emphasis added]
*** American Jews and Our Institutions: On April 12, 2019, an open letter was addressed to the President of the United States, Donald Trump, by nine august institutions of the American Jewish community.
That letter – signed by ADL, Ameinu, ARZA, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Jewish Women International, Israel Policy Forum, MERCAZ USA, National Council of Jewish Women, Rabbinical Assembly, Union for Reform Judaism and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism – “strongly urged” President Trump to support the “two-state solution”:
“Dear President Trump:
“The undersigned organizations unequivocally support efforts to reach a durable peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians and endorse the priority that you have placed on addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We strongly urge you to pledge that any peace initiative that your administration proposes will be based upon the principle of a negotiated two-state solution . . . and to clearly express your opposition to unilateral measures outside of this framework, including annexation by Israel of any territory in the West Bank.”
“… While that [two-state] solution is unlikely to hew precisely to the 1967 borders, any territorial adjustments must result in a signed agreement between the two sides.” [emphasis added]
But did those nine august American Jewish institutions fairly reflect the views of the bulk of American Jews? An [ok] Haaretz article the following week, Two-State Solution: U.S. Jews Won’t Budge. Will It Cost Them Their Relationship With Israel?, emphatically insisted they do. The article starts off that “the alphabet soup of organizations comprising the so-called American Jewish establishment,” in which the article includes the Federations, policy arms of the Reform and Conservative movements, AIPAC, ADL, AJC and others, “are all in lock-step agreement that a two-state solution is a declared goal to securing a Jewish and democratic state.” It says these groups “faithfully reflect their constituency on this issue” and that “the vast majority of American Jews – who vote in large numbers for the Democratic Party – see two-states as the best way forward.” The article acknowledges that both Israelis and, in the U.S., “right-leaning Orthodox Jews” and the ZOA and some other groups see things differently, but it calls “this embrace of the two-state solution by American Jewry … inextricably tight.” So that settles that.
*** U.S. Democratic Party Policy Consensus and President Biden: A Times of Israel article co-authored by Daniel Shapiro, US Ambassador to Israel from 2011 to 2017, on 5/18/20, Democrats’ Stand on Annexation Poses a Dilemma for Israel, says:
“Support for a two-state solution based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps remains a consensus policy within the Democratic Party ….” [emphasis added]
In his address last month to the United Nations General Assembly, President Biden affirmed his support for the two-state solution. Daily Sabah, apparently a Turkish newspaper with an English edition, summed up President Biden’s UN remarks:
“Biden Backs Two-State Solution for Israel, Palestine at UNGA
“United States President Joe Biden, in stark contrast to his predecessor Donald Trump’s staunch pro-Israel stance, backed the two-state solution on Tuesday during a speech at the 76th General Assembly of the United Nations, adding that a sovereign and democratic Palestinian state is the ‘best way’ to ensure the Jewish state’s future….
“… ‘I continue to believe that a two-state solution is the best way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish democratic state, living in peace alongside a viable, sovereign and democratic Palestinian state,’ he said.
“’We’re a long way from that goal at this moment but we should never allow ourselves to give up on the possibility of progress.’” [emphasis added]
*** Cong. Levin’s ‘Two-State Solution Act’ and Prof. Dershowitz’s Objections: A Times of Israel article last Sunday, Progressive Dems Introduce Bill They Say Aims at Keeping 2-State Solution Alive, leads with a photo (in case you’re wondering where these good folks are coming from) of a press conference showing its sponsor, Rep. Andy Levin (D-Michigan) flanked by Dem Reps. Alan Lowenthal, Sara Jacobs and Paul Welch, and Hadar Susskind, the CEO of Americans For Peace Now [American affiliate of Israeli group Alev Ha’Shalom Achshav] and J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami.
The article says the bill says “the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip are all occupied territories and should be referred to as such in all official US policies, documents and communications.” A la the EU, it bars Israeli goods made beyond the 1949 ceasefire lines from “made in Israel” labeling. It revokes the designation of the PLO as a terrorist group, and “imposes strict oversight of how Israel spends defense assistance.” Article: “The legislation says the US should encourage the PA to reform its so-called ‘pay-to-slay’ practice of providing regular stipends to security prisoners [i.e., murderers of Israeli civilians] and families of dead terrorists through its welfare program [really].”
Prof. Dershowitz in his above-cited Gatestone article had conniptions. “First and foremost, it is a categorical lie to say that Gaza is occupied.” He says the case of “Jerusalem is more complicated,” but “East Jerusalem,” including the Jewish Quarter and Western Wall and “the rest of East Jerusalem, which is part of a unified city,” are “not occupied territories.” The “West Bank” areas of the Etzion Bloc, Maale Adumim and Gilo “are not occupied” [conveying as a negative pregnant that the rest of “the West Bank” is?]. The bill’s one-sided restrictions on Israel “would destroy any prospect for peace, would reward and encourage terrorism and disincentivize Palestinian leaders from negotiating with Israel.”
Against the “Two-State Solution”
*** Most Israelis, ZOA and Me: On April 25, 2019, the ZOA issued a statement, Most Israelis Disagree with Dershowitz’s Support for a Palestinian State. The ZOA began by acknowledging it had been pleased to have honored Prof. Dershowitz at one of its annual 1200-attendee galas in New York. (I was there and participated fully in the cocktail hour. Alas, I fell asleep during the after-dinner speeches, but I dreamed that three impossible things happened: [1] The right-of-center ZOA presented an award to the left-of-center Prof. Dershowitz; [2] Prof. Dershowitz showed up to accept it; and [3] he introduced as his brightest law student ever the evening’s main speaker, the right-of-center Senator Cruz. In the car on the way home from New York, everyone agreed they’d had same impossible dream.) “Nevertheless,” said ZOA, “we disagree with his advocacy for creating a Palestinian-Arab state.” It gave a half-dozen reasons.
[1] Dershowitz calls opposing that state “extreme,” but a 2019 Israeli poll found that “more than 73% of Israelis oppose creating a Palestinian-Arab state.” A 2017 poll found Israelis 10-1 opposed to that state and in favor of Israeli sovereignty over Judea-Samaria. [2] Dershowitz says Israel’s Declaration of Independence was “based on” the [non-binding, Arab-rejected] Partition plan, but it doesn’t mention “partition” but does mention the Mandate under which “the Jewish people’s rights to the land of Israel [not just inside the not yet-existing 1949 ceasefire lines] were affirmed under international law. [3] The Arab rejection and Arab invasion made the partition resolution “a dead letter.” [4] Dershowitz misleadingly portrayed Ben-Gurion as accepting partition. He’d testified to UNSCOP that Israel had rights to all of Mandatory Palestine west of the Jordan, and agreed to consider partition under duress of the continuing British blockade blocking rescue of Holocaust survivors trapped in displaced persons camps in Europe. [5] Dershowitz misleadingly cites Netanyahu’s 2009 speech conditionally acquiescing in Palestinian Arab western Palestine statehood. The PA has never agreed to any of the five conditions, including demilitarization, recognition of Israel as the Jewish state; no “right of return,” defensible Israel boundaries, united Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Both before and after that he rejected such a state sans conditions. [6] The current [Trump] administration doesn’t call for a Palestinian state, and Rabin in his last Knesset speech cited Oslo as envisioning “an entity which is less than a state.”
*** Palestinian Arabs: The September 23, 2021, Conf. of Presidents Daily Alert carried a Palestinian Arab-conducted Palestinian Arab poll which found that “62% of Palestinians oppose the concept of the two-state solution, while 36% support the concept.” Further, “61% oppose and 24% support unconditional resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations” and “54% support a return to armed confrontations and intifada.”
Prof. Dershowitz in his September 26 Gatestone article professed himself as favoring “two states for two peoples.” That US interpretation of “two-states” is not new. That’s just how both US Special Envoy George Mitchell (on-the-record briefing at Sharm el-Sheik, 9/14/10) and US UN Rep. Susan Rice (address to Conf. of Pres. Of Major American Jewish Orgs., 12/14/11) put it in the same words: “two states for two peoples.”
But here’s how the Palestinian Authority answered that. On the very day, September 23, 2011, that Abbas addressed the United Nations, seeking U.N. recognition of a western Palestine Arab state, YNetNews.com quoted Abbas:
“They talk to us about the Jewish state, but I respond to them with a final answer: We shall not recognize a Jewish state,” Abbas said in a meeting with some 200 senior representatives of the Palestinian community in the US, shortly before taking the podium and delivering a speech at the United Nations General Assembly.” [emphasis added]
Caroline Glick’s Jerusalem Post column (per Townhall.com, 8/5/11) observed this in quoting a senior P.A. negotiator’s statement showing clearly that Palestinian Arabs understand exactly what the U.S. and Israel mean by “two states for two peoples,” and that they expressly reject it:
[Glick:] Israel has no one to negotiate with because the Palestinians reject Israel’s right to exist. This much was made clear yet again last month when senior PA “negotiator” Nabil Sha’ath said in an interview with Arabic News Broadcast, “The story of ‘two states for two peoples’ means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this.” [emphasis added]
My Bottom Line
Look at the language employed by the proponents of the Two-State Solution.” UN: “the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem.” 9 US Jewish Institutions: “annexation by Israel of any territory in the West Bank … the 1967 borders.” Consensus Democratic Party policy: “the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps.” Cong. Levin’s bill: “the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip are all occupied territories.”
All of them are based on the Jewish people having no homeland rights, even in Jerusalem, beyond the 1949 ceasefire lines, even though those 1949 lines did not yet exist when the Palestine Mandate recognized the Jews’ twice previously sovereign historical connection to Palestine and called for reconstituting their national home in western Palestine with close settlement of Jews on the land. And Palestinian Arabs, the majority population of the Arab state sitting on eastern Palestine, 78% of the Palestine Mandate, have never ruled western Palestine ever. A 78% / 22% eastern/western partition of Palestine between Arabs and Jews already exists.