WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: An historian wrote last week that it’s Palestinian Arabs who’ve never accepted “Two-States” in the American sense of “two states for two peoples.” Lee and I documented this in our book a decade ago. American Jews must understand that they’re advocating a “solution” that neither side accepts as resolving the conflict.
“J – Jewish State, Fundamental Part of Two-State Solution”
Back in 2012, a decade ago, my friend Lee Bender, of Blessed Memory, and I wrote a book. We called it Pressing Israel: Media Bias Exposed From A-to-Z. We allocated a different category of mainstream media Israel coverage malfeasance to each letter of the alphabet. Many of these canards against Israel are still out there today. E.g.:
“A – ‘Apartheid’ – A False Charge Against Israel
“B – ‘Borders’? – Just 1949 Ceasefire Lines
“Q – al Quds – Not Your Forefathers’ Jerusalem
“W – ‘West Bank’ – Not Its Name for 3,000 Years
“Z – ‘Zionist’ State – Why Calling Israel ‘Israel’ Matters Deeply”
Just last week, a distinguished historian, Kenneth Levin, made clear that another of these alphabet-assigned anti-Israel canards remains in effect. In a March 24 JNS article, Biden’s Israel Ambassador vs. Yitzhak Rabin on Israel Security, historian Levin noted:
“No Palestinian leader talking of two states has ever accepted that one will be the Jewish state.”
Levin made this observation last week in referencing “P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas’s repeatedly declared insistence that he will never recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state; that the Jews have no history in the area and no legitimate claims to it; and that their state must be expunged.”
Subsequent to our writing about this a decade ago, nothing has changed. “The Palestinians,” as even we inappropriately and inaccurately call them, still reject “two states for two peoples.” Here (emphasis added throughout) is a summary of what we wrote under “J” in our book:
“J – Jewish State – Fundamental Part of Two-State Solution”
“The M.S.M. depicts Israel as the recalcitrant side on supporting ‘the two-state solution’ proposed by the U.S. in the celebrated ‘Road Map.’ The M.S.M. quotes Palestinian Arab leaders chiding Israel for not supporting it. The reality is exactly the opposite. It’s Israel that’s in synch with America’s ‘Two-States’ definition as ‘two states for two peoples,’ and the Palestinian Arabs who are adamantly against it. [See Section 2 XII]”
“America’s Position on ‘Two-States’: ‘Two States for Two Peoples’”
We began by quoting American diplomats on the American understanding of the “two-state solution” Americans themselves promulgated.
*** We quoted Amb. George Mitchell (AP, 4/17/09):
“’U.S. policy favors…a two-state solution, which would have a Palestinian state living in peace alongside the Jewish state of Israel,’ Mitchell said.”
*** And Susan Rice, Permanent Representative of the US to the UN, 12/14/11:
“There is no substitute for direct, face-to-face negotiations. The goal remains a lasting peace: two states for two peoples, Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland of the Palestinian people ….”
“Israel’s Position on ‘Two-States’: ‘Two Staes for Two Peoples’”
Then we quoted Bibi addressing the Cabinet (4/20/09):
“We insist that the Palestinians – in any diplomatic settlement with us – will recognize the State of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people. The entire international community demands that we recognize the principle of two states for two peoples and we are discovering that this is two states but not for two peoples but two states for one people, or two states for a people-and-a-half.”
“Media Misportrayal of Palestinian Arab and Israeli Positions on ‘Two-States’”
Then we quoted the media touting the Palestinian Arabs as championing “Two-States” and chiding Israel as not supporting it. E.g., Jerusalem Post (1/10/10) quoted “top Palestinian negotiator” Saab Erekat that “’We want a clear recognition of the two-state solution and the 1967 borders [sic, 1949 ceasefire lines],’ Erekat said.” The LA Times 4/22/09 reported that “the newly installed Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not endorsed the two-state goal endorsed by the United States.” But see Netanyahu’s statement to the Israeli cabinet, quoted above, two days earlier. See also AP quoting Abbas 2/13/09 that “Israel should ‘accept the two-state solution’” and 4/13/09: “… no reason to negotiate if Netanyahu did not support a two-state solution….”
“What Palestinian Arabs Actually Mean by ‘Two States’”
And then we quoted Palestinian Arabs themselves on what they really mean by “Two-States.”
*** 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:
“Abbas: No to Jewish state
“On Friday afternoon [9/23/11], Abbas said he was adamant about not recognizing Israel as the Jewish state.
“’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.”
*** Caroline Glick’s Jerusalem Post column (Townhall.com, 8/5/11) quoted 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.’”
*** A 9/22/10 ZOA press release reported on a UN meeting the day before. ZOA:
“More Proof Palestinians Don’t Want Peace
“P.A. Prime Minister Fayyad Freaks Out, Walks Out: Won’t Accept Two States for Two Peoples
“Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, wrongly called a ‘moderate,’ angrily left a U.N. meeting and cancelled a scheduled press conference with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon in New York on Tuesday. Fayyad became hysterical and ran out of the room when Ayalon refused to approve a joint press release of the meeting which referred only to ‘two states’ but did not include the words ‘two states for two peoples.’
“… Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon said, ‘…I was very surprised that there was apparently no acceptance of the idea of two states for two peoples. I also said that I don’t need the Palestinians to say Israel is a Jewish state in Hebrew. I need them to say it in Arabic to their own people. If the Palestinians think that they can create one Palestinian state and one dual-nationality state, this will not happen….’”
“The Jewish People’s Commitment to a Jewish State”
We ended chapter “J” of our book with the centrality of our homeland of Israel to Jewish peoplehood at the deepest level, and with what, at the deepest level, the Arab-Jewish Palestine conflict is all about. We wrote:
“Despite a recent M.S.M. suggestion [see “Killing the Peace Process” below in book] that Netanyahu’s insistence on Israel as “a Jewish state” may be just a ‘tactical ploy,’ the Jewish people’s commitment to the land of Israel as the Jewish state runs very deep.
“In 1947, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin recognized that ‘the creation of a sovereign Jewish state’ was ‘the essential point of principle’ for the Jews:
“There are in Palestine about 1,200,000 Arabs and 600,000 Jews. For the Jews, the essential point of principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish state. For the Arabs the essential point of principle is to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine.” (Great Britain, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol. 433, col. 988, quoted in Bell, Terror Out of Zion, New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1977, p. 188)
“Indeed, dividing Palestine into an ‘Arab state,’ not a ‘Palestinian’ state, and a ‘Jewish state’ is what the 1947 U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181, the Partition resolution, was all about. It mentions ‘the Arab state’ and ‘the Jewish state’ over and over.
“The Jews’ Jewish-state commitment didn’t begin in 1947 either, or with the late 19th century modern Zionist movement. It’s a commitment that reaches back 3,000 years. [See Section 2 III]
“Nor is Palestinian Arab rejection of the Jewish state new. Following failure of the 2000 Camp David negotiations, then Israeli P.M. Ehud Barak stated why in his opinion Arafat had rejected what this liberal Israeli administration had considered its “extremely generous” peace offer: ‘At the deepest level, Arafat does not accept the…right of the State of Israel to exist as a Jewish state’ (Myre & Griffin, This Burning Land, p. 20).”
The Lesson Today for American Jews
I recognize that many of you fellow American Jews who honor me by reading these weekly emails are wedded to “the two-state solution,” even, as the Reform and Conservative religious movements et al put it in a letter to then President Trump, with borders that “hew precisely to the 1967 borders [sic],” save for any mutually agreed “territorial adjustments.” Appreciate, however, that “The Palestinians,” for whom no Jewish state is acceptable, no more accept this as a final resolution of the conflict than do today the Israelis, who insist upon and have the strongest claim to Judea-Samaria and Old City and rest of historic Jerusalem.
PS: A Bit of Perspective: Some years ago, arising from my presentation of my first book, Israel 3000 Years: The Jewish People’s 3000 Year Presence in Palestine, to the Jewish Book Council in New York, I had the privilege to have been invited to present my book to a JCC north of New York. There were two books on the evening’s program, mine and Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin’s & then-AP husband Greg Myre’s book, This Burning Land, on their years of being stationed in Jerusalem during the Second Intifada, where they raised two little daughters. They told this story: When one of their little daughters said to the other on her toy phone, “There’s just been a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv,” and her sister replied, “Did you send a photographer?”, Jennifer & Greg decided it was time to go home to DC. Driving along there one day in their car, Jennifer turned to their daughters and asked how they liked living in Washington. They replied: “Why did you bring us to this dangerous place?”