WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: Our Jewish homeland’s sovereign rebirth just got formally denounced this week at the UN and in the US Congress by our Palestinian Arab peace process “partner” as a “Catastrophe.” Grassroots American Jews have to recognize that there’s no splitting of land of Israel sovereignty with these people, who are already the majority population of a sovereign Arab state situate on 78% of the Palestine Mandate.
“Nakba 75”: A Wake-up Call Shrill Enuf To Wake the Woke. But Will It?
You can take your pick as to which was the worst among the many anti-Jewish, anti-Israel things Abbas said during his hour-long “Nakba 75” tirade this week at the UN (see, e.g., “What Did Abbas Say During the Speech?” in Jerusalem Post, 5/15/23, US, UK Are Responsible For the Nakba – Abbas Tells United Nations). Abbas’ denunciations ranged over some three thousand years.
Having myself just boned up on the subject by reading Leen Ritmeyer’s very thorough and very impressive The Quest, I particularly liked Elder of Ziyon’s response (EOZ blog-post carried in Jewish Press, 5/16/23, Abbas’ Nakba Day Speech: Delusional and Antisemitic) to Abbas’ denial that there’d been Jewish Temples on a Jewish Temple Mount:
“… the entire Temple Mount was built by Jews, in sections, from the time of the Biblical kings to the Hasmonean extensions to the Herodian extensions. These extensions can be seen from the Eastern Wall of the Mount.
“The entire Temple Mount is proof of the Temples!
“Denying the Temples – which have been accepted as legitimate by Muslim scholars without question before Palestinians sprouted up in the mid-1950’s – is denying Jewish history and is pure antisemitism.”
“But,” as Elder of Ziyon goes on, “that was just the beginning of Abbas’ delusions mentioned in his speech.” An also May 15 Jerusalem Post article, Abbas at UN Disavows Jewish Ties to Al-Aqsa, Compares Israel to Nazis, likewise quotes Abbas’ Temples denial,
“the ownership of al-Buraq Wall [the Western Wall] and al-Haram-al-Sharif [Temple Mount] belongs exclusively and only to the Islamic Wakf alone” [bracketed insertions Jerusalem Post’s]
but also details Abbas’ demands in the present:
“In his address, Abbas alternatively called for a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the pre-1967 lines
“,,, Abbas called for the right of return for Palestinian refugees to land within the pre-1967 lines ….
“Abbas told the UN it was important that there be a ‘return of the refugees to their towns and villages of which they were displaced
“… Israel should be forced to accept Resolutions 181 [recommended partition] and 194 [conditional return of refugees] on the return of Palestinian refugees or face suspension [from the UN].”
Abbas is seen as the “moderate” among leaders of Palestinian Arab factions. He is of course in his old age, in the sixteenth year or so of his “four-year term,” has rivals within his own Fatah organization, and has less “moderate” rival organizations in Gaza coveting his “West Bank” domain. His Nakba 75 speech was not moderation, regarding either historical Jewish homeland claims to the land or the present conflict’s resolution. But by his competitors and maybe successors, he may be the more moderate.
The two-state solution’s pre-1967 lines are not geographically defined natural borders, but snake through the land between where the Israeli and invading Jordanian armies stood in 1949. Returning to the existentially vulnerable 1949 lines, and surrendering historic Jerusalem to a new Arab state would be militarily and Jewishly meaningfully suicidal for Israel.
But What Alternative Peace Solution Is There?
PM Rabin, who was no right-wing “ultra-nationalist,” envisioned a western Palestine Arab entity that would be “less than a state.” (And Palestinian Arabs are the majority in Jordan, on 78% of the Palestine Mandate.) Former PM Bennett put it this way: “There is no room for another state between the sea and the Jordan” (Israpundit, 9/22/22, Bennett Slams Lapid). Trump’s peace plan, acceptable to both Bibi and Ganz, fleshed out this concept. See his Ambassador to Israel David Friedman’s book Sledgehammer. Palestinian Arabs would have internal autonomy in areas of Judea-Samaria larger than they have now, with Israel retaining security control. They would have four years to accept this solution, during which Israel would not apply sovereignty in these areas.
Grassroots American Jews currently favoring a two-state solution need to take a hard look at Abbas’ “Nakba 75” speech this week at the UN, and reflect on whether there is room between the Jordan and the Sea for such a Palestinian Arab state in historic Jerusalem and in the Judea-Samaria hill country dominating a lowland shrunken Israel. If not, Now, with our Jewish homeland being denounced this week in the headquarters of the UN (and in the United States Congress by Cong. Tlaib, facilitated by the Shaner Yid Senator Sanders) as a “Nakba,” literally a CATASTROPHE, a Shanda upon the World, is a time to speak up, offering, e.g., the Trump peace plan as an alternative.