WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: Wild-eyed pro-Israel fanatic, and collector of almost a thousand books on Israel, ancient and modern, that I am, I’ve tried to get you, my fellow grassroots American Jews, to read inspiring-on-Israel books like David Pressfield’s The Lion’s Gate with its riveting “in the cockpit, inside the tank, under the helmet” accounts of the Six Day War, and acclaimed Israeli author Yoram Kaniuk’s bio of Yossi Harel, Commander of the Exodus. But even I can’t ask you, without smiling, to read Bibi’s 724-page auto-bio Bibi: My Story. But I would have you know what it says on pages 577-78. Come see.
A Two-Slate Solution for Us Grassroots American Jews
Ok, during my world-wide-web wandering last week, I clicked on some right-wing pro-Israel petition [on what else would I click?] to Congress, urging them I guess to get the UN, or the EU, or the International Criminal Court, or whomever, to lay off a little on uniquely unendingly bludgeoning for “Committing-War-Crimes-In-The-Occupied-Palestinian-Territories” our Jewish homeland of Israel. I guess I thought I’d be an inconspicuous number 12,345 or some such on a Petition-to-Congress’ signatories list. No way. My click auto-generated doubtless so-sounding individual form letters to my District Congresswoman and State’s two U.S. Senators, Democrats all. All three emailed replies to me this week, vowing unswerving support for our U.S. Ally Jewish homeland of Israel, and for “the Two-State Solution.”
By me, this says a lot about us – specifically most grassroots American Jews’ support, how do the Democrats put it, for “two states along the 1967 [i.e., 1949 ceasefire] lines with mutually agreed territorial swaps.” Beyond that it’s not for we American Jews to tell Israeli Jews, who unlike us Defend the Jewish state and its borders, what its capital and borders should be, depriving Israel of historic Jerusalem and defensible Judea-Samaria heartland seems to me a mutilation unthinkable that any Jew would support.
But here’s my Trump-loyal-Republican message to my mostly Democratic fellow grassroots American Jews. Don’t jump to the GOP. Beyond that we disagree on so many Good-For-America things – e.g., borders, energy independence, Voter ID –, on Israel you’re more needed and can do more good where you are. Be a force for undoing “Two-States” as a consensus policy of the Democratic Party.
It’s not new with Biden Blinken & Nides. A 5/18/20 Times of Israel article quoted former U.S, Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro:
“Support for a two-state solution based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps remains a consensus policy within the Democratic Party ….”
It goes back with the Democrats further than that. Here’s what it says in United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted 14-0-1 with U.S. abstention in 2016 in the Obama administration’s way out the door. 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;
“[2] Reiterates its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard;
“[3] Underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations; ….” [emphasis added, a trifle]
Finally, my fellow grassroots American Jews of the Democratic Party persuasion, as evidence of just how badly you’re needed to stand up in your Party for our Jewish people’s historic national home, I want to warn you what it says on pages 577-578 of a 724-page book, Bibi: My Story, you’re unlikely, even as a demonstration of commitment to Zionism, to read.
The U.S. didn’t just “abstain” on that UNSC resolution. Oh, no. Here, from the perspective of the prime minister of the State bombed by UNSC 2334, is the background in which that shameful sellout of the Palestine Mandate with its Jewish national home west of the River, of three-millennia history which has seen three homeland Jewish states and no homeland Arab states, and even of UNSC 242 with its “secure” boundaries, and fortunately no follow-up UNSC resolution, came to be. Netanyahu says on page 577 that following Trump’s election victory in November 2016,
“…. there were still two months to go before the new president took office and I knew I would have to dodge Obama’s parting shot at the UN Security Council….
“…. Two normally Israel-friendly governments let us know that they were secretly approached by the US to support this hostile resolution and that they had no choice but to go along with it….
“…. Trump’s people were powerless to help but the president-elect did issue a statement decrying the imposition of terms by the UN and underscoring that direct negotiations were the only way forward.
“I knew definitively that I had lost this round. UN Security Council Resolution 2334 passed on December 23, 2016, with the US abstaining. It mandated that ‘Israel stop immediately and completely all settlement activity in the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalem.’
“…. I had received word that in the final months remaining until the inauguration of the new US president, a new and even harsher Security Council resolution was being prepared. This one would be a binding resolution calling on Israel to withdraw to the 1967 lines and establishing a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital….
“…. I communicated to Moscow my extreme disappointment with Russia’s vote on the previous resolution.
“’We hear you,’ was the answer I received.
“I was not disappointed again.
“The second resolution never materialized.”
At least, not yet. But here’s how Bibi characterized that first resolution, 2334. See if this resonates with you:
“In a speech at the Western Wall on the eve of Hanukkah, I ripped into the resolution. ‘The UN resolution is twisted and shameful but we’ll overcome it. It says that the Jewish Quarter is occupied. That’s absurd. It says that the Western Wall is occupied territory. That is absurd, too. We reject this outright just as we rejected the absurd resolution that equated Zionism with racism.’”
So, my fellow grassroots American Jews who are of the Democratic Party persuasion, do you think your Party and your People need you?