#842 2/19/17 – Heresy of The Week: ‘Two States’ May Not Be Only Solution

 

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG:  President Trump, in his meeting with Bibi, and also a “settler” in an op-ed he wrote in the New York Times, both questioned the exclusiveness of “the two-state solution” to resolve the conflict between Arabs and Jews.

 In reporting on Trump, the media didn’t make clear where the Arab side actually stands on “two states for two peoples.” 

 NYT reader reaction to the “settler’s” op-ed  suggests that in broaching alternatives to “Two-States,” we have some groundwork to lay in making the case that Jewish homeland equity doesn’t stop at the 1949 ceasefire line.   A suggestion to that end follows.

 

‘Heresy’ of The Week:  “Two-States” May Not Be Only Solution

President Trump wasn’t alone this week in raising eyebrows for voicing the ‘heresy’ that the “peace process’” long central, if much-misunderstood, “two-state solution” may not be the only potential resolution of the land conflict between Arabs and Jews.

Let’s start with “misunderstood,” in the sense of the American media not adequately informing the American public of Jews’ and Arabs’ respective positions on the solution for which the U.S.-promulgated ‘two-state solution’ actually calls.  A Washington Post news article this week quoted a top Palestinian Authority representative wailing about any wavering on ‘the two-state solution,’ without telling readers that it’s the Palestinian Arabs’ flat rejection of Israel as the Jewish State that rejects ‘two-states’ in its U.S.-defined meaning of “two states for two peoples.”

WP article quotes PA rep wailing about U.S. wavering on ‘Two-States’ without telling readers PA flatly rejected it

Following Wednesday’s White House meeting of President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Philadelphia Inquirer among other papers carried a Washington Post article Thursday (Inq, 2/16/17, A1, 6) which the Inq headlined:

“Trump Offers a Shift”

“In a meeting with Israel’s Netanyahu, he says U.S. will no longer insist on separate Palestinian state as path to peace.”

The WP article correctly characterized the U.S.-promulgated “two-states” plan:

“For years, U.S. officials have endorsed ‘two states for two peoples, living side by side in peace and security’ as a matter of course.”

Thursday’s article directly quoted Saeb Erekat, “a top Palestinian official” and “veteran of seven sets of U.S.-brokered peace talks with Israel” railing against any wavering of commitment to the two-state solution:  “We believe undermining the two-state solution is not a joke,” but is “a disaster and a tragedy for Israelis and Palestinians.”  It indirectly quoted him saying that “the Palestinian Authority remains committed to the two-state idea.”

What’s misleading here is that the Palestinian Authority has never been committed to the two-state idea in the sense that both the U.S. and Israel mean it – “two states for two peoples.”

Abbas, 9/23/11, day he addressed the U.N.:  “’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.”

Caroline Glick, Townhall.com, 8/5/11:

“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, but only a little]

If Not “Two-States” then What?  Media bias-contesters’ role in laying the groundwork for other alternatives

The New York Times on Tuesday ran a “settler’s” op-ed summarizing five alternatives to the ‘two-state solution.’  It garnered tons of NYT reader comments, but Trump got more votes in California than this op-ed got favorable NYT reader comments.

All proposed alternatives emanating from our side to “two-states-on-the-1967-borders” (cf UNSC 2334) are predicated on the Jewish people having, albeit-contested, homeland equity in Judea-Samaria and historic Jerusalem.  The claim of such Jewish equity did not sit well with those NYT readers who regard “The Palestinians” as Judea, Samaria and historic Jerusalem’s indigenous natives, not least because we ourselves join in calling these areas the “West Bank” and “East” Jerusalem that “Israel captured in the 1967 war,” etc., etc.

This “settler’s” NYT op-ed refreshingly acknowledged: “Whenever the claim that Israel stole Palestinian land is heard, Israel’s answers inevitably are: ‘We invented the cell phone ….’”  He wrote that “this inability to give a straight answer” has led to the world pressing Israel “to create a Palestinian state in the historic Jewish heartland of Judea and Samaria, which the world calls the West Bank,” and “has worked to legitimize the idea that the territory of Judea and Samaria is Arab land and that Israel is an intractable occupier.”

The New York Times adorned this op-ed with a photo it captioned: “An Israeli settlement in front of an Arab village in Amona, West Bank.”  [emphasis added]

Thursday’s Washington Post article reported:  “Currently, Palestinians in the West Bank live under an almost 50-year military occupation.”  And it reported:  “Republican and Democratic presidents have backed a future Palestinian state on West Bank land that is now mostly under Israeli military occupation.”

What if?  Would this stir you to, say, armchair activism?

We have to begin by recognizing what everybody in the world recognizes but us – the words you yourself choose to use matter.

Here’s, possibly, one such beginning:  We could put together and post on a website a list of, say, twenty Jewish homeland-delegitimizing expressions too frequently used by spokespersons, pundits and journalists, including our own, alongside balanced, historically-grounded alternatives, and backed by a second document with historical and international law background for each of them.

We would invite you, individually and through your organizations, to endorse this contrasted-terms list calling for balanced instead of delegitimizing expressions.  We’d start sending it, first, to those on our side whose word choices are self-demeaning and counter-productive, and ultimately we’d put it to the mainstream media, to stop echoing the other side’s insistent intended pejoratives.

If this makes sense to you, email me your thoughts on it.

Two articles this week worth your attention:  that Tuesday NYT op-ed by “settler” Yishai Fleisher, and Dan Bacine’s op-ed in this week’s Jewish Exponent on terminology and why the “settlements” are not the “impediment to peace” they’re made out to be.