WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: There was a time, perhaps, when majorities of Israeli and American Jews both viewed a western Palestine ‘two-state solution’ as a potential realistic conflict resolution. Polls show, for Israelis, no more. Our role, however we may individually feel about “land for peace” concessions, is to make the strongest Jewish homeland claim to Judea, Samaria and historic Jerusalem.
This Week: Time for We American Jews, and Our Institutions, to Recognize What Most Israelis Already Have – that a Peaceful ‘Two-State Solution’ is an Illusion
Back in 1947, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin (no friend of ours) accurately told Parliament that for the Jews, the essential point for principle was establishment in Palestine of a Jewish state, and that for the Arabs the essential point of principle was to prevent that from occurring. (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)
Has anything changed? United With Israel reported this month, citing Palestinian Authority actions, that “young children in the PA-run territories are taught early-on that all of ‘Palestine’ belongs to them and that the State of Israel will cease to exist.” And it is not just words. The ZOA (“New Haaretz Poll ….”, 3/26/19) reiterated just this Tuesday that the Palestinian Authority “continues to pay hundreds of millions of dollars per year in ‘pay to slay’ payments to murder Jews,” that “the PA is the only regime in the world that pays people to murder a specific group.” ZOA pointed out that this very week a Palestinian Authority village “named a street after the Palestinian-Arab terrorist who [just recently] murdered Rabbi Ahiah Ettinger, a beloved father of 12 children, and Sgt. and musician Gal Keidan,” citing Israel Nat’l News.
In the face of all this, not to mention this week’s Hamas commemoration of completing a full year of its violent weekly “March of Return,” a rocket from Gaza striking a home north of Tel Aviv, etc., does a western Palestine “two-state solution” ceding the Judea-Samaria Jewish homeland high ground to who-knows-what ultimate “Palestinian” entity, leaving Israel 9-miles-wide in the lowland middle, seem a whit more realistic than the “Green New Deal”?
According to a new Haaretz [!] poll, Israelis themselves no longer think so. The full title of that ZOA release cited above is “New Haaretz Poll: Only 34% Israelis Support ‘Two State Solution,’ Meaning a Palestinian State.” Its subtitle: “Poll: Majority of Israelis Support Full or Partial Israeli Annexation of Judea/Samaria.” This is ZOA citing this, not alone saying this. ZOA:
“The new Haaretz poll confirms other recent polls that demonstrate overwhelming Israeli opposition to a Palestinian-Arab state. For instance, the 2017 Maagar Mochot poll showed that an overwhelming 10 to 1 majority of Israelis oppose a Palestinian-Arab state and favor Israeli sovereignty over Judea-Samaria. (See ‘New Polls Show Overwhelming Opposition to Palestinian Arab State and Concessions,’ ZOA, Apr. 3, 2017).”
Some 18,000 supporters of Israel attended the essential American Jewish organization AIPAC’s annual conference in Washington this past week, but JNS ran an article Wednesday, “Judea and Samaria Still Off-Limits at AIPAC, Supporters Gather Off-Site.” Retired British Col. Richard Kemp was among this off-site gathering’s speakers. He stressed that “from a purely military perspective, it is completely impossible for the security of Israel to be maintained” without Judea-Samaria being within “the security envelope of the Israel Defense Forces.” He warned: “As Gaza has been used to attack Israel, as Sinai has been used, as Southern Lebanon has been used, so, too, would Judea and Samaria be used,” if Israel were to cede military control of them.
Co-host spokesperson for the Jewish community of Hebron Yishai Fleisher said, “If you listen to the media, we are not the startup nation, we are the occupation nation. It is a pernicious narrative.” JNS:
“He [Fleisher] stressed that the most important war Israel is fighting today is ‘the narrative war,’ which he says focuses on battling the worst form of delegitimization, whereby Israelis are considered ‘thieves’ in their own homeland.
“Fleisher said it’s time we ‘retell our narrative,’ pointing to education and outsiders visiting the areas in question to see them firsthand. He also said another crucial way ‘is to be strong, and to settle and live in our land.’
“Fleisher and co-host Eve Harow noted the importance of discussing the future of the settlements, which they acknowledge is a controversial topic in the United States. Both expressed their hope that AIPAC would bring such an event out of the sidelines and into the conference itself next year.”
“Settlements” is not just “a controversial topic in the United States,” but a controversial topic among us Jews, including sincerely pro-Israel Jews, in the United States. But let us sincerely pro-Israel American Jews, and our American Jewish institutions, agree among ourselves and advocate the Jewish homeland case to the extent that we can.
[1] Let’s start with this: “Settlements” is a dirty word. The mainstream western media, which means us no good, revels in bluntly contrasting “Israeli settlements, Jewish settlements” in the same sentence with “Palestinian neighborhoods, Palestinian villages, Palestinian towns.” Say “Israeli communities, Jewish communities in Jerusalem, in Judea-Samaria,” not “Israeli/Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.”
[2] Israelis [can you blame them? I can’t] have by a large majority given up on “the two-state solution,” meaning a Palestinian Arab state in part of Jerusalem and in Judea-Samaria. It’s not for us, American Jews and our institutions, to tell Jews in Israel what compromises, what sacrifices they should make in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace. AIPAC rightly has a policy heading on its website: “Support Direct Negotiations, Not Imposed Solutions.” But its very first sentence beneath that heading states: “A negotiated two-state solution – a Jewish state of Israel living in peace and security side by side with a demilitarized Palestinian state – is the clearest path to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” For a host of reasons – standing, strategic, substantive – we American Jews, and our institutions, should back off from touting such “clearest” if not most realistic [“demilitarized”? For how long?] path-treading suggestions for Israel.
[3] We can all, including those among us who would settle for less, join in making what Fleisher calls “our narrative,” that the Jewish people has a real homeland claim to Jerusalem and Judea-Samaria. To be at all effective in getting the West to listen, we have to state our claim and peace settlement position as simply as possible – We never left and are the original Palestinians, and Israel and Jordan, 22% and 78%, respectively, of the Palestine Mandate, with their respective Jewish and Palestinian Arab-majority populations, are the Palestine Mandate’s two-states for two peoples solution.
If Col. Kemp is right that permanent Israeli security control over Judea-Samaria is existential for Israel, and, which I also believe, that a Jewish homeland without historic Jerusalem (i.e., on “Israel’s 1967 borders”) would be as Zion-less a Zion as Uganda, we have no choice.