WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: That the UN and EU, no fans of the Jewish homeland of Israel, support creation of a new western Palestine Arab state, inside the historic land of Israel, along the long-obliterated 1949 ceasefire “green line” ought to give American Jews pause about themselves supporting such a Greenline New Deal.
Delusion of The Century: American Jews’ Joinder In The Greenline New Deal
Israeli diplomat Alan Baker had a Jerusalem Post article this week, The EU’s Hypocritical, Patronizing Attitude Toward Israel, 10/3/19, in which he (by me, rightly) says:
“The EU representative [for the Middle East Peace Process] evidently believes that incessant repetition of the phrase ‘two-state solution’ adds some element of legitimacy and feasibility to the idea. But the two-state solution has never been agreed-upon between Israel and the Palestinians, and does not figure in any of the agreements between them. It is nothing more than an expression of wishful thinking within the UN and EU.”
But the “two-state solution” goes way beyond “wishful thinking.” It’s a way of thinking that [1] begs against the Jews the fundamental frame of reference – the definition of Palestine – of the long Arab-Jewish Palestine conflict, and [2] worse than undoes the achievement fifty years ago of sovereign redemption of the Jewish national home.
[1] All Palestine Is Divided Into Two Parts – Jordan for Arabs, Israel for Jews
Palestine, an area of what had been the Turkish Ottoman Empire for four hundred years, was assigned its own disposition by the League of Nations in the post-WW I Palestine Mandate. That Palestine Mandate recognized “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” and “the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.” The “Palestine” which that Palestine Mandate initially encompassed included areas on both sides of the Jordan River, today’s Israel and Jordan.
The Mandate included a clause allowing the Mandatory, Britain, “to postpone or withhold” application of the Mandate’s provisions “in the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined.” Britain quickly exercised that option, excising the 78% of Palestine east of the Jordan River from the Mandate as all-Arab Transjordan, today’s Jordan.
That excision of Jordan left just the remaining 22% of Palestine west of the Jordan River in which to apply the Mandate’s high-sounding language about reconstituting the Jewish national home. The “two-state solution” so favored by the UN and EU, per Baker’s JPost article, would divide for a second time between Arabs and Jews the portion of Palestine to which that Jewish national home language applied. That Jewish national home language would end up applying to just a part of that first division’s remaining 22% – i.e. to just a fraction of that fifth.
The justification advanced for this second division of Palestine between Arabs and Jews is that the particular Arabs ruling today’s Palestinian Arab-majority Jordan aren’t Palestinian Arabs but still colonial British-enthroned Hashemite Arab kings, but the fix for that should be found within that first division’s 78% awarded to Arabs, not in a second division between Arabs and Jews of that first division’s 22% left for the Jews.
Western publics’ sense of fairness sees a Palestine equitably divided between Arabs and Jews. The UN’s and EU’s western Palestine “two-state solution” says that what’s Arabs’ in Palestine is Arabs’, what’s Jews’ is divisible. The more equitable view is: All Palestine Is Divided Into Two Parts – 78% as all-Arab Jordan for Arabs, 22% as Israel for Jews.
[2] An Inside-the-land-of-Israel Arab state would nullify the Jewish National Home
It’s not just the UN and EU that are pushing a western Palestine “two-state solution” that’s widely opposed, as Jonathan Tobin repeatedly points out, by Israel’s Jews. The central pillars of American Jewry, including AIPAC and the Reform and Conservative movements, doubtlessly reflecting the views of their constituents, the large majority of American Jews, push it as well. Indeed, the Reform and Conservatives’ petition to President Trump, in which several other big American Jewish groups joined, calls for Israel’s borders with that new Palestinian Arab state to “hew precisely” to “the 1967 borders” [i.e., the 1949 ceasefire line, drawn with a green pen and hence called “the green line,” expressly declared in its defining document not to be a political border] except for “any territorial adjustments” thereto in agreements signed by the two sides.
It’s hard to believe that Diaspora supporters of Israel who have read even casually about the battles of the 1948 and 1967 wars would call for restoring the 9-miles-wide in the lowland middle ceasefire lines of 1949. They are militarily indefensible in the extreme.
But deeper than that, surrendering historic Jerusalem, the Old City with its Jewish Quarter, Temple Mount, Western Wall, and the City of David, all with incalculable found and to-be-found archeological proofs of the Jews’ biblical kingdoms, and the Judea-Samaria hill country heartland, would undo the 1967 War’s fulfillment of the Dream of Generations for the Jewish homeland’s sovereign redemption. Worse than that, it would turn their ante bellum de facto possession by Jordan into de jure possession of a new Arab state.
UNSC Resolution 2334, adopted 14-0 with the U.S. abstaining in the final days of the Obama administration, which is typically referred to as “condemning Israeli settlements,” does greater damage than that. It says that the world, represented by the elected Security Council of the U.N.:
“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;
“4. Stresses that the cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the two-State solution, and calls for affirmative steps to be taken immediately to reverse the negative trends on the ground that are imperilling the two-State solution;
“5. Calls upon all States, bearing in mind paragraph 1 of this resolution, to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967; ….” [emphasis added, but not by much]
This UNSC Resolution 2334 contradicted both UNSC 242, which didn’t demand Israeli withdrawal from all territory captured in the 1967 War, and the Oslo Accords themselves, which left territorial issues for negotiation.
That American Jews largely endorse “the 1967 borders” (which even the UN in 2334 called “the 4 June 1967 lines”) goes beyond unrealistic peace-envisioning wishful thinking. It’s endorsement of a Greenline New Deal that would be security-wise suicidal for Israel and nullify the 1967 defensive war’s fulfillment of the 1948 defensive war-begun redemption of the Dream of Generations for rebirth of Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish homeland of Israel.
We in the minority of American Jews who disagree with AIPAC and the Reform and Conservative movements’ support of creation of a new Arab state inside the historic land of Israel have to persuade our fellow grassroots American Jews of that course’s injustice and folly.