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Women in Green <wfit2@womeningreen.org>Date: Sat, May 19, 2012 at 10:02 PM
Subject: Let's embrace our friends By CAROLINE B. GLICK
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Column One: Let's embrace our friends
By CAROLINE B. GLICK, The Jerusalem Post
May 18, 2012
In recent years, poll after poll has shown that majority of Israelis
do not believe that two-state paradigm will bring peace.
Two weeks ago, US Congressman Joe Walsh published an op-ed in the The
Washington Times in which he called for the US and Israel to abandon
the two-state solution.
After running through the record of Palestinian duplicity, failed
governance, terrorism and bad faith, he called for Israel to apply its
sovereignty to Judea and Samaria. In his words, Israel should "adopt
the only solution that will bring true peace to the Middle East: a
single Israeli state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Israel is the only country in the region dedicated to peace and the
only power capable of stable, just and democratic government in the
region."
The evidence that the two-state paradigm has failed is overwhelming.
The Palestinians' decision to reject statehood at Camp David in 2000
and launch a terror war against Israel made clear that they had not
abandoned their refusal from 1947 to accept partition of the Land of
Israel with the Jews.
So, too, the Palestinians' election of Hamas in the 2006 elections,
and their missile war against Israel from Gaza in the aftermath of
Israel's complete withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, all made clear that
they are not interested in a Palestinian state. Rather, their chief
desire is Israel's annihilation.
Consequentially, there is no chance whatsoever that the two state
paradigm can work.
Indeed, the fact that there is no Palestinian leader willing to
recognize Israel's right to exist makes clear that if a Palestinian
state is established in Judea and Samaria – in addition to the de
facto Palestinian state in Gaza – that state will be in state of war
with Israel. All territory under its control will be used to attack
the rump Jewish state.
Given the abject failure of the two-state paradigm, it is abundantly
clear that for all the complications that may be associated with the
application of Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, it is a
better option for Israel than Israeli surrender of the areas.
Walsh's op-ed is not his first statement of support for Israeli
annexation. Last September, ahead of the UN general assembly, Walsh
authored Congressional Resolution 394 supporting Israel's right to
annex Judea and Samaria in the event that the Palestinians asked the
UN to recognize a Palestinian state outside the framework of a peace
treaty with Israel. Forty-four other congressmen co-sponsored the
resolution.
And this makes sense.
The Palestinians' decision to turn the issue of Palestinian statehood
over to the UN constituted a substantive breach of the treaties the
PLO signed with Israel. Those agreements stipulated that both sides
agreed that their conflict would be solved through negotiations and
not through unilateral actions. By ending negotiations with Israel and
turning the issue of statehood over to the UN, the Palestinians
canceled their treaties with Israel. Consequently, Israel is no longer
bound by those accords and is free to take its own unilateral actions,
including applying its laws to Judea and Samaria as it did in
Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in the past.
FOR HIS unstinting support for Israel, Walsh has been subject to an
unbridled assault by leftist American Jews. Ron Kampeas from JTA, for
instance, attacked Walsh, accusing him of being no different than
Israel's enemies who seek to destroy Israel by ending its ability to
define itself as a Jewish state through what they refer to as the
"one-state solution."
Kampeas blasted Walsh for suggesting that Palestinians unwilling to
live under Israeli rule could move to Jordan which, with its
75-percent Palestinian majority, is effectively the Palestinian state.
To back up his condemnation, Kampeas quoted Robert Wright's
excoriation of Walsh in The Atlantic.
There Wright wrote, "Offhand, I don't recall a member of Congress in
my lifetime saying anything so grotesquely at odds with American
ideals about ethnic relations and for that matter basic human rights."
For its part, the Jewish-run anti-Israel lobby J Street is mobilizing
its supporters to bring about Walsh's defeat in the November elections
by soliciting contributions to his Democratic challenger. J Street
executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami wrote that "Walsh's prescription
amounts to a call for an end to Israel as the democratic home of the
Jewish people."
It is hard to know where to begin a discussion of this assault in
which Jewish Americans attacked one of Israel's strongest supporters
simply because he had the temerity to recognize reality and call for
the US to support an Israeli victory against our enemies who seek our
destruction.
First, it is important to consider the claim that Walsh went against
the grain of American ideals by suggesting, "Those Palestinians who
wish to may leave their Fatah- and Hamas-created slums and move to the
original Palestinian state: Jordan. The British Mandate for Palestine
created Jordan as the country for the Palestinians. That is the only
justification for its creation. Even now, 75% of its population is of
Palestinian descent."
The fact of the matter is that the two-state paradigm rests on the
assumption that the Palestinian state will be ethnically cleansed of
Jews before it is established. Whereas Walsh somehow stands in
opposition to American ideals for suggesting that the Palestinians may
voluntarily immigrate to Jordan, Kampeas, Ben- Ami and their cohorts
have no problem with the concept of a Jew-free Palestine and the
forcible expulsion of up to 675,000 Jews from their homes in Judea,
Samaria and eastern Jerusalem simply because they are Jewish.
Aside from their pernicious hypocrisy and moral blindness, what stands
out in their assaults on Walsh is that they cannot tell the difference
between Israel's enemies that seek its destruction through the
so-called one-state solution, and Israel's friends, who want it to
defeat its enemies and live with security and peace. For the likes of
Kampeas and Ben-Ami, there is no difference between Walsh and Israel's
worst enemies.
PART OF this problem is their apparent unquestioning acceptance of the
myth of a demographic time bomb. They seem not to have noticed that
the Palestinian claim that by 2015 there will be an Arab majority west
of the Jordan River is a complete fabrication.
The truth is that if Israel applied its laws to Judea and Samaria
tomorrow and all the Palestinians in those areas received Israeli
citizenship, Israel would still retain a two-thirds Jewish majority.
Moreover, all the demographic trends for Israel, including increasing
birthrates and positive immigration rates, are positive. And all the
demographic trends for the Palestinians, including decreasing
birthrates and negative immigration rates, are negative. According to
Israeli demographic researcher Yoram Ettinger, by 2030, Jewish will
likely comprise 80% of the population of Israel, Judea and Samaria.
So Ben-Ami's argument that Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria
means the end of Israeli democracy is simply incorrect.
But aside from their hypocrisy and refusal to accept simple arithmetic
realities, what stands out most clearly in these leftist American
Jews' assault on Walsh is how they have become addicted to the fable
of the two-state solution. Their addiction to this fable – that argues
that after a century of Palestinian devotion to the annihilation of
Israel, the Palestinians are suddenly willing to meet Israel halfway –
is what propels these Jewish activists to attack anyone who points out
reality. It is what drives them to brand as a foe anyone with the
temerity to suggest a better way forward.
The beauty of the two-state fable is that it puts the onus to make
peace on Israel's shoulders.
If it is true that the Palestinians want to make peace, then Israel
must make peace. And if all the Palestinians require to make peace is
for Israel to quit Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, then that is what
Israel must do, together with the 675,000 Jews who live there.
The real tragedy is of course not that the likes of Kampeas and
Ben-Ami maintain faith with the fairy tale of Palestinian willingness
to live at peace with Israel. The real tragedy is that this myth has
been the official policy of the government of Israel for the past 19
years. Since then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin launched the peace
process with Yasser Arafat in September 1993, to greater or lesser
degrees, every Israeli government has kept faith with the two-state
solution lie.
It hasn't mattered that the Palestinians rejected statehood and peace
not once, but twice. It hasn't mattered that the Palestinians received
Gaza lock, stock and barrel with no strings attached and used the
territory to launch an illegal missile war against Israeli civilians.
The fact that both Arafat and his supposedly moderate successor
Mahmoud Abbas rejected partition and maintained their devotion to
Israel's destruction did not stop Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
from bowing to US pressure and embracing this fool's game.
People like Kampeas are the first to bemoan Israel's sorry state in
the realm of public diplomacy. They decry Israel's hasbara efforts as
pathetic and failed. But what they fail to acknowledge is that it is
the two-state trap that makes the construction and execution of an
effective public diplomacy strategy impossible.
To maintain faith with this failed policy, Israel's leaders and
representatives are not merely required to ignore the history of the
past 90 years of Palestinian rejection and aggression.
They are required to ignore current events.
They are forced to ignore not just what happened in 1947, but what
happened at 7 o'clock in the morning.
And this brings us back to Rep. Walsh. There may be things to
criticize about Walsh's policy argument. For instance, he calls for
the conferral of "limited voting power" on the Palestinians under
Israeli sovereignty. In truth, there is no reason for them to receive
anything but full voting rights.
But you have to be blind to reality to view him as anything other than
a friend of Israel.
Happily, not everyone in Israel remains paralyzed. Members of Knesset
have launched repeated attempts in recent months to debate legislation
calling for Israel to apply its sovereignty over all or parts of Judea
and Samaria. Next Wednesday, MK Miri Regev is holding a conference to
launch a new Knesset caucus calling for the adoption of this policy.
IN RECENT years, poll after poll has shown that the majority of
Israelis do not believe that the two-state paradigm will bring peace
or that if a Palestinian state is formed, it will live at peace with
Israel.
And yet, because of the choke-hold that Kampeas and Ben-Ami's Israeli
counterparts have held over the national discourse, the Israeli people
have been given no other option to consider. Rather, we have been told
over and over again that giving our enemies a veto over our rights,
land and security is the only alternative.
Walsh and the 44 congressmen who co-sponsored his resolution are
Israel's friends. We should take heart in their willingness to buck
consensus and support us. And we should give careful and responsible
consideration to their reasonable and supportive policy
recommendations.
caroline@carolineglick.com =============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
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