Seeking New Solutions

A week or so on from Lieberman’s rejection of the Annapolis process for a two state solution other government ministers have now also spoken out against negotiations based on a two state solution. While Lieberman argued Annapolis not to be binding upon the new administration for technical reasons, and strictly speaking he is quite right, both Lieberman and the government ministers have rejected this proposal because of its consistent failure to bare fruits.

Ever since the early 1990s and right up until the end of the Olmert administration in 2009 Israeli governments have been offering negotiation based upon the principle of ‘two states for two peoples’. Yet consistently the Palestinian leadership has failed to reciprocate the necessary compromises to make these negotiations successful and this has been demonstrated most clearly when, in recent weeks, the ruling Palestinian party Fatah announced that it doesn’t recognise Israel and indeed never has done. Of course as well as this unwillingness for coexistence politically terrorism has also consistently derailed attempts for a two state solution.

Back in 2000 when Israel offered the Palestinians essentialy exactly what they were demanding and they rejected the proposal (demonstrating that the Palestinians could have their own State by now if they really wanted it) the Palestinians didn’t offer a counter proposal but unleashed the second intifada. More recently Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon and Gaza has been seen as an act of weakness rather than as gestures for reconciliation and from both these places Hizbollah and Hamas rained rockets down on Israeli civilians. And if that record weren’t enough just a few weeks ago a terrorist attack in Haifa that would have killed hundreds was averted at the last minute. Yet this attempt wasn’t carried out by groups from Gaza or militants acting in solidarity with the Palestinians of the West Bank but rather by a group calling for the ‘liberation of the Galilee’. This of course is a region of Israel that is situated within its pre-1967 borders and where Arabs enjoy full citizenship along with the right to vote and stand for election and receive full welfare benefits. However the Arabs living here, who would be part of Israel even under the most generous of two state solutions, still reject being part of Israel and insist on waging war upon it.

These are the reasons why so far a two state solution hasn’t come about. Yet there are much more important and deep reasons why there should never be a two state solution. While there may be two peoples demanding two states there are not two lands to give them and states are dependent upon territory. Not only is there a real lack of space for two viable states but there is also a lack of many other things. For instance the area that constitutes pre-1967 Israel is 60% desert and Israel gets much of its water supply from beneath the Judean hills which are situated in the West Bank. Equally on the other side the West Bank and Gaza strip constitute a tiny and discontiguous territory. And while Gaza is desperately overcrowded much of the West Bank is also predominantly desert or rocky hills unsuitable for agriculture or significant population. At the same time both countries would insist upon having Jerusalem as a capital. Cities have been divided before, as seen with Berlin, but this was hardly a preferable or long term arrangement. Furthermore Jerusalem, which has had a Jewish majority for over 160 years, would predominantly go to Israel, the proportion given to a Palestinian state would be negligible but would occupy key Jewish religious/historic sites as well as major strategic positions.

The West Bank and Gaza strip do not offer the potential of a viable Palestinian state meaning any state created there would be a failed one. Such a state would no doubt build on existing radicalism that refuses to recognise Israel’s right to exist and would almost certainly continue demands for the descendants of those claiming to be refugees to relocate to Israel, reversing its Jewish character and acting as a hostile population from within. It is also probable that because of its territorial problems this state would demand territory transfer to the lines of the proposed UN 1946 partition plan, or at the very least the annexation of the areas of the Galilee with Arab populations. Either way it is ridiculous to claim that these two states would peacefully coexist side by side. Israel’s new borders would be indefensible, both from any terrorist attacks that would go unprevented by a weak or indifferent Palestinian government or more likely by a radical Islamic administration backed by Iran. From the West Bank hills Israel’s coastal strip, just nine miles across at its narrowest point, would be fully reachable by missile attack. The country’s primary population centres and industrial heartland as well as Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Ben Gurion Airport would all be in the firing line. Arguments that this time Palestinians would finally relinquish attacking Israel because now they’d have something to lose fall short considering what has already happened in Gaza and the fact that once this second state is created the decision could never realistically be reversed. This new state would become a second Gaza, where Islamist militants seized power and without Israeli military forces to intervene rapidly turned the whole area into a terror training centre and missile launch pad.

The Ministers of Transport and the Interior who have joined Lieberman in rejecting the futile Annapolis process and called for an abandonment of the two state solution have apparently realised the reality of the above scenario. Clearly then alternative solutions need to be explored but like Netanyahu and many others all these Ministers have so far proposed is the ‘Economic solution’; the argument that greater economic independence and improvement for the Palestinians will some how end the conflict. Yet not only will trying to improve the Palestinian economy fail to end Palestinian grievance or satisfy any of their demands it will also only increase their ability to fund terror and lessen the likelihood of any real Palestinian emigration.

Meanwhile one Labour MK has denounced these opinions because of how it may antagonise Europe and America, arguing that the whole world supports the Annapolis process. Yet Israel is not the communal property of the whole world but a sovereign state with a democratically elected government and the legitimacy to determine its own destiny. Just because the rest of the world has failed to notice the tiny area of territory it proposes carving into two countries or the reality of Israel’s situation in favour of a quick fix solution, doesn’t mean Israel should be bound to foreign dictates.

Love Jews, Hate Zionism?

In the last few days America’s governing administration has taken steps to demonstrate just how pro-Jewish it really is. A few days ago the president’s wife attended a tour of Prague’s Jewish quarter and now the President himself will be taking part in a Seder and has wished the Jewish people a happy holiday and heaped praise on the Passover story. This is much like his trip to Israel and the Western Wall in the run up to his election. It’s all part of a loud message saying ‘I’m not anti-Jewish’ in preparation for policies that will no doubt potentially upset America’s Jewish community. And this is reminiscent of what many of Israel’s critics have done, perhaps most overtly seen with the statements of Jewish British M.P Gerald Kaufman, who began his commons speech during which he compared Israel to Nazis by stating his credentials as the descendant of Holocaust victims who was raised an Orthodox Jew. It’s all part of a message that you can be anti-Israel with out being anti-Jewish, Anti-Zionist without being Anti-Semitic and that the Jewish people and the state of Israel are two very separate entities.

But with just over half of the worlds Jewish population being Israeli, Israel being the worlds only Jewish state and the wide support that Israel still has from almost all Jews all over the world, how credible can this claim really be? On the most basic level throughout its short history Israel has acted as a haven for Jews across the world fleeing real danger and seeking refuge. In opposing the existence and security of the Jewish state those doing so are at the very least showing a callous indifference to Jewish wellbeing and survival. Westerners, in whose countries Anti-Semitism is still relatively low assume that the Jews could quite happily live somewhere other than Israel and as a small religious group needn’t have their own country. They still act under the impression that Israel was created purely for Holocaust survivors, a one off event that is long in the past and many argue that Arabs shouldn’t have to pay for something Europeans did. This shows ignorance of the fact that around 50% of Israel’s population are actually descended from the 1.million Jewish refugees from Arab countries who were forced to flee or were even expelled from their communities during and shortly after WW2 as rioting and violently anti-Jewish feeling spread throughout the Arab world. The other large demographic are Jews from ex-eastern bloc countries. Again most westerners are ignorant to the great hostility they experienced from the Soviet regimes and eastern European culture in general. And of course countless other smaller Jewish groups such as the Ethiopians have also fled for refuge in Israel. If you’re a Jew seeking refuge then Israel is the one place you’re guaranteed an open door and a haven.

The other issue concerns the claim of being able to be anti-Israel/Zionist without being anti-Jewish. Yet Israel and returning to living in its land aren’t modern ultra-nationalist ideas, they are essential parts of the fabric of Judaism. Not only does Jewish scripture overtly command the Jews to live in Israel but Jewish law even allows individuals to divorce their spouse to move to Israel. Furthermore many Jewish observances are only fulfilable from within Israel and just about every Jewish prayer links the Jews to the land and talks of their return; the prayer after eating, the prayer before going to bed, the three prayer services said every day, also at Yom kippur and Passover when Jews famously pledge their desire to next year be in Jerusalem and even at Jewish weddings when the blessing talks of hearing the bride and groom’s laughter over the hills of Judea. The Jewish religion is overtly Zionist and views life outside of Israel as a shameful exile and only allows the fullest Jewish life to be lived from within Israel. Nothing that anyone can say can change the fact that Jewish tradition is based first and foremost around monotheism and the land of Israel. In being anti-Zionist you can’t avoid being anti-Jewish because Judaism is itself intrinsically Zionist.

If you said you liked French people but hated France as a country, or if you acknowledged that Mecca is the holy city of Islam but denied the Muslim right to have control over it people would know that really you had an anti-French or anti-Muslim agenda. Yet somehow it’s alright to hate the Jews as a nation but still not be considered anti-Jewish. Anyone who’s been to Israel or knows even a little about it knows what a strongly Jewish country it is; its people, its culture, its national symbols, its geography, its history and much of its laws are all Jewish.

As the biggest concentration of Jews in the world it is not possible to oppose the state of Israel or to advocate policies that will in reality bring an end to it as a Jewish or viable state without simultaneously advocating an overtly anti-Jewish policy. The new agenda seems to be to try and divorce the two, to demonstrate that they’re not one and the same and therefore save ones name from accusations of anti-Semitism. Perhaps even more sinister than that is an attempt at divide and rule, to get the Jewish communities in the Diaspora away from their loyalty to Israel, to tell them that they’ll be accepted as Jews but not as Zionists and that in supporting Israel they are inviting what amounts to anti-Semitism against themselves. If Jews across the world would stand strong against this argument being made by some non-Jews and a small minority of radically anti-Zionist Jews, then this argument would immediately lose credence. But as long as large sections of the Jewish community allows itself to be wood by the sort of gestures being made by the American president so they add legitimacy to the growing claim that you can respect Jews while simultaneously calling for the destruction of the nation that represents the height of their culture in modern times and the best hope for their survival in the future.