Time to Let Go of the Two-State Idea

By: Vic Rosenthal

Published: August 12th, 2012

http://fresnozionism.org/2012/08/time-to-let-go-of-the-two-state-idea/

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, formerly the head of the Union for Reform Judaism believes that “Israel is losing the battle for public opinion in America”:

But the point is that we are now seeing, even as the threat from Iran escalates, a broad spectrum of respectable, pro-Israel opinion that is emphatically suggesting the need, right now, for some movement by Israel on the Palestinian issue. And it is not idealistic dreaming; every one of these voices talks about the poisonous nature of Palestinian politics and makes clear that the failure to achieve peace cannot be placed primarily at Israel’s door.

Why are we hearing these voices at this moment? I am not entirely sure.

It has to do, I suspect, with the cumulative impact of a 45 year occupation; with the fundamental illogic of Israel’s government calling for a two-state solution and then building settlements in a way that makes such a solution far less likely; and with the sense that Israel’s moral standing is being gradually eroded and that this is a tragedy. But this too: They know that Israel must be seen at all times as aggressively pursuing peace, and fairly or otherwise, that is not the case now. (my emphasis)

Rabbi Yoffie, I think, greatly weakens his case by using as his “exhibit A” NY Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, calling him ”a centrist, a moderate, and, by the way, the most important foreign policy columnist in the world.” Friedman is none of the above, unless ‘important’ means that he is better paid than, for example, Barry Rubin, who differs from Friedman by basing his analysis on knowledge rather than prejudice and the ‘line’ pushed by his employer.

But let’s leave the hackish Friedman - who revealed himself when he said that the standing ovation Netanyahu received from a joint session of Congress in 2011 was “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby” - aside, and turn to Yoffie’s argument.

Rabbi Yoffie points to “an important group of public intellectuals” who take this position. There certainly are such people here in the US and among the academic-media-left complex in Israel who continue to call for Israeli concessions.

But — and this is my first point in response to Yoffie — they get absolutely no traction in Israel, which is assuredly where the rubber hits the road. The parties to the left of the Likud have almost no hope in coming elections, and the support they do have is almost entirely based on social or economic — not security — issues.

In other words, most ordinary Israelis don’t agree. One would think that Yoffie, who criticizes Dani Dayan of the Judea-Samaria council for supposedly not being concerned with democracy, would respect the democratically elected and popularly supported government of Israel.

My second point is that the notion that Israeli concessions on settlements in Judea/Samaria or eastern Jerusalem are good policy has been proven wrong in the 19 years since the Oslo agreements. The Camp David/Taba offers and the withdrawal from Gaza were met by violence. The continued anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement from the Palestinian Authority (PA), the insistence on a right of return, the refusal to accept Israel as the state of the Jewish people, the demands for the release of convicted murderers, the honor accorded by the leaders of the PA to terrorists like Dalal Mughrabi and Samir Kuntar, all indicate that the PA has not deviated from the ideology of Yasser Arafat or from the ‘phased plan’ to destroy the Jewish state.

Israel has made one withdrawal and concession after another, has supported the PA financially and protected it from Hamas, and it has never responded except by making more demands. There is no future in making unreciprocated concessions to the PA.

But it is not only the PA that is insatiable. One hears that “if only Israel would…” then the ‘international community’ would see that Israel is committed to peace and the ball would be in the Palestinian court. But this never happens. Israel agrees to a settlement freeze in Judea and Samaria, but the Palestinians won’t negotiate because it doesn’t include East Jerusalem; and suddenly Joe Biden is ‘deeply insulted’ because Israel announced plans to build apartments in a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem.

My third point is that not only do concessions endanger security without bringing peace any closer, they damage Israel’s legitimate legal rights, both in Judea/Samaria and west of the Green Line. The implication of a freeze that applies to Jewish, but not Arab, construction is that the Jewish right to live there is questionable.

The legitimacy in international law of Jewish settlement in the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan comes from the adoption of the League of Nations Mandate, which called for ‘close settlement’ of Jews on the land in order to create a “national home” for the Jewish people. This applies on both sides of the Green Line. If Jews are not permitted to build east of the line, what justifies building west of it?

The 1949 armistice lines have no significance as borders, and the claim that territory to the east of the line is “Palestinian land” is equivalent to saying that the Jordanian invasion, ethnic cleansing of Jews and occupation of 1949-1967 made it so. How could this be?

Pseudo-legal quibbles with no practical significance? I don’t think so. Once one abdicates principle, there is no justification for practice that depends on it. On the other hand, insisting upon one’s rights does not imply that at some later date — if there were a Palestinian leadership actually prepared to accept a Jewish state — it would be possible to cede territory. But you can’t begin a negotiation by surrendering your rights.

Israel has already given up much by accepting its opponents’ characterization of the Jewish presence in Judea/Samaria as a military occupation. Now the Levy commission has made it possible to redefine Israel’s relationship to the territories, and the government should adopt its report and firmly stand behind its legal rights.

Finally, where is the urgency that requires Israel to imperil itself today, when the Iranian threat is about to come to a head, when Syria is imploding, when Egypt has decided to ‘reevaluate’ its peace treaty, when the Sinai has become a jihadist playground and the Syrian Golan may be next, when Turkey has gone from an ally to a hostile power, when Hizballah has de facto control of Lebanon and may shortly get its hands on Syrian WMD — do I have to continue?

It is remarkable that Rabbi Yoffie finds it possible to bring up “the needs of the Palestinians” while suggesting a path that can only end in the expulsion of Jews from their homes and which, given the players, is positively guaranteed not to bring peace — and at a time when Israel’s security is under unprecedented threat.

I believe that their are alternatives that Yoffie and others have not considered that need not lead to a forced choice between a Jewish or democratic Israel. This piece is already too long, but the general idea is that a solution to the question of Israel’s eastern border must primarily take into consideration Israel’s security needs, its historical rights and existing Jewish and Arab populations. “The needs of the Palestinians” are not top priority (sorry, not after decades of terrorism).

“Israel’s moral standing” is not necessarily enhanced by failing to stand up for its legal rights and by, in effect, selling out the Jewish people by surrendering to pressure from an international community that is more interested in pleasing Arab oil producers than in the survival of the Jews (indeed, many are interested in the opposite). Moral standing comes not only from readiness to compromise — which Israel has demonstrated in spades — but in maintaining self-respect (and its practical counterpart, deterrence).

After 19 years I think it’s time to put the “two-state solution” aside. It may be the case that the continued existence of a Jewish state is simply incompatible with a hostile sovereign Palestinian state a few miles from its population centers.

If that’s so, then maybe, finally, the Palestinians will have to make difficult choices, too. 

About the Author: FresnoZionism.org was created to provide a forum for publishing and discussing issues about Israel and the Mideast conflict, especially where there is a local connection. I think America’s interests are best served by supporting the democratic state of Israel, the front line in the struggle between Western civilization and radical Islam. The viewpoint is not intended to be liberal or conservative — just pro-Israel.

Into the Fray: The alchemy of Palestinia nationhood

By MARTIN SHERMAN, JPOST  8-10-12

Poof! Suddenly Jordanian nationals were transformed into a ‘Palestinian nation, Jordanian territory into a ‘Palestinian homeland’. PHOTO: TOVAH LAZAROFF Alchemy: a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation
– The Oxford Dictionary

1. I do not think there is a Palestinian nation at all. I think there is an Arab nation. I think it’s a colonialist invention – a Palestinian nation. When were there any Palestinians? Where did they come from? I think there is an Arab nation. 
2. – Azmi Bashara

1. The Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation…. The Palestinian people believe in Arab unity. In order to contribute their share toward the attainment of that objective, however, they must, at the present stage of their struggle, safeguard their Palestinian identity and develop their consciousness of that identity. 
2. – The Palestinian National Charter

A recent op-ed article in The New York Times by Dani Dayan, chairman of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, titled, “Israel’s Settlers Are Here to Stay,” reignited the debate on the viability and desirability of the two-state solution.

Plausible perils

In it, Dayan correctly points out something that should be evident to any unbiased observer of the events of the past two decades: “The insertion of an independent Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan would be a recipe for disaster.”

He warns that “the new state [would become] a hotbed of extremism. And any peace agreement would collapse… Israel would then be forced to recapture the area.”

This is not an implausible scenario, given the precedent of the Hezbollah takeover of Lebanon, the seizure of power by Hamas in Gaza, and the ever-tightening grip of assorted Islamists on Sinai. In the absence of persuasive arguments to the contrary, there is no reason – other than unsubstantiated hope and unfounded optimism – that a similar fate would not – sooner or later – befall the “West Bank,” were the IDF to evacuate it.

The question then arises: Why would any rational person embrace a policy that so clearly threatens to wreak tragedy on Israelis and Palestinians alike?

Transparent trickery

In the course of modern history mankind has often been afflicted by political perspectives and policy prescriptions that were manifestly misguided, and by doctrinal dogmas that were demonstrably disastrous. Few, however, have been so transparent in their undisguised trickery as what has come to be known as the “two-state-solution” (or TSS).

Based on the flawed and failed notion of land-for-peace, whose validity has repeatedly been disproven, but somehow never discredited and certainly never discarded, it has inexplicably monopolized the debate on the Israel-Arab conflict in general, and the Israel-Palestinian conflict in particular, for decades.

What makes the dominance of the TSS-approach so difficult to fathom is that it is not anchored to empirical fact or to logical consistency, and that the Arabs openly admit that it is nothing but subterfuge.

This assertion cannot be dismissed as some radical right-wing rant. It is the unavoidable conclusion that emerges from the deeds, declarations and documents of the Palestinians.

Nationhood as alchemy

To understand how unmoored the TSS-approach is from fact and logic, consider how devoid of substance the key elements which allegedly underpin it are, such as the “Palestinian nation” and “Palestinian homeland.”

To illustrate this seemingly far-reaching assertion, suppose for a moment that the Arabs had not launched the war of annihilation against Israel in 1967. Who then would have been the Palestinians? More important, what would have been Palestine? At the time, the Arab Palestinians resident in the “West Bank” were not stateless.

Until 1988, all were Jordanian citizens.

Moreover, the 1964 version of the Palestinian National Charter explicitly proclaimed, not only that the “West Bank” was not part of the Palestinian homeland, but that it was part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. (Article 24). Don’t take my word for it. Check it.

So had the Arabs not launched a war of annihilation against Israel, the Arab residents of the “West Bank” would have been Jordanians, and territory of the “West Bank” would have been Jordan.

Of course, this leaves unanswered the previously posed question of who the Palestinians would have been, and where Palestine would have been. Let me urge patience. There will be more on that later.

After all, the Arabs did launch their overtly genocidal aggression against the Jewish state, which resulted in spectacular failure.

From this mixture of defeat and disappointment, “a seemingly magical process of transformation/creation” began to emerge before our very eyes. Poof! As if by some mysterious alchemist mechanism, Jordanian nationals were transformed into a “Palestinian nation” and Jordanian territory was transformed into a “Palestinian homeland.”

Palestine is where the Jews are

On May 27, 1967, barely a week before the outbreak of the Six Day War, Ahmed Shukairy, Yasser Arafat’s predecessor as chairman of the PLO, bellowed: “D-Day is approaching. The Arabs have waited 19 years for this and will not flinch from the war of liberation.”

On June 1, he crowed: “This is a fight for the homeland – it is either us or the Israelis. There is no middle road. The Jews of Palestine will have to leave… We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors – if there are any – the boats are ready to deport them.”

Even for the most avid adherent of the TSS-approach, Shukairy’s use of the words “liberation” and “homeland” should be revealing. For they certainly did not –and could not – apply to the “West Bank” (or Gaza), since both were under Arab rule and clearly did not comprise the “homeland” towards which Palestinian “liberation” efforts were directed.

The conclusion appears inescapable.

Rather than defining any specific territory as homeland, “Palestine” is a highly fluid geographical entity used to designate any territory where the Jews exercise control, from which Arabs have a “scared duty” to “liberate” it.

Palestine: Pre-1967 vs post-1967

Following the debacle of June 1967, the thrust of Arab “liberation” efforts changed.

Whereas prior to this date, the focus was on the land west of the “Green Line,” Arab endeavor now switched to that lying east of it, and which had fallen under Israeli control as a result its victory in the defensive war forced upon it – despite Israel’s entreaties to Jordan not to join the planned Arab onslaught against it.

This, however, was only an intermediate aim in a staged strategy to eliminate the Jewish state entirely, whatever its borders.

Perhaps the most explicit – but certainly by no means, the only – articulation of the post-1967 design was that of the oft-quoted, but yet-to-be repudiated, Zuheir Muhsein, former head of the PLO’s Military Department and a member of its Executive Council.

Echoing the identical position set out in the introductory excerpt by Azmi Bishara, a self-proclaimed “Palestinian” who represented the anti-Zionist Arab list Balad in the Knesset until forced to flee because of allegations of treason, Muhsein also opined that “the Palestinian people does not exist.”

He elaborated: “The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity…. It is only for political and tactical reasons that we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism.”

He then clearly elucidated the rationale of the post-1967 staged strategy, and the crucial role the construct of a “Palestinian identity” had to play in implementing it: “For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beersheba and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”

Temporary tactical construct

It would be a grave error to dismiss this as merely the opinion of a single, long-forgotten Palestinian leader.

It is a view that has been expressed by many Arabs, Palestinian or otherwise, from Farouk Kadoumi to King Hussein.

More recently it was alluded to by no less a figure than Mahmoud Abbas in his speech at the UN last September, when he implied that the Jews had no connection to the Holy Land, and insinuated that Palestinians had been denied their homeland for 63 years – i.e. since the inception of Israel and not by the alleged post-1967 “occupation.”

But more important, it is a sentiment that permeates the entire Palestinian National Charter, according to which, “The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time…”

But no less significant and revealing is the proviso conveyed in the citation from the Charter in the introductory excerpt above, regarding the need for the Palestinians to “safeguard their Palestinian identity and develop their consciousness of that identity,” which is to be limited to “the present stage of their struggle.”

Think of it. What other nation declares that its national identity is merely a temporary ploy to be “safeguarded” and “developed” for the “present stage” alone? Does any other nation view their national identity as so ephemeral and instrumental? The Italians? The Brazilians? The Turks? The Greeks? The Japanese? Of course none of them do.

The merging of ends and means

But what is the purpose of this temporary ruse? The Charter is quite explicit: For Palestinians “…to contribute their share to the attainment of [the] objective of Arab Unity.” And Arab unity, to what end? The liberation of Palestine, “illegally partitioned” in 1947, which is both the goal of, and the vehicle for, Arab unity.

Again, check for yourself. Article 13 says it all: “Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine are two complementary objectives, the attainment of either of which facilitates the attainment of the other.

Thus, Arab unity leads to the liberation of Palestine, the liberation of Palestine leads to Arab unity.”

So there you have it: The Palestinians’ political philosophy in a nutshell… and in their own words. The aspiration for the liberation of Palestine – a.k.a. the destruction of Israel – is the force for Arab unity, while the achievement of such liberation/ destruction will provide the impetus for pan-Arab unity – presumably via the sense of empowerment and achievement it will generate.

Debunking a dangerous dichotomy

So while Dani Dayan is right that the implementation of the TSS will in all likelihood bring tragedy to both sides, that is not the only reason to oppose it.

It is a proposal that has no foundation in fact, morality or logic; it is devoid of any justification in history or in present politics.

Dayan makes this case in part, stating, “Giving up this land in the name of a hallowed two-state solution would mean rewarding those who’ve historically sought to destroy Israel, a manifestly immoral outcome.”

But it is precisely because the TSS-paradigm is so unfounded, no more capable of resolving the conflict than alchemy is capable of transforming base-metal to gold, that its dominance of the discourse constitutes a huge indictment of the intellectual competence of the Israeli leadership.

For not only has that leadership been unable to expose it as a flimsy falsehood, openly acknowledged by Arabs, and to consign it to the garbage heap of history, they have allowed the discourse to be needlessly corralled into a false dichotomy.

It is a dichotomy that is as dangerous as it is deceptive, making it seem that the only choices are either a geographically untenable Jewish democracy, or a demographically untenable Jewish ethnocracy.

Israeli intellectual ineptitude

This is a completely misleading and misplaced perception of reality. Indeed, there exists a wide range of Zionist and democratic– compliant alternatives that can provide both Palestinians and Israelis with better and more secure lives, some of which I have discussed at length in previous columns. Only Israeli political ineptitude has prevented serious discussion of their viability and validity.

Unless the Israeli leadership can muster the political will and the intellectual ability to force these alternatives to the center stage of the debate, the consequences will be calamitous.

For the Times’ Tom Friedman did get one thing right in a recent, largely baseless diatribe: “There are real lives at stake out there.”

Spy vs. spy, America vs. Israel   by Daniel Pipes 8-8-12 Israelis spying on Americans is in the news again: Leaders of the Jewish state just petitioned for Jonathan Pollard's release and the Associated Press reported with alarm that U.S. national security officials at times consider Israel to be "a genuine counterintelligence threat." Its tone of breathless outrage suggests: How dare they! Who do they think they are? But spying on allies is the norm, and it's a two-way street. Before getting too worked up, Americans should realize that Washington is not innocent. From Reagan to Obama, the U.S. government has sustained a massive spying effort against Israel. Examples: Yosef Amit, a former major in Israeli military intelligence, spied for the CIA for several years focusing on troop movements and policies toward Lebanon and the Palestinians, until his 1986 arrest. Itamar Rabinovich, Israel's ambassador to Washington in 1993-96, revealed that during his tenure, the U.S. government deciphered an Israeli code: "The Americans were certainly tapping the [embassy's] regular phone lines" and even its secure line. As a result, he says, "Every 'juicy' telegram was in danger of being leaked. We sent very few of them. Sometimes I came to Israel to deliver reports orally." A mysterious submarine in Israeli territorial waters 11 miles from Haifa in November 2004, which fled upon discovery, turned out to be American, raising memories of the USS Liberty's covert mission in June 1967. Yossi Melman, an Israeli journalist specializing in intelligence, found that U.S. military attachés in Tel Aviv gathered covert information; Israeli officials, he discloses, believe the U.S. intelligence services have been eavesdropping on conversations between key staff in Israel and at foreign missions. U.S. spying, he concludes, has exposed "Israel's deepest policy secrets." An official history of Israel's intelligence services published in 2008 found (as reported by Reuters) that U.S. spy agencies use the embassy in Tel Aviv to engage in electronic eavesdropping and train embassy staff for "methodical intelligence gathering." Barak Ben-Zur, a retired Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) intelligence officer, wrote in that same volume that "The United States has been after Israel's non-conventional capabilities and what goes on at the decision-making echelons." A 5,000-word secret memorandum dated Oct. 31, 2008 (released by WikiLeaks), sent under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's name, catalogues topics that the State wants information on. The very long list includes intelligence on "Israel's decision-making process for launching military operations and determining retaliation for terrorist attacks"; "evidence of Government of Israel" involvement in "settlement and outpost growth" on the West Bank; details on Israel Defense Forces operations against Hamas, "including targeted assassinations and tactics/techniques used by ground and air units"; and everything about information technologies used by "government and military authorities, intelligence and security services." The National Security Agency employs large numbers of Hebrew speakers at its Fort Meade, Md. headquarters, where they listen to intercepts of Israeli communications. The 2009 legal problems of one of their number, Shamai K. Leibowitz, concerning his leaking information, revealed that he translated Hebrew-language conversations at the Israeli Embassy in Washington into English, neatly confirming Rabinovich's revelation. Condoleezza Rice oversaw extensive spying on Israel during her tenure as secretary of state (2005-09). Observers have drawn the obvious conclusion: Yitzhak Rabin, twice prime minister commented, in Caroline Glick's paraphrase, that "every few years Israel discovers another US agent committing espionage against the state." An Israeli counterintelligence agent notes that Americans "are trying to spy on us all the time — every way they can." Matthew M. Aid, the American author of "Intel Wars" (2012), finds that Washington "started spying on Israel even before the state of Israel was formally founded in 1948, and Israel has always spied on us." As Aid indicates, the spying is reciprocal. More: It's been routine, known and implicitly accepted by both sides. It's also not terribly worrisome, for these allies share much in common, from moral values to ideological enemies, and they often work in tandem. Therefore the mutual spying has few larger consequences. Why then spy at all? Why not invite Israel into the Anglophone "five eyes" grouping that promises not to spy on each other? Because Israel is at war. As Ben-Zur of Shin Bet puts it, "At the end of the day, the United States does not want to be surprised. Even by us." Nor, for that matter, do the Israelis want to be surprised. Even by the Americans. So, let's be adults about this and calm down. States spy, even on allies. That's okay. Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

The Unoccupied Territories Levi report establishes legality of Israeli West Bank settlements By Dror Eydar, Israel Hayom, July 5, 2012 The biggest news story of the week, perhaps of the year, slipped under the media radar yesterday: [A] report drafted by the Committee to Examine the State of Construction in Judea and Samaria, headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levi. The report touches upon the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and makes sense of the matter. One can say that the government received permission to toss attorney Talia Sasson's report on settlement outposts into the dustbin of history. (Editor's note: The Sasson Report, commissioned by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and published in 2005, concluded that Israeli state bodies had been discreetly supporting West Bank settlements and outposts that were illegal under Israeli law.) Levi's report concludes that Israel has the right to settle Jews in Judea and Samaria, and that it is incorrect to say that building settlements is illegal according to international law: "According to international law Israelis have the legal right to settle in all of Judea and Samaria, and at the very least in territories under Israeli control based on agreements with the Palestinian Authority; and therefore the creation of settlements in and of itself is not an illegal act." The committee also concludes: "From the viewpoint of international law, statutes regarding the 'occupation' are inapplicable due to the special legal and historical circumstances regarding the decades-long Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria." Since the 1970s, senior jurists in Israel and abroad have argued that Israel is completely within its rights to settle its citizens in Judea and Samaria. Among them are the President of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Judge Stephen Schwebel; Prof. Elihu Lauterpacht of Cambridge University; and Prof. Eugene Rostow, the former Deacon at Yale's school of law, all of whom, along with others, have voiced their clear opinions in regards to Israel's just claim over Judea and Samaria within the historical and legal circumstances. Since the Six-Day War, however, Israel has refrained from declaring the permanent status of the territories it won, excluding Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Into this vacuum Chief Justice Aharon Barak and others inserted the legal paradigm of "Belligerent Occupation," according to which military governance draws its authority from the rules of international law in territories that were won in war. The significance is that Israel is deemed, allegedly, to be a foreign occupier, and it doesn't have the right to apply its sovereignty over, or to move its civilian population into, those territories. Some of the measures which hostile legal bodies have taken against the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria stemmed from this perception. These measures, which aimed at strangling the settlement enterprise, received justification from the State Prosecutor's Office due to its adoption of the Belligerent Occupation paradigm, despite the current government's many objections. If the territories aren't occupied, the Left has argued over the years, they must be annexed, including the populations there. But the reality isn't a polar one, it is complex. The current report recognizes an intermediate reality: At hand is a disputed territory; two entities hold it; none of the sides is considered an "occupier." There is disagreement regarding ownership, which needs to be clarified through different means, but there is no definition of "occupation" in the international legal sense of the word. A perception of Belligerent Occupation occurs when one country conquers the territories of another country. In our case, the last sovereign power was the British Mandate, which received its legitimacy from the League of Nations to create a national home for the Jews in the Land of Israel. The Jordanian occupation was never recognized (aside from Britain and Pakistan), and Israel never conquered "Jordanian territory." Moreover, Jordan renounced its sovereignty over these territories toward the late 1980s. Another dramatic point in the report is its stance on communities which were built without a government decision ("Unauthorized"). The report concludes that because their creation and development occurred with the knowledge, encouragement and agreement of the most senior government echelons, "this conduct must be considered to be 'authorization.'" Therefore, "the act of eviction from these communities is impractical and a different solution must be found, such as compensation or alternative land offers. For this reason the committee has suggested to the state that it refrain from carrying out demolition orders in these communities, which it is in essence responsible for creating." If the government adopts the report's conclusions, it means that the folks working with Mike Blass over at the State Prosecutor's Office will no longer be able to deny, in the state's name, the existence of these communities and won't be able to advance their destruction through dry legal claims. The government has taken a great step in the right direction on this matter, much to the chagrin of the enemies of the settlement enterprise, and to the joy of its supporters, comprising most of the Jewish population in Israel. Now a world war will ensue against the report and against Levi. All the old arguments and slandering tactics will be dusted off and put to use; left-wing organizations will enlist the help of their friends from across the globe, and the alienated juridical elite will fight against the most natural thing to us as a people: the return to our homeland, the cradle of our nationhood. There is no need to become over-excited; this is exactly what this government was elected for. It is the will of most of the people, and it is also a historical decree.

Who’s Really Isolated? He Who Misunderstands Middle East Realities

By: Barry Rubin

Published: August 7th, 2012

http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.co.il/2012/08/whos-really-isolated-he-who.html

One of the mantras from Israel’s supposed foreign well-wishers is that the country is now “isolated.” You can tell the hostile ones because they quickly add that this alleged isolation is Israel’s own fault.

Sure, on the surface the first proposition makes sense. Israel has lost its two main regional friends—Turkey and Egypt—which are now hostile. The United States under its current government—but doesn’t President Barack Obama love Israel?—is no longer reliable. Isn’t it rather notable that despite these two countries turning totally against Israel this has had zero effect on the Obama Administration’s totally positive policy toward both, a list to which could be added the Hizballah regime in Lebanon mentioned above. Perhaps the U.S. election in November will change this situation but there’s nothing Israel can do about that.

Yet none of this is in fact Israel’s fault. The Turkish people elected and reelected a subtly Islamist regime that loathes Israel for reasons having nothing to do with Israel. The Egyptian people elected an openly Islamist regime that loathes Israel for reasons having nothing to do with Israel. The problem is the ideology of the rulers. And the same thing applies to the United States, doesn’t it? At least in Egypt the armed forces are holding back the Muslim Brotherhood.

Erdogan, al-Mursi, and Obama are not really reacting to some Israeli mistaken policy and the problems won’t be solved by more unilateral Israeli concessions. Indeed, given the dangers of the situation—and most Israelis appreciate this—such give aways are out of the question. Nothing Israel does will fix the problem and any retreats will make matters worse.

Nor is anything Israel does likely to move negotiations with the Palestinian Authority ahead by even an inch (or, if you prefer, a centimeter).

So the situation isn’t wonderful on the surface and anyone who reads the newspapers and develops great theories in his own mind can reach that conclusion.

Yet the following development, for example, is more important than all of the anti-Israel media articles and boycott campaigns of the last year put together: This week the European Union is offering Israel upgraded relations in 60 different areas, removing all obstacles against Israel having full access to European government-controlled markets and  cooperation with nine EU agencies, including Europol and the European Space Agency.

But let’s look deeper, specifically at the situation immediately on Israel’s borders, to see if things are as bad as they might seem.

Lebanon: Neighboring Lebanon is governed by Hizballah and various clients of Syria and Iran. That’s not good. Yet let’s remember that Hizballah and its allies are now trembling over what might be the impending fall of their Syrian backer. How will they fare without the Damascus dictator behind them? A Sunni Muslim dominated Syrian regime might hate Israel but it will not love or help those who aided the government that was murdering them.

And the Lebanese government has another problem. It wants to consolidate control over Lebanon and rule the country. Fomenting a war with Israel that brings Israeli warplanes to destroy the country’s power plants, bridges, airport, and pretty much every other major infrastructural project will make Hizballah hated.

A Hizballah direct offensive against Israel is not in the cards.

By the way, people are forgetting the implications of blaming Hizballah for the terrorist attack in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists. Hizballah is not some group hanging out in caves; it is the government of Lebanon. So will a U.S. government that has publicly blamed Hizballah for the attack actually take any action against Hizballah the government? Probably not but isn’t that a disgrace? Maybe after January 20 there will be someone in Washington DC who will recognize the rather bizarre contradiction in such behavior.

Then there’s tottering Syria. Israeli defense officials have pointed to the danger of jihadists operating in sections of Syria near the Golan Heights but no longer under the control of an overextended central government. True, Israel should be prepared for such a danger.

Yet the Golan border is well defended and closely watched. Terrorists are unlikely to be able to cross. As for a massive influx of Syrian refugees, why should they chance the minefields when they can more easily get out through Iraq, Lebanon, or Turkey? The long-run threat from a Sunni Islamist regime is real but then so is the discomfiting of an Iran deprived of its main ally. And Syria’s armed forces are going to be a mess for years to come. So once again this is an issue that must be taken seriously but is not all that menacing.

Let’s jump over to Egypt. Israel’s high priority is to build up its defensive forces along the border and complete the security fence there. Cross-border attacks are now a real problem. Yet they can be defended against. These attacks consist of terrorists firing across the border or advancing a very short distance into Israeli territory–mainly to fire on a single road that runs near the border–before they can be intercepted. For a real threat to exist, the situation would have to deteriorate considerably, with large terrorist units operating openly on Egyptian soil and being able to transport rockets from the Gaza Strip through miles of Egyptian territory. That could happen but we are nowhere near that point and such a scenario would mean that the Egyptian government and army were openly courting full-scale war.

As long as the army is still running Egypt, though, the danger of a major upsurge in cross-border assaults or, even worse, an attack on Israel from Hamas in the Gaza Strip that would be backed by Egypt is limited. Israel has time to prepare.

Israel’s number-one border problem remains the Gaza Strip. Hamas periodically fires mortars and rockets while trying cross-border ground attacks. Israel has gotten its ground defenses in good shape and has created a fairly effective anti-rocket system. This doesn’t make things more pleasant for citizens in that part of Israel and it is quite possible that a new war will break out in future, as happened in late 2008. Yet such a battle is not an existential threat of the type common from 1948 into the 1970s.

Regarding Jordan, the regime has survived the Arab Spring and is still committed to controlling the border, a task it has handled pretty well over forty years. Terrorism from the West Bank remains a constant threat but the fence has made it a lot harder. That’s why Israel ignores, and will continue to ignore, international criticism. Might there be a new intifadah some day? Yes, but not that soon, if only because the Palestinian Authority realizes that such a gambit risks Hamas using the violence to promote itself and kick out its nationalist rivals.

Now none of this is meant to be complacent. But it is important to understand that Israel starts off with a much higher threat level than that faced by other Western developed countries which consider almost any threat with trepidation. By Israeli standards the problems are manageable.

And that’s why the main efforts of terrorist groups are to attack Israeli citizens and installations outside the country’s borders. The chief of military intelligence has revealed that twenty such plots were broken up before the one in Bulgaria succeeded.

Israel’s “friends” abroad simply can’t seem to get out of their minds the idea that the country faces such terrible threats that it must make big concessions and beg for peace with the Palestinians on just about any terms, or try to appease hostile surrounding countries in order to stave off their wrath.

What they don’t—and at times don’t want to—understand is that the situation is the exact opposite. When forces are after you that want to wipe you off the map, you cannot depend on your “friends,” and know that no compromise solution is desired by the other side, that’s the time to look after your own interests and defense.

The overwhelming majority of Israelis across the political spectrum understand this. Consequently, it doesn’t matter at all that Western pseudo-experts, pundits, and politicians don’t. Being isolated from strategic reality is far more dangerous than being isolated because people don’t like you. 

About the Author: Professor Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. See the GLORIA/MERIA site at www.gloria-center.org.

The Levy Report: A Chance to Regain Lost Diplomatic Ground   JINSA Report  8-6-12

Adopting a blue-ribbon legal report reasserting the validity of Israel's claim to the West Bank wouldn't undermine Israel's international image, but bolster it.  

By Evelyn Gordon     

JINSA Fellow 

When a blue-ribbon panel of Israeli legal experts issued a report this July declaring that the West Bank isn't "occupied territory," but territory to which Israel has a legitimate claim, and that settlements therefore cannot be considered ipso facto illegal, it raised an outcry both in Israel and overseas. A group of prominent American Jews even wrote Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to urge him against adopting the report, arguing that it would imperil both "the two-state solution, and the prestige of Israel as a democratic member of the international community," because the latter depends on persuading the world that Israel is "committed to a two-state vision." Many Israeli pundits voiced similar concerns.

Since the Levy Report essentially reiterates the official position of all Israeli governments, this concern seems strange. Nevertheless, its opponents are right to see it as a potential game changer. Where they err is in deeming it a negative one. In reality, the report offers Israel a golden opportunity to start regaining the diplomatic ground it has lost over the last two decades.

No honest appraisal could deny that Israel's international standing has deteriorated since it signed the Oslo Accords in 1993. Anti-Israel boycotts, once confined to the Arab world, are now routine agenda items for universities, certain Western churches, and trade unions. Courts in several European countries have considered indicting Israeli officials for war crimes, and European polls routinely deem Israel a prime threat to world peace. References to Israel as an "apartheid state" have become commonplace, and academics and journalists openly question its very right to exist. All this would have been inconceivable 20 years ago.

This deterioration has many causes, but one is directly germane to the Levy Report: Though officially, Israel still insists on the validity of its claim to the West Bank, post-Oslo Israeli leaders have generally downplayed this claim. Instead, they have touted the Palestinians' "legitimate and political rights" to the territory, at times even adopting the Palestinian rhetoric of "occupation."

Their goal was well-intentioned: to show that Israel was indeed "committed to a two-state vision," thereby creating an atmosphere conducive to peace. But once Israel stopped asserting its own rights in the West Bank, there was nobody to counter the Palestinian claim that it is "occupied Palestinian land" to which Israel has no rights whatsoever. Consequently, the unchallenged international narrative now views Israel not as a magnanimous peace-maker willing to cede territory for peace, but as an unrepentant thief who stole land and refuses to return it.

This has devastating consequences. If Israel has a valid claim to the land, it's obviously entitled to refuse to withdraw completely to the 1967 lines, or to condition withdrawal on various security requirements. But if this is stolen Palestinian land, Israel has no right to keep any of it, or even to set conditions for its return. Nor does it deserve international acclaim for making "painful territorial concessions": Returning stolen land isn't a generous gesture, as ceding one's own territory would be, but an obligatory restitution that barely begins to atone for the suffering caused by the original theft.

Since a valid Israeli claim doesn't preclude ceding all or part of the territory for peace, the Levy Report in no way endangers the two-state solution. But unless Israel convinces the world that it has a valid claim, it will always be viewed as a reviled thief rather than a peace-seeker willing to make "painful concessions" for peace.

Downplaying this claim in order to prove Israel's "commitment to a two-state vision" would thus be counterproductive. And in fact, 25 years of Gallup polling support this thesis.

In Gallup's annual survey of whether Americans sympathize more with Israel or the Palestinians, the proportion voicing pro-Israel sympathies tumbled from a Gulf War high of 64 percent in 1991 (despite Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's opposition to territorial concessions) to around 40 percent under Oslo signatory Yitzhak Rabin. It remained in those doldrums throughout the seven years after Oslo, during which four more Israeli-Palestinian agreements were signed, then began climbing after the second intifada erupted in 2000. But only in the last three years did it finally surpass 60 percent again, despite a freeze in Israeli-Palestinian talks that many world leaders and media pundits (unjustly) blamed mainly on Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Moreover, during Oslo's heyday (1993-2000), pro-Israel sympathizers were almost always outnumbered by people who had no opinion or sympathized equally with both sides or not with either side. In contrast, pro-Israel sympathizers generally surpassed the "both/neither/no opinion" category before and after that period. And they did so by the widest margin over the last three years.

If Israel's image really depended on belief in its "commitment to a two-state vision," the results should have been the opposite: Support for Israel should have peaked under Rabin (1993-95), or Camp David summiteer Ehud Barak (1999-2001), rather than Shamir and Netanyahu - two premiers who (at least rhetorically) emphasized Israeli rather than Palestinian rights. Thus, forfeiting a chance to prove that Israel isn't a thief just to bolster this belief would be foolish.

And the Levy Report provides such a chance. Precisely because much of the world now deems the West Bank "occupied Palestinian territory," adopting a report that clashes head-on with this accepted wisdom would force the government to repeatedly and publicly explain why it's false: that this land was earmarked for a Jewish state by the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, later affirmed in the UN Charter's Article 80; that the 1947 UN Partition Plan was nonbinding, as all General Assembly resolutions are, and thus became null and void once the Arabs rejected it; that all sides agreed the 1949 armistice lines weren't permanent borders; that the world never recognized Jordan's occupation of the West Bank (1948-67), so the territory had no recognized sovereign when Israel captured it in a defensive war 1967; and that UN Security Council Resolution 242 subsequently recognized Israel's right to retain some of the captured territory.

For regardless of whether Israel ultimately keeps or cedes this territory, this is the case it must make if it is ever to persuade the world that it is a peace-seeker rather than a thief.

Evelyn Gordon, JINSA Fellow, is a journalist and commentator writing in The Jerusalem Post and Commentary.

Romney’s excellent trip

By Charles Krauthammer, Published: August 2, 2012

At the outset of his recent foreign trip, Mitt Romney committed a gaffe. In answer to a question about the Olympics, he expressed skepticism about London’s preparations. The response confounded and exasperated Romney supporters because it was such an unforced error. The question invited a simple paean to Olympic spirit and British grit, not the critical analysis of a former Olympic organizer.

Soon that initial stumble was transmuted into a metaphor for everything that followed. The mainstream media decided with near-unanimity that the rest of the trip amounted to a gaffe-prone disaster.

Really? The Warsaw leg was a triumph. Romney’s speech warmly embraced Poland’s post-communist experiment as a stirring example of a nation committed to limited government at home and a close alliance with America abroad, even unto such godforsaken war zones as Afghanistan and Iraq, at great cost to itself and with little thanks.

Especially little from the Obama administration, which unilaterally canceled a Bush(43)-era missile-defense agreement with Poland to appease Russia. Without any overt criticism of the current president, Romney set out a foreign policy of radically greater appreciation of and fidelity to American allies.

Yet all we hear about Warsaw is the “gaffe”: two phrases uttered by an aide, both best described as microscopically rude. At the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a pack of reporters hurled questions of such journalistic sophistication as, “What about your gaffes?” To which Rick Gorka suggested that the reporters kiss his posterior, a rather charming invitation that would have made a superb photo op.

The other offense against human decency was Gorka’s correlative directive to “shove it.”

The horror! On the eve of the 2004 Democratic Convention, Teresa Heinz Kerry offered precisely that anatomically risky suggestion to an insistent Pittsburgh journalist. Not only did she later express no regret, but Hillary Clinton reacted with: “Good for you, you go girl.”

So where’s the Romney gaffe? Is what’s good for the Heinz not good for the Gorka?

And at his previous stop, Jerusalem, Romney’s speech was a masterpiece of nuance and restraint. Without directly criticizing Obama, Romney drew pointed distinctions deftly expressed in the code words and curlicued diction of Middle East diplomacy.

He declared flatly that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. The official Obama position is that Israel’s capital is to be determined in negotiations with the Palestinians. On Iran, Romney asserted that Israel has the right to defend itself. Obama says this as boilerplate. Romney made clear he means it — that if Israel has to attack, the United States won’t flash the red light before nor punish Israel afterward.

What about the alleged gaffe that dominated reporting from Israel? Romney averred that Israeli and Palestinian economic development might be related to culture. A Palestinian Authority spokesman obligingly jumped forth to accuse Romney of racism, among other thought crimes.

The American media bought it whole, despite the fact that Romney’s assertion was a direct echo of the United Nations’ Arab Human Development Report, written by Arab intellectuals and commissioned by the U.N. It unambiguously asserted that “culture and values are the soul of development.” And went on to report how existing cultural norms — “including traditional Arab culture and values” — are among the major impediments to Arab economic progress.

The report deplores the rampant corruption, repressive governance and lack of women’s (and human) rights as major contributors to backwardness in the Arab world. (In the Palestinian case, it faults Israeli “occupation,” but a U.N. document that doesn’t blame Israel for every Palestinian sorrow, if not the world’s, has yet to be written. Moreover, that excuse doesn’t work for today’s occupation-free, Palestinian-run Gaza.)

Is there any question about Romney’s assertion? PLO/P.A. corruption is legend. Palestinians are repelled by it. Why do you think, when finally given the chance, they voted against the P.A. in 2006?

Romney’s point about “culture” was to highlight the improbable emergence of Israel from resourceless semi-desert to First World “start-up nation,” a tribute to its freedom and openness, just as free-market Chile stands out from state-dominated Ecuador.

Look at how Romney was received. In Israel, its popular prime minister lavished on him a welcome so warm as to be a near-endorsement. In Poland, Romney received an actual endorsement from Lech Walesa, former dissident, former president, Cold War giant, Polish hero.

Two staunch U.S. allies salute a man they would like to see lead the free world. Yet the headlines were “shove it” and “culture.”

Scorecard? Romney’s trip was a major substantive success: one gaffe (Britain), two triumphs (Israel and Poland) and a fine demonstration of foreign-policy fluency and command — wrapped, however, in a media narrative of surpassing triviality.