George Will
George Will-The ‘two-state’ delusion
-'Twas a famous victory for diplomacy when, in 1991 in Madrid, Israelis and Palestinians, orchestrated by the United States, at last engaged in direct negotiations. Almost a generation later, U.S. policy has succeeded in prodding the Palestinians away from their recent insistence on "proximity talks" -- in which they have talked to the Israelis through American intermediaries -- and to direct negotiations. But negotiations about what?
Idle talk about a "binational state" has long since died. Even disregarding the recent fates of multinational states -- e.g., the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, the former Czechoslovakia -- binationalism is impossible if Israel is to be a Jewish state for the Jewish people. No significant Israeli constituency disagrees with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: "The Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside Israel's borders."
Rhetoric about a "two-state solution" is de rigueur. It also is delusional, given two recent, searing experiences.
The only place for a Palestinian state is the West Bank, which Israel has occupied -- legally under international law -- since repelling the 1967 aggression launched from there. The West Bank remains an unallocated portion of the Palestine Mandate, the disposition of which is to be settled by negotiations. Michael Oren, now Israel's ambassador to the United States, said several years before becoming ambassador:
"There is no Israeli leadership that appears either willing or capable of removing 100,000 Israelis from their West Bank homes. . . . The evacuation of a mere 8,100 Israelis from Gaza in 2005 required 55,000 IDF [Israel Defense Forces] troops -- the largest Israeli military operation since the 1973 Yom Kippur War -- and was profoundly traumatic."
Twenty-one Israeli settlements were dismantled; even the bodies of Israelis buried in Gaza were removed. After a deeply flawed 2006 election encouraged by the United States, there was in 2007 essentially a coup in Gaza by the terrorist organization Hamas. So now Israel has on its western border, 44 miles from Tel Aviv, an entity dedicated to Israel's destruction, collaborative with Iran and possessing a huge arsenal of rockets.
Rocket attacks from Gaza increased dramatically after Israel withdrew. The number of U.N. resolutions deploring this? Zero.
The closest precedent for that bombardment was the Nazi rocket attacks on London, which were answered by the destruction of Hamburg, Dresden and other German cities. When Israel struck back at Hamas, the "international community" was theatrically appalled.
A senior cabinet member -- Moshe Yaalon, strategic affairs minister and possible future prime minister -- says "our withdrawals strengthened jihadist Islam," adding, "We have the second Islamic republic in the Middle East -- the first in Iran, the second in Gaza: Hamastan."
Israel's withdrawals include the one that strengthened the Iranian client on Israel's northern border, in southern Lebanon. Since the 2006 war provoked by Hezbollah's incessant rocketing of northern Israel, Hezbollah has rearmed and possesses as many as 60,000 rockets. Today, Netanyahu says, Israel's problem is less the Israel-Lebanon border than it is the Lebanon-Syria border: Hezbollah has received from Syria -- which gets them from Iran -- Scud missiles capable of striking Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. A leader of Hezbollah says, "If all the Jews gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide."
Because upward of a million immigrants have come from the former Soviet Union, today one-sixth of Israelis speak Russian. Israel has Russian-language newspapers and television. Russian Israelis are largely responsible for Avigdor Lieberman being foreign minister. Yoram Peri, professor of Israel studies at the University of Maryland, says these immigrants "don't understand how a state that can be crossed in half an hour by car would be willing to even talk about relinquishing territories to its seemingly perpetual enemies." These immigrants know that Russia's strategic depth -- space -- defeated Napoleon and Hitler.
Netanyahu, who is not the most conservative member of the coalition government he heads, endorses a two-state solution but says that any West Bank Palestinian state must be demilitarized and prevented from making agreements with the likes of Hezbollah and Iran. To prevent the importation of missiles and other arms, Israel would need, Netanyahu says, a military presence on the West Bank's eastern border with Jordan. Otherwise, there will be a third Islamic republic, and a second one contiguous to Israel.
So, again: Negotiations about what?
Abbas has other ideas - Israel Opinion, Ynetnews
Abbas has other ideas
Op-ed: Palestinians don’t want direct talks to succeed, as they prefer one-state solution
Mordechai Kedar
Anyone familiar with the sly way of thinking characterizing the current Palestinian leadership knows the truth: Following the show in Washington, they shall find a way to thwart the direct negotiations.
Netanyahu scares them, mostly because of his political ability to secure an agreement. He has no meaningful opposition on the Right, and Kadima is just waiting for a sign from him to join the government, embrace him, and support him should the Right quit the coalition. The Palestinians fear exactly that – because they cannot finalize such deal.
The first reason for this is the refugee problem. Any Palestinian or Arab leader who says something that is interpreted as any kind of concession on the right of return – which would bring millions of Arabs into Israel – knows that he shall immediately be accused of treason, and Hamas will have a field day with it.
Indeed, the education systems in the Palestinian Authority and in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan continue to perpetrate the notion of return in every possible way.
Moreover, the PLO leadership fears that in the case of an agreement that would include “an end to the conflict” and “no more demands,” it will find itself mixed up with Syria and Lebanon, which are interested in getting rid of the 1948 refugees and their descendents. These two countries may even sabotage an agreement by expelling hundreds of thousands of them to Palestine – this is the last thing the Palestinian leadership wants.
The second reason is Jerusalem. Under the leadership of a rightist Israeli government, partitioning the city appears to be an impossible mission, and the Palestinian leadership cannot present its public with a deal that would include less than the dream outline by Arafat: “One Palestinian state with the holy Jerusalem as its capital.”
Living at world’s expense
Another reason is economic. For some years now, the Palestinian Authority has been making a good living off public and government funds from Europe, the US, and the Arab and Islamic world. This has reached the point where Palestinian per capita disposable income is double that of Egypt’s.
The PA leadership fears that the moment an independent Palestinian state is declared, donations would dry up, as the world will expect the Palestinians to start supporting themselves just like any other independent state. The Palestinians, who got used to living at the expense of others, cannot bear to think about the day where they’ll have to make a living on their own.
Finally, instead of an agreement it does not want, the Palestinian leadership sees an alternative. More and more voices, both Israeli and Arab, are calling for a one-state solution, which will be democratic and enable both people – the Jewish Israelis and the Arab Palestinians – to coexist in line with an agreed-upon arrangement, as is the case in Belgium.
Oddly enough, the one-state solution is endorsed in Israel both by the extreme Right, which still clings to the notion of the Greater Israel, and by the radical Left, which has no problem sharing a home with the Arabs, as long as everyone thinks that it’s being enlightened and liberal.
However, it appears that the one-state solution is to the liking of someone else: The Palestinian leadership, as this would spare it the need to concede something in writing.
In one state, the life of Palestinians would be better than today, as they will enjoy civilian rights in a modern state. And if at one point the Jews decide to run away (taking this modern state along with them,) this too would be a blessing – that way, they would gain the entire land without a deal and without concessions. So why enter negotiations?
Dr. Mordechai Keder, the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University
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