The reaction to Israel’s announcement on Friday that it had approved building plans in Jerusalem and its suburbs was nearly unanimous. Even those who disapproved of the vote by the General Assembly of the United Nations to upgrade the Palestinian Authority to a pseudo-state at the world body damned the housing as either a childish tantrum on the part of the Israeli government to demonstrate their anger or a genuine threat to peace. The argument is that by allowing building in the E1 development area that connects the Maale Adumim suburb to the city, Israel will be foreclosing the possibility of a two-state solution since this would effectively cut the West Bank in half and forestall its viability as an independent Palestinian state.
It sounds logical but it’s absolute nonsense. If the Palestinians did want a two-state solution, the new project as well as the other ones announced yesterday for more houses to be built in 40-year-old Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem wouldn’t stop it. That’s true even of those that say that the final borders of Israel and a putative state of Palestine must be based on the 1949 armistice lines with agreed-upon land swaps. Those swaps wouldn’t amount to more than a few percentage points of the total land area of the West Bank and probably preclude Israel keeping many far-flung settlements in the territory. But everyone knows that the swaps would have to account for the Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem, including Maale Adumim and the other towns in the vicinity that are already inside the security fence that does not protect most settlements. But the operative phrase here is “if” the Palestinians wanted such a solution. They have refused every offer of a state they’ve gotten and refused even to negotiate for four years, not to mention employing the UN gambit specifically in order to avoid talks. The notion that Israeli building in areas that everyone knows they would keep if there was a deal in place is stopping peace from breaking out is ludicrous.
Nor should the Israeli gesture be viewed as petulant. To the contrary, it is exactly what is needed to start changing the one-sided nature of the argument in international forums about the dispute over territory.
Though you wouldn’t know if from listening to the UN debate or even to most spokespersons for the Jewish state over the last forty years, the argument about the West Bank is not solely about pitting rights of Palestinians against Israel’s security needs. The West Bank is, after all, part of the area designated by the League of Nations for Jewish settlement under the Mandate of Palestine. It is also the heart of the ancient Jewish homeland to which Jews have historical, legal and religious ties that cannot be erased by a century of Arab hatred.
Some of Israel’s friends and all of its enemies claim that for Israel to speak of its rights to the West Bank is tantamount to saying that it doesn’t want peace. Not so. Just because it has rights there doesn’t mean that it must assert them under all circumstances, or that it wouldn’t, if convinced that peace was to be had, give up some or all of the territory in exchange for an end to the conflict. Indeed, throughout the last 20 years, Israel has been in engaged in peace talks or attempts to revive them, during the course of which it has made numerous concessions about territory to the Palestinians.
For its pains, Israel has been subjected to even greater vituperation and delegitimization during this period than before. So long as it does not speak of its rights, it will always be treated as a thief who must return stolen property rather than as a party to a conflict with its own justified claims.
Even if the E1 area is developed, there will be no obstacle to peace talks that could produce a Palestinian state in almost all of the West Bank except for the major settlement blocs that no one expects Israel to give up. Nor would the Palestinian state be blighted by this project since highways and tunnels could easily be constructed to allow access between Arab areas to the north and the south of Jerusalem. Indeed, Jewish housing in the disputed areas is no more of an obstacle to peace than the far greater Arab housing boom in other parts of Jerusalem.
If the Palestinians truly wanted to live in peace in their own independent state next to Israel they could go back to the negotiating table and get it. If they were ever to actually offer an end to the conflict in which they recognized the legitimacy and the security of a Jewish state no matter where its borders were drawn, they would find the Israeli people would welcome their offer and no Israeli government could refuse. Instead, the so-called moderates among them — Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah-run PA — avoid talks and go to the UN where they seek an international fiat rather than an agreement. Meanwhile, the far more popular extremists of Hamas govern an independent Palestinian state in all but name in Gaza with an iron fist and use it as a terrorist launching pad rather than to help their people.
A few Jewish homes aren’t the obstacle to Palestinian statehood. Their existence would make no difference to a peace deal that spoke of the 1967 lines with swaps, if that was actually the Palestinian goal. The problem is that to the Palestinians and their terrorist leaders, the E1 area is no more or less a settlement than the rest of Israel. Until they can rid themselves of the rejectionist spirit of 1947 in which they rejected the first UN vote to give them a state, talk of peace is empty rhetoric.
I agree; in absolute terms; absolutely.
And Tzipi Livni, the head of her new party running against Bibi predictably announced, "“The decision to build thousands of housing units as punishment to the Palestinians only punishes Israel … the unnecessary statement only isolates Israel further.” n nNo, Tzipi, you disgusting, self-serving, appeasing poltroon; the only unnecesssary and ill-timed statement that further isolates Israel is yours. May you lose badly and slide into well-deserved obscurity. n
"…only isolates Israel further…” n nTsipi fears isolation? Why doesn't she move to the Upper West side of Manhattan where she will fit right in?
Dreck leadership. Israel really is the mini version of the US in this sense.
Because there are too many Israel-supporting modern Orthodox Jews there for her to be comfortable.
Am ha'aretz: n nYour ignorance of Judaism is well established, my peasant brother. Now you demonstrate your ignorance of the Upper West Side of Manhattan as well. "Orthodox" Jews on the UWS are a minute minority among unaffiliated kosher-style bagel 'n lox Jews like you. Tsipi Longstockings would be lost in the crowd.
I plead guilty to ignorance of the upper west side, not having been there for years. I'm chuckling over the rest of your post, though. n nKudos for being the first one in 7 years to be m'doresh shem on my screen name. But don't assume it is as poshet as declining to entrust your valuables to a host named Kidor. it's more of a simultaneous nod and remonstrance to the secular Zionists than a reference to Avimelekh.
Exactly. n nI see that Abbas has already declared Jerusalem the 'Eternal Capital of Palestine'. n nThe arabs have created a bizzarro version of he Jews, excelling in death and destruction, while stealing the history and identity of the Jews. n nThis is what comes of nurturing the smallest scorpion, because you did not want to deal definitively with the nest of them, and hoped the little bugger would keep the others out of your tent.
Where Jews can live always seems to be contentious. n nDo all the handwringing nations actually believe Abbas' claim that there is no historical evidence of a Jewish presence in Jerusalem? No one challenged that absurdity.
"…Do all the handwringing nations actually believe…that there is no historical evidence of a Jewish presence in Jerusalem?" n nEuropean memory is short. Maybe if we all say hep, hep, hep in unison they'll remember.
Jonathan, I would rethink the phrase “since highways and tunnels could easily be constructed to allow access between Arab areas to the north and south of Jerusalem.” The same highways and tunnels can bring in arms (like in Gaza) with which to cut off Jerusalem and break Israel in half. Indeed, with the high terrain, Israel would be a sitting duck.
I think its about time that Israel put a stop to the PLO’s land grab. First it was the Alon plan, then Oslo (with areas A and B) and now all of the land pre-1967. Furthermore, it is just a matter of time before Jordan is taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood – and now Israel is not thinking of keeping the Jordan valley!
In my view, if Israel wants to have a two states, then she needs to seek out and establish Arabs who will set up a democracy and who will negotiate. The PLO is just like Hamas.
Israel's only mistake in this episode was to not explicitly declare, in advance, they were going to do this and explain that unilateral moves by the Pals will result in Isareli unilateral moves.
Indeed, BDZ. Why does Israel insist on annoying its enemies with surprises? The Israelis already warn their enemies to evacuate well in advance of Israeli attacks. Why not extend advance warning to diplomacy as well? If Israel was more consistent about leading with its chin, all its problems would soon disappear.
Brilliant, Besht. Finally a practical and constructive use for Jew-haters–rebar! Bring on the concrete mixers.
Goodness, no, David; rebar requires structural integrity and tensile strength, both of which they lack. As sewage liners, on the other hand, they would contribute transferable skills and utilize amply available and free by-products for their dietary requirements.
Tobin has truly jumped the shark here. Nobody in the world who had not already swilled the Zionist Koolaid gives any credence to this malarkey.
Piss off. You've already been outed as a Jew hater. n n
A "Jew hater" is someone who says something that a Jew doesn't like.
No you silly old Jew hater–a Jew hater, wandering around his apartment in his urine-stained bvds is the kind of dead-ender who would think of such witticisms as "Zionist Koolaid" and "A Jew hater is someone who says something that a Joe doesn't like" to begin with. And then, oh sweet revenge, wanders over to a Jewboy blog to see the expressions on their faces. n nAnd to think our taxes are paying for your Social Security disability. n nAn occasional "thank you" would do. n
Heh! n nHis little picture looks like the Nazi dentist in 'Marathon Man', except a bit uglier and much worse dressed.
The Nazi dentist was played by Olivier–wildly handsome when he was younger– in his old age. Grumpy was never handsome. n nWhy trolls like Grumpy troll Jewish websites is a question for a psychiatrist. Anti-Semites are notable for their compulsive fascination with Jews and Jewish affairs. There are anti-Semites who devote their entire lives and careers to studying Jews, Jewish literature and history to feed their twisted compulsion. n nConsider the Christian scholars who stubbornly kept the Dead Sea Scrolls–Jewish documents written by Jews for Jews– out of the hands of Jewish scholars for two generations before one of them got drunk and exposed himself for the crude Jew-hater he is. n nWhat makes a man who detests Jews spend years poring over ancient Jewish scrolls while listening to music by Wagner and soiling the precious documents with cigarette ash and coffee stains? Has there ever been a similarly devoted classicist who hated the Greeks and the Romans? n nGrumpy is a sicko but his particular form of insanity is everywhere accepted for normal. The dipsomaniacal intellectual and sexual pervert–there was no a single heterosexual among the Christian scholars hogging and desecrating the Dead Sea Scrolls– was quietly dried out after his unseemly anti-Semitic outburst and raised to an exalted position at Harvard Divinity.
Thanks for this post. n
When Arabs are trying to murder them, Israel is expected to take unilateral actions vis a vis conciliation with them. So why not this kind of unilateral action as well.
Because it's against the rules. And the rules are elegantly simple and deadly in their efficiency : Push Israel into a situation where anything that's thrown at it, missiles, terrorism, threats of a nuclear holocaust. universal disapproval or unilateral declarations must be accepted with discussions about how to comply with an endless stream of demands. Taking out missiles may hurt Arab children, so it can't be done. Fighting terrorism violates the rights of civilians and "punishes" the "innocent" by-standers. Universal disapproval is proof of Israel's stiff-neckedness and the right to object to declarations is conditional on Israeli concessions.
There is no diplomatic solution to Israel's isolation; muslim fueled hate and the arab oil weapon are a reality, and simply not able to be overcome at this point in time. n nEurope's muslims, as well as the genetic Jew hatred that lies beneath many euro societies contributes, as does the PC cultural relativism our elites have now been educated in for the last 2 generations. n nJournalists who translate the news for the non-elites are amongst the worst of the relativists. n nThis is why 'hasbara' considerations are almost irrelevant. n nWhat is the solution? Do as she has to do, preserve life, don't sacrifice one drop of blood to buy goodwill. Populate the ancestral homeland. Defeat irrational enemies. In the final analysis, strength is respected, if hated, and respect and hate are better than Holocaust museums and memorials to massacres and pogroms. n nAnd if Israel goes down, there will be no memorials in any case.
Dead-on. It seems to me that much of wrong-headed Israeli policy since '67 can be summed up with a line from a song: Lookin' for love in all the wrong places… n nPS: It is better to be feared than loved. — Niccolò Machiavelli
Machiavelli's Prince was modeled on Ferdinand II of Spain who launched the inquisition and expelled the Jews from Spain. n nThe need to be loved by their enemies is the Achille's heel of the Jewish people. Secular Jews are especially vulnerable to this weakness while observant Jews are all but immune.
Poor Israel is Stockholm-syndromized when it comes to Europe and the USA.
Whatever or whoever finally puts a stake thru the heart of the "peace process" deserves to be honored with a beautiful boulevard in Jerusalem named after them.