For your perusal, my latest INTO THE FRAY column:
My New Year Appeal to Caroline Glick – Rethink “The Israeli Solution“.
(Kindly consider “liking”, sharing, tweeting – please use hash-tag #IntoFray)
Glick’s prescription for a “A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East” will jeopardize the Zionist enterprise no less than the two-state paradigm, which she rightly repudiates with great force and eloquence.
It appears this week on the following sites (in alphabetical order):
ISRAELI FRONTLINE: http://www.israelifrontline.com/2018/09/into-the-fray-my-new-year-appeal-to-caroline-glick-rethink-the-israeli-solution.html
ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS: (To be posted)
ISRAEL RISING: (To be posted)
ISRAPUNDIT: https://www.israpundit.org/into-the-fray-my-new-year-appeal-to-caroline-glick-rethink-the-israeli-solution/
JERUSALEM HERALD: (To be posted)
JEWISH PRESS: (To be posted)
JNS: https://www.jns.org/opinion/my-new-year-appeal-to-caroline-glick-rethink-the-israeli-solution/
JEWS DOWN UNDER: https://jewsdownunder.com/2018/09/07/into-the-fraynew-year-appeal-to-caroline-glick-rethink-the-israeli-solution/
MEDIUM: https://medium.com/@martinsherman/into-the-fray-my-new-year-appeal-to-caroline-glick-rethink-the-israeli-solution-5601fbdfcda3
Several short excerpts:
As far as we are concerned, Ahmad is a hero and a martyr – Ali Mahameed at the funeral of his relative, Ahmed Muhammad Mahameed, the Israeli-Arab killed in a recent attempted terror attack, Ynetnews, Aug. 21, 2018.
Events of the past weeks have highlighted the incipient disloyalty—or at least the evident passive lack of loyalty—of significant sectors of the Israeli-Arab population to Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and a clear rejection of the fundamental precepts on which the State of Israel was founded…It also cast grave doubts on the feasibility—and advisability—of most of the currently touted “Right” -wing proposals for the extension of Israeli sovereignty over Judea-Samaria.
Sustained support for the enemy
Clearly then, after over seven decades of living under Israeli sovereignty, after benefiting hugely from the civil equality afforded them (despite repeated instances of expressed affiliation with Israel’s most vehement foes), Israeli Arabs still find it difficult to accept—never mind, identify with—foundational fundamentals on which Israel was established—as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Despite having experienced the societal and economic advantages those fundamentals have brought them—particularly compared to the penury and violence in the surrounding states, founded on very different ones—they continue to demonstrate that they cannot abide the notion of Jewish sovereignty over the land…Indeed, its elected officials, arguably among those who have benefited most from the socio-political order, have been the most vehement in their overt support for Israel’s most virulent enemies.
An incandescent “red light”
The reason that I catalogue these instances [see full article] is to underscore the political sentiments of the Israeli-Arabs as a collective, reflected in the parties and the individuals they vote for. After decades of life as fully enfranchised citizens under Israeli sovereignty, they—and certainly their elected representatives—resist and resent the Jewish nature of the state, in which they live and which has bestowed on them such far-reaching societal benefits—notwithstanding their clear sentiments of affiliation with Israel’s implacable foes…The fact that incipient enmity exists—indeed, persists–despite the relative social and material advantages the Israeli-Arabs enjoy relative to those of their kinfolk across Israel’s borders, should serve as an incandescent red light to well-meaning proponents of extending Israeli sovereignty over Judea-Samaria together with the Arab population resident there.
One of the best known proposals—arguably, the best known—is that of the prominent columnist, Caroline Glick, which she elaborates on in her 2014 book, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East…To briefly summarize the gist of her proposal, in her own words, Glick writes: The mechanics of the policy are fairly straightforward. Israel will apply its laws to Judea and Samaria and govern the areas as normal parts of Israel…Contingent on security concerns…Palestinians will have the right to travel and live anywhere they wish within Israeli territory…Palestinians will have the same legal and civil rights as the rest of the residents and citizens of Israel… Those that receive Israeli citizenship in accordance with Israel’s Citizenship Law will also be allowed to vote in national elections for the Knesset.
Unfounded optimism vs. bitter experience
Glick bases her proposal on “alternative” demographic assessments that the Muslim population in Judea-Samaria is grossly inflated. But even granting that this is correct, her proposal involves doubling the current number of Muslims in Israel’s permanent population. Moreover, as Glick acknowledges herself, this additional population has for generations, been “fed…a steady diet of jihadist and Nazi-style anti-Semitism” by means of the “Palestinian school system and media and appointed imams in mosques”.
Glick appears to be alive to the problematic potential this entails, writing: … suddenly reducing the Jewish majority from 75 percent to 66 percent will undoubtedly have unforeseeable consequences on Israeli politics.” However, I fear that the consequences may well be entirely foreseeable and equally detrimental.
Optimistically, she predicts: “an Israeli assertion of central authority over the areas will likely have a significant moderating impact. Once the population feels there is a central governing authority in place, that sense of order will likely neutralize a significant amount of opposition momentum spurred by anti-Israel animus.”
This of course stands in stark contrast to the evidence of recent weeks among Israeli-Arabs, which offers persuasive proof that despite decades of assertion of central authority” this has done little, if anything, “to neutralize …anti-Israel animus”. Indeed, one can only wonder with grave concern just how such anti-Israel animus might be spurred by doubling the Muslim population, fed for generations with “a steady diet of jihadist and Nazi-style anti-Semitism”.
Evacuation-Compensation for Arabs as sole Zionist-compliant policy
Accordingly, the prescription advanced by Glick in calling for a “A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East” entailing extension of Israeli sovereignty over Judea-Samaria—including the Arab population—will jeopardize the Zionist enterprise no less—arguably more so—than the two-state paradigm, which she rightly repudiates with great force and eloquence…As the year draws to a close I would urge her to rethink the positions she has hitherto adopted and consider charting a different course…So, while I completely concur with her that Israeli sovereignty must be extended from the “River to the Sea,” I call on her to endorse a vigorous program of incentivized emigration (a.k.a. Evacuation – Compensation) for the Arab residents in Judea-Samaria as the only non-“kinetic” policy prescription that can adequately address Israel’s geographic imperative and its demographic one—if it is to endure as the nation state of the Jewish people.
After all, the principle of “Evacuation – Compensation” is often advanced for the removal of Jewish residents in Judea-Samaria—to facilitate the establishment of yet another homophobic, misogynistic Muslim-majority tyranny (a.k.a. a Palestinian state)…So why not rather advance the same principle for the evacuation-compensation of the Arab residents of Judea-Samaria–-to prevent the establishment of such a homophobic, misogynistic tyranny…???
