Jeremy Ben-Ami: Responding to the Death Knell for the Two-State Solution
Sounding the death knell for the two-state solution has sadly become an all-too-popular pastime.
Political activists on the left point the finger of blame at Israel and say that expanding settlements and the rising political power of Israel’s right mean there will never be a viable independent Palestinian state.
Political activists on the right maintain that Palestinian terror, regional chaos and — for some — divine will mean that the Jewish people must fully control the land from the Jordan to the Sea.
The unlikely realization of the two-state vision is also becoming conventional wisdom among mainstream Mideast analysts. This past week New York Timescolumnist Tom Friedman declared the peace process dead and snarkily asked op-ed contributors to stop submitting proposals for a two-state solution.
In Israel, even the leading opposition party approved a diplomatic plan which accepts that “it is not presently possible to realize the vision of two states.”
However, as I see it — and as many of Israel’s leading security figures see it — failure to realize the vision of two states is the single greatest threat to the survival of Israel. It stands to imperil both Israel’s physical security and its future as the democratic home of the Jewish people.
Failure must not be an option.
For nearly two thousand years, the Jewish people lived in other people’s lands, often as an oppressed minority.
In exile, we dreamed of being a free people in our own land. We developed a marvelous code of ethics about the treatment of the other, rooted in the principle that one should never treat another people the way one didn’t want to be treated oneself.
Those dreams became reality thanks to an optimistic, can-do spirit whose anthem is “The Hope” (HaTikvah) and whose motto is “if you will it, it is no dream.”
Now, the fate of the two thousand-year dream of Jewish statehood hangs in the balance. If the two-state solution dies, so do the Jewish people’s state, democracy and code of ethics.
The political leadership of Israel today seeks one state under Jewish political control from the River to the Sea. It maintains that Israel will always have to live by the sword and that it must build tall, thick walls to keep the “wild beasts” all around out.
This is a vision for Israel rooted in fear, pessimism and despair. It runs counter to the spirit on which Zionism and the state of Israel was built.
Those of us who believe that the path charted by the Israeli far right is in part the cause of Israel’s growing insecurity must present an alternative vision rooted in hope, optimism and a belief that it is still possible to remake the world as it is into the world as it should be.
Our alternative to the present path Israel is on must address the very real fear and insecurity that Israelis feel in the face of terror and regional chaos.
At the heart of that alternative must be the promise that once Israel is living side by side in peace and security with a Palestinian state, it can and will be accepted into the Middle East at the center of a regional alignment that advances common strategic and economic interests.
In the 1970s, the Arab League famously said no to Israel, no to peace and no to negotiations. Today, many key Arab states are ready to establish a strategic alignment with Israel, recognizing that Israel’s economy can be the engine of regional growth and a centerpiece of regional security.
Beyond the region, with a two-state solution, Israel can achieve full acceptance by the international community rather than suffer increasing isolation. Ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in two states is the surest path to defeating the Global BDS Movement.
As important, Israel can yet be the light unto the nations our ancestors hoped it would be and the thriving democracy its founders intended, but only if it works to ensure the success rather than the defeat of its Palestinian neighbors.
All this is possible and within reach. But it depends on actively and urgently ensuring Palestinian self-determination, an end to occupation and a two-state solution to the festering conflict.
That there is not a path today to that goal is not a fact to be accepted or bemoaned.
It must be the call to arms for all those who care deeply about the existence of a state for the Jewish people.
Read more about: Israel Palestine, Two-state solutionAbout the Author
Ben- Ami does an excellent job of using a sweet tongue to obfuscate the issues of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Three times in the past under three different governments, Israel has offered the two State Solution to the Palestinians. It was rejected by both Arafat and Abbas. The Oslo Accords have been torn to shreds by the Palestinian governments which have only one objective a One State Solution that will eventually make Israel/Palestine Judenrein. One might say that Gaza was a great experiment in trying to create a Two State Solution. Again under Hamas, one of the legitimate governments of Palestine (how many can there be?), the hope by Israel was for peace and from the first day of unilateral abandonment peace has not happened.
Without fail the Fatah, PLO PA or whatever they call themselves have made demands on Israel that Israel cannot accept under any condition as they would lead to the ultimate destruction of Israel as the Jewish State. 1) Division of Jerusalem so that the Palestinians can call it their capitol. Over the past 1500 or so years when the Moslem world, not Palestinian, was the primary governance of Israel, never was Jerusalem the administrative center of anything. It was never a capitol to any Moslem entity. The Ottoman Turks used Damascus as the the administrative center of at the time the area called Palestine (the Roman term for Philistia, home of the Philistines an ancient enemy of the Jews). From 1948 to 1967 under Jordanian occupation, Jerusalem was nothing but a small city conquered by the Arab Army. 2) The Palestinian “Right of Return”. This term is a slight of hand technique to insert enough Moslem Arabs into Israel to change the demographics of the state. Under normal situations when people become refugees, they are absorbed into new countries and made to feel at home. In this exception, the Arab countries sought to use the pity of these displaced people as a club against Israel dooming them to perpetual refugee status. The Arab lands should absorb these people or at least allow them out of the refugee camps operated by UNRWA and to live freely among the non refugee population of the West Bank. 3) The West Bank needs a police force, not an army. They will have no enemies as neighbors against whom they need heavy offensive armament. Israel will have no need to attack them if they are living in peace and why would Jordan, Syria or any other Arab bation attack them if they are peaceful. 4) The so-called Settlement Issue. Israel is willing to do land swaps with the Palestinians to compensate on a hectare for hectare basis. .
Why doesn’t Mr. Ben-Ami and his J Street think that pressure on the Palestinians would not be constructive in obtaining peace for these two states. One of the better known voices of the BDS movement said that the reason that they are putting pressure on Israel is because they can. The Palestinians have nothing to cause economic harm to. What would telling and shaming artists, musicians, educators and others not to visit the West Bank do? What products or companies on the West Bank, other than Israeli owned, could you encourage people to boycott? The Palestinians for many years as a group have been the largest per capita receipients of monetary aid in the world. Imagine what their attitudes would be if they had to “work”{ for their money. If there were no funds for political graft? How many Dollars did Arafat make away with? Aren’t Abbas’s children doing rather well in the business world. The Jews were always willing to give. Ehud Olmert was even willing to surrender half of Jerusalem. But even this was not enough!
Ben-Ami means Son of My People. Why does he hate his people with more vigor than those who wish to destroy them. Hasn’t he heard their chants, not just the radicals but the voice of the PA leadership saying from the River to the Sea. What does he think their goal is. Yes, Mr. Son of my People, offer a solution that is real, preserves a Jewish State and offers the Palestinians a fair deal. Support the status quo with minor adjustments to land. Remove incitement from the Palestinian air waves, schools and mosques. And at last, offer them a democratic, somewhat corruption free government.
Anyone that has met Ben Ami knows he is truly a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He has so much anger and hatred toward the Jewish State it is difficult to disguise. Everything else is commentary.