Ambassador David Friedman’s one-state solution is dead on arrival

He looks so outside of the box that he doesn’t see the elephant in the room

The former US ambassador to Israel wrote a book that explains how to solve the crisis around Zionism. He gave an interview introducing his book.

In short, he envisions Israel absorbing the West Bank (and Gaza?) and the two million Muslims who live there while securing a Jewish majority.

He brings a lot of good ideas. The problem is that he ignores the real problems. 1. The only problem is Antisemitism. You can’t treat a cancer patient for heart failure and hope that will save him. 2. Democracy and many Israelis do not tolerate two kinds of citizens, Jews and Muslims.

I’m sorry to say that it probably takes a Jew in the Diaspora to reason away Antisemitism and Democracy. I will review the interview point-by-point.

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“The world will respect Israel when it respects itself.” It’s a nice idea once also brought by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Yet, it won’t work. A sizeable portion of Muslims in and around Israel doesn’t want prosperity or peace. They want the Jews out. Even Gazans whose lives were saved by Israeli physicians happily participated in the pogrom of October 7. The Diaspora-Jewish mind has a hard time acknowledging Jew-hatred, but it is real.

Though a traditional-Orthodox Jew himself, he brings the argument that incorporating the West Bank fits the Biblical border of Israel. That is simply untrue. A large part of Transjordan, Southern Lebanon, and Gaza also belong. More effective and relevant would be to point out that the Kor’an calls Jews the People of Israel.

He thinks the first step is to convince ‘the State of Israel’ before other countries get involved. This is in direct contradiction to what he says later: to talk to the people and not the politicians. And this is too general. Some countries’ leaders hate Jews, but the populations do not (Turkey, Lebanon). Some countries have most citizens hating all Jews but the leaders do not (Egypt and the late King Hussein). And in some countries, the people and the leaders all hate all Jews (Jordan, Gaza, West Bank).

He envisions lengthy discussions until the people in Israel accept his idea. He is oblivious to the possibility that we just don’t want what he says.

He asks, ‘How will Israel separate the ones who want to be peaceful from the ones who continue to want to commit acts of terror? That’s going to have to continue until it’s resolved.‘ He seems not to understand that the terrorists don’t want terrorism; rather, they want the Jews dead. Ask the Egyptian President how to solve that. Jail or kill all the violent ones.

For some reason, he thinks this costs a lot of money, but friendly Arab States far away will help pay for it, he thinks. He doesn’t know that things in Israel change so rapidly that a plan that takes many steps over years is obsolete before the first step is implemented. While the ‘enlightened’ and Antisemitic nations unite to enforce a Two-State Solution (the Final Solution to the Jewish Question II), he issues a book on the One-State Solution. The book is obsolete by the time it comes from the presses.

He also ignores that it won’t stop at 2 million extra Muslims. At least all the Palestinian Muslims would want to enter Israel, if only because they live there without human rights or equality. He theorizes that because they live like that in Jordan without revolt, they can happily live as second-class citizens in Israel too. Has he never heard of the Black September, when the Jordanian King slaughtered so many Palestinians that they don’t think of revolting anymore? These are things Israel will never do. So, his solution demands that Jordan becomes a real democracy too, where Muslims and Jews (!) can live with full rights. That may take a couple of generations.

He wants his plan to satisfy the left (rights) and the right (land). He does not understand that such a division means the left-wing and the right-wing Jews. Jewish Unity is nice, but you can’t ignore 2-4 million Muslims.

A commentator at the interview suggests this might work because no terrorism now originates from the Muslim minority in Israel because they live here well. Wishful thinking is not thinking! The Arab section of the Israeli Secret Service works very hard to prevent Israeli-Muslim terrorism.

He suggests giving Muslim terrorism supporters who don’t like this idea the option of leaving Israel. How generous—not. Someone dying (pardon the pun) to be a martyr and kill all Jews won’t exit just to please us.

The Ambassador suggests: ‘Talk to the people. Not the corrupt despotic leadership.’ He doesn’t understand that they may hate the corruption, violence, and unemployment under the Palestinian dictators, but that doesn’t mean they want to give up on independence, also not in exchange for health, prosperity, calm, etc. But he has a solution: Don’t ask them. Just take the land and behave as if nothing happened, and they will forget the promises of their own State (and the killing of all Jews—he forgets).

And the world, from the antisemitic UN to the Jew-hating Red Cross to the passive Vatican? Will they accept this? His solution: When Israel wants this in a large majority, the world will like it too. But, of course, it won’t. A large majority of Israeli Jews agrees with a Jewish State in Zion. A large majority of the UN disagrees. He thinks a Republican US would support it. Trump is not the world. And Europe will lose interest in the Middle East. What was he smoking? The commentator chips in that it doesn’t matter what Gentiles say as long as Jews are united, because Ben Gurion said so. So much for new ideas.

Friedman says, ‘In some respects, the Christian Arabs in Israel do better than anybody, including the Jews.‘ He means financially. But they have learned after Auschwitz that hating and murdering Jews is wrong. And they are a tiny minority in Israel. What about the two million Muslims?

He thinks of placating the Muslims in the West Bank by getting Israeli-level infrastructure, education, hospitals, roads, education, and decent incomes paid with billions of dollars that we would hope to get with our partners in the Gulf and from America. The Nazi occupiers of the Netherlands greatly improved the roads (so that they could move their army quickly), and the trains rode in time. It did not make them less hated, believe me.

From his book: “As an observant Jew, and particularly since the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, I feel as if God is calling out to us and admonishing, “How many more times do I need to convince you not to surrender the land that I have given to you for eternity?” I don’t see how his conviction will mean anything to people who hate Jews.

“Israel, however, can never fully be a Jewish state without sovereignty over the territory that makes it Jewish.” That’s made up. We can have a Jewish-Democratic State without Jordan, Southern Lebanon, and Gaza.

The West Bank with Palestinian areas will eventually turn into Gaza II. That is true. But that won’t be a reason for many to do away with them.

[W]hile living under Israeli sovereignty, [the Palestinians] will not be able to exercise national voting to change Israel’s Jewish character. He doesn’t understand this can’t be done in a democracy. And that is his ineptness all over: wishful thinking that can never happen. He reasons it can be done. He never ponders why Muslims would agree, especially those who hate us.