The Blogs: Ending the Two-State Fantasy

If you liked October 7, you must love the two-state (final) solution.

You remember the two-state final solution, right? John Kerry thought it was a great idea. So did Ehud Barak. You just take the sliver of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River that was left of the Palestine Mandate after the British sliced off Trans-Jordan and gave it away to the Bedouins to repay a World War I debt. Then you divide that sliver among Jews and Arabs to create two states for two peoples, one of which wants to destroy the other and kill all its inhabitants. Marinate.

Voila! A recipe for endless war, or, worse, a war that ends in the next Jewish holocaust.

In the famous words of Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin, “What could go wrong?” See, October 7, 2023.

Are you, notwithstanding the best post-October 7 efforts of Tom Friedman, Antony Blinken, and other assorted idiots, still having a problem getting your head around the notion of establishing a neighboring state that hates you and wants you dead, equipping it with an army, and hoping that it abandons its religion, indoctrination, and ideology in order to become your best buddy and carbon-neutral partner?

OK, let’s define exactly what this solution involves, so the image and its likely consequences will be completely transparent and you will understand that alternatives must be pursued.

One state will be Israel, the national homeland for the Jewish people, reestablished in 1948 as the successor to Jewish commonwealths and monarchies that had existed in the land for thousands of years. Israel has borders, a liberal democratic political system with an elected legislature and universal suffrage, a citizen army, a thriving culture and economy, and an education system. In short, it has all the indicia of a state. We all know what Israel looks like. We are familiar with her accomplishments and her failures.

The second state will be Palestine. Picture a Palestinian State. Try harder. Close your eyes tight, concentrate, and imagine Palestine in all its historic glory–its leaders, its storied history, its contributions to science and the arts.

Not into young adult fantasy? Sorry. For, of course, picturing Palestine as a state demands a fantasist’s powers of imagination and visualization because such a thing has never existed. Never. The noble peasants, warriors, and terrorists whom the world calls Palestinians are mostly migrants from Syria, Egypt, Circassia, Bosnia, and Arabia. The great majority of them arrived after 1900. Yup: what the young folk on campus call colonial settlers. Palestine was a name by which the Romans sought to demean Judea, the conquered land of the Jews, who had lived there for millennia. The Arabs came later. Much later.

This Arab State is to be run by Hamas, or Fatah, or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or by one or another ISIS or al-Qaeda offshoots–it really doesn’t make a difference; each and every one of them wants Israel disappeared and the Jews dead. It’s just about the one idea on which most Palestinians agree. Perhaps this is why the two-state solution holds such promise and refuses to die–Arab unity is rare, and it is nice to find a common goal. Everyone needs a goal.

There has never been a Basque independent state, though there were periods when the Basques exercised considerable levels of autonomy. There has never been a Kurdish independent state, though there have been periods when the Kurds governed their own affairs with minimal outside interference. There has never been a Palestinian independent state and never even a time when Arabs governed their own affairs within the territory known as Palestine, until 1993, when the doomed Oslo Accords provided a modicum of self-rule to the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria, until their total breakdown in 2000 with the advent of the second intifada, and 2005, when Ariel Sharon relinquished control of Gaza and Hamas turned it into an Iranian puppet confrontation state. We know what happened there.

[Hey two-state fans. Remember Oslo? There is actually a historical dispute over the term Oslo. Some believe that it refers to the capital of antisemitic Norway, where the high-level meetings were held that resulted in the ill-conceived accords purporting to create a state and people out of whole cloth. The better view is that it is an acronym for “One State? LOL,” with the final “L” silent like the “P” in “psychotic terrorist wet dream.” This latter was the apparent mantra of the “Palestinian” negotiators at Camp David in 2000, when they gleefully rejected the state that was offered to them because . . . they never wanted two states. It was only the gullible Israelis who thought Oslo was about the co-existence of two peaceful neighbors. The Arabs never harbored that delusion. They have always believed in One (arab) State? Laugh Out Loud–OSLO(L).]

[Historical Note: The Palestine Liberation Organization was formed in 1964, at a time when Judea and Samaria were controlled by Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt. The goal of the organization was not to liberate those territories from their Arab owners in order to establish a Palestinian state. No. The Palestine that was to be liberated by the organization was known then and now as . . . Israel. So next time someone spews foolishness about the 1967 borders and a Palestinian State on captured “Palestinian” land, remind them that the PLO was formed to dissolve the 1947 borders, that Palestinian leaders believe that all of Israel is captured Palestinian land, and that any capture in 1967 was from Egypt and Jordan.]

Recap for the simple-minded and gender studies majors: The Ottomans ruled in Palestine from 1516-1918. After World War I, the British ruled over a territory in which Jews and Arabs lived, but when the British mandate ended, the mandate was divided into three parts. One was Israel, a Jewish state recognized by the United Nations, and a legitimate descendant of the historic governments of the indigenous Jewish people in their land. Judea and Samaria were occupied by Jordan. Gaza was occupied by Egypt.

There was no Arab Palestine. There has never been an Arab Palestine. Arab Palestine is a fiction, an aspiration, a talisman to dangle in front of an impoverished and deluded people maintained as perpetual refugees as a cudgel against Israel. It is a fetish, a totem, a myth, a fairy tale. The Arabs living in Palestine never had a separate state. The Arabs who lived there before the middle of the twentieth century did not even identify as Palestinian Arabs. The idea that there is or was a distinct Palestinian people is a totally modern construct, and it arose in response to the increased presence and identity of the Jewish people in the land. It could not be otherwise, for, in case you missed the point . . . there has never been a Palestinian state. Moreover, Palestinian leaders have rejected proposals for two adjacent states at least six times.

All these facts mean nothing, of course. Because of Oslo(L), and foolish leadership, and an effective Arab marketing program coupled with the tragic failure of Israel and Zionism to promote their story effectively, the expectation of genuine autonomy for this imaginary people has achieved a life of its own and it can not be wished away. They are not going anywhere and they now have legitimate expectations of being treated fairly in what has become their domicile.

So there has to be a solution. Just not one that involves two adjacent warring states.

It would be nice if a populist Palestinian leader could emerge with the following message: We wish to live in eternal and total peace with our Jewish brethren. We acknowledge their claim to the land of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people. We renounce the deceit of Taqqiya and acknowledge that it has no role in our relationship with our Jewish brethren. We do not seek a hudna, which is temporary and a mere stopgap until we can effect a military victory. We seek permanent peace. We will cooperate with any reasonable approach that accomplishes that goal.

He or she wouldn’t last five minutes. So that will not happen.

But reasonable people could arrive at an alternative solution. First, we must adopt Epstein’s two theorems.

Epstein’s Theorem I: Counter-terrorism, which means killing the terrorists who want to kill you, applied properly by trained and motivated personnel, works. Counter-insurgency, which means persuading the terrorists who want to kill you to love you instead, applied optimistically by fuzzy-minded dreamers who believe the best of all people, especially misunderstood and downtrodden terrorists, always fails miserably.

Epstein’s Theorem II: Any idea advanced by the United States government, foreign service, or state department is wrong. Without going into too much detail, consider the following argument: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan. Need I say more? Military assistance from the US is wonderful. Advice on pacification, nation-building and counter-insurgency, not so much. The US State Department loves the two-state solution.

So here is the answer: First, complete victory by Israeli forces, accompanied by complete Arab surrender. We will never get the Palestinian leader who enunciates the message of peace presented above until the wars end, an economic path forward is presented, the Arab educational system is reformed, a measure of autonomy (demilitarized) is designed, agreed upon, and established, and democracy and civil rights are guaranteed to all. As in the case of World War II, that will take years, if not decades.

Until then, the best that we can hope for is a Palestinian leader that feels compelled by acceptance of dire circumstances to make a speech similar to the one that Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Tribe made in 1877: “ . . . I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead . . .The old men are all dead. . . He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and have no blankets, no food; no one knows where they are–perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”

It is very easy to see that a speech of that nature could lead to an eventual permanent peace of dignity and mutual respect.

I see an Israel, gracious in victory, freed of the specter of an enemy on its borders, granting full autonomy and a full set of civil rights to its newly absorbed Arab community. I see a Bureau of Arab Affairs in the cabinet, ensuring that those rights are not compromised, and an independent judiciary, with Arab representation, protecting civil liberties. I see a completely revamped educational system, ending the cycle of hate. I see local and municipal elections, and Arab self-governance in every jurisdiction except with respect to the Knesset. In Muslim states, Jews and Christians (people of the book) are accorded dhimmi status and allowed to live in peace upon payment of the jizya, in lieu of military service. All Muslims are familiar with this concept. In the sovereign Jewish state I envision, encompassing autonomous Arab territories, the Muslims of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza would have full rights, and perhaps a reduced tax burden. But those autonomous regions would be demilitarized and vote in all elections except national elections.

It might not be perfect, but, as an alternative to a two-state solution that is no longer even within the realm of possibility, it is worth considering.

Unless you’ve got a better idea.