The Obsession with Two-State Solution

https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/the-obsession-with-two-state-solution/2023/12/31/

The Obsession with Two-State Solution

Alex Grobman PhD.19 Tevet 5784 – December 31, 2023

Photo Credit: WDR Free

Have you ever wondered why President Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders are fixated on the Two-State Solution? A question rarely asked is: Do the Arabs want a two-state solution?

From the time of the British Mandate in Palestine (September 29, 1922, to November 29, 1947) to the present, numerous British, American and European government commissions and official emissaries have come to the region to investigate the underlying causes of the Palestinian Arab/Israeli dispute. Academics and journalists have added their own analyses.

“A Conflict of Irreconcilable National Aspirations”

When the Palestine Royal Commission (Peel Commission) recommended partition in July 1937, the Arabs immediately repudiated the British plan. A Joint Memorandum of January 6, 1947 submitted to the British Cabinet by the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Secretary of State for the Colonies found the Arabs “implacably opposed to the creation of a Jewish State in any part of Palestine, and they will go to any lengths to prevent it.”

On February 6, 1948, Jamal Husseini, representing the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), the central political organ of Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine, wrote to UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie that, “The Arabs of Palestine…will never submit or yield to any Power going to Palestine to enforce partition. The only way to establish partition is first to wipe them out—man, woman and child,” which is precisely what the Arabs had planned for the Jews.

“Gerald L.K. Smith in a fez,” the infamous antisemite, is how Bartly Crum, a member of the 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, referred to Jamal. “But I know it went deeper than that,” he said, “this man Jamal was not petty rabble-rouser; he was one of the Arabs’ most influential political leaders.”

How Do the Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza View Palestinian Arab-Israeli Relations and the Peace Process?

Arab World for Research and Development(AWRAD) found “the majority of (59%) strongly supported or (16%) supported to some extent the October 7 attacks carried by the Hamas, while 16% supported to some extent. 11% reported that they neither supported nor opposed the attack, while 13% expressed opposition to the attacks. Strong support for the attacks was notably higher among Palestinians in the West Bank (68%) as compared to Gaza (47%).

“ Sixty eight percent reported that their support for a two-state solution has declined, while 23% reported it had increased. The war is also leading to a decline in the belief that coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis is possible, with 90% reporting they were less likely to hold such convictions. Only 7% said that the possibility of coexistence has increased. In addition, 87% said their conviction in reaching a permanent peace deal with Israel has declined, while 9% said it had increased.”

According to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) “When asked about public support and opposition to specific policy measures to break the stalemate: 55% supported joining more international organizations; 39% supported resort to unarmed popular resistance; 69% supported a return to confrontations and armed intifada; 58% supported dissolving the PA [Palestinian Authority]; and 29% supported abandoning the two-state solution and demanding one state for Palestinians and Israelis. Three months ago, 58% supported a return to confrontations and armed intifada; 53% supported resort to unarmed popular resistance; 52% supported the dissolution of the PA; and 27% supported abandoning the two-state solution in favor of one state.”

Willful Blindness: The Use of Deflection

Rather than addressing the causes of the conflict, the US and West do not seriously confront the Arabs about incitement against Israeli citizens in their schools, mosques and media and do not hold them accountable for continuing to provide financial support to families of convicted terrorists who are either incarcerated in Israeli prisons or who have died while murdering Israelis. Instead, they blame Israel for intransigence, insist it make demeaning and destructive “confidence building” territorial and other concessions.

In Gaza, the US is trying to micro-manage the war by insisting Israel “to do everything possible to prevent civilian casualties and to conduct their operations as surgically and as precisely as possible,” to avoid a regional war, urging that “the Palestinian Authority, revamped and revitalized, should and could have a significant role in determining what governance in Gaza looks like” and adamant about providing humanitarian aid to Gaza residents, while Israeli hostages, living under horrid conditions, remain in Hamas control.

Rarely, if ever, do we hear about the tens of thousands of Israelis who have been displaced and their lives completely disrupted as a result of the war with Hezbollah in the north.

Why hasn’t there been enough pressure on Iran and Qatar, to have Hamas release the hostages? Why haven’t Houthi assets in Yemen been destroyed?

Which army would go to such lengths when fighting a war when its very survival is at stake? White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby answered that question when he showed the map the IDF published earlier this month alerting civilians as to which neighborhoods it is going to attack so that they can evacuate before the bombings begin. “That’s basically telegraphing your punches. There are very few modern militaries in the world that would do that. I don’t know that we would do that,” Kirby admitted according to news reports.

A Response to Criticism of the IDF

Colonel Richard Kemp, a former British Army officer, who spent his 30-year career commanding front-line troops in the British Army fighting terrorism and insurgency, responded to the attacks against the IDF in an article in?The Daily Telegraph,?in which he said: ‘I have been in Israel and in the Gaza Strip since this war began, and I know that the measures Israel took back then [in Operation Protective Edge [2014] are the measures they are taking now; except they have been improved on by further battlefield experience in the intervening years.

Despite that… many innocent civilians have been tragically killed. But Hamas plans all of its operations with one overriding aim: to force Israel to kill civilians in Gaza. That is an even higher priority for them than actually killing IDF soldiers and civilians, because it achieves their objective of delegitimising, vilifying and isolating Israel among the world community.”

The IDF is accused “of breaking the Geneva Conventions, using disproportionate force, collective punishment and forced movement of civilians. How can he know whether or not the force Israel uses is disproportionate? Proportionality has a specific definition in the Geneva Conventions. It means that an attack may only be carried out if the expected harm to civilians is not excessive in relation to the expected military advantage.”

In a?Ynet?interview, Kemp added “The extremely challenging situation the IDF faces in Gaza today may be the most treacherous and formidable battleground any soldiers have ever fought on. Fighting in built-up areas diminishes the advantage of tanks, renders air and artillery support much more difficult, and is characterized by exceptionally high casualty rates, especially for attacking forces. …The standards of professionalism and battle discipline of these young conscripts are remarkable, especially when you consider that most are straight out of high school, as well as the older reservists who dropped what they were doing in their offices and factories, grabbing rifles and uniforms to answer the call of duty.”

US Army General Martin Dempsey, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed with Kemp. After Operation Protective Edge, Dempsey said: “I actually do think that Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties.”

He added, “In this kind of conflict, where you are held to a standard that your enemy is not held to, you’re going to be criticized for civilian casualties….The IDF is not interested in creating civilian casualties. They’re interested in stopping the shooting of rockets and missiles out of the Gaza Strip and into Israel.”

To Solve the Dispute:

Accept the fact this is a religious war. Article 15 of the Hamas Covenant of August 1988 explains why the destruction of Israel is not negotiable; it is a religious imperative: “The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land; Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.” Since 2008, the Palestinian Authority (PA) adopted the Hamas position that this is a religious war noted Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch.

Stop “Pay for Slay.”?

There is no ultimatum for Arab terror organizations to terminate compensation to families where a terrorist is killed or incarcerated in Israeli prisons. This program praises people who have sacrificed themselves to murder Jews, encourages others to join in the war against the Jews, and guarantees those prepared to “martyr” themselves that their families will be granted ongoing financial aid.

The Palestinian Media Watch Under Palestinian Authority law, every terrorist who is killed attacking Israel is defined as a “Martyr” whose family is immediately rewarded by the PA with a 6,000 shekels ($1,511) grant and a 1,400 ($353) per month allowance for life. This means each family of the 1,500 dead Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel will receive 7,400 shekels for this first month. Families of those terrorists who were married and had children will receive even more.

The PA will pay at least 11,100,000 shekels ($2,789,430) this month as a reward for participating in last week’s murders and atrocities against Israeli civilians

The US needs to enforce the Taylor Force Martyr Payment Prevention Act of 2023, which builds on the Taylor Force Act of 2018 to hold financial institutions that process so-called ‘pay to slay’ martyr payment programs accountable. The bill expands the institutional factors available to the Treasury Department when assessing if a foreign financial entity is participating in these programs to prevent terrorists from benefitting financially from committing these heinous acts.

Recognize the PA is not a Peace Partner.?Marcus quotes the Arab World for Research and Development(AWRAD) poll? which asked, ‘Considering the ongoing events’ meaning Oct. 7 plus the Gaza war ‘do you feel a sense of pride as Palestinians?’ And this was shocking: 98% said they feel pride as Palestinians, 94% said proud, ‘to a great extent.’ So the massacres of the Jews, in spite of the terrible destruction that the attack brought on Gaza Strip, brought universal pride to the Palestinian population.” The gap between the 98% being proud and 75% supporting, he said “I suspect is a function of the destruction and suffering that the October 7 attack brought on the residents of the Gaza Strip.”

UNRWA?(United National Relief and Works Agency), dedicated entirely to Palestinian Arab refugees, must be replaced. Two independent research and monitoring groups have exposed UNRWA schools that indoctrinate students to murder Jews, encourage terrorism, venerate martyrdom, demonize Israelis and incite antisemitism.(https://unwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2023-Report-UNRWA.pdf)

A.B. Yehoshua, an Israeli novelist and peace activist, placed the “refugee” question in perspective. Jews and Palestinian Arabs, he said, who fled or were expelled, should not be called refugees, but displaced persons. A refugee flees or has been expelled from his country; a displaced person flees or is expelled from his home, but remains within the boundaries of his homeland. The Jews who fled or were expelled by Arabs into Israeli territory were never refugees but only displaced persons, who were provided with new homes in Israel.

Palestinian Arabs were referred to as refugees, even though most remained in Palestine and lived no more than 20 to 40 km from their homes. The Arabs of Ashdod and Ashkelon relocated to Gaza, only 20 km from their homes. The Arabs from Lod and Ramle moved to the Ramallah area, about 30 or 40 km from these towns. Some Palestinian Arabs who fled or were expelled, went to Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, where, except for Jordan, they were refused citizenship and remain refugees.

During the 19 years in which Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip were under Palestinian Arab, Jordanian and Egyptian control, “these refugees could have at least returned home becoming displaced persons rather than refugees,” and built themselves a new life.

A Final Point

“There is one ideal I have in mind,” declared Golda Meyerson (Meir) on July 16, 1938 ,at the end of the évian Conference, “One thing I want to see before I die—that my people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore.”? The US convened the évian Conference from July 6-15, 1938, at évian-les-Bains, France, ostensibly to find a solution to the refugees seeking a safe haven throughout the world. Once President Roosevelt decided the US would not change the quota system allowing more immigrants into the America or finance ways for them to be absorbed in other countries, the conference had little chance to succeed.

As long as the US and the West continue enabling the Arabs to portray Israel as the oppressor, an apartheid and colonialist state and the personification of evil and refuses to hold them accountable for their genocidal behavior, they are supporting terrorism, which endangers Jews and ultimately the free world. The Jews are the first line of defense against Islamists who loathe what Israel and the West represent—a democratic society where freedom of expression, religion, the rule of law, independence, women’s rights, and human dignity, which are fundamental to our way of life.

“The irrefutable truth is that anyone who genuinely cares for Palestinian civilians” declared Israeli Ambassador Hillel Newman, “would advocate Hamas’s destruction. Those who prefer to denounce the victim show that the driving force behind them is not compassion for the Palestinians but hate for the people of Israel and humanity itself.”

Dr. Alex Grobman is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society, a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and on the advisory board of the National Christian Leadership Conference of Israel (NCLCI). He has an MA and PhD in contemporary Jewish history from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem