by Robert Olson
“The fading two-state solution.”
This was the caption of the lead editorial of The New York Times on Jan. 23, emphasizing there was no or little chance of any two-state solution in which a Palestinian state would come into existence in the West Bank. To be sure, such a state, even if had a chance to materialize, would be a truncated entity, consisting at most of some 40 percent of the 2,200-square-mile West Bank . Implicitly unmentioned in the Times editorial was the fact that even if such a truncated entity were to be created, it would not include Area C of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which comprises 60 percent of the West Bank.
Most scholars and analysts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict determined at least three or four years ago there would be no two-state solution to the conflict. The reasons are clear: No US administration would ever demand that any of the 250,000 Jewish settlers be removed from the 10 percent of the West Bank ensconced between the 1967 cease-fire line and the barrier wall. It is also highly unlikely that any of the 400,000 Jews in the West Bank settlements will be removed. This would mean that only 80,000 to 90,000 Jewish settlers in “outposts” would be removed in any two-state solution.
This was clear when the nine-month negotiations that US Secretary of State John Kerry conducted with Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu ended in failure in April 2014. Despite the fact that Israel broke off the talks, both Kerry and US President Barack Obama kept on saying, at least publicly, that they thought a two-state solution was in Israel’s interest.
On Dec. 6, 2015, speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Kerry stated: “It would cost Israel billions of dollars to control the West Bank, while they would run the risk of allowing religious extremism to fill the vacuum of chaos, lawlessness and desperation. Israel would also shoulder the responsibility of providing basic services in the West Bank, including schools, hospitals and law and order.”
One State Solution not in Israel’s Interest
Kerry and Obama kept repeating again and again that it was not in Israel’s interest “as a Jewish state” to have a “one-state” solution: “The one-state solution is no solution at all for a secure, Jewish, democratic Israel living in peace.” At a think tank in Tel Aviv on Jan. 18, US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro again launched a strong attack on Netanyahu’s right-wing government, stressing once again that Israel’s remaining a democratic, Jewish state depended on a two-state solution. Shapiro himself is Jewish and an ardent supporter of Israel. But the two-state solution, Shapiro said, is “Israel’s only path to avoid becoming a bi-national state. We [meaning the US and Israel] must find ways of preserving the viability of the two-state solution for the future.”
A spokesperson for the Netanyahu government made clear the distain that he and the government held for Shapiro. “To put it bluntly,” said Aviv Bushinsky, “it was a statement of a typical ‘little Jewish boy’,” using the derogatory Yiddish term “yehudoni” to describe Shapiro. This of course caused an immediate media firestorm of responses on the part of Washington and Tel Aviv. It demonstrated the increasing differences between not just the ruling Likud-led coalition government but most all of Israel’s political parties; almost all oppose a two-state solution or even a one-state solution. This includes Isaac Herzog, the leader of the Zionist Camp and the major challenger to Netanyahu’s Likud-led coalition.
Has the US administration had it all wrong for the past 15 years? This period includes both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, i.e., that Israel wants or would accept a two or a one-state solution. Have US administrations for the past for the past 10 to 20 years had it wrong by stressing the need for a two-state solution in order to protect the viability of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, one which would have the approval of the American Jewish community and, hence, of Congress?
Israel’s policy for the past decade or more is clear. It will continue to expand settlements throughout the West Bank. It will built and exclude Palestinians from Area C. On Jan. 21, in one of its latest confiscations Israel announced that it would annex 350 acres of “state land” near Jericho (Ariha) in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley. In November, Minister of Education and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett said Israel would begin to settle 100,000 Jews in the Golan Heights conquered by Israel from Syria in 1967, further encircling Palestinians in the West Bank. There is nothing that Syria can do because it is in the throes of a profound civil war.
Bennett has also stated there is no need for either a two-state or a one-state solution. According to Bennett, the Palestinians in pre-1967 Israel are under control and the 320,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem are being integrated into Greater Jerusalem. As for the 2.5 million Palestinians in the remaining 40 percent of the West Bank, they will not be allowed to vote or become citizens of Israel, lessening the possibility that Israel will lose its “Jewish state” identity and characteristics — the fear of past US administrations, the Obama administration and a goodly proportion of Americans.
Managing Palestinian Challenges
It is also quite possible that the non-citizen, non-voting Palestinians in Areas A and B of the West Bank, with increasingly fewer opportunities to make a living, will elect to immigrate to some other country in the coming years, reducing further the need or obligation to manage them. It is Israel’s and Jewish Israelis’ optimism that their strong economy and securitized state, the weak Palestinian government and fractionalized nationalism and the collapsed Arab nationalism and order will enable them to manage any Palestinian challenges in the future.
And, as far as Shapiro is concerned, in the eyes of many Israeli nationalists he is probably “a little Jewish boy.” It is Israel’s “big boys” who are now calling the shots, and not any longer just in Israel but in other regions of the Middle East. It is clear that Washington is no longer calling the shots with regard to Israel’s future and the disposition of the West Bank.
Israel’s task has been made much easier by the close relations it has fostered with Arab Sunni states of the Persian Gulf as well as with Jordan and Egypt and even with Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). This is also true of Turkey as it seeks to reset its relations with Israel. Part of this resetting of Ankara’s new assessment of relations is the realization that Israel is becoming its most important potential ally in the eastern Mediterranean — certainly much more important than Turkey’s relations with the Palestinian Authority or with Hamas-run Gaza.
The Obama administration’s relations with Israel have cooled a bit since Israel, Netanyahu and pro-Israel and Jewish lobbyists, with a good deal of help from the US Congress, tried to sabotage the P5+1 nuclear agreement with Iran in July 2015. Despite Netanyahu’s personal humiliation of Obama, pro-Israel sentiments are still high among members of Congress and the American public. Even before the July 14 agreement was signed, Israeli military and security representatives were in Washington asking for substantial additions to US aid. The current U.S. foreign aid to Israel is $3.3 billion annually, but total aid to Israel probably is around $5 billion. Israel wants to raise the foreign aid itself to $5 billion. The current agreement runs out in 2017. Israel is asking that the total aid during the period 2017 to 2027 should be in the range of $50 billion, or about $5 billion a year. This amount should also contribute significantly to Israel’s ability to complete its annexation of the West Bank.
Israel is already a wealthy country, with an average per capita income of around $32,000, as compared to about $2,000 in the West Bank. Since 20 percent of Israel’s population is Palestinian, who have much lower incomes than Israeli Jews, the Jewish Israeli per capita income could be well above $35,000.
In addition, in 2015 Israel’s income from cyber war exports was between $3 to $4 billion, second only to that of the US. Much of Israel’s cyber war capabilities are also a result of its collaboration with Silicon Valley. There is no doubt that this collaboration will continue. Israel also produces the wings for the F-35 fighter jet under a $5 billion contract with Lockheed Martin. It is rumored that upon sale, Israel will receive a substantially lower price than the current estimated selling price of $100 million. Israel also produces some avionics and electronics used in the F-35.
In short, there is good reason for the Persian Gulf Arab Sunni states as well as Turkey to foster close relations with Israel. The destruction of Iraq and Syria as viable states makes such collaboration even more imperative. Indeed, such collaboration now seems to be occurring on a regular basis.
This means there is now no need for a two-state solution.
Photo: U.S. Ambassador Daniel Shapiro
This article reprinted, with permission, from Today’s Zaman.
“an irresponsible, antisemitic people” No racism here, folks. It’s like negatively stereotyping and entire ethnic/national group is standard operating procedure for zionists. But what else would you expect from someone who endorses Israeli racism, terrorism, colonialism, mass murder and apartheid?
John – – Israel is highly unlikely to annex portions of the West Bank with too many Muslims.
John’s brief comment today calls for comment. I will paste it below.
John says:
“A one state solution is not only feasible but desirable. No one in Israel wants another terrorist, racist Arab country. The Palestinian Arabs have shown themselves to be an irresponsible, antisemitic people. After Israel annexes the West Bank they will eventually offer citizenship to the Arabs. We don’t need another country that is gay-hating, women-abusive and antisemitic. If gay-hating, women-abusive and antisemitic Palestinians got a country, it would be a win for another repressive state.”
John, twice, describes the Palestinians as “gay-hating, woman-abusive”. I don’t know if John actually bothers to follow what is going on inside Israel, in Jewish society, but both in numbers and in political power the pendulum is swinging rapidly toward the Ultra-Orthodox and the religious-Zionist side (unlike normal pendulums, there is little chance that this pendulum will be able to eventually swing back to the other side), and clearly the position of women is worsening in many ways, even in the military, where, amazingly, rabbis who themselves make every effort to not allow women to serve, are allowed to embarrass secular women who do serve their country, banishing them from military ceremonies, forbidding them from singing at military events, and recently not allowing a (presumably hungry) woman officer from eating in a military mess hall within the sight of male enlisted men. Recently a group of about 100 Ultra-Orthodox men stoned an Orthodox mother carrying her six-month old infant, finding her long shirtsleeves a few inches too short; luckily a scrum of Orthodox women rushed down the street and scooped up the mother and baby and rushed them into a store’s protection from the stones. Women are forced to the rear of public busses, or thrown off, or assaulted or spat upon, sometimes with the cooperation of the police, despite the fact that these assaults are violations of Israeli law.
Anti-gay attacks are less frequent, partially because most gays have more sense than live elsewhere than gay-friendly Tel Aviv or similar areas, but there have been several deadly attacks, recently an Ultra-Orthodox man attacked participants at the Jerusalem Gay Right Parade, and stabbed a 15 year old girl to death.
John’s assertion that Israel, after annexing the West Bank, will “eventually” offer the resident Palestinians citizenship is utterly absurd. One merely has to follow the many steps ongoing in Israel to formally or effectively strip present Israeli Arab citizens of their political representation or even their formal citizenship. Last year the “efficiency bill” was passed by the Knesset, tampering with election law hopefully to make it impossible for Israeli Arabs to again elect Arab Knesset members, but it backfired, and led to a slightly larger Arab delegation, although they still are under-represented. Arab Knesset members are repeatedly prosecuted for behavior that is normal for many of the other Knesset members. Israel admits that a single trick, secret residency regulations, were used to force over 147,000 Palestinians out of the Occupied Territories and into third countries since the Territories were occupied in 1967.
A recent study shows that, in about 18 months, a majority of the people under Israeli rule between the Med and the Jordan will be Arabs, not Jews. Overall, the Arab populations are growing significantly more rapidly than the total Jewish population across this area. Sooner or later it will be apparent to everyone that a Jewish minority will be forcibly ruling an Arab majority, the majority of which do not even have the semblance of citizenship, or even any political rights, and few civil rights. (It is hardly an oversight that Israel does not have a Constitution; the rights conferred by Israel’s Declaration of Independence are routinely denied to Arab citizens. No Constitution, no constitutional rights.) Given these realities, the idea that “eventually” Israel will grant millions of additional Arab residents citizenship and voting rights is utterly absurd.