Is Palestinian Statehood Still a Valid Option?

Yaakov, rather than address these arguments, some of which can certainly be considered valid, I would ask you what you think the alternative is? We can have A) Israel ruling over several million Palestinians that are denied the vote-- an apartheid South Africa model-- which is something I feel certain the vast majority of Israelis and worldwide Jews would rightly condemn; or B) we can have Israel absorb the Palestinians into the state of Israel, so that the Jewish state thereby ceases to exist and Jews become a minority in Israel; or C) we can have Israel deport the Palestinians to whichever Arab states will take them in.

So, which is a better idea? I do not think that most Jews would feel comfortable with A and C given the all too recent history of apartheid and Nazism. And I do not think that any Israeli is in favor of option B.

The Palestinians must have their own state. Any other "solution" is simply wishful thinking, or a waste of time.

Yakoov, I find it very hard to argue against the point made by the egyption, but I would like to ask an open question since I will not presume to know more about the conflict than you do:

Is it in your opinion unthinkable that a Palestinian state could somehow become a protype of another "UN born" democracy like Israel itself, only with the Muslim identity instead of the Jewish identity that you refer to in your article on the Jewish/democratic state?

Yaakov: Is there any Muslim country today that is a democracy? Where any of the democratic freedoms available to the "persecuted" Arabs in Israel (freedom of speech, women can vote and drive, an actual elected government that is not controlled by a dictator) exist? It is not unthinkable. I just think it so unlikely to succeed (even for a short time) that it is not even worth discussing.

So you have no faith that Pakistan or Indonesia can be viable Democracies? You imply there are no Muslim states where women can drive and have the vote, but that's not the case. There are female high government officials in some Muslim states and even a woman president in Pakistan's recent past.

The problem is not Islam, it's radical Islam. Muslims are quite capable of living in our democracy, why not in their own?

Make a deal with Jordan (the real Palestinian state) to absorb these people, give them homes and allow them to help the country of Jordan to grow.

I thought that Israelis stopped saying this a long time ago. This argument has about as much merit as the argument that Israel should be in Europe rather than the Middle East. The Jews have a tie to their land that has stretched through many thousands of years. So do the Palestinians. It is unfair and ridiculous to argue that the Palestinians should get up and leave a place that they lived in for so long simply on the basis of the fact that once upon a time the mandate of Palestine included Jordan as well. The mandate of Palestine also included modern-day Israel, so if you want to make that argument, that is where it will take you... nowhere.

(And before making any claims of ethnic cleansing, consider this: the only people to have been forcibly removed from an area in Israel because of their religion are the Jews who lived in Gaza).

I assume you are Jewish yourself. If you are, then you don't need me to tell you that comparing Sharon's Gaza withdrawal to ethnic cleansing boggles the mind. The settlers were compensated with new homes and money in exchange for leaving a place where they were a security risk for Israel and nothing more than a provocation to the Palestinians. This is not ethnic cleansing.

And in your opinion, what good will come from a Palestinian state? Do you think it will actually be a democracy? Do you think it will recognize Israel or stop seeking its destruction?

Actually, yes. I do think it will be a democracy, and I do think that one day it will be a great friend to Israel, and I do think that it will be a modern state that will set an example for the rest of the authoritarian and autocratic Arab regimes that surround it. Call me an optimist, I suppose.

Is there any Muslim country today that is a democracy?

There are many, including all of the Asian Muslim countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, etc.) Arab authoritarianism has nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with politics; one should not confuse correlation with causation. It is, of course, shameful that the Arab countries are so undemocratic, but the Berlin wall fell only a decade ago and look at Eastern Europe today. Change comes quickly.

The world attaches much too great an importance to the question of whether Hamas will recognize Israel's right to exist. Israel doesn't need approval from the likes of Hamas - rather it's the other way around: Should Israel recognize, under present circumstances, the Palestinians' right to a state?

This boggles me. I fail to see why either state should need the other's blessing before continuing to exist. Both countries are already on the map. Currently, a country is answerable to no body but the impartial entities that are the UN, the WTO, the WHO, etc. Why should this change?

Yaakov, correct me if I'm wrong, but the people who didn't get compensation are the ones who refused to leave voluntarily, and who fought against fellow Israeli soldiers who were just doing their jobs, and kicked and spit and put up roadblocks and tried their hardest to reverse the decision taken by their democratically elected government through a campaign of civil disobedience. This was their decision.

All I can say is that they have been given plenty of chances to try to prove that they can be democratic. And what do we get? Hamas.

Well, actually, this was democratic. In fact, the election was probably the freest in the history of the modern Middle East. Hamas didn't seize power, they were democratically elected.

Finally, yes, I am an unrepentant optimist. I look forward to the day that the settlers who feel so strongly about living in "Samaria and Judea" can do so-- as citizens of the democratic state of Palestine. It may not look likely right now, but let's take the long view... I am willing to wait for 100 years if that is what it takes.

Friends,

The state of the Palestinians is already born.

It's gradually maturing.

It will suddenly stand forth.

Cordially,

Jer

Sorry, yes, you are right. I should have said Arab Middle East. Israel has in fact set an excellent example for what is possible and I know from experience that Egyptians in Egypt and Jordanians in Jordan watch the Israeli Knesset with a sense of longing for what real democracy could be. Many scholars believe that the Palestinians' embrace of democracy has much to do with the fact that they have seen Israeli democracy themselves since Israel was born, and so they have rejected from the beginning a more authoritarian model like that of Egypt or Jordan. I agree with this theory.

Are you really Jewish Yaakov?

I seem to remember some racists in Europe who deprived people of their citizenship rights, deported and eventually murdered about SIX MILLION Jews while the world just watched. That was a crime against humanity and I am certainly glad that the Nazis who survived WWII and were caught went to the gallows or prison.

Now you freely admit that there are SEVEN MILLION Palestinians you want to continue depriving of their citizenship rights, deport from their own land because you don't like the people they elected to lead their government. What 'incentives' do you have in mind for the Palestinians to leave while the Israeli government makes some liebensraum adjustments to Palestinian land?

Your article is astoundingly sociopathic and shortsighted.

Responses to:

1. There has been a long history of land usurpation and legalistic theft of Palestinian property in the Occupied Territories, especially in East Jerusalem. You may not be speaking of it, but I'll bet you are aware of it. And just what kind of 'economic incentives' are you speaking of? I seem to recall economic incentives being used by nationalistic Germans to expropriate Jewish property, many of them were of the "You can't work, practice your profession, or own your business here anymore. You will do better somewhere else." variety.

2. The Israeli Army and Air Force are quite capable of defeating any combination of its neighbors. The USA keeps it that way. The Israeli military strikes with impunity in the Occupied Territories. The "balance of power" is still tipped heavily in favor of the Israeli military. The idea that a nuclear-armed Israel is in mortal danger from some Palestinian home-grown inaccurate small rockets is really only for the willfully ignorant. The day that the Palestinian state imports heavy weapons from Egypt is the day the Israeli Air Force blows that equipment up.

3. If Israel has no need for land in the Occupied Territories then why are settlements being built there? Your apologia for a decades-long program of expropriating Palestinian (your semitic cousins) land for settlements does not make people who bring up the subject anti-semitic.

4. Perhaps I don't know the latest population statistics about the Occupied Territories, but the proportion of Palestinians to Israelis is likely greater than the proportion of Jews to Germans in Germany in 1937. If you 'incentivize' your cousins into leaving their land because you don't like their political choices you are in no way different from those who drove the Jews from Germany. The ever-growing circle of 'eye-for-an-eye' is destroying both Palestinian and Jewish children of Abraham.

My family fought the Nazis and rescued people from the death camps. But what is being bandied about in your post is just the 'same crap - different century'.

You are upset at your cousins. So go make peace with them.

Quit thinking in binary.

There are Palestinians who don't hate Jews, find them. There are Israelis who don't hate Palestinians, find them.

An eye for an eye and soon the whole world will be blind - M. Ghandi