Israel Matzav: Gordis defends the indefensible

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Gordis defends the indefensible

Daniel Gordis defends his signature on a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Significantly, he does so at Haaretz - Israel's Hebrew 'Palestinian' daily - and not at the Jerusalem Post where he normally writes his op-ed's (Hat Tip: My Right Word) (Full article here).

The question is how Israel should conduct itself in the face of that stark reality. A wise Israeli leadership would do everything in its power to communicate to the world that beyond those two existential issues, which are not negotiable, Israel will discuss virtually anything. There are matters on which Israel will compromise, and others on which it will not. Israel, though, must continually and publicly urge the Palestinians to come to the table; and when they refuse, Israel’s leaders must then make clear that it is the Palestinians, not the Israelis, who are the obstructionists.

Adopting the Levy Commission report would make it impossible for Israel to make that point. While the Levy Commission insisted that its findings were legal and not political, that distinction would be utterly lost on the international community. Observers everywhere would read the adoption of the Levy report as tantamount to annexing the West Bank. It would be read as putting the Palestinians on notice that Israel plans never to evacuate any settlements, and that hopes for a Palestinian state are dead. The damage to Israel – in the international community and even among more Zionists than this government realizes – would be profound.

Internally, the damage would be no less significant. Israel today faces a profound educational challenge, one that it has not even begun to address. Intentionally or not, adopting the Levy Commission report would signal to Israelis that their political leadership believes that the status quo is actually the ideal and that young people should give up even dreaming that the conflict might, one day, be behind us. Can we imagine ourselves in an interminable conflict without numbing our moral sensibilities? How do we encourage our citizens to be willing to fight for this country, without making hatred of our enemy a foundation of their Israeli ethos? Israel needs to educate a generation of young people and new leaders passionately committed to the proposition that a Jewish State needs to be defended vigorously, all the while hoping that our enemies might someday become simply neighbors.

I cannot buy into Gordis' argument for three reasons.

First, because a report issued by a former Supreme Court Justice that asserts our legal rights certainly does not close the door to the sovereign State of Israel deciding on its own and of its own volition to waive some of those rights. The current situation - in which we stand silently as the world asserts that we have no rights - just encourages the 'Palestinians' and their Arab, Muslim and European sponsors to maintain their maximalist demands.

Second, because the 'two-state solution' is not a holy grail and has no rights of exclusivity. There are other possible ways to resolve or live with the conflict - yes, including the status quo - that are less risky to the lives and livelihoods of Israelis. From 1967-93, almost no Israelis advocated for a 'two-state solution.' Even in Prime Minister Rabin's last speech to the Knesset in 1995, he said that there would be no 'Palestinian state.' And in the time in which Israelis have declared themselves open to a 'Palestinian state,' the 'Palestinians' have asserted and proven time and time again that their intention is that a 'Palestinian state' be a stepping stone to the replacement of the State of Israel, and not a final result of coexistence. It is time for Israelis to acknowledge that reality and act accordingly. It is time to move on from the Oslo paradigm.

Third, the truth is that we ought to annex Judea and Samaria. Now. What form that annexation should take - whether it ought to include the Arab population that lives there today or only the Jewish towns and the land on which they sit plus access roads to them - is a matter for discussion. But we ought to annex Judea and Samaria if for no other reason than once we have done so, it will give the 'Palestinians' an incentive to compromise on their outrageous demands. We have expelled Jews from their homes before for the sake of an illusory peace. No one should doubt that Israel would expel Jews from their homes (hopefully in a more humane way that was done until now) for the sake of a real peace. But we have to acknowledge that a real peace is nothing but a pipe dream today and to stop living in FantasyLand and ignoring reality.

For the last 19 years, we have gone around in circles and have sacrificed over 1,500 Israeli lives to 'Palestinian' terrorism while pursuing a 'two-state solution.' It is time for another solution.

Labels: annexation, Israel is a Jewish state, Levy Report, one-state solution, Palestinian terrorism, two-state solution