Amb. Friedman. I am confused
I think I need to re-read David Friedman’s op-ed in The Jerusalem Post. Friedman is US Ambassador to Israel, a fine man. But wrong.
Or maybe I misunderstand.
The headline reads – “Israel will always be a Jewish state.” So far, so good. Wonderful. I could not say it better myself.
Too bad the article had more to say. If only Friedman had quit writing while he was ahead, or if only I had stopped reading while things still looked so good.
Friedman’s article is a response to Peter Beinart. Now I do not know Beinart. It’s a name I come across about once a year, and leaves a particular taste.
We all know how some words conjure up feelings either positive or negative.
If I say “chocolate,” well, we all know how that feels. But when I say “spinach” it can make you retch, and Peter Beinart is spinach…emphatically so when he writes about Israel.
So I guess it was Beinart’s time of the year, and for The New York Times, which published his latest bloviating rant, it was just another day to bash Israel.
So what’s new? Nothing. Why the rush to print the same drivel that has appeared in the same newspaper a thousand times before?
No reason…except that picking on the Jews always sells, and will always get a reaction, and Friedman reacted.
Well intended, to be sure.
Beinart proposes a binational state, which would allow the Palestinian Arabs to govern themselves separately across the land, while importing millions of their so-called refugees. There is much more to it than that, so far as Beinart is concerned, but it is the gist of his plan; Israel to be deluged out of existence.
Imagine how the Times salivates for this.
Enter Friedman. He writes, “Beinart’s advocacy [of binational] would ultimately destroy Israel.”
Well, yes. Obviously. Friedman deserves thanks for pointing this out.
But he does not stop there, unfortunately. He goes on: “The two-state solution is not dead, it has just morphed from an unattainable illusion to a pragmatic and realistic plan to end a century-old conflict. President Trump’s Vision for Peace proposes an achievable means for the Palestinians to self-govern within the bulk of Judea and Samaria without jeopardizing Israel’s security.”
Huh? Two-state solution, he wants? Sounds awfully binational to me.
Listen, I am still learning, and willing to be corrected. So, what’s the difference between a two-state solution and a binational solution? Zero.
Just to be safe, I looked it up. The dictionary defines binational as “concerning or consisting of two nations.”
Either way, then, the baby gets cut in half.
So Friedman supports a two-state solution that will allow “Palestinians to self-govern within the bulk of Judea and Samaria without jeopardizing Israel’s security.”
Good luck with that – this vision of them safely tucked in…and behaving. It would be a first, as this book tells all.
Second, why…with nearly two million Palestinian Arabs already full citizens within Israel…why do they still get a state within a state call it two-state or binational solution?
Israel owes them nothing.
Third, as we wrote earlier: “From time immemorial, or precisely the Revelation at Sinai, which the Sage Judah Halevi referred to as the defining moment of all world history, the land, all of it, belongs to the Jews, verified over and over again from Balfour, to the League of Nations, to the San Remo Conference, back to The Kuzari and ultimately to the Hebrew Bible.”
So just as you can’t be half Jewish as an individual, you can not be half Jewish as a nation. In or out. This is not a game of dice.
Why fix something that ain’t broke? Israel consistently ranks tops among the 10 happiest countries in the world.
Fourth, why fix something that ain’t broke? Israel consistently ranks tops among the 10 happiest countries in the world.
Anyway, who asked for a solution? Does Israel stick its nose in America’s business?
Whether from foe, Beinart, or friend, Friedman, if any country needs fixing, it is our own.
Hold the ketchup, curb the chutzpah, of telling the Israelis what to do. We are in no position to preach.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.
He wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal,” the authoritative newsroom epic, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” followed by his coming-of-age classics, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” and, the Holocaust-to-Montreal memoir, “Escape from Mount Moriah.” For that and his 1960s epic “The Days of the Bitter End,” contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Website: www.jackengelhard.com
