Viewed from an historical perspective, the creation of the State of Israel must be recognized as one of the greatest political achievements of the 20th century.
Israel's democracy, unlike similar institutions in other developed nations, was developed in only a few years. It did not grow out of the soil of nationalism and aggression. And it has supplied its citizens with the foundation on which they have fashioned the highest standard of living in the Middle East. With limited help from the United States, Israelis have resisted violence from the Arab world, and maintained their traditions and culture, while guaranteeing ethnic freedoms within the tiny nation.
Since the end of the Six-Day War, however, Israeli leadership has lacked the foresight necessary to preserve and strengthen the state.
After the defeat of the "Palestinians" and other Arabs in 1967, Israelis regarded occupants of the West Bank and Gaza as conquered peoples, who had been part of an enemy Arab coalition in all previous wars. The Palestinians were treated better than they had been by Egypt and Jordan, but suffered a continuing lack of national identity. Arab nations made the situation worse by refusing to grant citizenship to the refugees, close refugee camps, or make investments that could have improved conditions. Middle East states refused to sign peace treaties with Israel, and used the Palestinians' relative poverty and frustration as one of the weapons aimed at the destruction of Israel.
The first Intifada was a logical outcome of Arab policies and the disinclination of Israel to grant the Palestinians the same rights as Israeli Arabs. Palestinians had no friends, as proved later by the expulsion of 350,000 of them from Kuwait, restrictions on their employment in Saudi Arabia and ejection of the PLO from Jordan and Lebanon. Egypt was happy to disgorge an impoverished Gaza, and Jordan was delighted to be rid of the West Bank residents, who were a threat to the Hashemite kingdom. Residents of Gaza and the West Bank had no national home, no future, and no hope.
To eliminate the tensions and to produce stability, the Israelis made their first dreadful decision. Responding to the devious diplomacy of Jimmy Carter and the empty promises of Anwar Sadat, Israel sacrificed land and breathing room in the Sinai for a fragile peace with Egypt. Rather than maintain its borders and consolidate its strength, Israel accepted the principle of trading land for "peace," hoping that Jews could rely on reciprocity, rather than military power, to shape their future.
The mindless reduction of the state led to a development that followed the path of the Egyptian treaty. After secret negotiations, the Oslo Agreement was ratified by a narrow margin in the Knesset, which approved the principle of "trading land for peace," while ignoring the host of fundamental issues that separated Jews from Palestinians. Reserved for later resolution were: peace treaties between Arab states and Israel; the fate of refugees; water rights; borders and border control; integration of the economies of Gaza, Israel and the West Bank; jurisdiction over air- and sea-ports; governance of Jerusalem; property rights in Palestinian and Israeli areas; development of civilized political structures in the "territories"; freedom for print and electronic media; and disarmament in the Palestinian sections.
Hope was substituted for reality. Israel's government lulled its citizens into a feeling of security, while allowing Arafat and his evil partners to use Oslo to further their clear, consistent goal of destroying Israel.
The empty vision of Oslo imploded into a predictable nightmare. Astonishingly, it has been followed by an agreement designed by the "Quartet" that rewards terrorism by promising an Independent Palestine that will require more Israeli concessions than were envisioned by Oslo. The United States supports the latest "Road Map," hoping to appease Britain, the European Union, the United Nations and the Muslim world. There is not a shred of principle -- or even a ghost of understanding -- among members of the "Quartet." Their policy -- supported until recently by Israel's government -- is akin to relying on the Maginot Line to stop the German war machine, or to trust Chamberlain's Munich agreement to bring peace to Europe.
The chain of deceipt and misplaced trust is tightening around Israel. Watching and helping are those who want only to be rid of the problem. Instead of granting Israel its rightful place in the association of civilized, democratic, non-aggressive nations, the democratic world is appeasing terrorism by condoning murder by suicide bombers, and urging a solution that can only result in Israel's destruction.
Israel, in effect, has become a major annoyance. If Israel disappeared, many in the U.S. Congress and State Deptartment would heave a sigh of relief, U.S. forces in the Middle East could be reduced, oil would flow, bloody dictators could abuse their people, and the sources of Muslim irritation with the West would diminish. Compromises in Iraq could be made to appease the Arabs and mollify those in the United States who opposed the war.
By supporting the Road Map, the U.S. has shown that it cares practically nothing for the future of Israel. All it wants is to be rid of the problem.
Integration
There is a solution. It is difficult mainly because it involves a new mind set. But it would work. Not only would the tensions between Jews and Palestinians be reduced, but Palestinians would become part of the only democratic state in the Middle East if Israel were to cleanse the terrorists from the West Bank and Gaza, and then integrate the remaining population into the State of Israel, within the present boundaries.
First, Israel should use its overwhelming military power to disarm the Palestinians, and remove all bomb-making and other military capabilities. The United Nations should be invited to observe a village-by-village, house-to-house inspection, as a major disarmament operation is rolled through the West Bank and Gaza. Yasser Arafat and his gang of criminals either should be imprisoned or, if they resist, killed.
Inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank should be required to surrender all guns and bomb-making equipment. Any dwelling that still had prohibited material would be levelled, and the inhabitants placed in camps where they would be supplied with food, water and sanitary facilities prior to being deported or imprisoned.
Those whose dwellings were "clean" would be provided with necessities and confined to their areas prior to completion of the inspection, which should take only a few weeks. Local economic activity would be permitted to continue.
Armed resistance from any quarter would be met with overwhelming force, including the use of artillery, helicopter gunships, tanks, etc.
All hate-filled materials -- including that used in the schools -- would be immediately confiscated and destroyed.
The present borders of Israel would be firmly established. Palestinians remaining after the terrorists had been removed would become residents of Israel, where they would experience vastly improved conditions in a viable, free-market economy, and would be subject, for the first time, to an independent, equitable legal system. They would enjoy most of the privileges currently granted Israeli Arabs, plus assurance that the current mild discrimination between Arabs and Jews would be removed. The relationship between Jews and Palestinians would be modelled on many tested techniques that have proven successful in Haifa and elsewhere.
Voting rights and full citizenship, however, would be granted only after loyalty oaths were signed. This step would not be used as a lever to restrict property rights, employment opportunities, or receipt of equal justice under the law. Understandably, there would be a time lag between integration and acceptance of citizenship within the State of Israel.
The only conditions would be restriction on Arab immigration, and denial of Arab participation in fields of defense and foreign affairs.
[An expanded argument in favor of Integration will be presented in Part Two of this article.]
Other Alternatives
The principles that Israel must use to test a resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict include the following:
(1) Establishment of defensible borders;
(2) Elimination of hate-filled material in print and electronic media;
(3) Political and economic structures to bring Palestinians into the 21st Century, by means of providing economic opportunities and a sense of pride and identity;
(4) A stable demographic ratio of Jews to non-Jews;
(5) Elimination of all military threats within Israel's current boundaries;
(6) Over-all goals that incorporate democratic ideals and downplay ethnic and religious differences, resulting in national parameters that parallel the structure of the United States, the European Union and other advanced states.
There are a variety of policies that have been considered since the Six Day War. Some are within the current negotiating purview. Some are not. None of them meet the minimum threshold that must be reached if a solution is to offer stability and peace.
1. An Independent Palestine: Israel cannot proceed down a path that leaves a Palestinian entity controlled by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and continue to answer growing dangers with platitudes and fantasies. Already, the PLO and terrorist organizations have succeeded in raising hatreds to a fever pitch by pursuing a policy of murder, answered by Western expectations that Israelis will refrain from significant retaliation. Thus, terrorism has succeeded, Israel is closer than ever to destruction, and the Palestinians sink deeper into poverty as their leaders dangle an impossible dream before their eyes.
Independence has been offered to the Palestinians three times, and three times it has been rejected. Once, in 1938, it was offered by the Peel Commission; again, in 1948, by the United Nations, and again in 2000/2001 by Prime Minister Barak. Each time, the basic reason for rejection was the ambition to eliminate the Jewish population from the Fertile Crescent. This has shaped the Palestinian population into a seething, frustrated, hate-filled mass, oriented toward using independence as a stepping stone toward domination of all the land east of the Mediterranean.
2. Occupation: Israel cannot re-occupy the West Bank and Gaza. Israelis will not tolerate the suppression of Palestinians; condone the eruption of violence; permit continuing, virulent anti-Semitism; and placidly accept the incompetence and corruption of Palestinian leaders. Democracy and occupation cannot live together, particularly when standards of living differ so widely ($16,000 annual per capita in Israel; less than $700 in the West Bank and Gaza).
3. Expulsion: Mass expulsion of the Palestinians is out of the question. Israelis would have no stomach for the ethical monstrosity of ejecting everyone who is not a Jew. Nor would it be feasible to force over four million people into hostile territory where they are not wanted. The process would be much more difficult than the expulsion of 15 million Volksdeutsch into a defeated West Germany after WWII.
4. The Wall: Completion of the wall between Palestinian and Israeli areas may result in formation of an independent Palestine that will certainly be less than the Palestinians expect. Tensions would be exacerbated, and Palestinians would have more opportunities to import heavy weapons to use against Israel. The Wall will not bring peace. It only will trigger more conflict.
5. Egyptian and Jordanian sovereignty: Inducing Egypt to accept Gaza, and Jordan to accept the West Bank, is hopeless. Neither country wants any part of the territories. Gaza would be a liability, as it was earlier when Egypt had jurisdiction. Palestinians in the West Bank would further tip the scale against the Hashemite kingdom, which now struggles with a Palestinian majority. King Hussein fought a minor civil war in 1970 to rid himself of Arafat and the PLO. A transfer of population groups in need of financial assistance would add an unwelcome drain on already depleted Jordanian and Egyptian resources.
6. Federation or confederation: Either of these alternatives would be conceivable if the two parties lived under a similar set of institutions, enjoyed roughly the same standard of living, and were not plagued with unresolved conflicts. Negotiations for anything except full integration only would exacerbate present tensions, and lead nowhere.
[Part 1 of 2]
Israel's democracy, unlike similar institutions in other developed nations, was developed in only a few years. It did not grow out of the soil of nationalism and aggression. And it has supplied its citizens with the foundation on which they have fashioned the highest standard of living in the Middle East. With limited help from the United States, Israelis have resisted violence from the Arab world, and maintained their traditions and culture, while guaranteeing ethnic freedoms within the tiny nation.
Since the end of the Six-Day War, however, Israeli leadership has lacked the foresight necessary to preserve and strengthen the state.
After the defeat of the "Palestinians" and other Arabs in 1967, Israelis regarded occupants of the West Bank and Gaza as conquered peoples, who had been part of an enemy Arab coalition in all previous wars. The Palestinians were treated better than they had been by Egypt and Jordan, but suffered a continuing lack of national identity. Arab nations made the situation worse by refusing to grant citizenship to the refugees, close refugee camps, or make investments that could have improved conditions. Middle East states refused to sign peace treaties with Israel, and used the Palestinians' relative poverty and frustration as one of the weapons aimed at the destruction of Israel.
The first Intifada was a logical outcome of Arab policies and the disinclination of Israel to grant the Palestinians the same rights as Israeli Arabs. Palestinians had no friends, as proved later by the expulsion of 350,000 of them from Kuwait, restrictions on their employment in Saudi Arabia and ejection of the PLO from Jordan and Lebanon. Egypt was happy to disgorge an impoverished Gaza, and Jordan was delighted to be rid of the West Bank residents, who were a threat to the Hashemite kingdom. Residents of Gaza and the West Bank had no national home, no future, and no hope.
To eliminate the tensions and to produce stability, the Israelis made their first dreadful decision. Responding to the devious diplomacy of Jimmy Carter and the empty promises of Anwar Sadat, Israel sacrificed land and breathing room in the Sinai for a fragile peace with Egypt. Rather than maintain its borders and consolidate its strength, Israel accepted the principle of trading land for "peace," hoping that Jews could rely on reciprocity, rather than military power, to shape their future.
The mindless reduction of the state led to a development that followed the path of the Egyptian treaty. After secret negotiations, the Oslo Agreement was ratified by a narrow margin in the Knesset, which approved the principle of "trading land for peace," while ignoring the host of fundamental issues that separated Jews from Palestinians. Reserved for later resolution were: peace treaties between Arab states and Israel; the fate of refugees; water rights; borders and border control; integration of the economies of Gaza, Israel and the West Bank; jurisdiction over air- and sea-ports; governance of Jerusalem; property rights in Palestinian and Israeli areas; development of civilized political structures in the "territories"; freedom for print and electronic media; and disarmament in the Palestinian sections.
Hope was substituted for reality. Israel's government lulled its citizens into a feeling of security, while allowing Arafat and his evil partners to use Oslo to further their clear, consistent goal of destroying Israel.
The empty vision of Oslo imploded into a predictable nightmare. Astonishingly, it has been followed by an agreement designed by the "Quartet" that rewards terrorism by promising an Independent Palestine that will require more Israeli concessions than were envisioned by Oslo. The United States supports the latest "Road Map," hoping to appease Britain, the European Union, the United Nations and the Muslim world. There is not a shred of principle -- or even a ghost of understanding -- among members of the "Quartet." Their policy -- supported until recently by Israel's government -- is akin to relying on the Maginot Line to stop the German war machine, or to trust Chamberlain's Munich agreement to bring peace to Europe.
The chain of deceipt and misplaced trust is tightening around Israel. Watching and helping are those who want only to be rid of the problem. Instead of granting Israel its rightful place in the association of civilized, democratic, non-aggressive nations, the democratic world is appeasing terrorism by condoning murder by suicide bombers, and urging a solution that can only result in Israel's destruction.
Israel, in effect, has become a major annoyance. If Israel disappeared, many in the U.S. Congress and State Deptartment would heave a sigh of relief, U.S. forces in the Middle East could be reduced, oil would flow, bloody dictators could abuse their people, and the sources of Muslim irritation with the West would diminish. Compromises in Iraq could be made to appease the Arabs and mollify those in the United States who opposed the war.
By supporting the Road Map, the U.S. has shown that it cares practically nothing for the future of Israel. All it wants is to be rid of the problem.
Integration
There is a solution. It is difficult mainly because it involves a new mind set. But it would work. Not only would the tensions between Jews and Palestinians be reduced, but Palestinians would become part of the only democratic state in the Middle East if Israel were to cleanse the terrorists from the West Bank and Gaza, and then integrate the remaining population into the State of Israel, within the present boundaries.
First, Israel should use its overwhelming military power to disarm the Palestinians, and remove all bomb-making and other military capabilities. The United Nations should be invited to observe a village-by-village, house-to-house inspection, as a major disarmament operation is rolled through the West Bank and Gaza. Yasser Arafat and his gang of criminals either should be imprisoned or, if they resist, killed.
Inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank should be required to surrender all guns and bomb-making equipment. Any dwelling that still had prohibited material would be levelled, and the inhabitants placed in camps where they would be supplied with food, water and sanitary facilities prior to being deported or imprisoned.
Those whose dwellings were "clean" would be provided with necessities and confined to their areas prior to completion of the inspection, which should take only a few weeks. Local economic activity would be permitted to continue.
Armed resistance from any quarter would be met with overwhelming force, including the use of artillery, helicopter gunships, tanks, etc.
All hate-filled materials -- including that used in the schools -- would be immediately confiscated and destroyed.
The present borders of Israel would be firmly established. Palestinians remaining after the terrorists had been removed would become residents of Israel, where they would experience vastly improved conditions in a viable, free-market economy, and would be subject, for the first time, to an independent, equitable legal system. They would enjoy most of the privileges currently granted Israeli Arabs, plus assurance that the current mild discrimination between Arabs and Jews would be removed. The relationship between Jews and Palestinians would be modelled on many tested techniques that have proven successful in Haifa and elsewhere.
Voting rights and full citizenship, however, would be granted only after loyalty oaths were signed. This step would not be used as a lever to restrict property rights, employment opportunities, or receipt of equal justice under the law. Understandably, there would be a time lag between integration and acceptance of citizenship within the State of Israel.
The only conditions would be restriction on Arab immigration, and denial of Arab participation in fields of defense and foreign affairs.
[An expanded argument in favor of Integration will be presented in Part Two of this article.]
Other Alternatives
The principles that Israel must use to test a resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict include the following:
(1) Establishment of defensible borders;
(2) Elimination of hate-filled material in print and electronic media;
(3) Political and economic structures to bring Palestinians into the 21st Century, by means of providing economic opportunities and a sense of pride and identity;
(4) A stable demographic ratio of Jews to non-Jews;
(5) Elimination of all military threats within Israel's current boundaries;
(6) Over-all goals that incorporate democratic ideals and downplay ethnic and religious differences, resulting in national parameters that parallel the structure of the United States, the European Union and other advanced states.
There are a variety of policies that have been considered since the Six Day War. Some are within the current negotiating purview. Some are not. None of them meet the minimum threshold that must be reached if a solution is to offer stability and peace.
1. An Independent Palestine: Israel cannot proceed down a path that leaves a Palestinian entity controlled by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and continue to answer growing dangers with platitudes and fantasies. Already, the PLO and terrorist organizations have succeeded in raising hatreds to a fever pitch by pursuing a policy of murder, answered by Western expectations that Israelis will refrain from significant retaliation. Thus, terrorism has succeeded, Israel is closer than ever to destruction, and the Palestinians sink deeper into poverty as their leaders dangle an impossible dream before their eyes.
Independence has been offered to the Palestinians three times, and three times it has been rejected. Once, in 1938, it was offered by the Peel Commission; again, in 1948, by the United Nations, and again in 2000/2001 by Prime Minister Barak. Each time, the basic reason for rejection was the ambition to eliminate the Jewish population from the Fertile Crescent. This has shaped the Palestinian population into a seething, frustrated, hate-filled mass, oriented toward using independence as a stepping stone toward domination of all the land east of the Mediterranean.
2. Occupation: Israel cannot re-occupy the West Bank and Gaza. Israelis will not tolerate the suppression of Palestinians; condone the eruption of violence; permit continuing, virulent anti-Semitism; and placidly accept the incompetence and corruption of Palestinian leaders. Democracy and occupation cannot live together, particularly when standards of living differ so widely ($16,000 annual per capita in Israel; less than $700 in the West Bank and Gaza).
3. Expulsion: Mass expulsion of the Palestinians is out of the question. Israelis would have no stomach for the ethical monstrosity of ejecting everyone who is not a Jew. Nor would it be feasible to force over four million people into hostile territory where they are not wanted. The process would be much more difficult than the expulsion of 15 million Volksdeutsch into a defeated West Germany after WWII.
4. The Wall: Completion of the wall between Palestinian and Israeli areas may result in formation of an independent Palestine that will certainly be less than the Palestinians expect. Tensions would be exacerbated, and Palestinians would have more opportunities to import heavy weapons to use against Israel. The Wall will not bring peace. It only will trigger more conflict.
5. Egyptian and Jordanian sovereignty: Inducing Egypt to accept Gaza, and Jordan to accept the West Bank, is hopeless. Neither country wants any part of the territories. Gaza would be a liability, as it was earlier when Egypt had jurisdiction. Palestinians in the West Bank would further tip the scale against the Hashemite kingdom, which now struggles with a Palestinian majority. King Hussein fought a minor civil war in 1970 to rid himself of Arafat and the PLO. A transfer of population groups in need of financial assistance would add an unwelcome drain on already depleted Jordanian and Egyptian resources.
6. Federation or confederation: Either of these alternatives would be conceivable if the two parties lived under a similar set of institutions, enjoyed roughly the same standard of living, and were not plagued with unresolved conflicts. Negotiations for anything except full integration only would exacerbate present tensions, and lead nowhere.
[Part 1 of 2]