Michael Wise
Michael WiseCourtesy

Dr. Michael Wise is a founder and investor in numerous technology companies. He is a graduate of YU and holds a PhD .in Theoretical Physics from Brandeis U., is the author of Israel demography study (BESA).and has published numerous articles about Israel sovereignty and demographics in Judea and Samaria. [email protected]

We have been in Israel for several weeks hoping to help in various ways and to possibly see our grandson who has been in Gaza from day one. Invariably in almost every conversation with Israelis and others the term conceptzia (קונספטציה) has arisen with different definitions.

More often than not it is used to lambast Netanyahu and his team for the abject failures of October 7. Others use it to describe the failures of military intelligence and command general staff. No clear consensus.

The term conceptzia became famous after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Israel was caught off guard by a surprise attack from Egypt and Syria on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. A commission of inquiry later found that Israel’s military and political leaders had suffered from a conceptzia, a preconceived notion or a governing assumption, that Egypt would not start a war it could not win, and thus ignored or dismissed the warning signs of an imminent attack. Since then, the term has been used to describe other cases of strategic miscalculation such as the 2006 Lebanon War and the 2014 Gaza War.

Conceptzia is seen as a negative phenomenon that leads to complacency, arrogance, and blindness.

Those who are the loudest critics of the conceptzia of the current and past governments seem to be oblivious to their own widespread conceptzia dogmas that endanger the state of Israel. The delusion that the creation of a Palestinian Arab state will lead to regional peace and prosperity is a conceptzia shared by many in Israel since the Six Day War. Today Secretary Blinken and President Biden and the UN and the Euro community share the conceptzia that a deal whose objective is a Palestinian state will end the Israeli-Arab conflict.

That Conceptzia has a long and bloody history. Back in 1937 the British Peel Commission in response to the violent Arab revolt of 1936 recommended dividing Palestine to achieve peace and prosperity. They offered to set aside less than 20% of what remained of their Palestine Mandate for a nascent Jewish homeland. Ben Gurion agreed but the Arabs totally rejected the plan. They would never accept any Jewish sovereignty. The concept of Land for Peace failed. Similarly, the 1947 UN partition plan was rejected. The Arab High Commission had no interest in the Land for Peace Conceptzia.

In 1967, right after the 6-day war, Israel sought a Land for Peace arrangement with the Arabs. The Arab League, in Khartoum responded with 3 no’s; no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel. They also demanded an independent Palestine. The Arabs had hoped to destroy Israel and “drive the Jews into the sea”. But that did not end the entrenched Land for Peace Conceptzia.

The Oslo Accords of 1993-1995 were based on the two-state conceptzia promoted by Israeli leaders and media who believed that the creation of a peaceful Arab neighbor in Judea & Samaria & Gaza would end the 100-year-old conflict. In 2000, there were multiple reasons for Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon but Ehud Barak decided to do so in the hope of reaching a peace agreement with Syria.

There has never been a peace agreement with Syria. The two-state conceptzia relies on the delusion that there is a willingness to live in peace with Israel as a Jewish State. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza based on the conceptzia of an ultimate peaceful Palestine neighbor state. Shortly thereafter Hamas won legislative elections in the Palestinian Arab territories with the promise that further terrorism would eventually force the creation of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria and eventually drive the Jews into the sea.

Intafadas and multiple Gaza Wars did not deter Israelis who stood by the two-state conceptzia. They were deaf to terrorists and Israel haters chanting “Free Palestine from the River to the Sea” and to the multiple failures of attempts to reach a two-state agreement. Amos Hochstein of the USA State Department and Prime Minister Yair Lapid demonstrated the most recent example of damage caused by the Land for Peace Conceptzia. Israel unilaterally waived its rights to offshore maritime properties to Lebanon/Hezbollah in hopes for peace. Little did they understand with whom they were dealing!

Remarkably, whenever terrorism flares up, peace-loving citizens of Israel committed to the two-state conceptzia, demand that Israel exchange its land in return for peace and the end of terrorism. They dream of a peaceful Palestinian Arab state in Israel’s backyard. But there are increasing number of leaders who realize the folly of the conceptzia. Before October 7, President Isaac Herzog, who originally supported the Gaza withdrawal, said, “It was the right thing to do, but without a doubt, from a security perspective, the disengagement was a mistake. We failed in our assessment that post-withdrawal Gaza would become the Hong Kong of the Middle East, instead, it has become one big rocket base.”

Little did he know or acknowledge the extent of the military threat and the magnitude of the metro tunnel complex.

The promulgators of the barbaric October 7 attack knew that many world leaders and Israeli opinion and media personalities were transfixed with the two state conceptzia. They knew that under the control of the so-called moderate (!) Palestinian Authority huge arms caches were accumulating in Jenin and Tul Karm and Hebron and Shechem. They expected that the October massacre would stimulate a global call for a two-state solution to resolve the status of the Arabs west of the Jordan River.

Not surprisingly, President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, the UN as well as governments in Europe and elsewhere are now demanding a pathway to a Palestinian State. Fortunately, today, after the October massacre, almost all Israelis who were life-time committed to the two-state Land for Peace conceptzia, finally understand that creation of a terrorist state in Israel’s backyard will lead to a catastrophe of epic dimensions. They finally understand that the hate that Arab leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, etc. as well as the Palestinian Authority is not based on a land dispute rather, they are fundamentally opposed to any Jewish sovereignty.

After Israel eliminates Hamas, it must resolve the status of Yehuda and Shomron. It cannot fester under a military occupation. Under the latest count 520,000 Jewish inhabitants represent almost 25% of the population. The vast majority of the Arab residents are watching the events in Gaza and understand that their future is brightest under Israel rather than the corrupt Palestinian Authority.

Once Israel declares Sovereignty and ends the two-state conceptzia, 100+ years of Arab terrorism will have been defeated. Under Israel’s Declaration of Independence all residents will have civil and religious rights and full participation in local civic affairs. Today, Israel’s 20% non-Jewish population of Muslims and Christians, are full citizens and are represented in all walks of Israeli life — as MKs, government ministers, judges, professors and business and community leaders. Some will brand Israel as an apartheid state with these new citizens.

A world that has been blind to true racism and truly violent apartheid states cannot dictate to Israel how to best preserve itself and continue as a democratic Jewish state.

Israel’s neighbors will celebrate victory over the brutal Hamas dictatorship. They will understand what Israel must do to preserve its existence and the expanded Abraham Accords will provide a new face to the Middle East.