Harold Goldmeier teaches international university students at Touro College Jerusalem. He is an award-winning entrepreneur who received the Governor’s Award (Illinois) for family investment programs in the workplace from the Commission on the Status of Women. He was a Research and Teaching Fellow at Harvard, worked for four governors, and recently sold his business in Chicago. He is a managing partner of an investment firm, a business management consultant, and a public speaker on business, social, and public policy issues.
The Time is Ripe
The wind is at their backs. Activists for a Greater Israel want the government to annex Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman seems to agree in his recent book, One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Humanix Books, 2024)
Gaza is no longer a factor among the existential threats to Israel. According to Jared Kushner, the airstrip sliver of land can be gentrified into Vegas with a seashore. Hezbollah is enervated but police actions similar to America’s war on drug cartels ought to suffice. Iran is all talk until the Trump administration and the women of Iran overthrow their abusers. Houthis are busy getting rich off blackmail payoffs from shipping magnets. Iraq is a political and military mess. Syria barely survives as a viable nation and is ruled by rebels. The Arabian Gulf States are morphing into Middle East Disney theme parks. Democrat Party leaders appear pathetic, the party in tatters, and without a clear message.
This simmering stewpot undergirds the hardihood of Religious Zionists, extreme-nationalists, and Evangelicals to fulfill their dreams to expand the state equal to or bigger than the Kingdom of David and Solomon. Imagination has them envisioning Jewish communities from Lebanon’s Litani River to Eilat, from the Mediterranean through Gaza to the eastern border of the Jordan Valley abutting Jordan. Friedman’s talks only of Gaza. Unfolding events make anything possible including France enforcing peace in Lebanon, chaos in Syria, Pres-elect Donald Trump filling critical U.S. government positions with politically hard-right thumpers, and few in Israel besides the judiciary willing to challenge Prime Minister Netanyahu.
The Manifesto
Team members responsible for the historic Abraham Accords are visionaries. Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman was a key member of the team. They all deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, at the very least. The Abraham Accords is so authentic it survives the October 7th barbaric, genocidal attack by Hamas against Israel, the vicious battles in Lebanon, the Red Sea attacks, and Israel-Iran hostilities. One Jewish State is David Friedman’s manifesto about where the Middle East goes from here.
Friedman calls for an end to the conundrum of the two-state solution. Friedman is convinced that one state, ruled by Jews – Israel – is the only solution to stability and peace in the Middle East. Friedman offers America’s rule over Puerto Rico as the model for a one-state rule by Israel.
He gives no quarter to the possible desire for self-determination and national pride driving Palestinian Arabs. He believes that Palestinian Arabs lust far more for the blood of the Jews than for a national homeland. The two-state solution has been a failing talking point from colonial British times through Donald Trump’s 2020 “deal of the century.” A state of its own will train and arm terrorists to erase Israel. Friedman points to a survey claiming that 85% of Palestinians agree with Hamas regarding October 7. He sighs, “Perhaps that says it all.”
In the last chapter, Friedman claims Israel tried living in peace, side-by-side with Gazan Palestinian Arabs since 2005; they had local self-rule and economic independence to build a prosperous, peace-loving, Palestinian pearl on the sea. Instead, terrorists took charge: “We cannot repeat the mistake in Gaza.” Only a Jewish-ruled state governing Palestinian Arabs can safeguard Israel.
Ambassador Friedman ignores that Israel lives in relative peace with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, and the Gulf states. The book would be more useful if Friedman had researched and exposed why Israeli Druze are patriotic. Or what are the ingredients for successful coexistence with the Arabs of Abu Ghosh, the African Hebrew Israelites, and Bedouins? How can Israel make the formula work with Palestinian Arabs? Israel is home to 97 embassies most established following the Oslo Accords. Attempts at peace have had their blessings. Friedman ignores this peace progress.
In a greater Israel, he argues, Palestinian Arabs will be ruled akin to US rule over Puerto Rican islanders. It is his model for coexistence in which they cannot vote in federal elections but are otherwise self-fuled. But it took some 300 years for the Spanish and US colonizers to drive out any notion of self-determination and nationalism. Massacres were helpful. The U.S. government maintains army and air force bases and the National Guard is federalized at will. Puerto Ricans prefer statehood but Americans refuse. Still, it works.
What, Ambassador Friedman, is Israel prepared to do with its Palestinian Arabs--massacre is out, so perhaps deport or offer citizenship including Israeli passports? Allow free movement and civil rights? Manage their healthcare system, schools, and economy? Provide police for civil order and peace on the streets. We barely do any of these things for Arab-Israeli communities.
Is Israel ready to deploy soldiers in Palestinian Arab neighborhoods full-time, forever? Will peace escape us for another 250 years until self-determination and nationalism are wiped from the Palestinian ethos?
Takeaway
Friedman ignores that, de facto, one Jewish-ruled state has ruled Judea and Samaria, more or less, for 57 years. Palestinian Arabs and world leaders call it “occupation.” Both sides have documented the extent of that rule. A responsible overview is detailed in a May 28, 2024, article for the Council on Foreign Affairs, titled “Who Governs the Palestinians?”
Daniel Gordis tells the story in one of his books about a colleague who is a popular, soft-spoken, and dedicated Palestinian teacher. They were friendly so he asked the colleague’s opinion about the conflict. To paraphrase, she calmly responded that conquerors have come and gone across Palestine for centuries and one day the Jews will be gone, too, speaking as if the Arabs were always there and not colonizers who conquered the land during the 7th century while the Jews had been there from time immemorial.
Friedman’s vision of one Jewish-ruled state means another 250 years of “occupation.” It is, he asserts, “the last best hope to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The book lacks the vision Friedman and his colleagues brought to the Abraham Accords, but perhaps that is because the starting points are very different. Still, we need another episode of that vision.
