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What Would a Two-State Solution Solve?
The signing of the Oslo Accords in Washington, DC, Sept. 13, 1993. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – I don’t oppose a two-state solution. Nor do I oppose Tinker Bell. I just seriously doubt that either exists.
If you’re among those who believe that widespread recognition of a Palestinian nation-state would resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, I’d remind you: This is an idea that has been tried and found wanting.
For example: In November 1947, the UN General Assembly recommended partitioning western Palestine (eastern Palestine having been given over years earlier to what would become the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) into two states: one for Palestinian Arabs, the other for Palestinian Jews. Jewish leaders accepted the recommendation. Arab leaders rejected it.
Palestinian Jews knew what total Arab control of Palestine would mean for them. In 1929, Palestinian Arabs had carried out a terrible pogrom—akin to that of Oct. 7—against Palestinian Jews in Hebron. In 1936, the “Arab Revolt” included terrorist attacks not just against the British who had replaced the Ottoman Empire as Palestine’s rulers but also against Jews.
And the most important leader of Palestine’s Arabs at that time was Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, who had spent World War II in Berlin assisting Hitler.
So, the week after the British withdrew from Palestine, the Jews declared an independent state. In response, the armies of five Arab nations invaded Israel, waging a war to exterminate the fledgling Jewish state.
Against all odds, Israel survived. Palestinian Arabs who neither fought the Jews nor fled from them became Israeli citizens. Nevertheless, what was then called the Arab-Israeli conflict persisted.
In 1964, at a summit meeting in Cairo, the Arab League created the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Three years later, Israel’s Arab neighbors again attempted to push the Jews into the sea. Again, they failed.
By the conclusion of the Six-Day War, Israel had taken Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan. The West Bank, by the way, had been known by its biblical names, Judea and Samaria, before those territories were conquered by Jordan in the 1948 war. Following that conquest, Jordan expelled the Jews, destroyed the synagogues and desecrated Jewish cemeteries and shrines.
In the aftermath of the 1967 war, the Arab League issued what became known as the “three No’s”: no peace with Israel, no negotiation with Israel, no recognition of Israel.
Today, Israel’s most consequential conflict is with Iran’s rulers who fund, arm and instruct Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. Hezbollah, based in Southern Lebanon, has been rocketing northern Israel since Oct. 8. The Houthi rebels in Yemen and the Shia militias in Syria and Iraq are also proxies of Tehran.
For 45 years, Iran’s self-proclaimed jihadis have vowed “Death to Israel!” and “Death to America!” The slogan of the Houthis: “God is Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, a Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.”
Could there be a more explicit rejection of a two-state solution? Is it not indisputable that what Iran’s rulers and their minions want instead is a “final solution”—the Nazi term for the extermination of Jews?
Iran’s rulers believe the world is divided into Dar al-Islam, the countries ruled by Muslims, and Dar al-Harb, the countries ruled by non-believers who must be fought and conquered. Israel is the only slice of land between Morocco and Pakistan not ruled by Muslims. To an Islamist, such diversity is intolerable.
The various “peace processes” have ignored these inconvenient truths. The Oslo Accords of the 1990s—agreements between Israel and the PLO—set up the Palestinian Authority to govern parts of Gaza, Judea and Samaria. Its main problem has not been that Israel and the United States have refrained from granting it formal recognition as a nation-state.
Hamas violently ousted the PA from Gaza in 2007, two years after the Israelis withdrew from that territory.
Since then, what attributes of statehood has Gaza lacked? Huge amounts of aid have streamed in from the “international donor community.” Health care, education and other social services have been provided by UN agencies that became Hamas’s handmaidens. These agencies have employed Hamas members, some of whom took part in the atrocities of Oct. 7.
Israel has supplied Gaza with electricity and water and, before Oct. 7, permitted thousands of Gazans to enter Israel to work at higher salaries than they could command in Gaza. For decades, Israeli hospitals have opened their doors to Gazans in need.
Media reports have often called Gaza an “open-air prison.” But we now know that Gazans were always able to leave and return over their border with Egypt. Some did so for terrorist training. Hamas constructed an elaborate subterranean fortress. Do prisons generally allow inmates to dig tunnels?
Through highways under the Egyptian border, an enormous supply of weapons and munitions poured into Gaza over the years.
Hamas’s goal has not been nation-building. Its goal has been, and still is, to create an emirate “from the river to the sea” to be included in a new caliphate and empire.
This is why any solution to the multiple conflicts now underway in the Middle East must begin with the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities.
More challenging but essential: Neutralizing the neo-imperialist and openly genocidal regime in Tehran that, you should note, is now firmly allied with Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang.
The day after that, progress can perhaps be made towards establishing an independent Palestinian state with leaders willing, however reluctantly, to peacefully coexist alongside Israel.
To sum up: Belief in a two-state solution does not make it a realistic option, any more than belief in Tinker Bell can bring the little fairy to life.
Originally published by The Washington Times.
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Hamas Confirms Death of Terror Chief Mohammed Deif Months After Israeli Strike
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Picture said to show leader of Hamas’s military wing, known as Al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif in a location given as Gaza Strip in this handout picture released on Jan. 7, 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas officially confirmed on Thursday that its military chief, Mohammed Deif, was killed during the Gaza war, almost six months after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported his death.
Deif, the architect of Hamas’s military capabilities, is believed to have been one of the masterminds behind the terrorist group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — which sparked the Gaza war.
Abu Ubaida, a Hamas spokesperson, also reported the deaths of Deif’s deputy, Khan Younis Brigade commander Rafa Salama, as well as senior operatives Marwan Issa, Ghazi Abu Tama’a, Raad Thabet, Ahmed Ghandour, and Ayman Nofal.
According to the IDF, Deif was killed in an airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on July 13 of last year.
Following weeks of intelligence assessments, Israeli authorities gathered evidence to confirm Deif’s death before publicly announcing it in early August.
“IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Yunis, and … it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike,” the military said. “His elimination serves the objectives of the war and demonstrates Israel’s ability to carry out targeted strikes with precision.”
At the time, Hamas neither confirmed nor denied Deif’s death, but one official, Ezzat Rashaq, stated that any announcements regarding the deaths of its leaders would be made solely by the organization.
“Unless either of them [the Hamas political and military leadership] announces it, no news published in the media or by any other parties can be confirmed,” Rashaq said.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Deif, as well as for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.
Deif is believed to have collaborated closely with the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, managing military operations and coordinating with the group’s top commanders throughout the conflict.
After Deif’s assassination, then-defense minister Gallant posted an image on social media praising the Israeli military’s accomplishment.
“The assassination of mass murderer Mohammed Deif — ‘Gaza’s Bin Laden’ — is a major step toward dismantling Hamas as a military and governing entity, and achieving the war’s objectives,” he said.
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‘A Bad but Necessary Deal’: Five Members of His Family Were Murdered — Today, Their Killer Walks Free
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Oran Almog, right, addressing the UN Security Council next to Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon on July 25, 2017. Photo: Screenshot
While the release of three Israeli hostages on Thursday brought relief and elation across Israel, it also triggered a wave of mixed emotions, especially among victims who saw the terrorists responsible for their suffering set free. One of them is Oran Almog, who was just ten years old when a Palestinian terrorist disguised as a pregnant woman blew up the restaurant he was in, killing five members of his family and leaving him blind.
Yet, while Thursday’s release of Sami Jaradat — the mastermind behind the October 2003 massacre of Almog’s family — was a deeply personal blow, the return of hostages remained a necessary step, he said.
“That the terrorist who killed my family will find himself free is deeply painful, heartbreaking even,” he told The Algemeiner. “But at the same time, I know that even today — especially today — I must set aside my personal pain and focus on the significance of this deal. And the significance is clear. We are getting our hostages home, and that is the only thing that matters.”
Almog’s father, Moshe Almog, his younger brother, Tomer, his grandparents Admiral (res.) Ze’ev and Ruth Almog, and his cousin, Asaf, were murdered when the suicide bomber, Hanadi Jaradat, a 29-year-old lawyer from Jenin, managed to get past the security guard of the Maxim restaurant — jointly owned by a Jewish Israeli and an Arab Israeli — and blow herself up. Sixteen other people were also murdered in the attack, among them four children. Almog lost his eyesight, and his mother, sister, and aunt were among the 60 injured Israelis.
“Sami Jaradat’s continued imprisonment will never bring my family back, but his release can bring the hostages back home alive,” Almog explained.
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Emotional meeting between Agam Berger and her family at Beilinson Hospital in Israel. Photo: Haim Zach (GPO)
Almog knows firsthand what it means to be on the receiving end of a hostage-prisoner exchange.
Just two weeks after marking the 20th anniversary of the Maxim restaurant attack, another tragedy struck his family. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists brutally murdered Nadav and Yam and abducted Chen, Agam, Gal, and Tal from the Almog-Goldstein family in Kfar Azza.
Fifty-one days later, in November 2023, they were released from Hamas captivity in a temporary ceasefire deal.
Under the current ceasefire agreement reached earlier this month, Hamas will release a total 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, according to the terrorist group. In exchange, Israel will free over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom were serving multiple life sentences on terrorism offenses. Thursday saw the release of three Israelis — including IDF surveillance soldier Agam Berger, 20, and civilians Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Mozes, 80 — and five Thai nationals, who were working in Israeli kibbutzim when they were abducted.
“This is a bad deal, very bad, but the alternative is that much worse,” Almog said. “We must look ahead, put today aside, and recognize that releasing prisoners serves a greater purpose.”
However, Almog expressed hope that Israel would move toward a more decisive and uncompromising approach in its fight against terrorism.
“I sincerely hope that as a country, we will have the wisdom to decisively thwart terrorism,” he said, emphasizing the need to break free from the ongoing cycle of prisoner exchanges.
“I don’t want us to find ourselves trapped in a cycle of releasing terrorists, only for them to return to terror, and then repeat the process again and again,” he added.
Almog has previously addressed the UN Security Council, urging action against the so-called “pay-for-slay” scheme, in which terrorists and their families receive monthly stipends from the Palestinian Authority. The terrorist behind the murder of Almog’s family received $3,000 a month while behind bars, making him almost a millionaire by the time of his release.
Still, Almog concluded with a deeply uplifting message for the returning hostages, confident that they would have a chance at a good life, drawing from his own experiences since the terror attack.
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Oran Almog. Photo: Facebook
After his release from the hospital, he began a long rehabilitation process, culminating in third place at the World Blind Sailing Championship with Etgarim, a nonprofit founded by disabled veterans and rehabilitation experts, and supported by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ). He was chosen to light a torch at Israel’s Independence Day ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the state and, despite his disability, insisted on enlisting in the IDF, serving in an elite unit. Today, he is a managing partner at a financial technology fund, works with Etgarim, and shares his story globally through lectures.
“I know the hostages will be able to return, to live, and to live well. With enough support — and a great deal of willpower — it is truly possible to rebuild life, even after the deepest catastrophes,” he said.
The post ‘A Bad but Necessary Deal’: Five Members of His Family Were Murdered — Today, Their Killer Walks Free first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pro-Israel Lawmaker Randy Fine Wins Florida GOP Primary, Favorite to Replace Trump Adviser Mike Waltz in Congress
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Florida state Sen. Randy Fine. Photo: Reuters
Florida state Sen. Randy Fine emerged victorious on Tuesday in the Republican primary election for the Sunshine State’s 6th Congressional District in the US Congress, making the firebrand conservative the overwhelming favorite to secure the highly-coveted seat to replace now-former Rep. Mike Waltz.
The congressional seat became vacant after Waltz stepped down to become the national security adviser for US President Donald Trump in the White House. Waltz had managed to secure reelection in November with 66 percent of the vote.
Fine, who is Jewish, has established himself as a stalwart ally of Israel. In the year following the Hamas-led slaughter of 1,200 people and kidnapping of 251 hostages during a cross-border invasion into southern Israel, Fine has spearheaded efforts to uproot antisemitism within the state of Florida.
In August 2024, he chided Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for taking a trip to Ireland, repudiating the country as “antisemitic.”
“I was certainly disappointed to see not only folks go to what is clearly an antisemitic country that supports Muslim terror, but I was also disappointed that the game wasn’t cancelled, which it should have been,” Fine said.
Ireland has been a fierce critic of Israel since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, even joining a legal case brought by South Africa to the International Court of Justice accusing the Jewish state of genocide in Hamas-ruled Gaza. The move, which came after the Irish government in May officially recognized a Palestinian state, led Israel to shutter its embassy in Dublin.
In August 2024, Fine launched an investigation into alleged antisemitic and pro-terrorist ideology within instructional materials at Florida public universities. Fine suggested that activist professors were using textbooks that were indoctrinating students with anti-Israel sentiment.
“When we learned that Florida universities were using a factually inaccurate, openly antisemitic textbook, we realized there was a problem that had to be addressed,” Fine said.
Following the New Year’s Day ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in New Orleans, Fine raised eyebrows by repudiating Islam as a “fundamentally broken and dangerous culture.”
“Muslim terror has attacked the United States — again. The blood is on the hands of those who refuse to acknowledge the worldwide #MuslimProblem. It is high time to deal with this fundamentally broken and dangerous culture,” Fine posted on X/Twitter.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US congratulated Fine for his primary victory on Tuesday.
“We are proud to support pro-Israel candidates who help strengthen and expand the US-Israel relationship. Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics,” AIPAC, which endorsed Fine, posted on social media.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), an organization that attempts to forge closer ties between the Jewish community and the Republican Party, touted Fine’s vigorous crusade against antisemitism within the Florida state legislature.
“Randy Fine is a warrior for his constituents and has served for years in the Florida legislature with distinction,” RJC wrote on X/Twitter. “Randy Fine will be a fierce advocate for the Jewish community in the House of Representatives. Importantly, he has led the fight and been the loudest voice against the rise of antisemitism in Florida and across the country.”
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