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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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A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai
Around 200 people gathered for a pro-Israel demonstration at University of Toronto’s downtown campus at King’s College Circle—which was the site of one of Canada’s largest pro-Palestinian encampments during May […]
The post A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
The campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is waging a campaign to gut Jewish life in academia, calling for the abolition of Hillel International campus chapters, the largest collegiate organization for Jewish students in the world.
“Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” a social media account operating the campaign, titled #DropHillel, said in a manifesto published last week. “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military.”
It continued, “Such actions reveal Hillel’s ideological and material investment in Zionism, despite the organization’s facade as being simply a ‘Jewish cultural space.’”
DropHillel claims to be “Jewish-led,” although only a small minority of Jews oppose Zionism, and the group has been linked to and promoted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.
Hillel International has provided Jewish students a home away from home during the academic year. However, NSJP says it wants to “weaken” it and “dismantle oppression.”
The idea has already been picked up by pro-Hamas student groups at one college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s official student newspaper. On Oct. 9, it reported, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) unveiled the idea for “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Addressing the comments to the paper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that shuttering Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
“Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology advocating for the creation and sustenance of an ethnostate through the expulsion and annihilation of native people,” the group told the paper. “Therefore, any group that advocates for a supremacist ideology — be it the KKK, the Proud Boys, Hillel, or Heels for Israel — should not be welcome on campus.”
The #DropHillel campaign came amid an unprecedented surge in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses, which, according to a report published last month by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have reached crisis levels.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
“As the year progressed, Jewish students and Jewish groups on campus came under unrelenting scrutiny for any association, actual or perceived, with Israel or Zionism,” the report said. “This often led to the harassment of Jewish members of campus communities and vandalism of Jewish institutions. In some cases, it led to assault. These developments were underpinned by a steady stream of rhetoric from anti-Israel activists expressing explicit support for US-designated terrorists organizations, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and others.”
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California – Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza
Former US President Donald Trump is seen at a campaign event in South Carolina. Photo: Reuters/Sam Wolfe
The “Muslims for Trump” organization has officially launched initiatives to help elect Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the White House, arguing that he would be more likely to end the war in Gaza than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In a statement released on Monday, the group said it will focus on recruiting Muslim voters in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. The organization both praised Trump for his supposed “peace-focused” approach to ending the war in Gaza and condemned Harris for helping facilitate a so-called “genocide.”
“After meeting with President Trump, it was clear to me he is the right leader for Muslims to get behind,” Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump and former co-chair of the “Abandon Harris Movement,” said in a statement.
Chowdhury added that during his discussions with Trump, the former president vowed to “ending the escalation of wars and bringing peace to war-torn regions.” In contrast to Trump’s promise to stop the “bloodshed” in Gaza, he claimed, Harris has “recklessly pushed us toward World War III.”
Chowdhury, a self-described “peace advocate,” urged the Muslim community not to fall victim to supposed “misinformation” campaigns by the media and Democrats that paint the former president as hostile to immigrants. He claimed that the former president’s focus is on “ending war, not dividing families through false immigration claims.”
Samra Luqman, chair of the Michigan chapter of Muslims for Trump, underscored the need to punish the Biden administration for what he described as supporting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“The goal of this election is to hold the Biden administration accountable for a genocide. No amount of fear mongering or scare tactics will persuade my community into forgiving the mutilation, live-burning, and genocide of over 200,000 people,” he said.
According to data produced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, roughly 40,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began last October. Israel has said that its forces have killed about 20,000 Hamas terrorists during its military campaign.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
On the organization Muslims for Trump’s official website, it claims that the Abraham Accords, a series of historic, Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several countries in the Arab world, helped stabilize the Middle East. It also says that had Trump not lost the 2020 presidential race, the so-called “genocide” could have been prevented.
“Under Trump’s leadership, the Abraham Accords were brokered, fostering peaceful relations between Israel and several Arab countries. Supporters might argue that Trump’s diplomacy prioritized peace and stability in the Middle East, reducing the likelihood of large-scale conflicts like genocide,” the group wrote.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them if he were to win November’s US presidential election.
Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under Trump crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Despite Harris’s repeated efforts to woo Muslim voters, polling data indicates that the demographic has made a dramatic swing away from the Democratic Party. Polling data from the Arab American Institute reveals that Trump slightly edges Harris among Muslim voters by a margin of 42 to 41 percent. A report from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Green Party candidate Jill Stein leads Harris and Trump with Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The post ‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.