July 18, 2011, 3:24 PM
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Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is in Europe this week seeking to convince the Spanish and Norwegian governments to support the Palestinian bid to sidestep negotiations with Israel and have the UN General Assembly recognize Palestinian sovereignty over Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem in addition to Gaza.The Palestinians know that without US support, their initiative will fail to gain Security Council support and therefore have no legal weight. But they believe that if they push hard enough, Israel's control over these areas will eventually unravel and they will gain control over them without ever accepting Israel's right to exist.
Fatah's UN gambit, along with its unity deal with Hamas, makes clear that the time has come for Israel to finally face the facts: There are only two realistic options for dealing with Judea and Samaria.
Either the Palestinians will take control of Judea and Samaria, or Israel will annex them.
If the Palestinians take control, they will establish a terror state in the areas, which - like their terror state in Gaza - will use its territory as a starting point for continued war against Israel.
It isn't only Israel's experience with post-withdrawal Gaza and South Lebanon that make it clear that a post-withdrawal Palestinian-controlled Judea and Samaria will become a terror state. The Palestinians themselves make no bones about this.
In a Palestinian public opinion survey released last week by The Israel Project, 65 percent of Palestinians said they believe that they should conduct negotiations with Israel. But before we get excited, we need to read the fine print.
According to the survey, those two-thirds of Palestinians believe that talks should not lead to the establishment of the State of Palestine next to Israel and at peace with the Jewish state. They believe the establishment of "Palestine" next to Israel should serve as a means for continuing their war against Israel. The goal of that war is to destroy what's left of Israel after the "peace" treaty and gobble it into "Palestine."
That is, 66% of Palestinians believe "peace" talks with Israel should be conducted in bad faith.
Moreover, three-quarters deny Jewish ties to Jerusalem, and 80% support Islamic jihad against Jews as called for in the Hamas charter; 73% support the annihilation of the Jewish people as called for in the Hamas charter on the basis of Islamic scripture.
As bad as Israel's experience with post-withdrawal Gaza and South Lebanon has been, Israel's prospects with a post-withdrawal Judea and Samaria will be far worse. It isn't simply that withdrawal will invite aggression from Judea and Samaria. It will invite foreign Arab armies to invade the rump Jewish state.
Unlike the post-withdrawal situation with Gaza and South Lebanon, without Judea and Samaria, Israel would not have the territorial depth and topographical advantage to defend itself from invasion from the east.
Moreover, the establishment of the second Palestinian terror state after Gaza in Judea and Samaria would embolden some of Israel's Arab citizens in the Galilee and the Negev as well as in Jaffa, Lod, Haifa and beyond to escalate their already declared irredentist plans to demand autonomy or unification with whatever Palestinian terror state they choose.
Living under the constant threat of invasion from the east (and the south, from a Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Egyptian army moving through the Sinai and Gaza), Israel would likely be deterred from taking concerted action against its treacherous Arab citizens.
As then-prime minister Ariel Sharon warned in 2001, the situation would be analogous to the plight of Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. Just as the Nazis deterred the Czech government from acting against its traitorous German minority in the Sudetenland in the 1930s, so Arab states (and a nuclear Iran), supporting the Palestinian terror states in Judea and Samaria and in Gaza, would make it impossible for Israel to enforce its sovereign rights on its remaining territory.
Israel's destruction would be all but preordained.
The second option is for Israel to annex Judea and Samaria, complete with its hostile Arab population.
Absorbing the Arab population of Judea and Samaria would increase Israel's Arab minority from 20% to 33% of the overall population. This is true whether or not Israel grants them full citizenship with voting rights or permanent residency without them.
Obviously such a scenario would present Israel with new and complex legal, social and law enforcement challenges. But it would also provide Israel with substantial advantages and opportunities.
Israel would have to consider its electoral laws and weigh the prospect of moving from a proportional representation system to a direct, district system. It would have to begin enforcing its laws toward its Arab citizens in a manner identical to the way it enforces its laws against its Jewish citizens. This includes everything from administrative laws concerning building to criminal statutes related to treason. It would have to ensure that Arab schoolchildren are no longer indoctrinated to hate Jews, despite the fact that according to the Israel Project survey, 53% of Palestinians support such anti-Semitic indoctrination in the classroom.
These steps would be difficult to enact.
On the other side, annexing Judea and Samaria holds unmistakable advantages for Israel. For instance, Israel would regain complete military control over the areas. Israel ceded much of this control to the PLO in 1996.
The Palestinian armies Israel agreed to allow the PLO to field have played a central role in the Palestinian terror machine. They have also played a key role in indoctrinating Palestinian society to seek and work toward Israel's destruction. By bringing about the disbanding of these terror forces, Israel would go a long way toward securing its citizens from attack.
Furthermore, by asserting its sovereign rights to its heartland, for the first time since 1967, Israel would be adopting an unambiguous position around which its citizens and supporters could rally. Annexation would also finally free Israel's politicians and diplomats to tell the truth about the pathological nature of Palestinian nationalism and about the rank hypocrisy and anti-Semitism at the heart of much of the international Left's campaigns on behalf of the Palestinians.
No, annexation won't be easy. But then again, the alternative is national suicide.
And again, these are the only options. Either the Palestinians form a terror state from which it will wage war against the shrunken, indefensible Jewish state, or Israel expands the size of the Jewish state.
Since 1967, Israel has refused to accept the fact that these are the only two options available. Instead, successive governments and the nation as a whole have set their hopes on imaginary third options. For the Left, this option has been the fantasy of a two-state solution. This "solution" involves the Palestinians controlling some or all of the lands Israel took over from Jordan and Egypt in the Six Day War, establishing a state, and all of us living happily ever after.
Given the Palestinians' overwhelming, consistent and violent support for the destruction of Israel in any size, this leftist fantasy never had a leg to stand on.
And since 1993, when the Rabin government adopted the Left's fantasy as state policy, more than 2,000 Israelis have been killed in its pursuit.
Not only has the Left's third option fantasy facilitated the Palestinian terror machine's ability to kill Jews, it has empowered their propaganda war against Israel.
Israel's pursuit of the nonexistent two-state solution has eroded its own international position to a degree unprecedented in its history.
Last week's meeting of the so-called Middle East Quartet ended without a final statement. It isn't that its members couldn't agree on the need to establish "Palestine" in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem. That was a no-brainer. The Quartet members couldn't agree on the need to accept the Jewish state. Russia reportedly rejected wording that would have enjoined the Palestinians to accept the Jewish state's right to exist as part of a peace treaty.
And this was eminently foreseeable. The unhinged two-state solution makes Israel's legitimacy contingent on the establishment of a Palestinian state. And it put the burden to establish a Palestinian state on Israel.
Since everyone except Israel and the US always accepted the establishment of a Palestinian state, and no one except Israel and the US always accepted the existence of the Jewish state, by making its own legitimacy dependent on Palestinian statehood, Israel started the clock running on its own demonization.
The longer Israel allows its very right to exist to be contingent on the establishment of another terror state committed to its destruction, the less the nations of the world will feel obliged to accept its right to exist.
As for the Right, its leaders have embraced imaginary third options of their own. Either Jordan would come in and save us, or the Palestinians would come to like us, or something.
The one thing that both the Left's fantasy option and the Right's fantasy option share is their belief that the Palestinians or the Arabs as a whole will eventually change. Both sides' imaginary third options maintain that with sufficient inducements or time, the Arabs will change their behavior and drop their goal of destroying Israel.
Our 44-year dalliance in fantasyland has not simply weakened us militarily and diplomatically. It has torn us apart internally by surrendering the debate to the two ideological fringes of the political spectrum. Actually, to be precise, we have surrendered 99% of our public discourse to the radical Left and 1% to the radical Right.
The Left's control over the discourse has caused its ideological opposite's numbers to increasingly disengage from the state. That would be bad enough, but the Palestinians' inarguable bad faith and continued commitment to Israel's destruction have driven the far Left far off the cliff of reason and rationality.
Unable to convince their fellow Israelis that their two-state pipe dream will bring peace, the Israeli Left has joined forces with the international Left in its increasingly shrill campaigns to delegitimize the country's right to exist and undermine its ability to defend itself.
This sorry state of affairs is exemplified today by the radical Left's hysterical response to the Knesset's passage last week of the anti-boycott law. The comparatively mild law makes it a civil offense to solicit boycotts against Israel. It bars people engaged in economic warfare against Israel from getting government benefits and makes them liable to punitive damages in civil suits.
The Left's hysterical public relations campaign to demonize the law and its supporters as fascists and seek its overthrow through the Supreme Court makes clear that the Left will wage war against its own country in pursuit of its delusion.
But aside from driving the public discourse into the depths of ideological madness, Israel's embrace of fantasy has made it impossible for us to conduct a sober-minded discussion of our only real options. The time has come to debate these two options, choose one, and move forward.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
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Well, there is a third option, Caroline: Have the Arabs leave like they did when they were kicked out of Kuwait back in '91. Have a population transfer siimilar to the establishment of Pakistan. Or the Sudenten Germans after the war, or the Greeks who left Turkey, or the other myriad peoples who have moved from "ancestral homelands."
The "Israeli" Arabs should be held accountable for their treason and terrorism whether or not Judea & Samaria are annexed.
'The second option is for Israel to annex Judea and Samaria'
Seriously,it's really not an option, not until the pansy's in power are replace by more hard line leadership who are not afraid to rock the globalist boat and the agenda they have been shoving down Israel's throat for decades now.
In all that time nobody in Israel has yet gotten up the nerve to put a final nail in their coffin,nobody.
The fearful losers,the weakest of the weak, yes men and women are still in control in Israel.
You're wrong about absorbing a hostile Arab population.
It's insane and extremely stupid to be so yielding and diplomatic to such evil at a time like this. They want to wipe out ISRAEL so wipe them out.
Yours is a losing, politically correct proposition.
It would be much better for the Fatah and Hamas survivors of the next great war to flee east OR into the Mediterranean in fear and dread of Israel.
That's only going to happen when the sissy,cowardly,appeasing leaders of Israel are replace with tough Patton like leaders who understands what is at stake.
In the mean time we should all promote Islamic bowling,
http://youtu.be/pmSlVr7bzCg
where they fight and finish off each other.
Not that any of this is posting is inherently wrong, but what's not addressed are the political and financial ramifications of the day after annexing Judea/Samaria (boycotts both from countries and companies). Not to mention a potential 3rd intifada and renewed conflicts from the north and potentially the south and east. If Israel is serious about taking this route, it better start laying the groundwork for it the same way it did for this 2 state nonsense or simply doing it will be much worse than pulling off a band-aid. The economy and people will be really hurt. It could potentially be very bad the way Caroline would like as well.
God gave Israel much more land that it has now.
That land included Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and lots more. God made his Covenant with Abraham and continued the Covenant through Issac (not Esau-Arabs) about making Israel a great nation, a blessing to others. Warning that those that bless Israel will be blessed and those that curse Israel will be cursed. Annex Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. God will always uphold Israel. Don't be bluffed by any government. Your covenant is with God and not human governments and tribes not chosen of God.
Here's the crux, from the end of the column;
> The Left's hysterical public relations campaign to demonize the law and its supporters as fascists and seek its overthrow through the Supreme Court makes clear that the Left will wage war against its own country in pursuit of its delusion.
The "left" is ideologically the same, be it in the U.S, England, or Israel. They are dedicated to the defeat of liberty as some sort of evil plot. Whether they believe capitolists are innately greedy, evil SOBs, or have stubbed a toe against some other segment of Western society and culture at which they focus their attacks they believe they have the right to destroy its foundations, and are devoted to bringing those attacks to successful conclusion no matter how many years or even generations it takes.
I am glad when I occasionally read a column by someone who "gets it".
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Sovereignty is first and foremost "Responsibility", enforcing law FOR the public, not as you write "against" them.
Israel has been "in control" for decades. While it is clear that there have been many existential threats to face, have we acted with responsibility towards the Arab population that has lived under our control and that will live, according to your scenario, under our sovereignty?
Have we properly allotted resources for their development alongside ours, creating the basis for a common life under Israeli Sovereignty?
Not all such development would have played into the hands our enemies.
Caroline, your analysis is so good and yet so painful in that you get so close to the actual solution but stop just short. The only viable long term option is expulsion of all hostile Arabs both in Israel proper and YESHA. Anything else is simply a pathetic attempt to avoid the issue and only prolongs the suffering.
Thank you Caroline, a million times over for unashamedly laying out the only reasonable and realistic option for Israel.
Caroline, excellent post as always, but I'm sure a very difficult one to write.
Do we really have any choices? To continue the fantasy that eventually we and the Palestinians will live together in harmony if we only agree on more concessions is suicide. We won't need others to destroy us as we'll conveniently annihilate ourselves. The only viable solution is annexation of Judea, Samaria and all of Jerusalem. Then we do what we should have done in 1967, make it eminently clear by force which will probably be necessary that we are in control and one plays by our rules, no choices. It will be most difficult, but with G-d on our side there's no contest.
This article is probably the best you have ever published. When will Israeli policymakers heed this call for the annexation of the promised land? When will Israel recognize that there is no risk in annexation, given Israeli right to the land. Thank you for your courage, Caroline. Be Hatzlacha at your conference this July 21. God bless you.
Eventually, and in the not too distant future, Israel is going to have to exercise its third option, which is a lightning strike nuclear response to the Egyptian Army and the nuclear sites in Iran.
That will eliminate the external threat for the foreseeable future and, I suspect, take the steam out of the Islamic expansionist engine. The world will gasp and publicly howl its condemnation, but behind closed doors it will breathe a collective sigh of relief.
I’d like to make a few points:
1) You write: “they (the PA Arabs) believe that if they push hard enough, Israel's control over these areas will eventually unravel and they will gain control over them without ever accepting Israel's right to exist.
Caroline, it’s not Europe, or the US, or even the PA that is driving the agenda. It’s Israel’s own elite. Didn’t PM Netanyahu promise the partition of the country as soon as he took power, long before Obama started pressuring Israel?
2) You write: (As a result of annexation) “Israel would have to consider its electoral laws and weigh the prospect of moving from a proportional representation system to a direct, district system”. That's a very good idea as far as Jewish voters are concerned. But why give non-Jews the right to one-man-one vote?
I used to believe that democracy was compatible with Israel’s survival. No more.
Democracy for non-Jews, multiculturalism, and affirmative action are means by which the anti-Jewish left and the Arabs undermine Jewish Israel’s viability.
Jewish Israel must take the moral and courageous decision to put the survival of the country and of the Jewish people first - and put suicidal notions of multi-ethnic democracy and equality aside.
As many of us have noticed, Western governments are eroding individual freedoms we took for granted. The world we grew up in is changing faster than we realize, and in a very alarming way. Israel cannot be expected to play by rules of peace and war that:
a) others violate with impunity;
b) ensure the destruction of Jewish Israel.
Israel must toss POLITICAL CORRECTNESS out the window and establish a system where Jewish control of Israel is inherent in the laws of the country. And I don’t mean Jewish in a vague ethnic way, but Jewish in its most fundamental values.
Laws must be enforced so that terror and common criminality are strongly discouraged. At the moment the judicial system is skewed in favor of the Arabs and shockingly hostile to Jews. Creeping dhimmitude is not only unfair and demeaning, but outright suicidal.
3) Please bear in mind that the Arab demographic threat is very real to many Jews. You must make clear that automatic citizenship for the PA Arabs is out of the question. They would have to jump many hoops before getting it, if at all.
If CITIZENSHIP is offered to PA Arabs, it should depend on their applying individually – not en masse - and swearing allegiance to the Jewish state, promising to abide by ALL the Jewish laws of the Jewish state. If they find it too distasteful, then they can be given financial assistance to relocate abroad.
Those who already enjoy citizenship should automatically lose it as a result of being convicted of participating in treasonous activities.
I watched the video of your participation in the recent conference organized by Yoel Meltzer.
http://www.israpundit.com/archives/37908
Your words themselves are very inspirational.
However, there is an element that must be taken into consideration. It’s not enough to uphold sovereignty over Judea and Samaria as a worthwhile goal. You must also unmask those who are undermining Israel. And Caroline, they are not always the Usual Suspects (the leftist elite).
There are people who dress in right-wing camouflage spouting all kinds of right-wing notions, but who – when the moment comes to vote for pro-Jewish and pro-Israel bills in the Knesset – they vote against them!!!
Those people must be identified as the LEFTIST AND ARAB ENABLERS they really are.
They are MORE DANGEROUS than the Usual Suspects in the leftist media because they deceive the population as to their true intentions.
Voters regard them as like-minded patriots, when in actuality they are facilitating the implementation of leftist policies, including the partition of the country. Some of those advocates of partition are engaged in trade and investment with PA companies – in the name of PA-Israeli cooperation, of course.
Carilne Glicks article on Storm approaching was absolutely correct. I would also like to say that the comment posted by anonymous was also correct when the writer stated that Israel should annex the Golan Heights, Judea Samaria East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. I also think that if you are attacked again by Egypt to the south and should you win any conflict with Egypt that the Sinai should be annexed and never again returned to Egypt. If the nations surrounding you, want to play hardball. Play hardball in return. I believe this is a new day for Israel, and you will never again lose the land that was unjustly taken from you. I don't believe any nation or group of nations can take that land from you anymore especially if you put your trust completely in your God.
No options at all: Sorry to be blunt, but the leftist option is a military-political suicide and the complete annexation is too much politically in a single loop.I see it as an unnecessary , provocative step.We could not annex all of Judea-Samaria in 1967 and now we are not politically big enough to make that step
The third option is the same we have been putting into action from 1967 until 1993.Building our land in judea-samaria, controlling the moves of the terrorist-military apparatus of the " palestinians " , making our life , our development the top priority.This is routine policy we know , we take care of ourselves, the " palestinians " continue to illude themselves, but their game is going fizzle and less and less educated people are listening to their phony narration .
Building our future means also reshaping Israel internally ( the israel citizens ) towards zionism
, jewish values, equality & social justice. This zionist renaissance must apply to ALL citizens jews and arabs. Jews must ALL serve the State with 3 years of military service : NO MORE PRIVILEGED orthodox draft-dodgers. Arabs citizens must serve the State with 3 years of CIVIL SERVICE.Every sector MUST PAY TAXES.And do believe me you will see a lot of israeli-arab emigration towards the Gulf States and the western countries.
Now on the strategic threat , Israel is ready to use ALL its weapons in a pro-active way. The ennemies know that well.
Israel's third option:
Israel should annex the Jordan valley,and all the west bank outside the arab cities;
Declare the "Palestinians" economic migrants and citizens of "Palestinian"Jordan;
Disarm, disperse,Outlaw and arrest for trial the
Palestinian authority for crimes against humanity.
Exterminate Hamas and Hisbullah.......
I found this. It says what I want to say, but better than I could say it:
http://virtualjudah.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/the-israeli-case-for-medinat-yehudah/
There really IS a third option.