“…violence only begets more violence.”

History is replete with examples of places and instances where peace was accomplished by vanquishing the enemy. Jabotinsky was right:

liberal.org.il...

“Jabotinsky did not have any illusions about a peaceful return of the Jews to their historic homeland. It was clear to him that neither the historic bond of the Jews to their homeland nor the legal status conferred by the San Remo Conference and later ratified by the League of Nations would convince the Arabs to relinquish even a minimal part of their extensive territory.

In order to avoid a conflict between its Marxist anti-nationalist and Zionist-nationalist ideologies, the Left had to ignore the presence and legitimate rights of the Arabs. However, for Jabotinsky, who was identified with the nationalist Liberalism of the nineteenth century, this conflict did not exist. In his view, the reconquest of the historic Jewish homeland was morally justified by virtue of a people’s right — one deeply-rooted in the liberal tradition (1) — to wage war and conquer, if this is necessary for the survival of the people.

Therefore, Jabotinsky had no ideological need to ignore either the presence of the Arabs or their legitimate rights. In his understanding, the armed conflict between the two peoples was inevitable, simply because no people on earth will relinquish any part of its land without fighting (2). The hope of a peaceful realization of Zionism is, therefore, a dangerous fallacy. Nevertheless, Jabotinsky, guided by his liberal ideology, demanded a final, equitable solution for both peoples (3).”

“I don’t understand why Palestinians as a group must suffer for the actions of a handful of extremists.”

Is not worth wasting your time on, TM. The majority of Palestinians support extremist, maximalist policies and political organizations. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either not paying attention, delusional or a propagandist for the Palestinians. Yes, it is that simple. When *they* change their political position away from wanting to destroy Israel and lunatic aspirations (right of return), Israel can think about peace. Until then, no dice.

Kari,

Israel wouldn’t use its attack jets at all if there weren’t violence from the other side. There would be Palestinian terror, in large part because they don’t accept Israel as a Jewish state as Netanyahu points out.

As to the legitimacy of claim over land, the point is that Israel HAS OFFERED land to the Palestinians. 100% of Gaza and 97% of the West Bank plus a 1:1 land exchange on the remaining 3%. They refused.

Israel offered to participate in reparations as well. They refused.

Israel offered to take in original refugees (the ’48 refugees). They refused.

Israel offered control over east Jerusalem and all the Muslim and Christian holy places. They refused.

Israel asked for shared sovereignty over the Temple Mount. They refused and made this into the issue that broke all the others.

Demanding that they become a demilitarized state has been on the table for years. It’s a simple given that they have to be demilitarized. Demanding that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state is also a simple and just request and one that indicates the seriousness of their commitment to permanent peace.

In other words, the parameters of the deal are on the table and have been for years.

The ball is in their court. Every one of their defenders needs to think about whether yelling about Israel in this situation is the right approach. How about placing the pressure on the Palestinians? After all, if these terms are not acceptable, then what are they looking for?

One more point: Israel has lost the lives and limbs of many of its soldiers and civilians in these past 100 years fighting over this home for the Jewish people. I realize that you believe the Palestinians have equal claim to the land, but that claim was severely impeded when they attacked Israel and the Yishuv and lost. You can’t attack and expect impunity as well. There are consequences to launching a war and losing and if you’re not willing to accept the consequences, don’t attack. It’s good for PR, as we see with Gaza, but ultimately the people who are to blame are those who kept attacking Israel and then lost the resulting war.

Only a handful of extremists are suicide bombers. Whether the public supports them is another story. Only a few are truly willing to do it. There will be blood while you court the opinion of those who are just passive supporters who will say “yes” on an opinion poll.

I don’t dismiss the terrorism, but violence only begets more violence. To many Palestinians, rocket attacks suicide bombings aren’t any different from what the Israelis are doing besides the lack of a spiffy uniform and IAF attack jets.

As for moving the Jews to Kansas, I wouldn’t want to move there. Any state that considers creationism “science” is a state I wouldn’t want to live in. I don’t advocate for moving all the Jews anywhere. If Jews want to live in Israel, more power to them. If Jews want to live in Brooklyn, be my guest. If Jews want to live on the moon that’s fine by me. (Jews in Space… Sounds like a bad sci-fi movie…) I don’t see the inherent need to move the Jews anywhere.

If anything, it’s probably better if we have people living in different places. It’s easy for us to be viewed as the ‘other’ if we’re totally concentrated in one area.

Some have some kind of religious attachment to the Land of Israel. I won’t deny I do as well. But objectively, it’s dirt. And objectively, I can’t see how our claim to it is more legitimate than the Palestinians. It’s more legitimate than the French, the Koreans, the Indians or the Columbians… But not more legitimate than the Palestinians. So we arrive at an impasse. We should be willing to compromise more than just the land because at least a significant amount of the land is a compromise for both sides. If the Palestinians are to be expected to compromise their domestic security, we should be willing to do the same. Terms should not be overly heavy on one side and overly light on the other. They don’t have to be exactly equal, but they should be fair.

I know you’re not a right-wing Zionist. If you were we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I generally identify myself as being a left-wing Zionist who refuses to endorse or support any Israeli government that isn’t genuinely interested in resolving the Palestinian problem in a mutually beneficial way that treats both sides as equals.

Wtih regards to Palestinian support of terrorism. You should check out the Palestine Center for Policy and Survey Research. It’s a Palestinian organization, based in Ramallah, and has polls showing how much the Palestinian people are actually pro-Hamas, pro-resistance, and pro-terrorism.

I notice that you’re line of reasoning stands that Israel does not have a right to its land based upon its religious history. Thus, I think the question needs to be posed: Do you, or do you not, believe that the Jews have a right to a free, independant, and defendable, Jewish State in their historic homeland? (Note: it’s a yes or no question).

You are once again applying your extremely warped sense of morality on me.
You take the liberty of applying some sort of familial relationship with me and as such feel free to expect me to follow your orders.
You wrongly accuse me of having an “us or them attitude” while you yourself apply an even more repugnent and repulsive approach that obligates me to harm myself against my will.

While You claim without basis of fact that I am not neighborly, your own behavior is not very brotherly to say the least.

If you were really my brother I would expect you to be more concerned about my survival than my moral fiber,

I assume therefore that you are not my brother at all!!

You mention property rights – correct, which is why they keep pushing for construction in Area C, on state lands – or west of the green line.

Without getting too much into detail, the Japanese who work in the region are horribly inefficient, take years to do anything. Their plan for the Jordan Valley – was way too ambitious (an AIRPORT?), and the Turkish plan was interesting, but was also too far-reaching (if I remember correctly, a large academic campus was to be built west of the green line – sort of like a pseudo-official university town for people from all over the world, etc etc).

Where in his speech did Bibi rule out monetary compensation?

It is entirely misleading to suggest that what we’re talking about when we talk about terrorists who are Palestinians is just a “handful of extremists.” If you need to consider what I mean, you simply have to look at the results of the Gaza elections. Not good enough for you? Take a look at Khalil Shikaki’s polls of Palestinians support for suicide bombings during the ’90s and into the early part of this grand new century. Palestinians tended to support suicide bombings handily, often scoring over 70% in their support for these heinous actions. To suggest that this isn’t a societal phenomenon and to dismiss it as a handful of extremists is to turn a blind eye to Palestinian tactics, strategy, leadership, charters, groups and history. You want to dismiss “dirt,” go right ahead, but dismissing terrorism and its manifestation in Palestinian society weakens any case you make because it indicates that you’re willfully turning a blind eye to the hard facts.

Your argument about dirt leads me to ask the simple question, Why not move all the Jews to Kansas? I mean, I’m sure considering the many contributions American Jews have made to this country, I would think many Americans would be glad to absorb another few million. This will remove the Arab-Israeli conflict entirely. In fact, Jews won’t care because Kansas dirt is more peaceful than Tel Aviv dirt.

By the way, you’ll forgive me but I’m not a right wing Zionist. I’m a centrist and probably lean more to the left. Bibi doesn’t impress me very much and never has. I hold him at least partly responsible for the failure of Oslo.

However, I also recall very well how Oslo evolved into a war started under the most cynical circumstances by the Palestinians. If anything changed my political views and moved me from the left to the center, it was their rejection of Oslo. Launching a war in light of Camp David and Taba was the height of dishonest, immoral behavior. It provided a clear lesson about who we’re dealing with here.

“What exactly do you know about the Palestinian psyche that enables you to promise peace if Israel helps the Palestinian economy get back on track?”

Absolutely nothing besides the fact that I’m an economist and that strategy has worked just about everywhere else. It you want people to be more friendly to you, give them money. It’s a very simple economic model used on both the small scale (person to person) and the large scale (society to society).

“Happiness” of a population is innately tied to its overall welfare, which is itself a result of the economy of the country.

“What do you mean get “back” anyway, it was never on a track except when the Palestinians sent many of their workers into Israel. We can’t return to those days because the terrorists used that freedom of movement to their advantage.”

Create incentives for entrepreneurship. Subsidize the creation of new industry. Enact trade laws that enable goods, if not people, to flow more freely into and out of the Palestinian Territories. I know these aren’t things any RW Zionist wants to hear, because they’d love to continue watching the Palestinians starve for their own amusement, but they need to be done if any real attempt at a non-imposed peace were to be made.

“Maybe Israel can get rid of the roadblocks, but then they will complain about the Fence. … If Israel offers to share the Temple Mount, they’ll say “no.””

I don’t like slippery slope arguments. The settlements and roadblocks have to go for a peaceful solution *anyway*… The fence will probably stay, although the route may change.

“Please forgive me because I don’t mean to discount their poverty, but there are other Arab states that have as much or more poverty and they are not under Israel’s military regime.”

I am aware. Compared to several other Arab countries (e.g. Yemen), the Territories are still a better place to live. But in those cases it’s self-imposed. With the Palestinians, it’s partly self-imposed and partly a result of Israel’s own policy on the subject. That makes Israel complicit, and gives it a certain responsibility to correct.

“That doesn’t mean that this “dirt” doesn’t contain the cradle of Jewish history.”

So what? Jewish historical sites exist all over the world in plenty of countries both friendly and hostile to Israel. Does Israel have to have sovereignty over all of them? Other than some extremely vague religious Zionist reasoning, I can’t see any justification for the ‘Israel should have sovereignty over all of Jewish history’ argument.

LB: I don’t place any magical importance on it. It’s land, and at that, not even particularly good land. Israel does not and has never really claimed ownership of it. Ergo, it does not see the land as fully its own. Is having the West Bank and the Gaza Strip providing any real benefit to Israel? Note that “real” means something tangible, not the feel-good factor that we have all of the Land of Israel under our control.

No, it’s not. If anything, it’s causing us problems. So why waste time in divesting ourselves of it?

Galit: Your approach of “us and them” racial hatred will be the death of our people. I’m not asking you to commit suicide. But if peace means death to you, I suppose there’s no sense attempting to reason. Because the only peace you’ll accept is one where all the Arabs are gone. Suffice to say, that’s not very neighborly.

dahlia: I’m pretty sure the laws are there, but there has historically been no one to enforce them. I’ve been told that the situation of enforcement is getting better in the last 3 or 4 years, though. Still not there yet, but improving.

You are gambling with my life.
No matter how guilty it makes you feel I will not commit suicide for you.
A militarized Palestinian entity is suicide for Israel.

As for your contention that the Torah as YOU see it commands ME to commit national suicide, go join Jim Jones.

If your main point is palestinian land and money, I am certain that we can swap Jewish lands in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morroco, Libya….. for Arab owned land in Israel.

I guess it’s only important if it’s Palestinian dirt. Then it takes on an entirely different dimension.

That is always the reaction from the anti-Israel camp to any reasoned arguments against their position. But then they go ahead and advocate for a new military enemy for Israel.

When there were 10,000 Jews in Palestine and 500,000 Arabs, the Jews got terror.

When there were 50,000 Jews in Palestine and 650,000 Arabs, the Jews got terror.

When Israel fought a war to found itself because the local and regional Arabs refused to accept it, it got terror after winning that war.

What exactly do you know about the Palestinian psyche that enables you to promise peace if Israel helps the Palestinian economy get back on track? What do you mean get “back” anyway, it was never on a track except when the Palestinians sent many of their workers into Israel. We can’t return to those days because the terrorists used that freedom of movement to their advantage. Maybe Israel can get rid of the roadblocks, but then they will complain about the Fence. If Israel gets rid of the Fence, they’ll complain about the settlements. If Israel gets rid of the settlements, they’ll complain about the border crossings. If Israel opens the border crossings, they’ll complain about the theft of land and Jerusalem. If Israel offers east Jerusalem, they’ll demand the Temple Mount. If Israel offers to share the Temple Mount, they’ll say “no.” It sounds like a fucking Passover song. Had gadya updated for the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Let’s not be naive. The Palestinians will have to accept what they have. They can struggle to build their economy once they have a state and the resources of a state. They can have trade relations with Jordan and Israel. They can have tourism. They can open the doors to Israelis to come and visit. But to do this they need a state. Please forgive me because I don’t mean to discount their poverty, but there are other Arab states that have as much or more poverty and they are not under Israel’s military regime. The Arab world has to catch up to the West and that’s a fact. Arabs in Syria are just as impoverished as the Arabs of the West Bank, if not more. When Hamas blew up the border fence with Egypt a couple of years ago, there were stories about Egyptian brides marrying Palestinians and stories about Palestinian purchases of all sorts of objects because their per capita income was higher.

And had Israel annexed the West Bank, the annexation would have been rejected by the world just as Jordan’s was, but it would have taken on the toll of an Arab nation joining its ranks. That doesn’t mean that this “dirt” doesn’t contain the cradle of Jewish history. It does. Reality forces Israel to compromise as it did after 1967. And that was my point. You said Israel sacrifices nothing, but it does. This area contains its history and the roots of its culture.

And by the way, just as Israel doesn’t own the lands under discussion here, neither do the Palestinians. To own them, they have to first get a state.

Have I called it stolen land? No. It’s dirt. We Jews place more importance on it than we should. The Palestinians do too, for that matter. Frankly, their claim to the dirt isn’t much weaker than ours if we acquired it in ’67 and never really added it to the country. Had Israel annexed it we’d be having a different conversation. But she didn’t.

Frankly, I’ll be perfectly honest, I don’t think the Palestinians need a state most right now. Sovereignty would probably hurt them more than most realize because the Palestinian economy is extremely weak.

Extreme political views are only embraced by the public in times of severe economic downturn (Fascist Japan, Nazi Germany, the Bolsheviks, etc.). In a certain sense, the rise of extremists in Palestinian society is partly Israel’s own fault. Israel needs a PR facelift in the eyes of the Palestinians, and helping the Palestinian economy get back on track is the best way to do it.

Want Palestinians to lay down their weapons and demiltarize? Give them a reason to. Having a sovereign government on its own won’t magically make their lives better… And most of them know that, regardless of whether or not they are willing to say it aloud.

This may seem like a small sacrifice, but it isn’t. It isn’t from a religious and historic perspective and it isn’t because it makes Israel into a very narrow country and as some of my right wing critics point out, by leaving the West Bank, Israel creates a very narrow middle for itself, around 9 miles long.

Don’t forget that while the rhetoric coming from the Left and the Palestinians is that this is stolen land, in actuality this is contested land that was hard-won with the blood and tears of Israeli soldiers. Fathers, sons, husbands who went to war to DEFEND their families and home and in doing so conquered land from enemies who ATTACKED.

This is the compromise Israel is making and it’s a big one.

The Palestinians have a right to self-determination and Israel has essentially consented that they may exercise that right despite the clear knowledge by the people extending the offer that war may ensue and that this is a very big gamble. But it’s a gamble for peace and everybody has come to agree this is the best way forward. The question is how do you make it as safe as possible not just in terms of preventing war but in terms of preserving the peace for as long as possible. A demilitarized state is the response.

You may say it’s not realistic, but that’s not true. They can have a trained police force and an armed force to defend the leadership – the Americans have already begun to train that force, led by a fairly anti-Israel officer who has predicted that one day this force may attack Israel out of frustration. That should be enough to protect the Palestinians from themselves. The idea that they need tanks, jets or missiles to defend themselves from violent groups or clans is not true.

And it matters quite a bit that this would be the 5th time they’ve rejected a state. The conclusion is they don’t want one. If they don’t want one, then what are you fighting about? Shouldn’t you be fighting the Palestinians to want a state…that doesn’t cover the land of Israel?

Even when countries have formally demilitarized due to peace treaties they still start up military programs eventually. Japan? Germany? It doesn’t last because no country can realistically be expected to be denied its own right to self defense.

You seem to be neglecting the domestic militia problem. There are groups within Palestinian society that would take advantage of a demilitarized government to seize power. Part of effectively installing a friendly government in a generally unfriendly state is empowering them to put down those who would change the tone of relations. That cannot be accomplished without a military force.

Otherwise the leaders will be assassinated, extremists will take control of the government, Israel will invade, again, and we’ll be back where we started.

I don’t think I said anything about Jerusalem here, though.

Who cares if it’s the 5th or 50th time the Palestinians have not formed a State? Israel has much to gain and little to lose by recognizing a Palestinian state. It’s in Israel’s economic and social interests to have a working peace, and it should not expect the Palestinians to make all the sacrifices for it while making none itself.

jpost.com/serv...