JEWISH SOVEREIGNTY: ASSERTING CLAIMS AND DEMANDS BY “ALTALENA”
FROM AN E-PAL
There is a fundamental flaw in Israel’s negotiating position vis-à-vis the Palestinians: Our claims have not been symmetrical with theirs. Their demands have been bold and sweeping. Ours have been meek and minimal.
For instance, the PLO currently claims sovereignty over Judea, Samaria, Gaza (upon implementation of the Hamas-Fatah agreement, should that ever occur) and Jerusalem, and demands permanent full control in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, and permanent partial control in Jerusalem. In contrast, Israel currently claims sovereignty only over the portion of Eretz Yisrael that is within the Green Line plus Jerusalem, permanent full control within the Green Line and Jerusalem, and only termporary partial control along the Jordan River in Samaria.
It is crucial that we assert not only “Israeli sovereignty,” but “Jewish sovereignty” over all of Eretz Yisrael. The term “Israeli sovereignty” implies that the only claimant to sovereignty is the State of Israel. “Jewish sovereignty” indicates that the claimant to sovereignty is the Jewish people worldwide, which is the inherent sovereign in all of Eretz Yisrael. The State of Israel, as the steward and fiduciary of the Jewish people, has the legitimate authority to extend sovereignty within Eretz Yisrael, but not to relinquish it.
The PLO claims sovereignty over Judea and Samaria not just on its own behalf but on behalf of “the Palestinian people” worldwide. The “Palestine Papers” released in 2011 by al-Jazeera http://english.aljazeera.net/palestinepapers demonstrate that the PLO does not consider the “right of return” to be a collective right that can be bargained away in negotiations, but rather, an individual right of each and every one of 7 million “refugees,” regarding which “no compromise [is] possible.”
http://www.ajtransparency.com/files/2685.pdf (see sections 6.2 & 6.4)
http://transparency.aljazeera.net/files/4758.pdf (see p. 13)
The PLO models its notion of a hereditary “diaspora” of Palestinian refugees on the age-old Diaspora of the Jewish people. http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=3&id=1228
Yet while no bout of Mideast diplomacy can be complete without the PLO presenting maximal demands on behalf of the Palestinian “diaspora,” which has supposedly been in exile for tens of years, not even minimal weight is accorded to the interests of the Jewish Diaspora, which has been in exile for thousands of years.
To establish symmetry with the PLO’s claim of sovereignty, the State of Israel should claim sovereignty over Judea and Samaria on behalf of the Jewish people, numbering some 15.2 million worldwide, and their descendants, forever.
The PLO’s position is that Palestinian refugee status is hereditary. The State of Israel’s symmetrical position should be that Jewish refugee status is hereditary.
The PLO’s position is that all Palestinian refugees have an enforceable right to return to their homes (i.e., not to their “homeland” or to “historic Palestine”). http://www.ajtransparency.com/files/120.pdf (see p. 4). The State of Israel’s symmetrical position should be that all Jewish refugees have an enforceable right to return to their homes in countries which they had to flee.
The concept that Jewish refugees from, among other places, Arab countries, should be financially compensated for their lost property is admirable but is not symmetrical to the PLO’s demand. Inasmuch as the PLO’s position is that each and every individual Palestinian refugee plus all of his or her descendants should have the “choice” of returning to their homes (i.e., inside the Green Line), http://www.ajtransparency.com/files/2439.pdf the State of Israel’s symmetrical position should be that as long as the PLO insists on a “right of return,” for the sake of fairness each and every individual Jewish refugee plus all of his or her descendants should have the choice of returning to their homes (e.g., in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, etc.).
As the losses sustained by Jewish refugees become greater as time passes, the State of Israel’s position should be that Jews worldwide have an individual right of return to their homes in each and every country from which Jews have ever been displaced, including England, which expelled its Jews in 1290; France, which expelled its Jews in 1254, 1322, 1359, and 1394; Spain, which expelled its Jews in 1492; and so forth.
As symmetrical Jewish claims are enunciated, countries from which Jewish communities have been compelled to emigrate would do well to consider the possible repercussions in their own countries of voting for UN recognition of a Palestinian state. Security Council member nations that Jews have had to leave—among them France, Germany, Lebanon, and Russia—should take special care to review their policies in the light of emerging symmetry of Jewish and Palestinian claims and take care not to vote against their national interests.
The fact that Israel whimpers that all it wants is peace and security, while the PLO loudly and proudly proclaims its insistence upon being provided with mechanisms for refugee “resettlement and rehabilitation,” including “housing, medical services, education, [and] professional training,” “restitution of refugee property,” the “right to choose between restitution and compensation,” “full value as the standard of compensation,” “compensation for property damage and losses,” and “compensation for long-standing displacement and suffering,” suggests to “world opinion” that the PLO’s case must be stronger than Israel’s case because the PLO demands so much more than Israel does. http://www.ajtransparency.com/files/2439.pdf (pp. 6-9, 10)
Jewish “settlers” are routinely denigrated and ridiculed in the world media as having recently arrived from Brooklyn. As Israel moves toward annexation in Judea and Samaria, the State should take the position—symmetrical to the position of the Palestinians—that each and every Jew on earth, including Jews from Flatbush, Boro Park, and Crown Heights, has a non-negotiable “right of return” to Eretz Yisrael in general and Judea and Samaria in particular.
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