Why Did It Take So Long? By Mike Konrad
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/11/why_did_it_take_so_long.html
Every penny spent on the ridiculous goal for a two-state solution has been a total waste. It seems that people are finally starting to get it.
Recently Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made this statement:
There cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan[.]
Personally, I have no problems with that honest statement. I wish the Israelis had been upfront about this years ago; and it would have saved everyone a lot of heartache.
An honest refusal to give the Arabs in Judea and Samaria open and free borders – while militarily wise – would also have let the world know that Israel had no real intention of the giving the Palestinians a state. It would have been suicidal. The Arabs would have been put on notice that no Palestine would ever exist. A people who do not control their borders are not free. There would have been no pretense, and over $100 billion in handouts – from America, Canada, and Europe – to a murderously corrupt Palestinian Authority could have been saved.
That has been Netanyahu’s position all along, even as his administration publicly claimed to be working towards a two-state solution, as was captured by this video, secretly filmed in 2001. Netanyahu bragged about sabotaging Oslo by twisting legal interpretations to prevent the Arabs from ever getting an open border with Jordan. Netanyahu would define the whole Jordan Valley as a military zone. To be fair, even Barak’s “generous” offer at Camp David refused to give the Palestinians border control.
Again, all of this was wise, but why doesn’t Israel officially admit that it has no intention of giving the Palestinians a state? Why did Netanyahu, and others, say one thing to the press and another to the Likud base?
Of course, the masters of duplicity are the Arabs, who still want all of Israel destroyed.
I have no illusions that the Arabs seek the genocidal destruction of Israel, which is why I limit my complaints about Israel to her pretenses, not her actions. But even those who acknowledge the Arab duplicity have to recognize that neither party has ever had any intention of recognizing the other as an independent state.
So while our American government and media were pushing a two-state solution, there were ample signals coming from both sides that neither side was going to recognize the right of the other to exist as a truly independent entity. It is not just the terrorists of Hamas who refuse to recognize Israel in any capacity; the 1999 Likud party charter refused to recognize Palestine in any capacity, which probably explains why Netanyahu does not call out Hamas’s irrendentism more often.
The Israelis wanted only to give the Palestinian limited autonomy on small Arab reservations, while the Arabs wanted to kick the Jews out of the Mideast altogether.
Every dollar, every handout, every penny spent on this ridiculous goal for a two-state solution has been a total waste, and it should have been immediately evident in 1993, when the Oslo agreement was signed.
I knew this as soon as I saw Rabin and Arafat shake hands on TV in 1993. The announcer said this was a start, and the difficult items would be hammered out later on.
Good luck! I thought at that time. There is no way that Jerusalem can be negotiated. There is no way Israel would surrender the sacred precincts, and no way Islam would insist on anything less. Twenty-one years later, Jerusalem has come home to roost. One cannot negotiate this level of conflict.
So finally forgetting any pretense of a two-state solution, which neither side really wanted, and given that Israel will stay from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, what is Israel to do with the millions of disenfranchised Arabs under her rule?
And they are under Israeli rule! Israel can enter Ramallah, Nablus, and any part of the Palestinian zones at will, as they did this July in retaliation for the kidnapping of three boys. I won’t call it an occupation, but it is martial law.
Zionists claim that Israel was given everything west of the Jordan by the San Remo Agreement of 1920. If so, that claim comes with a caveat. The Jewish state is obliged to act “without prejudice to the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” as part of the San Remo protocols.
In plain terms, if Israel wants to claim Judea and Samaria, it has to enfranchise and tender full civil rights to a very hostile population. If not, Israel cannot lay claim to the area based on an international agreement that Israel refuses to abide by. So even San Remo cannot rescue Israel’s claims.
As should be obvious now, these people cannot live together. The Arabs are liars; we know this. But conservatives are being less than honest if they think Israel is totally egalitarian toward even Arab-Israelis. There is a real difference between how fast a Jew gets a building permit and how fast an Arab gets one. It may not be apartheid, but one group is more equal than others. Even the usually quiet Arab-Israelis are starting to get militant. While the demographics of Israel are not a dire as so many Chicken Littles claim, the situation is still not promising. There is no way that Israel can safely enfranchise the Arabs in Judea and Samaria.
Israel has to make hard choices concerning this Arab demographic.
There is also no way that Israel can continue the present situation, where Israel keeps so many people under martial law for so long. It cannot be done. Even were these people Danish Lutherans, there would be resistance, albeit not as violently pathological as with Islam. Israel controls all who enter or leave Judea and Samaria. No Arab has free access to leave or enter without undergoing a barrage of permits. Visitors are arbitrarily refused admittance. This may be a necessary tyranny for security’s sake, but tyranny it is, and we should not hide it. This is not freedom. This is not a two-state solution, and according to Netanyahu, Israel has no intention of ever letting up.
Israel was faced with unpleasant choices and for decades refused to make a realistic decision. Oslo did nothing but permit this to continue, while subsidizing the murderous Arabs, and removing some of the economic burden from Israel. This can no longer be indulged.
Israel must stop fudging, hedging, and obfuscating. Israel has to say what Kahane said: “They must go!” This reduces to one of two options: ethnic cleansing, or paying the Arabs to leave.
Now, let’s not pretty up the first option by calling it population transfer. Population transfer sounds sanitary, but it is just mutually agreed upon ethnic cleansing. Those who advocate the forced removal of Arabs should be honest enough to call it what it is. In a way, even compensated removal is ethnic cleansing, albeit of a kinder, gentler sort.
The present situation has to change. I, along with others, have figured that the Arabs could be paid to leave at a cost of $100-200 billion – roughly what we have already spent on a two-state solution.
Had that been offered in 1993, the problem would have been solved by now. We know the Arabs lie, but had the Israelis been honest – instead of pretending to go along with a two-state option – the option of removal would have been addressed instead of denied.
Then the only thing to debate would have been method and cost, and the problem would have been solved by now.
Mike Konrad is an American who writes on various issue from time to time.
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