The two-state straw men

From J-Street to Haaretz to Washington, you keep hearing the same refrain: Israel's right wing does not want a two state solution, and without a two-state solution Israel is doomed.

A recent example comes from Amos Oz in Haaretz:

We’ll begin with the most important thing, with a matter of life-and-death for the State of Israel: If there will not be two states here, and fast, there will be one state here. If there will be one state here, it will be an Arab state, from the sea to the Jordan River. If there will be an Arab state here, I don’t envy my children and my grandchildren.

I said an Arab state, from the sea to the Jordan River. I did not say a binational state: With the exception of Switzerland, all the existing binational and multinational states are creaking badly (Belgium, Spain) or have already collapsed into a bloodbath (Lebanon, Cyprus, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union).

If there are not two states here, and fast, it’s very possible that, in order to avert the emergence of an Arab state from the sea to the Jordan River, a dictatorship of fanatic Jews will rule here temporarily, a dictatorship with racist features, a dictatorship that will suppress both the Arabs and its own Jewish opponents with an iron hand.

Such a dictatorship will be short-lived. Hardly any dictatorship of a minority that suppresses the majority has survived long in the modern era. At the end of that road, too, an Arab state, from the sea to the Jordan River awaits us, and before that perhaps also an international boycott, or a bloodbath, or both.

I have news for Mr. Oz and J-Street and President Obama: Practically everyone on the right wants to divide the land into Israeli and Palestinian parts. Practically everyone wants the Arab side to have the fullest autonomy possible, and many if not most even would accept statehood under the right circumstances.

The only differences are the exact borders and the ability of the Palestinian Arab state to wreak havoc on the Jewish state..

Pretending that the ultra-right is the only component of Israel's Right is a straw man, and one that it is way past its due date. But Amoz Oz fully subscribes to it with his frankly absurd yarn of "a dictatorship of fanatic Jews will rule here temporarily, a dictatorship with racist features, a dictatorship that will suppress both the Arabs and its own Jewish opponents with an iron hand." I know he is a novelist, but I didn't know that adding fiction to one's argument augments it.

Oz' article is filled with similar straw men that have no basis in reality:

A great many Israelis, too many Israelis, believe – or are being brainwashed into believing – that if we only take a very big stick and beat the Arabs with it just one more time, very hard, they will take fright and once and for all let us be, and everything will be fine.

Really? What major figure, with a serious following, says this? Perhaps Oz gets his impression of the right wing from anonymous Facebook posts..

The right wing and the settlers tell us that we have a right to the whole Land of Israel. That we have a right to the Temple Mount. But what, actually, do they mean by the word “right”? A right is not what I want badly and also feel very strongly that I deserve: It is what others recognize as my right. If others do not recognize my right, or if only some of them recognize my right, then what I have is not a right but a demand.

That is precisely the difference between Ramle and Ramallah, between Haifa and Nablus, between Be’er Sheva and Hebron: The whole world, including most of the Arab and Muslim world (apart from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran), recognizes today that Haifa and Be’er Sheva are ours. But no one in the world, other than the settlers and their supporters in the American far right, recognizes that Nablus and Ramallah belong to us. And that is the difference between a right and a demand.

What? American Jews want to take over Ramallah and Nablus? Outside of the right to worship at Josephs' Tomb, I certainly haven't heard anyone say they want to take over those areas again.

It is just another straw man.

But let's look at what Oz says about rights.

Perhaps in his narrow viewpoint, Jews do not have the "right" to the Temple Mount or to live in Gush Etzion. But neither do Palestinians.

Their demands for the holy places of Jerusalem and the rest of Judea and Samaria are not rights either - but demands. Oz doesn't explain how Palestinian demands are any more valid than Jewish demands, except for "the whole world says so so it must be true."

If there are competing demands on these areas, then the Israeli side must do its utmost to ensure that traditional holy sites and existing Jewish communities are protected and kept as part of Israel. That is not an option - that is what states do. They assert their claims vigorously to protect their heritage and their people.

But to people like Amoz Oz and the rest of the Haaretz crowd and the J-Streeters getting high on their hate of Likud this past weekend and the Peter Beinarts of the world believe that Palestinian demands are the same as a Palestinian veto on what the final borders would be.

All these people who claim to be "pro-Israel" are in fact doing everything they can to sabotage Israel's bargaining position and to tell the enemy (and, yes, they are and will remain the enemy) that they only have to wait long enough for these supposedly pro-Israel Jews to give them everything they demand eventually.

This isn't about having two states. It is about abject surrender to the enemy's maximal demands. It is the height of stupidity.

If you want straw men, here's one for you: A Palestinian state whose borders are exactly in Areas A and B.

But, I hear everyone sputter, that's impossible! They'd never accept that!

And here is the difference between the leftists who pretend that they are the only ones who accept the concept of two states and reality. The leftists are willing to accept all Palestinian Arab demands as if they are rights. But this minimal Palestine solution also solves the demography problem that everyone says is the biggest issue and a sure-fire bet for future Israeli apartheid.

If both solutions solve the demographic problem, which is apparently the key concern of Israelis worried about their future as a Jewish state, then why are so many of them demanding the maximal Palestine solution?

The reason is, very simply, because the Palestinians would never accept that solution.

Let's go beyond that glib answer, though. Why won't they accept that solution? Mostly because so many Israelis like Oz already are willing to give them so much more for free! If all Israeli Jews were as adamant about the lands of their ancestors as Palestinians are about wresting them from Jews, then the two-state solution would be much closer to reality.

If these supposed lovers of Israel really cared about the Jewish state as much as they pretend, they they would be in the forefront of fighting for the best possible outcome, not the worst.

You don't hear anyone from J-Street or Haaretz lamenting that Palestinians rejected previous peace offers - offers that would have solved the demographic problem very well, thank you. No, they still blame Israel for not going far enough. Which proves that, for these hypocrites, they don't give a damn about "apartheid" or the population issue - if they really did, they'd be the first ones to be writing articles about how Palestinian Arabs have blown their opportunities for peace, not how right-wing Jews are the bogeymen. They would be the first to insist that Palestinians for once make historic compromises, not that Jews keep doing that over and over under the everlasting threat of another Palestinian veto.

That is how people who are truly pro-Israel would act.

Instead, they cling to their straw men and hate.

One must wonder why that is.