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Hatem Bazian backed by supporters
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Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian-Arab instructor of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is calling for the elimination of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people.
In a recent blog post entitled, Trump’s Appointment of David Friedman is the Official End of Oslo, Bazian argues that because President-Elect Donald Trump appointed David Friedman the incoming U.S. ambassador to Israel this means that the "peace process" is concluded and that, therefore, Israel has no right to exist as the Jewish state.
Let us see how he gets from point A to point B.
In his opening remarks Bazian claims:
Trump’s appointment of David M. Friedman as the new ambassador to Israel brings an end to 70 years of U.S. official policy on Palestine centered on U.N. resolutions 181, 242 and 338 with a two-state solution as the final outcome.
Other than as an implied fallacious "last straw" argument, just how he draws this conclusion from Trump's appointment of Friedman remains unexplained. While Bazian is correct that the two-state solution is a corpse, it was neither Trump, nor Friedman, who killed it. In truth it was still-born upon conception for the simple reason that the Palestinian-Arabs, as an irrational religious imperative, never had the slightest intention of accepting a state for themselves in peace next to Israel to begin with.
Upon arbitrarily deciding that Friedman's appointment means the end of the so-called "peace process," Bazian then insists that people everywhere should therefore "call for Israel’s annexation and demand one person, one vote rather than allow Apartheid to masquerade as democracy."
Just how Bazian came to believe that he is in any position to demand anything from anyone, much less his Jewish enemies, is hard to imagine. Nonetheless, by "annexation" he presumably means the potential Israeli annexation of Judea and Samaria. If so, Bazian is one of those academic anti-Zionists nurturing the hope that Israel can be defeated via demographics.
Many Israelis and diaspora Jews wish to see Israel annex the ancient heart of the Jewish homeland.
Bazian wishes for this, as well, with the anticipation that the hostile Arab majority could then force its will upon the Jewish minority within the Middle East. Just as for thirteen hundred long years, from the rise of Muhammad to the demise of the Ottoman Empire, Muslims held non-Muslims as slaves and dhimmis, so Bazian hopes to see a return of Muslim domination to the Holy Land.
Although subjugating non-Muslims is integral to Islam, Bazian should however be careful what he wishes for.
If Israel annexes Judea and Samaria it will remain a majority Jewish democracy. This is true for a number of simple reasons. The first is that the Palestinian Authority habitually inflates the numbers of Arabs living in Areas A and B and it is, therefore, highly questionable whether Israel would become a majority Arab country in the future. Furthermore, despite popular opinion otherwise, the birthrate among Palestinian-Arabs is declining while the birthrate among Jews is increasing.
More importantly, of course, Israel is under no suicidal obligation to offer citizenship to enemies of the Jewish people or the Jewish state. If Israel does annex Judea and Samaria it will likely institute pathways to citizenship for those Arabs with no political-religious agenda that involves either the murder or subjugation of the Jewish people. This is to say that Jihadis, terrorists, and anti-Semitic anti-Zionists will probably not be eligible to participate in the political life of the country, if they are permitted to remain in the country at all.
In order to determine eligibility for citizenship, Israel could easily institute a two or three year national service requirement with political enfranchisement dependent upon the demonstrated good-will of the individual Arab. Those who demonstrate a true desire for good citizenship within the Jewish state will be allowed citizenship. Those who do not, will not.
However, let's give Bazian the benefit of the doubt and assume that what he really wants is what is good for everyone in that part of the world. In this case, Bazian is telling the Jewish people that despite Jewish history under the brutality of Islam they are under a moral obligation to hope that a Bazian-style single-state will emerge that will not trample their well-being and civil liberties.
Now, how is that for a roll of the dice?
Bazian would have the Jewish people dependent upon the goodwill of Palestinian-Arabs in an Arab-dominated state. Does he honestly expect that after centuries of dhimmitude and theocratically-based Arab aggression it makes sense for the Jewish people to gamble the very lives of their children on Arab-Muslim hospitality?
The notion is ridiculous on its face and the great majority of Jewish people will have none of it.
Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.