Friday, February 01, 2019
From Ian:
The Palestinians: Who Really Cares?
Dr. Martin Sherman: Benny Morris, an unlikely proponent of Arab emigration?
The Palestinians: Who Really Cares?
Protests by the Palestinians in Lebanon are unlikely to draw any attention from the international community, including so-called pro-Palestinian groups that are active especially on university campuses in the US and Canada, among other places.David Singer: Trump Should Reaffirm Core Bush-Congress Commitments to Israel
The real "pro-Palestinian" groups are those who are willing to raise their voices against the mistreatment of Palestinians at the hands of their Arab brothers. The real "pro-Palestinian" groups are those who are prepared to defend the rights of women and gays living under Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The real "pro-Palestinian" groups are those that are prepared to advocate for democracy and free speech for Palestinians living under the repressive regimes of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The real "pro-Palestinian" groups are those who are prepared to condemn Lebanon for its racist and discriminatory measures against Palestinians, living and dead.
Hiding at a university campus and spewing hatred against Israel does not make one "pro-Palestinian." Rather, it makes one just an Israel-hater. Will the "pro-Palestinian" groups listen to the urgent messages coming from the people in Lebanon they claim to represent?
The upcoming Israeli elections will give Israelis the chance to vote on the future direction Israel’s new government should take in resolving the future of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza (“disputed territories”) – the last remaining 5 per cent of the territory of the Mandate for Palestine where sovereignty still remains unallocated between Arabs and Jews.
The choices offered to Israeli voters should be explicitly spelt out by the political parties contesting the elections. The newly-elected government’s stated policy should be implemented. This basic premise of democracy has been undermined in America as Trump’s election commitment to build his promised border wall remains unfulfilled because of Congress’s opposition.
Trump should not similarly attempt to thwart the mandate of Israel’s next government.
Trump should shelve his long-overdue ultimate deal indefinitely – due to the changed circumstances that have demonstrably arisen since his well-intentioned thought bubble in November 2016.
Instead – Trump should:
- Pledge his Government’s full support for Israel’s next duly elected Government
- Reaffirm the core commitments made by President Bush to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Bush’s letter dated 14 April 2004 – endorsed overwhelmingly by the Congress by 502 votes to 12 (“Bush/Congress Commitments”).
Those core American commitments – made to procure Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza – included:
- Opposing any peace plan other than the 2003 Bush Roadmap
- Being strongly committed to Israel’s security and well-being as a Jewish state.
- Not supporting any right of return by Palestinian refugees to Israel
- Regarding as unrealistic a full and complete withdrawal from the disputed territories.
Congress could endorse this Trump initiative – reinforcing continuing bipartisan support for Israel.
Peace will remain elusive – but Trump will have saved himself from drowning in a cesspool that has swallowed previous American presidents who believed they had the answer to ending this unresolved 100 years old conflict.
Dr. Martin Sherman: Benny Morris, an unlikely proponent of Arab emigration?
As readers will recall, I have, for years, been urging the initiation of a largescale initiative for the incentivized emigration of the Arab population in Judea-Samaria and Gaza, as the only viable policy option that can facilitate (albeit not ensure) the continued survival of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people—as it is, demonstrably, the only policy option that allows Israel to adequately contend with the geographic and demographic imperatives required for such survival.
This week, I encountered strident—albeit somewhat doleful, and certainly unintended—support for my thesis from a rather unexpected source—the well-known historian, Benny Morris.
Morris: Coming full circle?
Once a member of the so-called New Historians, a radical, left-wing group of academics, who challenged the traditional Zionist view of the inception of Israel—particularly the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Arabs due to the fighting during the 1948 War of Independence—Morris has come to adopt a far more understanding view of the alternatives facing the then-nascent Jewish state—and its resultant actions.
Indeed, in many respects Morris has come “full circle”—at least in terms of prevailing public perceptions of his political positions. Once denounced as an anti-Zionist, considered too radical for employment in the Israeli academe, and who was imprisoned, rather than serve as an army reservist in the “occupied territories”, he now not only defends, but endorses, the coercive displacement of Arabs—indeed, even lamenting that it was not sufficiently implemented.
In this regard, he has chided Ben Gurion for being overly reticent: In a 2004 interview with Haaretz’s Ari Shavit, he declared provocatively: "If he was already engaged in expulsion, maybe he should have done a complete job…my feeling is that this place would be quieter and know less suffering if the matter had been resolved once and for all.”
Morris speculates: “If Ben-Gurion had carried out a large expulsion --the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan River. It may yet turn out that this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full expulsion - rather than a partial one - he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations."
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