David Singer: Is Bennett set to shake-up global consensus on a two-state solution?
Bennett – anointed as “Prime Minister and Minister for Settlement Affairs” – is now uniquely placed to promote his “Israel Stability Initiative – February 2012” (Stability Plan) – summarised by him in 2017:
“The main idea of The Stability Plan is to provide full civilian self-governance to the Palestinians so they can elect themselves, pay their taxes, and control those areas that are theirs. We should apply sovereignty in Israeli-controlled areas – known as Area C – and Palestinians living there will become part and parcel of the State of Israel. And since within the State of Israel you cannot have two levels of people, those Palestinians living in Area C – approximately 80,000 people – will be offered full Israeli citizenship, including voting rights. I think most will opt for residency rather than citizenship (like in East Jerusalem) but it’s up to them. They can be Israeli citizens, Israeli residents or Palestinian citizens.
"Those living in the Palestinian-controlled areas (Areas A and B) will govern themselves in all aspects barring two elements: overall security responsibility and not being able to allow the return of decedents [sic] of Palestinians refugees. We can’t have an inflow of millions of great grandchildren of 1948 refugees coming across the Jordan River because in one swoop that would distort the demography of the area, and within a few weeks of their arrival, the local Palestinians in Judea and Samaria would tell them to ‘go back to Jaffa’ which would subsequently create pressure on Israel that could lead to a third intifada inside ‘Smaller Israel’.
"My option is that Palestinians have an ‘autonomy on steroids,’ and I’m open to ideas about how this materialises; it could be a confederation with Jordan, or local municipalities, or a central government. It would encompass full freedom of movement, massive infrastructure investment, the creation of a tourism zone so Christians can enter Haifa, Nazareth, Nablus, Ramallah, Jerusalem and Hebron without going through road blocks. We would have joint industrial centres, and we’d be able to create a land port governed by the Palestinians in Jenin that would be connected to Haifa.”
Bennett continued:
“I understand there is global consensus around the two-state solution, but what the world thinks is no proof for the correctness of a plan. The world gets it wrong a lot.
"I’d say to those in the international community who are so entrenched in the idea of a Palestinian state that (a) the Palestinians have a state in Gaza and they blew it, and (b) after 50 years, at what time do we need to rethink? In the high tech world where I come from, if my employees tried the same solution and failed again and again I’d fire them as I’d expect them to have tried to tackle the challenge from a different angle by now! There is an industry around this topic – think-tanks, journals, professionals and academics who keep on chewing on the same old failed solution. We’re not in Europe, we live in a region with very few democracies, and when we tried this idea out it blew up in our faces and no one showed us any sympathy.”
Is Bennett going to stand behind his earlier plan? Global consensus needs to positively respond to Bennett’s challenge.
UK to boycott ‘festival of Jew-hate’ Durban IV
The British government has confirmed it will boycott Durban IV, an international conference that has been dubbed “the festival of Jew-hate.”
The UK will join Australia, Canada, Israel and the US in not attending the United Nations conference, which purports to focus on tackling racism across the globe.
When the event first took place in 2001 the US, Israel and Canada walked out, citing a series of antisemitic remarks that had been made at the gathering.
Several of those present also tried to claim that Zionism equated to racism.
The Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council and Conservative Friends of Israel all wrote to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab this year, insisting the UK did not attend.
Last night a government spokesperson confirmed: "Following historic concerns regarding antisemitism, the UK has decided not to attend the UN’s Durban Conference anniversary event later this year."
CFI Parliamentary Chairmen, Stephen Crabb MP and Lord Eric Pickles, said: “Confirmation that the UK will not attend Durban IV is extremely welcome. It is absolutely right that the UK is joining our close allies Australia, Canada and the US in condemning the infamous gathering.
“We applaud this latest decisive action from the UK government in opposing antisemitism in all its forms and wherever it occurs.”
Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, Vice President of the JLC and an attendee at the 2001 conference, said: “This is welcome news. Tainted with Jew hatred, poisonous rhetoric about Israel and Holocaust denial and minimisation, the Durban process is no place to tackle racism. It is time for the Durban conferences to be consigned to history.
"The British Government has done the right thing once again by taking a principled stance and refusing to attend.”
?? #BREAKING: The #UK just confirmed they will withdraw from #DurbanIV anti-Israel anti-Jewish hatefest at the UN, legitimately citing concerns over #antisemitism.https://t.co/8V8PHIA35r
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) June 21, 2021
Might have to update my presentation though now ... https://t.co/4LBllY4zpg
UN Watch commends the UK for pulling out of the UN's anti-Israel Durban IV event to be held in September. We urge other nations to follow.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) June 21, 2021
?? Pulled out of Durban IV so far: ????????????????????
?? Pulled out of Durban III in 2011: ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????https://t.co/faq7UQVtb4
Outcry over UK funding for Palestinian school books that ‘incite terrorism’
Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) called on the UK to “act decisively to end its facilitation” of the PA’s “extreme curriculum”.
The UK and the EU directly pay the salaries of teachers who are involved in the production and implementation of the educational materials.
CFI’s Parliamentary chairmen Stephen Crabb MP and Lord Pickles, and CFI Honorary President Lord Polak, said British taxpayers would be “understandably appalled” to discover they had been funding the use of “hate-filled material” and criticised a “decade of prevarication and denial” by the UK government.
The review, undertaken by the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, was completed in February 2021 but has just been published following growing pressure for its public release.
It details extensive examples of radical material from 156 textbooks and 16 teachers’ guides used between 2017 and 2019.
The report includes dozens of examples of encouragement of violence and demonisation of Israel and of Jews, including the repeated glorification of “heroine” Dalal al-Mughrabi, who killed 38 Israelis, including 13 children, in a terror attack. The report found glorification and praise of terrorists who killed Israeli civilians in history, social studies, science and maths books.
An exercise in one religious studies textbook asks students to discuss the “repeated attempts by the Jews to kill the prophet” Muhammad and asks who are “other enemies of Islam".