{"id":14980,"date":"2024-03-24T12:15:54","date_gmt":"2024-03-24T10:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/?p=14980"},"modified":"2024-03-24T12:21:18","modified_gmt":"2024-03-24T10:21:18","slug":"forget-two-states-lets-try-a-two-democracy-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/forget-two-states-lets-try-a-two-democracy-solution\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget two states, let’s try a two-democracy solution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Instead of shutting up, pretending the Palestinian problem will disappear, why not propose \u201ctwo democracies for two peoples\u201d?<\/h3>\n

Theoretically, an American senator calling for Israeli elections is meaningless, whereas an Israeli general challenging Israel\u2019s politicians threatens democracy.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, many of us felt threatened by Sen. Charles Schumer\u2019s intrusion into Israeli politics \u2013 fearing it helped Democratic fence-sitters abandon Israel. Simultaneously, many Israelis applauded Brig.-Gen. Dan Goldfus for demanding that Israel\u2019s leaders prove \u201cworthy\u201d of our amazing soldiers. Disciplined enough not to mention names, Goldfus expressed our feelings, boldly, constructively.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about timing. With US-Israel relations increasingly wobbly, having America\u2019s highest elected Jewish official join the pile-on hurts. Yet having a war hero demand the kind of leadership we deserve was more inspiring than unnerving. It reflected a widespread frustration with the Mummy of Balfour Street, who fails to understand that wars can be won by soldier-heroes, then lost by scaredy-cat politicians ducking \u201cday after\u201d plans, shilly-shallying to preserve their rickety coalition.<\/p>\n

Chuck Schumer repeated the tiresome call for a \u201ctwo-state solution,\u201d mocking his claim that Netanyahu\u2019s \u201cgoverning vision\u201d is the one \u201cstuck in the past.\u201d Five months after October 7, how can intelligent people resurrect the two-state solution delusion, without updates or nuance? It rewards the Palestinians\u2019 calls to \u201cglobalize the intifada\u201d against Israel, while ignoring their incessant one-state solution cries: \u201cfrom the River to the Sea!\u201d And it ignores the 1,000 Israelis terrorists murdered thanks to the 1990s\u2019 Oslo peace process, and the 1,200-plus Hamas murdered thanks to Israel\u2019s 2005 Disengagement from the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

A responsible Israeli leader would lead creatively \u2013 not just to please the Americans today but to protect Israel tomorrow. Instead of shutting up, pretending the Palestinian problem will disappear, why not propose \u201ctwo democracies for two peoples\u201d?<\/p>\n

The shift is seismic, not semantic. The Gaza Disengagement catastrophe highlights the \u201ctwo states for two peoples\u201d problem. The slogan assumes that if Israel carved out just enough from its one, small, New-Jersey-sized state, the poor, stateless, oppressed Palestinians would be satisfied. Perpetually putting the onus on Israel ignores the pro-Palestinian movement\u2019s exterminationist plans for Jews, not just Israelis.<\/p>\n

Hamas, in particular, was not satisfied with getting all of Gaza. The Hamas charter endorses permanent jihad against Israel. What kind of arrangement would satisfy these mass murderers?<\/p>\n

Making mistakes politically is excusable; refusing to learn from them is inexcusable.<\/p>\n

The West treats this conflict as a rational border dispute. Yet most Palestinian leaders see their fight against Israel in apocalyptic, existential, terms. They\u2019re trying to wipe Israel off the map, not redraw boundaries.<\/p>\n

Similarly, in 2000, when prime minister Ehud Barak made such sweeping concessions at Camp David to the Palestinians that most Israelis bridled, Yasser Arafat, the arch terrorist, didn\u2019t even make a counteroffer.<\/p>\n

DEMANDING \u201cTWO democracies for two peoples\u201d requires changes in Palestinian political culture as dramatic as Israel\u2019s expected concessions \u2013 and before Israel risks its security, again. Prof. Irwin Cotler, the Canadian human rights activist and former justice minister, has long championed this vision. He wonders how Israel can trust its neighbor, unless it\u2019s an \u201cindependent, rights-protecting, rule-of-law-based Palestinian state.\u201d The vision demands genuine, freedom-oriented, Palestinian reforms.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Israeli human rights activist Natan Sharansky notes that this vision is not just safer for Israelis \u2013 it\u2019s better for Palestinians. When Israel signed the Oslo peace protocols in 1993, Sharansky warned against trusting Arafat and his terrorist cronies to implement a peace plan. It was like hiring arsonists as firefighters.<\/p>\n

In our book, Never Alone: Prison, Politics, and My People, Sharansky and I wrote: \u201cif there is one real crime the Israeli government has committed against the Palestinians, it\u2019s the Oslo Accords. Those agreements imposed Arafat\u2019s terrorist dictatorship on the Palestinians, instead of cultivating the more grassroots democratic leadership that sprouted in the West Bank [among some mayors in the 1990s] \u2013 and it was done with the free world\u2019s endorsement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democracies never attack fellow democracies, because democratic leaders win reelection by improving citizens\u2019 quality of life. By contrast, as Iran, Russia, and Hamas prove \u2013 dictators need enemies to justify the burdens they impose on their citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo democracies for two peoples\u201d begins by seeking to improve Palestinian lives, freeing them from the Hamas and Palestinian Authority dictatorships that leverage Palestinian misery to blacken Israel\u2019s reputation. A regime that terrorizes outsiders brazenly terrorizes uncooperative insiders, too. Had the Oslo peace process started by nurturing civil society, with strings attached and benchmarks, today, 40 years later, Palestinian life might look very different, and democratic.<\/p>\n

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Senator Schumer. Photo by Shutterstock<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Clearly, a productive, freedom-based, civil Palestinian society would be better for Israel, too. As the former Soviet Union\u2019s leading dissident, Andrei Sakharov, warned: \u201cNever trust a government more than the government trusts its own people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Too many in the media only blame the \u201cconcept,\u201d Israel\u2019s blinding conception, on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s miscalculations. Clearly, the West\u2019s \u201cconcept\u201d about the Palestinians has blinded it for decades \u2013 and emboldened the mass murders of October 7, too. Forever asking \u201cwhat can we give the Palestinians?\u201d feeds their totalitarian culture of irresponsibility, victimhood, and Jew-bashing that triggered the marauding, raping, kidnapping, maiming, and killing.<\/p>\n

Making demands on the Palestinians \u2013 finally \u2013 and challenging them to develop a political culture based on mutual respect and mutual rights is the only way forward. It\u2019s the best way to break the cycle of Palestinian viciousness and violence that threatens to destabilize the world, not just Israel.<\/p>\n

And having Israel articulate this democratic vision breaks our stalemate \u2013 giving Americans and Israelis the debate we need to start thinking about how to consolidate the war gains Gen. Goldfus and his troops have so ably delivered.<\/p>\n

Published by Jerusalem Post<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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