Israel cannot be expected to support a Palestinian State that has the destruction of Israel as one of its aims.
By Neville Berman
The Two-State solution has been repeated over and over as the only way to solve the problem of Jews and Palestinians both claiming the same land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Viewed from afar, the answer to the problem seems obvious. Split the land into two states living side by side in peace and security. Problem solved. What can go wrong?
The history of the Jews, their belief in one God, the Torah and their attachment to the land of Israel, is a saga that can fill libraries. Despite invasions, conquests, expulsions and the destruction of both the First and Second Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, Jews have never lost or renounced their belief in God and His promise of the land of Israel to the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is also apparent that despite over 3,000 years of suffering, persecution, slavery, antisemitism, blood libels, crusades, forced conversions, dhimmitude, inquisitions, ghettoes, mass murders, confiscations of property, pogroms, immigration quotas, and finally the systematic mass murder of six million Jews in the Shoah, that the Jews have not only miraculously survived, but have returned to their biblical homeland and have resuscitated Hebrew as a spoken language. If this was not clear in 1948, it should have become crystal clear in 1967, when Israel routed all the invading Arab armies in 6 days, united Jerusalem once again as the eternal capital of Israel, and reclaimed the biblical homeland of Judea and Shomron. Cleary God has not forgotten his promise to the Jews.
Under Jewish rule, barren desert has been transformed into fertile land capable of feeding millions of people. Israel has become a modern powerhouse of technological innovation, progress and higher learning, both secular and spiritually. The State of Israel has steadfastly upheld the principles outlined in its Declaration of Independence signed in 1948: a country based on democracy, freedom of religion, justice and equality for all its citizens. All Israeli citizens irrespective of race, religion, gender or beliefs, have the right to vote once they reach the age of 18. This applies to the 21% of Israeli citizens who are Muslims or Christians. Israel is a thriving democracy, with human rights and the rule of law.
The right of return of Jews to the State of Israel is one of the founding principles of the State of Israel. After the war of Independence in 1948, 750,00 Sephardic and Mizrachi Jews were expelled from Arab lands that they had lived in for thousands of years. All their possessions and money were confiscated before they were forced to leave. Over 600,00 arrived penniless in Israel as refugees and immediately became citizens. Their home language was Arabic and they used Hebrew for prayers and for reading the Torah.
Unfortunately, the 650,000 Palestinians who left Israel in 1948 were never granted citizenship in the Arab countries that advised them to leave in order that the Arab armies could wipe the State of Israel off the map. With the help of Western countries, they have remained as refugees in order to pressurize Israel to allow them and their offspring to return to Israel and turn Israel into an Arab majority country. Israel will never commit suicide by allowing this to happen. The history of Israel after 1948 has been well documented. What is not that well known is the important role that Saudi Arabia played in shaping the Palestinian problem.
In 1902 at the age of 22, Abdul Aziz bin Saud accompanied by 40 followers, staged a daring night march into Riyadh. They attacked the Masmak Fortress and overthrew the Al Rashid family that controlled Riyadh. The Al Rashid family were beheaded and Abdul Aziz became the ruler of the eastern area of Arabia known as the Najd. This event marked the beginning of what was to become Saudi Arabia. Since the 11th century the western part of Arabia known as the Hejaz, consisting of Mecca, Medina and Jeddah was controlled by the Hashemites.
At the start of World War I, the British were worried that Arab rulers would side with the Ottomans. The British promised both Abdul Aziz and the Hashemites that they would be granted a State at the end of the war if they did not support the Ottomans. Both agreed. In 1921, Abdul Aziz overthrew the Hashemites. Britain was now in a dilemma. How could they give the Hashemites a State, if they no longer controlled any land in Arabia? Fortunately for Britain, in 1920 the League of Nations had granted Britain a mandate to administer both Palestine and Iraq. The British found the answer to their dilemma. They renamed the area to the east of the Jordan river as Transjordan and then offered both Iraq and Transjordan to the Hashemites. The Hashemites gladly accepted. Abdullah took over Transjordan and Faisal took over Iraq. His son Faisal II was overthrown in July 1958 and this ended the short Hashemite rule over Iraq. In the case of Transjordan, the Hashemites renamed the area as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and continue to rule what is 74% of the British Mandated area of Palestine to this day.
One can speculate that had the British not offered Transjordan to the Hashemites, history might have been completely different. The mandated area of Palestine could have ended up becoming a two-state solution with Transjordan becoming a Palestinian State, and the area to the west of the Jordan river becoming Israel. With apologies to Robert Frost, this was clearly a road not taken by the British.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the epicenter of a religious, cultural, ideological and nationalistic conflict that goes back thousands of years. It is one of mankind’s most complex and irreconcilable problems. The existence of the State of Israel has been rejected over and over again by Arab States and the Palestinians. To gauge the depth of Palestinian opposition to Israel, it is worth recalling the words of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini who stated that a Jewish State will not be accepted even it is the size of a postage stamp. In 1937, the British Peel Commission offered the Arabs a state in part of Palestine. In 1947, the United Nations passed Resolution 181 known as the Partition Plan, proposing to divide Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State with Jerusalem and Bethlehem under international control. The term Arab was used as Palestinian referred to both Jews and Arabs living in the area. Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, three Israeli Prime Ministers, each offered Yasser Arafat a Palestinian State living in peace next to Israel. Since 1937, every attempt to establish a Palestinian State living next to Israel has been rejected by the Palestinians. Despite this, the world still believes in the two-state solution as the answer. It should be clear that the Palestinians have never accepted the State of Israel on any part of the biblical land of Israel and instead want a Palestinian State from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Let us now assume a hypothetical situation in which the Palestinians and Israelis have agreed to a two-state solution and their leaders have been nominated for Nobel Peace prizes. What happens after the celebrations are over?
The first thing that will probably happen is that Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and any other country that has Palestinian refugees will demand that they should return to their newly declared State of Palestine. President Abbas has stated on numerous occasions that Palestinian refugees and their descendants have an inalienable right of return to the places in Israel from which they left, and that they will not be welcomed into the State of Palestine. The fact that Palestinian refugee camps still exist in Gaza is a clear indication that the Palestinians will not accept Palestinian refugees as fellow citizens. It is absurd to think that Israel should accept Palestinian refugees when they have their own Palestinian State. This is a ‘Catch 22’ situation with strategic consequences.
There is absolutely nothing to suggest that a State of Palestine will be anything other than a failed state similar to Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Libya and Iraq. The Americans and Europeans have poured billions into the Palestinians with absolutely nothing beneficial in return. Almost every country in the West is operating with huge financial deficits. The attack by Russia on Ukraine has changed priorities. No matter the cost, America and Europe have pledged to help Ukraine in its war with Russia. They are financing the war by deficit spending and cannot afford what they are offering. The need to cut aid to the Palestinians will inevitably arise. After the attack on October 7, 2023, it is absolutely certain that Israel will not allow Gazans to work in Israel. The Palestinians will find themselves in an extremely perilous financial situation and will look for help from wherever they can find it.
One can assume that every State has a right to enter into agreements and to seek help from other states. President Bashar al–Assad invited Russia and Iran to come to Syria and help him retain power. They both gladly accepted the offer. Military personnel and equipment poured into Syria from Russia and Iran. All UN Security Council resolutions critical of Syria were vetoed by Russia. Assad had his “get out of jail free card.” His army killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians, and approximately 5 million became refugees who fled mainly to Turkey. No one referred to those massacred as “innocent civilians” and no special UN agency such as UNWRA was established for Syrian refugees. Obviously, Palestinians and Syrians are not the same.
Let us assume that included in the hypothetical two-state agreement are clauses that state that the Palestinians are prohibited from inviting foreign military personnel into the State of Palestine. Unfortunately, there are numerous signed international agreements that were not worth the paper that they were written on. For example, Hitler signed a nonaggression pact with Stalin. We all know how that turned out. The British Government issued the Balfour Declaration that stated that Britain would use its best endevours to support a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Today we know what their best endevours consisted of. America signed and then withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement. The nuclear inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA) contained in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ( JCPOA) with Iran, became totally farcical when Iran refused to allow inspectors into certain sites. The list goes on and on.
The point is that no matter what is signed, the Palestinians will not abide by what they agreed to. The State of Palestine will in all likelihood invite Iran, Turkey, Qatar and Russia to come to their assistance. Within a short period of time, foreign military personnel and equipment will arrive in the demilitarized State of Palestine. The UN will be totally paralyzed as both Russia and China have veto powers at the Security Council. A Palestinian State that ends up with foreign troops looking down at Ben Gurion airport and stationed a few kilometers away from cities in Israel will not bring peace to the region. Warfare today, and even more so in the future, will involve thousands of drones. Imagina a situation in which thousands of drones are fired from a few kilometers away at cities in Israel. This is a recipe that could lead to a much wider conflict between the superpowers.
The Palestinian conflict will not end without a change in the Mullahs control of Iran and their fanatical obsession with the elimination of the State of Israel. As long as they are in power, they will finance, arm and inflame Islamic terrorist groups to attack Israel. Creating a Palestinian State will give Iran another area from which its proxies will be able to attack Israel. It will not bring peace to the Middle East.
There are 22 Arab States and only one Jewish state in the Middle East that is less than 1% of the landmass of the Arab countries in the Middle East. A permanent solution to the Palestinian problem is not a two-state solution that splits Israel, but rather a solution that involves ending the Mullahs rule in Iran and involving each Arab State in contributing to permanently ending the Palestinian refugee problem. Once this occurs, the Abrahamic Accords will blossom into the engine that has the potential to improve the lives of millions of Arabs throughout the Middle East. Israel has the expertise and know-how to make desserts bloom and to end starvation in the Middle East. Israel has basically solved many of the problems that are found in the Middle East. Joining the Abraham accords is a win-win situation for all. What Israel cannot be expected to do is to support a Palestinian State that has the destruction of Israel as its main aim. It is time for the world to reconsider their idea of a two-state solution and to recognize that at this point in time, the two-state solution is not only an oxymoron, but is also institutional insanity. There are better alternatives to the two-state solution. It is time to think out of the box .
About the writer:
Accountant Neville Berman had an illustrious sporting career in South Africa, being twice awarded the South African State Presidents Award for Sport and was a three times winner of the South African Maccabi Sportsman of the Year Award. In 1978 he immigrated to the USA to coach the United States men’s field hockey team, whereafter, in 1981 he immigrated to Israel where he practiced as an accountant and then for 20 years was the Admin Manager at the American International School in Even Yehuda, Israel. He is married with two children and one granddaughter.
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