Israel has pressed pause on negotiations and will take steps to cause financial pain for the Palestinians, in light of an announcement Wednesday that Fatah and Hamas have reconciled and are to form a unity government, but has decided against toppling the Palestinian Authority altogether.Somehow I doubt that Israel is going to give up all political contacts with the local Arabs, yet that probably is exactly what they should do. Israel cannot negotiate with people who call specifically for the genocide of the Jews directly in their charter and Hamas calls specifically for the genocide of the Jews directly in their charter.
"Until now, we have warned them about sanctions, and now we will impose them," a political source said. "The moment they announced that they were becoming one body, negotiations became impossible. Abbas has gone a step too far. There will be no political contacts with the Palestinians."
Of course, anyone paying attention, without ideological blinkers, knew that dictator Abbas was not an actual partner for peace due to the fact the Palestinian Authority continues to incite hatred for Jews via PA media and little things like welcoming home the murderers of Holocaust survivors as national heroes.
Barack Obama recently claimed that Mahmoud Abbas "consistently renounced violence."
Here is a news flash for you folks. Barack Obama lied.
Obama knows full well that Abbas has never in any genuine way renounced violence toward innocent Israeli civilians because Abbas does not believe in any such creatures as an innocent Israeli civilian. Furthermore, how can Abbas or Fatah or the Palestinian Authority claim to renounce violence even as they name government buildings and roads and ice cream parlors for those who are known for nothing else beyond committing violence specifically targeted toward Jews?
I have always favored a negotiated two-state solution to the Arab-Israel conflict, but there comes a point wherein one must rethink former presumptions. In my view, it is long past time for world Jewry to look beyond the failed Oslo Accords and to think in fresh ways about how to handle the ongoing aggression against the Jews in the Middle East. Since Arab political forces throughout the area have consistently rejected a Palestinian-Arab state in peace next to Israel, with a full cessation of hostilities and an acknowledged end of the conflict, then Israel has no choice but to act unilaterally.
Sometimes people like to tell me what my political positions are without any reference to my actual political opinions. I was even told in the comments over at the Times of Israel under my recent piece that clearly I must have a racist disdain for Native Americans. Why this person said such a thing is entirely beyond me unless he thinks along the lines of:
Arabs = Indigenous Innocent Natives / Jews = Aggressive Imperialist Interlopers.
In any case, all of our views on the conflict need to evolve and change according to evolving and changing circumstances.
My position is this:
Israel needs to declare her final borders and remove the IDF to behind those borders.
Period. End of story. {As I like to say.}
I am not an Israeli, so it is not up to me to decide just where those borders should be. If Israel thinks that retreating to the 1949 armistice lines will result in a manageable situation, then so be it. If, on the other hand, Israel were to go Naftali Bennet's route and annex some version of Area C, leaving the rest of the region for yet another Arab state, then that is fine with me, as well. Finally, if Israel decides to annex the entirety of Judea and Samaria, from the river to the sea, that is an option, but it is an option with significant difficulties.
If Israel annexes the so-called "West Bank" then it will need to provide a pathway for citizenship for the local Arab population. I do not believe in loyalty oaths because they are emphatically meaningless, but there needs to be a reasonable pathway.
What I would recommend is that non-Jews who live in Judea and Samaria who wish to become citizens of the State of Israel be required to complete two to three years of community service. If at the end of that period the individual has shown him or herself to be non-hostile then the person should be granted full citizenship. Those who refuse such service should maintain full civil liberties, but no rights to the national franchise. Those who prove themselves to be hostile, of course, should be denied the national franchise. The tricky part is determining consistent metrics for what constitutes hostility.
The result of such a move, however, would be full Israeli control of Judea and Samaria west of the Jordan River and a significant increase in the Arab population of the Jewish State of Israel. The risk of the single-state solution, which people like Caroline Glick and Martin Sherman are championing, is that the wrong demographics could threaten Israel as a Jewish State. If Israel were to annex Judea and Samaria at what point would the Jews find themselves as, yet again, an oppressed minority under a viciously anti-Semitic Muslim regime?
What people on the hard-left argue is that the Jewish concern around demography within Israel is flat-out racism. They make this argument because they simply do not care about Jewish well-being and therefore entirely discount the history of the Jewish people under circumstances of dhimmitude and submission under Islam for thirteen hundred years. Those on the moderate-left, who actually do care about the well-being of persecuted minorities, understand that the Jewish people will never again allow themselves to live or die according to the whims of a non-Jewish majority.
What people on the hard-right argue is for full annexation of Judea and Samaria and to heck with the Arabs. Expel them to Jordan if need be. What people on the moderate right argue is that the demographic threat is overblown and that the Palestinian Authority has grossly (and intentionally) over-inflated the numbers of Arabs who live in the area and thus a single-state solution is not a threat to Zionism.
I consider it a good thing that Jewish people are beginning to free themselves for the shackles of Oslo.
It was a pleasant dream for awhile, but ultimately it failed and the reason that it failed is because the Arabs of the Middle East have no intention whatsoever of giving up their Long War Against the Jews. Why should they? Jewish sovereignty on any land that was once part of the Dar al-Islam must, according to al-Sharia, remain within Dar al-Islam forever. Furthermore, the Arab governments can simply continue to brutally use the Palestinian-Arabs as pawns in their never-ending cosmic war against the Jews.
What we cannot do, however, is remained chained to failed ideologies, even if our friends wish us to remain so... for our own best benefit.
It is time to move on and rethink and what that means is acknowledging the failure of Oslo.
This does not necessarily mean the end of the two-state solution, but it does mean that a two-state solution will not come about within a negotiated conclusion of hostilities.
Not any time soon, that much is certain.