How the Two State Solution became the Israeli Salvation Solution.

Israeli Jewish colony just south of Ariel in the centre of the West Bank - view from Palestinian town opposite. The road half way down the hillside is the 'security barrier' for this colony - and its way of seizing half of the olive terraces belonging to the Palestinian farmers. All the olive terraces above the road are now inaccessible to them - and accessible to the Israelis. (We picked here one day in 2007 helped by twenty Rabbinical students opposed to what the Israeli settlers are doing!)

There is an extraordinary change happening in Israel - and surely it is a sign of hope? Suddenly the Two State solution is becoming fashionable - and seen as a way of ending all conflict.

But as a long-term solution it could have the following major shortcomings if negotiated on the currently suggested basis ...

It leaves half the populaton with the right to live in only between18% to 12% of their former homeland, depending how many Jewish West Bank colonies are returned to Palestinian control.

There is no provision for refugees to return to their homelands when these are inside Israel - despite them having such a legal right.

The injustices of the Naqkba are left unaddressed

The major Jewish settlements on the West Bank remain under Israeli sovereignity - making a future Palestine less viable. It will have lost a large part of its water supplies, it is likely to be subjected to Israeli 'oversight' to protect these colonies

I know the Arab states have endorsed this as a solution - but the possibility of future conflict deeply embodied within it.

The Two State Solution as endorsed by Israel allows it to continue in possession of most of the land and privileges it has taken. It removes the need for Israel to change into a state where all religions are equally honoured.

Thus Heeretz, a major Israeli newspaper ran the following article

Here's to the '67 borders, the new middle of the road

By Bradley Burston in Heeretz, 1st January 2008

This is from this article.... 'There was a time, not long past, that the mere mention of the 1967 borders was seen by many in the Jewish community as an expression of disloyalty, of sacrilege, of foolhardy risk, almost of profanity. Gradually, remarkably, there are signs that the route of the middle of the road has shifted. That we've come a long, long way. At this point, for many on the Israeli side and, in fact, on the Palestinian side as well, the middle of the road passes very, very close to the Green Line, the post-1948 war, pre-1967 war boundary between the West Bank and Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an interview to be published in the Friday Jerusalem Post, states that "the world that is friendly to Israel... that really supports Israel, when it speaks of the future, it speaks of Israel in terms of the '67 borders. It speaks of the division of Jerusalem."

'The Arab League has thrown its weight behind the 2002 Saudi-inspired peace initiative, which offers Israel full normalization of relations and comprehensive peace treaties with Arab countries in exchange for withdrawal from the territory captured in 1967, an independent Palestine with its capital in East Jerusalem, and a "just solution" of the Palestinian refugee issue.

'.... Professor Dershowitz has set out a concise outline for a middle-of-the-road position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, circa 2008.It is a peaceful Israel, an Israel not occupying, an Israel not interested in acquiring more land, but simply living as a Jewish democracy living side-by-side with a peaceful, economically viable, democratic, pluralistic Palestinian state, on borders approximating those proposed at Camp David and Taba. .

But what is a 'Jewish Democracy". If it were something like 'a Church of England democracy', in which there are no legal benefits to being C of E, then perhaps it would not be a problem. But - if it means the adherents of one religion get favoured treatment in more than 16 pieces of legislation, as things stand now - then surely this is not 'democracy'. Perhaps more importantly, it surely is not a basis for a conflict free society. How can it be right for just one group, Jews with historical distant links, to have the 'right of return' in preference to those recently 'ethnically cleansed' from their homeland?. Surely this cannot be a just settlement? It is not just Palestine that should be plurialistic.

And is Israel stopping taking the Palestinian land? No - in fact every time peace is seriously talked about, Israelis set out to grab even more land while they can.. An editorial

Words won't stop the construction

Haaretz Editorial 01/01/2008

The announcement that the prime minister has directed cabinet ministers not to build in the territories behind his back sounds like a sleight of hand. The prime minister should not instruct his ministers to "increase awareness" of their ministries' actions that might impair negotiations with the Palestinians, but rather he should once and for all bring the Sasson report to the cabinet for approval. The report states clearly how to monitor settlement expansion.

First of all the state must take back the powers it surrendered to the settlers' local councils. Since the Civil Administration is the highest authority in the territories, it can stop the construction of any house in every settlement, if it would only be given the proper directive.

Stopping construction in East Jerusalem is more problematic, but possible. Since East Jerusalem has been annexed to Israel, the usual laws of planning and construction apply to it, and not every decision on the construction of a house is brought before the government. When Ehud Olmert was mayor, he encouraged building in the eastern part of the city through foreign millionaires, who purchased buildings and expanded them into Jewish neighorhoods.

Today, as Olmert attempts to move ahead talks with Mahmoud Abbas, he probably regrets some of his decisions. But meanwhile the system continues to work, and neighborhoods like Ras el-Amud and Har Homa, which were already provocations back then, continue to expand due to construction permits given in the past.

When public land is involved, it is easy to halt projects. When it comes to private property, compensation can be paid and the land expropriated. But for this to happen the government has to want it, and it is doubtful there is any enthusiasm in the coalition to stop construction in East Jerusalem. The attempt to keep the coalition stable has resulted in under-activity in the diplomatic realm and declarations on which there is no intention to make good.

That is evidently the reason Avigdor Lieberman and his party have stayed in the coalition even after the Annapolis summit. Haim Ramon, who heads the ministerial committee on the outposts, is going along with this game. This committee, which was to have implemented the Sasson report, has yet to make a significant decision.

Even if the Olmert government has difficulty dismantling outposts, it must at least find a way to stop their growth. The outposts have grown to 140 and the number of settlers to 270,000. [ The UN estimate 450,000 - Heeretz omits the settlers living in illegal settlements near and in Jerusalem. ] If the government had at least decided to dismantle the settlement division of the Jewish Agency, through which funding continues to flow to expand the settlements, it could be said that a little effort has been made in this direction.

Olmert is trying to navigate between Lieberman and Abbas; but if his intentions to negotiate are real, this does not stand a chance. Therefore the statements this week about directives to cabinet ministers on the need to stop construction in the settlements, or at least to inform the prime minister of any such construction, are pitiful and deceptive. Settlement construction will not be stopped with words.

end

Mark Braverman, a Jew, in this article much more truely reflectswhat I observed in Israel and the West Bank a month ago...

Palestine Is Being Destroyed
Monday, December 31, 2007
By Mark Braverman

I am the grandson of a fifth- generation Palestinian Jew. My grandfather, born in the Old City of Jerusalem, emigrated to the United States early in the last century. I am a proud Jew, loyal to my tradition and to my people. Zionism was as much a part of my religious upbringing as praying in the synagogue and observing the Jewish holidays. But I am strongly opposed to the policies of the state of Israel toward the Palestinian people, policies supported by the U.S. and by many of my fellow Jews here in the United States.

In letters and columns published in The Day, some of my fellow Jews have criticized the efforts of The Rev. David Good and the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme to bring a measure of justice and sanity to the situation in Israel and Palestine. I understand the fear that motivates this opposition and know it well. I have been honored and blessed to have played a small part in the work of the Rev. Good and his congregation over the past several years. I first met them in 2006 while traveling throughout New England with three women — two Palestinians and an Israeli — speaking to groups, including this congregation, about their work for peace between Israel and Palestinian people. I heard this fear and this anger often from Jews in our audiences. I heard it from a college student planning to emigrate to Israel, who, in tears, protested that we must have it wrong about Israel — how could we smash her dream? I heard it from the many Jews who demanded, indeed pleaded for a “balanced” picture, who wanted “equal time” for consideration of the violence from Palestinians that presumably creates the basis for Israeli retaliation in its various forms.
But the situation is not balanced.
Palestine is being destroyed. Israel has all the power. The Palestinian people — a good, patient people — are being ground into the dirt, their leaders killed, imprisoned or exiled, their young people impoverished and robbed of a future. Any possibility for nonviolent protest is made all but impossible by a brutal military occupation. We are doing wrong. We have blood on our hands. Yes, there have been Palestinians who have perpetrated acts of violence.

But we must look to the cause.
Before I visited the West Bank in 2006, I too looked for a balanced discourse. Where was the acknowledgment that the 1948 War was a war of self-defense, a war to prevent yet another extermination? Didn't they reject the 1947 United Nations partition plan? Is not the occupation, although lamentably abusive of human rights, necessary for creating defensible borders and national security? I now see that responsibility for denial and the distortion lies equally, if not more, with us. The 1948 War, although it undoubtedly protected the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine from hostile Arab armies, was part of a larger plan to displace the Palestinians and claim the entire land for a Jewish State. Israel's policies post-1967 are a clear continuation of this plan. Israel is not a partner for peace. This reality is surfacing, slowly, inexorably.
I urge my fellow Jews to go, as I have, and see the Separation Wall — not the sanitized Israeli section, but the real story of the Wall, reaching deep into the West Bank to grab huge chunks of territory and separating Palestinians from Palestinians and farmers from their land. Ask yourselves, when you see it, if you think the wall is for security. Visit the checkpoints and feel the shame and disgust that are the only emotions one can feel for the baseless humiliation and oppression being perpetrated in our name.
Go and see the villages being destroyed and the land taken to build a system of Bantustans and erect neighborhoods and towns for American Jews who believe that we have the right to do this. Meet Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and understand Israel's campaign to drive out the non-Jewish residents of Jerusalem who have lived there for generations. Meet the Israeli women of Machsom Watch and members of New Profile, who are all struggling to preserve a shred of moral conscience in Israel.
These brave Israeli Jews are our present-day Shomrei Yisrael, the Guardians of Israel. Those Jews who seek to suppress criticism of Israel and to block dialogue with the Palestinians are not friends of Israel. Non-Jewish Americans who allow themselves to cooperate with this muzzling of free speech and denial of injustice are complicit in this madness.
Accepting responsibility for the injustice done to the Palestinian people will not destroy Israel. On the contrary — it will save Israel. My roots go deep in the Holy Land. So do those of my Palestinian brothers and sisters. If we Jews cannot learn to share this land with the Palestinians, we will never have the secure homeland we desire.
Mark Braverman is a clinical psychologist living in Bethesda, Md. He recently spoke at the “Tree of Life Conference on Israel and Palestine” held in Old Lyme