In PJ Media this morning I discuss why the “two-state solution” should be abandoned forever.
As yet
another round of the relentless jihad against Israel opens up, it’s
useful to consider: would the two-state solution now taken for granted
and offered by both parties really bring peace?The need to establish a Palestinian state wasn’t even a point of
controversy during the last election campaign. The Democrat Party
platform read: “A just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian accord, producing
two states for two peoples, would contribute to regional stability and
help sustain Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state.” For
his part, Mitt Romney promised to “recommit America to the goal of a
democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace
and security with the Jewish state of Israel.”But would a Palestinian state really stop the rain of rockets into
Israel? Judging from the fact that so many of those rockets are coming
from Gaza, it looks as if the dreaded, notorious, much-maligned object
of frenzied Leftist and Islamic supremacist propagandizing, the Israeli
“occupation,” was much more conducive to peace than independent or even
semi-autonomous Palestinian entities. For before Israel withdrew
voluntarily from Gaza in 2005, rockets were not flying into Israel in
anything like the numbers they reached after the withdrawal. Around 35
rockets were fired into Israel in 2001; by 2006, the number had grown to
1,777 — almost all from Gaza.Yet at the time of the withdrawal, pundits and politicians the world
over predicted that the withdrawal would herald the dawn of a new age of
peace between Israel and the Palestinian Muslims. Palestinians, we were
told, would finally be able to turn away from war and live normal
lives. Publishing magnate Mortimer Zuckerman tried to facilitate that
return to normalcy by spearheading the purchase (for $14 million) of
greenhouses the Israelis had constructed in Gaza; he gave them to the
Palestinians so that they would have places to work. Instead, they
turned them into weapon-smuggling tunnels.Why would an independent Palestinian state be any different from
post-withdrawal Gaza? Would such a state really bring, at long last,
peace between Israel and the Palestinians — and, for that matter,
“contribute to regional stability”? Egyptian Muslim cleric Muhammad
Hussein Ya”qoub answered that question in January 2009, when he said on al-Rahma TV:If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving
them? Of course not. We will never love them. Absolutely not. The Jews
are infidels — not because I say so, and not because they are killing
Muslims, but because Allah said: “˜The Jews say that Uzair [Ezra] is the
son of Allah, and the Christians say that Christ is the son of Allah.
These are the words from their mouths. They imitate the sayings of the
disbelievers before. May Allah fight them. How deluded they are.”The quotation is from the Qur’an (9:30). Ya”qoub explicitly rules out
what is conventional wisdom in the U.S.: that the conflict between
Israel and the Palestinian Muslims is simply over land, and can
ultimately be resolved if only the right formula could be found. He goes
even farther, saying that if all the Jews left “Palestine,”
Muslims should still hate them, because it is their responsibility
before Allah to do so. “It is Allah,” continued Ya”qoub, “who said that
they are infidels. Your belief regarding the Jews should be, first, that
they are infidels, and second, that they are enemies. They are enemies
not because they occupied Palestine. They would have been enemies even
if they did not occupy a thing. Allah said: “˜You shall find the
strongest men in enmity to the disbelievers [sic] to be the Jews and the polytheists.–