Obama Should Not Abandon Israel in His Effort to Court Muslims

Mort Zuckerman

So there is no "two-state solution" if one of the two sovereign states is intent on destroying the other. The only two-state solution at all worth talking about is a new Palestinian state that accepts a limited form of self-government, with borders still effectively controlled by Israel.

Let's be clear again. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu positively does not want Israel to rule over the Palestinians. He wants them to have the power necessary to rule themselves—but not enough power to undermine the security of Israel. The Israeli reluctance to use the word "state" is because of its meaning: A normal, self-governing, sovereign authority can raise an army, acquire all kinds of weapons, and control its own borders, airspace, and electromagnetic space. These represent major dangers to Israel's security and are thus nonstarters.

These are the reasons the Israelis are sincere in wanting to help the Palestinians get their house in order in terms of security and economic capacity. A secure, prosperous Palestine is very much in Israel's long-term interest (and the Palestinians' interest, too.) What is not in the interest of anyone concerned is an unstable, corrupt, economically dependent, semi-failed state that cannot control rogue elements eager for jihad.

This is not a fanciful prospect. Look what happened when Israel totally evacuated Gaza and dismantled all the settlements, involving almost 10,000 people. What did it get? 7,000 rockets fired at Israeli citizens. That is why the Israelis will not make the same error in the West Bank, which is geographically much closer to the heartland of Israel, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Ben-Gurion Airport, making them even more vulnerable to rocket and mortar attacks, given the compression of distance. That is why Israel must control the border so there won't be weapons smuggled in, as occurred in Gaza. Yes, there must be a two-state solution. But the issue is what kind of state the Palestinian state will be and when it will emerge.

If the conventional "two state" formula is a problem masquerading as a solution, what of the settlements pretty much everyone condemns? This is a bogus issue, just another way of needling Israel and helping the Palestinians duck responsibility. Look at pre-1967, before there was a single settlement. The Arabs rejected every plan to divide the land into adjacent states, one for the Arabs and one for the Jews. After the 1967 Six Day War, Israel offered to exchange the land it had won for permanent peace with its neighbors. The Arab response was the three No's. No peace with Israel; no negotiations with Israel; no recognition of Israel.

What was the situation before 1967, before there was a single settlement, or before 1948? Was it peace? No, it was friction, terrorism, and bloodshed. Remember: The Palestinian Liberation Organization was established in 1964, before 1967, before there was a single settlement, and when the Arabs controlled the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But what was the PLO seeking to liberate in 1964? It was to remove pre-1967 Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.

The rhetoric about settlements, echoed in the president's speech, is different from the reality. The reality is that this "problem" goes away when the borders of the two states are established. All the settlements on the wrong side of the line will then be dismantled, just as they were when Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. To make modest levels of natural growth in these communities to deal with the 9,600 babies that were born last year is not the proper area of focus.

The background of the Palestinian-Israeli relationship is important here because it sets the parameters for mutual confidence. In the year 2000, Israel withdrew unilaterally from Lebanon; this was followed by Hezbollah attacks from the land it abandoned. Also that year, the Camp David offer of a Palestinian state by Ehud Barak to Arafat was followed by the launching of a terror war by the PLO—Intifada II—that killed over 1,000 Israelis. In 2002 and 2003, the Israelis unilaterally withdrew from Gaza and dismantled settlements there. This was followed by the launching of a rocket war which Israel finally had to answer. In 2008, Olmert's even more generous peace proposals to Abbas were dismissed without a real engagement in a dialogue. None of these actions produced even minor moves toward peace but instead led to greater hostility and Islamic radicalism.