A congressman calls for dropping the two-state solution

A rare expression of rationality on the Israel-Palestinian issue, from Rep. Joe Walsh, Republican of Illinois. The two-state solution, he writes in the Washington Times, not only has repeatedly failed, it is inherently impossible:

The two-state solution can never work when one of the domains, the Palestinian state, does not even acknowledge the other state’s (Israel’s) right to exist and has as its entire purpose in life wiping Israel off the face of the earth….

The only viable solution for the Middle East is a one-state solution: one contiguous Israeli state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. There will not and cannot be lasting peace in the Middle East until then….

Those Palestinians who wish to may leave their Fatah- and Hamas-created slums and move to the original Palestinian state: Jordan. The British Mandate for Palestine created Jordan as the country for the Palestinians. That is the only justification for its creation. Even now, 75 percent of its population is of Palestinian descent. Those Palestinians who remain behind in Israel will maintain limited voting power but will be awarded all the economic and civil rights of Israeli citizens. They will be free to raise families, start businesses and live in peace, all of which are impossible under current Arab rule….

We’ve had it backward all these years: The goal should not be peace at all costs. The goal should be a strong, free and prosperous Israel. The United States should not be some honest broker between two sides, but rather should stand publicly with one side—Israel. Then, and only then, will real peace truly come.

Two cheers for Rep. Walsh. He doesn’t get a third cheer, because he leaves out a key element without which a contiguous Israeli state from the Jordan to the Meditterreanean cannot be safe: the transfer of the Arab population from the area between the Jordan and the Mediterranean (as laid out in Robert Locke’s seminal 2003 article at Vdare). Yes, Walsh hopes and urges that the Palestinians will voluntarily move to Jordan. But will they?

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Lydia McGrew writes:

My impression is that Jordan no longer permits Palestinians to move there from Israel. Is that not true? If so, that presents a major problem for many otherwise sensible solutions.

LA replies:

I don’t know about what Jordan currently does, but surely it would oppose the transfer of Palestinians into its territory. Ultimately the transfer might not be consensual.

Ken Hechtman writes:

Lydia McGrew writes:

My impression is that Jordan no longer permits Palestinians to move there from Israel. Is that not true? If so, that presents a major problem for many otherwise sensible solutions.

It’s sort of true. Palestinians can still move there but citizenship, permanent residency and even work permits are all harder to get than they were a few years ago. It’s also easier to move to Jordan from the West Bank than it is coming from Gaza and it’s easier coming from Gaza than it is coming from inside Israel’s 1967 borders.

Jordan had completely open borders on both sides until 2007. At the height of the Iraqi civil war, they took in half a million Iraqi refugees and got no help from the UN in taking care of them. After that, the Jordanian government started changing the rules.

M. Jose writes:

I would deduct a cheer from Joe Walsh as well for this statement:

The United States should not be some honest broker between two sides, but rather should stand publicly with one side—Israel.

The United States has no reason to express an interest in the outcome of such an event. Why can’t we just say that it is none of our business? I don’t see that it is in the U.S.’s interest what Israel decides to do with the Palestinians, so why the Hell do we need to have an official opinion? If we minded our own business, we’d have fewer problems.

Also, if we were in any way to endorse as a country the involuntary expulsion of any subset of Palestinians from Israel, we know where they would go—the rest of the world would demand we take them, and we would almost certainly take them.

Why can’t we stay out of this conflict for once?

LA replies:

Mr. Jose writes as so many opponents of any U.S.-Israel alliance write: as though they had been born yesterday, knew nothing about the way the world actually is, and expected reality to be replaced by their preferences. In some other world it might be true, as Mr. Jose writes, that the “United States has no reason to express an interest in the outcome” of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. But in the actual world we inhabit, the U.S. does have such an interest, for the simple and obvious reason that Israel is an ally of the U.S., and most Americans care about Israel’s survival.

Mr. Jose’s comment would have been better grounded if he had said: “I understand that most Americans strongly support Israel and Israel’s safety and survival, and that they support the alliance between the U.S. and Israel. However, I think this is wrong. I think we should have nothing more to do with Israel than we have to do with the Central African Republic.” Then he would have been arguing from a true basis, whatever we thought of his own position. But when he says, “Why can’t we just say that Israel’s fate is none of our business?”, he sounds like someone who has no awareness of reality. I am not saying that he has no awareness of reality. I am saying that there is a certain, very common way of talking about Israel which makes it sound as though the speaker has no awareness of reality.

And by the way, I have often said that America made a terrible mistake when it got involved in the “peace process.” We should have let Israel handle these things on its own. But that is not the same thing as saying that we are indifferent to Israel’s fate and do not support its existence.

M. Jose writes:

I think you misinterpreted me. I’m not saying that we have no interest in Israel’s fate, or that we should end the alliance with them, just that we should not take a position on whether Israel should adopt a one-state or two-state solution. Moreover, we do not need to endorse whatever specific decisions Israel makes on how to deal with the Palestinians.

In contrast, Joe Walsh is asserting that the U.S. should assert that Israel is right and the Palestinians wrong and should essentially take Israel’s side in the determination of how to resolve the issue. While not explicitly stated, one can assume that were Israel to start transferring the Palestinians, he would argue that the U.S. should endorse the decision. (The statement “Those Palestinians who wish to may leave their Fatah- and Hamas-created slums and move to the original Palestinian state: Jordan” would imply to me that he would tacitly approve the transfer of Palestinians if they refused to accept living under Jewish rule).

My point is simply that on the issue of how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the U.S. should butt out, other than to say that we support the right of Israel to exist. If it comes down to a military conflict where Israel requests our help to repel an invasion or to provide defense against, e.g. air or missile attacks from enemy countries, then we can do something. But the Palestinian problem is not an existential crisis, except to the extent that Israel lets it be one (i.e. they could single-handedly deal with the problem at any time if they had the will to do so). Put another way, Israel does not need the assistance or support of an ally to deal with this particular issue, anymore than the U.S. needs the help of an ally to deal with its immigration problems, because that is only an existential crisis to the extent that we allow it to be one.

You write:

And by the way, I have often said that America made a terrible mistake when it got involved in the “peace process.” We should have let Israel handle these things on its own.

That is more or less what I am saying, along with “the U.S. does not need to take an official position on whether or not we approve of how Israel handles these things.”

LA replies:

You wrote:

In contrast, Joe Walsh is asserting that the U.S. should assert that Israel is right and the Palestinians wrong and should essentially take Israel’s side in the determination of how to resolve the issue.

But Walsh is speaking within the context of our actually existing insane policy, in which the U.S. is both Israel’s ally AND calling itself a neutral and fair arbiter between the parties. He’s saying we should drop that contradiction by saying we are not neutral between the Palestinian position calling for the end of Israel and the Israeli position calling for Israel’s survival. If we had never been involved, your position would make more sense. But since our position has been neutrality between the anti-Israel and the pro-Israel position, Walsh’s calling for us to drop that neutrality and openly favor Israel makes sense, as the cure for the present contradiction.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 21, 2012 09:59 AM | Send