JustASC

Now that Netanyahu is declining to endorse a two-state solution, and the Israeli consensus is that even if a good idea such a solution is not viable in the short-term, the whole concept is back on the table.

This cause for celebration for those who fundamentally object to a Palestinian state, such as National Council of Young Israel, who wrote Netanyahu: ”[W]e implore you to stand firm and reject any pressure to accede to calls for the creation of a Palestinian state.”

Rabbi Donniel Hartman, representing the Orthodox Left in Israel, finds this worrisome enough that he penned a piece  reasserting why a two-state solution is the only solution on moral grounds. To whit:

1. …The principle of land for peace is that peace is more important than land, and the quality of life a more significant Jewish virtue than the sum total of space in which that life is lived….

2. …The two-state solution is a declaration that we as Jews do not want to politically dominate another people….

3. …Without a two-state solution, the demographic balance between Jews and Arabs will be such that maintaining a Jewish State will only be possible if we become a totalitarian regime….

In sum, Hartman writes:

 What I am arguing, however, is for the continually proud and vocal adoption of the two-state solution as our only political horizon. To do so is to maintain the quality of Jewish values in our political horizon. To fail to do so is to seriously damage the moral and Jewish fiber of Israeli society.

Why the “however”? Because Hartman, like many doves in Israel, is also aware that, with a weak Fatah and a rejectionist Hamas in control of Gaza (and angling for a role in a Palestinian unity government), the time is hardly ripe for a Palestinian state.

Here’s another self-described  member of the “peace camp,” Brigadier General (Ret.) Yossi Ben Ari, who writes that the two-state solution should remain on the political horizon, but that it doesn’t warrant the diplomatic push being given it by the Obama administration:

I am convinced that clinging to the two-state solution as the main strategy won’t achieve a thing, while hiding what we may be able to do: Advancing the Beirut Initiative [the Arab peace initiative, launched in 2002] while postponing the Palestinian component to a later stage, or placing the responsibility for resolving it through compromise on the entire Arab League. It is difficult to believe that the chance for this is great.

Some of my reliably hawkish interlocutors are making much of Rahm Emanuel’s purported comments to an unnamed “Jewish leader,” reported in Yediot Achronot and blogged here by M.J. Rosenberg:

Rahm Emanuel told an (unnamed) Jewish leader; “In the next four years there is going to be a permanent status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians on the basis of two states for two peoples, and it doesn’t matter to us at all who is prime minister.”

He also said that the United States will exert pressure to see that deal is put into place. “Any treatment of the Iranian nuclear problem will be contingent upon progress in the negotiations and an Israeli withdrawal from West Bank territory,” the paper reports Emanuel as saying.

Did he say it? I have my doubts, because Emanuel’s comments mesh a little too perfectly with what an American peacenik would want to hear, and what a hawk would love to denounce.   

Finally, Barry Rubin, no man of the left, calms things down in the Jerusalem Post:

Endorsing a two-state solution isn’t an attack on Israel’s government. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu doesn’t oppose a two-state solution – and hasn’t for 12 years – but emphasizes this would only happen if and when a Palestinian leadership proves its credibility and makes a decent offer. If the Obama administration says it’s going to succeed, so did its last three predecessors.

This issue raises the most important single guideline for Israeli policy, which shouldn’t merely consist of saying, “We want peace and a two-state solution” 10 times a day. It should raise its own demands that the Palestinian Authority keeps its commitments and that any negotiated solution include Palestinian as well as Israeli concessions.

So to sum up: The two-state solution is both the only moral solution and an inevitable one. But too much stands in its way of becoming a reality in the short term. If Obama pushes too hard on this, he’s doomed either to fail or embarrass Israel — but that doesn’t mean Israel shouldn’t continue to make the incremental steps that could one day resurrect a Palestinian state as a desireable goal.