By Yoram Getzler The warm winds of August may very likely turn into a torrid tornado of September. Yet those responsible for our safety take no realistic steps to protect us.
There are no shelters, no cellars, just loud denouncements of tornadoes, as unfair and undeserved. We are protesting the phenomena of nature that we can little effect. BUT we can accept the inevitable and prepare for it. We should and can reduce the damage to the minimum.
It should be obvious that I am talking of the Palestinian move at the United Nations in a few weeks to be formally, officially and legally accepted by the world community as an independent sovereign state with all the privileges enjoyed by all other sovereign states, including the US, France and Israel. Exactly what will come next no one knows for sure. There are many possibilities. But I think we can safely predict even from here and now it will not be good. It will not improve or correct the current difficult and challenging position we already experience within the family of nations.
We gain a great deal satisfaction from proving to ourselves and our already omitted friends that this move by the Palestinians is not in their interest, is not legal, is not important etc. Anything but accepting the challenge and responding creatively.
I often read very self satisfied statements by our government, friends and “explainers” that it is the Palestinians not Israel that refuses to make peace. It is “them” who are to blame for this ongoing conflict, not us. I must admit, I am convinced! they are correct, their analysis is flawless, their insights are valid.
Yes, but, nevertheless none of us have succeeded to convince anybody else of this essential and obvious truth. Perhaps we need to try something daring, creative and different? I think so.
One of the suggestions I have heard that I believe deserves far more consideration than it has been getting is based on the understanding that while a Palestinian state alongside of Israel is not our idea of Gan Eden (Paradise), it may be the better of the other possibility we face. That of one united Arab/Jewish state which in a very short time will turn into the 22nd Arab Muslim state in the world, with the Jews once again as a despised minority. It is so simple and obvious that it is not seen by many people. There are fundamentally three possibilities for our future. A “two-state”-solution, one Arab, the other Jewish; a one state solution that will begin its life with a large hostile Arab minority which will lead to a failed state, with an inevitable Arab majority, or a one state ruled by the Jews with the Arabs as a permanent majority with few democratic rights. (in the recent past we have been so generous as to offer the Palestinians, full rights and citizenship, in Jordan.) This scenario too will include our becoming a failed state.
So, there are very few healthy, favorable alternatives other than the imperfect “two-states for two-people” solution.
The significant concept here is “… “for two-people”. This phrase is an affirmation of the legitimate people hood and national status of the Jews and our entitlement to our own sovereign nation state. This is in fact the heart of origin of the Arab-Jewish conflict these one hundred plus years.
Therefore; I would suggest that Israel promote a positive response by the United Nations to the Palestinian request for recognition by offering to co-sponsor a Security Council resolution which includes a phrase specificity reaffirming the concept of” two states for two people”, one Arab and one Jewish.
For my friends and acquaintances in the national camp, I say “not to worry”; the Palestinians along with their Arab Muslim supporters will reject this formula, and we then have the absolute, public proof that it is they, and not us who stand in opposition to “peace” within a true “two-state-for-two-people” solution which most of the world in fact believes is the proper formula for concluding this conflict.
