In yesterday's blog post, we learned several lessons:
1. It is normal to freeze when threatened. Don’t worry about it.
2. Like that deer on the highway, if you stay frozen too long, you lose.
3. Like your refusenik child, Israel does not have the luxury of saying, ‘no.’ The
political cost will be too high. Besides, it’s too early for Israel to do that.
4. In conflict, it is not good when someone else tells you what your options are.
5. In conflict, when faced with bad options, change the options.
6. A winner always controls the choices. A loser does not.
7. Finally, always choose the option that gives you the most second choices.
Here is what these lessons teach us.
Israel should be proactive at the UN and in the public arena. Remaining silent in the face of an Arab political attack at the UN is a form of turning the other cheek; and as Jews know from history, the Jew who turns the other cheek gets slapped twice. We cannot afford that. To wait is to lose. The deer that hesitates gets hit by the car. Israel has to declare repeatedly and often—privately and/or in public-- that any unilateral action by Abbas is a complete and absolute abrogation of all UN agreements ever undertaken between Arab and Jew. It has been agreed repeatedly that all decisions in the Arab-Israel conflict are to be resolved by mutual consent—this has been the mantra since 1948, and it is the foundation of the "beloved" (horrible) Oslo Accords. This understanding has been the one reality both Arab and Jewhave always agreed to. But now, if Abbas unilaterally abrogates this understanding, he is not only setting back future negotiations, he is also rejecting 63 years of agreements, and destroying forever the (horrible) Oslo Accords that everyone loves. If Abbas does this, Israel can no longer trust anything he says (Ed. note: surprise!!). Abbas is, in essence, slamming the door. He therefore—no matter what he says—must now accept full and sole responsibility for breaking all peace-building agreements that have been previously made. Israel should warn that the PA misleads when it declares—as it did this past week—that a unilaterally declared state will aid peace negotiations. It will not. Instead, it will destroy 63 years of working (sometimes painfully) towards consensus. Abbas has a choice, Israel must say, and every choice has a consequence: if Abbas acts to break every historical agreement made between Arab and Jew, then Israel will not remain silent. At the very moment that the first country name is called out at the UN, to begin that final vote for ‘recommending’ a Palestine state—a General Assembly vote is not legally binding, which means that Abbas is throwing everything away for a piece of paper-- Israel will annex the entire West Bank and Golan area, andcreate by fiat two Arab cantons. These cantons will be built like their Swiss paradigms. Each of these two cantons will be subject to Israel sovereign rule, but will otherwise be independent, just like their Swiss counterparts. Eachcanton will have its own police force, government, and courts. Each canton will be responsible for its own health care, public education, welfare, economies and tax collection. There will be no more than two such Arab cantons, and each canton will have one elected seat in the Israel Knesset. Each canton will negotiate with Israel its own agreements, subject to mutual acceptance. Arabs who live in the West Bank and Golan but outside canton boundaries will be members of the closest canton, but subject to IDF rules, since they will be living on Jewish land as undocumented aliens. Such residents, however, will have representation through the officials elected by their canton and receive from their assigned canton all benefits canton residents are entitled to.
If anyone complains about this, and calls Israel apartheid, then Israel’s response should be immediate and firm: if Switzerland is not an apartheid state, then Israel is not an apartheid state. It does not matter that Switzerland and Israel do not use the canton structure in the same way— Switzerland does not live with Israel’s political realities. This arrangement is better than the pre-vote status quo. If UN nations want Israel to look favourably upon a Palestinian state, they would do well to back off accusing Israel with emotionally charged accusations which contribute nothing constructive to the dialogue. Such accusations do not show goodwill. Israel wishes to conform to UN ideals, but Israel firmly asserts that it is against the most basic of UN ideals to demand that a sovereign member state give up land to a terrorist organization (Hamas-Fatah) dedicated to destroying that sovereign state. For Israel to cede land under these circumstances is absolutely contrary to paragraph one of Article one, Chapter one—the very beginning-- of the UN Charter; and the UN has no right to abrogate its founding document in order to act with prejudice against a member state.
There’s more to this, of course, but this is a starting point. Such an action at this time could give Israel more options after a UN vote, not less. More important, it makes Israel an actor in this play, not a passive observer. In this drama, the passive one will be the victim. Of that, there is no question. Only actors will have a chance to win. Therefore, Israel must act—and she must do so now, before September.
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