A Jewish Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

By Prof Paul Eidelberg

Since the nostrums of political analysts like Martin Sherman and Caroline Glick do not provide a viable method of ridding Israel of its permanent internal enemy, the Muslim-Arabs west of the Jordan, I am here updating the “Jewish Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” which I proposed on Israel National Radio on November 16, 2009.

Israel has been ruled by timid, bogus “realists” since her stunning victory in the 1967 Six Day War. As a result of that war, Israel repossessed Judea and Samaria, which had (and still has) a large Muslim-Arab population. Since this hostile population was permitted to remain on Jewish land, and since its expulsion was not, and is not, in the cards, the Government does not know what to do with these Jew-killing disciples of Mohammad.

Moreover, inasmuch as timid realists have never deemed it “realistic” to declare Jewish sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, they have resigned themselves, or so some would have us believe, to the creation of a Palestinian state in this heartland of the Jewish people, the land called the “West Bank.” Creation of a Palestinian state is the panacea Netanyahu proposed in his June 14, 2009, speech at Bar-Ilan University. He has since been hung by his own petard. Actually, the two-state solution died before it was born.

As indicated, what most thwarts bogus realists like Netanyahu is that they don’t know what to do about the incorrigible Muslim Arabs west of the Jordan River. Since he is not about to expel these disciples of Muhammad, and since he is not inclined to make them citizens of Israel (as proposed by pundits who don’t take Islam seriously), Netanyahu is stuck flip-flopping over his impossible and non-Jewish “two-state solution.”

For an alternative to this confession of intellectual bankruptcy or timidity, let’s be so bold as to ponder a strictly Jewish solution to Israel’s demographic dilemma. I mean a solution that can inspire Israel’s growing number of religious and conservative Jews – Jews fed up with Netanyahu’s two-decade fixation on the futile and fatal policy of “territory for peace.” I have in mind the aspirations of youthful Jews, those who want to promote and enjoy the thrilling ascendancy of an intrepid and authentic Jewish Prime Minister, a man whose oratory is inspired by Sinai, and not by Oslo.

I have therefore formulated a strategy that avoids all previously proposed “solutions” (or non-solutions) to the Muslim-Arab demographic dilemma, including those which are not intrinsically Jewish such as those published by such excellent analysts like Sherman and Glick, which have no appeal to youth who dream of Jewish greatness.

Admittedly, my proposed solution requires a Prime Minister who is not enslaved to the suicidal Oslo Accords or to Netanyahu’s fatuous dependency on a Palestinian “partner.” As a political scientist who studied under Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago, I am appalled by the decay that has befallen the discipline first articulated by Aristotle, and now reduced to the empirical studies of morally neutral academics without hearts or vision. Enough to say that whereas Aristotle was the mentor of Alexander the Great, the mentor of Barack Obama was the Reverend Jeremiah Wright!

Mr. Netanyahu may shine vis-à-vis Obama; but his consorting year after year with Mahmoud Abbas, a scoundrel who encourages the murder of Jews, does not speak well of his character. But this only highlights the need for a non-Netanyahu approach to Israel’s Muslim-Arab dilemma. Nor shall we find a remedy in the political thinking of the aforementioned Glick and Sherman, whose ideas on his head are not conceptually Jewish. The two are limited by a secular and superficial mode of political thought that doesn’t even reach the level of Machiavelli, who teaches rulers it’s better to be feared than loved, a teaching that doesn’t come easy to Israeli prime ministers pathologically concerned about Israel’s image, and who regard politics not as the art of the possible but a replay of the commonplace.

That said, and leaving the value-emptied political science of acanemia to academics, I shall now update the value-filled Jewish Strategy I proposed on Israel National Radio on November 16, 2009. This strategy proceeds from certain basic considerations.

First, a large majority of Israel’s Muslim Arab residents has supported terrorist attacks against Jews. They constitute a “fifth column” that would support external attacks on Israel, say from ISIS.

Second, no Government of Israel is going to expel these Muslims, who number about 20 percent of the country’s population. Moreover, since the Muslims of the “West Bank,” i.e. Judea and Samaria, are subsidized by annual grants of hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States – paid, in effect, to continue murdering Jews – it’s futile, as proposed by pundits who trivialize the Muslim mind, to pay these disciples of Muhammad to leave Judea and Samaria. The conventional politics of Sherman and Glick cannot solve Israel’s Muslim problem.

Third, it’s also obvious, that Netanyahu does not have a constructive long-term strategy to preserve Israel’s territorial integrity and Jewish identity. And since Israel’s Government or Cabinet has always consisted of a coalition of five or more rival parties, each with its own political agenda, the pursuit of a coherent, resolute, and long-term national strategy is impossible under Israel’s present system of governance for which neither Sherman nor Glick has formulated an alternative.

Fourth, the preceding item induces Netanyahu to respond primarily to short-term issues, to be preoccupied with the utterances of American Presidents, and to be unnerved by Israel’s standing in world opinion.

To propose a long-term constructive policy at this juncture may thus appear as an exercise in futility (but so are the nostrums of Sherman and Glick.) We must therefore go beyond their conventional analysis, which has only led to political paralysis. It needs to be emphasized that if we do not address the Jewish problem, i.e., what is required to enhance Israel as a Jewish republic, Israel shall be rudderless ship swayed by political currents made by others.

Only Israel can solve the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” This conflict is actually a manifestation of a life-and-death struggle between Islam and Western civilization, at the heart of which stands Israel. Here I limit the discussion to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The only way to solve this conflict is to make Israel more Jewish on the one hand, and to make Israel’s Government more accountable to the Jewish people, on the other! This will result in a steady emigration of Arabs. How can this be accomplished?

Here is my answer.

Translate into reality a ground-breaking study of the American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG). This study revealed that, given the increase of Jewish fertility rates and the decline of Arab fertility, Israel does not need to retreat from Judea and Samaria to secure Jewish demography. The study shows a solid 67% Jewish majority with Judea and Samaria.

The study also advises Israel to scrap its parliamentary system which presently makes the entire country a single district, where parties compete on the basis of proportional representation. The study recommends a multi-district voting system along the lines of the Interior Ministry’s administrative partition of the country. It turns out that with regional elections, Jews will form large majorities in every administrative district in the country except the northern district, where Arabs comprise a bare 52% majority. The internal migration of about 50,000 Jews to the North would overturn that majority.

Bearing in mind that nascent Israel, without any infrastructure, absorbed almost a million Jews in the first few years of her rebirth, the new Israeli Government should undertake a seven-year program to absorb at least 490,000 Jewish immigrants. [The inundation of Muslim migrants in Europe makes Israel the salvation for European Jewry.]

To accommodate the influx of Jews, the Government should declare Jewish sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. Coincident therewith, the Government should pass a Homestead Act and sell small plots of this ancient Jewish land at low prices to Jews in Israel and abroad with the proviso that they settle on the land, say for a period of seven years. (This measure will diminish the strategically vulnerable concentration of Jews on Israel’s coastal plain.)

The influx of 490,000 Jews into Judea and Samaria will result in a steady emigration of Arabs and, at the same time, erode the nationalist ambitions of Arab party leaders.

Further, making MKs individually elected by and accountable to the voters in geographic constituency elections, as recommended by the American-Israel Demographic Research Group, will make the Knesset more democratic and simultaneously increase the impact of Jewish convictions on those who make the laws and policies of the State!

Since at least 70 percent of the Jewish population consists of Jews who identify with the Jewish heritage – this was the percentage that voted against withdrawal from Gaza in the 2003 election – making MKs accountable to the voters in constituency elections will bury the idea of any territorial withdrawal and the creation of a Palestinian state.

However, to obtain a coherent, resolute, and long-term Jewish strategy, multi-party cabinet government must be replaced by a unitary executive, i.e., a Presidential system.

Moreover, the President should nominate, with Knesset confirmation, the judges of the Supreme Court. (The Court has become a self-perpetuating oligarchy whose decisions diminish Israel’s Jewish character.)

Phase out U.S. military assistance to Israel (now less than 1.5% of the country’s GDP), and reduce to insignificance U.S. participation in Israel-Arab affairs. Both undermine Israel’s security interests and Jewish national pride.

Consistent with the Torah, and even with Israel’s Declaration of Independence, enact a Basic Law stipulating that Israel is Jewish Republic to which all other political principles are subordinate.

Making Israel more Jewish by means of democratic principles, and making Israel more democratic by means of Jewish principles – this, I contend, is the only realistic way of solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.?