The plan below was written by Bezalel Smotrich, an Israeli fascist politician in 2017, and published in the right wing magazine HaShiloh, in Hebrew. Today he serves in the Netanyahu government as the Minister for National Security, and is responsible for ruling the lives of millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The translation is by Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, of the current version on the article in HaShiloh website.
English Version of The Tipping Plan
Bezalel Smotrich, Hashiloah, 2017 (Hebrew)
"Insanity," says a famous proverb commonly attributed to Albert Einstein, "is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." In the reality of our political life, insanity seems to have taken its place. The Israeli left repeatedly repeats "simple and safe" solutions to end the Israeli-Arab conflict, and again and again we get to witness the failure of these solutions and their futility. If nothing is done, these attempts will forever continue to move and drive false hopes and daydreams. It's time to say enough, break the paradigm and find the proper way out of this road that seems to have no end.
At the base of my proposal that is laid before you is a change of one hundred and eighty degrees from what we have been accustomed to thinking in recent decades. Rethinking requires courage, but it seems there is no choice. Most of the political plans, from the left and the right, that have been put forward in recent years, provide "solutions" that perpetuate the conflict and bring us all to continue managing it for another century. The resolution plan presented here, on the other hand, contains a real solution, and more importantly - possible and practical, for the end of the conflict and the coming of true peace.
This program differs from others in that it tackles the crux of the problem; Courageously touches the root of the conflict, and the root of the failure, in the past and in the future, of all "political solutions". It doesn't matter what map the thinkers of the various political programs draw - even on what is known as the "right", because Sharon had a map, Olmert had a map, and maybe Netanyahu also has a map - there will be no peace here as long as the concept of origin that this country is destined to contain in its vicinity is abandoned Two collectives with conflicting national ambitions. If this is the case, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will also be forced to continue living by the sword.
In the following pages I explain the "decision plan" - a comprehensive, inclusive solution, not innocent but optimistic, one that does not ease difficulties but is accompanied by a blind faith. Faith in the creation of Israel, in the righteousness of our way and in our exclusive belonging to our homeland; A belief in the power to stand firm in the face of any claim that would undermine this belief, and a belief in our ability to use the bravery needed to decide this heavy battle.
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Due diligence before starting:
I am a person of faith. Believes in the Holy One, blessed be He, in His love for the people of Israel and in His watch over them. Believes in the Torah that warned against exile and promised redemption. I believe in the words of the prophets who foresaw the destruction, and not least the renewed building that we get to see being built before our eyes. I believe that the State of Israel is the beginning of the growth of our salvation, the fulfilment of the prophecies of the Torah and the visions of the prophets.
I believe in the living connection between the people of Israel and the Land of Israel, in the vocation and mission of the people of Israel to the entire world and in the vitality of the Land of Israel for the realization of this mission. I believe that it is no coincidence that the Land of Israel prospers and flourishes precisely after the people of Israel returned to it - after many generations of abandonment.
I believe that the yearning of all generations for this land, and the confidence that we will return to it, are the deepest driving force of the processes of return to Zion that led to the establishment of the State of Israel.
Still, in the article in front of you you will not find anything that is based on this belief. This article is not a religious-faith manifesto but a realistic, geopolitical and strategic plan. The plan is the result of an analysis of reality and its roots, and underpins factual, historical, democratic, security and political assumptions, leading to a solution that, to the best of my judgment, is the only one that has realistic feasibility - certainly compared to all the solutions proposed over a long period.
The document is a realistic plan - but it fits well with my concept of faith. Those who want can see it as a political solution and nothing more; Those who prefer, are welcome to see it as a meeting between faith and realism, between vision and reality.
Background
For over a hundred years of Zionism, the Jewish people were forced to wage a struggle for their very right to exist as sovereign in their renewed state in the Land of Israel.
This existential struggle takes shape and takes shape, consists of many systems, and is saturated, God willing, with victories. But to this day it has not been decided. To this day, among the inhabitants of this land there are those who refuse to recognize the right of the State of Israel to exist as the state of the Jewish people, and continue to undermine its very existence and its Jewish identity. In recent decades, this struggle has been waged mainly in the so-called "Palestinian arena" with the Arabs of Judea and Samaria, who, although striving to establish an Arab state within the borders of 67, have never hidden that this is only a stop on the way to the real goal: the return to Haifa, Jaffa, Ramla, and Tiberias, and the establishment of an Arab state on the ruins of Israel.This is what they educate their children at home, in schools, in camps and summer camps, and no one denies that this is the founding ethos of "Palestinian nationalism" as such.
The plan before you seeks to deal with this matter itself: the existence of two conflicting national ambitions in the Land of Israel, which reality shows cannot be maintained together. The fantasy that it is possible to fulfill both ambitions together has accompanied the Zionist movement from its inception: even before the establishment of the state, in the 1930s and 1940s, when it was possible to reach understandings with the Arabs living in the land, the Arabs of the Land of Israel, with the backing of Arab countries, rejected all the various partition plans, which the Zionist leadership was willing to accept even according to which they involved concessions on parts of the Land of Israel. Even after the establishment of the state, throughout the years of its existence, the State of Israel agreed to compromises and divisions that could lead to the establishment of an Arab-Palestinian state in the Land of Israel, but the Arab side rejected them time and time again.
The ongoing Arab position proves that the "two-state solution", in addition to being wrong in terms of values and Zionism, is also clearly unrealistic: the maximum that the Israeli left is willing to give is much less than the minimum that the most moderate leader among the Arabs of Judea and Samaria could accept and stay alive. Therefore, in the moments of truth, starting with the partition plan and continuing at Camp David and in the negotiations with Olmert, the Palestinian leaders always ultimately refused to sign a peace agreement that would include the end of the claims.
The contradiction is structural, and is rooted in the development of the concept of "the Palestinian people". Basically, the "Palestinian people" is nothing but a counter movement to the Zionist movement, this is its essence and its right to exist. The Palestinian self-determination parties also know that such a "nation" did not exist before the Zionist enterprise, and that "Palestine" was the geographical name of this piece of land and nothing else - a name given to it by the Romans and not by the Arabs. After the suppression of the Jewish rebellions, Jerusalem was restored as a pagan Roman city and was called "Ilia Capitolina", while the name of the province of Judea (Judaea) was changed to "Syria Palestina" (Syria Palestina) to protest the memory of the Jews. It is derived from the name "Philesht" - the land of the Philistines. Behold, yes, in a symbolic way these were the days of our destruction, the same destruction we cry over on Tisha B'av, which gave birth to the word “Palestine”.
When the Arabs conquered the Land of Israel in the seventh century, they adopted the Roman name "Palestine", while the northern region remained under the name "Syria". About 1,500 years later, the Arabs of the Land of Israel adopted this name when they started their fight against the Zionist movement, which came to return the land to the Jews - those whose memory the Romans sought to erase.
In Ottoman and Mandatory "Palestine" there were Palestinian Jews - who immigrated to it at the beginning of the Zionist era, and Palestinian Arabs - some of whom were there in the past and most of whom immigrated to it from the surrounding countries in modern times for various reasons.
The Palestinian National Movement is a negative movement for Zionism, and as such it is unable to make peace with it. This is why the Palestinians refuse the minimal requirement of the State of Israel to recognize its right to exist as a Jewish state. In this the Palestinian matter is different from the conflict with the Arab countries. Egypt and Jordan are independent countries whose existence is not related to the State of Israel. Their war in the State of Israel with the goal of annihilation may have been important to them, as part of a Muslim or Arab ethos, but it did not touch their very definition as states. Because of this, it was possible to reach a peace settlement with them. Not so in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Without the "conflict", without the struggle in Israel, there is no Palestinian nationalism. In any case, the possibility that Zionism and Palestinian nationalism can be maintained in the Land of Israel at the same time, with one territorial division or another, does not exist. The reality of the last decades shows how true this simple distinction is.
The continued existence of the two conflicting national aspirations in our small piece of land will guarantee us many more years of blood and life on the sword. Only when one of the parties gives up, willingly or by necessity, the realization of his national ambition in the Land of Israel will the longed-for peace come, and it will be possible to live a life of civil coexistence here.
I hope that all readers agree with me in stating that we, the Jews, will not give up our national ambition for an independent state in the Land of Israel, the only Jewish state in the world. Because of this, the one who will be forced to give up the aspiration to realize his national identity here in the Land of Israel is the Arab side. This is the statement that it seems that so far no one dares to say - and because of this we are condemned to continue the cycle of bloodshed; But this statement is the only key to true peace.
This is the purpose of the resolution plan in front of you - no longer managing an ongoing conflict of varying intensity, but a resolution. No more shuffling and cosmetic solutions of chasing the mosquitoes, but drying the swamp and treating the roots of the problem to its end. For all the years of its existence, Israel ran away from touching these roots, and it will not be easy to change this paradigm. However, the State of Israel cannot afford to continue to falter in the Sisyphean war on terror, and no less serious than that - in the delegitimization that this conduct creates for us in the world. Continuing to manage the conflict erodes Israel's position and its important interests, and causes irreversible damage. The decision plan may be difficult to digest at first, but the great logic inherent in it, as well as its necessity and inevitability, will eventually lead to its adoption by Israeli society and the international community.
Short Summary
Resolving the conflict means a conscious determination - practical and political - that west of Jordan there is room for only one national definition: the Jewish one. In any case, there is not, and will not be, an Arab state in the heart of the Land of Israel that will enable the realization of Arab national aspirations there. Denying this dream will reduce the motivations to realize it, and in any case the extant terrorism.
This tipping of the scales is also achieved in statements - in an unequivocal Israeli statement to the Arabs and the whole world that a Palestinian state will not be established, but mainly in actions - the application of full Israeli sovereignty over the homeland in Judea and Samaria, and the settlement decision which means the establishment of new cities and settlements deep in the territory and bringing hundreds of thousands of additional settlers to live in them. This will make it clear to the Arabs and the whole world that the reality in Judea and Samaria is irreversible, that the State of Israel is here to stay, and that the Arab dream of establishing a state in Judea and Samaria has been dashed once and for all. The settlement decision was, therefore, intended to burn into the consciousness of the Arabs and the entire world that there is no chance of establishing an Arab state in the Land of Israel.
On top of this unambiguous starting point, the Arabs of the Land of Israel will have two alternatives (which are three):
It is likely, of course, that not everyone will adopt these two choices, and there will be those who will insist on choosing the third "option" - to continue using violence against the IDF, the State of Israel and the Jewish population. Such terrorists will be dealt with decisively by the security forces, with greater force than we do Today and under more favorable conditions for us.
For those of the Arabs who choose to stay here as individuals and enjoy everything the State of Israel has to offer, we will have to define a residency model that includes self-management of community life, alongside private rights and obligations. The Arabs of Judea and Samaria will first manage their day-to-day lives by themselves through regional municipal administrations - devoid of national characteristics - to which they will also be able to vote, administrations that will have economic and other reciprocal relations between themselves and between them and the various authorities in the State of Israel. Later, with the progress of the process and its internalization, and based on criteria of loyalty and military or national service, it will be possible to integrate models of residency, and even citizenship.
This plan is the most just and moral on every scale - historical, Zionist and Jewish - and is the only one that will bring peace, peace and coexistence. The attempts to reconcile the two national ambitions and allow them to coexist on the same piece of land, even though they seem more moral at first glance (as they take into account, so to speak, the wishes of both sides and refuse to allow the just side to decide by the force of right and the merit of force), lead to the most difficult result from a moral point of view, because that they commemorate the war and the bloodshed. On the other hand, a decision based on the right of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel - although it appears forceful and one-sided at first glance - will result in the best and moral result: it will put an end to the bloodshed and allow for real coexistence between the Jews and those of the Arabs who choose it.
This is the core of the program. We will immediately turn to detail and a more extensive explanation. But since this plan is very different from the usual discourse regarding the resolution of the conflict, it is important to go back and clarify its realistic and moral assumptions, before going into the details:
1. The two-state solution is not realistic, and never was. "Two states for two peoples" is an empty slogan that has become an axiomatic and unique solution to the conflict, mainly due to the illusion that the Arab side is right for a territorial compromise and is ready to accept the State of Israel being a Jewish state. This premise has been proven wrong time and time again. In the current reality, the establishment of an Arab terrorist state in Judea and Samaria, a state whose area is twenty times the territory of the Hamas terrorist state in the Gaza Strip, would be a dangerous security suicide. The collapse of several old Arab states in recent years makes the state model even more problematic - it is difficult to see it as something sustainable. The two-state solution is not applicable, and therefore the time has come to put on the table a solution based on a completely different concept.
2. The Zionist enterprise of the return of the people of Israel to their land after about two thousand years of exile, migration and persecution, is the most just and moral enterprise that has taken place in the world in the last few centuries from a historical, international and religious perspective. We are not from the UN, and we do not assume that there are two "narratives" here that are equal in their righteousness and their arguments. It is our belief in the righteousness of our way that gives us moral validity to win and defeat the contradictory Arab ambition. Indeed, in a world where they stopped talking about justice and moved to the discourse of narratives, it is difficult to make such claims - but this does not mean that they are not true. The State of Israel was established by the power of faith in the righteousness of the biblical story, and by the power of the agreement of the nations of the world - in a rare historical moment - to help realize the vision and return the land to the people of Israel. The creeping gnawing in the decision to designate the entire land of Israel to the people of Israel was not due to considerations of justice, but rather to submission to Arab violence Thus, in the first stage, the area of the eastern Transjordan was subtracted from the area intended to be returned to the people of Israel in favor of the establishment of the Kingdom of Jordan, and later the partition plan was born that brought to the world the perception of the two states in the Land of Israel.
This belief in the rightness of the way is essential, and those who lack it will indeed find it difficult to defend the claim of the West of Judea and Samaria to abandon their national aspirations so that our national aspirations can be fulfilled. We have already explained above that the "Palestinian people" who demand their right to self-determination do not differ from the Arab nation and its tribes except in its quest to eliminate the Zionist enterprise. This is of course not a novelty - it was self-evident to Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and basically to the entire Israeli leadership until recently.
Beyond that, Jewish nationalism brought this country to prosperity - which hundreds of years of Ottoman rule did not destroy. It is enough to skim Mark Twain's travel diary to see the magnitude of the desolation that was here before the Jewish people returned to their homeland. The return of the people of Israel to their land blossomed the wilderness and made this land what it is now. It is doubtful if the eyes of the whole world would have been on the question of whose land this is if it had stood in its desolation as it was before Zionism.
3. The challenges that the State of Israel is required to face are unprecedented, and for that reason the solution and the reality that will be created as a result are allowed to be original and unprecedented. The attempts to compare the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to conflicts that occur in other parts of the world and to examine the present, as well as the future arrangements, in accordance with the standards accepted in the settlement of conflicts in other places, are wrong. It is doubtful if there is a country that faces an existential threat of the kind that the State of Israel has had to deal with since its inception. There is certainly no other country in the world that was established after attempts to destroy a people, surrounded by a host of countries whose people wish to destroy it, and constantly faces threats from home and abroad. There is no other nation-state in the world whose roots in the struggle against it and the desire to eradicate it are rooted in opposition to its very existence and the very existence of the people who are its national home.
Dealing with an unprecedented reality justifies unprecedented solutions and arrangements, which may be difficult to defend in other situations, but it is certainly possible to stand behind them and justify them in the context of the State of Israel. In this complex and unprecedented tangle, the State of Israel must continue to exist as the national home of the Jewish people, and if in order to ensure this new civil, democratic and legal constructions need to be created - we should not be alarmed by this. In the terms of the accepted constitutional discourse in Israel - the purpose is a proper purpose that justifies a proportional deviation from the accepted principles.
4. The statement "Terrorism stems from desperation" is a lie. Terrorism stems from hope - hope to weaken us. Terrorism rests on the hope of achieving achievements through it - to weaken Israeli society and force it to agree to the establishment of an Arab state in the Land of Israel. Even suicide terrorists do not act in a vacuum, but for a "noble cause" according to their method. When there is no such goal, or when it is futile, the motivations that give rise to terrorism will diminish and, with God's help, so will terrorism itself.
5. The national aspirations of the Jewish people and the Arabs of the Land of Israel are contradictory. It is not possible to reconcile them and allow both of them to reproduce in one subjugation. An artificial geographical division of the territory will not last. It is impossible to push security and demographic threats behind artificially drawn fences and virtual lines. The area between the sea and Jordan is one geographical and topographic space, and it cannot be divided in a sustainable way. If the territory is divided in some way and the Arabs receive their share in order to realize their national ambitions alongside the State of Israel - they will not abandon their national ambition to destroy the State of Israel and will continue to strive for its fulfillment, this time from a more favorable starting position. Therefore, any solution must be based on the destruction of the ambition to realize the Arab national hope between the Jordan and the sea.
6. The statement that the Arab aspiration for national expression in the Land of Israel cannot be "suppressed" is not true. It worked excellently with the Arabs of the Land of Israel with the establishment of the State of Israel, and it can and should work the same way in Judea and Samaria as well.
For the Arabs of the Land of Israel, the great disaster, which they call the "Nakba", is the War of Independence in 1948, and not the "occupation" of the Six Day War in 1967. The war of liberation included the expulsion of refugees, the destruction of dozens of Arab villages and the establishment of Jewish settlements on their ruins, and for many years afterwards living under a discriminatory military government. Despite all this, Israeli Arabs lived for decades in peace under Jewish rule, and were hardly involved in terrorism and activities against the State of Israel. The reason for this is simple - from 1958 to the beginning of the nineties they simply had no hope, or rather - the hope of getting rid of the Zionist project was cut short.
The Israeli Arabs who lived in that generation knew very well that if they had won the war of liberation they would have brutally exterminated the Jews, as is customary in the Middle East between winners and losers and as is happening today. Because of this, they appreciated the Israeli mercy and generosity shown towards them and lived here in peace, even before they had equal rights and without them. They had civil protests against the discrimination that was involved in the military government, there were demonstrations against land expropriation, but there were no national currents and there was no striving for the realization of any national vision.
The nationalistic extremism among the Arabs of Israel and their support for terrorism and the use of violence by the Arabs of Judea and Samaria against the State of Israel began somewhere in the early 1990s, when the State of Israel in its stupidity brought PLO terrorists from Tunis to Judea and Samaria and began to cultivate national hope among the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. The Palestinian national hope that was intended for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria rekindled the national feelings and aspirations of the Arabs of Israel and led to a dangerous nationalist extremism among them, the results of which we are experiencing today.
It is necessary, and it is possible, to return to the days after 578, both with the Arabs of Israel, and with the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. It worked great then, and it can and should work great even today. We have no pretense of erasing or changing the national identity; Between the Jordan and the sea it is possible and necessary to change. It is possible and necessary to put an end to the Arab hope for the realization of national aspirations in the Land of Israel, and to open a door to a new hope that is based on a private life that is immeasurably better than those that the Arabs have in all the Middle Eastern countries around us.
7. The morality of an action is measured by the test of the result and not at first glance. Reality shows that when we take responsibility and manage the territory, the best moral reality is obtained to both sides, and when we leave the area the opposite result is obtained. Because of our desire to be "moral" and not to "rule a foreign people" we left the Gaza Strip, and since then without a doubt the lives of the Arabs there have improved miraculously. Instead of a regular electricity supply, they enjoy electricity for only six hours a day; Instead of a regular flow of water in the faucets, they are facing a major water crisis that will cause a humanitarian crisis; Instead of employment and livelihood, the citizens of Gaza enjoy a good lifewhen over fifty percent of them are unemployed and on forced leave all year round. Tens of thousands of them are homeless, and without a shred of hope.
Simply put, since we left the Gaza Strip the residents there enjoy far fewer rights and freedoms. They don't even have democracy and the right to vote. What they have is only an oppressive regime of Hamas that takes most of the inputs brought into the Gaza Strip and uses them for the purposes of arming and digging tunnels instead of restoring the Gaza Strip. Much less good and much less moral and humane, for both sides, than the reality that existed in the Strip when the IDF controlled it. There is no reason to assume that it will be any different if an Arab state is established in Judea and Samaria.
8. Forcing a solution to the conflict is much cheaper and financially correct than continuing to manage it. Some argue that the application of Israeli sovereignty to the territories of Judea and Samaria will cost a lot of money and make it difficult for the Israeli economy. First, this is a very weak claim. Around the world, developing countries produce the biggest growth engines, and their economies grow. The need to bridge the gaps between the Israeli economy and the Palestinian economy holds the potential for great economic growth for the Israeli economy. Improving the quality of life, technology, infrastructure and other elements of life in Judea and Samaria will increase consumption, and in any case growth in both economies. Second, and even more important, whatever the cost of applying sovereignty to the Israeli economy, it will still be largely lower than Security and the indirect costs to the economy that will be involved in the continuation of the conflict management, in rounds of fighting and the like, and certainly from the cost of deporting tens of thousands of settlers and resettling them in the areas of the Green Line.
Phase I: Defeat through settlement building
The first and main decision is the settlement. At this point, the basic fact is openly and clearly clarified: we are here to stay. The realization of our national ambition for a Jewish state from the sea to the Jordan, we would like to clarify, is an absolute fact that is not open to discussion and is not subject to negotiation.
This stage is realized through political-legal action - the application of sovereignty to all the territories of Judea and Samaria, and through settlement action - the establishment of settlements and cities, the retirement of infrastructure as is customary in "small" Israel and the encouragement of tens and hundreds of thousands of additional residents to move and live in the territories of Judea and Samaria. In this way, a clear and irreversible reality can be created in the field within a few years.
There is nothing that will work better than this on the minds of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria, help them to disabuse themselves of the illusion of a Palestinian state and make it clear to them that there is no chance of another Arab state being established west of Jordan. Facts on the ground, as we know, change consciousness and decide consciousness - and the settlement blocks will prove it.
The development of Israeli settlement in Judea and Samaria in a sovereign and institutionalized manner will also help in solving the housing crisis in the State of Israel. In Judea and Samaria, there are many state lands, in the center of the country, that can be made available for residences at much lower prices than what is customary within the Green Line, thereby increasing the supply of affordable housing in Israel by hundreds of thousands of units.
This unequivocal termination of the conflict will reduce the motivations of terrorism.
Of course it won't happen in one day. It will take time, mainly because in the last three decades we have foolishly fostered among the Arabs the illusion that they will be able to establish a state here. After so many years in which we have accustomed the world to the "two-state solution" paradigm, it is natural that it will take time to convince everyone that this is not going to happen. It will take time to convince everyone that we are serious, that we have recalculated our path and that there is not and will not be a Palestinian state, and in any case there is not and will not be a purpose for terrorism.
In the first stage, it is likely that Arab terrorist efforts will increase.
The frustration from the inability to realize the illusory hope, which, as mentioned, we cultivated, will increase, as will the motivations and efforts to carry out terrorist acts in a last desperate attempt to realize it anyway. But at some point the stage will come when the frustration will cross the threshold of despair and will reach completion and understanding that there is no chance. That just isn't going to happen. When this recognition penetrates the mind and terrorism becomes futile anyway, its motivations will diminish and as a result, its practical manifestations as well.
In the interim period, I am confident that with a determined and unequivocal political directive the IDF will know how to deal with this temporary threat, defeat terrorism and complete the settlement decision with a sharp military decision.
Phase II: The two alternatives and a military defeat
On top of the settlement decision of the first phase, which includes the loss of Arab hope for the establishment of a state west of Jordan, two routes will be opened to the Arabs of Judea and Samaria.
For those from the West of Judea and Samaria who desire this, a new hope will be opened for a good future and a good private life under the wings of the Jewish state. The Jewish people have brought a lot of good to this country - abundance, progress, development and technology - and they will be happy to allow anyone who wants to live here in peace to enjoy them. Whoever chooses to stay here as a private person will be able to enjoy a better life than what his relatives and friends have in the surrounding Arab countries, and also what they would have expected of him under the corrupt rule of the Palestinian Authority.
This will be a life that will include most of the democratic rights - to life, liberty and property, a life in which there will be freedom of movement, religion and expression, and more and more rights and freedoms that characterize the democratic and progressive State of Israel. They will also have the right to vote in the system that will manage their day-to-day life.
The self-government of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will be divided into six regional municipal governments that will be elected in democratic elections - Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jericho, Nablus and Jenin. These governments fit the cultural and tribal structure of Arab society, and therefore will ensure internal peace and economic prosperity. We see the failure of the "nation state" idea in the Arab region - an idea brought from Europe by the colonial powers - before our eyes; According to many, this failure is the result of ignoring the tribal structure of Arab society. The Arab countries that are thriving are the Gulf principalities, built according to a traditional tribal structure.
The Arabs of Hebron are not like the Arabs of Ramallah, these are not like the Arabs of Nablus, and the latter are not like the Arabs of Jericho. Even the dialect of the Arabic language differs from region to region. Division into regional municipal governments will break up the Palestinian national collective and the aspirations to realize it, but at the same time it will also preserve the tribal-clan division and therefore allow the existence of a stable system for managing day-to-day life without tensions and without internal struggles. These regional municipal governments will maintain a system of reciprocal relations between themselves and between them and the State of Israel, thereby enabling stable and sustainable regional economic development.
In the absence of terrorism and a security threat, the residents of the regional municipal administrations will be able to enjoy freedom of movement and the ability to enter - for work and humanitarian needs - the Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria and the territories of the State of Israel, and both sides will benefit from this.
As mentioned, the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will be able to manage their own day-to-day lives, but they will not be able to vote for the Israeli Knesset in the first stage. This will preserve the Jewish majority in decision-making in the State of Israel. As will be explained at length below, although this is an imperfect reality in terms of civil rights, it is definitely a reasonable reality, and even the best possible one given the complex circumstances of the State of Israel in the Middle East region. In the long term, it will be possible to improve the democratic component of the plan through a broad regional arrangement with Jordan, within the framework of which the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will be able to vote for the Jordanian parliament, thus exercising their right to vote for a sovereign parliament. Another improvement that can be examined, with the passage of time and after it is possible to verify the sincerity of the acceptance of those who choose to stay here, is the participation of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria who will remain here in the civil decisions in the State of Israel - as distinct from the national decisions. This requires constitutional changes that should be discussed further down the road. A third option could also be to consider granting full citizenship, including the right to vote for the Knesset, depending on the number of Arab residents who wish to do so and at the same time showing absolute loyalty to the Jewish state through military service, like the Druze citizens of Israel who sealed their fate with the State of Israel as a Jewish state and maintain a courageous partnership with it.
No, this graduated arrangement does not make the State of Israel an "apartheid state". A regime of freedom does not begin and end with the right to choose and be chosen. There is no doubt that this right is one of the basic democratic rights, but it is by no means its only defining one. Nowadays it is customary to include under the heading "democracy" a whole system of freedoms and rights - right to life, respect and property, freedom of religion, expression and movement, and more. The lion's share of these rights and freedoms will be given within the plan to the Arabs of Judea and Samaria, including the right to vote for municipal administrators who manage day-to-day life. Even in the absence of the right to vote for a fully sovereign parliament, this is not apartheid rule - but, at most, a missing element in the basket of freedoms, or if we like - a deficit in democratic significance.
The axiom that states that "democracy without a full and equal right for everyone to vote and be elected is not democracy" serves the foolish followers of the "two-state solution, and allows them to threaten the Israeli public and claim that without the establishment of an Arab terrorist state in the heart of the Land of Israel, the State of Israel will have to choose between being a Jewish state and being a democratic state. This is simply not true. Israeli sovereignty can be applied to all the territories of Judea and Samaria without granting the Arabs who live there The right to vote for the Knesset on the very first day, and still remain a democracy. Not perfect, but a democracy. Not perfect - simply because the reality is not perfect. As we wrote in the opening, the State of Israel is facing an unprecedented existential challenge, and if the model that will make it possible to meet this challenge includes a certain deficit on the democratic level It is certainly a tolerable price. The Israeli situation is unique, and for that reason we should not be alarmed that dealing with it will also be unique.
Experience shows, by the way, that when Western democracies had to deal with much simpler security challenges, they left the values of democracy far behind. This is how the United States behaved in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even with its own citizens after the attack on the Twin Towers, and this is how the Western countries still behave today in dealing with terrorism on their territory. The State of Israel can be proud of the way it deals with its existential challenges, and the fact that the arrangements that will be designed after the decision phase will not be perfect in the democratic component Theirs should be no worse.
It is important to remember that the alternatives are much worse: the establishment of a Palestinian state would endanger the existence of the State of Israel, and granting full and immediate voting rights to the Arabs of Judea and Samaria would create a significant deficit in the Jewish component of the State of Israel. When I have to choose where to throw the results of the complex and imperfect reality of the State of Israel - whether to the existential plane, the Jewish plane or the democratic plane - my choice is simple. Moreover, this situation has existed in the State of Israel for fifty years in relation to the Arabs of East Jerusalem: they enjoy the status of residency but not citizenship, and the State of Israel has not ceased to be a democratic state because of this.
Moreover; In recent decades, and in particular following the constitutional revolution and as part of it, the State of Israel is shifting the emphasis of democracy from the simple meaning of "majority rule" - of which the right to choose and be elected is a derivative of it and the means to exercise it - to a system of values and rights, the "fundamental values of democracy", in which we cannot harm also through the electoral mechanism. The center of gravity of democracy shifts from the selection mechanism to fundamental values and rights. For some reason, in the Palestinian context, those who always advocate for substantive democracy suddenly want to stick to the technical selection mechanism of formal democracy and ignore everything else, emphasizing the severe and daily violation of rights that occurs on the Palestinian side. In the plan before you, the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will benefit from the set of democratic values, rights and freedoms that have become so important in recent decades.
There is no basis for the assessment that the government of the Palestinian state, if God forbid it is established, will be different from the practice in the Middle Eastern countries around us and the practice in the Palestinian Authority as of today (there have been no free elections in over a decade). Judging by the result, under Israeli rule the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will have far more rights than they have now, and than they will have under any form of Arab rule, even without being given the right to vote for the Knesset in the first instance. Whoever ignores the violation of democratic rights in the Arab regimes and wants to establish a national entity for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria, proves in fact that he does not really care about the state of rights of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria the day after. What interests him is only that he will not be accused by the world of "Apartheid". I am convinced that under Israeli rule the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will have far more democratic rights and freedoms than any other regime. Therefore, in the overall view - which does not consider only the question of what we are accused of or not - the "decision plan" enjoys an advantage on the democratic level as well.
And to conclude this point, it is important to note that from a democratic point of view there is no difference between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political plan and the plan before you. Netanyahu defines the Arab national entity that he strives to establish in Judea and Samaria as a "minus state", thus reflecting the fact that he does not intend, and rightly so, to allow that political entity to have an army and control the borders and the air, sea and cyber space. As long as we control the definition of the borders of the sovereignty of that Arab entity, it is not a true sovereign state, and in any case the right to vote that the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will not be complete. This is a "price" that Netanyahu also understands is necessary to pay on the democratic level in order to maintain the security and existence of the State of Israel. From this point of view, there is no difference between the situation that will exist then and the current situation, where the Arabs of Judea and Samaria have the right to vote for the non-sovereign Palestinian parliament, and the situation that will be created according to this plan, where the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will vote for municipal councils. In all alternatives they have a practical right to vote for a system that runs their lives practically, but not a conceptual right to vote for a sovereign parliament. If Netanyahu's plan passes the democratic test - then this plan does too. The difference is that with Netanyahu, a collective national entity of the Arabs in Judea and Samaria is preserved, an entity with national aspirations that contradict ours, and not in our plan. And this, as we have already explained, is a strategic point of advantage for this plan - which guarantees that it will bring peace instead of perpetuating the conflict.
immigration
The second alternative is intended for those from the West of Judea and Samaria who will find it difficult to give up the realization of their national aspirations. Those who are unable to stay here as a private person who harbors the dream of realizing their national ambitions - are welcome to go and realize them in one of the many surrounding Arab countries, or seek for themselves, like so many Arabs around us, a better future in Europe, South America or other countries, so that they will not have to live in the Jewish state.
The Israeli left, which for many years has been waving the flag of separation and the Jewish majority - that is, systematically preaches that a high percentage of Jews must be guaranteed in the State of Israel, and prefers separation over living with the Arabs - has, for some reason, reservations about the decent and effective means of improving the demographic reality, which is the encouragement of immigration. Among other things, arguments such as "Arabs are not immigrants, they are attached to their land", or "immigration is a cruel deportation", and also "no one wants to take in Arab immigrants" are gaining ground. These arguments, sorry, are refuted one by one.
Let's start from the first: it seems to me that there is no need today to proliferate with arguments to prove that immigration is definitely an option in the eyes of the Arabs, an option that is chosen by many even today - from Judea and Samaria and Arab countries - and this despite the fact that such immigration is subject to many restrictions and is not given any encouragement. In a reality that will allow immigration in an easy and convenient way, and will even provide logistical and financial assistance to those interested in seeking their fortune in other countries - immigration will become a much more widespread phenomenon.
No, it is not meant to be a brutal deportation nor to flood countries with helpless refugees; The immigration we are talking about is one that is done in the first place, willingly and in search of a better future - by people with the appropriate skills to be absorbed in the new country and the financial ability to do so. This is not about the immigration of rickety boats, but the modern phenomenon that is so common of boarding a plane to an orderly future, "relocation" to countries that provide an opportunity for a better future, and absorption in an environment where there is mostly a community of immigrants with a similar background.
And as for the third claim - who would want to accept - this is a pointless claim. The world is having difficulty dealing with refugee waves of destitute immigrants, but at the same time many countries in the world are welcoming immigrants with professional training and funding, for many different reasons - and such will be the Arab immigration from Judea and Samaria.
The State of Israel can, and should, be generous towards Arabs who would prefer to live in other countries - and give them a grant that will allow them to make the transition in a dignified and successful way - a grant that, from Israel's point of view, is a parting grant. Zionism was built from population exchange: a mass immigration of Jews from Arab countries and Europe to the Land of Israel, voluntarily or by force, and the departure of masses of Arabs who lived here - voluntarily or by force - to the surrounding Arab space. This historic move probably still needs to be completed, and this promises more than anything else a future of peace.
2. Military defeat
There will probably be - at least at the beginning - those who will find it difficult to come to terms with the resolution of the conflict; Those who choose to continue the Halim struggle against the State of Israel. In war, as in war, it is possible and necessary to win. Whoever thinks that he will stay here and constantly undermine the right of the State of Israel to exist as the state of the Jewish people, will find the IDF determined to defeat him with God's help in the military decision. The IDF, God willing, is a strong and smart army, and given a political directive Meaning, he undoubtedly knew how to defeat the terrorists in a short time. Kill those who need to be killed, collect the weapons until the last bullet, and restore security to the citizens of Israel.
Arabs who will not give up their national aspirations but will refrain from taking subversive actions - will not be harmed. There is no expectation in this program that everyone will love the State of Israel, salute the flag or sing the national anthem. The practical decision not to fight against the IDF and the State of Israel is enough to teach about acceptance with the new reality. Loyalty can and should be a condition for receiving various rights and progress in models of residency and citizenship, but it is not the one that defines the very acceptance.
By placing the various options before the Arabs we are actually referring to the entire reasonable space of human responses to a new reality. Humans act from motives of personal convenience - but also from motives of religious and national identity; Act according to what is possible - or according to an ideology that does not consider reality. The new reality, of an Israeli decision that will make it clear that there is no place for two national movements in the Land of Israel, will bring the realistic people, working within the limits of what is possible, to choose one of the two alternatives that will be presented to them. There will be those who prefer the comfort and security of living under the auspices of the Jewish state, knowing that their national aspirations will not be expressed in the country they chose to live in; Some will find it difficult to give up the Palestinian national narrative, which sees Zionism as a cruel enemy, and will prefer to seek their fortune elsewhere - in an Arab country where they can realize their religious-national identity, or even in a Western country, the main thing is that it is not under Zionist rule. And as mentioned above, there will also be those who will choose to continue fighting - and will be defeated quickly and decisively by our forces. Thus, the decision plan refers to all the possible reactions of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria to the new reality. One thing the plan does not allow: the continuation of the parallel existence of two concrete national aspirations regarding this region of the country; An existence that perpetuates the conflict and forces us to "manage the conflict" instead of resolving it.
It can be estimated that this process will take several years. The process of the Arabs' deep inner conviction of the loss of national hope, the digestion of the new reality and the choice of one of the alternatives it offers them will take some time, and during this time patience and long-suffering will be required. As mentioned, I am confident that the IDF will be able, with God's help, to help us get through this interim period safely. The price we pay in the interim period will undoubtedly prove to be worth it when, at the end of the process, we will reach tranquility, peace and coexistence with those who choose to stay here under conditions favourable to us.
In my estimation, most of the work will be done in the first years of the settlement decision. Stopping the Israeli leadership's obsessive preoccupation with the conflict and trying to "solve" it and focusing on the development of the region while establishing clear signs of Israeli sovereignty will dry up the Arabs, and in fact will take the sting out of the continued violent management of the conflict by the Arab side. It will quickly become clear that terrorism is futile and that it harms mainly, and almost exclusively, its perpetrators and their supporting environment. From the other side, the hope inherent in coming to terms with the new situation and with the good life that awaits those who choose it - here or overseas - will be shown.
Dealing with challenges
1. The reaction of the international system
Let's face it: as of today, it is difficult to make claims to the international community. For decades, official Israel has presented a position that supports the establishment of a Palestinian state, and even presents this idea as just and moral. All these years the Israeli leadership says "yes, but not now". "Yes" - a Palestinian state is a just solution that should be striven for, "but not now" - a multitude of reasons and excuses. In front of this position the world presents a just demand for it - if you also admit that this is the just and moral solution, then implement it, and above all, stop taking it Steps that distance it, such as the construction in the Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria. From the point of view of the international community, the legitimate security concerns of the State of Israel have solutions such as international guarantees, aid packages, defense systems, etc., and in any case these cannot justify avoiding the promotion of this "solution" for so many years This is a logical and even required position, and it explains the complex international situation in which Israel finds itself.
The resolution plan presents a new paradigm to the international community - even if it takes some time, the world will get used to it and accept it. First, it is a program based on justice. The world is for the most part a religious world, and it is supposed to recognize the connection of the Land of Israel to the people of Israel. Until now, the Arabs talked about justice and we about security and the world preferred justice, rightly so... From here on out we also talk about justice, and with such arguments we can be convinced.
Secondly, we will have to strengthen the understanding that is beginning to take hold in the world regarding the unreality of the "two-state solution", whose attempts to implement it have only produced waves of terror and violence to date. We will have to explain to the world that resolving the conflict and ending the Arab hope to establish a state west of Jordan is the only way to guarantee the existence and prosperity of the State of Israel and the existence of peace and coexistence in it.
The biggest challenge in this context will be the democratic challenge - the need to convince the world that among the various alternatives, the alternative of democratic rights without the right to vote for the Knesset, at least temporarily, is the least bad alternative. It will indeed be a challenge, but it can be achieved. Mainly by clarifying that the other alternatives are worse - the establishment of an Arab terrorist state that will endanger Israel and that will continue to strive to eliminate it, or granting the right to vote that will harm Israel's Jewish majority and in any case endanger it again.
Thirdly, great and good people have already said that what is important is not what the Gentiles will say, but what the Jews will do. We do not ignore the world. We need to conduct a professional and smart diplomatic campaign, and as mentioned, I believe in its power to convince, and at the very least to moderate the criticism. But we cannot afford to behave according to the demands of the world. We must behave according to what is good and right for us, and what is good and right for us is to decide and end this conflict once and for all and bring tranquility, peace and security to the State of Israel. And if, as the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin said, there is someone in the world who "crooks his nose" - then let him have a crooked nose...
2. And what if we are wrong?
After twenty years of failed attempts to promote the "two-state solution" from the left's seminary, the time has come to try a program built on a right-wing, Zionist and religious worldview. For twenty years the left has been dragging us into dangerous adventures that have already cost us thousands of dead and injured in an attempt to realize a far-fetched dream disconnected from reality. If God forbid we continue to walk this way we will ensure the continued existence of the conflict and the precious blood price it exacts from both sides. The "two-state solution" was and remains a slogan that the left managed very skillfully to brand as a realistic and even singular solution, although it never was. Regarding our plan there may be doubt; Regarding the left's plan - the failure is already clear and proven. What else needs to happen to make it appear that it is hopeless, that these are two conflicting national aspirations that simply cannot be born in one submission, that the entire right to exist of the "Palestinian people" is the denial of the existence of the State of Israel?!
We must try another direction, completely different; A direction that recognizes reality and does not try to outsmart it. I call on all readers to adopt the plan and join me in the effort to finally bring peace to Israel and the entire region.
3. Political feasibility
The "decision plan" is in my eyes just and correct, and in fact it has no feasible alternative on the ground. Nevertheless, being different from everything we are used to thinking about, its adoption in the public arena will not be an easy thing. Such a big perceptual change is a challenge, but far from impossible. When Uri Avneri began negotiating with the PLO and talking about a Palestinian state almost forty years ago, he was almost alone. Contacts with the PLO, which was defined as a terrorist organization at the time, were a criminal offense, Rabin was opposed to a Palestinian state and Peres had not yet dreamed of dividing Jerusalem. It took Avnery a little more than a decade to introduce his far-fetched plan into the mainstream of the Israeli left and make it the one and only plan. It will be much easier for us: the decision plan is built on the natural feeling of belief in the rightness of the way, on the natural patriotism and national pride and the sense of justice and the right to exercise that characterizes growing sections of Israeli society. It also comes at the right time: the public feeling of despair at the failure of the "two-state" concept, as reflected in most public opinion polls conducted in recent years, opens an opening for rethinking, and in this opening the Israeli right must enter. Not by selling "the same lady with a makeover", but by setting a completely different vision.
I believe that within a few months, many basic principles from the plan will enter into the conversation and will become cornerstones for rethinking. Basic facts such as the understanding that these are two conflicting national aspirations that cannot be reconciled through an artificial geographical division of the territory, that terrorism stems from hope and not despair, that an imperfect democracy is not apartheid, that the morality of an action is measured by the test of the result, and much more - all of these will penetrate into the discourse and into the hearts and enrich them In ways of thinking that are different from the thinking patterns that we have become accustomed to thinking in in recent decades. Based on them, it will be possible to adopt this plan, or plans similar to it, which are based on the resolution of the conflict and the understanding that in order to reach peace and coexistence, an Arab collective with national aspirations cannot be left in the Land of Israel, whatever its definition and whatever its borders may be.
4. The demographic challenge
With or without the right to vote for the Knesset, the decision plan and the arrangements that will be designed in the end pose a demographic challenge. The truth is that the demographic challenge is also - and perhaps mainly - at the doorstep of the "two-state" followers, since the claim that the "two-state solution" bypasses the demographic problem is an illusion, just like the solution itself. The space between the sea and Jordan is one geographical and topographic space, and the Arabs will not go anywhere - especially if their national aspirations are encouraged. A border fence does not hide people, nor their hostility.
However, I am not a follower of the school of demographic intimidation. The demographic trend in the last two decades is in our favor: the birth rate among the Jewish people is increasing greatly, in all parts of the population, and in contrast, the birth rate among the Arabs is drastically decreasing, on both sides of the green line. Under the realistic assumption that this trend will continue, an Arab majority in the Land of Israel is not expected in the foreseeable decades. On the contrary. Admittedly, we need to help it happen. We have not expanded on this here, but the decision plan should be accompanied by a variety of plans to improve the demographic balance. The strengthening of Israel and the resolution of the conflict will facilitate the absorption of Aliya, enhance the Jewish demographic growth and encourage part of the Arab population to immigrate to other countries.
Summary
The decision plan is the only plan based on the vision of the Greater Israel. It is the only plan that has not given up on what was until recently the vision of the entire right, and it does not include the definition of any Arab national entity in the Land of Israel. It is the only plan that is not based on leaving an Arab collective with national aspirations, and for that reason it is the only plan that is based on resolving the conflict and not on maintaining it with varying intensity. And above all, she is the only one who believes in the possibility of realizing the dream of peace and coexistence and is not based on despair from this dream and its conversion into an impossible separation.
English Version of The Tipping Plan
Bezalel Smotrich, Hashiloah, 2017 (Hebrew)
"Insanity," says a famous proverb commonly attributed to Albert Einstein, "is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." In the reality of our political life, insanity seems to have taken its place. The Israeli left repeatedly repeats "simple and safe" solutions to end the Israeli-Arab conflict, and again and again we get to witness the failure of these solutions and their futility. If nothing is done, these attempts will forever continue to move and drive false hopes and daydreams. It's time to say enough, break the paradigm and find the proper way out of this road that seems to have no end.
At the base of my proposal that is laid before you is a change of one hundred and eighty degrees from what we have been accustomed to thinking in recent decades. Rethinking requires courage, but it seems there is no choice. Most of the political plans, from the left and the right, that have been put forward in recent years, provide "solutions" that perpetuate the conflict and bring us all to continue managing it for another century. The resolution plan presented here, on the other hand, contains a real solution, and more importantly - possible and practical, for the end of the conflict and the coming of true peace.
This program differs from others in that it tackles the crux of the problem; Courageously touches the root of the conflict, and the root of the failure, in the past and in the future, of all "political solutions". It doesn't matter what map the thinkers of the various political programs draw - even on what is known as the "right", because Sharon had a map, Olmert had a map, and maybe Netanyahu also has a map - there will be no peace here as long as the concept of origin that this country is destined to contain in its vicinity is abandoned Two collectives with conflicting national ambitions. If this is the case, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will also be forced to continue living by the sword.
In the following pages I explain the "decision plan" - a comprehensive, inclusive solution, not innocent but optimistic, one that does not ease difficulties but is accompanied by a blind faith. Faith in the creation of Israel, in the righteousness of our way and in our exclusive belonging to our homeland; A belief in the power to stand firm in the face of any claim that would undermine this belief, and a belief in our ability to use the bravery needed to decide this heavy battle.
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Due diligence before starting:
I am a person of faith. Believes in the Holy One, blessed be He, in His love for the people of Israel and in His watch over them. Believes in the Torah that warned against exile and promised redemption. I believe in the words of the prophets who foresaw the destruction, and not least the renewed building that we get to see being built before our eyes. I believe that the State of Israel is the beginning of the growth of our salvation, the fulfilment of the prophecies of the Torah and the visions of the prophets.
I believe in the living connection between the people of Israel and the Land of Israel, in the vocation and mission of the people of Israel to the entire world and in the vitality of the Land of Israel for the realization of this mission. I believe that it is no coincidence that the Land of Israel prospers and flourishes precisely after the people of Israel returned to it - after many generations of abandonment.
I believe that the yearning of all generations for this land, and the confidence that we will return to it, are the deepest driving force of the processes of return to Zion that led to the establishment of the State of Israel.
Still, in the article in front of you you will not find anything that is based on this belief. This article is not a religious-faith manifesto but a realistic, geopolitical and strategic plan. The plan is the result of an analysis of reality and its roots, and underpins factual, historical, democratic, security and political assumptions, leading to a solution that, to the best of my judgment, is the only one that has realistic feasibility - certainly compared to all the solutions proposed over a long period.
The document is a realistic plan - but it fits well with my concept of faith. Those who want can see it as a political solution and nothing more; Those who prefer, are welcome to see it as a meeting between faith and realism, between vision and reality.
Background
For over a hundred years of Zionism, the Jewish people were forced to wage a struggle for their very right to exist as sovereign in their renewed state in the Land of Israel.
This existential struggle takes shape and takes shape, consists of many systems, and is saturated, God willing, with victories. But to this day it has not been decided. To this day, among the inhabitants of this land there are those who refuse to recognize the right of the State of Israel to exist as the state of the Jewish people, and continue to undermine its very existence and its Jewish identity. In recent decades, this struggle has been waged mainly in the so-called "Palestinian arena" with the Arabs of Judea and Samaria, who, although striving to establish an Arab state within the borders of 67, have never hidden that this is only a stop on the way to the real goal: the return to Haifa, Jaffa, Ramla, and Tiberias, and the establishment of an Arab state on the ruins of Israel.This is what they educate their children at home, in schools, in camps and summer camps, and no one denies that this is the founding ethos of "Palestinian nationalism" as such.
The plan before you seeks to deal with this matter itself: the existence of two conflicting national ambitions in the Land of Israel, which reality shows cannot be maintained together. The fantasy that it is possible to fulfill both ambitions together has accompanied the Zionist movement from its inception: even before the establishment of the state, in the 1930s and 1940s, when it was possible to reach understandings with the Arabs living in the land, the Arabs of the Land of Israel, with the backing of Arab countries, rejected all the various partition plans, which the Zionist leadership was willing to accept even according to which they involved concessions on parts of the Land of Israel. Even after the establishment of the state, throughout the years of its existence, the State of Israel agreed to compromises and divisions that could lead to the establishment of an Arab-Palestinian state in the Land of Israel, but the Arab side rejected them time and time again.
The ongoing Arab position proves that the "two-state solution", in addition to being wrong in terms of values and Zionism, is also clearly unrealistic: the maximum that the Israeli left is willing to give is much less than the minimum that the most moderate leader among the Arabs of Judea and Samaria could accept and stay alive. Therefore, in the moments of truth, starting with the partition plan and continuing at Camp David and in the negotiations with Olmert, the Palestinian leaders always ultimately refused to sign a peace agreement that would include the end of the claims.
The contradiction is structural, and is rooted in the development of the concept of "the Palestinian people". Basically, the "Palestinian people" is nothing but a counter movement to the Zionist movement, this is its essence and its right to exist. The Palestinian self-determination parties also know that such a "nation" did not exist before the Zionist enterprise, and that "Palestine" was the geographical name of this piece of land and nothing else - a name given to it by the Romans and not by the Arabs. After the suppression of the Jewish rebellions, Jerusalem was restored as a pagan Roman city and was called "Ilia Capitolina", while the name of the province of Judea (Judaea) was changed to "Syria Palestina" (Syria Palestina) to protest the memory of the Jews. It is derived from the name "Philesht" - the land of the Philistines. Behold, yes, in a symbolic way these were the days of our destruction, the same destruction we cry over on Tisha B'av, which gave birth to the word “Palestine”.
When the Arabs conquered the Land of Israel in the seventh century, they adopted the Roman name "Palestine", while the northern region remained under the name "Syria". About 1,500 years later, the Arabs of the Land of Israel adopted this name when they started their fight against the Zionist movement, which came to return the land to the Jews - those whose memory the Romans sought to erase.
In Ottoman and Mandatory "Palestine" there were Palestinian Jews - who immigrated to it at the beginning of the Zionist era, and Palestinian Arabs - some of whom were there in the past and most of whom immigrated to it from the surrounding countries in modern times for various reasons.
The Palestinian National Movement is a negative movement for Zionism, and as such it is unable to make peace with it. This is why the Palestinians refuse the minimal requirement of the State of Israel to recognize its right to exist as a Jewish state. In this the Palestinian matter is different from the conflict with the Arab countries. Egypt and Jordan are independent countries whose existence is not related to the State of Israel. Their war in the State of Israel with the goal of annihilation may have been important to them, as part of a Muslim or Arab ethos, but it did not touch their very definition as states. Because of this, it was possible to reach a peace settlement with them. Not so in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Without the "conflict", without the struggle in Israel, there is no Palestinian nationalism. In any case, the possibility that Zionism and Palestinian nationalism can be maintained in the Land of Israel at the same time, with one territorial division or another, does not exist. The reality of the last decades shows how true this simple distinction is.
The continued existence of the two conflicting national aspirations in our small piece of land will guarantee us many more years of blood and life on the sword. Only when one of the parties gives up, willingly or by necessity, the realization of his national ambition in the Land of Israel will the longed-for peace come, and it will be possible to live a life of civil coexistence here.
I hope that all readers agree with me in stating that we, the Jews, will not give up our national ambition for an independent state in the Land of Israel, the only Jewish state in the world. Because of this, the one who will be forced to give up the aspiration to realize his national identity here in the Land of Israel is the Arab side. This is the statement that it seems that so far no one dares to say - and because of this we are condemned to continue the cycle of bloodshed; But this statement is the only key to true peace.
This is the purpose of the resolution plan in front of you - no longer managing an ongoing conflict of varying intensity, but a resolution. No more shuffling and cosmetic solutions of chasing the mosquitoes, but drying the swamp and treating the roots of the problem to its end. For all the years of its existence, Israel ran away from touching these roots, and it will not be easy to change this paradigm. However, the State of Israel cannot afford to continue to falter in the Sisyphean war on terror, and no less serious than that - in the delegitimization that this conduct creates for us in the world. Continuing to manage the conflict erodes Israel's position and its important interests, and causes irreversible damage. The decision plan may be difficult to digest at first, but the great logic inherent in it, as well as its necessity and inevitability, will eventually lead to its adoption by Israeli society and the international community.
Short Summary
Resolving the conflict means a conscious determination - practical and political - that west of Jordan there is room for only one national definition: the Jewish one. In any case, there is not, and will not be, an Arab state in the heart of the Land of Israel that will enable the realization of Arab national aspirations there. Denying this dream will reduce the motivations to realize it, and in any case the extant terrorism.
This tipping of the scales is also achieved in statements - in an unequivocal Israeli statement to the Arabs and the whole world that a Palestinian state will not be established, but mainly in actions - the application of full Israeli sovereignty over the homeland in Judea and Samaria, and the settlement decision which means the establishment of new cities and settlements deep in the territory and bringing hundreds of thousands of additional settlers to live in them. This will make it clear to the Arabs and the whole world that the reality in Judea and Samaria is irreversible, that the State of Israel is here to stay, and that the Arab dream of establishing a state in Judea and Samaria has been dashed once and for all. The settlement decision was, therefore, intended to burn into the consciousness of the Arabs and the entire world that there is no chance of establishing an Arab state in the Land of Israel.
On top of this unambiguous starting point, the Arabs of the Land of Israel will have two alternatives (which are three):
- Those who want and are able to give up the realization of their national aspirations - will be able to stay here and live as an individual in the Jewish state, and of course enjoy all the abundance, goodness and progress that the Jewish people brought and bring to the Land of Israel. We will expand on the status of those who choose this option, and on the system of managing their lives.
- Those who do not want or are unable to shelve their national ambitions - will receive assistance from us to immigrate to one of the many Arab countries where the Arabs can realize their national ambitions, or to any other destination in the world.
It is likely, of course, that not everyone will adopt these two choices, and there will be those who will insist on choosing the third "option" - to continue using violence against the IDF, the State of Israel and the Jewish population. Such terrorists will be dealt with decisively by the security forces, with greater force than we do Today and under more favorable conditions for us.
For those of the Arabs who choose to stay here as individuals and enjoy everything the State of Israel has to offer, we will have to define a residency model that includes self-management of community life, alongside private rights and obligations. The Arabs of Judea and Samaria will first manage their day-to-day lives by themselves through regional municipal administrations - devoid of national characteristics - to which they will also be able to vote, administrations that will have economic and other reciprocal relations between themselves and between them and the various authorities in the State of Israel. Later, with the progress of the process and its internalization, and based on criteria of loyalty and military or national service, it will be possible to integrate models of residency, and even citizenship.
This plan is the most just and moral on every scale - historical, Zionist and Jewish - and is the only one that will bring peace, peace and coexistence. The attempts to reconcile the two national ambitions and allow them to coexist on the same piece of land, even though they seem more moral at first glance (as they take into account, so to speak, the wishes of both sides and refuse to allow the just side to decide by the force of right and the merit of force), lead to the most difficult result from a moral point of view, because that they commemorate the war and the bloodshed. On the other hand, a decision based on the right of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel - although it appears forceful and one-sided at first glance - will result in the best and moral result: it will put an end to the bloodshed and allow for real coexistence between the Jews and those of the Arabs who choose it.
This is the core of the program. We will immediately turn to detail and a more extensive explanation. But since this plan is very different from the usual discourse regarding the resolution of the conflict, it is important to go back and clarify its realistic and moral assumptions, before going into the details:
1. The two-state solution is not realistic, and never was. "Two states for two peoples" is an empty slogan that has become an axiomatic and unique solution to the conflict, mainly due to the illusion that the Arab side is right for a territorial compromise and is ready to accept the State of Israel being a Jewish state. This premise has been proven wrong time and time again. In the current reality, the establishment of an Arab terrorist state in Judea and Samaria, a state whose area is twenty times the territory of the Hamas terrorist state in the Gaza Strip, would be a dangerous security suicide. The collapse of several old Arab states in recent years makes the state model even more problematic - it is difficult to see it as something sustainable. The two-state solution is not applicable, and therefore the time has come to put on the table a solution based on a completely different concept.
2. The Zionist enterprise of the return of the people of Israel to their land after about two thousand years of exile, migration and persecution, is the most just and moral enterprise that has taken place in the world in the last few centuries from a historical, international and religious perspective. We are not from the UN, and we do not assume that there are two "narratives" here that are equal in their righteousness and their arguments. It is our belief in the righteousness of our way that gives us moral validity to win and defeat the contradictory Arab ambition. Indeed, in a world where they stopped talking about justice and moved to the discourse of narratives, it is difficult to make such claims - but this does not mean that they are not true. The State of Israel was established by the power of faith in the righteousness of the biblical story, and by the power of the agreement of the nations of the world - in a rare historical moment - to help realize the vision and return the land to the people of Israel. The creeping gnawing in the decision to designate the entire land of Israel to the people of Israel was not due to considerations of justice, but rather to submission to Arab violence Thus, in the first stage, the area of the eastern Transjordan was subtracted from the area intended to be returned to the people of Israel in favor of the establishment of the Kingdom of Jordan, and later the partition plan was born that brought to the world the perception of the two states in the Land of Israel.
This belief in the rightness of the way is essential, and those who lack it will indeed find it difficult to defend the claim of the West of Judea and Samaria to abandon their national aspirations so that our national aspirations can be fulfilled. We have already explained above that the "Palestinian people" who demand their right to self-determination do not differ from the Arab nation and its tribes except in its quest to eliminate the Zionist enterprise. This is of course not a novelty - it was self-evident to Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and basically to the entire Israeli leadership until recently.
Beyond that, Jewish nationalism brought this country to prosperity - which hundreds of years of Ottoman rule did not destroy. It is enough to skim Mark Twain's travel diary to see the magnitude of the desolation that was here before the Jewish people returned to their homeland. The return of the people of Israel to their land blossomed the wilderness and made this land what it is now. It is doubtful if the eyes of the whole world would have been on the question of whose land this is if it had stood in its desolation as it was before Zionism.
3. The challenges that the State of Israel is required to face are unprecedented, and for that reason the solution and the reality that will be created as a result are allowed to be original and unprecedented. The attempts to compare the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to conflicts that occur in other parts of the world and to examine the present, as well as the future arrangements, in accordance with the standards accepted in the settlement of conflicts in other places, are wrong. It is doubtful if there is a country that faces an existential threat of the kind that the State of Israel has had to deal with since its inception. There is certainly no other country in the world that was established after attempts to destroy a people, surrounded by a host of countries whose people wish to destroy it, and constantly faces threats from home and abroad. There is no other nation-state in the world whose roots in the struggle against it and the desire to eradicate it are rooted in opposition to its very existence and the very existence of the people who are its national home.
Dealing with an unprecedented reality justifies unprecedented solutions and arrangements, which may be difficult to defend in other situations, but it is certainly possible to stand behind them and justify them in the context of the State of Israel. In this complex and unprecedented tangle, the State of Israel must continue to exist as the national home of the Jewish people, and if in order to ensure this new civil, democratic and legal constructions need to be created - we should not be alarmed by this. In the terms of the accepted constitutional discourse in Israel - the purpose is a proper purpose that justifies a proportional deviation from the accepted principles.
4. The statement "Terrorism stems from desperation" is a lie. Terrorism stems from hope - hope to weaken us. Terrorism rests on the hope of achieving achievements through it - to weaken Israeli society and force it to agree to the establishment of an Arab state in the Land of Israel. Even suicide terrorists do not act in a vacuum, but for a "noble cause" according to their method. When there is no such goal, or when it is futile, the motivations that give rise to terrorism will diminish and, with God's help, so will terrorism itself.
5. The national aspirations of the Jewish people and the Arabs of the Land of Israel are contradictory. It is not possible to reconcile them and allow both of them to reproduce in one subjugation. An artificial geographical division of the territory will not last. It is impossible to push security and demographic threats behind artificially drawn fences and virtual lines. The area between the sea and Jordan is one geographical and topographic space, and it cannot be divided in a sustainable way. If the territory is divided in some way and the Arabs receive their share in order to realize their national ambitions alongside the State of Israel - they will not abandon their national ambition to destroy the State of Israel and will continue to strive for its fulfillment, this time from a more favorable starting position. Therefore, any solution must be based on the destruction of the ambition to realize the Arab national hope between the Jordan and the sea.
6. The statement that the Arab aspiration for national expression in the Land of Israel cannot be "suppressed" is not true. It worked excellently with the Arabs of the Land of Israel with the establishment of the State of Israel, and it can and should work the same way in Judea and Samaria as well.
For the Arabs of the Land of Israel, the great disaster, which they call the "Nakba", is the War of Independence in 1948, and not the "occupation" of the Six Day War in 1967. The war of liberation included the expulsion of refugees, the destruction of dozens of Arab villages and the establishment of Jewish settlements on their ruins, and for many years afterwards living under a discriminatory military government. Despite all this, Israeli Arabs lived for decades in peace under Jewish rule, and were hardly involved in terrorism and activities against the State of Israel. The reason for this is simple - from 1958 to the beginning of the nineties they simply had no hope, or rather - the hope of getting rid of the Zionist project was cut short.
The Israeli Arabs who lived in that generation knew very well that if they had won the war of liberation they would have brutally exterminated the Jews, as is customary in the Middle East between winners and losers and as is happening today. Because of this, they appreciated the Israeli mercy and generosity shown towards them and lived here in peace, even before they had equal rights and without them. They had civil protests against the discrimination that was involved in the military government, there were demonstrations against land expropriation, but there were no national currents and there was no striving for the realization of any national vision.
The nationalistic extremism among the Arabs of Israel and their support for terrorism and the use of violence by the Arabs of Judea and Samaria against the State of Israel began somewhere in the early 1990s, when the State of Israel in its stupidity brought PLO terrorists from Tunis to Judea and Samaria and began to cultivate national hope among the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. The Palestinian national hope that was intended for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria rekindled the national feelings and aspirations of the Arabs of Israel and led to a dangerous nationalist extremism among them, the results of which we are experiencing today.
It is necessary, and it is possible, to return to the days after 578, both with the Arabs of Israel, and with the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. It worked great then, and it can and should work great even today. We have no pretense of erasing or changing the national identity; Between the Jordan and the sea it is possible and necessary to change. It is possible and necessary to put an end to the Arab hope for the realization of national aspirations in the Land of Israel, and to open a door to a new hope that is based on a private life that is immeasurably better than those that the Arabs have in all the Middle Eastern countries around us.
7. The morality of an action is measured by the test of the result and not at first glance. Reality shows that when we take responsibility and manage the territory, the best moral reality is obtained to both sides, and when we leave the area the opposite result is obtained. Because of our desire to be "moral" and not to "rule a foreign people" we left the Gaza Strip, and since then without a doubt the lives of the Arabs there have improved miraculously. Instead of a regular electricity supply, they enjoy electricity for only six hours a day; Instead of a regular flow of water in the faucets, they are facing a major water crisis that will cause a humanitarian crisis; Instead of employment and livelihood, the citizens of Gaza enjoy a good lifewhen over fifty percent of them are unemployed and on forced leave all year round. Tens of thousands of them are homeless, and without a shred of hope.
Simply put, since we left the Gaza Strip the residents there enjoy far fewer rights and freedoms. They don't even have democracy and the right to vote. What they have is only an oppressive regime of Hamas that takes most of the inputs brought into the Gaza Strip and uses them for the purposes of arming and digging tunnels instead of restoring the Gaza Strip. Much less good and much less moral and humane, for both sides, than the reality that existed in the Strip when the IDF controlled it. There is no reason to assume that it will be any different if an Arab state is established in Judea and Samaria.
8. Forcing a solution to the conflict is much cheaper and financially correct than continuing to manage it. Some argue that the application of Israeli sovereignty to the territories of Judea and Samaria will cost a lot of money and make it difficult for the Israeli economy. First, this is a very weak claim. Around the world, developing countries produce the biggest growth engines, and their economies grow. The need to bridge the gaps between the Israeli economy and the Palestinian economy holds the potential for great economic growth for the Israeli economy. Improving the quality of life, technology, infrastructure and other elements of life in Judea and Samaria will increase consumption, and in any case growth in both economies. Second, and even more important, whatever the cost of applying sovereignty to the Israeli economy, it will still be largely lower than Security and the indirect costs to the economy that will be involved in the continuation of the conflict management, in rounds of fighting and the like, and certainly from the cost of deporting tens of thousands of settlers and resettling them in the areas of the Green Line.
Phase I: Defeat through settlement building
The first and main decision is the settlement. At this point, the basic fact is openly and clearly clarified: we are here to stay. The realization of our national ambition for a Jewish state from the sea to the Jordan, we would like to clarify, is an absolute fact that is not open to discussion and is not subject to negotiation.
This stage is realized through political-legal action - the application of sovereignty to all the territories of Judea and Samaria, and through settlement action - the establishment of settlements and cities, the retirement of infrastructure as is customary in "small" Israel and the encouragement of tens and hundreds of thousands of additional residents to move and live in the territories of Judea and Samaria. In this way, a clear and irreversible reality can be created in the field within a few years.
There is nothing that will work better than this on the minds of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria, help them to disabuse themselves of the illusion of a Palestinian state and make it clear to them that there is no chance of another Arab state being established west of Jordan. Facts on the ground, as we know, change consciousness and decide consciousness - and the settlement blocks will prove it.
The development of Israeli settlement in Judea and Samaria in a sovereign and institutionalized manner will also help in solving the housing crisis in the State of Israel. In Judea and Samaria, there are many state lands, in the center of the country, that can be made available for residences at much lower prices than what is customary within the Green Line, thereby increasing the supply of affordable housing in Israel by hundreds of thousands of units.
This unequivocal termination of the conflict will reduce the motivations of terrorism.
Of course it won't happen in one day. It will take time, mainly because in the last three decades we have foolishly fostered among the Arabs the illusion that they will be able to establish a state here. After so many years in which we have accustomed the world to the "two-state solution" paradigm, it is natural that it will take time to convince everyone that this is not going to happen. It will take time to convince everyone that we are serious, that we have recalculated our path and that there is not and will not be a Palestinian state, and in any case there is not and will not be a purpose for terrorism.
In the first stage, it is likely that Arab terrorist efforts will increase.
The frustration from the inability to realize the illusory hope, which, as mentioned, we cultivated, will increase, as will the motivations and efforts to carry out terrorist acts in a last desperate attempt to realize it anyway. But at some point the stage will come when the frustration will cross the threshold of despair and will reach completion and understanding that there is no chance. That just isn't going to happen. When this recognition penetrates the mind and terrorism becomes futile anyway, its motivations will diminish and as a result, its practical manifestations as well.
In the interim period, I am confident that with a determined and unequivocal political directive the IDF will know how to deal with this temporary threat, defeat terrorism and complete the settlement decision with a sharp military decision.
Phase II: The two alternatives and a military defeat
On top of the settlement decision of the first phase, which includes the loss of Arab hope for the establishment of a state west of Jordan, two routes will be opened to the Arabs of Judea and Samaria.
- Peace and local identity
For those from the West of Judea and Samaria who desire this, a new hope will be opened for a good future and a good private life under the wings of the Jewish state. The Jewish people have brought a lot of good to this country - abundance, progress, development and technology - and they will be happy to allow anyone who wants to live here in peace to enjoy them. Whoever chooses to stay here as a private person will be able to enjoy a better life than what his relatives and friends have in the surrounding Arab countries, and also what they would have expected of him under the corrupt rule of the Palestinian Authority.
This will be a life that will include most of the democratic rights - to life, liberty and property, a life in which there will be freedom of movement, religion and expression, and more and more rights and freedoms that characterize the democratic and progressive State of Israel. They will also have the right to vote in the system that will manage their day-to-day life.
The self-government of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will be divided into six regional municipal governments that will be elected in democratic elections - Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jericho, Nablus and Jenin. These governments fit the cultural and tribal structure of Arab society, and therefore will ensure internal peace and economic prosperity. We see the failure of the "nation state" idea in the Arab region - an idea brought from Europe by the colonial powers - before our eyes; According to many, this failure is the result of ignoring the tribal structure of Arab society. The Arab countries that are thriving are the Gulf principalities, built according to a traditional tribal structure.
The Arabs of Hebron are not like the Arabs of Ramallah, these are not like the Arabs of Nablus, and the latter are not like the Arabs of Jericho. Even the dialect of the Arabic language differs from region to region. Division into regional municipal governments will break up the Palestinian national collective and the aspirations to realize it, but at the same time it will also preserve the tribal-clan division and therefore allow the existence of a stable system for managing day-to-day life without tensions and without internal struggles. These regional municipal governments will maintain a system of reciprocal relations between themselves and between them and the State of Israel, thereby enabling stable and sustainable regional economic development.
In the absence of terrorism and a security threat, the residents of the regional municipal administrations will be able to enjoy freedom of movement and the ability to enter - for work and humanitarian needs - the Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria and the territories of the State of Israel, and both sides will benefit from this.
As mentioned, the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will be able to manage their own day-to-day lives, but they will not be able to vote for the Israeli Knesset in the first stage. This will preserve the Jewish majority in decision-making in the State of Israel. As will be explained at length below, although this is an imperfect reality in terms of civil rights, it is definitely a reasonable reality, and even the best possible one given the complex circumstances of the State of Israel in the Middle East region. In the long term, it will be possible to improve the democratic component of the plan through a broad regional arrangement with Jordan, within the framework of which the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will be able to vote for the Jordanian parliament, thus exercising their right to vote for a sovereign parliament. Another improvement that can be examined, with the passage of time and after it is possible to verify the sincerity of the acceptance of those who choose to stay here, is the participation of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria who will remain here in the civil decisions in the State of Israel - as distinct from the national decisions. This requires constitutional changes that should be discussed further down the road. A third option could also be to consider granting full citizenship, including the right to vote for the Knesset, depending on the number of Arab residents who wish to do so and at the same time showing absolute loyalty to the Jewish state through military service, like the Druze citizens of Israel who sealed their fate with the State of Israel as a Jewish state and maintain a courageous partnership with it.
No, this graduated arrangement does not make the State of Israel an "apartheid state". A regime of freedom does not begin and end with the right to choose and be chosen. There is no doubt that this right is one of the basic democratic rights, but it is by no means its only defining one. Nowadays it is customary to include under the heading "democracy" a whole system of freedoms and rights - right to life, respect and property, freedom of religion, expression and movement, and more. The lion's share of these rights and freedoms will be given within the plan to the Arabs of Judea and Samaria, including the right to vote for municipal administrators who manage day-to-day life. Even in the absence of the right to vote for a fully sovereign parliament, this is not apartheid rule - but, at most, a missing element in the basket of freedoms, or if we like - a deficit in democratic significance.
The axiom that states that "democracy without a full and equal right for everyone to vote and be elected is not democracy" serves the foolish followers of the "two-state solution, and allows them to threaten the Israeli public and claim that without the establishment of an Arab terrorist state in the heart of the Land of Israel, the State of Israel will have to choose between being a Jewish state and being a democratic state. This is simply not true. Israeli sovereignty can be applied to all the territories of Judea and Samaria without granting the Arabs who live there The right to vote for the Knesset on the very first day, and still remain a democracy. Not perfect, but a democracy. Not perfect - simply because the reality is not perfect. As we wrote in the opening, the State of Israel is facing an unprecedented existential challenge, and if the model that will make it possible to meet this challenge includes a certain deficit on the democratic level It is certainly a tolerable price. The Israeli situation is unique, and for that reason we should not be alarmed that dealing with it will also be unique.
Experience shows, by the way, that when Western democracies had to deal with much simpler security challenges, they left the values of democracy far behind. This is how the United States behaved in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even with its own citizens after the attack on the Twin Towers, and this is how the Western countries still behave today in dealing with terrorism on their territory. The State of Israel can be proud of the way it deals with its existential challenges, and the fact that the arrangements that will be designed after the decision phase will not be perfect in the democratic component Theirs should be no worse.
It is important to remember that the alternatives are much worse: the establishment of a Palestinian state would endanger the existence of the State of Israel, and granting full and immediate voting rights to the Arabs of Judea and Samaria would create a significant deficit in the Jewish component of the State of Israel. When I have to choose where to throw the results of the complex and imperfect reality of the State of Israel - whether to the existential plane, the Jewish plane or the democratic plane - my choice is simple. Moreover, this situation has existed in the State of Israel for fifty years in relation to the Arabs of East Jerusalem: they enjoy the status of residency but not citizenship, and the State of Israel has not ceased to be a democratic state because of this.
Moreover; In recent decades, and in particular following the constitutional revolution and as part of it, the State of Israel is shifting the emphasis of democracy from the simple meaning of "majority rule" - of which the right to choose and be elected is a derivative of it and the means to exercise it - to a system of values and rights, the "fundamental values of democracy", in which we cannot harm also through the electoral mechanism. The center of gravity of democracy shifts from the selection mechanism to fundamental values and rights. For some reason, in the Palestinian context, those who always advocate for substantive democracy suddenly want to stick to the technical selection mechanism of formal democracy and ignore everything else, emphasizing the severe and daily violation of rights that occurs on the Palestinian side. In the plan before you, the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will benefit from the set of democratic values, rights and freedoms that have become so important in recent decades.
There is no basis for the assessment that the government of the Palestinian state, if God forbid it is established, will be different from the practice in the Middle Eastern countries around us and the practice in the Palestinian Authority as of today (there have been no free elections in over a decade). Judging by the result, under Israeli rule the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will have far more rights than they have now, and than they will have under any form of Arab rule, even without being given the right to vote for the Knesset in the first instance. Whoever ignores the violation of democratic rights in the Arab regimes and wants to establish a national entity for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria, proves in fact that he does not really care about the state of rights of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria the day after. What interests him is only that he will not be accused by the world of "Apartheid". I am convinced that under Israeli rule the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will have far more democratic rights and freedoms than any other regime. Therefore, in the overall view - which does not consider only the question of what we are accused of or not - the "decision plan" enjoys an advantage on the democratic level as well.
And to conclude this point, it is important to note that from a democratic point of view there is no difference between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political plan and the plan before you. Netanyahu defines the Arab national entity that he strives to establish in Judea and Samaria as a "minus state", thus reflecting the fact that he does not intend, and rightly so, to allow that political entity to have an army and control the borders and the air, sea and cyber space. As long as we control the definition of the borders of the sovereignty of that Arab entity, it is not a true sovereign state, and in any case the right to vote that the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will not be complete. This is a "price" that Netanyahu also understands is necessary to pay on the democratic level in order to maintain the security and existence of the State of Israel. From this point of view, there is no difference between the situation that will exist then and the current situation, where the Arabs of Judea and Samaria have the right to vote for the non-sovereign Palestinian parliament, and the situation that will be created according to this plan, where the Arabs of Judea and Samaria will vote for municipal councils. In all alternatives they have a practical right to vote for a system that runs their lives practically, but not a conceptual right to vote for a sovereign parliament. If Netanyahu's plan passes the democratic test - then this plan does too. The difference is that with Netanyahu, a collective national entity of the Arabs in Judea and Samaria is preserved, an entity with national aspirations that contradict ours, and not in our plan. And this, as we have already explained, is a strategic point of advantage for this plan - which guarantees that it will bring peace instead of perpetuating the conflict.
immigration
The second alternative is intended for those from the West of Judea and Samaria who will find it difficult to give up the realization of their national aspirations. Those who are unable to stay here as a private person who harbors the dream of realizing their national ambitions - are welcome to go and realize them in one of the many surrounding Arab countries, or seek for themselves, like so many Arabs around us, a better future in Europe, South America or other countries, so that they will not have to live in the Jewish state.
The Israeli left, which for many years has been waving the flag of separation and the Jewish majority - that is, systematically preaches that a high percentage of Jews must be guaranteed in the State of Israel, and prefers separation over living with the Arabs - has, for some reason, reservations about the decent and effective means of improving the demographic reality, which is the encouragement of immigration. Among other things, arguments such as "Arabs are not immigrants, they are attached to their land", or "immigration is a cruel deportation", and also "no one wants to take in Arab immigrants" are gaining ground. These arguments, sorry, are refuted one by one.
Let's start from the first: it seems to me that there is no need today to proliferate with arguments to prove that immigration is definitely an option in the eyes of the Arabs, an option that is chosen by many even today - from Judea and Samaria and Arab countries - and this despite the fact that such immigration is subject to many restrictions and is not given any encouragement. In a reality that will allow immigration in an easy and convenient way, and will even provide logistical and financial assistance to those interested in seeking their fortune in other countries - immigration will become a much more widespread phenomenon.
No, it is not meant to be a brutal deportation nor to flood countries with helpless refugees; The immigration we are talking about is one that is done in the first place, willingly and in search of a better future - by people with the appropriate skills to be absorbed in the new country and the financial ability to do so. This is not about the immigration of rickety boats, but the modern phenomenon that is so common of boarding a plane to an orderly future, "relocation" to countries that provide an opportunity for a better future, and absorption in an environment where there is mostly a community of immigrants with a similar background.
And as for the third claim - who would want to accept - this is a pointless claim. The world is having difficulty dealing with refugee waves of destitute immigrants, but at the same time many countries in the world are welcoming immigrants with professional training and funding, for many different reasons - and such will be the Arab immigration from Judea and Samaria.
The State of Israel can, and should, be generous towards Arabs who would prefer to live in other countries - and give them a grant that will allow them to make the transition in a dignified and successful way - a grant that, from Israel's point of view, is a parting grant. Zionism was built from population exchange: a mass immigration of Jews from Arab countries and Europe to the Land of Israel, voluntarily or by force, and the departure of masses of Arabs who lived here - voluntarily or by force - to the surrounding Arab space. This historic move probably still needs to be completed, and this promises more than anything else a future of peace.
2. Military defeat
There will probably be - at least at the beginning - those who will find it difficult to come to terms with the resolution of the conflict; Those who choose to continue the Halim struggle against the State of Israel. In war, as in war, it is possible and necessary to win. Whoever thinks that he will stay here and constantly undermine the right of the State of Israel to exist as the state of the Jewish people, will find the IDF determined to defeat him with God's help in the military decision. The IDF, God willing, is a strong and smart army, and given a political directive Meaning, he undoubtedly knew how to defeat the terrorists in a short time. Kill those who need to be killed, collect the weapons until the last bullet, and restore security to the citizens of Israel.
Arabs who will not give up their national aspirations but will refrain from taking subversive actions - will not be harmed. There is no expectation in this program that everyone will love the State of Israel, salute the flag or sing the national anthem. The practical decision not to fight against the IDF and the State of Israel is enough to teach about acceptance with the new reality. Loyalty can and should be a condition for receiving various rights and progress in models of residency and citizenship, but it is not the one that defines the very acceptance.
By placing the various options before the Arabs we are actually referring to the entire reasonable space of human responses to a new reality. Humans act from motives of personal convenience - but also from motives of religious and national identity; Act according to what is possible - or according to an ideology that does not consider reality. The new reality, of an Israeli decision that will make it clear that there is no place for two national movements in the Land of Israel, will bring the realistic people, working within the limits of what is possible, to choose one of the two alternatives that will be presented to them. There will be those who prefer the comfort and security of living under the auspices of the Jewish state, knowing that their national aspirations will not be expressed in the country they chose to live in; Some will find it difficult to give up the Palestinian national narrative, which sees Zionism as a cruel enemy, and will prefer to seek their fortune elsewhere - in an Arab country where they can realize their religious-national identity, or even in a Western country, the main thing is that it is not under Zionist rule. And as mentioned above, there will also be those who will choose to continue fighting - and will be defeated quickly and decisively by our forces. Thus, the decision plan refers to all the possible reactions of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria to the new reality. One thing the plan does not allow: the continuation of the parallel existence of two concrete national aspirations regarding this region of the country; An existence that perpetuates the conflict and forces us to "manage the conflict" instead of resolving it.
It can be estimated that this process will take several years. The process of the Arabs' deep inner conviction of the loss of national hope, the digestion of the new reality and the choice of one of the alternatives it offers them will take some time, and during this time patience and long-suffering will be required. As mentioned, I am confident that the IDF will be able, with God's help, to help us get through this interim period safely. The price we pay in the interim period will undoubtedly prove to be worth it when, at the end of the process, we will reach tranquility, peace and coexistence with those who choose to stay here under conditions favourable to us.
In my estimation, most of the work will be done in the first years of the settlement decision. Stopping the Israeli leadership's obsessive preoccupation with the conflict and trying to "solve" it and focusing on the development of the region while establishing clear signs of Israeli sovereignty will dry up the Arabs, and in fact will take the sting out of the continued violent management of the conflict by the Arab side. It will quickly become clear that terrorism is futile and that it harms mainly, and almost exclusively, its perpetrators and their supporting environment. From the other side, the hope inherent in coming to terms with the new situation and with the good life that awaits those who choose it - here or overseas - will be shown.
Dealing with challenges
1. The reaction of the international system
Let's face it: as of today, it is difficult to make claims to the international community. For decades, official Israel has presented a position that supports the establishment of a Palestinian state, and even presents this idea as just and moral. All these years the Israeli leadership says "yes, but not now". "Yes" - a Palestinian state is a just solution that should be striven for, "but not now" - a multitude of reasons and excuses. In front of this position the world presents a just demand for it - if you also admit that this is the just and moral solution, then implement it, and above all, stop taking it Steps that distance it, such as the construction in the Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria. From the point of view of the international community, the legitimate security concerns of the State of Israel have solutions such as international guarantees, aid packages, defense systems, etc., and in any case these cannot justify avoiding the promotion of this "solution" for so many years This is a logical and even required position, and it explains the complex international situation in which Israel finds itself.
The resolution plan presents a new paradigm to the international community - even if it takes some time, the world will get used to it and accept it. First, it is a program based on justice. The world is for the most part a religious world, and it is supposed to recognize the connection of the Land of Israel to the people of Israel. Until now, the Arabs talked about justice and we about security and the world preferred justice, rightly so... From here on out we also talk about justice, and with such arguments we can be convinced.
Secondly, we will have to strengthen the understanding that is beginning to take hold in the world regarding the unreality of the "two-state solution", whose attempts to implement it have only produced waves of terror and violence to date. We will have to explain to the world that resolving the conflict and ending the Arab hope to establish a state west of Jordan is the only way to guarantee the existence and prosperity of the State of Israel and the existence of peace and coexistence in it.
The biggest challenge in this context will be the democratic challenge - the need to convince the world that among the various alternatives, the alternative of democratic rights without the right to vote for the Knesset, at least temporarily, is the least bad alternative. It will indeed be a challenge, but it can be achieved. Mainly by clarifying that the other alternatives are worse - the establishment of an Arab terrorist state that will endanger Israel and that will continue to strive to eliminate it, or granting the right to vote that will harm Israel's Jewish majority and in any case endanger it again.
Thirdly, great and good people have already said that what is important is not what the Gentiles will say, but what the Jews will do. We do not ignore the world. We need to conduct a professional and smart diplomatic campaign, and as mentioned, I believe in its power to convince, and at the very least to moderate the criticism. But we cannot afford to behave according to the demands of the world. We must behave according to what is good and right for us, and what is good and right for us is to decide and end this conflict once and for all and bring tranquility, peace and security to the State of Israel. And if, as the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin said, there is someone in the world who "crooks his nose" - then let him have a crooked nose...
2. And what if we are wrong?
After twenty years of failed attempts to promote the "two-state solution" from the left's seminary, the time has come to try a program built on a right-wing, Zionist and religious worldview. For twenty years the left has been dragging us into dangerous adventures that have already cost us thousands of dead and injured in an attempt to realize a far-fetched dream disconnected from reality. If God forbid we continue to walk this way we will ensure the continued existence of the conflict and the precious blood price it exacts from both sides. The "two-state solution" was and remains a slogan that the left managed very skillfully to brand as a realistic and even singular solution, although it never was. Regarding our plan there may be doubt; Regarding the left's plan - the failure is already clear and proven. What else needs to happen to make it appear that it is hopeless, that these are two conflicting national aspirations that simply cannot be born in one submission, that the entire right to exist of the "Palestinian people" is the denial of the existence of the State of Israel?!
We must try another direction, completely different; A direction that recognizes reality and does not try to outsmart it. I call on all readers to adopt the plan and join me in the effort to finally bring peace to Israel and the entire region.
3. Political feasibility
The "decision plan" is in my eyes just and correct, and in fact it has no feasible alternative on the ground. Nevertheless, being different from everything we are used to thinking about, its adoption in the public arena will not be an easy thing. Such a big perceptual change is a challenge, but far from impossible. When Uri Avneri began negotiating with the PLO and talking about a Palestinian state almost forty years ago, he was almost alone. Contacts with the PLO, which was defined as a terrorist organization at the time, were a criminal offense, Rabin was opposed to a Palestinian state and Peres had not yet dreamed of dividing Jerusalem. It took Avnery a little more than a decade to introduce his far-fetched plan into the mainstream of the Israeli left and make it the one and only plan. It will be much easier for us: the decision plan is built on the natural feeling of belief in the rightness of the way, on the natural patriotism and national pride and the sense of justice and the right to exercise that characterizes growing sections of Israeli society. It also comes at the right time: the public feeling of despair at the failure of the "two-state" concept, as reflected in most public opinion polls conducted in recent years, opens an opening for rethinking, and in this opening the Israeli right must enter. Not by selling "the same lady with a makeover", but by setting a completely different vision.
I believe that within a few months, many basic principles from the plan will enter into the conversation and will become cornerstones for rethinking. Basic facts such as the understanding that these are two conflicting national aspirations that cannot be reconciled through an artificial geographical division of the territory, that terrorism stems from hope and not despair, that an imperfect democracy is not apartheid, that the morality of an action is measured by the test of the result, and much more - all of these will penetrate into the discourse and into the hearts and enrich them In ways of thinking that are different from the thinking patterns that we have become accustomed to thinking in in recent decades. Based on them, it will be possible to adopt this plan, or plans similar to it, which are based on the resolution of the conflict and the understanding that in order to reach peace and coexistence, an Arab collective with national aspirations cannot be left in the Land of Israel, whatever its definition and whatever its borders may be.
4. The demographic challenge
With or without the right to vote for the Knesset, the decision plan and the arrangements that will be designed in the end pose a demographic challenge. The truth is that the demographic challenge is also - and perhaps mainly - at the doorstep of the "two-state" followers, since the claim that the "two-state solution" bypasses the demographic problem is an illusion, just like the solution itself. The space between the sea and Jordan is one geographical and topographic space, and the Arabs will not go anywhere - especially if their national aspirations are encouraged. A border fence does not hide people, nor their hostility.
However, I am not a follower of the school of demographic intimidation. The demographic trend in the last two decades is in our favor: the birth rate among the Jewish people is increasing greatly, in all parts of the population, and in contrast, the birth rate among the Arabs is drastically decreasing, on both sides of the green line. Under the realistic assumption that this trend will continue, an Arab majority in the Land of Israel is not expected in the foreseeable decades. On the contrary. Admittedly, we need to help it happen. We have not expanded on this here, but the decision plan should be accompanied by a variety of plans to improve the demographic balance. The strengthening of Israel and the resolution of the conflict will facilitate the absorption of Aliya, enhance the Jewish demographic growth and encourage part of the Arab population to immigrate to other countries.
Summary
The decision plan is the only plan based on the vision of the Greater Israel. It is the only plan that has not given up on what was until recently the vision of the entire right, and it does not include the definition of any Arab national entity in the Land of Israel. It is the only plan that is not based on leaving an Arab collective with national aspirations, and for that reason it is the only plan that is based on resolving the conflict and not on maintaining it with varying intensity. And above all, she is the only one who believes in the possibility of realizing the dream of peace and coexistence and is not based on despair from this dream and its conversion into an impossible separation.