Mike Wise is the person who crafted Glick’s Israeli Solution some 10 years. I remember because we used to discuss the ideas contain in it at that time. Sherman’s attack on Glick’s thesis is also an attack on Mike’s thesis because he entirely agrees with Caroline. I have had many discussion with both Sherman and Wise on their differing views. When they debate each other, neither relents. For my part, I am not comfortable with either view and prefer to back Bennett’s Plan instead.Ted Belman
I strongly concur with Caroline B. Glick’s diagnosis of the fatal failings of the two-state formula, and disagree just as strongly with the prescription she offers to remedy them.
The mechanics of the policy are fairly straightforward. Israel will apply its laws to Judea and Samaria and govern the areas as normal parts of Israel… Contingent on security concerns… Palestinians will have the right to travel and live anywhere they wish within Israeli territory… … Palestinians will have the same legal and civil rights as the rest of the residents and citizens of Israel… Those that receive Israeli citizenship in accordance with Israel’s Citizenship Law will also be allowed to vote in national elections for the Knesset.
… suddenly reducing the Jewish majority from 75 percent to 66 percent will undoubtedly have unforeseeable consequences on Israeli politics.
– Caroline Glick, The Israeli Solution: A One- State Plan for Peace in the Middle East (2014)
Caroline Glick is a journalist of exceptional ability. As readers of The Jerusalem Post well know, she is an astute, articulate analyst of political realities in Israel, the wider Mideast and the US. She has penned countless columns, courageously – at times caustically – critiquing unfolding events and ongoing processes with incisive insight.
I have long been a dedicated follower and avid admirer of her writings, which have made her one of the most widely read Israeli columnists in the English language today.
But it is precisely because of her wide readership and her significant influence that any errors in judgment or flaws in assessments on her part should be addressed rapidly and resolutely.
Excellent analysis, erroneous conclusion
Regrettably, I feel this is the case with her new book, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, which has received a warm reception among leading rightwing and conservative circles.
The book has considerable value for two reasons. First, it represents a welcome, and much needed, challenge to the monopolistic stranglehold the two-state approach has had on much of the public discourse on the Palestinian issue.
Second, it provides a penetrating historical review of how this choke-hold developed, particularly regarding the formulation of US Mideast policy, and of why this detrimental impediment should be removed.
However, while I strongly endorse her admirable analysis of the pernicious pervasiveness of the two-state principle, I strongly disagree with the conclusions she draws from that analysis. I therefore find myself compelled to take issue with her prescription for the measures with which the problem should be confronted, and with the nature of the alternatives she proposes to replace the dysfunctional paradigm that hitherto dominated the discourse.
Lebanonization of Israel?
I concur with Glick on virtually everything she rejects, but reject much of which she urges us to accept.
I certainly agree that the establishment of a Palestinian state would gravely undermine Israel’s security and its ability to survive over time. Likewise, I share her skepticism regarding the feasibility some solution involving Jordan; and her assessment that “the Hashemites [or any other successor regime – M.S.] cannot be considered viable partners with Israel for governing Judea and Samaria.”
But I have grave reservations – to understate the case – regarding what is, in fact, the center-piece of her book: Her proposal that Israel not only annex the entire area of Judea and Samaria, extend Israeli sovereignty over these territories and apply Israeli law to them, but incorporate the Arab population there as permanent residents of Israel, and offer them a path to citizenship.
It would require more than a gigantic leap of unsubstantiated hope to believe that such a measure could precipitate any result other than “Lebanonization” of Israel.
Implausible and imprudent
“Lebanonization,” as the noted New York Times columnist, the late William Safire, explained, refers to the [situation] within a single country so riven with religious and other disputes that [it] becomes impossible to govern”; and should be distinguished from “Balkanization,” which refers to splitting a country into several separate – usually rivalrous – countries.”
Were Glick’s prescription to be adopted, it is difficult to see how internecine inter-ethnic strife, which has become the hallmark of Israel’s northern neighbor, would not afflict Israel itself. Even if her demographic calculations are correct, it would induce almost intolerable pressures on the socioeconomic fabric of the country, were it to attempt to maintain itself as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
Glick does seem to be aware, at least partially, of the severity of the problems implementation of her policy prescription is likely to generate. She writes: “The main price Israel will pay for applying its laws to Judea and Samaria… will be the demographic burden of increasing its potentially hostile Arab minority by 1.66 million people.”
Elsewhere she acknowledges that there will be an “initial shock that [Israel’s] economy will likely absorb following the sudden, steep rise in the number of applications for its welfare rolls after it grants permanent residency to the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.”
But apart from glib acknowledgment of their existence, I could find no indication of how Glick proposes that the grave societal strains she mentions (and the many that she doesn’t) will be resolved, other than an expression of optimism that they will be.
It is difficult to avoid the impression that it is a proposal that is both implausible and imprudent.
“Steady diet of pure hatred…”
Glick correctly warns of the dangers to Israel should there be an influx into the country of the Palestinian diaspora currently resident in surrounding Arab states: “For sixty-six years the United Nations, the PLO, Hamas, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and governing regimes have fed them a steady diet of pure hatred toward Israel.”
She cautions: “With such populations immigrating to the Palestinian state, pressure for Israeli concessions… will only grow, along with the Palestinians’ ability to threaten Israel…”
However, she identifies precisely the same pernicious influences among the very population she advocates – somewhat paradoxically – incorporating permanently into Israel: “Just as devastatingly, Arafat built a Palestinian school system and media and appointed imams in mosques that fed Palestinian society a steady diet of jihadist and Nazi-style anti-Semitism…”
Today, the same Judeophobic indoctrination and Judeocidal incitement continues unabated. Yet Glick, with unflustered equanimity, appears to recommend their almost seamless inclusion into Israeli society, by little more than an administrative decree
With enviable optimism, she predicts that “an Israeli assertion of central authority over the areas will likely have a significant moderating impact. Once the population feels there is a central governing authority in place, that sense of order will likely neutralize a significant amount of opposition momentum spurred by anti-Israel animus.”
Really? I, for one, can envision, with at least equal plausibility, a far more perilous scenario unfolding.
Perilous blueprint
For it is difficult to see how Glick’s blueprint could allow Israel to forge its permanent population into anything remotely resembling a coherent, cohesive societal entity.
The specter of a country riven by ethno-religious rivalries and domestic unrest seems far more plausible.
For her blueprint ignores the very essence of nationhood and contravenes what leading liberal scholars have long identified as the most central component of viable nations – a sense of fellow-feeling.
After all, nations are more than a random amalgam of individuals, bound by no more than the coincidence of their current location in a given area.
It was French philosopher Ernest Renan who in What is a Nation? (1882) noted: “[A] nation, is the culmination of a long past of endeavors, sacrifice, and devotion.” Elaborating on this, Renan stipulated: “A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things… constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, one in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present- day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided form…”
Perilous (cont.)
This is particularly true if one wishes to maintain democratic governance and representative institutions.
Thus, in his seminal treatise On Representative Government (1861), John Stuart Mill, who essentially concurs with Renan as to the essence of nationhood, cautions that without such fellow-feeling, “Free institutions are next to impossible… [and] the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist.”
Mill identifies the strongest components of this indispensable “fellow-feeling” as an “identity of political antecedents; the possession of a national history, and consequent community of recollections; collective pride and humiliation, pleasure and regret, connected with the same incidents in the past.”
This clearly is the antithesis of the realities that would prevail were Glick’s blueprint to be implemented – as can be vividly illustrated with a single example of one “incident in the past” – say the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
For Jewish Israelis, this is a source of pride and pleasure; for the Arabs, humiliation and regret.
Note that this is not a marginal incident, but a seminal event in the collective memory of the two groups, and is but one example of the antithetical attitudes of Jews and Arabs in relation to a host of socio-cultural issues in the past and the present.
In light of such stark ethno-nationalist discordance, can anyone seriously posit a stable, functioning state, unless one group has overwhelming numerical dominance over the other? As the relative sizes of the discordant groups converge – even if the dominant one maintains its (dwindling?) majority – the internal situation will become increasingly unmanageable, especially if, as is highly likely, there exist large disparities in their socioeconomic conditions. Withholding full voting rights from a sizable portion of the sizable ethnic minority, as Glick seems to suggest, would inevitably exacerbate these internal tensions – and external pressures.
And the daunting prospect of Lebanonization will become increasingly tangible.
Size does matter
The kind of socio-political entity Israel would be varies greatly depending on the size of the Jewish majority in the country. So do the societal processes and socio-cultural dynamics that could be sustained and justified.
Thus, if Israel is designated to be a Jewish state, with an overwhelming Jewish majority, a whole array of aspects of public life in the country can be justified as having a sound sustainable, national rationale.
For example: The blue and white Star of David on the national flag; the Menorah as the state emblem; the national anthem referring to the Jewish soul yearning for Zion; the calendar, celebrating/commemorating Jewish holidays and events relating to Zionist heritage; Hebrew as the dominant lingua in commerce, law and academia; the designation of Saturday as the day of rest, Judeo-centric legislation such as Law of Return… All of these are essential elements that make up the fabric of life in a Jewish state.
However, none of these makes any sense – i.e., is justifiable and sustainable – if between 35 percent and 40% of the population not only is unable to identify with them, but – having been fed a “steady diet of pure hatred” – harbors considerable hostility toward them.
Under such circumstances, a wide-ranging assault on the state’s Jewish character will soon be under way. It will be almost impossible to resist.
Mirror images of despair?
I have barely touched on the myriad of ways that more than doubling the Muslim population of Israel will adversely impact socioeconomic realities in the country and gravely undermine its ability to preserve itself as the Jewish nation-state. Such an exhaustive analysis must be deferred for another occasion.
However, in this regard I would refer readers to several earlier columns in which I discuss in greater detail some of these dangerous consequences – see “What’s wrong with the Right – Parts I & II” (August 16 & 23, 2012); “Brain dead on the Right?” (June 26, 2013); “Sovereignty? Yes, but look before you leap” (January 9, 2014).
As I mentioned last week in my critique of Michael Oren’s policy proposal, in many ways calls for a single state and offering permanent residency/citizenship to the Arabs of Judea-Samaria constitute a mirror-image of those calling for unilateral withdrawal.
Both attempt to disguise what is essentially intellectual surrender by a false display of hubris – portraying them as bold Zionist initiatives, when in reality either would doom – or at least, gravely imperil – the Zionist enterprise they profess to preserve.
While the former purports to address Israel’s geographic imperative by making it demographically untenable – even if a Jewish majority is maintained; the latter purports to address Israel’s demographic imperative by making it geographically untenable – even if it does not involve a full withdrawal to pre-1967 lines.
Both would set in motion a deteriorating Jewish demographic dynamic —the former because of the deteriorating socioeconomic situation it will inevitably engender; the latter because of the equally inevitable deteriorating security situation it will engender.
For these reasons – and many others – I would earnestly call on my colleague Caroline to rethink her call for “A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East” as the preferred “Israeli solution.”
Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.net) is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
(www.strategic-israel.org)
@ yamit82:
Why forestall them?
This is sheer, unsupported speculation by Rashi, who can be notorious for baldfaced, fanciful, strictly off-the-wall remarks like that one. (I used to think he just did this once in a while, purely to see if any of his fawning admirers would have the KISHKES to call him on it.)
Why would God do something like that (remove Enoch, “to forestall further lapses”) and not do it with anybody else? (The creation has certainly never lacked for ‘inconsistently pious’ types.) The Most High is many things, often incomprehensible. But He is no coward.
Never seen anything from Ibn Ezra that says that. Moreover, Ibn Izra calls him righteous.
No, that is NOT the ‘prevailing Jewish view of Enoch.”
— You have deliberately MISREPRESENTED the very article you plagiarized in order to make that statement.
From that very same article:
You truly are a flagrant and colossal liar, Yamit. What incredible gall.
If that were the reason, the text would be unambiguous about it. This is not a minor matter. But again, I remind you, “Prior to the day of Noah — of whom ALSO is it written that he ‘walked with God’ — there was nobody else characterized that way in scripture — including Shem, and including Malkhitzedek.”
That’s right. What’s interesting here, though, is that for all the data you offer in your blockquote, you make no attempt to refute a word of it. The only comment you offer is “ROTFLMAO!,” “Get real!,” and “Pagans!”
When somebody stoops to invective in such a way as to offer it purely in lieu of argument, that’s a not-so-subtle way of letting you know he’s fresh out of aces.
Cat got your tongue?
Not so; wrong, wrong, wrong. I’d been fascinated with Chapter 5 for YEARS before I began acquiring “connections” (conscious ones) to haNitzri.
If in fact that’s truly their stance, then — like you — they “understand” nothing . It is not at all ‘obvious’ that the creation narratives are “mythological,” and you don’t know that any of those narratives are strictly “parables.”
Metaphysical text can be both symbolic AND literal at the same time (and usually IS both at the same time).
@ yamit82:
However you were correct about UConn. Thank goodness I did not wager with you, as I did with TX.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Are all your friends in Chile safe?
yamit82 Said:
To quote the King of Carrots
dweller Said:
Enoch was the seventh progenitor of the race in the “book of the generations of Adam”; he was the son of Jared and the father of Methuselah (Gen. 5.). He lived 365 years, and is described as “walking with God,” his end being told in the words “and he was not; for God took him”. No further reference to Enoch is found in Hebrew Scripture. Enoch is held to have been inconsistent in his piety and therefore to have been removed by G-d before his time in order to forestall further lapses. The miraculous character of his translation is denied, his death being attributed to the plague (Gen. R. v. 24; Yalk., Gen. v. 24; Rashi and Ibn Ezra on the verse. That’s the prevailing Jewish view of Enoch.
.
The very fact that he died so much earlier than all the others named means that he was not so righteous and was knocked off because he was not so righteous and displeased G-d. The text does not indicate anything else.
You christians had to write yeshu into the narrative (forced injection).
“Among modern critics the view prevails that Enoch corresponds to the Babylonian Emmeduranki (Greek, “Edoranchus”), the seventh king in Berosus’ list of primitive monarchs. Emmeduranki was famous for his knowledge of things divine; he was the progenitor of the priesthood. These heroes probably were originally deities, reduced in course of time to human stature, but still credited with divine deathlessness. In Enoch’s case attention has been called to the coincidence of the 365 years of his life with the number of days in the solar year, and it has been suggested that Enoch originally represented the deified sun (see Gunkel, “Genesis,” p. 124).”
You have never learned to separate myth from from plausible fact. There are possibly thousands of references to characters in the Hebrew scriptures mentioned only once or twice and there is no apparent clue as to why they were included in the text. Your christian opinions on Enoch are no more valid than the belief in the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. Bugs Bunny has more validity and is as real. If you would excise your connections to yeshu from Enoch you would mostly ignore Enoch and the rest of the obvious mythological creation narratives as have the Jews who mostly understand that they were to be understood as parables.
@ yamit82:
According to some Mormons too.
But that doesn’t make it SO
— any more than “rabbinic exegesis” makes it so.
The scripture itself is SILENT as to any connection.
Sure, it’s possible that, given Shem’s longevity, he & Malkhitzedek may well have been contemporaries — and “Malkhitzedek” may even be a title, as distinct from a name.
However, it seems less than likely that a matter of such significance as the identity of those two with each other — if fact — would be left a mystery instead of being stated simply & clearly. (What would be the POINT of making it a guessing game?)
But the Tooth Fairy & Easter Bunny DON’T appear in the scripture — while ENOCH does:
“And Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God took him” [Gen 5:24]
— i.e., he was translated.
Prior to the day of Noah — of whom ALSO is it written that he “walked with God” — there was nobody else characterized that way in scripture
— including Shem, and including Malkhitzedek.
And I’M certainly not surprised that an intellectual bigot like yourself would find this an occasion to sneer about.
However, I dunno what ‘rubbish’ you’re talking about. The rest of your post appears to consist of nothing more than excerpts from Michael Stone’s article on the Pseudepigrapha & Apocrypha — some of the article boldfaced, but without any apparent point to be made by so doing
— and in no way is ANY of it specifically pertinent to my remark about Enoch, which was referenced directly from Breishis.
@ yamit82:
If you want to play technical games, yahnkele, fine; I’ll be more explicit for him:
‘The question for YOU, Curio, is why you would want avowed Christians to leave the birthplace of their Master, and the Land of (almost) the totality of his earthly sojourn.’
There, FIFY.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Pipedream. In any other country, it might fly. Not Israel, however. Too many complications, specific to Jewish history.
Don’t want their hatred. (Especially as it will mean more bloodshed all around.)
But them personally? — that’s another question.
Their existing misery is ultimately self-inflicted.
No need for it to continue, however, given a committed change of attitude.
And there MAY be something of the sort underway.
True in theory, yes.
You know very well that most Christian Palestinians are native to the area. They are not from Rome, Persia, or Egypt.
They have been there for centuries. Unlike Muslims who placed Jerusalem in third place, Christians held Jerusalem and Bethlehem 1st and 2nd.
Jerusalem and Bethlehem were the few areas of the Mideast where Christians were a majority.
The Ghassanid Christians – and I chatted with one on the net – go back to the 5th century. They fought invading Muslim Armies; and were allies of Byzantine Rome.
1) Because the plan calls for them to be paid as compensation
2) You do not want them. Why stay and be made “miserable” as some here have suggested?
3) They can stay if you want them. The real problems are the Muslims
4) Christianity – unlike Judaism or Islam – is not connected to a geographic center.
yamit82 Said:
De Usual!!!! Sugar. Not Istanbul!!!!
@ honeybee:
You are correct.
Typed before thinking. 😛
@ yamit82:
Constantinople is the birthplace of Christianity!
yamit82 Said:
yes, I am aware. I refer to Adelson as a generic deep pockets Jew who could easily throw a little “chump change” to shurat Ha din, who I beleive would be much more helpful to Israel and Jews. A cry in the woods, perhaps?
dweller Said:
You mean Rome, Egypt and Persia among others.
dweller Said:
Melchizedek and Shem one and the same. According to rabbinic exegesis. Melchizedek-Shem
No I haven’t and Not the tooth fairy or the Easter Bunny either.
“Jewish writings from the Second Temple Period which were excluded from the Tanach; these are known as the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha.
The Apocrypha (Greek, “hidden books”) are Jewish books from that period not preserved in the Tanach, but included in the Latin (Vulgate) and Greek (Septuagint) Old Testaments. The Apocrypha are still regarded as part of the canon of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, and as such, their number is fixed.
The term Pseudepigrapha (Greek, “falsely attributed”) was given to Jewish writings of the same period, which were attributed to authors who did not actually write them. This was widespread in Greco-Roman antiquity – in Jewish, christian, and pagan circles alike. Books were attributed to pagan authors, and names drawn from the repertoire of biblical personalities, such as Adam, Noah, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Ezekiel, Baruch, and Jeremiah.
The Pseudepigrapha resemble the Apocrypha in general character, yet were not included in the Bible, Apocrypha, or rabbinic literature.
All the Apocrypha and most of the Pseudepigrapha are Jewish works (some contain christianizing additions). They provide essential evidence of Jewish literature and thought during the period between the end of biblical writing (ca. 400 BCE) and the beginning of substantial rabbinic literature in the latter part of the first century CE. ”
Pseudepigrapha
****Not surprised you as a christian would inject this rubbish into your comments****
@ yamit82:
Doesn’t say Shem was righteous, only that he failed to join Ham in “witnessing” their father’s disgrace.
Nor have you allowed for Enoch, who was sufficiently just as to have been translated.
@ CuriousAmerican:
The question for YOU, Curio, is why you would want avowed Christians to leave the birthplace of their faith.
@ Ted Belman
I agree with Norman.
(Why did he not post this himself?)
@ yamit82:
Good night and sweet dreams, I am tucking up.
yamit82 Said:
Thank for the information
@ yamit82:
Very nice, a proud name. TX’s given name is Levi.
honeybee Said:
No it’s Nachum or Nahum ( a Biblical Prophet)
honeybee Said:
Name means a Just or righteous King. Calling him a priest is a misunderstanding of Hebrew. There was only two righteous people mentioned in the Torah before Abraham one was Noah and the other Shem. Shem lived 500 years gen 11:11 that would mean Jacob was over 60 years old when Shem died.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kksXxeOYFE8
yamit82 Said:
Is that your Hebrew name, I looked it up. Nice name good meaning.
yamit82 Said:
Quien sabe??? Sugar