First, there was this fascinating article in Ha'aretz about the latest signatories to a one-state solution: the settlers!
[Uri] Elitzur rejected Obama's notion of a two-state solution, saying a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders would be a hotbed of terror. However, the status quo - which, he said, means an apartheid state - is also unacceptable to him. So what does that leave? A binational state.
Elitzur proclaimed that the Land of Israel is more important than the State of Israel, and a Jew's right to live any place in his land is more important to him than the desire for sovereignty. In order to make this concept more concrete, he compared the Land of Israel to his wife and the state to a cleaning woman. "I married my wife, not the cleaning woman," he said.
Elitzur is not the only veteran settler who would choose the Greater Land of Israel even at the price of the state losing its Jewish majority. Former MK Hanan Porat and other settler leaders have recently prophesied in a similar vein. If you like, this is nothing but a post-modern version of post-Zionism.
Well, I'm just glad that the settlers have definitively placed themselves on the side of those who wish to destroy Israel. It's easier to draw battle-lines when folks actually line up on their respective side. The game the settlers are playing is to stall for time until Israel is destroyed. The game some Palestinians are playing is to stall for time until Israel is destroyed. Call me the not-so-loyal opposition to that game.
Meanwhile, as I work to oppose a boycott of Israel, some Israeli MKs seem to want to do the left's work for it:
But in the interim, the minister [Likud MK Yossi Peled] suggests reconsidering military and civilian purchases from the US, selling sensitive equipment that the Washington opposes distributing internationally, and allowing other countries that compete with the US to get involved with the peace process and be given a foothold for their military forces and intelligence agencies.
Peled said that shifting military acquisition to America's competition would make Israel less dependent on the US. For instance, he suggested buying planes from the France-based Airbus firm instead of the American Boeing.
So the left doesn't want America to sell to Israel, and Peled doesn't want Israel to buy from the US. Everybody is happy! Except, you know, the non-crazy people.
There's a few* people in that camp - the Greater Israel/let the demographics fall where they may camp - who comment on Jewschool. They claim to not care if they end up a minority, but when the discussion gets going, it comes out that they actually think Jews will remain (or become again - Jews might be a minority already if you combine all the occupied territories) a majority because everyone will become Orthodox and start having lots of kids. They argue for "gradually normalizing" the status of Palestinians over a 50-year period. Which might have worked if they'd started in 1967 or something, but at this point, that's the road not taken.
ReplyDeleteThey don't really explain how they're going to mediate the conflicts between the settlers and the Palestinians and the land issues and the farms illegally seized for outposts and violence and terrorism during this 50-year normalization process. They argue that a Palestinian state won't satisfy the Palestinians because Palestine would still be economically dependent on Israel (which obviously is why Mexico and the United State are at war ... or something), but somehow they will be satisfied as permanently subordinate citizens of Israel.
*I take "a few" with a grain of salt, because there appear to be two, but a lot of people think they're the same person. But they clearly represent a certain way of thinking.
In case my point wasn't clear, I think they're being disingenuous when they say they're okay if Israel goes minority Jewish.
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