JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

10/21/09 12:06 PM

How very sensible.  There is nowhere in the world which should be Judenrein.

10/21/09 12:21 PM

Oh, boy, what a prospect. Stay in the West Bank and be a citizen of Palestine. Can someone please tell me which other Middle East country besides Israel has Muslims and Jews in its parliament? Which one does not discriminate against people of other faiths? Regardless of being criticized as being discriminatory, Israel does have Muslims in its Knesset, and they are vocal about their opposition to most things. That’s what truly democratic countries do. That’s what Israel does. The other countries stifle criticism and are rife with corruption. Given a choice, which Jew would prefer to live in “Palestine” over Israel?

10/21/09 08:42 PM

I think this is an excellent suggestion.  The question is whether the racists within the Palestinian hierarchy would be willing to accept the existence of Jews in their territory.  Looking at history for a precedent, Arabs and most Moslem States have done everything to rid themselves of their Jewish presence from ethnic cleansing to outright murder (as in Iran).  Since they have been raised on a diet of old Nazi propaganda about Jews and Jewish conspiracies, we would need guarantees including indemnities if Palestinians were to turn on their Jewish neighbors as they’ve done with Christians as well.  There is much to be discussed, but I doubt it will happen during Mr. Netanyahu’s tenure as PM or even under Mr. Abbas (as long as Islamic Jihad and Hamas are viable opposition factions to Fatah.)

10/21/09 08:50 PM

The real point here is the official Palestinian Authority “peace demand” is that the whole of the West Bank be “ethnically cleansed” of Jews.  This is an openly racist position, indeed openly antisemitic.  The anti-Zionists who support Palestinian terrorism and complain constantly about Israel’s mythical “ethnic cleansing” and even “genocide” of Palestinians, and who fiercely deny that they themselves are antisemites, blithely ignore - when they do not try to justify - this antisemitic and racist policy of the Palestinians, just as they can manage to do the same about the openly genocidal charter of Hamas, and the implicitly genocidal position of the P.A. itself with its “non-negotiable” demand for Israel to accept the influx of 5 or 8 million violent and hate-filled Palestinians into Israel itself.

Actually, if the Arabs of Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine had really decently and fully protected and secured the rights of non-Muslims in their midst, including protection from judicial and mob harassment and humiliations, open access to and maintenance of their own religious shrines and institutions, equal property rights and freedom of expression, and acceptance of Jewish immigration and settlement as was allowed by the Ottoman Empire after 1492, etc., there would almost certainly not have been a state of Israel at all.  The League of Nations and the United Nations would probably not have been persuaded that there was a need for it.  However, the discussions at the League of Nations and the United Nations had to take account of the defenseless, victimized and oppressed situation of the Jews amongst the Arabs, and the simple necessity for the growing and peaceably inclined Jewish community to be able to defend itself against both institutionalized humiliations and the constant terrorist attacks.  And thus the Arab violence and intransigence, orchestrated by Haj Amin el-Hussaini, Hitler’s acolyte, played directly into the hands of those amongst the Jews who saw a desperate need not just for a state for the Jews to provide protection in the region, but for the existence even more importantly of a majority Jewish state that would also be able to provide a refuge for Jews threatened anywhere in the world. 

Here as in so many other cases authoritarian/totalitarian extremism is its own worst enemy, with Muslim extremism harming Muslims even more than others, and the cause of Islam itself being irretreivably blemished, and thus insuring its own ultimate defeat.  We have seen this process already several times in our own lifetimes, with the Thousand Year Reich of the Nazis lasting only 12 years, and the Millenarian Proletarian Paradise of Communism collapsing around the world in just two generations, a bit over 70 years.  Jihadi Islam thus too will refute and destroy itself.  The “cult of death,” which is just another version of the cults of power that have always enraptured pagan idolatries, guarantees itself short life-spans, the worst they are, the shorter they are, while the Jewish cult of life and validation that the weak are precious too, has meant that despite being trampled into the dust by Egypt, Babylonia, Rome and all the other power-infatuated empires of the past, they have left only ruins, while the Jews are still here and are still flourishing and creative.

In the Torah, the doom of all totalitarian and idolatrous cults of power and of enforced conformity and submission, is the moral and meaning of the story of the Tower of Babel.  For a profound analysis of this point, which was already made by our Sages and highlighted by Moses Mendelssohn in his work Jerusalem back in the eighteenth century, see now the wonderful book put out recently by Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, entitled Future Tense.

10/21/09 11:57 PM

Interesting idea.  And the corollary should also be considered, such that the Arab population currently living in Israel become citizens of “Palestine,” but continue to be welcome to live in Israel as legal residents, but without Israeli citizenship.  Wouldn’t that be the natural counterbalance, and a blessing to Israel?

10/22/09 04:29 PM

Would the PA be able to guarantee the safety and security of its Jewish population? How many Gilad Shalits would be taken hostage to meet the demands of some rag tag group of die hard terrorists demanding for example the right of return to Israel of 500000 Arabs or the release of captured terrorists held by Israel or the PA? Could the Arab population put behind generations of incitement and hatred against Jews promoted by the PLO and Hamas?

The offer to stay as Jewish Palestinians sounds good for PR purposes but is not a practical solution to the division of sovereignty in the West Bank.

The only solution is for :
1 the PA to be disbanded. It has been given 16 years to negotiate a settlement and has failed to grasp the opportunities offered by Israel by insisting on demands that Israel cannot possibly accept
and
2.  Jordan and Israel divide sovereignty of the West Bank and determine the future of Jerusalem between their respective nations in direct negotiations - possibly under UN chairmanship.

10/23/09 09:30 AM

the point is when did the winners become losers and care what the arabs want

10/23/09 03:57 PM

The REAL point is that it would be up to the settlers and the PA, not you buttinskies, Iran, Bill Kristol, the UN, the Kartei dingbats, J Street, or the State of Israel.

10/23/09 03:59 PM

BTW, in answer to Mr. Brownstein’s Q, Jews sit in the Parliaments of both Turkey and Iran.