I am writing this in light of President Biden’s speech earlier today, and his continued endorsement of the “two-state” solution.
In my opinion, the two-state solution is a horse, whipped mercilessly, for the owner has no idea that the horse is dead.
It also doesn’t work. You may ask, how can I say that with such fervor? I answer, because it’s already been tried – twice!
Quite simply, it is the situation that Israel has been living in, since the United Nations “Partition Plan,” and the Israeli War of Independence.
In order to clarify my position, and for those that are not familiar with the history of the area, I will give a bit of background.
After the First World War, the victors met at San Remo, to divvy up the spoils as it were.
The land that had been occupied by the Ottoman Turks was divided into three parcels or “mandates.”
The area that was covered by the mandate for Palestine included what is now Israel and also what is Jordan. This mandate was given in trust, to Great Britain at the conference of San Remo in 1920. At the same time, the mandate for Syria/Lebanon was given to France and the mandate for Mesopotamia (Iraq) was also given to Great Britain.
At that same conference, the terms of the Balfour Declaration were adopted, acknowledging the historical Jewish connection to the land in the Middle East and expressed intention to create a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.
I am not a lawyer, but I believe that there is a legal argument that the entire mandate for Palestine should have been used for the establishment of such a state. This did not happen, and when the process was actually started, roughly two-thirds of the land was given over to the Hashemites who settled in Jordan.
This was the first time the land encompassed by the mandate for Palestine was split.
The UN Partition Plan of 1947 (resolution 181 (II)) “recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States and a Special International Regime for the city of Jerusalem.”
This was the second split of the land, the initial “two-state solution.”
To all intents and purposes, there has been a “two-state solution” since Israel declared independence.
This is a fact that cannot be denied, but nobody seems to see it that way, and we all know how that partition worked out for everyone concerned.
What happened next was that the entire Middle East attacked Israel after she declared independence, vowing to drive the Jews into the sea. Had they won that war, there would likely have been another Holocaust.
This is where the West loses sight of the ball. I can’t blame them though, they actually didn’t know there was a ball to begin with.
The chant taken up then, to drive Jews into the sea, is the same that has been echoed by Hamas and also Fatah, and demonstrations in support of these players often turn into calls for genocide – “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
This chant is a call for the destruction of Israel – a denial of the right of Jewish people to govern themselves and live in peace in their own land, something that has been enshrined in “international law” since that same San Remo conference. Denial of this right is the definition of genocide, the very thing that Israel is accused of at every opportunity.
To shed light on the “ball” that the West didn’t know existed, I need to go back in history to the year 627 in Medina (Saudi Arabia), the birthplace of Islam. Muhammad, a powerful and violent warlord and his hordes, slaughtered the Banu Qurayza (Jewish) sect. This was punishment for them not helping him in a war against the Banu Nadir (another Jewish tribe) and others.
In 628, Muhammad laid seige to the Jews of Khaybar; he had originally given them permission to farm the land, but became concerned at the economic power they were gaining in the region. He eventually defeated them and it was resolved that they (the Jews) would pay a half of their proceeds to the Muslims.
I might suggest, that this was the first time that the “jizya” (a head tax levied on “infidels” wishing to live in Muslim lands) was paid. The call “remember Khaybar” is often shouted at Jews by frenzied Arabs.
Muhammad did not like Jews, and since his time, there have been many slaughters of Jews by Arabs.
Here are the major ones:
Algeria, Alger 1736 1805 1815 1830, Constantine 1934 and Touat 1492.
Iraq, Baghdad 1928 1941.
Libya, Tripoli 1785 1945.
Morocco, Casablanca 1907, Fez 1035 1146 1275 1465 1912, Marrakesh 1146 1232 1864-1880, Meknes 1247,
Settat 1903, Sijilmasa 1146, Taza 1903 and Tetuan 1790.
Palestine, Hebron 1518 1929, Jaffa 1921, Jerusalem 1929 and Safed 1834 1929.
Persia, Basra 1776, Barfurush 1867, Mashhad 1839, Shiraz 1910 and Tabriz 1830.
Spain, Cordoba 1013, Granada 1066 1090.
Syria, Aleppo 1947 and Damascus 1925.
These, all predate the creation of the state of Israel, giving the lie to the argument that it is all about the land. This is an argument that the West has bought, hook, line and sinker.
It is NOT about the land, never has been.
This ball, is the blood libel that many Muslims carry toward Jews and it is something that the West just cannot get their heads around. They have no frame of reference for such a thing.
I have heard commentators say that if Hamas had chosen to live in peace, they could have had a paradise. The same could be said of the Arabs after the 1947 partition. If they had chosen to live in peace, they too, could have had paradise.
After these two failed “two-state” opportunities, how can the West think that a third time will be any more successful?
Einstein would have said that expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
The palestinian Arabs, have had (at least) two attempts at living in peace with Israel and both times they have chosen war. When will the West see the pattern that is emerging?
