One State: A Challenge to American Foreign Policy in the Middle East

*

Adam L. Silverman

COL Lang covered Prime Minister Netanyahu's Monday announcement that if he was reelected there would not be a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. What I found interesting in the NY Times and other news media coverage was that everyone seemed to be surprised by PM Netanyahu's announcement. Several reports even compared this to his 2009 announcement of support for a two state solution. What is surprising is that this is surprising. Netanyahu stated that there would not be a two state solution back in July 2014 - an announcement that the news media largely ignored. Moreover, Netanyahu's announcement was itself not surprising given the statements of a number of current and former members of the Israeli center-right coalition. These statements from Netanyahu's allies, as well as leaders in the other movements and parties that comprise his coalition or seek to pull it even further right, have provided candid examples of how this could be accomplished. One of the most nuanced is from PM Netanyahu’s former speechwriter Uri Elitzer, as well as Members of Knesset (MK) Tzipi Hotolevi and Rubi Rivlin. The latter is also a former Speaker of the Knesset. All three have indicated that Israel should annex the Palestinian territories and begin a long, slow, deliberate process of providing citizenship to the Palestinians. This would be accomplished after a thorough vetting process for security purposes and constitutional revision that would clarify and lock in that Israel is a Jewish state. Elitzer, Hotolevi, and Rivlin are basing their plan on a favorable interpretation of demographic trends - that Israelis, specifically Jewish Israelis, will out reproduce Israel's Arab minority and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. This may simply not be the case. What these projections ignore is that more and more Israelis are choosing to move out of Israel, especially younger Israelis. They are reclaiming their citizenship in the European countries that their grandparents and great-grandparents fled before the Holocaust and WW II or were refugees from after WW II. In a note of historic irony, the largest reclamation of citizenship in this reverse migration is German citizenship! 

 

 

The preference for a one-state solution recently put forward by elite and notable members of Israel’s center-right coalition is also echoed by some Palestinians. For instance, when asked about whether a one-state solution would make sense for Palestinians, Saeb Erakat, one of the leading Palestinian negotiators, stated: “Talks of an Israeli ID don’t scare me… Give me Israeli citizenship and we’ll see what happens.” Erakat’s attitude is partially rooted in the belief that the demographic trends favor the Palestinians over the Israelis and that, as a result, the Palestinians will ultimately be able to out vote the Jewish Israelis. Erekat's position is also echoed by about 10% of the Palestinian population as reported in a recent Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy (WINEP) survey. It is important to note that only 27% of the Palestinian population indicated support for ending the Occupation in order to establish a two-state resolution to the dispute and 60% indicated support for reclaiming all of historic Palestine for the Palestinians. The WINEP results are reinforced by other recent surveys, which indicate that neither Israelis nor Palestinians believes in a two-state solution.

Netanyahu's recent candor presents the US with a policy challenge. Currently the US policy towards the Israelis and the Palestinians is to work with them to achieve a two state solution. Given that the Israeli right has now repudiated this approach as unacceptable, the US must develop a new strategy should Likud and its right of center coalition retain power and form a new government. The US will need to leverage its power - specifically its economic, diplomatic, and information power - in order to ensure that the Palestinians are properly integrated into the life of the Israeli state and society should Israel move towards a single state solution. This will require President Obama and future US presidents to take a page out of the play books of Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush in how to deal with Israel. Basically, part of US policy much shift to a much more skeptical, and in some cases adversarial relationship to ensure that a single state solution does not devolve into the creation of a Levantine version of South African apartheid or the Jim Crow South era in the US. PM Netanyahu's complaints on election day of "Arab voters streaming into the polls" because "left wing non-profit organizations are bringing them in buses" is all too reminiscent of segregationist complaints levied against African-American voters and the American Civil Rights groups working to turn out the vote in the 1960s. Unfortunately, we have also seen it echoed in recent American elections too. Netanyahu's complaint is, essentially, an argument being made by those who's ideas on how to govern are not popular with a majority of voters, unless the electorate can be limited to the right kinds of people, specifically those that would vote for his party and coalition.

Should the Israeli center-right coalition be victorious and form a new government, the US will need to be prepared to leverage when and how we dole out economic aid in order to ensure that Palestinians are properly integrated, including being able to serve in the Israeli military. The mandatory service brings with it a host of benefits, such as funds for education, housing, etc. While these have been cut back under Likud rule, a significant contribution to Netanyahu's unpopularity, national service is still a gateway to a whole host of government services.** Should Palestinian Authority workers and the members of the Palestinian Security Assistance Forces be unable to find similar work in a potential unitary state, and should the Israeli economy continue to be rigged against the Palestinians, they will be locked out of the life of the state, as well as the ability to serve it/participate in it fully. We already have a Levantine example of what occurs when specific demographic blocs are prohibited from fully participating in the life of their state: Iraq post 2003. We most certainly do not need a second one.

Given the recent statements by Israeli leadership that a two-state solution is out of the question, it would be in the US’s interests to consider how, if these statements do in fact become official Israeli policy, to effectively implement a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. A failure to grapple with this potentially new complication will misalign America’s policy with the reality of what is actually acceptable to the Israelis, let alone the Palestinians. Such a failure would result in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute remaining the wickedest and most intractable of problems, which further complicates every other US policy objective in the Levant and the Middle East. 

* Map of Israeli Settlements as of 2013 was found at Vox.

** I highly recommend Professor Krugman's column on the impact of Israeli inequality on Israeli life, as well as how Israel's economy has come to function under Likud/right of center government. Krugman presents evidence that Israel's economy has been captured by twenty families, who control about 50% of the Israeli economy. Essentially, Israel is now a kleptocracy. This is a huge shift from a country that was founded on the ideals of social-democracy and that was governed by the Labour Party for almost the first two-thirds of its existence. You can also see a warning for the US in what Kruger is describing in Israel. And before anyone starts screaming socialism, please remember that the US ranks below Denmark on The Heritage Foundation's economic freedom index. Denmark is a social democracy. This should make one ask: if a social democracy is more economically free than the US, why exactly are we pursuing laissez faire capitalism?

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

As always many thanks Adam!

[William R. Cumming]

My understanding is that it took almost 300 years for Christians to accept the point of view that Christ was not a Jew! Could be wrong as always.

[William R. Cumming]

Respectfully disagree.

[William R. Cumming]

I fully agree that the US willingly and deliberately targeted civilians in WWII. Not all was so-called collateral damage.

Few histories of WWII discuss this topic in detail.

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks Babak!

[William R. Cumming]

WOW! The Tang Dynasty?

[William R. Cumming]

So why did Bibi try and back off the ONE STATE campaign promise--meaning opposed to two states? My take is that a fundamental shift in US policy about to take place and Bibi and the Republicans know it. The first real evidence will be as often in US politics--the position of announced and unannounced Presidential candidates as to what the US should do to protect Israel from its own follies. And remember Kerry will be running for President in 2016.

Could be wrong as always.

[Jack]

Mr. Silverman

I'm no economist so can't speak to the value of Say's Law or Keynes vs Friedman. I just have an interest in financial history. Having said that I don't know on what basis you believe that total government spending "is at the lowest levels since the 1950s". According to www.usgovernmentspending.com, in 2008, total government spending (federal,state & local) was around $5.3 trillion. Since 2009 it has flatlined at around $6 trillion.

My central point was that government has grown continuously larger in the past century despite all the rhetoric of small government. As a percentage of GDP, total government spending has been:

1900: 8%
1910: 8%
1920: 13%
1930: 13%
1940: 20%
1950: 23%
1960: 28%
1970: 30%
1980: 33%
1990: 35%
2000: 31%
2010: 40%

I agree that on the surface counter-cyclical spending sounds appealing during periods of economic contraction, the question is how effective can it be when government spending by growing debt is both counter and pro-cyclical. Meaning government spending is not cut back during non-contractionary periods. A counter-intuitive historical example is the Depression of 1920/21. The policy response was to cut government spending and reduce the tax burden on the private sector. The recovery was swift relative to the Depression of the 30s were the policy response was the opposite.

The core of what I wanted to convey is that while we have the rhetoric of free markets and unfettered capitalism the reality is that the size of our government should be the envy of any statist & socialist.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I believe that the Makkinejad Thesis is a very deep insight into the Muslim Civilization that you will not find anywhere else - in any book or any lecture by any professional historian or commentator.

I have shared it with you and other s on this forum and you wonder if I am real.

It is just too funny.

Why do you care about Mr. Ahmadinejad?

If you are talking about Shoah - then it is my opinion that you guys have lost Muslims on Shoah. You think he is a lone deranged man?

Do you think there ever will be a Muslim country with Freedom of Expression and Religion as it is understood among the NATO states - excepting Turkey?

If you say "yes" - then I think you have not grasped the Muslim culture and civilization.

Fly to Tehran and spend a year or two learning Persian and then may be you can make a useful comment.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I think the case of fire bombing of Dresden was by the British.

In regards to Leeden, so he also has to go back to the scriptures - like so many Muslims that do so to be able to draw a conclusion. He is surely a benighted soul.

That is funny - referring to Moses - the most frequently mentioned Prophet in the Quran.

But I do agree that something fishy was going on in Germany - I recall discussing it with my German friend - some Jews who had survived in Berlin to the end of the war - including a famous woman painter (if I am not mistaken).

You are absolutely right about that no one wanted Jews - not US, not Canada and not anyone else.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Yes, when the Yangs - thanks to Yang Guifei - were influential.

So today, in Mexico - a female with influence has a tiff and more than 40 young people are executed:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-29963387

[Babak Makkinejad]

IKE is the one whose administration planted the seed that led to the Islamic Revolution in Iran and what followed.

[Babak Makkinejad]

We shall see, shan't we?

[confusedponderer]

My apologies, I mixed up Hans and Henry Morgenthau. I meant Henry the treasury man, whereas Hans was the realist. Thanks for pointing out.

You wrote: "Quoting Douhet explains the tactic, but it scarcely justifies it. Didn't MacNamara say, "It would have been a war crime if we had not been the victors."

True and McNamara is right. But this is about trying to explain, not justification. It is about intent:

IMO the bombing of cities was conducted out of a belief in the efficacy of air power. That then makes a difference as far as motives are concerned.

It is one thing to say 'They burned down Hamburg in the absurd belief that destruction on such a scale would break the German morale and have Germany topple Hitler and sue for peace'.

The Israelis still believe such nonsense and have inflict a Douhet strategy on Gaza and Lebanon. They don't burn down cities but destroy the civilian infrastructure with is amply lethal for civilians in its own right.

It is another thing to continue bombing city after city after city even when the original premise has been shown by events to be false (Germany kept fighting, it's industrial arms output in part increased).

For those invested in the strategy - then came the nukes, saving the theory and proving Douhet right. Did Hiroshima and Nagasaki not end WW-II?

Still, it is yet another thing to come up with something something like Churchill's plan to drop Anthrax bombs on German cities and make Northern Germany uninhabitable for a couple generations.

http://articles.latimes.com/1987-01-07/news/mn-2514_1_bombs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruinard_Island

One has to be clear about motives. The first two are criminal and mass murder of civilians, the last would have been frankly genocidal.

[confusedponderer]

Yes, Douhet, G H W Bush, Ledeen all have their own ideas, lack of ideas, delusions and motives.

[confusedponderer]

Re: conceit

Ledeen has pefectly bescribed, probably unwittingly, what the unitary executive was about:

"We tear down the old order every day ...[, for instance] ... law."

The Cheneyites after 9/11, in pursuit of maximum freedom of action, began thinking along the lines of Carl Schmitt:

"For Schmitt, every government capable of decisive action must include a dictatorial element within its constitution. Although the German concept of Ausnahmezustand is best translated as "state of emergency", it literally means state of exception which, according to Schmitt, frees the executive from any legal restraints to its power that would normally apply. The use of the term "exceptional" has to be underlined here: Schmitt defines sovereignty as the power to decide the instauration of state of exception, as Giorgio Agamben has noted. According to Agamben,[20] Schmitt's conceptualization of the "state of exception" as belonging to the core-concept of sovereignty ... Through the state of exception, Schmitt included all types of violence under right, in the case of the authority of Hitler leading to the formulation "The leader defends the law" ("Der Führer schützt das Recht").[16]

Schmitt opposed what he called "commissarial dictatorship", or the declaration of a state of emergency in order to save the legal order (a temporary suspension of law, defined itself by moral or legal right): the state of emergency is limited (even if a posteriori, by law) to "sovereign dictatorship", in which law was suspended, as in the classical state of exception, not to "save the Constitution", but rather to create another Constitution. This is how he theorized Hitler's continual suspension of the legal constitutional order during the Third Reich (the Weimar Republic's Constitution was never abrogated, underlined Giorgio Agamben;[21] rather, it was "suspended" for four years, first with the 28 February 1933 Reichstag Fire Decree, with the suspension renewed every four years, implying a continual state of emergency).

The direction all this leads, and the reason why Schmitt has been taken so seriously by political theory, is to the theorisation of the crisis and state of emergency not as exceptional moments in political life, opposed to some stable normality, but as themselves the predominant form of the life of modern nations."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schmitt#On_Dictatorship

Just for the heck of it: It it was, as Ledeen stipulates, about revolution, is then the US is a sovereign dictatorship now?

After all - when the president for all practical purposes can declare the state of emergency - is he not sovereign? Or put another way: Is not he the sovereign and not the people and their elected representatives?

[confusedponderer]

Please. That's two separate issues.

Iirc at least one of these French jihadis went to Yemen, a couple years back. They were radicalised in French jails. There's a series of excellent and detailed posts by Patrick Bhazad on SST, which you should read.

Frankly, it IMO is ludicrous to suggest Israeli involvement only because the Neanyahoo invited himself to Paris to call for for all French Jews to make aliyah and has in hindsight benefitted from the events. That is simply his usual opportunism and being aprick in general.

That Israel has been treated Al Nusrae wounded in Syria today, and has given them fire support, has no bearing on that whatsoever. That's just run of the mill Israeli opportunistic pettiness.

[William R. Cumming]

YUP! Suggest you review the movie GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT!

[William R. Cumming]

P.L. and ALL: What are the arguments for and against US strategic support of Israel and are they well documented anywhere but in myth and past history?

And like the English kings who failed to move its ruling class to N. America in the 1700's [high on the list of strategic planning failures in history IMO] high on the list of failures of Jewish leadership and the Zionists was the notion that the Western Hemisphere [largely unknown before 1492] was the best home for the CHOSEN PEOPLE!

Like the sign in Nevil Schute's ON THE BEACH there is "still time brother" but not forever.

[rjj]

"Kerry will be running for President in 2016."

a Kerry-Graham contest does have a kind of morbidly parodic appeal.

[rjj]

But Babak, concubine Yang ended up dead on the Road to Shu and Xuanzong deposed. Seems like generic court intrigue -- except for the nasty An Lushan business which did go on and on.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Is there a "state" in Mexico?

Or like the T'ang Dynasty - there is a corpse waiting for its "An Lushan" moment?

And if Mexico implodes, what would US do?

[Croesus]

Niall Ferguson’s ‘creative destruction’ echoes Rice’s ‘birth-pangs’ -

http://tinyurl.com/mmgz2u8

"War is an evil. But sometimes a preventive war can be a lesser evil than a policy of appeasement. The people who don’t yet know that are the ones still in denial about what a nuclear-armed Iran would end up costing us all.

It feels like the eve of some creative destruction."

---

The intellectual hubris of these pseudo-intellectuals.

They rely on my man Machiavelli to give them permission to do evil -- "the end justifies the means."

The simple-minded see through this: Not if the end is in itself evil.

---

Remember what happened on Oct. 23, 2008?
USAians should make that a national holiday, a sort of, Look in the Mirror, check your assumptions Day.
That was the day Alan Greenspan grudgingly conceded that "there was a flaw in the theory" that he was running US economy on, and that came this close to destroying the system.

[rjj]

Do? Sue the bastards for An Lushan® patent infringement.

Flippancy = avoidance.