Two-state brushoff
Netanyahu gives U.S. peace efforts a stiff arm
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has again tried to put an American administration, this time that of President Donald Trump, behind the eight-ball on the sensitive Palestinian issue.
Sharply on the heels of the visit to the region by Mr. Trump’s Middle East emissary and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, against a background of the Trump administration’s not yet having signed on to the long-standing United States position of favoring a two-state, Israel and Palestine, resolution of the now 69-year-old problem of who gets what land in the former Palestine, Mr. Netanyahu, in a speech to Israeli settlers in the West Bank, pledged, “We are here to stay, forever.”
Israeli military forces have occupied the West Bank illegally since 1967. There are now an estimated 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, among 2.7 million Palestinians. It is beyond discussion that there can be no Palestinian state while Israeli settlers continue to pour into the West Bank, given that the West Bank would constitute the bulk of a Palestinian state.
The general impression is that Mr. Netanyahu made the “forever” statement to the settlers in an attempt to build his support among them, and among right-wing, Orthodox and other Israeli elements and parties in an effort to save his job as prime minister from the rising waters of corruption charges against him.
On the other hand, what is really significant about it is that he made the commitment on the back of the visit by Mr. Kushner to Israel, thus, without stating it, implying agreement by Mr. Kushner and his fatherin-law’s administration to that position on Israel’s part, in the process putting an end to any prospects of a negotiated agreement during Mr. Trump’s presidency and, certainly, Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership of Israel.
There had been some thought that the Israeli effort to build bridges to some of the Sunni Muslim states of the region, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, drawing on their rivalry with Shiite Iran and Hezbollah, might lead to some movement on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. But it is now virtually unthinkable that even some of the conservative Sunni states would stomach permanent Israeli control and settlement presence in the West Bank.
What that means for Israel is continued pressure on its desire for a safely long-standing democratic Jewish state. Israel’s population consists of 5.9 million Jews and 1.4 million Arabs. With 2.7 million West Bank and East Jerusalem Palestinians added, that would make 5.9 million Jews and 4.1 million Arabs. Add in the 1.7 million Arabs in Gaza and the numbers are already even. The birthrates of the two groups mean that the Arabs within a few years would outnumber the Jews in the whole territory.
Thus, unless Israel wants to try to replicate the unsuccessful white South African Bantustan approach in Palestine, impossible to sell on an international basis without widespread boycotts, a democratic Jewish Israel becomes infeasible. Mr. Netanyahu may be prepared to risk that outcome to save his career, but most Israelis probably aren’t, underlining the lack of wisdom in his position and in that of Mr. Trump’s administration so far. This issue needs more work in Washington.