Britannia Radio

We are happy to see that the topic of the application of Israeli
Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria is catching on in the national
camp.

The debate is no more about "what should be done" but rather: "how
should Sovereignty be applied"?

A fascinating debate is taking place about this, especially as to the
question of what to do with the Arabs after Israel applies sovereignty
over Judea and Samaria. At our Sovereignty Conference this past
January we held a special panel debating this very question with four
speakers who all call for the application of Sovereignty but represent
four different views as to what to do with the Arabs after Sovereignty
is applied, ranging from giving citizenship to the Arabs (Caroline
Glick), to giving them autonomy (Adv Elyakim Haetzni), to voting
rights in Jordan (Prof. Arieh Eldad) to the solution of
compensation-evacuation (Dr. Martin Sherman).

In the Hebrew Makor Rishon newspaper a similar debate is taking place
after editor Uri Elitzur made waves two weeks ago when he called for
the application of sovereignty and the giving of full citizenship to
the Arabs. Ben Dror Yemini and others disagreed with him and wrote
articles answering him.

A few days ago we presented to you Zahava Englard's article talking
about the need to apply sovereignty and as a result give the Arabs
citizenship. Today we present you with Dr Martin Sherman's article.
Martin Sherman also calls for the application of sovereignty but
opposes the idea of giving citizenship to the Arabs.

We will continue to spread different articles discussing the different
aspects of the one and only sane plan for Israel: the application of
Israeli Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.

Link to all lectures at our January conference:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NashimBeYarok/videos?view=0

Shavua tov,

Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar

--------------------------------

Into the Fray: Brain dead on the Right?
By MARTIN SHERMAN, The Jerusalem Post
June 28, 2013
The only thing more dangerous, delusional and disastrous than the
Left's proposal for a two-state solution, is the proposal now bandied
about by the Right - for a one-state solution

The nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things... constitute
this soul or spiritual principle. One is the possession in common of a
rich legacy of memories; the other is present-day consent, the desire
to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage
that one has received. ­ Ernest Renan, What is a Nation?

A portion of mankind... united among themselves by common sympathies
which do not exist between them and any others ­ which make them
cooperate with each other more willingly than with other people,
desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be
government by themselves or a portion of themselves exclusively. ­
John Stuart Mill, On Representative Government

Yes, I know I have cited these excerpts before. Last March to be exact
see “The New York Times versus the Jews” and “Israel’s imperative:
Jewish and democratic.” The difference is that then, I harnessed them
to debunk far-left anti-Zionist calls for a one-state approach to the
Israel- Palestinian conflict. Now it appears I have to invoke them to
debunk rightwing proposals, which call for almost exactly the same
thing.

End of times?

I realize this article will win me few new friends ­ and will in all
likelihood lose me a fair number of old ones. However, the issues are
so fateful and the ideas being bandied about to contend with them so
lethally ludicrous, that the constraints of courtesy must be shed.

This is not a time for pussyfooting around the points of dispute. For
some the proposals being raised by people I hold in high regard are so
potentially disastrous, they must be removed forthwith from the
agenda, before they have a chance to wreak the massive damage they are
capable of.

One might be excused for believing we have arrived at the “End of
times” when we see such far-reaching meeting of minds between rabid
anti-Zionists on the radical Left and the fervent pro-Zionists on the
hawkish Right.

When Omar Barghouti, who spearheads the anti-Israel boycotts,
divestment and sanctions drive, and Tzipi Hotovely, one of the leading
hardliners in the Likud, largely agree on the principle of one-state
between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, and differ only on the
particulars of the characteristics that state should have, who can be
blamed for believing the we have arrived at the era when “the wolf
lives with the lamb, the leopard lies down with the goat.”

Accelerating absurdity

But this absurd situation is emerging before our very eyes ­ at an
accelerated pace in recent weeks ­ when stalwart Zionists such as
Hotovely, Yoram Ettinger, Caroline Glick and Uri Elitzur began to
embrace a one-state future and the granting of citizenship to the
Palestinian Arabs in Judea-Samaria.

So while I might have chosen a less abrasive title for the column, I
really need to catch reader attention, even if this means incurring
the ire of some of my (genuinely) esteemed colleagues.

Given the growing realization that the two-state approach has proved
unfeasible in practice, and unacceptable in principle, the underlying
rationale behind the growing acceptance of ­ or rather, resignation to
Palestinian inclusive “onestatism” appears to be rooted in three
factors: (a) A dawning awareness that the status quo cannot be
maintained indefinitely and some move toward a permanent resolution of
the situation in Judea-Samaria is needed. Thus, Hotovely in an
interview this week: “It makes no sense to leave this in the air for
45 years. [This] sends a message that we have no connection to these
places.”

(b) A sense that the threat of international sanctions, particularly
by the EU, is looming ever larger ­ first against the Jewish
communities in Judea-Samaria and later against the rest of Israel.
Thus, Hotovely warned that if there is no sign that the status quo
will be changed, “we will pay the price through pressure and
boycotts.”

(c) Adopting the optimistic demographic assessments spearheaded by the
indefatigable Yoram Ettinger and based on studies by the
American-Israel Demographic Research Group and Dr. Yakov Faitelson,
which indicate that changes in prevailing trends ensure a Jewish
majority between the Jordan and the Mediterranean for the foreseeable
future.

Not merely demographic arithmetic

But even if one concedes the essential validity of these points, it
does little to make the conclusions now being drawn by leading
opponents of the two-state solution (TSS) to embrace a
Palestinianinclusive one-state solution (PIOSS) any less catastrophic.
For the problem is not merely one of “demographic arithmetic.”

One-staters ­ both on the Right and the Left ­ seem to miss the point
when it comes to the essence of nationhood. A nation is more than a
random amalgam of individuals, bound by no more than the accident of
their current geographical location. As the opening excerpts from the
works of leading liberal philosophers regarding the nature of nations,
nationality and nationalism indicate, the most essential element of
nationhood is a sense of fellow-feeling.

This is particularly true if one wishes to maintain democratic
governance and free institutions. As John Stuart Mill cautions,
without such fellow-feeling, “Free institutions are next to
impossible... [and] the united public opinion, necessary to the
working of representative government, cannot exist.”

Mill identifies the strongest components of this indispensable
fellow-feeling as an “identity of political antecedents; the
possession of a national history, and consequent community of
recollections; collective pride and humiliation, pleasure and regret,
connected with the same incidents in the past.”

Intolerable socioeconomic burden

Now take one given “incident in the past” ­ say the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

For Jewish Israelis this is a source of “pride” and “pleasure”; for
the Arabs “humiliation” and “regret.”

Note this is not a marginal incident but a seminal event in the
collective memory of the two groups. It is but one example of the
dichotomous divide in antithetical attitudes that Jews and Arabs have
in relation to a host of socio-cultural issues in the past and the
present.

In light of such stark ethno-nationalist discordance, can anyone
seriously propose a stable, functioning state, unless one group has
overwhelming numerical dominance of the other? As the relative sizes
of the discordant groups converge ­ even if the dominant one maintains
its (dwindling) majority ­ the internal situation will become
increasingly unmanageable, especially if there are large disparities
in their socioeconomic conditions.

Once the Arab population of Judea- Samaria ­ or even a sizable portion
thereof ­ is incorporated into Israel, massive resources will be
required to address yawning gaps between the societies on either side
of the 1967 Green Line in virtually every walk of life ­ in the status
of women, law enforcement, welfare services, road safety, education
and school curricula.

Economically, joining the two populations in common citizenship would
catapult Israel backwards from the status of a developed nation to a
“developing” one, jeopardizing its membership in the OECD, and,
insensitive souls might claim, moving it from a post-modern society to
a pre-modern one ­ with all the attendant repercussions for Jewish
emigration (yerida).

So even if the most optimistic demographic prognoses are correct,
providing the Arabs of Judea and Samaria with full citizenship would
place an intolerable socioeconomic and cultural burden on the country
which would make things untenable ­ even if a formal Jewish majority
could be maintained.

Sobering statistics

Let me be clear. I commend Ettinger, Faitelson and their colleagues
for their work, in persuasively showing that the demographic problem
is less daunting and immediate than mainstream pundits would have us
believe. However, their efforts, admirable as they are, do not imply
that the demographic threat no longer exists, merely that there is
time to deal with it in a measured manner.

Their findings do not make a PIOSS a viable political configuration
that can sustain Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people for
more than a few decades, at the outside.

Indeed, there are other figures that paint a far more ominous picture.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel’s Muslim
population has almost doubled, as the proportion of the population,
since independence ­ from just over 9 percent in 1949 to over 17% in
2011. The ratio of Jews to Muslims plunged from over 9 Jews to every
Muslim to less than 4.5.

It should be recalled that this dismal decline was recorded despite
the massive influx of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, without
which the country’s demographic position would be perilous indeed.

Now if we were, as per the PIOSS advocates, to enfranchise the Arab
population of Judea-Samaria, the percentage of Muslims in the overall
population would climb to 30%-40%, depending on whose figures one
cares to adopt. The ratio of Jews to Muslims would plummet to just
over 2 or less.

Clearly the creation of such a large enfranchised minority ­
particularly if it is inherently adversarial to the majority ­ creates
a whole new ball game, both domestically and abroad.

No hope for ‘Hatikva’?

The implications of these trends ­ even at a greatly decelerated pace
are as clear as they are calamitous for the future of the Jewish
nation-state.

As long as the Jews comprise an overwhelming majority there is valid
rationale for the existence of an entire range of elements that
characterize the conduct of national and public life in the country,
such as the Star of David on the flag; the menorah as the state
emblem; the words of the national anthem that refer to the “yearning
of the Jewish soul”; and the status of Hebrew as the dominant vehicle
of communication among the citizens.

The same is true for “Judeo-centric” legislation such as the Law of
Return granting any Jew immediate citizenship on immigrating to
Israel.

However, as the non-Jewish proportion of the population rises, the
justification for this is undermined. Indeed, it would be naïve to
believe that this situation could be sustained. When non-Jewish
minorities approach 30% and more, the logic for replacing “Hatikva” as
the national anthem, in favor of a more inclusive composition, more
representative of sentiments of other segments of the population,
becomes difficult to resist.

A recent study published by the University of Haifa leaves little room
for optimism. It found that a majority of Israeli Arabs would feel
justified in launching an intifada as a means to improve their
situation. Fewer than half felt that Israel has a right to exist as a
Jewish, democratic state, down from 65% in 2003. Almost half thought a
Palestinian state would someday replace Israel, (up from 19% in 2003).
Some 82% blame Jews for the “Nakba,” or national Palestinian
catastrophe in the wake of the 1948 war.

Now imagine how these findings would be impacted by more than doubling
the enfranchised Arab population in the land. Indeed, Hotovely might
well want to reconsider her statement that offering citizenship to
Palestinian Authority Arabs would be “a small price to pay for ending
the status quo which brings international criticism of Israel.”

The hard, cold truth

Sadly, even if their estimates are 100% correct, PIOSS advocates are
“whistling the dark.” I have merely scratched the surface in
cataloging the drawbacks of their perilous prescription. Indeed, the
only thing more dangerous, delusional and disastrous than the Left’s
TSS proposals, are the ones now being now bandied about by the Right.

The hard, cold truth is: To survive as the nation-state of the Jews,
Israel must adequately address two imperatives: geographic and
demographic.

While old school two-staters are willing to imperil Israel
geographically to address the demographic imperative, budding
one-staters are prepared to jeopardize it demographically to address
the geographic imperative.

The only paradigm that addresses these imperatives simultaneously is
one that entails a reduction of Arab presence west of the Jordan. The
most plausible ­ arguably, the only ­ noncoercive manner to achieve
this is by inducing economically incentivized emigration ­ as I have
argued in numerous columns.

If Israel cannot produce leadership that understands this, and has the
capacity to implement it, the days of the Zionist enterprise are
numbered, and there is no hope of sustaining Israel as the nationstate
of Jewish people beyond a few decades.

Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.net) is the founder and executive
director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
(www.strategic-israel.org)

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Into-the-Fray-Brain-dead-on-the-Right-318026

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