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December 29, 2024
Key Developments and What We're Discussing Today:
1) It's been 450 days (more days than the 53 Americans were held hostage in Iran from 11/4/79 to 1/20/81) since October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel on Simchat Torah and murdered 1,200 people (including 44 Americans). More Jews were murdered on that day than on any day since the Holocaust. Hamas wounded 3,300 and took 251 hostage during a day of brutal savagery and sexual violence; 100 hostages, many dead, some raped and possibly pregnant, remain captive in Gaza as Hanukkah ends and we head into 2025.
2) The 100 remaining hostages include seven Americans, some possibly alive: Keith Siegal, Omer Neutra, Edan Alexander, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Itay Chen, Judi Weinstein Haggai, and Gad Haggai.
3) This Hanukkah, let us re-dedicate ourselves to the true meaning of Zionism and insist on an end to the war in Gaza, release of all the hostages, and progress toward a two-state solution, the only path toward a safe and secure Jewish, democratic state.
4) Speaking of which, today we'll put to rest the most asked questions in response to my newsletter in 2024, all variations on the "but a two-state solution is impossible" theme. Tl;dr: Wrong.
Got any Hanukkah gelt you'd like to spread around? Make my dreidel spin by supporting this newsletter via credit card or PayPal, by Venmo @Steven-Sheffey (last four phone digits are 9479), or by check. Donations are voluntary but now is the time if you ever so voluntarily want to contribute in 2024. Chag Urim Sameach!
Hi Steve,
As you might imagine, I get many replies to my newsletter. I read them all but as I explain in the fine print at the bottom of each newsletter, I don't have time to reply to all of them.
By far the most asked questions of 2024 were variations of objections to a two-state solution based on non-sequiturs that a two-state solution is not possible now or not possible with Hamas or not possible because Palestinians want all of Israel.
I get these questions when I cite the Biden-Harris's often reiterated commitment to a two-state solution. The goal, as articulated in the 2024 Democratic Platform, is "a negotiated two-state solution that ensures Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state with recognized borders and upholds the right of Palestinians to live in freedom and security in a viable state of their own."
No one is advocating for a two-state solution now or anytime soon. Nor is anyone advocating for a two-state solution that includes a state governed by Hamas. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is weak, although no rockets have been fired into Israel from the long border (much longer than the Gaza border) that Israel shares with the West Bank.
Hamas is decimated. No one knows who will replace Hamas in Gaza. Israel's current government rejects a two-state solution. Israelis remain traumatized by Hamas's terror attack on October 7 and the complicity, if not participation, in that attack and its aftermath by other Gazans, including some who worked at the kibbutzim that Hamas attacked. At the moment, neither the government of Israel nor Palestinian leadership wants or is capable of reaching a two-state solution.
Those facts do not obviate the need for a two-state solution. The alternatives to a two-state solution are one democratic state with lots of Jews but is not a Jewish state (a slim Jewish majority does not necessarily translate into a Knesset majority and would not necessarily run on Jewish time or allow for a national Jewish culture), one state that is Jewish but is not democratic, or one state ruled by Palestinians with a sizeable Jewish minority. None of the alternatives to a two-state solution would fulfill the conditions and ideals of Israel's Declaration of Independence.
But why pursue a two-state solution if Palestinian leadership has rejected it in the past? A common but misplaced argument against pursuing a two-state solution is that the Palestinians are at fault; therefore, the ball is in their court, not Israel’s, to pave the way for a two-state solution.
Putting aside Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s declaration that Israel “needs to crush [the Palestinian] ambition” for an independent state, even if you can prove that history shows that Israel was always right and the Palestinians were always wrong, even if you can prove that settlements are legal and Israel is not an occupying power, even if you can prove that time and time again Israel offered peace on generous terms only to be rebuffed by the Palestinians, what are you proving? That Israel is entitled to keep the West Bank forever? That the Palestinians had their chance, blew it, and now Israel can write off Palestinian demands, continue to build settlements, and create a one-state reality?
As Danny Seidemann, an Israeli who has advised several Israeli and American governments about Jerusalem once told me, it is regrettable that when opponents of a two-state solution say "mine is longer than yours," they mean history.
No matter how we got to where we are, no matter when the Palestinians became a people, and no matter whose fault it is, the Jewish and Arab populations between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River are roughly equal. No one is leaving voluntarily. Israel can only be Jewish and democratic if the vast majority of its citizens are Jewish.
Palestinians who live in the West Bank do not have the same legal rights as Jews who live in the West Bank or as Jews and Palestinians who live in pre-1967 Israel. That’s understandable in the context of a temporary military occupation caused by Jordan’s war with Israel in 1967.
But Israel cannot remain Jewish and democratic and permanently control the West Bank indefinitely; it can only have any two of the three, which means that the only way to realize the classic Zionist dream of a democratic Jewish state is to cede the West Bank.
Zionists in America and Israel must remember, as former Prime Minister Ehud Barak has written, that the ultimate aim of Zionism and Zionists was "not to secure every inch of the Land of Israel: it was to redeem, reinvigorate, and rededicate themselves to the People of Israel."
If you understand the imperative of a two-state solution, then it no longer matters whether Israel’s claim to the West Bank is superior to the Arab claim or how we got to where we are, because a two-state solution necessarily means Israel relinquishing nearly the entire West Bank.
Settlements are an obstacle to peace because they make a two-state solution more difficult. Settlements are not the root cause of the conflict, but they impede a solution.
Even if a two-state solution is not possible now because Israel has no partner for peace, many Democrats and others who support Israel oppose settlement expansion because it will eventually make a two-state solution impossible.
Republicans dropped support for a two-state solution from their platform in 2016, breaking with decades of bipartisan consensus. They didn't have a platform in 2020 (yeah, that's normal). Their 2024 platform makes no mention of a two-state solution. Republicans nixed language supporting a two-state solution in the Israel 75th birthday resolution the House passed in April 2023.
It’s painful to see Israel criticized when the Palestinians bear responsibility as well, but Israel, not the Palestinians, controls the land that must eventually become two states. Israel cannot make peace on its own but peace will never happen if Israel continues to expand settlements and make peace politically more difficult.
The burden is on Israel to find a solution not because this is Israel’s fault or because Israel has not done enough, or even more than enough relative to the Palestinians, but because Israel is the party that needs a two-state solution. Eventually, if settlement expansion continues, Palestinians will see that a two-state solution is impossible and demand legal equality within the one de facto state comprising Israel and the West Bank. What then?
What about those polls? You'll find no shortage of polls saying that Israelis or Palestinians or both don't want a two-state solution. The answer for Israel is not to destroy the possibility of a two-state solution forever by settlement expansion or annexation. The answer is to preserve the possibility and say to the world, "We're ready whenever they are ready." No one can blame Israel for retaining land the other side won't take. By giving up on a two-state solution, Israel is saying to the world, "We're giving up on democracy," which will mean an end to a U.S.-Israel relationship based on shared values.
Is this unfair? Yes. Why should Israel have to give up land to which Jews have had historic ties for thousands of years that Israel won in a defensive war? Because no matter how they got there, the Palestinians who live in the West Bank aren’t going anywhere. Neither are the Jews who live in the major settlement blocs and behind the 1967 lines. The reality is that for Israel to remain Jewish and democratic, fair or unfair, Israel has to find a way to relinquish the West Bank.
Tamar Zanberg wrote that “Some people from the right would like to tell us that speaking out against settlements is anti-Israel. I want to say loud and clear that they are 100% wrong. Speaking out against the settlements is not only pro-Israel, but it is the act of true Zionists. Zionists who wants Israel to reflect their democratic values. Zionists who want Israel to reflect their Jewish values.”
Zanberg is essentially echoing David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and so many other Zionists who realized that regardless of Jewish religious and historic ties to the land, Israel cannot be true to its basic values and control the West Bank.
Acknowledging that settlements are an obstacle to peace does not mean that we are excusing or rewarding October 7 or other Palestinian violence, intransigence, or incitement. It’s not either/or. Neither does acknowledgment that both Israel and the Palestinians must take steps toward peace imply moral equivalence. Hamas's goal was the destruction of Israel, not a two-state solution. A two-state solution means the end of Palestinian claims against Israel, which means the permanent elimination of Hamas's raison d'etre.
Stopping settlement expansion is a necessary albeit insufficient condition for a two-state solution. Since a two-state solution is an existential necessity for Israel, Israel cannot afford to wait for movement on the Palestinian side: The more settlements there are, the harder a two-state solution becomes. That’s bad for Israel.
Ask yourself honestly: Would you favor a two-state solution if it was possible at some point? If the answer is yes, ask yourself this: Do settlements increase the likelihood that Israel will achieve a two-state solution? Does settlement growth make a two-state solution down the road more politically difficult for Israel? The answer to the first question is "no. The answer to the second question is "yes."
Then how can you object to statements from the Biden-Harris administration and some Democrats based on opposition to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank? I’ll tell you how: by confusing the West Bank with Israel itself. No true supporter of Israel should ever concede that the West Bank, and settlements in the West Bank, are on the same moral or legal footing as Israel itself. That's the mistake we make when we mischaracterize boycotts of goods made in the West Bank as boycotts of Israel. The West Bank is not Israel. If we concede that it is, then Israel is practicing apartheid.
Doesn’t Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and the thousands of rockets fired into Israel from Gaza that preceded October 7, let alone October 7 itself, prove that a two-state solution will not work? Secretary of State John Kerry anticipated this concern on June 3, 2013: “Some are wary because of Israel’s experience following the withdrawal of Gaza and Lebanon. You have no idea how many times I hear people say, ‘We withdrew from Lebanon, we withdrew from Gaza, and what did we get? We got rockets.’ Well, folks, it’s worth remembering these withdrawals were unilateral. They were not part of a negotiated peace treaty that included strong guarantees for Israel’s security, and they certainly weren’t part of a peace agreement that agrees to be a demilitarized state or entity.
“We know that peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, on the other hand, which were bilateral, yielded a much better result for Israel…We know that any peace agreement with the Palestinians will need to include extensive, mutually agreed security arrangements in order to ensure a Palestinian state that does not become the launching site for future attacks against Israel.”
Former Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak agrees. Barak served as Israel's Prime Minister and Defense Minister. He is among the most decorated soldiers in Israel's history and served as armed forces chief of staff. He might even know more about Zionism and Israel's security needs than Mike Huckabee.
In his memoir, My Country, My Life: Fighting for Israel Searching for Peace, Barak writes that when asked in 1998 how his life might have turned out if he had been born a Palestinian, he replied "At some stage, I would have entered into one of the terror organizations and fought from there."
Barak was clear in that interview that he abhorred terrorism. He "simply answered as honestly as I could, trying to imagine I'd been one of the Palestinian babies in Wadi Khaweret, yet with the same mind and approach to life that had defined me as an Israeli."
That's called empathy, and that explains why there is no contradiction between sympathizing with the plight of the Palestinians while still supporting Israel's safety and security.
Barak discusses Moshe Dayan's famous 1956 eulogy for Roi Rotberg, who was murdered by Arab terrorists. Dayan said that "For eight years, [the Palestinians] have been sitting in the refugee camps of Gaza, while before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and villages where their fathers dwelt." Sounds like something you'd expect a naive lefty to say, except this is Moshe Dayan speaking in 1956. Pro-Israel does not have to mean anti-Palestinian.
Zionism means rejecting galut mentality. "Galut" is the Hebrew word for diaspora (exile). Barak writes that the refusal of Netanyahu's government to take risks to disentangle Israel from Palestinians on the West Bank is "living proof of the old saying that it's easier to take Jews out of the galut, than take the galut out of the Jews." Barak explains that "the whole Zionist project was based on the idea of taking our fate into our own hands, and actively trying to change the reality around us."
Barak writes that "I was especially upset by Bibi's increasing use of Holocaust imagery in describing the threat from Iran. 'Just think of what you're saying,' I told him. 'You're prime minister of the State of Israel, not a rabbi in a shtetl, or a speaker trying to raise funds for Israel abroad. Think of the implications. We're not in Europe in 1937. Or 1947. If it is a 'Holocaust,' what's our response: to fold up and go back to the diaspora? If Iran gets a bomb, it will be bad. Very bad. But we'll still be here. And we will find a way of dealing with the new reality." Netanyahu and right-wing Jewish organizations have been using similar Holocaust demagoguery following October 7.
Barak wrote that Hizbollah, Hamas, ISIS, and Iran, "are real yet surmountable challenges." Recent events have proven him right. Rather, Barak writes, "The main threat comes from inside: from the most right-wing, deliberately divisive, narrow-minded, and messianic government we have seen in our seven-decade history. It has sought to redefine Zionism as being about one thing only: ensuring eternal control over the whole of biblical Judea and Samaria, or as the outside world knows it, the West Bank, even if doing so leaves us significantly less secure." Those words were written in 2018, before Smotrich and Ben-Gvir joined the government.
Barak explains that as long as the occupation is an interim arrangement with the ultimate goal of a political resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians, treating Jewish settlers differently from Palestinians in the West Bank, legally and politically, is defensible. "But under a one-state vision, it will become harder and harder to rebut comparisons made with the old South Africa."
At least two other former Israeli Prime Ministers, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ehud Olmert, have also used the word “apartheid” to describe where Israel was headed if it did not find a way to exit most of the West Bank and achieve a two-state solution.
Two former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa (who could be more qualified to talk about whether Israel is engaged in apartheid than Israeli diplomats who served in South Africa?) wrote in 2021 that Israel's actions in the occupied territories constitute apartheid in part because they believe that "the occupation is not temporary, and there is not the political will in the Israeli government to bring about its end."
The way to prove them and others who accuse Israel of apartheid wrong is by proving that the occupation is intended by Israel to be temporary. A two-state solution is not required right now for Israel to prove it sincerely wants to cede the West Bank when the time is right. No one can fault Israel for hanging on to land it cannot safely give back. No one should expect Israel to grant non-citizens living in temporarily occupied territory the same rights Israel gives to its citizens.
But if Israel expands settlements, annexes parts of the West Bank (either of which would leave the Palestinians without enough land for a viable state), or condones settler violence against Palestinians, the inescapable conclusion will be that Israel has no intention of ceding the West Bank. If the West Bank is part of Israel then charges of apartheid are impossible to defend against, and those two former Israeli ambassadors are right.
Unlike some in the U.S., Ehud Barak has faith in the Israel Defense Forces. He is firmly convinced that Israel can cede the West Bank without putting Israel's security at undue risk. The point of the Zionist project was for Jews to take their future into their own hands; to say that the IDF cannot manage a small state on its border shows an astonishing misunderstanding of the IDF’s capabilities.
Neither current Israeli nor current Palestinian leadership has the will to move forward toward a two-state solution. But Israel holds most of the cards. The absence of a Palestinian partner for peace does not justify Israeli actions that put peace further out of reach.
Neither side has to give up its narrative or accept the other side's narrative, but both sides must realize that the only path forward, a two-state solution, requires both sides to give up sovereignty over land that they believe should be theirs and both sides to accept that previous sins of the other side may never be fully redressed.
Palestinians must realize that violence will not gain them their dignity. Contrary to what some Palestinians believe, Israeli Jews do not see themselves as colonialists from somewhere else but as a people returning to their homeland. They will not leave and will fight for their state.
Contrary to what some Israelis and right-wing Jewish Americans believe, Palestinians are a people, they have a history, and they too consider this their homeland. Their will cannot be crushed and they will fight for a state.
It is still Hanukkah, but the struggle will continue long after we light the eighth candle. It is time for those of us who support Israel to rededicate ourselves to the true mission of Zionism. Just as the protesters in Israel have recaptured the Israeli flag, the vast majority of Jewish Americans must reclaim the Israeli flag from the small but vocal right-wing minority in our midst--that's a good lesson for Democrats too.
How often do you see an American flag and think Republican even though the Republican Party has made a mockery of everything America stands for? Democrats need to start waving flags too--American and Israeli.
Corrections. I'm entitled to my own opinions but not to my own facts, so I appreciate it when readers bring errors to my attention. No one pointed out any errors in last week's newsletter. I guess it was perfect.
In Case You Missed It:
1) A Quick Guide to Zionism In Hard Times, by Fania Oz-Salzberger.
2) That's right. Just one In Case You Missed It this week. This newsletter wasn't long enough already?
Social Posts of the Week. Alex Edelman and Brooks Otterlake.
Facebook Posts of the Week. Joshua Shanes (the new one and the one he is quoting).
Thread of the Week. Ron Kampeas's predictions for the next four years.
Video Clips of the Week. Knesset member Gilad Kariv's Hanukkah Message and Netanyahu's Hanukkah Message (the latter courtesy of Eretz Nehederet, Israel's version of SNL). If you're wondering after watching this video, this is who Einav Zangauker is.
New Music Clip of the Week. Paul McCartney and band singing The Monkees theme.
Vintage Music Clip of the Week. The Monkees theme.
For those new to this newsletter. This is the newsletter even Republicans have to read and the original home of the viral and beloved Top Ten Signs You're At a Republican Seder (yes, I wrote it). If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, why not subscribe and get it in your inbox every Sunday? Just click here--it's free.
I periodically update my posts on why Democrats are better than Republicans on Israel and antisemitism and on the IHRA definition of antisemitism. My definition of "pro-Israel" is here (it's a work in progress, as am I).
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