One-State Pollution

The New York Times is KILLING IT this week. Yesterday, it was a not-so-groundbreaking investigation into Sheldon Adelson’s plan to deliver Jews to the GOP in November. Today, it’s an op-ed by Dani Dayan, the head of the Yesha Council, about the need to embrace a one-state solution as reality. Dayan writes:

Giving up this land [the West Bank] in the name of a hallowed two-state solution would mean rewarding those who’ve historically sought to destroy Israel, a manifestly immoral outcome.



Of course, just because a policy is morally justified doesn’t mean it’s wise. However, our four-decade-long settlement endeavor is both. The insertion of an independent Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan would be a recipe for disaster.

Dayan rejects a Palestinian state by explaining that Islamic extremism that will take root in the West Bank if a Palestinian state emerges leaving to recapture the land all over again. He then cites the (inflated) estimated settler population of 350,000, including 160,000 outside the settlement blocs as reasons to put to rest the concept of the two-state solution. He even asks the international community for help! After all:

Today, security — the ultimate precondition for everything — prevails. Neither Jews nor Palestinians are threatened by en masse eviction; the economies are thriving; a new Palestinian city, Rawabi, is being built north of Ramallah; Jewish communities are growing; checkpoints are being removed; and tourists of all nationalities are again visiting Bethlehem and Shiloh.

Sure, for two lines he sighs about checkpoints and the squalor in the 64-year-old Palestinian refugee camps, but otherwise, things are great! Everyone is comfortable with this situation! The settlements “are part of the solution.”

The subtext here is that Israel, with Dayan’s plan in mind, will eventually cease to be a democracy. If Israel absorbs a Palestinian population, instead of just occupying it, Israel will have to give them rights as citizens. That means a vote. Because if Israel doesn’t grant the Palestinians rights, the international community–whose support Dayan so insanely courts– will rally together and make Israel a real pariah, a fate that not even the United States will be able to save it from, especially once American Jews have abandoned Israel (which they obviously would).

But Dayan is not concerned by this. His ideas are not only anti-Zionist and anarchic, they’re also beyond the borders of reality.

Israel’s Settlers Are Here to Stay [NYT]