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Jewish World Review Feb. 3, 2009 / 9 Shevat 5769 Time for a three-state-solution? By Caroline B. Glick
This reassessment has also provoked a discussion of the PLO-Fatah's own
failures since it formed the Palestinian Authority in 1994. Despite the
billions of dollars it received from Israel and the West, its Western
trained armed forces numbering more than 75,000 and the bottomless reserve
of international political support it enjoys, the PLO-Fatah regime did not
build a state, but a kleptocratic thugocracy where the rule of law was
replaced by the rule of the jackboot. Instead of teaching its people to
embrace peace, freedom and democracy, the PLO-Fatah-led PA indoctrinated
them to wage jihad against Israel in a never-ending war.
These reassessments have led three leading conservative thinkers - former US
ambassador to the UN John Bolton, Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes,
and Efraim Inbar, director of Bar-Ilan University's Begin-Sadat (BESA)
Center for Strategic Studies - to all publish articles over the past month
rejecting the two-state solution.
Bolton, Pipes and Inbar not only agree that the two-state paradigm has
failed, they also agree on what must be done now to "solve" the Palestinian
conflict. In their view the failed "two-state solution" should be replaced
with what Bolton refers to as the "three-state solution." All three analysts
begin their analyses with the assertion that Israel is uninterested in
controlling Gaza, Judea and Samaria. Since the Palestinians have shown they
cannot be trusted with sovereignty, the three argue that the best thing to
do is to return the situation to what it was from 1949 to 1967: Egypt should
reassert its control over Gaza and Jordan should reassert its control over
Judea and Samaria.
Bolton, Pipes and Inbar acknowledge that Egypt and Jordan have both rejected
the idea but argue that they should be pressured to reconsider. They explain
that Egypt fears that Hamas - a sister organization of its own Muslim
Brotherhood - will destabilize it. Jordan for its part has two reasons for
refusing their plan. The Hashemite kingdom is a minority regime. A large
majority of Jordanians are ethnic Palestinians. Adding another 1.2 million
from Judea and Samaria could destabilize the kingdom. Then too, both the PLO
and Hamas are themselves threats to the regime. The Hashemites still
remember how with Syrian support, the PLO in 1970 attempted to overthrow
them.
As for Hamas, its popularity has grown in Jordan in tandem with its
empowerment in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. By integrating the west and east
banks of the Jordan River, the chance that Hamas would challenge the regime
increases dramatically. If we add to the mix Syrian subversion and
sponsorship of Hamas, and al-Qaida penetration of Jordan through Iraq -
particularly in the event of a US withdrawal - the danger that merging the
west and east bank populations would manifest to the Hashemite regime
becomes apparent.
IT IS OFTEN NOTED that Hamas's popularity among Palestinians owes in part to
the corruption of the PLO-Fatah-controlled PA. It has also been noted that
due to the PLO-Fatah-controlled PA's jihadist indoctrination of Palestinian
society, the population's transfer of political loyalty from PLO-Fatah to
Hamas was ideologically seamless.
What has been little noted is the strategic significance of the nature of
Hamas's relations with the PLO-Fatah from the establishment of the PA in
1994 until Hamas ousted it from Gaza in 2007. When the PA was established in
1994, then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin argued that the PLO-Fatah shared
Israel's interest in fighting Hamas because Hamas constituted a threat to
its authority.
What Rabin failed to recognize was that Hamas's threat to PLO-Fatah was and
remains qualitatively different from the threat it poses to Israel.
PLO-Fatah never had a problem with Hamas attacks against Israel, or with its
annihilationist ideology as regards Israel. This ideology is shared by
PLO-Fatah and is widely popular among the Palestinians. Consequently not
only did the PLO-Fatah never prevent Hamas from attacking Israel, it
collaborated with Hamas in attacking Israel and did so while disseminating
Hamas's genocidal ideology throughout the PA. PLO-Fatah did crack down on
Hamas when it felt that Hamas was threatening its grip on power, but in all
other respects, it supported Hamas - and continues to do so.
THE SAME UNFORTUNATELY is the situation in both Egypt and Jordan. Hamas's
Nazi-like Jew hatred is shared by the vast majority of Jordanians and
Egyptians. Islamist calls for the extermination of the Jewish people and the
destruction of Israel dominate the mosques, seminaries, universities and
media outlets in both countries. Popular opposition to the peace treaties
that Egypt and Jordan signed with Israel stands consistently at more than 90
percent in both countries.
In spite of repeated Israeli demands for action, PLO-Fatah never ended its
support for jihadist anti-Semitism. The PLO-Fatah never believed - as Israel
hoped it would - that its best chance for remaining in power was by teaching
Palestinians to reject hatred, embrace freedom, democracy and the blessings
that peace would afford them. So too, neither the Hashemites in Jordan nor
President Hosni Mubarak's regime in Egypt have ever believed that the best
way to stabilize or strengthen their own regimes is by preaching openness
and peace and rejecting jihadist anti-Semitism. To the contrary, in recent
years, Egypt has become the center for jihadist anti-Semitism in the Arab
world and Jordan has one of the highest rates of Jew hatred in the world.
The situation on the ground in Jordan, Egypt, Gaza and Judea and Samaria
make two things clear. First, a Jordanian reassertion of control over Judea
and Samaria and an Egyptian reassertion of control over Gaza would likely
increase the chances that the moderate regimes in both countries would be
weakened and perhaps overthrown. Second, like Fatah-PLO, neither Egypt nor
Jordan would have any interest in protecting Israel from Palestinian
terrorists.
Bolton, Inbar and Pipes take for granted that Israel is uninterested in
asserting or retaining control over Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. This is
reasonable given the positions of recent governments on the issue. However,
the question is not whether Israel is interested or uninterested in
asserting control over the areas - and most Israelis are uninterested in
giving up control over Judea and Samaria in light of what happened after
Israel withdrew its forces and civilians from Gaza.
THE SALIENT QUESTION is now that it is clear that the two-state solution has
failed, what is the best option for managing the conflict? Not only would
Israel be unable to trust that its security situation would improve if the
areas were to revert to Jordanian and Egyptian control, Israel could trust
that its security situation would rapidly deteriorate as the prospect of
regional war increased. With a retrocession of Gaza, Judea and Samaria to
Egyptian and Jordanian rule, Israel would find itself situated within
indefensible borders, and facing the likely prospect that the Egyptian and
Jordanian regimes would be destabilized.
Today Israel has the ability to enter Gaza without concern that doing so
would provoke war with Egypt. It has minimized the terror threat from Judea
and Samaria by controlling the areas with the massive help of the strong
Israeli civilian presence in the areas which ensures control over the roads
and the heights. IDF forces can operate freely within the areas without
risking war with Jordan. The IDF controls the long border with Jordan and
can prevent terrorist infiltration from the east.
If the current situation is preferable to the "three-state solution" and if
the current situation itself is unsustainable, the question again arises,
what should be done? What new policy paradigm should replace the failed
two-state solution?
The best way to move forward is to reject the calls for a solution and
concentrate instead on stabilization. With rockets and mortars launched from
Gaza continuing to pummel the South despite Operation Cast Lead, and with
the international community's refusal to enforce UN Security Council
resolutions barring Iran from exporting weapons, it is clear that Gaza will
remain an Iranian-sponsored, Hamas-controlled area for as long as Hamas
retains control over the international border with Egypt.
So Israel must reassert control over the border.
It is also clear that Hamas and its terrorist partners in Fatah and Islamic
Jihad will continue to target the South for as long as they can.
So Israel needs to establish a security zone inside of Gaza wide enough to
remove the South from rocket and mortar range.
From an economic perspective, it is clear that in the long run, Gaza's only
prospect for development is an economic union of sorts with the largely
depopulated northern Sinai. For years, Egypt has rejected calls for economic
integration with Gaza. Cairo should be pressured to reassess its position as
Israel stabilizes the security situation in Gaza itself.
AS FOR JUDEA and Samaria, Israel should continue its military control over
the areas in order to ensure its national security. It should also apply its
law to the areas of Judea and Samaria that are within the domestic
consensus. These areas include the Etzion, Adumim, Adam, Ofra and Ariel
settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley.
Israel should end its support for the PLO-Fatah-led PA, and support the
empowerment of non-jihadist elements of Palestinian society to lead a new
autonomous authority in the areas. These new leaders, who may be the
traditional leaders of local clans, should be encouraged to either integrate
within Israel or seek civil confederation with Jordan. Jordan could take a
larger role in the civil affairs of the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria,
by for instance reinstating their Jordanian citizenship which it illegally
revoked in 1988. At the same time, Israel should end its freeze on building
for Israeli communities in the areas.
It is obvious today that for the Palestinians to develop into a society that
may be capable of statehood in the long term, they require a period of a
generation or two to rebuild their society in a peaceful way. They will not
do this in environments where terrorists are ideologically aligned with
unpopular, repressive regimes.
The option of continued and enhanced Israeli control is unattractive to
many. But it is the only option that will provide an environment conducive
to such a long-term reorganization of Palestinian society that will also
safeguard Israel's own security and national well-being.
While it is vital to recognize that the failed two-state solution must be
abandoned, it is equally important that it not be replaced with another
failed proposition. The best way to move forward is by adopting a
stabilization policy that enables Israel to secure itself while providing an
opportunity for Palestinians to integrate gradually and peacefully with
their Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian neighbors.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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