The Beinart-like binational “solution”, that collapsed under the weight of Jewish blood and Arab intransigence - by Sean Durns

“The study of history,” British author Paul Johnson once wrote, “is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.”

Sean Durns..
JPost/Opinion..
06 August '20..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/brit-shalom-and-peter-beinart-analyzing-jewish-palestinian-land-solution-637784

From his home in New York City, the American pundit Peter Beinart has recently called to dismantle the Jewish state of Israel, advocating instead for a “one-state solution” – a binational Jewish-Palestinian Arab state. Beinart’s proposal was hailed as “a monumental, agenda-setting piece” by Washington Post foreign affairs columnist Ishaan Tharoor, among other analysts, many of whom live far from Israel. But it is nothing of the sort. Indeed, arguments for a binational “solution” are a century old – and they collapsed under the weight of Jewish blood and Arab intransigence.

Ninety-five years ago this past May, a group of philosophers, academics and theologians announced the formation of Brit Shalom (the Covenant of Peace) in British-ruled Mandate Palestine. Brit Shalom “sought to promote peace between Jews and Arabs, primarily by arguing that Jews should give up their quest for statehood,” historian Daniel Gordis noted in his 2016 Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn.

The movement, Gordis documented, “never had more than a hundred members, but its influence far outstripped its members.” This was largely due to its composition. Brit Shalom members would, over time, include prominent and well-known Jewish figures like Judah Magnes, an American Reform rabbi and the future president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Arthur Ruppin, a famous economist and high-ranking Jewish Agency official, as well as well-known philosophers like Gershom Scholem and Martin Buber. Other future members would include then attorney general of Mandate Palestine, Norman Bentwich, and Edwin Samuel, the son of the first High Commissioner to Palestine Herbert Samuel. Brit Shalom even counted Albert Einstein as a supporter. The movement was, in every sense, confined to a small number of the elite and intelligentsia.

Initially, Brit Shalom conceived of itself less as a political party than as a “study circle” which hoped to influence debates about the future of Jewish self-determination. Brit Shalom’s foundational charter articulated the movement’s objective: “to arrive at an understanding between Jews and Arabs as to the form of their mutual social relations in Palestine on the basis of absolute political equality of two culturally autonomous peoples, and to determine the lines of their cooperation for the development of the country.”

The group founded a newspaper, She’ifoteinu (Our Aspirations), authored editorials and made public speeches advocating for the adoption of a binational state. But problems soon arose.

Actually they want a No Jewish State Solution - by Mitchell Bard

It is time the people playing Risk with Israeli lives recognize that the Palestinian objective is the No Jewish State Solution.

Mitchell Bard..
Algemeiner..
20 March '20..

Pundits and policymakers act as though solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is like playing Risk. They manufacture formulas with the single-minded purpose of arriving at a predetermined outcome — a two-state solution — and ignore everything the Palestinians have said or done over the last century that is inconsistent with their desired result.

The Palestinians, however, have no interest in the Risk players’ conceptions of peace; they want a No Jewish State Solution.

Consider the history of negotiations. In 1937, British diplomats first arrived at the seemingly rational conclusion that the secret to resolving a conflict between two peoples over one land was to divide it into two states. Ignoring the messier reasons for the conflict, such as history, religion, politics, and psychology, the Peel Commission offered the Arabs a state in roughly 40% of Palestine and the Jews 17%. The Palestinians rejected the offer and objected “to the very idea of a Jewish state” according to historian Elie Podeh

In 1939, the British offered the Palestinians a state and no state for the Jews, reneging on their promise in the Balfour Declaration. This is the one state solution the Arabs said they wanted; however, it would have allowed continued Jewish immigration. The Palestinians’ representatives from the Arab Higher Committee objected to the idea that “Jews should have a fixed numerical proportion of one third or any other proportion, as such a position would be a real danger on Arab national existence.”

The Committee insisted on a “complete and final prohibition of any transfer of lands from Arabs to Jews.” Furthermore, the Arabs rejected the British requirement that they recognize a Jewish National Home, “No Arab in Palestine will ever be prepared to recognize … the existence of a Jewish Home as a national entity.”

Partition offered the Palestinians a worse deal (though better than Peel) — a state consisting of 45% of Mandatory Palestine next to a Jewish state. Before the UN vote on partition, the Arabs made their position clear and, in doing so, should have permanently shattered the illusions of two-state advocates. Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha told Jewish Agency representative David Horowitz on September 16, 1947:

It’s likely, Mr. Horowitz, that your plan is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations never concede; they fight. You won’t get anything by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to defeat you. I am not sure we’ll succeed, but we’ll try. We were able to drive out the Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it’s too late to talk of peaceful solutions.

He was prescient about losing Palestine. Still, after the 1948 War of Independence, the Palestinians could have demanded a state from Jordan, which controlled the West Bank, and Egypt, which ruled Gaza. It would have met their goal of a Judenrein state. They had no interest in independence, however, and were content to live under occupation by their fellow Arabs.

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