Another failed state
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has stated that “the two-state solution is the best, perhaps the only route to a genuinely sustainable peace in the region” (“UK’s Cleverly warns Abbas over terrorism, antisemitism,” September 13).
My advice is to be careful what you wish for. Let us look at the current situation in the Middle East. Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Sudan are all failed states that are either experiencing civil war or are in various degrees of decline.
It is absolutely clear that any future Palestinian state will not be viable. Most likely, it will quickly deteriorate into a civil war between the various Palestinian factions, and as a state it will ask for help from other states. The right to agree to treaties and agreements with other states is entrenched in statehood. It cannot be taken away.
Let’s look a bit more closely at Syria. President Assad has killed approximately half a million of his own citizens and created five million refugees who have mostly fled to Turkey. The EU is paying millions of euros to Turkey to keep the refugees in Turkey.
Assad has asked both Russia and Iran for help. Russian and Iranian troops and advisers are now in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government. Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and has veto rights. All resolutions critical of Syria are automatically vetoed by Russia
I suggest that the exact same scenario will occur if the Palestinians get a state. The state of Palestine will not change the Palestinian main aim of destroying Israel and their demand for the right of return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to Israel. The Palestinian state will seek help from other states.
Russia and Iran will be only too happy to “help.” Having Russian, or Iranian, or any other foreign troops stationed in the state of Palestine is not a solution to the Palestinian problem. It is a recipe for a much wider political and military confrontation with disastrous results for the entire world.
Oil prices will skyrocket and inflation will become unsustainable. Any attempt to take action at the UN will be vetoed by Russia.
One only has to look at Hitler’s non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union to see how worthless international agreements can be. Any agreement signed by the Palestinian state not to become militarized and not to seek help from other countries will likewise be worthless.
There are enough failed states in the Middle East. Another failed state is not going to bring peace to the region. The best that the Palestinians can be offered is autonomy over their own affairs. It is time for the international community to reassess the so-called two-state solution. It is not a solution at all. Wake up to reality.
NEVILLE BERMAN
Ra’anana
On its head
You seem to make a good point in your editorial (“Obey the court,” September 12) when you write, “In fact, if the court were prevented from striking down basic laws or amendments to them, then any government could pass any law it desired as a basic law, thereby precluding any judicial review. That situation, obviously, is untenable.”
But one can take that same argument and turn it on its head. A Supreme Court could rule that any legislation that it opposed could be ruled “unreasonable,” and that would be equally untenable.
If the choice is for unelected self-appointed justices or a democratically elected government making the law, which is more democratic and tenable? The answer is apparent by definition.
FRED EHRMAN
Ra’anana
Scare tactics
Congratulations to Amotz Asa-El on his latest column, “Persons of the year” (September 15), wherein he incorporates a hatchet job on Yariv Levin and a puff piece for Shikma Bressler. Using an amalgam of scare tactics and ad hominem descriptions, Asa-El finds not one positive word to address Levin’s effort to roll back the power grab of Aharon Barak, an attempt by the former Supreme Court president to crown the court as philosopher-king and transform the country into an(un)constitutional monarchy.
As for Bressler, Asa-El is hard-pressed to find enough superlatives to describe a woman obsessed with a visceral animus toward Benjamin Netanyahu which dates back to the Black Flags demonstrations of the past. Her public demeanor and persona spell the futility of any attempt at the reconciliation that our nation needs and for which it longs.
Bressler’s reprehensible stigmatization of the duly elected Jewish coalition members seeking judicial reform as “Nazis” goes far beyond the pale and her mealy-mouthed apology does not even come close to atone for her egregious pronouncement. But, Asa-El is either ignorant of the above or completely overlooks it.
I used to read Asa-El’s columns weekly. However, I doubt if I would give it a second glance in the future.
JOEL KUTNER
Jerusalem
Historical drivel
So, UNESCO has decided that Jericho is a Palestinian World Heritage Site (“UNESCO: Ancient Jericho area is World Heritage Site in Palestine,” September 19). But not to worry, the time will come when UNESCO will be disbanded, many of its decisions disbelieved and dismantled.
UNESCO itself will be declared as a World History Site of lies, distortions, propaganda, and historical drivel. Israel and Jews will survive far longer than UNESCO. Synagogues and kosher restaurants will flourish in Jericho. Patience and fortitude are required. The truth will prevail. Palestinians lies will not.
YIGAL HOROWITZ
Beersheba
Walk in our shoes
We now have American Jews who, for their own peace of mind, want us to compromise politically, and both sides to come to what we know is currently an impossible situation for agreement (“To a less divisive 5784,” September 18).
I agree, as stated, that Israel unfortunately has a very poor look abroad which is disturbing US Jews and making them uncomfortable. However, that’s something over which our leader has control, and pressure must continue on him to see us out of this political and social quagmire.
American Jews should walk in our shoes to experience and fully appreciate what this divisiveness has produced.
STEPHEN VISHNICK
Tel Aviv
Hatred and evil leanings
Regarding Herb Keinon’s “Saying goodbye to a year better forgotten” and “Protest goals and own goals” by Liat Collins (September 15): One couldn’t help but feel that the Days of Awe had no bearing whatsoever on our Israeli people. The holiday was barely over on Sunday night the 17th, and the protesters were already in place, spewing forth their withering, disgusting language of evil at each other. For shame!
Were none of them in the synagogues for two days, praying for the very soul of our nation; praying that hatred and evil leanings could be overcome and forgiven by God; praying that camaraderie and sensible conversations could replace what has been tearing apart the very fabric of this country?
Although we say that other countries don’t influence our governance, they are positing in glee that the only Jewish country in the world, supposedly known as “the light unto the nations,” has turned off that light within our country; has been fighting with one another like bratty mean kids in a school yard; throwing insults left and right and showing our children just how not to behave.
Both articles talked about the protests covering different aspects of the year that should never have happened. Mr. Keinon’s take was that the language used by government ministers, army officers, executives, etc., to threaten civil war or to suggest “wiping a Palestinian town off the map,” was appalling. According to him, “solidarity, shared destiny, cohesion... seemed to fray and unravel.”
Ms. Collins focused on some outspoken “protest leaders,” Shikma Bressler and Tamir Pardo, to showcase their repugnant remarks of implying at a conference for democracy that one cannot negotiate with Nazis, as well as, during an interview with the media, calling Israel an apartheid state. Ms. Bressler was named by the Post as one of 50 most influential Jews; what a sad joke. And Mr. Pardo had been head of the Mossad. Do they have no conscience?
So what do we take away from these two articles? We must get back to being Jewish, peace-loving friends, and colleagues. We must start listening to each other and work seriously and diligently to come to agreements on how we want our government to work, how we want our people to feel toward the country and each other, and relearn respect.
Mr. Keinon summed it up the best: “May [the] leaders and politicians love the country more than they hate and envy one another.”
We must make this new year the best there is.
DEBRA FORMAN
Modi’in
Seemingly credible witnesses
A few weeks ago, in the expectation of the starting of an impeachment inquiry by the US House of Representatives, the Biden White House set up a “War Room” to deal with the expected crisis. Stemming from that, a letter from the White House Legal Counsel’s Office calls on major media to “ramp up their scrutiny” of the inquiry efforts of House Republicans.
I’m thinking that this likely led to Douglas Bloomfield’s “The GOP is taking the government hostage” (September 14). Not unexpectedly, Bloomfield tells us that there is no hard evidence to support the move. And yet there is a whole stream of seemingly credible witnesses to indicate that President Joe Biden and his family have been taking in tens of millions of dollars, not to mention the extensive evidence in Hunter Biden’s laptop computer that in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election was immediately dismissed by 51 former intelligence officials, but later accepted by the FBI as the real thing.
Bloomfield enters the area of advocacy, rather than punditry or journalism, when he misquotes the Constitution’s requirement for impeachment as being for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The proper wording is “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” which is a lot more specific.
If Biden felt he were innocent, he should welcome the opportunity to demonstrate this. The American public is not buying it. His approval ratings are way down, and those of Vice President Kamala Harris even lower. The president’s performance is worsening by the week, demonstrating age-related dementia.
It’s time for the Democrats to do some hard thinking in the coming weeks, or face up to the inevitable debacle which will be the 2024 presidential election, and the further derision of America on the world stage.
DAVID SMITH
Ra’anana
Self-proclaimed student
Regarding “Report says Saudi Arabia suspends talks on normalization deal with Israel” (September 18): It’s never Israel making demands. Why do we continue to allow ourselves to be so humiliated? If the only way there can be such agreements is to subject Israel to the dictates of other countries, it should be a no-brainer.
Because of the failure of Prime Minister Netanyahu to declare sovereignty throughout our God-given Land, our enemies are encouraged, and those who pass for friends continue to treat us as underlings with no rights, amid the constant accusation of occupying Arab land.
In fact, the unconfirmed report, that Riyadh issued a message through the US, explaining that the “extremist” nature of Israel’s right-wing government led by Netanyahu is “torpedoing any possibility of rapprochement with the Palestinians, and thus with the Saudis,” would be more honest and realistic had it substituted Israel’s government for the Fatah terrorist organization led by Mahmoud Abbas, the self-proclaimed student and ardent follower of arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat.
Quoting from the article by Jerusalem Post staff, Israeli normalization with the Arab world and “any of the efforts that are going on to improve relations between Israel and its neighbors cannot be a substitute for Israel and the Palestinians resolving their differences and having a much better future for Palestinians,” according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who added that “in our judgement that needs to involve a two-state solution.”
To such nonsense, our reply should be that there can never be an agreement with an Arab, or any other, country that entails giving up our very precious, very small Jewish land. There are no ifs and buts. This is our land forever.
EDITH OGNALL
Netanya