ISRAEL: BOTH JEWISH AND BI-NATIONAL STATE
The new Israel’s Nation Act is actually the «Declaration of the Independence of the Jewish People». By this law, the Knesset of Israel announced that the Jewish people have the right to an independent state, and this state is Israel.
The revival of Jewish unity on the basis of Zionism is a political and strategic necessity, and from this point of view the Law on the Nation is necessary. It is highly important to improve the relations between Israel and the Jews of dispersion, to establish Israel’s relations with Arab neighbors and with the minorities in Israel, without giving up Zionism, which gives us strength and serves as the main moral justification for the existence of Israel.
Not all Jews agreed with such an Act. The World Jewish Congress and its head Ron Lauder, to put it mildly, did not support the new «Declaration of Independence of the Jews», namely the «New Zionism», which opposes worldwide anti-Semitism. Thus, the long-existing split between the Zionists and that part of the Jews, who want to live in the current countries of residence, such a split took finally shape. Non-Zionist Jews are trying to protect themselves from anti-Semites by surrendering Israel to the reprisal of these very anti-Semites.
On their part, the Israeli «post-Zionists» believe that Israel can no longer rely on the support of World Jewry, so we need to negotiate peace at any price with our neighbors. Such was the idea of Oslo: «peace in exchange for territory and Zionism». According to this idea, Rabin created a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and simultaneously undertook sharp measures against aliyah of Jews from the former USSR.
The result of the post-Zionist policy is well known: the aggravation of the conflict with the Palestinians and the strengthening of the worldwide anti-Semitic attack against both Israel and Diaspora Jews. Just the attempt to abandon Zionism weakened both Israel and the World Jewry. The betrayal of Israel did not weaken, but reinforced anti-Semitic attacks throughout the World.
It should be borne in our mind that anti-Semitism is not only the delirium of the marginal groups, but also the policy of the global «elites», so the threat to the Jews is more than real.
The shift of Israeli Jewish voters to the right is inevitable, reasonable and correct reaction of the Israeli people to the failures that our state suffered from «post-Zionist» elites. The «Lefties» in Israel suffered a historic defeat, so the «right” will led us to the future, whether it be Netanyahu or someone else.
«Left», including the «Center», must finally realize that the decision of the voters is final and irreversible. Games like attacking Netanyahu and speaking out against the Nation Act will not return the «left» to power.
In another hand, based on the population, Israel is a bi-national state, since about 25% of the population are Arabs. This percentage is rapidly increasing both due to natural growth, and through «family reunification». For some reason, the intermarried couples of citizens of Palestine and Israel, prefer to settle in an “apartheid Jewish state”, not in Palestine.
Unfortunately, historically, the minority is hostile to the Jewish majority, to the Zionism and also to the fact of the existence of an independent Jewish state of Israel. Such an approach is still held by those Arabs who go to the demonstrations in support of Hamas, or speak out on behalf of Hezbollah. Just their representatives in the Israeli Knesset publicly offered Jews to get out of «their country».
A more «kind» sort of the Israeli Arabs agree to the existence of Israel, but want to abolish its Zionist basis. They argue that Israel must become a «state of all citizens», that is, a bi-national state.
The third group, like the Druze, part of the Muslims (those Bedouins who serve in the army) and part of the Christian Arabs recognized Israel as their state. They do not object to Zionism. Both Israeli “Right” and “Left” support this group of Arabs.
Israel cannot practically become a bi-national state until the «minorities» recognize it as their state. In order to turn Israel into a bi-national state, Jewish and Arab politicians must conclude a «peace treaty» between the Jews and the Arabs of Israel.
The terms of such a written or unwritten treaty should include recognition of the bi-national character of the State of Israel, with two state languages. In exchange, representatives of the Arabs will publicly recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Zionist state, a «safe haven» for the entire Jewish people. Representatives of the Arabs must declare their loyalty to the Zionist state, the readiness of the Arabs to serve in the IDF, and the willingness of potential servicemen to swear allegiance to the state, even if they refuse to serve in the army.
Israel can become the state of all citizens under condition, that all citizens are not only equal before the law, but will have equal rights and duties.
The Jews of Israel are subjected to a deadly threat from anti-Semites. The threat comes from both Islamists and Western leftist and «liberal» anti-Semites, including the Jewish extreme Left. In this conflict Israeli Arabs must take side of their Zionist fellow citizens. “Minorities» of Israel do not have the right to cooperate with anti-Semites, regardless of what clothes these anti-Semites use to disguise themselves: «human rights activists», «Palestine defenders», «Holocaust deniers» or Islamists.
Those people outside Israel who are criticizing the Nation Act, actually reject Zionism as such, and Israel as a Zionist state. They do not recognize the right of the Jews to self-determination and to refuge state, and do not recognize the right of Israel to be a Zionist state. This way, they deny Israel’s right to exist. They seek the destruction of the Jewish state by all available means: Iranian atomic bombs, Hamas and Hezbollah missiles, and European sanctions.
Anti-Semites, Jewish anti-Zionists and Israeli «post-Zionists», call the new Zionist Nation Act «an Apartheid». And then, without pause, they demand to carry out the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank from the Jews. De facto Palestinian state in the West Bank should become «racially pure» just like Gaza. This is a typical double standard: what the Palestinians are permitted (racist Apartheid), Jews not allowed. Such extreme logical inconsistency is the most characteristic feature of anti-Semitism. It corresponds to the aspirations of mentally unstable individuals. This inconsistency and double standards manifested both Hitler and the modern «left».
Since the Palestinians relying on the support of external anti-Semites, chose the path of war for the destruction of Israel, they hinder the peace by all available means. The war, led currently by Gaza based Hamas, aims inter alia to close the road to peace between Israel and the Arabs in Israel and beyond.
Therefore Trump, striving for peace in the Middle East, demanded that the war in Gaza be stopped at all costs. Netanyahu should explain to Trump that «peace at any cost», or «peace now,» leads directly to a more brutal war. Any agreement with Islamists, written or not written, should include punitive measures for violation of the agreement. If Trump demands a ceasefire at all costs, he must take responsibility for possible consequences, namely to «hold on the table» the possibility of direct US military intervention in Gaza.
The agreement on peace between Jews and Arabs of Israel will enable mutually agreed changes to the Nation Act, namely: Israel will be proclaimed the state of all citizens, and Arabic language will return to the status of the state language. The agreement may open the way to the government for the representatives of Arab parties.
The peace between Jews and Arabs in Israel may open the way to establishing cooperation with our Arab neighbors. There remains also a hope that European and American leftists, Arab nationalists and even some Islamists will weaken their anti-Semitic fervor, and start considering Israel as a state that not inevitably must be destroyed.
What could not be achieved on the basis of agreement with the Palestinians, could be achieved with the help of the Arabs of Israel. In 1993, Israeli supporters of «peace now» prepared for themselves a trap, since they promised to the people of Israel the peace with Palestinians, without taking into consideration what actually the Palestinians want. Signing Oslo agreements, the Palestinians did not mean peace, but war from more convenient positions. «Terror of Oslo» dealt a fatal blow to Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. Even if the Palestinians didn’t initiated the physical assassination of Rabin, these were the Palestinians who killed Rabin and Peres politically. The people of Israel cannot afford to fall again into such a trap. We have nowhere to retreat, and we have no territory to give up «in exchange for peace».
From this point of view, Israeli Arabs are preferable for us. We needn’t give up territory, needn’t lose strategic positions. If the Israeli Arabs do not agree to peace, or agree, and then change their minds, the Jewish state will lose nothing.
It’s time to draw a logical conclusion and reconcile with the Arabs of Israel on the terms of the Jewish state. The Palestinians base their entire policy and war on external interference. Such interference must be ruled out in relations with the Arabs of Israel. We can negotiate without outside interference, and this is a huge advantage. So far, all external «intermediaries» have kept their interests, as they understood. These interests dictated pro-Arab and pro-Palestinian pressure on Israel. Our main task now is to stop the interference of external forces in our conflict with neighbors.
