Stating State Thoughts

From behind-the-scenes thinking:-

The recent vote in the United Nations General Assembly to give non-member observer state status to the Palestinian Authority contains no new legal or diplomatic information.  Even Palestinian self-determination cannot be denied.

There is already recognition of the Palestinians as a state but, on the other hand, it contradicts the tropes about Israeli oppression, occupation and apartheid. They have been functioning as a state, conducting foreign relations, making deals and acting entirely independently of Israel. This is not a Bantustan overseen by Israel. In the wake of the UN vote, Palestine opened a defense ministry and began discussing issuing passports. No people
under occupation have all these trappings of self-determination and statehood.

What is the UN bid about? Certainly not statehood. Even Israel supports that.

The issue is what are the borders of this 'state'?

The PA will not be satisfied with a declaration of statehood and self-determination but they demand that their state include what in the Oslo Process was dubbed Area C – regions that are overwhelmingly Jewish.

Roughly four percent of Palestinians live in Area C, while 100% of Jews in the West Bank live there.

So, can we forget about occupation and apartheid and define the dispute as one that is territorial?  A fight between equal neighbors, in the legal and diplomatic sense?

After all, such controversies are commonplace.  There's India, China, Russia, Japan and other nations which maintain controversies over frontiers.

But is it simply a border question?

Or is it really a dispute/conflict over whether Jews should have borders, at all or partial?   A dispute over Israel's right to exist at all and that's why every territorial concession is met with more violence in word and deed.

Hamas (a la Mashal) insists on a total negative :-

 “Palestine from the river to the sea, from the north to the south, is our land and we will never give up one inch or any part of it.”

Fatah fudges, never really comitting itself and always insisting on right of return (including into pre-67 Israel), Jerusalem, Jewish ethnic cleasing in 'Palestine'.

There are, of course, two additional problems stemming from the text of the Oslo Accords:

a) they actually want "the Civil Administration in the West Bank will be dissolved, and the Israeli military government shall be withdrawn."

and

b) the area of that state should be in accordance with: - "The two sides view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, the integrity and status of which will be preserved during the interim period.

2. The two sides agree that West Bank and Gaza Strip territory, except for issues that will be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations, will come under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Council.

One need not be a an internation law professor to realize that it is obvious that that language permits Israel to demand a part of J&S to be retained by Israel but the Pals. will not yield on that (Arafat Camp David II).

Is there a reasoned and rational solution that will assure Israel's security?

Retention, it is.

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Expanding

I was all for "retention" as the political buzzword.

I've been outflanked:

ZOA's Mort Klein asked Newt Gingrich:

What is your position about the right of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and the right of Jews to live in communities there at this present time?

and Gingrich replied:

Well, it depends on where exactly you define the boundaries. I do not oppose any development in the [Israeli occupied] areas, because I think that’s part of the negotiating process. To the degree that the Palestinians want to stop the developments they need to reach a deal in which they recognize the right of Israel to exist… As long as they are waging war on Israel, they are in no position to complain about developments. I think the whole peace process has been absurd and has created a psychologically almost impossible position for the average person because once you say there’s a peace process you wonder why the Israelis aren’t being more forthcoming. But if you say, look, we’re still in the middle of a war. They’re still trying to destroy the country — they’re still firing rockets, they still have terrorists coming in — then you all of a sudden understand what the real situation on the ground is, and in that setting, why would the Israelis slow down in maximizing their net bargaining advantage?

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Where To "Start" The Borders or "Territorial Retention" - My New Campaign

Politicians are afraid of movement, initiative, change. Presented with plans for immediate application of sovereignty or suggestions of additional annexation moves, even Israel supporters would become nonplussed and nervous.

So, I suggest a new campaign:

Retain The Territories

Retention, which I employed in this 2005 op-ed, means lets keep matters as they are for anything else is too dangerous.

It avoids the issue of "sovereignty" which scares people because they think - wrongly - that Israel doesn't have the better international law legal claim. It does (see this summary; also here; Shmuel Katz; and here; and here.

It preserves a situation of a continuing Israeli adminsitration as the best way; allows for a possible autonmy development; avoids the threat of a 'Palestinian' state; and it is a word used in Washington previously

In a response to the 1967 US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara request of the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding the relationship of land that had come under Israeli control to that country's security. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Earle G. Wheeler, replied on June 29, 1967, submitting this:

Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCSM-373-67)

which includes this opinion of senior and experienced military experts:

1. Reference is made to your memorandum, dated 19 June 1967, subject as above, which requested the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, without regard to political factors, on the minimum territory, in addition to that held on 4 June 1967, Israel might be justified in retaining in order to permit a more effective defense against possible conventional Arab attack and terrorist raids.

2. From a strictly military point of view, Israel would require the retention of some captured territory in order to provide militarily defensible borders. Determination of territory to be retained should be based on accepted tactical principles such as control of commanding terrain, use of natural obstacles, elimination of enemy-held salients, and provision of defense in-depth for important facilities and installations. More detailed discussions of the key border areas mentioned in the reference are contained in the Appendix hereto. In summary, the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding these areas are as follows:...

Oh, you want to know what they thought of Judea and Samaria?

Here:

a. The Jordanian West Bank. Control of the high ground running north-south through the middle of West Jordan generally east of the main north-south highway along the axis Jenin-Nablus-Bira-Jerusalem and then southeast to a junction with the Dead Sea at the Wadi el Daraja would provide Israel with a militarily defensible border...

That's not a bad start.  And we increase the territory neccesary for retention because of:

1.  the increase military technology in Arab hands;
2.  the bad behavior of the Arabs for over 40 years of attemtping to negotiate a peace and their continuous unabting terror campaign;
3.  the existence of a Hamas-government in Gaza waiting to take over from Fatah in Judea and Samaria;

and for many other reasons.

So, while Benjamin Netanyahu is caught up in a media blitz (of his own making?) about where the borders should "start", as President Obama would wish - and read my remarks here on this matter, i.e.: "If it is the start, does that mean that either Israel goes backwards or is it permitted to go foward territorially/geographically from those armistice lines fixed in 1949 after the first Arab invasion? Or is there to be only Israel that has to pay a price of "territorial compromise"? - my suggestion is

Retain The Territories

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