Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of Israel's Likud party, is Prime
Minister elect and is currently putting together a fragile
right-wing coalition before taking over as Premier. Netanyahu is
known as a nationalist hawk and an opponent of establishing a
Palestinian state. But could Bibi, as he is known by both his
friends and foes in Israel, be good for the Palestinians? Well,
good is a relative word, but I'm going to suggest that he will be
good for the Palestinians, or at least better than the other
options.
To understand why he is good for the Palestinians, we have to
remember that in Israeli politics there are essentially two camps:
one which favors a land-for-peace arrangement and the establishment
of a Palestinian state alongside Israel; and a nationalist camp
which believes that all of Israel, including Gaza and especially
"Judea and Samaria" (ie. the Westbank), belongs to the Jewish
people and that a Palestinian state is a grave threat to Israeli
security. Netanyahu belongs to the second camp, the nationalist
camp.
Netanyahu, during his first term as prime minister in the 1990s,
reluctantly accepted the previously-signed Oslo Accords, which
mandated a land-for-peace arrangement. Netanyahu did give up some
land including most Arab residential areas of Hebron. But he
remains opposed to a Palestinian state and supports mere autonomy
for the Palestinans within a limited amount of land, and he has
always dragged his heels on land transfers, citing the need for
"reciprocity" from the Palestinians. While dragging his feet on
land transfers, he stepped up settlement expansion in the Westbank.
He also opposed the evacuation of Israeli settlements in Gaza. This
is a good thing for the Palestinians.
Why is
it a good thing, you must be asking? The reason it's a good thing
is because the two-state solution is a farce. The purpose of the
two-state solution has never been justice and giving a life of
freedom to the Palestinians and solving the refugee problem. The
purpose of the two state solution has always been to exclude the
Palestinians from Israel's population and keep them outside its
borders, while minimizing the amount of land given to the
Palestinian state. Israel never had any intention of giving up its
rights to the Westbank and Gaza's water sources, to their airspace,
to their borders, to their main settlement blocks, and certainly
not to the holy sites of Jerusalem. Israel's left wing governments
have paid lip service to giving the Palestinians part of Jerusalem,
but that doesn't mean the Old City or even downtown East Jerusalem.
It means the outlying residential neighbourhoods and refugee camps
that Israel sees as a nuisance. The entire two state solution was
created to benefit Israel. The only reason Yasser Arafat ever
accepted the Oslo Accords is because the PLO was almost bankrupt
after he misguidedly supported Saddam Hussein in the first Iraq War
and was subsequently shunned by the wealthy Gulf nations that had
previously funded him.
So why is Netanyahu's nationalist platform better? Because
Netanyahu doesn't believe in a Palestinian state, and because
Palestinians will be a majority of Israel's residents within the
next couple of decades, the only other options are apartheid or a
democratic country in which all are citizens. Netanyahu claims to
be a firm believer in democracy, and is unlikely to support a
system of apartheid that denies the Palestinians their political
rights. Instead, he supports a one-state solution with eventual
citizenship for the Palestinians, while simultaneously encouraging
immigration to maintain a Jewish majority. But if past numbers are
any indication, the Palestinian population's growth rate is far
higher than Israel's, even if we include Jewish immigrants to
Israel. And there are no indications that the rate of Jewish
immigration to Israel is going to increase. In the case that the
Palestinians become a majority in Israel without having political
rights, world pressure will be upon Israel to prove that it is the
democracy that it has always claimed it is. Israel will undergo a
change, just like apartheid South Africa underwent a change. The
Palestinians will have power in their homeland, or at least have
their fair representation in the government. The Palestinians will
be able to propose and pass legislation that is to their people's
benefit, and Israel will cease to be a Zionist state, instead being
a state of its citizens.
These days Netanyahu does pay lip service to negotiations with the
Palestinians on the reciprocal land-for-security model. But he will
likely keep building in settlements while saying that he isn't,
will leave illegal outposts where they are and allow new ones to
spring up, and will find reasons not to negotiate with the
Palestinians for as long as possible. There are already so many
"facts on the ground" in place that a true two state solution is
very unlikely. But with Benjamin Netanyahu in charge, a two state
solution will become less and less likely. So if we look at the
issues with a longterm view, Netanyahu is the best choice because
he will lead the Palestinians away from phony bantustan statehood
and towards integration into a single democratic Israel, or
Palestine, or whatever it will be called in the future.
Netanyahu Is Good For The Palestinians
at 8:26 AM
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Israel is often mistakenly classifed as part of
Europe, likely because of its legacy of European Jewish
immigration, its Western orientation and values, and the Arab
boycott of Israel which has prevented it from developing cultural
ties with the Arab World throught arts, sports, and commerce.
chickpeas, with olive oil or spices on
top (commonly zatar, which is a combination
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