OPINION: The two-state solution – what its proponents won’t tell you
By Roslyn Pine
The past few weeks have seen horrific developments in Iraq as the terrorist group ISIS sweeps through the country and a White House reaction of disbelief and
ISIS’s warnings of continuing its struggle to the rest of the region, including ‘Palestine’ should be taken seriously
In 1969, when the doveish Abba Eban called the (1948) armistice lines the ‘Auschwitz border’, the Middle East had yet to see the rise of militant Islam, Al Quaida and groups which have destabilised the region.
Now the ‘two-staters’ have admitted there is no Palestinian partner for peace following the collapse of the latest talks, they are advocating ‘constructive unilateralism’, for which read the morphing of the Land for Peace mantra into the Land for Nothing initiative.
These advocates, while admitting the disastrous 2005 unilateral Gaza withdrawal did not bring the peace they predicted, are silent when questioned about the rocketing of Israel’s southern towns which Hamas inflicts at will, the understanding being it is a threat these unfortunate towns have to live with.
Since 2005, more than 8,000 rockets have been fired by Hamas, and more than 3.5 million Israelis live under threat of attack.
Imagine any other people on the planet agreeing to such conditions, especially by a country whose military might, as we are constantly reminded, far exceeds that of her ‘weak’ neighbours.
To repeat the same exercise on a far larger scale from the Jewish heartlands of Judea and Samaria, bringing in all likelihood a Judeocidal Hamas ‘government’ of a future Palestinian state to the edges of Israel’s main population centres, is the political wisdom of the asylum.
As Shimon Peres predicted in safer times in Tomorrow is Now in 1978: “If a Palestinian state is established, it will be armed to the teeth. Within it there will be bases of the most extreme terrorist forces, equipped with anti-tank and anti-aircraft shoulder-launched rockets endangering all aircraft in the skies of Israel and every vehicle travelling along the major routes in the coastal plain…The lack of minimal territorial expanse places Israel in a position of absolute lack of deterrence. This in itself constitutes almost compulsive temptation to attack Israel from all directions…”.
And he went on: “The inflow of combat-ready Palestinian forces into such a state will mean that in a short space of time a war infrastructure will be set up. The frontiers of the Palestinian state will constitute an excellent staging point for mobile forces to mount attacks on vital infrastructure installations,to impede the Israeli air force in Israeli airspace and to cause bloodshed…”.
This holds even more true today, and the proposed panacea, demilitarisation (meaning no air power, heavy armour or artillery), would guarantee nothing, not least because it would be unenforceable.
Even with their current weaponry, from the highlands of Judea and Samaria the Palestinians would control Israel’s military and civilian airfields, including Ben Gurion, seaports and naval bases, essential infrastructure, including power generation and transmission, water conveyance, the roads, railways and communications systems.
Vital centres of military command and control, major centres of civilian government and 80 percent of the civilian population and the country’s economic activity would be in peril.
A glance at the proposed border reveals the extreme vulnerability of high-density population areas at Israel’s narrowest points, on average just nine miles wide.
The proximity of the trans-Israel highway, Route 6, to the proposed border for most of its length would make ambushes a certainty.
In 1967, after Israel’s victory, secret maps were drawn up by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff detailing the areas Israel needed to retain for its future security. Published years later, they showed the high ground of Judea and Samaria, Gaza and the Golan were essential to retain for Israel’s minimum security needs.
The advocates of plans to relinquish the ‘West Bank’ to make way for a hostile (judged on every precedent) Arab state have an absolute duty to spell out in detail how Israel’s citizens would be defended.
Failure to do so should consign the two-state solution to the bin.
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