Making Peace With Syria

Why would Syrian dictator Assad wish to forsake all of his terrorist cronies in Damascus for the sake of a mere majority of the Golan Heights, when he had always demanded all of the Golan? The timing is puzzling of Assad's new willingness to give up the equivalent of an extra army in his land for the sake of only part of what he has always claimed was entirely his. Especially when you take former Israeli Prime Minister and current Defense Minister Barak's opinion into account. From today's Jerusalem Post:

According to the defense minister, Assad's first priority is the survival of his regime. His second priority is getting the international tribunal into 2005's assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri canceled, a tribunal that is expected to point an accusatory finger at the highest echelons of the Syrian government.

Third, according to Barak, is securing a "special status" for Syria in Lebanon, followed by getting itself into the good graces of the US and the West. Only after all those interests does the Golan Heights enter Assad's list of priorities. (Herb Keinon's, 'Peace not a priority for Damascus', Jerusalem Post, May 25, 2008)

It is vital that the Knesset stops any pseudo peace plan with Syria that current Israeli Prime Minister Olmert may try to run through. In 2006 Olmert pledged to never give up the Golan in any peace deal with Syria. (April 24, 2008, Israel National News) Now Olmert, under investigation, and eager to make a mark of some kind of positive legacy before he may have to leave office abruptly, announces discussions to give up most of Golan, the territory that borders Israel and Syria.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the likely next Prime Minister of the State of Israel pledged to ignore any peace deal Olmert signs with Abbas. (April 22, 2008, INN) Let's hope he intends to do the same toward any possible deal with Syria as well, though it is more problematic from an International Law perspective. Abbas is not a head of State, Syria's Assad is. That has huge implications in International Law. It would be significantly more difficult to change a signed deal between two heads of state. The two most potent forms of International Law are Jus Cogens/primal rights, and also treaties between two officially recognized states. So it is vital that any false peace plan be stopped before it is signed.

Despite what Olmert has done in the past I have nothing against him doing good for his people, and getting a little honor along the way with it. But the giving of strategic land to an unrepentant regime that historically has only used the exact territory in question as a platform to wage war from is the worse thing Olmert could try to do to his people. What is Olmert thinking? For the sake of true peace in the Middle East, we cannot assume that Olmert, under such serious pressure, is fully thinking this through. Assad's closest ally is Iran of all countries.

Even if Assad agrees to forsake terror, he has a signed treaty with Iran that if any country attacks Syria, Iran will attack that country. Now that Israel took out Assad's secret nuclear program, there is no hope for Syria individually to defeat Israel via a surprise attack, at a moment when Assad's hatred for Israel is at its peak over the embarrassing nuclear set back at the hands of Israel. Yet Assad knows that if he attacks Israel, he forces Iran to fight Israel as well, God forbid. Ahmadinejad may be telling Assad even now, the price for fulfillment of that scenario is optimum strategic advantage, which for Iran would be Syrian control of the Golan. We need to seek paths to perpetual peace, not empower potential pretexts for war!

Syria must reject terror bases in its land, it must desire peaceful relations, and it must give up its constant demands for the Golan as a prerequisite for its civilized behavior. Paradoxically, then Israel would be empowered to consider some sort of land for friendship deal if they so choose to. But not land for peace. Land for peace, in an age of terror, is nothing less than fuel for terror. A pseudo justification used by enemies of peace to deceive their people that Israel is still their enemy, when all Israel wants to do is the same as any other Western nation wants to do; business with its neighbors and never war.

Assad, on the other hand, wants his people distracted from their lack of freedom, and the only way to do that is if Israel is an enemy. Therefore, we must assume that any attempt to get peace exclusively on condition of gaining the Golan when Iran is primed to attack Israel at the slightest excuse, is nothing other than a preparation for war in the immediate future by the leaders of both Syria as well as the silent partner in this sorted affair, Iran. All friends of peace should be opposed to such a disgusting perversion of the concept of peace, and discourage Israeli leadership from making such a tragic mistake!

When dealing with people like Assad, you do not seek common ground, you make them leave their philosophy of evil and chart a new course. The path toward the concept of true peace is education of all sides of what objective peace is. Such as no backstabbing, no support of terror, and a host of other concepts that you and I take for granted, but corrupted people may not fully grasp. That is why evenhanded mediation with terrorists only strengthens them, not the cause of true peace.

The Friedlander Peace Plan Is The Everyone Wins Peace Plan

By the grace of God, if others wish to call my peace plan, the Friedlander Peace Plan, I will let them. First, the name consistently differentiates between itself and the (Rabbi) Elon Peace Plan, which is also a One State Solution but of a different character. Second, the original Germanic meaning of Friedland is "peaceful land", which is the goal of any peace plan. Indeed, both are valid reasons to continue to call it by my surname, yet... in an attempt in having at least the appearance of a basic level of humility, except where appropriate I will endeavor to refer to my peace plan as the "Everyone Wins Peace Plan", and I will tell you why later in this post, but first I want to mention what I didn't name it. I did not name it according to the first idea that came to me, the freedom peace plan or the liberty peace plan for several reasons:

1. Freedom plan sounds more like a phone service commercial advertisement than a realistic path to peace. And I did not want to make this very serious path to peace sound like a joke.
   
2. As one person's freedom is an other's anarchy, and as terrorists deal mainly in anarchy, the meaning of liberty has a different connotation than when the Declaration of Independence speaks of liberty, for example. Freedom, to the radical Islam that Hamas deals in, is a danger in the hands of others (non-Islamic people), and is used exclusively as a self reference when referring the term to itself (true freedom is when they can do what they want, they are essentially arguing).
   
3. By calling the plan by the name Friedlander, I placed an address label on it. As this plan has no other source text than an Internet based blog, it is not as easy to research as the other peace plans, so therefore I placed a moniker that could aid in better directing inquiries from interested parties toward the source of the plan. Nevertheless, in the interest of keeping my head from swelling and necessitating the usage of a larger hat size, I figured that for myself at least, I would still have to come up with another descriptor for this peace plan.

The reason why the Friedlander Peace Plan can be called the Everyone Wins Peace Plan is that you can argue it from either the right or the left and it still remains flexible enough to be the best plan available.

An argument from the right would include that the Everyone Wins Peace Plan secures an end to terrorist armies within a stone's throw of Israeli cities, it allows settlers to keep their homes, it also maintains the State's control over all the land and resources West of the Jordan River, and it guarantees freedom of religion to non-Muslims.

From a left point of view, the Everyone Wins Peace Plan maintains Palestinian control of their cities and allows the retention of their homes, it frees them short term from terrorist police and long term from refugee camps, and it allows them to join their cousins within the Green Line by having a right to vote in the State of Israel.

From a centrist perspective that everyone can agree with, the Everyone Wins Peace Plan ends the unhealthy segregationist environment both sides are currently caught up in. The Everyone Wins Peace Plan also removes the main pan-Arabic excuse to discriminate financially against the State of Israel. This will only snowball the effectiveness of the plan at ending the conflict that much sooner, as improved finances and security means increased Jewish immigration rates which allows the expansion of the Arabic naturalization process that is at the core of this solution.

When you compare the Everyone Wins Peace Plan it to all the others, no other peace plan comes close to being so politically acceptable to as broad a base as this plan does. That, in my opinion, is the most important factor when choosing a path by which to avoid perpetual war. The wider the support a peace plan has, the less the likelihood of rebellion against the process once everyone is deeply invested in more ways than merely financial.

The Everyone Wins Peace Plan: An Evenhanded Policy for Peace

A Statement Against Arrogance

The Talmud teaches in Ethics of Fathers, one should be as clear as possible in their teachings to that students do not stumble on a misinterpretation. The Talmud (first chapter of Sotah) also relates how God despises Yuhara/haughtiness comparing it to idolatry and adultery. Ethics of the Fathers further says in the first chapter that whoever who tries to increase their name, decreases it. Indeed, self promotion for its own sake is against the Torah. So I state for the record that I do not intend in any way to teach arrogant self promotion by calling the peace plan that God gave me after my own name. No one has taken me to task over this as of this writing, but in the spirit of the Talmudic concept of avoiding sinful appearances I speak.

It is the nature of the times and this mode of communication that self promotion is required just to present a dialog. Naming the peace plan that God inspired me to compose after my Father’s last name while it does have an aspect of honor one’s father, inescapably honors myself as well, I cannot escape that fact, but that is not why I did it. In fact, if I am true to myself and know my own feelings, it is because of the exact opposite reason that I did not care for my own honor that I chose to do things this way. If I wanted to be hailed as a genius by my peers, I would have taken the long but honorable method of pursuing the publication of articles in peer review journals of Political Science. I would have taken the time to have written books to better market my career and fill my wallet, if that was my main goal with this recent campaign of mine to promote the Friedlander Peace Plan. In this blog, however, we are not entertaining self promotion but in fact discussing the avoidance of bloodshed, as well as the avoidance of loss of religious rights and property rights for all who are at risk.

The Halacha/Talmudic Law states that if someone who is naked is drowning, we do not demand that they clothe themselves before we rescue them, but we push aside the normal practice of avoiding nudity in order to save a life. Every day millions of people are at risk. I simply could not wait until a career opportunity would present itself, but as soon as the idea was fully formulated, I spoke it. I began to write an extended essay on this a year ago, but I had to work though some paradoxes until God had mercy on me and gave me the inspiration to present this idea publicly beginning as of a month ago. I could not just sit still while countless people were in danger!

So if in any way I went over the line of arrogant self promotion as a byproduct of some aspect of low self esteem on my part, then I apologize and accept the full responsibility for my words and actions and if the Lord wills it, I do intend to make amends, if at all possible. If my words, however, lead in any way to true peace in the Middle East, then I request here and now that credit should be given to where it truly belongs, to those who made me, to God and to my parents and mentors, such as Rav Aharon Soloveichik.

The Friedlander Peace Plan: An Evenhanded Policy for Peace

Toward an Evenhanded Policy for Peace in the Holy Land, Part 3

By Professor Alan Friedlander

In the creation of the Friedlander Peace Plan, an effort has been made to try to form a peace plan for an electorate that currently votes for terrorists, the Palestinians, and for a nation that is adamant about keeping its current ethnic mix, the Israelis. There is a general lack of trust because Palestinians and Israelis are fighting over the same territory. If seen from a perspective of victor and loser, which is the natural baggage that comes as an intrinsic aspect of territorial disputes, then only one side can truly win and the other side therefore must lose. This makes compromise politically impossible without creating a loser, or two vaguely confused combatants with so many minor wins and losses along the way that the meaning of the victory is run away in the downpour of endless compromise, leaving only the taste of defeat in the mouths of both sides. In other words, any two-state solution based peace deal is guaranteed to dissatisfy at least one side and probably both. In other words, any two-state solution peace initiative is guaranteed to be a temporary solution until the next conflict arises.

Meanwhile, all other one state solutions believe in shipping one nation or the other to another country, tearing asunder civil rights such as the right to reside in one's own property and the right to vote, thus also creating dissatisfaction on both a societal as well as a national scale. Therefore any true peace deal must minimize feelings of dissatisfaction that are caused by any one side "losing" the negotiations, and also any peace deal must be able to create a permanent solution, otherwise all gains will eventually be lost and the cycle of violence would not cease, God forbid.

By naturalizing West Bank and Gaza Arabs, but in a corresponding ratio based system to Jewish immigration, both key individual national desires of full political rights for Palestinians in the territories and an end to security risks for Israelis will be met. Both sides would also benefit from peace without withdrawal, which makes no political losers on a national scale, plus the right in many cases to keep a family homestead that has existed for dozens and dozens of years, no losers on a societal scale. The newly united State of Israel would experience a massive investment surge from overseas companies and industries, the likes of which have never been seen in the country before.

Anticipating and tracking any change in the status quo of the rate of immigration is crucial to keep this peace deal fair. First the electorate must set the ratio. If currently there are more than 5 Jews for every Arab. So would 2 Arabs admitted to the State of Israel for every 10 Jews admitted be what the electorate would choose? Whatever the numbers, and I am not in a position right now to make any solid suggestions on what the will of the people should be or is in this regard, nevertheless I feel that the ratio should not necessarily be considered written in stone. Through the wise fluctuation of the ratio rate of immigration and naturalization on a sliding scale in favor of the "disadvantaged" population it is possible to avoid major potential causes for flare ups in the future. It is certain that a ratio too extreme in either direction would be a costly mistake for which there is no need to extrapolate.

If I am ever quoted on this, allow me to point out that I never said terrorists should be granted citizenship. No country would make a citizen out of wanton felons, let alone murderers. But also that Palestinians have clearly been reacting to a series of Israeli and Western leaders supporting terrorists in diplomatic clothing such as Abbas. Such Palestinian leaders are PLO terrorists, not true moderates. Therefore peace negotiations in the past have taken unfair turns. All because the stand President Bush took against Hamas' take over in Gaza, was how pseudo moderates like Abbas should have been dealt with as well. It was the Western support of Arafat and Abbas that created the group psychological phenomena that propelled terror into the sphere of political option in the minds of Palestinian voters. Only by having zero tolerance toward fake diplomats such as Abbas can then the rise of true moderate, third way candidates be seen amongst the Palestinians and become widely acceptable to the public. This is an essential step in the local self governance that is necessary in primarily Palestinian Arab populated regions in the West Bank and Gaza, in order to allow Palestinian towns to be added one by one to the body of the State of Israel.

It should be clearly understood that all other peace deals have been begun by taking the first step with the wrong foot. The beginning of peace does not come by the placation of terror; that is its anathema. If your goal is trying to keep people from dying or losing their homes, then please let these words that I have told you take on meaning in your heart.

What do I answer to those who say, well what if in the end it turns out that most Palestinians utterly and eternally reject peace in support of terror. Will all this effort have all been in vain? To them I say: What of the flowers among the thorns? What of the innocent ones among them? Abraham, the forefather of Jews and Arabs prayed for those innocent trapped among the guilty. It's time that Abraham's descendants on both sides showed more respect for his legacy, and this most sacred family tradition.

A Discussion on the Mechanics of the Naturalization of West Bank and Gaza Arabs to the State of Israel

Toward an Evenhanded Policy for Peace in the Holy Land, Part 2:

A Discussion on the Mechanics of the Naturalization of West Bank and Gaza Arabs to the State of Israel

By Professor Alan Friedlander

In regard to this policy of Arabic absorption upon which the Friedlander version of the One State Solution depends... Obviously, and even Arab Israelis would agree that you cannot allow entry into the State of Israel and grant the right to vote to terrorists with blood on their hands or those who support terror. This then brings us back to the concern we raised before that, according to that March 19, 2008 NY Times poll, now a majority of West Bank Palestinian Arabs support terror against Israel. So how is it possible for a significant enough number of Palestinians in the territories to be eligible to become naturalized Israelis even in the eyes of their own Arab cousins in Israel?

Again, the good part of bureaucracy comes to the rescue. To best illustrate first we need to categorize the intensity of the problem, and next we prioritize the organization of the Arabic naturalization rate according to a Score of the Level-Of-Probable-Innocence (L.O.P.I. Score, to coin a phrase) of each immigration applicant. The higher the L.O.P.I. Score rating, the better chance they have to become an Israeli.

Categorization:

1. Terrorists with blood on their hands or their sponsors are the worst and are ineligible to become Israelis by any standard. They are inhuman.
2. Terrorists without blood on their hands are only slightly better. They look forward to murdering someone.
3. Avid supporters of terror who curse the existence of the State of Israel. Their hatred is deep.
4. Supporters of terror who are only doing so out of frustration and would likely stop if the frustration stopped.
5. Supporter of terror for political reasons. In the sick, Pro-Hamas culture, if you support terror, then your stock goes up in the eyes of the government. We have seen this in history in the cultures of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. It may mean more food on their tables each week.
6. Those courageous Palestinian Arabs who stand up to peer pressure and reject any connection whatsoever with terrorism, even though they are ostracized by their own neighbors.

A L.O.P.I. Score of 3 or less means they are ineligible to become Israeli citizens. Level 4 supporters may end up being rejected by both Jewish and Arab Israelis as being potential immigrants, but perhaps not. Level 5 would get some opposition from the political right, but certainly less than level 4. I would think most would agree that level 6 Arab applicants are a highly desirable crop of potential immigrants.

How to determine the difference between a level 5 and a level three terror supporter? For some in these categories it could be as simple as asking them to pledge support of Israel and foreswear terror as a legitimate form of civil disobedience in the world. Those close to terror may not be able to take such a citizenship pledge, while for those far from terror in their hearts it may be very easy for them to take such a pledge.

For those in between categories; the externally indefinable citizenship applicants, how do we determine their true colors? One would need to know certain classified security secrets that I currently have neither access to, nor do I desire access to, that only Israel and the United States governments are privy to, in order to be able to offer any form of coherent and specified advice. Suffice it to say that the advice of King David from Psalm 131 holds true here, concerning not venturing too deeply into matters greater or more complex than one’s expertise. But fear not, there are those who could answer this query already in place in our governments. The major question is whether this query ever gets asked as a matter of actual policy. Let’s hope the answer is positive.

Prioritization:

Very simply, a L.O.P.I. Score of 6 or something very close to that equals being accepted as soon as a corresponding amount of Jewish immigrants come to Israel as well.

What to do with those who are terrorists? Bring them to justice. The others whom all Israelis, Jew, Arab, all groups alike collectively reject, those rejects who pose no active danger to the State, yet reject the idea of joining the State civilly, should not be kept in a segregated camp in perpetuity, but be given provisions and financial compensation and sent on their way (out of the country), in the spirit of pardoning sinners as on the Biblical Jubilee. This should be done with as much compassion as possible, all according to the nature of the crimes and the will of the people at the time such an event would occur.

But in all these matters I do not pretend that a professor sitting in New York City can judge what is best for Israelis better than they can themselves. This is a matter for Israelis, Jews, Arabs, Bedouins and everyone else in the State of Israel, to decide. This Professor is merely offering examples based upon a theoretical model of another way to go on the path to end violence as swiftly and perpetually as possible, toward a truly just and lasting peace; may God grant it speedily and in our days. Amen.

A New and Revised One-State Solution to Peace in the Middle East

Toward an Evenhanded Policy for Peace in the Holy Land, Part 1:

A New and Revised One-State Solution to Peace in the Middle East

By Professor Alan Friedlander

When seeking an end to belligerence the goal is to remove as many current and as many potential causes for feelings of outrage by either side of the conflict. Yet previous peace plans either favored one side or the other.

Previous one-state solutions ended in selecting a segregated victor and a losing side which then becomes a rejected, exiled nation; as if a Wandering Jew syndrome must be perpetuated with either Jewish settlers or Arab settlers of the West Bank and Gaza being arbitrarily chosen as the collective scapegoat for some ancient sin that has long been erased from Israel. I find other one-state solutions only politically reasonable, whether or not morally so, immediately following the massive war in which the refugee issue first arose, such as in this case, back in 1967. Thus the other one-state solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are inherently archaic. To wait for some kind of a messianic war to legitimize such a one-state solution to end violence while innocent people are in danger would be to ignore the Lord’s command: “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor” (Leviticus 19.16)

Whereas two state solutions are all based on the assumption that two groups of married couples should share a single bed at the same time, and each time one man rolls over in his sleep, the second man thinks that the first man is making a play for his wife. Only the bed in this parable is merely a twin-size bed, and physically unable to contain two married couples peacefully. Such a commune-esque concept cannot work spiritually in a Holy Land, nor physically succeed whether we talk of a tiny proverbial bed or we speak of the political division of a small but cherished land.

I find two-state solutions bubbles of false hope and an invitation for bloodshed on more than one level. As we have seen in Northern Ireland, only once the very thing that the IRA rejected that England should be accepted as the dominant power occurred did peace break out. Peace came to Northern Ireland only through a one-state solution. Thus two state solutions are a codependency to terror. You take away the two-state solution and then when you begin a real peace process, it will stand a chance to succeed. Only then do we find that terrorists are no longer viewed falsely as freedom fighters but are seen correctly as the murdering terrorists that they are.

Though the comparison of England and Israel ends there, as Israel was not a colonial power taking away another nation’s rights, as happened between England and Ireland, the Palestinians are former Jordanians and Egyptians who were abandoned by their former governments, and have yet to be taken in by Israel.

With hindsight we can see clearly how all two state solutions, including the current Roadmap, are guaranteed to fail in the real world. Had they succeeded in signing a paper piece of paper and called it a treaty, it would never have worked long term “on the ground”.

The Friedlander Peace Plan changes all that. Under this new and revised one-state solution as the peace plan of choice, Jews and Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza must be allowed to become one people with the Israelis. It may not be an easy transition to becoming one state, but however dysfunctional it may or may not be at first, that’s the small price of democracy for you. A smaller price than the seemingly endless years of bloodshed have been until now.