Land for Peace is Fuel for Terror

Land-for-peace, peace plans which demand of the non aggressor state loss of land are the antithesis of the path to a true and lasting peace. Therefore any such peace process, including the Oslo Accords and the Roadmap to Peace only serve to strengthen the hold of terrorists within the Palestinian side. That means extremism within Palestinian leadership is encouraged by current Western Policy in the Middle-East. Some supporters of Palestinians have been afraid to face the truth, perhaps out of fear that putting Arabic rights at Israel’s mercy would risk loss of Arabic rights. Yet for those who know her, Israel’s mercy is its most potent character trait. The moment the gangster-like tactics of terror stop, the violence will end, and peace will come soon, it’s that simple.

Is not the goal of Western Foreign Policy to seek peace which will bring economic prosperity to all? But before you can bring actual peace, you must face the actual truth of things. This conflict is not Israel and the Palestinians with equal claims. Like the person who knows he is losing an argument, so he begins to shout his opinion louder rather than restating it more logically, because there is not enough logic to support it. So too is the people that resort to violence against a peaceful democracy rather than pacifistic civil disobedience. Is Israel’s human rights record truly comparable to China’s? Did Palestinians before the Intifada fear for their lives from the Israel’s military machine? No. The truth, for those who care to hear it is no. The truth is the Palestinian Arabic choice for terror proves that they know deep down that they have no equal claim to the land as does Israel.

The West Bank, by International Law, is Israel’s already (defacto annexation pending final status determination). If this is true, then the idea of avoiding any Israeli land for peace, peace process is not just right wing propaganda, but the basis for any real path to peace. Not just from the concept of being fair to Israel, but from the reality that today’s injustice brings tomorrow’s war. It does not matter which sides looses today’s negotiation. If there is objective International Law to back up a claim that is entirely ignored, there will likely be violence in the future unless a true peace process is implemented instead. A peace process such as the Everyone Wins peace plan, that endeavors to meet the needs of the bi-societal – specific, internal and delicate – healing processes before it tries to carve up territories and attempts to write out maps.

It is unjust to support terror. Land for Peace has become a symbol of a reward for Palestinian Terror, rather than what it should have been from the start, a required gift to a needy people. There should have been a grassroots movement by the Palestinian Arabs to express humble gratitude of a refugee nation over being given a new homeland by its benefactor, Israel. For if a Palestinian state is founded upon the ravenous bloodshed of terror then its future would be fleeting at best, logistically speaking. Morally speaking, support of terror makes the Palestinians’ the aggressor even if Israel has more power and also makes the Palestinian case wrong even before you review the facts. Legally speaking, once you do review the facts, however, it is clear that Israel has more legal rights to the land than the Palestinians under International Law. Allow me to illustrate:

The state is the primary actor in International Law. Individuals, when severed by International Legal Standards from statehood, are not complete entities to International Law, per say, as they are not in the hallowed designation of “State”, whereas individuals within a state are generally viewed as subservient to the greater needs of the greater state in which they reside, unless a universally accepted fundamental Jus Cogens law is clearly violated. Freedom of religious expression, for example, is not currently listed as a universal Jus Cogens law, even though it as I have argued it should be and it is very clearly a Human Right. (This explains why the U.N. is slow to react to Human Rights abuses throughout the world.) An example of this concept is found by refugees who are former members of a state that has completed the legal act of Succession or Cession (as is the case of Jordan in regards to the entire Arabic population of the West Bank, both Judea and Samaria). To keep this essay from getting too long, let’s cite the example of England who used this same premise to keep Northern Ireland as it’s own after its peace deal with the IRA; the full state comes first. But after terror is used by the conquered party, certainly then, no sane nation would assume that the attacked nation had even less rights because it was being terrorized. England certainly did not feel this way. Neither should Israel be made to forsake land for peace due to threat or fiction.

Further you can argue that Ireland was a full state itself before being conquered by England, whereas the Palestinians Arabs were not a full state, but members and former citizens of either Jordan (West Bank) or Egypt (Gaza Strip) before becoming refugees, nations that have abandoned their lands. Israel thus has even more right to the West Bank and Gaza than England has to Northern Ireland. Yet where is the international pressure for England to clear out of Ireland? Is something less than evenhanded afoot? Is it right wing to say emphatically, YES? Or it is simply correct to say so?

Yet political left and right are irrelevant to the issues at play here. Consider the source that tells you this. God blessed me with the Everyone Wins peace plan not only out of my desire to stop the bloodshed and protect Jewish religious rights to their land and Holy sites, but also from my desire to allow everyone, Jew and Arab alike to keep their homes, and out of a desire to enrich the civil rights of West Bank and Gaza Arabs. The only way to do all this is by facing the absolute truth of the matters at hand. That as of today Israel is the logistic, moral and legal owner of the entire Judea and Samaria.

True, it is unjust to support terror. So too, it is also unjust to support being heavy handed against the true land owner, Israel, in any final status negotiations. The restoration of moderation in attitudes toward Israel by those currently biased against her, is a must, just for a basic perception of the plain facts to occur.

The bottom line is, Israeli land-for-peace, peace deals are clearly fuel for terror and the world need only correctly identify the real aggressor in the conflict for true peace to come. For so long and with so much bloodshed the wrong way to peace has been pursued. The time has come to try it the right way.

Healing Societies: The Ideological Foundation of the Everyone Wins Peace Plan

To what can my support of the Rabbi Elon Israeli Initiative Peace Plan be compared to? Like two women who were told that the infant on the table before them is the long lost child of one of them, only it is not certain which one is the true mother. Surely if the baby were at risk of falling off the table, no matter which mother could reach the child before it were harmed, surely then both mothers would rejoice at the success of the other woman, for success means the infant’s safety.

In this parable, Rabbi Elon’s peace plan is the woman who is closer to the table. His plan is more developmentally mature in it current stage of progression than mine is at this point in time, hence, it demands even my support. So, egos or jealousy have no place in this matter. Of course, if Rabbi Elon’s plan could, in actuality, not just theoretically, bring lifesaving peace, then of course I would and do fully support it, and certainly at the expense of any possible accolades towards me or the plan that God inspired me to form, so that the Lord-God’s Reverence for Life could best be honored.

Stages of Peace Plan Development

1. Conception
2. Publicity
3. Acceptance
4. Implementation

On the above chart, Rabbi Elon’s plan is bordering on stage number 3; while mine is less developmentally mature at this point, currently somewhere between 1 and 2.

But what if in that above parable with the infant, the woman who was closer to the endangered infant had bags in her hands, so that she must either drop the bags or else the other woman must push past her and grab the child before it is too late. The Kahane-esque underpinnings of the Israel Initiative are its conceptual weakness, its baggage. If my belief is true, that the Everyone Wins peace plan is a more conceptually mature plan than the Israeli Initiative is, and therefore has a greater long term chance for success, then certainly my plan would then demand priority of support, even by Rabbi Binyamin Elon himself, to edit the Israeli Initiative according to the guidelines that God blessed me to write about.

Until now there were two mainstream ways of looking at prospective peace in the Holy Land.

1) Two States West of the Jordan River formula peace plans such as the current Roadmap to Peace and the repeatedly failed Oslo Accords assume that the West Bank and Gaza are completely different from the “Green Line” territories of Israel. These plans ignore the rights of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. This ignores Biblical texts, thousands of years of history, current societal realities, and the settlement policies of the past 40 years.

2) The Rabbi Meir Kahane peace plan essentially assumes that all Arabs on the other side of the Green Line are squatters who have no rights to any of the land that they possess, in the spirit of the Bible’s treatment of those evil nations who dwelt in the Land of Canaan before the Hebrews came to possess the land. Still, rather than battle the Palestinians, Rabbi Kahane proposed paying the Palestinians to relocate. More out of a sense of magnanimity at the face of Palestinian discomfort than as a recognition of Palestinian rights to their land. This has been rejected by Israeli society from being considered a viable policy.

But the more that is invested into hopeless two state options, and the more blood that is shed, the more likely public opinion would return to this concept as an option. Though, I would suggest not waiting and instead embarking on a new course, so that the bloodshed on both sides may cease all the sooner. Also while less offensive to Primal International Laws of self defense than the Roadmap to Peace, Kahane's plan is still not as law abiding overall as the Everyone Wins peace plan. Now I do not mean to suggest that the United States entered into a foreign policy directly opposed to International Law. But the current Roadmap to Peace blueprint naively called for trusting leopards to change their spots, terrorists to reform into law abiding leaders. This created even from the onset that a probability would exist that the law would be ignored by the Palestinian Arab leadership that could not care less for objective International Norms that do not directly benefit them. Placing adherence to Jus Cogens/Fundamental International Law completely into the hands of terrorists is foolhardy. It is based upon the fallacious legal notion of placing lesser customary law in priority above higher primal law, for the sake of political expediency.

To be kind to those who earnestly labored for peace via the false peace plans, before now there were only Two State Solutions and Kahane based One State Solutions. Now, in Everyone Wins, a true third way exists.

The Everyone Wins peace plan assumes that the concern over the political demarcation known as the Green Line is the main problem. Why? Because, while the venue of the solution is political, that much is true, the cause of the problem is not political, but rather societal in nature. One society being understandably somewhat obsessed with demographic concerns and the other society overwhelmed by an undercurrent of terror. Therefore discussing political lines in the sand rather than methods of healing societal rifts is, in fact, a main reason that Kahane-esque peace plans do not escape my criticism of having begun in an adverse manner.

By attempting to sever this people or that from their homes, neighborhoods, and societal foundations, mass discontent is raised and true peace cannot gain a foothold. Everyone Wins views all the land as one, and all the people as one democratic entity. Only terrorists are considered a foreign body that must be excised because society itself cannot bear them. Therefore we can say that the solution to peace in the Holy Land has been so very elusive not because many good intentioned people did not seek a fair answer, but merely because they were asking the wrong question. The question of ‘how do you stop the conflict’ is well meaning but too general to guide one to a direct path to peace. The correct question is, ‘what method will heal Israeli and Palestinian Arabic societies the best?’

By using antiquated theoretical models, upon which all Two State Solutions are based, good people have been running away from true peace. But the good news is, once we all start on the right path and in the right direction together, things are going to get very, very good, very soon. So may it be God’s will.

A Critique of the Elon Plan and a Summary of the Everyone Wins Peace Plan

The Rabbi Binyamin Elon peace plan, despite a few issues that bother me, is currently the best peace plan widely known in the world today, while the “Roadmap to Peace” is an assault on Jewish Human Rights in the form of freedom to practice Judaism in their own land. The Palestinian Authority has failed to show any indication that they intend to keep the International Laws of Succession and safeguard Jewish freedom of religious access to their religious landmarks and holy sites, as was proven, for example, with the desecration of the Tomb of Joseph and countless other examples. Further, and more urgent, every time the IDF surrenders more control, more people have died on both sides.

Even if the Roadmap is scrapped, there has to be a good alternative peace plan waiting in the wings, so that any other plans even worse than the Roadmap do not ever get a chance to gain strength. I feel the need for an alternate peace plan is vital to avoid further desecration of God’s Holy Name and needless bloodshed. If my plan is unacceptable for whatever reason, at least the Elon plan does not placate terrorists. Yet here are the main reasons that I was unsatisfied with the Elon plan and wrote up a whole new plan, by the grace of God...

Issue 1

Involving another country, effectively takes control of peace out of the hands of Israel and places it into the hands of that other country. Not only does the Elon plan depend on Jordan to change their policy and allow mass immigration, (which they may view with as much disdain as Israel views the Saudi plan) but it also depends on Jordan to keep the peace in their own country and should that fail, there is a danger of Israel being pressured to take back terrorists into their country, because to the UN, why would Israel’s sovereignty be more important than Jordan’s? True peace should bring more stability, not less, more order, not more potential for randomness and chaos. This is the first issue I have with the Elon plan.

Issue 2

In my variation of one state solutions such as the Elon peace plan, which I call the “Everyone Wins” plan, nobody loses their homes except for terrorists and those who support them. Now even if at the end of the day this means only a minority of Palestinian Arabs keep their homes, as it does not discriminate due to race, but moral choice, it is much more politically acceptable to the mainstream than any variant of a Rabbi Kahane plan. The Elon plan which seeks to toss every Palestinian Arab out of the West Bank and Gaza, has the negative appearance of a Kahane style plan. Not that Rabbi Kahane was a racist. Indeed, if everybody listened to him many lives would have been spared, more Arabs than Jews, even. Yet, the unfortunate reality is that any Kahane-esque plan causes a knee-jerk reaction in the left, and makes it morally difficult for the politically moderate to give their full support. We must deal with actualities in order to implement loftier ideals. We cannot ignore how the electorate feels. This is the second issue that I have with the Elon plan.

Issue 3

Is this how you treat your friends? Remember that Abraham prayed for even just ten people out of a whole city, if they are righteous. So how can anyone suggest tossing out so many potentially good people without giving them a chance to prove themselves innocent of terror?

Real Change

To do more than win over just a few politicians, but to actually change American Foreign Policy you need to offer a non-offensive (to American sensibilities) alternative to current foreign policy. The peace plan alternative must be as moderate and evenhanded as possible without ignoring the key needs of Israel, external and internal security, and religious freedom.

Everyone Wins

The "Everyone Wins" Peace Plan requires the tying of West Bank/Gaza Arabic naturalization rates to the immigration rates of foreign born Jews. Whereas previous one state solutions called for relocating masses of people, this plan calls for no segregation whatsoever. Nobody has to give up their homes (except for terrorists and those who support them), neither Jews nor Arabs. Palestinians slowly but surely become complete Israelis without overwhelming the Israeli economy and infrastructure.

The key to making this work is twofold. First: the categorization of the level of security risk of each naturalization applicant. The ones who are at zero risk are immediately placed in cue and await a corresponding number of immigrants to raise enough quota to allow them entry as naturalized Israelis. Second: setting a fair and an appropriate ratio. If current demographics in Israel are that 15% of Israelis are Arabs, then the ratio could be set at 15%. That is, for every 100 immigrants, 15 West Bank and Gaza Arabs who are not a threat are allowed in. So if in a given year there are 100,000 Jewish immigrants, 15,000 friendly Arabs would naturalize.

Once true peace exists, I would expect that Jewish immigration will likely increase by no less than 300% of current rates. Plus financial stability and growth will be at unheard of levels. The ability to power infrastructure growth and the greater Jewish immigration numbers will allow Israel to naturalize more Arabs faster and safer than currently possible. Thus the entire conflict will come to an end that much sooner, by the grace of God.