Not only does Newt Gingrich believe there’s no such thing as a Palestinian people, the Republican National Committee does as well. That mean that 20 years of bipartisan agreement between political parties and the foreign policy of presidents both Republican and Democratic, has been overturned by a resolution passed by the RNC last week. Mitchell Plitnick reports that a nice, blond-haired white Christian Republican lady from South Carolina has dipped her toe in the deep waters of U.S. Middle East policy and suddenly become expert enough at it to topple long-term consensus. Here’s what Cindy Costa came up with as the Party’s new approach:
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the members of this body support Israel in their natural and God-given right of self-governance and self-defense upon their own lands, recognizing that Israel is neither an attacking force nor an occupier of the lands of others; and that peace can be afforded the region only through a united Israel governed under one law for all people.
You’ll notice a number of things about this piece of pro-Israel brilliance: Palestine? Nowhere to be found. Two states? Ditto. Occupation? Ditto. Mitchell is right in noting that it essentially posits a one-state solution. The only thing it doesn’t do is decide what to do with the millions of Palestinians living in what used to be known, before the Republicans did away with it, the Occupied Territories. Do you expel them outright or merely force them to live in an apartheid state?
Now that the Republicans have endorsed the one-state solution, maybe we should all stop pining for the days of two-states and start devising what sort of Israel should exist in the context of this “united Israel.” Certainly not the one Mrs. Costa imagines, in which there either are no Palestinians or they exist somewhere at the margins of society. No, all Palestinians must be given full equality, rights and citizenship within this grand unitary state of Israel. We also must face the prospect that these Palestinian Arabs will likely outnumber Jews within a relatively short period of time. They might indeed eventually assume political control in a coalition with or even without Jewish support.
The rights of the minority will be protected in that event by a constitution (hopefully), so Jews needn’t worry about their rights being trampled as Jews did to Palestinians when the former were in the majority. Thus we have to put it to the Netanyahus and RNCs of the world: what type of Israel do you want? One that eventually will have a Palestinian majority? Or one that will exist alongside Palestine and possibly have the opportunity to retain a Jewish majority for a much longer period of time (I’m articulating this according to their perspective and values)?
The wording of the full resolution, which can be read at Plitnick’s blog, is a paean to Christian Zionist theology, waxing eloquent about Israel’s God-given right to all the territory granted to Abraham in the Bible. It even quotes Scripture to seal the deal. The only thing it doesn’t do is specify how many Jews will be killed before the Rapture in order to ensure the Second Coming of Jesus Christ back to the Holy Land.
Just as the US Holland is compromising what remains of its good name by its pally attitude to what should be a pariah state.Israel can use Holland to put a spoke in the wheel of any resolutions by the European Union (which require unanimity).
Here is a video (on the right) of an interview with Netanyahu:
http://nieuwsuur.nl/onderwerp/332088-in-gesprek-met-netanyahu.html
Thank you for the link to Natanyahu’s interview.Do you think
that Richard watched it.
Richard a one state solution with equal rights for all people would be incredible; a miracle.
Unfortunately, I don’t think this will ever happen. Racism and discrimination of Muslims is the one prejudice that is not only acceptable but its encouraged in the west. I hope I’m wrong.
That’s what I thought too. Equal rights for all, no matter what the name of the place is, would be great.
The mystery of all mysteries, what will be the outcome of the Israeli versus Palestinian tug of war. All the power to impose their preferred outcome belongs to Israel; all the humanity to resist that outcome belongs to the Palestinians.
So what will it be? A single Jewish state with an underclass of ‘Arab citizens’, who actually aren’t accorded citizenship rights (if they are not expelled), and a whittling away of the Palestinians’ land, resources, and their way of life until their is nothing left for their way-of-life? Maybe a reservation will be set aside, as an act of supposed generosity, for a Palestinian homeland on a particularly worthless strip of land (on which Israel will retain resource extraction rights)?
Will there be enough domestic and international revulsion that catches up and poses a serious economic threat by BDS or a return to militancy that ultimately leads to a ME meltdown?
It really is too bad there aren’t more sensible people inside Israel and the US who understand that the only viable, sustainable solution that allows for peace and prosperity is the ‘cake-and-eat-it’ solution of a single democratic state with full citizenship rights for all Palestinians and Israelis, where all religions and cultures have the freedom to flourish.
Somebody should ask about the destruction of the Jews preceding the Second Coming? When will it be? By what means, etc.?
It is outrageous that this national party has undone, as you rightly note, all of American policy over the decades. Undone, willy-nilly. Poof!
Obama is starting to look better and better (at closing time!). Indeed, Arthur Adler suggests assassination in the Atlanta Jewish Times, which is further endorsement.
I think this is more proof that the GOP leadership is imploding because it is a vacuum. They have no ideas on the domestic front except for tax cuts, no foreign policy objectives beyond George W. Bush’s. Within the next five years we may see the GOP vanish into history, if they don’t watch it.
Strelnikov, I think you’re right. The repubs the way they’re going, may very well become a permanent minor party. See this column by New York Times columnist Charles Blow https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2012/01/20/republican-national-committee-endorses-elimination-of-palestine-from-middle-east/
OOPS!!! I meant to type in this link to read New York Times columnist Charles Blow’s column http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/opinion/blow-newts-southern-strategy.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
Richard, the statement “blond-haired white Christian Republican lady” seems gratuitous. What do you mean by this?
She’s a Christian evangelical Southern belle with all the white bread values that implies.
To be “gratuitous” the observation should be somewhat pejorative. Hillary Clinton fits 5 of those 6 words.
It also seems that the resolution could not be written by Jews. It reminds me of Santorum who was invited to West Bank, presumably guided and offered copious explanations of settlers’ position and came up with “all people in West Banks are Israelis”. Jews who use words “West Bank” acknowledge that Palestinians exist. Jews who do not do not use that phrase.
George Washington once said
“…a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. “
How did those Founding Fathers and Mothers get so smart??