Benny Gantz Can Do Better than Pander to the Settlers
July 14, 2019
We cannot let pass without comment Blue and White candidate Benny Gantz’s statement on Thursday July 11, reported in Hamodia and Arutz Sheva, that Jewish settlers living in the West Bank would be able to remain in their settlements under any agreement with the Palestinians.
He was signaling agreement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise to the settlers the previous day. Gantz largely made this statement for political reasons, hoping to pull in Likud voters to Blue and White in the September elections on grounds that Netanyahu has criminal indictments hanging over him.
Nevertheless, this kind of short-term thinking can hardly be constructive to any sort of viable peace process. Prudence requires reconsideration, both now and later should Gantz become the next Prime Minister.
There is some evidence that Gantz can do better. On April 7 of this year, he condemned Netanyahu’s electioneering pledge to unilaterally annex the West Bank and said he opposed “unilateral” moves. “We said we will strive for a regionally and globally backed peace agreement while maintaining our basic principles.” Those principles included keeping some large settlement blocs in the West Bank, but not every settlement.
Any negotiated peace agreement will require compromises. Neither side will be able to get all they want—neither the Palestinians with their demand for an unrestricted Right of Return nor the Israelis to maintain all their settlements in the West Bank. The conflict has dragged on too long for lack of leaders willing to make hard choices and sell these choices to their people.
The Palestinian leadership was unwilling to accept a peace deal with Israel during the brief opportunities when such deals could be made—when Ehud Barak offered terms to Yasser Arafat at Camp David, or when Ehud Olmert offered terms to Mahmoud Abbas—because they had not prepared the Palestinian people to accept anything less than all their demands. Consequently, the political price of a treaty with Israel was too high. Netanyahu as well has made the settlers such a big part of his base it would be political suicide to ask them to relinquish their settlements. Do we have to watch Gantz dig himself into the same hole?
The Citizens Proposal makes clear in its maps what sort of territorial solution can support goals for peace and provide the Palestinians with a viable and accepted state that can exist peacefully alongside Israel. It will certainly require dismantling some settlements, especially isolated ones. With too many intrusive settlements, Palestinians cannot have a contiguous state with sovereignty over its own affairs. Hence, once a peace agreement with agreed-upon borders is signed, Israeli settlers who live on the Palestinian side of the border will either have to leave their homes or accept the position of a minority within the State of Palestine. For those who choose the latter out of attachment to the land, we would want the Palestinian State to accord them equal rights as citizens. We are looking for the next Israeli prime minister to lead the nation into peace with the Palestinians and acceptance among the world community. For this, Israel’s next leader needs to have a long-range vision for what that peace will look like for Israel and Palestine. If that peace requires Israelis to sacrifice a few settlements, he or she should begin preparing the public for that inevitable day. Pandering to the settlers supporting Likud by claiming that no settlement will be closed down is short-range thinking that may win a mandate or two, but in the long run will only make peace more difficult, and life more intolerable in varying degrees for individuals, communities and nations.
We hope the next leader of Israel will be an inspirational figure who will motivate Israelis to take steps for peace. He or she should set out a new direction for the country that breaks from the narrow nationalism of the Netanyahu crowd and returns to the founding idealism of the state. Jews in America and worldwide also are looking for such a leader. They want to be proud of Israel for its democratic values, justice, support of diversity and compassion for minorities, and as a shining light of peace for the world community. Many of them see that Israel has strayed far from that original vision, to its detriment. It is also to the detriment of world Jewry, which sometimes has to bear with fallout from Israel’s actions.
Gantz reportedly said that he would deal with the Palestinian issue later. Suppose there were a Jewish issue in France; Jews wouldn’t want President Macron to say, “I have to deal with more pressing matters; I will get to the Jews later.” No people with grievances, and the Palestinians have their share, want to be relegated to the end of the queue.
The least Gantz could do is pledge to put together a commission to study the matter and seek solutions; that way without revealing his hand during the election season he would still show Israel and the world that he intends for peace to be an important matter for his administration.
In the current international environment, Gantz, by categorically declaring the he will preserve every settlement, is aligning himself with powerful reactionary forces that resist peace, both regionally and internationally.
On one side, the United States under President Trump has a policy towards Israel dominated by the Christian Right and its religious attachment to biblical claims. On the other side, he stokes the impotent rage felt by many Arabs in the nations surrounding Israel, which could increase instability and radicalism in the region. Both these forces will push Israel to maintain the highly militaristic and defensive stance of the current government. The result will be only continuing stalemate. The time has come for change of leadership in Israel, and in Palestinian circles as well. We need new leaders who are not afraid to articulate a long-range vision for peace. This is a necessary first step to prepare their respective peoples to step outside of their comfortable nationalisms, go beyond their fears, and seek a genuine peace agreement that can be accepted by both sides. We hope that Benny Gantz and the Blue and White party will give Israel the necessary vision and courage to step up for peace. Gantz can do better than pander to the settlers.
Return to Two States Our Future after Israel's Failed April 2019 Election
June 2, 2019
It was all supposed to go smoothly. After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s narrow victory in the April 10 Israeli elections, he would use his formidable political skills to cobble together a solid right-wing coalition government. Then he would stand side-by-side with President Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner to proclaim his support for Trump’s “deal of the century” offering money to the Palestinians in lieu of sovereignty, which would dovetail perfectly with Bibi’s desire to annex the West Bank. However, Netanyahu’s dramatic and unexpected failure to form a government last week, capped by the Knesset vote on May 29 to dissolve itself and call new elections for September 17, has put the kibosh on this plan.
In anticipation of a successful Netanyahu-led right-wing coalition government, members of Likud drafted a bill that would establish Israeli control over Area C—the sparsely populated areas of the West Bank between the major Palestinian population centers—and open it up for new settlements. This would lead to annexation of the West Bank. Palestinians would have limited autonomy in their population centers, as islands within a greater Israel surrounded by ever more extensive settlements, and movement through the Israeli-controlled space between their cantons would be strictly controlled.
Netanyahu’s position has always been that Israel requires control of the entire West Bank for its security. He has never trusted the Palestinians to be partners in peace. His core belief is that Israel is a place for Jews alone; hence the recent nationality law that affirms Israel’s Jewish character while relegating Israeli Arabs to second-class status. Furthermore, he regards Israeli settlers in the West Bank as his foremost allies and the linchpin of his governing majority because many are motivated by the putative claim of their Scripture that Jews should occupy all the land offered to them in the Bible— “Judea and Samaria,” which happen to be identical to the West Bank. The view that Israel should control all the Holy Land of the Bible is also widely held by the American Evangelical Christians who make up a large part of Trump’s base. Hence, there is a natural alignment between Netanyahu and Trump that, as laid out in Kushner’s plan, was to have led to a peace without a Palestine. (continued on p. 2)
