I\u2019ve been reading this book off-and-on over this past week. \u00a0It isn\u2019t the sort of can\u2019t-put-it-down writing style that keeps you turning the pages, but here\u2019s the main point:<\/p>\n
The Palestinians simply have proven again and again that they will not make peace with the Israelis. \u00a0So often have they, and in particular Arafat and Abbas, acted in bad faith, rejected peace offers without even a counter-offer, continued to sponsor terrorist attacks even while proclaiming that they supported \u201cpeace,\u201d propagandized, even and especially to children, in favor of terrorists and against Jews, that it is rank foolishness to believe that they are a \u201cpartner in peace.\u201d \u00a0And yet the United States and Europe continue to support the PLO and the Palestinian Administration, and even accept Hamas. \u00a0What\u2019s more, the PA is exceptionally corrupt and brutal. <\/p>\n
Page after page, Glick recounts the PLOs misdeeds (and the missed opportunities to let them die, when the Lebanese expelled them and Reagan delusionally persuaded Tunesia to take them in, for instance, or when their prospects were dimmed by their mistaken support of Iraq in the first Gulf War, but Bush \u201crescued\u201d them by supporting the \u201cpeace process\u201d after the war). \u00a0It becomes quite depressing to see that everyone is so desperate for an agreement as to ignore the fact that the PLO\u2019s goal is not a free Palestinian state, but the destruction of Israel. \u00a0What\u2019s more, U.S. presidents have repeatedly convinced themselves that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement in the form of a separate Palestinian state is the linchpin for peace in the Arab and Muslim world. <\/p>\n
Glick\u2019s solution? \u00a0Incorporate the West Bank into Israel itself. \u00a0Offer Palestinians citizenship if they wish it, but if not, apply Israeli law and, most important, Israeli legal protections in place of the corruption of the the PA. \u00a0The PLO and other sponsors of terror won\u2019t like it, but the Israeli government will be able to destroy them anyway. \u00a0The other Arab states won\u2019t like it, but they won\u2019t intervene, and ultimately the Americans and Europeans will accept the Israeli action.<\/p>\n
But \u2013 you say \u2013 isn\u2019t a \u201cone-state solution\u201d demographic suicide? \u00a0 \u00a0Won\u2019t the Arabs, both those now in Israeli and those in the Occupied Territories, outnumber the Jewish Israelis by virtue of their extremely high birthrates? \u00a0Glick disputes this. \u00a0First, she says, she has no interest in Gaza \u2014 that\u2019s gone and never had any historic connection to Israel and a Jewish Homeland anyway. \u00a0And, second, the census which the Palestinian Authority conducted was fraudulent, both in double-counting, including Palestinians living outside the Gaza\/West Bank borders (who Glick does not, of course, envision welcoming back), and exaggerated estimates for population growth. <\/p>\n
Is she right? \u00a0The World Bank (see my links here) reports a very high TFR for the West Bank and Gaza, 4.0 children per women, which is clearly higher than Israel\u2019s 3.0. \u00a0And I\u2019ve read in the past that the West Bank and Gaza are like a welfare state gone amok, so much so that the people breed like rabbits, claiming additional \u201cwelfare money\u201d for each new child, rather than needing to support their children themselves. \u00a0But Glick cites fertility rates for Gaza and the West Bank separately, in which the fertility rate for Gaza, at 4.57, is considerably higher than that of the West Bank, which is equal to that of Jews in Israel, both at 2.98. <\/p>\n
In any event, her arguments are compelling, yet it\u2019s difficult to imagine that she\u2019d be listened to, that John Kerry, for instance, would move away from the \u201ctwo-state\u201d objective, and the \u201cIsraeli concessions will bring about Arab cooperation\u201d strategy, especially in light of the \u201cBDS\u201d (Boycott, Divestiture, Sanctions) movement that\u2019s gaining steam, for instance, at American universities and even with a resolution of the Presbyterian Church (USA). \u00a0But she is convincing when she says that this \u201ctwo-state\u201d strategy will fail, or, more accurately, will continually fail just as much as it has failed for the past decades, and that as long as the actors continue to pursue it, the next decades will be wasted every bit as much as the past. <\/p>\n
Update 7\/15\/14:<\/p>\n
Now we\u2019re in the midst of another outbreak of slowly-simmering warfare between Israel and Gaza, and I find myself wondering: \u00a0are Gaza and the West Bank culturally the same, and the only reason why Gaza is launching rockets and the West Bank isn\u2019t, is that Israel has left Gaza to its own devices but still has a military presence in the West Bank? \u00a0Or is Gaza historically, culturally, politically its own entity, so that it makes sense to think of it separately, with a separate solution for them (either nominal independence with a UN \u201cpeacekeeping\u201d presence or annexation to Egypt) vs. for the West Bank? <\/p>\n