THE ARAB NIGHTMARE

[In which our blogger plays devil's advocate, and seems to argue passionately for Palestinian self-determination and a "two state solution".
I have nothing against Arabs - why, some of my best friends are Arab!
Hi Mohsen, hi Fayed, howdy Monzer and Latif. Keyf-ak hal y'all?]



YESHA
Yesha, more or less, is a territory consisting of five million angry Arabs.... and a number of "other" people.

Yesha is an absurdity - a small minority of Yidden surrounded by a huge number of anti-Semites sounds more like eastern Europe than a territory that could actually survive longer than a few weeks. But Yesha is the strategic depth of Israel. Without control over the territories, Israel is threatened with annihilation.

The Arabs have, for over a century, proven themselves unreliable at peace and untrustworthy at diplomacy - they can not be partners nor safe allies. Their only saving graces appear to be their incompetence and pettiness.
Yesha is the part of Israel that has the most Arabs.

As it currently stands, Yesha is a liability - continuation of what the world persists in calling an occupation undermines the moral validity of the Jewish state, and nourishes a virulent anti-Semitism among certain elements in Europe and America. The current situation damages Israel. What can be done?



POSSIBLE SOLUTION
End the occupation and withdraw. But leave a buffer zone.

Given the tendencies of the Arab residents, one solution for Yesha appears to be withdrawing for strategic and demographic purposes (shrink-wrap around the Judaic element), and enforcing an unpopulated (Arab-free) buffer zone beyond the border as wide as the range of a Qassam or Katyusha. The world would never accept this, though, and while the opinions of the rest of the world should not be taken into consideration, I doubt that the Jewish state has the will to go ahead and do this. In the foreseeable future. Yet.

That leaves what?



ALTERNATIVE NO. 1.: Dig in among the Arabs.
Which means leaving several million Arabs in Israel.

Not precisely a comforting prospect, that.

Keeping people who want to destroy you and murder you INSIDE the land, and therefore being obligated to extend citizenship to them, is somewhat suicidal to say the least. Arabs are not known for sweetness and light. Yesha, in parts, is a bog filled with Arab quicksand.

A Jewish national state splattered with no-go areas is not exactly the lean, mean, and survival-guaranteed Israel which we desire, but more like a bloated over-eater waiting for a fatal heart-attack. It is better to have an area where the Arabs are a hindrance to their own violent cliques than a fifth column for the IDF.
Which brings us to the second alternative.



ALTERNATIVE NO. 2.: Arrange limited population transfers of both groups, with clear demarcation and every Palestinian within range of Israeli guns.

The ideal Israel should contain far fewer Arabs, have a strong and firm border, and hold strategic vantage points. There is no reason to make the Arab territories contiguous or viable, however. Once Israel has divested itself of the Palestinians they are on their own.

The Arab version of self-rule, with certain tendencies encouraged, might even not be too problematic. More than autonomy, perhaps less than independence.

Arab governance, while a bad dream for the world, has proven a nightmare for the Arabs. And Arab societies consistently would rather commit slaughter among their own people than risk instability by supporting the Palestinians. This holds especially for the Arab nations that actually have Palestinian populations; they would much prefer to be rid of them, and wish that migration go in one direction only. Both Egypt and Jordan would be better off without a single Palestinian in their midst.

While it is both right and proper that Palestinians should be a liability for the Arabs, it is incomprehensible that Israel should volunteer to remain so burdened.

If the Palestinians cannot shoot Jews, they will shoot each other - there is no Arab regime that does not brutalize its own population. There is no such thing as Arab democracy. There is no Arab law and order, there are no Arab civil rights, there is no Arab justice. Respect for the individual scarce exists in the Arab world, a free press will likely never exist, and education exists primarily as a step-ladder out of the Arab world - either into the West, or into the ranks of the corrupt ruling class. Were it not for oil, there would be no Arab world today - their own tendencies would have caused the Arabs to destroy themselves.



Once Israel has divested itself of the Palestinians (meaning, once "Palestine" is no longer a "Jew" issue), it is only a matter of time before the Europeans grow weary of them and cease dumping money into Swiss bank accounts. The other Arabs have already shown that they feel little need to support their brethren.
Once Israel no longer has Palestinians, Palestinians will cease to exist.