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Arthur M. Horwitz
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The Case For Two States?

F. Kevin Browett
Chief Operating Officer
kbrowett@renmedia.us

Dershowitz skirts the obstacles in seeking rekindled peace talks.

Boca Raton, Fla.

H

ere’s the vision: That an interna-
tionally recognized Palestinian
state in much of the West Bank
alongside Israel — the vaunted “two-state
solution” — would somehow inspire
Gazans to rise up against their Hamas
dictators and its rocket arsenal in hopes of
becoming part of that new state with a bus-
tling Ramallah at its epicenter.
This is what a noted
Middle East observer
and staunch Israel
defender foresees.
Renowned law profes-
sor, author and lecturer
Alan Dershowitz likened
the image to a divided
Germany in the after-
Robert Sklar
math of World War II.
Contributing
“The wall between
Editor
East and West Berlin
wasn’t brought down by
President Reagan,” Dershowitz said before
an audience of more than 400 people at
Congregation B’nai Israel in South Florida.
“It wasn’t brought down by the pope. It was
brought down by the people of East Berlin
who wanted to be West Berliners.”
The Felix Frankfurter professor of
law emeritus at Harvard University in
Cambridge, Mass., predicted Gazans would
“see the benefit the Palestinians would get
in having a state.”
On March 24 as part of the B’nai Israel
Speaker Series, the celebrated constitution-
al lawyer insisted Hamas could have no role
in a Palestinian state. That Sunni terrorist
group long has flirted with joining Fatah in
heading up a Palestinian state. Under the
rubric of the Palestinian Authority, Fatah
governs Palestinian-controlled areas of the
West Bank.
The Jewish Federation of South Palm
Beach County’s Jewish Community
Relations Council sponsored Dershowitz’s
Purim appearance. Federation President
and CEO Matt Levin interviewed the
Brooklyn native, but the audience couldn’t
ask questions. So Dershowitz could ignore
that Fatah boasts its own terrorist wing, the
Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

THE OCCUPATION
To help frame his perspective, Dershowitz
fretted that continued control over millions
of Palestinians eventually could diminish
the Jewish majority under Israel’s watch.
And he posited that Israel’s occupation of a
Palestinian-populated West Bank violates
the Jewish state’s democratic character.

6 April 14 • 2016

“I think the case for Israel is
morally correct, legally correct
and politically correct.”

— Professor Alan Dershowitz

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip total 4.7 million, according to the
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
Israel is home to 6.3 million Jews and 1.7
million Arabs.
Dershowitz projects a Palestinian state
in the West Bank that is demilitarized,
but has an Israeli military presence in the
Jordan Valley until all resistance stops — in
keeping with international law. Such a state
would contain all land received in exchange
for Israel retaining major settlement blocs.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
A political liberal who counts as confidants
both right-leaning Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and left-leaning
U.S. President Barack Obama, Dershowitz
pitched a Jerusalem geographically united
but politically divided. I’ve long imagined
Jerusalem remaining Israel’s eternal, undi-
vided capital with some form of Palestinian
sub-governance in the Arab-dominated
eastern sector.
The JN long has held to the principle of a
two-state solution rather than Israeli sover-
eignty in the region via the annexing of the
biblical lands of Judea and Samaria, which
together comprise today’s West Bank — a
notion built upon a one-state solution.
The JN has argued the best path to
peace is through direct, bilateral negotia-
tions between the Israeli government and
the Palestine Liberation Organization, the
negotiating umbrella for the Palestinian
people. Netanyahu has offered to resume
talks without preconditions. Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
seemingly prefers to seek statehood via
the United Nations, which he considers an
easier pathway.
A history buff, Dershowitz reminded the
pro-Israel crowd the concept of two states
bubbled up with the British-issued Balfour
Declaration in 1917. Reinforcement came
in 1947 with the U.N. Partition Plan for
Palestine, in 1993 with the Oslo Accords
and in 2001 at Camp David. In 2008,
Dershowitz said, Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert offered “the Palestinians
everything they possibly could want.”

Dershowitz avoided citing that many
Palestinian leaders want Israel uprooted
instead of remaining a neighbor. One posi-
tive in the relationship is Israel’s security tie
with the Palestinian Authority, a collabora-
tion that Hamas, victim of three recent P.A.
arrests in connection with a planned terror
attack against Israel, has condemned.
Dershowitz went on to lavish praise on
Israel for contributing “so much to human-
ity in its 67 years,” particularly in the fields
of medicine, technology, solar energy and
agriculture.
“It’s quite remarkable what Israel has
accomplished — and what it could accom-
plish if it literally beat its swords into plow-
shares and its nuclear weapons into nuclear
medicine,’’ he said.
“That scenario would be amazing for the
world. And that’s why I believe a two-state
solution ultimately would prevail.”
It would be amazing. But it’s not practi-
cal. Israel has survived 67 years thanks to
an armed readiness with a qualitative edge
to fend off imminent Islamist aggression
from all sides — treaties with Egypt and
Jordan important but with little standing
within the sight lines of Iran, Hezbollah,
Hamas and ISIS.

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STAND WITH ISRAEL
Engaged and influential as Dershowitz is
at age 77, it’s disheartening he glossed over
how insurmountable a two-state solution is
under the restraints of Fatah and Hamas.
Still, he harkened to Purim in closing on
an upbeat chord rooted in how Jews have
triumphed over evil for centuries.
As the author of the 2003 bestseller The
Case for Israel put it: “I think the case for
Israel is morally correct, legally correct and
politically correct. And I think we should
all be proud there is a nation growing out
of the ashes that has done so much good in
such a short period of time.”
He was spot on imploring Jews to sup-
port Israel amid any disagreements over
government policy or direction. To survive
and thrive, the ancestral Jewish homeland
requires Jews, as a people, to stand strongly
behind it. *

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