Israel’s only realistic alternative is to destroy the PA and the entire terrorist network west of the Jordan River!

Phase out U.S. military aid to Israel !

Phase out U.S. military aid to Israel (now less than 1.5% of the country’s GDP), as well as American participation in Israel-Arab affairs. Both undermine Israel’s strategic interests as well as Jewish national pride.
--The Eidelberg Plan: A Jewish Solution to the Conflict

And here it is, folks . . .

The Eidelberg Plan:
A Jewish Solution to the Conflict*

In December 2008, former IDF Chief of Staff L. Gen. Moshe Yaalon published a policy paper “Israel and the Palestinians: A New Strategy.” Yaalon’s plan requires a democratic metamorphosis of the Palestinian Authority. Needed first, he says, is economic prosperity among the Palestinians to produce a middle class society inclined to moderation, the rule of law, and peace—precondition of responsible self-government. Israelis and Palestinians will then arrive at a peaceful settlement of their conflict.

Caroline Glick agrees. In her Jerusalem Post article “The Israeli solution” (February 2, 2009), she says, “It is obvious today that for the Palestinians to develop into a society that may be capable of statehood in the long term, they require a period of a generation or two to rebuild their society in a peaceful way.”

Yaalon and Glick need to think again. To expect Israel to implement “The Israeli solution” when the average duration of its government is less than two years and when its cabinet consists of five or more rival political parties is hardly realistic. Any solution to the conflict must be preceded by basic reform of Israel’s governing institutions. Of course, institutions, however well-designed, do not guarantee wisdom and virtue. Nevertheless, if well-designed, they increase the probability of obtaining the quality of government needed to solve the conflict. Here is a summary of what I propose:

PARLIAMENT. The parliament will be bicameral. Its two functions, law-making and administrative overview, will be divided between two assemblies, a Senate and a House of Representatives. To anticipate objections to a second branch of parliament without law-making power, let’s compare it with the existing Knesset.

Roughly 25 percent of the Knesset’s 120 members are cabinet ministers and deputy ministers. Since they are party leaders, the Knesset is incapable of exercising the important function of administrative overview—which is why corruption in government is so widespread in Israel. In contrast, members of my proposed House of Representatives will be excluded from the cabinet. They will be free to determine whether the laws are being faithfully and efficiently administered—and they will have subpoena powers to grill the bureaucracy.

THE GOVERNMENT. A presidential system will replace Israel’s inept and unstable system of multi-party cabinet government. The cabinet will consist of professionals, not rival party leaders.

THE SUPREME COURT. Judges will be nominated by the President (advised by a council learned in Jewish and secular law). Nominations will be confirmed by the Senate in public hearings. Consistent with the Foundation of Law Act 1980, Jewish law will be first among equals vis-à-vis the foreign legal systems currently used by the Court.

If it would take one or two generations to democratize the Palestinian Authority, surely it would take less than a year or another election to change Israel’s system of governance, since more than 50 percent of the public is more or less disgusted with Israel’s corrupt as well as undemocratic political and judicial institutions.

Now, it must be emphasized that the Yaalon plan, or what Glick calls “The Israeli solution,” endorses an eventual Arab-Muslim state in Judea and Samaria. I categorically reject such a state both on Jewish and geo-strategic grounds. It is utterly unrealistic to expect Arab to forgo their religion and become bourgeois democrats. There is no evidence whatever to expect economic prosperity to trump Islam, especially while Islam is achieving global power. I therefore contend that Israel’s only realistic alternative is to destroy the PA and the entire terrorist network west of the Jordan River.

Genuine realism requires a theological understanding of the enemy. Genuine realists know that territorial compromise with Muslims only whets their appetite for further aggression. Genuine realists know there are no empirical grounds to expect Muslims to renounce Jihadism—the precondition of peace—unless they are so devastated as to expunge their desire to wage war for a hundred years—as the Allied powers did to Nazi Germany.

Israel, especially Jerusalem, is the focus of Islam’s war against the West. The West is steeped in denial. Israel must awaken the West by going on the offensive. It must destroy the terrorist network west of the River Jordan. But as I have indicated, this goal requires basic reform of Israel’s political system whose fragmented and transient nature precludes the execution of any coherent and long-term national strategy.

In the final analysis, the only way to solve Israel’s conflict with its Arab enemies—and this includes its own Arab citizens—is to make Israel more Jewish. The institutional reforms I have proposed will contribute very much to this objective because they will empower the people, most of whom are to the right of Israel’s ruling elites. The February 10 election witnessed the political power of Israel’s right-minded public, which would become even more united and effective under my proposed system of governance. Nor is this all.

We need leaders who understand that it is precisely the failure of Jews to insist on their God-given and exclusive ownership of the Land of Israel that encourages Arabs to persist in their war against our people. Since the goal of the Arabs—depicted in their maps—is to conquer all of Palestine, a rational government of Israel should adopt the following course of action:

1. Abrogate the Oslo Agreement and eliminate the entire terrorist leadership. This will demoralize the Arabs. No Arab leadership will speedily arise and command the loyalty of the artificial collection of rival clans called the “Palestinians.”

2.With the PA destroyed, Israel’s Government should declare Jewish sovereignty over Yesha. (The Arabs in these areas will retain the personal, religious, and economic rights they enjoyed under Israeli law, but they will not vote in Israeli elections.)

3.The Government should establish unequivocal jurisdiction over the Temple Mount.

4.It should move certain cabinet ministries to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. (This will convince Arabs that the Jews intend to remain in these areas permanently.)

5.The Government should pass a Homestead Act and sell small plots of land in Yesha at low prices to Jews in Israel and abroad with the proviso that they settle on the land, say for a period of six years. This would diminish the dangerous population density of Israel’s large cities and encourage Jewish immigration to Israel.

6.Develop model cities in Yesha by attracting foreign capital investment on terms favorable to the investors. Based on experience, and given Israel’s present Gross Domestic Product of $170 billion, at least 150,000 Jews could be settled in Judea and Samaria within a few years. Their presence will prompt many more Arabs to leave, as tens of thousands have done in the past, and in greater number if offered generous incentives.

As concerns Israel’s itself, I advocate the following measures:

1. The Law of Return should make explicit that Israel is a Jewish commonwealth, that its Jewish character is its paramount principle to which all other principles are subordinate.

2. Amend the “grandfather clause” of the Law of Return to diminish the number of gentile immigrants, and devote the vast sums saved to assimilate gentiles now residing in Israel.

3. Enforce Basic Law: The Knesset, which prohibits any party that negates the Jewish character of the State

4. Enforce the 1952 Citizenship Law, which empowers the Government to nullify the citizenship of any Israel national that commits “an act of disloyalty to the State.” (I would amend the term “act” to protect freedom of speech and press.)

5. Put an end to the notorious tax evasion of Arab citizens and their countless violations of building and zoning laws.

6. Terminate subsidies to, or expel, Arab university students who call for Israel’s destruction, and require Arab schools to include Jewish studies in their curriculum.

7. Phase out U.S. military aid to Israel (now less than 1.5% of the country’s GDP), as well as American participation in Israel-Arab affairs. Both undermine Israel’s strategic interests as well as Jewish national pride.

Of course, this is a grandiose project. But the Yaalon strategy is a strategy of retreat and Jewish self-effacement. It would yield much of Israel’s heartland to the Arabs. It would require the expulsion of more than 100,000 Jews from their homes. It would discourage aliya and prompt many Jews to leave Israel and thus lead to the termination of the one and only Jewish homeland.

Yes, my Jewish solution to the conflict is grandiose, and it’s not designed for “men without chests.” But the Jewish people, though few in number, revolutionized humanity. Inspired by the Torah, we can do it again.

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*Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, February 16, 2009.