My new column is up at The Daily Beast:
On the eve of the Palestinian request for U.N membership as an independent state, Israel’s government is still fighting an apparently doomed diplomatic battle against the move. The official argument is that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has turned to the United Nations because he wants to evade making peace with Israel.
As Israeli Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar phrased it at a recent political rally, shouting into the microphone, “The Palestinians have been serial rejectionists of peace—ever since the U.N. decision of 1947.”
Yet the minister’s comment was loaded with unintended ironies. Put in context, the history cited by Sa’ar supports the opposite conclusion: Israel, and its allies in Washington, should support Palestinian statehood—not just as a step toward peace, but as a means of reestablishing the state of Israel after years of internal dissolution.…
Read the rest here.
I’m less interested in arguments from democracy and the dream of Zionism than in concrete arguments about rockets, the UN, and laws. When rockets are launched from militias inside the State of Palestine (vigorously condemned by the government of Palestine, of course), will Palestinian statehood make it easier for Israel to defend itself militarily, legally, and politically than if the attacks had come from occupied territory? Of course any response by Israel will be condemned as “disproportionate” and a “war of aggression” in either case. But specifically, how will Israel be able to wage war more effectively if there is a State of Palestine?
That’s the argument I’d like to see. Please, no talk about the State of Palestine disarming the militias or having “something to lose.”
By the way, what’s the big deal about Abbas wanting to “affirm partition”? Didn’t the Palestinians “affirm partition” the last time they declared their state, in 1988?
Forgot to add: when they declared their state in 1988 and also endorsed UNSCR 242.