It’s almost become a mantra from leaders across the globe: “a Palestinian State living side by side (with Israel) in peace and security.”
But what would it look like? One question seldom asked is would Jews be allowed to live in a Palestinian state? It seems to be a given that Jews would not be allowed to live in such a state.
The assumption is that tens if not thousands of Jews would have to be evicted from the West Bank to make room for this state. That certainly was the presumption when nearly 10,000 Jews were evicted from the Gaza Strip in August 2005.
Melanie Phillips, author of “Londonistan,” raises this issue in a recent article called “A Wary Encounter.”
Phillips addresses the recent meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu and the idea of a Palestinian state espoused by the President.
Here’s the point she makes:
Those screaming ‘apartheid’ at Israel are demanding the establishment of a putative Palestine state which would allow no Jews to live there, let alone enjoy the equal civil and human rights afforded to Arab citizens of Israel. As the former CIA Director James Woolsey is reported to have observed earlier this month:
...the world has a tendency to ‘define deviancy down for non-Jews.’ As a result, governments around the world, including the Obama administration, never even mention the possibility that Jews should be able to enjoy the same rights and privileges in any future Palestinian polity that Israeli Arabs exercise today in the Jewish state.
So, instead of what amounts to a Hitlerian program of Judenrein (no Jews) in any prospective Palestinian state - meaning, as a practical matter, if not a de jure one, that no Jews can reside or work there, there could be approximately twice the number of Israeli Jews as currently reside in so-called ‘settlements’ on the West Bank. They should be free to build synagogues and Jewish schools. And newspapers that serve the Jewish population in any future state of ‘Palestine’ should be permitted to flourish there.
Jews should also have a chance to elect representatives to a future Palestinian legislature. They should be able to expect to have representation as well in other governing institutions, like the executive and judicial branches. In order for the foregoing to operate, Jews in the Palestinian state must be able to live without fearing every day for their lives. In Mr. Woolsey`s view, ‘Once Palestinians are behaving that way, they deserve a state.’
It seems the call for a Palestinian state will only intensify, particularly under the Obama administration. How it answers the questions Phillips (and Woolsey) raise will go a long way to see what that state might ever look like.