8
Developing an Israeli Grand Strategy toward
a Peaceful Two-State Solution
Nations that renewed the concept and voted in favor of
partitioning British Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish
and an Arab State. Although thirty-three nations voted in
favor, international support for the concept very quickly
evaporated. The Arab and Islamic states opposed the
creation of a Jewish state. After the proclamation of the
State of Israel, most Arab nations, Egypt, Jordan, Syria
and Iraq, in complete disregard of the UN GA Resolution
181, invaded Israel's territory with the aim to wipe Israel
off the map. Nevertheless, in the atmosphere of the
unfolding Cold War, the great powers were fast to court
for the support of the Arab states.
In December 1948, UN GA Resolution 194, nominated
the United States (and its dependent allies Turkey and
France) to lead the peace-finding process. Mr. Lovett,
acting Secretary of State, gave the guidelines for the US
peace-finding policy to the US chief negotiator Mark F.
Ethridge, on January 19, 1949. Under Point 8 it read: "8.
Disposition of Arab Palestine – US favors incorporation
of greater part of Arab Palestine in Transjordan. The
remainder might be divided among other Arab states as
seems desirable."
7
It was most evident, the United States
wanted to prevent the establishment of an Arab State in
former British Mandatory Palestine, in clear contradiction
to the UN GA resolution 181, of November 1947. It was
feared that the Palestinian leader Haj Amin el-Husseini,
who had sided with Hitler Germany, would become the
unrivalled leader of an emerging Palestinian state.
Under these conditions Israeli policy had to deal with
the emerging dilemma: to please the United States and
go along with the policy proposed in Washington, or to
sustain the concept of the partition of British Mandatory
Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state. In May 1949, the
US Peace Envoy, Mark Ethridge reported about Israel's
position as follows: "Eytan remarked re boundaries that
partition was based on independent states in Palestine,….
Israeli delegation will insist on withdrawal of all Arab states.
Principle of self-determination should be observed for
Arab Palestine. Future of Arab Palestine should be left
to its inhabitants."
8
Ambassador Eytan's demand to observe the principle of
self-determination for Arab Palestine and permitting the
inhabitants of Arab Palestine to determine their own future
was important enough to provoke already on the next day
an answer of the Secretary of State personally. The Israeli
demand to respect the "principle of self-determination for
Arab Palestine" was most conveniently ignored.
9
Thus,
the concept of seeking a peaceful Israeli-Palestinian two-
7 Acting Secretary of State to Mr. Mark F. Ethridge, Washington,
January 19, 1949; in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949;
Government Printing Office, Washington, 1977; vol. vi; p. 682.
8 Mr. Mark Ethridge to the Secretary of State, Lausanne, May 17,
1949,-noon; FRUS vol. vi. Op.cit. pp. 1018-1019.
9 See: The Secretary of State to the Israeli Ambassador (Elath),
Washington, May 18, 1949; ibid. pp. 1021-1022.
state solution, originally proposed by the United Nations,
was put on ice, and forgotten for over three decades.
During the 1950s, the Palestinians themselves did not
ask for a Palestinian state
10
and when the PLO emerged,
its National Covenant demanded the establishment of
a Palestinian State over the entire indivisible territory of
British Mandatory Palestine, indicating (under paragraph
6) that only Jews who had lived in Palestine "before the
Zionist invasion" would be tolerated.
11
In response to Palestinian and Arab enmity, the Israeli,
Zionist, response was along a similar line. The opposition
within Israel toward the creation of a Palestinian state
was overwhelming.
On the Israeli extreme right, opposition to any
understanding with the Palestinians derived from the
national-religious camp, which viewed the 1967 Six-Day
War and the "liberation of Judea (the southern part of the
West Bank) and Samaria (the northern part of the West
Bank), and Gaza, as a God ordained development. It was
believed that "the main purpose of the Jewish people is
to attain physical and spiritual redemption by living in
and building up an integral 'Eretz Yisrael" (i.e the Land of
Israel including Judea and Samaria). The territory of Eretz
Yisrael is assigned a sanctity that obligates its retention
once liberated from foreign rule, as well as its settlement,
even in defiance of (Israeli) government authority."
12
This
belief has largely guided the politics of Israel's National
Religious Party, as well as the Gush Emunim movement,
who have consistently advocated and driven Israel's
settlement policy in the occupied territories with the
intent to prevent a two-state solution.
13
The raison d'être
for this approach was based on the belief that God has
promised the Land of Israel to the Jewish people, and not
to the Palestinians. Moreover, many religious directives
given in the Bible to the Jewish people are related to
Eretz Yisrael, particularly to Jerusalem, Hebron, and the
other holy places situated in the occupied West Bank.
Following this belief it would be a fatal mistake to grant
sovereignty over these areas to the Palestinian people,
who then would have the power to prevent the Jewish
people from exercising their religious duties.
10 Rashid Khalidi calls the period between the "First Israel-Arab War"
of 1948 and the appearance of the PLO, "the lost years", as well as
the "the disappearance (and Reemergence) of Palestinian Identity";
see Rashid Khalidi Palestinian Identity – The Construction of Modern
National Consciousness; Columbia University Press, New York,
1997;pp. 177-178.
11 The PLO National Charter, 1964 and 1968; see: Avalon.law.yale.
edu/20th_century/PLOCOV.asp
12 Quoted from Martin Gilbert, Israel – A History; London Black Swan,
1998; p. 469; for a more in-depth account of religious national
thinking see: two essays of Eliezer Berkovits: "On the Return to
Jewish National Life"; and "On Jewish Sovereignty" both in: David
Hazony (ed.) Eliezer Berkovits Essential |Essays on Judaism; Shalem
Press, Jerusalem 2002; pp.155-175; and pp. 177-190.
13 See Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar, Lords of the Land: The War Over
Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007; New
York, Nation Books, 2009.
