Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.
This week, Alpher discusses former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s tenure as head of government; the ramifications of IDF Chief of the General Staff Gadi Eisenkot speaking out against excessive use of force by soldiers and police in dealing with knife attacks by Palestinian youth; and two key issues of domestic and international sensitivity that his comments point to.
--Sociology Professor Samuel Heilman of the City University of New York warns that the changes instituted by Education Minister Naftali Bennett over who decides what cultural works are appropriate for Israeli pupils, is leading Israel away from being a democratic society.*
You Must Be Kidding:
Education Minister Naftali Bennett told Sunday’s cabinet meeting that Palestinian parents are not preventing their children from committing stabbing attacks so that they can get money from the Palestinian Authority. One source at the meeting told Haaretz: "Several of those present squirmed uncomfortably in their seats."**
You Must Be Kidding:
Only some 10% of Jews said they have a good knowledge of Arabic. Some 49% of Ashkenazim want Hebrew to be the only official language in Israel and almost 60% of Jews whose background is in Arab countries want the same, and oppose the status of Arabic as an official language.
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Quote of the day:
--Yuval Evri gives the statistics and the historical and sociological reasons why Jewish Israelis don't want Arabic, the language that was shared by both Jews and Arabs here before the creation of the state.
For many of my American friends and former colleagues in the media, I am the Israeli they know and therefore a go-to person on Israeli affairs. They contact me with questions on Israeli politics, Jerusalem restaurants, Hebrew slang and Israeli popular culture.
Recently, their curiosity is turning into bewilderment and astonishment. Their lovingly inquisitive approach toward
Israel is turning into exasperation. Their focus now is on trying to decipher Israel’s shifting character, on its
changing face, on the fading vision of the Israel they grew up loving and hoped to see thriving — a state that
embodies progressive, democratic, pluralistic, tolerant values.
“What the hell is going on there,” I’m often asked, “have they totally lost it?”
…if someone asked me if I wanted peace to happen right now, I would say that I would have
liked peace to happen 20 years ago. I think it would be easier if it happened 20 years ago, both politically
and in terms of facts on the ground. I think every day we wait it gets harder.
In terms of my faith in the final outcome being a two-state solution, that hasn’t changed because there is no other solution. Your alternative to a two-state solution is continued fighting until people come back to the table because they don’t want to fight anymore.
When we talk now about the window closing on the two-state solution, what we’re talking about is that you look at the ground and say, ‘If there were the political will to reach agreement today, it could be implemented on the ground and we could have two states.’ If we wait much longer, even if the political will is there, we will have to undo so much more. That doesn’t mean it goes away, and the window closing on the two-state solution doesn’t mean we have another option. It just means we have to wait until the parties decide again that this is the only solution.
There are folks on both sides, on the Israeli and Palestinian side and in the U.S., who want a zero-sum solution and who are happy to see this thing drag out, either hoping that God will work it out in their benefit, or something else will happen and change the ground…”
-Lara Friedman, in a Feb 25, 2014 interview in the Oberlin student newspaper
They Say, We Say
Why The Two-State Solution?
- "Why is the Left obsessed with the two-state solution?"
- "Why can't Israel keep all the land?"
- "The majority of Jordan's population is Palestinian. If Palestinians want a state, let them go to Jordan, and likewise, let Egypt take over Gaza."
- "Why should the settlers leave? Why can't the current situation continue more or less as it is, at least until a peace agreement is a more realistic possibility?"
- "Some problems simply can't be 'solved.' Some things are just too complicated to be fixed and the only solution is to just live with the problem."
- "Maybe a solution is possible, but it is clearly not going to happen anytime soon, because the Palestinians and Arabs don't want it. It's time to stop pushing Israel to make concessions and to stop pressing Israel to engage in peace efforts that are clearly pointless."
- "For now, the best we can hope for is "economic peace" -- where the focus is on improvement in the living conditions of Palestinians, not a political agreement to end the conflict."
APN Analysis and Commentary
Lara Friedman in the Huffington Post, Nov 4, 2015: Bibi's 'Anti-Solutionism' as
Cover for 'Anti-Solution'
Lara Friedman in the Forward, Aug 18, 2010: One Solution: Two States (response from Noam
Sheizef at +972, here)
Ori Nir in the Washington Jewish Week, Jan 7, 2010: No Solutionists
Ori Nir in the Boston Globe, May 30, 2007: A two-state
solution could work
Further Discussion
Amb. Daniel Kurtzer (Brookings Publication) January 29, 2016: Nothing beats the
two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians
Gadi Zohar (Ynet), February 18, 2016, The Illusion of Conflict Management
Daoud Kuttab (Al-Monitor) August 10, 2015: Israelis lean right
toward one-state solution
Amos Oz (LA Times), March 7, 2015: For
its survival, Israel must abandon the one-state option
David Remnick (The New Yorker), November 17, 2014: The One-State Reality
Al-Monitor, June 13, 2013: The Myth of the
One-State Alternative to the Two-State Solution
Woodrow Wilson School Graduate Policy Workshop, December 2012: Exploring
Alternatives to the Two-State Solution In the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
Khalil Shikaki (NOREF brief), May 14, 2012: The
future of Israel-Palestine: a one-state reality in the making
+927, February 13, 2011: Is it
time to move on to the One-State Solution? (interviews with people on both sides)
Yossi Alpher (Al Arabiyya) September 28, 2010: The 'one-staters,' both Israeli and Palestinian, are
laughably mistaken
Ami Kaufman (+972) September 10, 2010: The one-state
solution: An option that should be taken off the table
Bernard Avishai (The Forward) July 7, 2010: Is the two-state solution passé? Serious
people, with democratic instincts, are asking this now, but it is hard to think of a more frivolous
question.
Hussein Ibish (ATFP publication), August 27, 2009: What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda? (A
short downloadable book)
--Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon.
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You Must Be Kidding:
Beginning next school year, the great majority of cultural institutions have to agree to be willing to perform in West Bank settlements - in order to host class outings.
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This week, most of the articles deal with the Peace Now settlement report that was released over the weekend, which you can read here:
APN's Ori Nir op-ed: American friends of Israel must support Israeli progressives (The Washington Jewish Week, 2/19/2016)
Peace Now end of year settlement report: 1,800 housing starts in settlements in 2015 (JTA, 2/14/2016)
Peace Now report: 1,800 housing starts in settlements in 2015 (AFP, 2/14/2016)
Peace Now report: 1,800 housing starts in settlements in 2015 (Haaretz, 2/14/2016)
Peace Now report: decline in housing starts in settlements in 2015 (Times of Israel, 2/14/2016)
Peace Now annual report: Decline in construction in settlements in 2015 (Arutz 7, 2/14/2016)
Peace Now report : Netanyahu authorized 20 West Bank outposts constructed illegally since 2009 (Jerusalem Post, 2/14/2016 )
Peace Now report: Housing Starts Down 40 Percent in West Bank Settlements in 2015 (Hamodia, 2/14/2016)
Peace Now report: 1,800 housing starts in Israeli settlements in 2015 (Globes, 2/14/2016)
Peace Now report: Israel started construction on some 1,800 new housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank in 2015 (i24News,2/14/2016)
You Must Be Kidding:
"There is no and never will be a comparison between the suffering of the families of the murdered and between the discomfort that is caused to the families of the murderers."
--From a petition by 22 Jewish Israeli relatives of people murdered by Palestinians demanding to expel the killers and their families.
Oded Adomi Leshem, a doctoral student at George Mason University’s School for Conflict
Analysis and Resolution is an expert on hope. One of his areas of expertise is strategies for impacting
Israeli public opinion to be more supportive of peace. A new study that he recently published shows that messages of hope from Palestinians can go a
long way in fostering and enhancing hope among Jewish Israelis. Listen to our February 16th
2016 conversation with Leshem.