Israel/Palestine is already one state –the only people who talk of 2 States are Zionists

The Death of the 2 State Illusion

Those Who Support 2 States

Support an Apartheid Solution

Another brilliant article from Israel’s premier journalist, Gideon Levy.  It can only be a matter of time, perhaps when Netanyahu has finally silenced the few remaining NGO’s and human rights organisations that attention will be turned to Levy and Amira Hass and the other journalists who aren’t prepared to play ball with Zionism.

There are some gullible fools and political cowards unfortunately in the Palestine solidarity movement, who still call for a 2 State solution  These naive souls, amongst which one must count the Executive of the Palestine Solidarity  Campaign, who sincerely believe that the Israeli government is going to agree to a separate Palestinian state.

It is difficult to know whether these people actually believe this, because it is always hard to get inside someone’s head.  The fact that Netanyahu stated at the last election that there would be no  2 state solution, the fact that there is no member of his ruling coalition who calls for a Palestinian state is irrelevant.  When Tzipi Hotoveli, Israel’s religious nut of a Deputy Foreign Minister and a member of Likud states that “We need to return to the basic truth of our rights to this country,” she said. “This land is ours. All of it is ours. We did not come here to apologise for that.” what part of that I wonder do these people not understand?

The Israeli Labour Party also doesn’t believe in a 2 state solution.  Sure they pay lip service to it but the position as outlined by their leader Avi Gabbay is opposition to the dismantlement of the settlements.  The settlements have been so constructed as to prevent a 2 state solution and without their being dismantled any Palestinian state would have more holes in it than a Swiss cheese.

The Times of Israel of 2^nd November 2017 summed up the situation perfectly: After pro-settlement comments, Gabbay reiterates support for two-state solution

Of course I would be less than honest if I didn’t confess to opposing 2 states on principle.  The root cause of the problem in Palestine is not two peoples fighting over one piece of land as liberal Zionists pretend but a settler colonial movement which displaced an indigenous population and erected a racial supremacists state as in South Africa.  A 2 state solution, even were it feasible, would be a monstrosity.  Israel would be even more racist and aggressive.  The Palestinian state, which would be a Bantustan in practice, would be a horrific police state whose main job was to police its own subjects in order to keep Israel satisfied, because there would be a massive power imbalance between them.  Indeed the Palestinian ‘state’ would be something like the quisling entity that the Palestinian Authority operates at the moment.

That is why I opposed, in 1993, the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO.  At the time I resigned from PSC over the issue when, at an emergency conference, two-thirds of the meeting agreed to support them. My views on them are best represented in a debate with Julia Bard of the Jewish Socialists Group in the pages of National Labour Briefing, A Mess of Potage in October 1993.

In the article I said that:

The Accord divides the Palestinian nation in two. It excludes not only _ those Palestinians living inside pre-1967 Israel, but the two million Palestinians who were exiled in 1948 and 1967. It explicitly rules out the right of return. Israel continues to control the Allenby bridge to Jordan.

Under the Accord Israel will retain control over land, water and resources. The Palestinians will collect their own garbage, control education and health and police themselves. In effect, the prison guards will be removed from inside to outside the prison walls.

The debate is reproduced in Oslo Revisited - Debate Between Julia Bard (JSG) & Tony Greenstein (Return)

Zionism was not founded in order to establish a state in half the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael).  It claims the whole land.  Indeed the biblical Land of Israel extends up to the Litani river in Lebanon and down to the Nile in Egypt and across to the Euphrates in Iraq, so there is quite a way to go.  The idea of stopping half way and handing over 22% of the territory of Mandate Palestine is absurd.

Of course there are some people who talk about 2 states who know full well that it will never be achieved.  Firstly Zionist organisations in this country, in particular Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement but also the Board of Deputies of British Jews support 2 states.  However these same organisations support all Israel’s repressive actions in the Territories.  They all support the Occupation wholeheartedly.  Yet unless there is sufficient opposition to the military occupation, there is no chance that Israel will unilaterally hand over part of the West Bank for a state. 

We saw that last week when the Board of Deputies and Labour Friends of Israel rushed to support the Israeli army's gunning down of 60 unarmed Palestinian demonstrators whilst blaming the violence, not on those who did the shooting but on the victims (for which Hamas is the all-purpose address).

It should therefore clear that these organisations are hypocritical liars.  They know that there will never be a 2 state solution as does the pro-Zionist Alliance for Workers Liberty, an allegedly Trotskyist organisation.  So why do they support 2 states?  Because that is the best way to undermine calls for the only possible solution to Israeli Apartheid, a democratic, secular state in the whole of Palestine.  Support for 2 States is also a way of opposing the call for equal rights for all those under Israeli rule, i.e. an end to the present Apartheid situation.

There are of course a second group, such as Jeremy Corbyn, who have no analysis worthy of the name and simply oppose Israeli repression and call for a 2 State Solution because they fondly imagine that the ‘international community’ will put pressure on Israel to conform.  However it should be obvious even to these people that the United States, which is in essence the ‘international community’ has no intention whatsoever of pressurising Israel to agree to a 2 state solution.

Emily Thornberry, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary also calls for 2 States.  I have no doubt whatsoever that she does not believe it is possible.  She is an ardent Zionist and a member of Labour Friends of Israel.  As such her posturing on the issue is entirely cynical.  She is above all a supporter of the Atlantic Alliance and the special relationship with the USA.  Israel is integral to that.

The reality today is that there is already one state.  As Gideon Levy says, there is no border between pre-1967 Israel and today’s Greater Israel.  The only question therefore is whether or not all those living under Israeli rule should be granted equal rights.  Those who oppose this are supporters of the present Apartheid situation.  Of course this will mean that there will no longer be a Jewish State.   That is not such a loss.  What is a Jewish state?  Does a state pray to god or put on tefillin (phylacteries)?  A Jewish state simply means a state where Jews have more rights than non-Jews.  It is a Jewish supremacist state and no one who calls themselves a socialist should have anything to do with such a concept.

Tony Greenstein 

A debate on the Oslo Accords in Labour Briefing in October 1993 with the Jewish Socialist's Julia Bard

Calling Israel a democracy when less than half its subjects live in freedom is a propaganda trick that has worked better than one would have thought

Gideon Levy   Apr 15, 2018 

FILE PHOTO: Arrests at the Gaza border, 2007AP

With the approach this week of celebrations marking Israel’s 70th birthday, 12 million people live in the country. Some of them are citizens, some are residents, some are detainees, and all are subjects. Everyone’s fate has been determined by the country’s governing institutions.

On this Independence Day, we have to acknowledge that the country’s genuine borders are the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Jordan River to the east, including not only the West Bank but also the Gaza Strip. Israel controls all this territory and everyone who lives there through various and sundry means, even if from a legal standpoint there’s no mention of this.

Forget the law. Israel long ago abandoned it. In practice it rules Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the case of Gaza, it suffices with control from the outside, which is more convenient. On Israel’s 70th birthday, the time has come to recognize that the occupation of the territories in 1967 is not temporary. It was never meant to be and never will be. The 1967 border has been erased. The distinction between 1948 and 1967 doesn’t exist.

It was only in the state’s first 19 years, a blink of an eye from a historical perspective, that the country existed without the territories. For the balance of its history, the occupation has been an inseparable part of it, its character, its government, its essence, its DNA. What existed here for a brief time and is gone will not be coming back.

It’s critical that we rip the cover off the alleged transience of the occupation, which for some Israelis has been a sweet delusion and for others a dangerous threat. There is an abyss dividing a temporary occupation and a permanent one.

In its early years, Israel was small in area and population, but its youth, like everyone’s youth, quickly passed. For most of its existence, Israel hasn’t resembled the girl we remember. Its days as a small country with a Jewish majority have passed and the clock can’t be turned back. It’s no longer the small woman of our dreams. It’s the big woman of our nightmares.

On Israel’s 70th birthday, the time has come to recognize that Israel is a binational state under whose control two peoples live, equal in size. It maintains separate governing systems for them: a democratic one for Jews, discrimination for Israeli Arabs, and dictatorship for Palestinians. It’s not an equal democracy for all its subjects, meaning, of course, that it’s not a democracy.

There’s no such democracy where what’s allowed for one people isn’t for another. Therefore, on its 70th anniversary, Israel being called a democracy when fewer than half its subjects live in freedom is nothing but a propaganda trick that has worked to a greater extent than one would have thought.

It’s not only Israelis who deny and repress this reality. It’s more convenient for the Western world, too, to look at Israel’s more enlightened side, to ignore its dark side and continue to call it a democracy. After all, in the West, what country hasn’t also had such a colonialist back yard? And who could really confront Israel, a country that rose from the ashes?

Israel is therefore the darling of the West, despite the hollow lip service to the Palestinians, and so the West too has embraced the excuse of the occupation’s temporary nature: “Just wait, wait a little longer for the ‘peace process’ and the Israelis will be pulling out of the territories.” So it’s important that the lie of the transience of the occupation be exposed.

If the occupation isn’t temporary, it would be clear that Israel isn’t a democracy but rather an apartheid state par excellence. Two peoples and two systems of rights. That’s was apartheid looks like, even if it hides behind excuses ranging from temporariness to security grounds, from the right to the land to the concept of the chosen people, including the divine promise and messianic redemption.

These excuses don’t change the picture. In South Africa, no doubt an apartheid state, the regime invoked similar excuses to justify its existence. No one bought them. But with Israel there actually are buyers. One difference between South Africa and Israel is that Israel is stronger, more sophisticated and better connected to the world. And it has done a better job obscuring its apartheid.

It’s big, strong and nondemocratic. Israel oppresses the Palestinians through various means with one result: There isn’t a single free Palestinian in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Their fate is determined by the Israeli government in Jerusalem and the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, and they have no rights at either one. Is this not apartheid? Is it democracy?

And now on to the showy and proud Independence Day ceremonies planned by Culture Minister Miri Regev. Let’s not rain on her parade.                

When Jeremy Corbyn Supported a Democratic, Secular State & Breaking Links with Poale Zion (JLM)

On Palestine Corbyn has become a Trappist Monk

Of course everyone is entitled to change their mind.  Sometimes people even change the parties they belong to but I’m not aware of a time when Jeremy Corbyn changed his mind about support a 2 state solution in Palestine or the breaking of links with Labour Zionism. 

The primary purpose of a 2 state solution was and is to justify a never ending peace process (in Israel its known as the ‘piss process’).  As long as the Peace Process can be said to be continuing so long will there be a justification for the present Apartheid situation on the West Bank and the pretence that Gaza isn’t occupied.

Corbyn has changed his tune since becoming leader

Netanyahu made it clear during the General Election in Israel that he did not believe in a 2 State Solution.  His Ministers have made it even clear.  Tsipi Hotoveli, the Deputy Foreign Minister (there is no Foreign Minister as Netanyahu has also taken that position) has made the position of the Israeli Government crystal clear:

Tzipi Hotoveli - the religious nutcase who is Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister

‘This land is ours. All of it is ours. We expect as a matter of principle of the international community to recognise Israel’s right to build homes for Jews in their homeland, everywhere.”

Zionism from its foundation has asserted Jewish sovereignty over all of the biblical Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael), which extends up to the Litani, east to the Euphrates and south to the Nile.  There is no recognition of shared sovereignty.  As Moshe Dayan explained to a group of university graduates: 

Moshe Dayan

During the last 100 years our people are in the process of building up this country and this nation, of expansion, of getting more Jews and more settlements to expand the borders.  Let no Jew say that this is the end of the process.  Let no Jew say that we are near the end of the road. Ma’ariv, 7.7.1968.

The ‘peace process’ has only one function.  To maintain the pretence that a 2 state solution is possible and therefore to provide justification for the denial of any political or civil rights for over 4 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.  It is a pretence that western leaders are happy to play along with.

When you're surrounded by  New Labour sharks it's best not to feed them

But for socialists and Corbyn in particular to play along with this is despicable.  Corbyn was arrested at South Africa house once protesting Apartheid in South Africa yet he is willing to go along with Apartheid in Israel.   Because that is what the 2 State solution amounts to.

The Labour Movement Conference which Corbyn chaired in 1984

Of course the Jewish Labour Movement and assorted hypocrites will pretend they support a 2 State solution, knowing full well it won’t come about.  However they oppose any pressure upon the Israeli state, such as sanctions or BDS, to bring it about.  Sanctions on Iran, a siege of Gaza (which is the most coercive form of sanctions) is fine, but sanctions against Israel – let the heavens fall in first.

Report of LMCP Conference which Corbyn chaired - the Zionists tried to hoax the speakers that the conference had been cancelled

In the Spring of 1984 the Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine held a conference at County Hall, London when the GLC was still in existence.  The Conference was sponsored by AUEW-TASS, the engineering section of the Engineering Union, 11 MPs and Palestine Solidarity Campaign as well as the London office of the PLO.   Among the speakers were Peter Tatchell and Richard Balfe MEP (he's now Lord Balfe of the Conservative Party!).

One of its main demands was for the breaking of links between Poale Zion, the British branch of the Israeli Labour Party and the Labour Party.  Poale Zion has now changed its name to Jewish Labour Movement but it is the same creature.  Now Corbyn is happy to preside over an absurd situation where JLM is going to be ‘training’ people to recognise ‘anti-Semitism’ – which in their view is opposition to the Israeli state and Zionism (a word they don't like to use because Zionist, I mean the word, is 'abusive'.

Jeremy Corbyn was the Chair of the Conference and a very good and enthusiastic chair he was.  He was fully in support of the principle aims of the conference so I am interested to know why he has changed his mind about what, if the Trades Description Act applied to politics, would be called the Labour Friends of Apartheid Israel.

Jeremy Corbyn was one of the LMCP's original sponsors - the LMCP's platform included support for a democratic, secular state not a Jewish Apartheid state

It’s not terribly difficult to discern the strategy of Corbyn’s advisers.  Keep you head down when it comes to anything to do with Palestine.  Above all don’t say anything about how the current campaign about ‘anti-Semitism’ is really about criticism of Israel.  If you concentrate on the bread and butter issues of austerity then other things will disappear into the distance.  This is a particularly stupid strategy because the Zionists, aided by their chorus in the Mail, Guardian etc. will not let the issue of Palestine and Zionism die.  They will continue to root out ‘anti-Semitism’ in the party even if it does mean ludicrously examining every tweet for the past decade in the hope that some minor misdemeanour might be discovered.  In my own case it has taken ludicrous lengths.  

The idea is to focus on economics and ignore the political and questions of the State.  Pretend that the capitalist state is neutral as opposed to an instrument to be used by one class against another.  Leave the question of monarchy and control of the army to another time.  That is why there was such a fuss made about Corbyn singing the national anthem.  Deference to the Crown and the institutions of the State is important for Labour’s servile worshippers at the altar of the capitalist state.  The monarchy provides the icing over the division of the cake between rich and poor.  However rich or poor you are you can identify with Mrs Windsor.

Even the mild-mannered PLO representative in Britain, Manuel Hassassnian lambasted Corbyn’s silence over Palestine.  Palestinian ambassador says leaders won’t stand up to Israel for fear of being labelled anti-semitic.  Corbyn used to attend every AGM I can remember of Palestine Solidarity Campaign.  He was vocal on the oppression of the Palestinians.  Now he has taken a vow of silence as if he were a Trappist monk when it comes to Palestine.

As Hassassnian said:  ‘“Jeremy Corbyn (who) was an ardent, staunch supporter of the Palestinians and now we hardly see any statements coming from him in support of Palestine.’

Naturally ‘when the Star contacted the Labour Party for comment on Mr Hassassian’s statements’ it ‘did not receive any responses.’ 

Blairite clone Fabian Hamilton accuses BDS supporters of 'anti-Semitism'

Corbyn’s silence led to the ludicrous appointment of arch-Zionist Fabian Hamilton to a junior shadow foreign office minister who in the Jewish News has accused supporters of BDS of being ‘anti-Semitic’.  According to this useless New Labour clone, opposing the military and police state that is the life of Palestinians on the West Bank is ‘anti-Semitic’ and yet Corbyn appointed him despite knowing of his views.  

Corbyn has also gone along with the 'anti-Semitism' smears made against anyone those who are deemed a political threat by Labour's Blairite civil service.  He has been attacked repeatedly by the Jewish Chronicle's editor Stephen Pollard yet not once has he pointed out that Pollard acted as an apologist and worse for anti-Semitic politicians Robert Zile and Michal Kaminski, Latvian and Polish MEPs, whose anti-Semitism was only exceeded by their support for Zionism.

If Corbyn is so willing to bow down to the Zionist lobby today, he will bow down to the financial lobbies tomorrow.

A Wasted Opportunity - PSC's Guardian Advert

Why Israel is an Apartheid State -           the Arguments That Weren't Made

This Saturday April 23, Palestine Solidarity Campaign placed an advert in the Guardian.  It must have cost about £10,000.

At a time when there is an unprecedented attack on Palestine solidarity work in this country, this statement was a wasted opportunity.  The main theme, Palestine is being built out of existence, was that it a Palestinian state is becoming more difficult to achieve.  Anyone with eyes and ears should recognise that the 2 state solution is no longer achievable, assuming it ever was.  Zionism recorgnises the sovereignty of only one group of people, Jewish settlers.

What the statement should have said and led on was a firm rebuttal of the media frenzy in the past few months.  A clear and firm statement such as Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism’ ‘Supporting Palestinian rights is not anti-Semitic’.

Possibly a reference could have been made to the fact that the most racist and indeed anti-Semitic elements internationally, from the BNP to Marine Le Pen to Gert Wilders etc. etc. are the strongest supporters of Zionism.

Brighton & Hove PSC leaflet

Instead of reproducing 3 statements from Israeli ministers affirming their refusal to allow a Palestinian state, PSC could have done worse than take a leaf out of the leaflet from Brighton & Hove PSC ‘meet the Israeli Government’ which reproduced statements from various Israeli Government Ministers such as the Deputy Defence Minister, Eli Dahan, who compared higher Jewish souls, including those of homosexuals, to those of non-Jews.

It could have made the obvious point that since Israel refuses a separate Palestinian state then the refusal to grant Palestinians in the Occupied Territories the most basic of civil or political rights means Israel is an apartheid society.

It could have referred to Israeli racism in terms of ‘death to the Arabs’ marches, the banning of the Northern Islamic Movement even whilst the fascist Lehava group, whose leader Benzi Gopstein justifies the burning down of mosques and churches remains illegal.

The advert could have made some more sophisticated arguments such as calling anti-Zionism anti-Semitism is in itself anti-Semitic as it assumes all Jews are Zionists.  It could even have pointed to the fact that it was Jews who were historically the first opponents of Zionism.  They could even have quoted someone like Theodor Herzl on how the anti-Semitic countries would be the Zionists’ best allies and friends.

It could have pointed to the hypocrisy of people like Eric Pickles, Chair of the Conservative Friends of Israel, who defend the Conservatives’ good friend Michal Kaminski and an inveterate anti-Semite in the European Conservative and Reform group. 

Instead the statement was bland an innocuous.  So bland that, I am told, even Jews for Justice for Palestinians refused to sign it.

Tony Greenstein

Statement: Palestine is being built out of existence

April 22, 2016

This Saturday an advert will appear in the Guardian reaffirming our right – indeed our duty – to boycott Israel. The advert is based on the below statement:

Israel, judged by its actions, isn’t interested in peace. By erecting more and more settlements on Palestinian land, it is in the process of building Palestine out of existence.

It is not only our right to boycott those who aid and abet this occupation and, now, colonisation of Palestine – it is our duty.

Next year it will be 50 years since the occupation of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. 10 years since the siege of Gaza began, with 75,000 still displaced from their homes since the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in 2014.

This year, to 18^th April, 63 people have been killed, 59 of these people are Palestinians killed by Israeli forces. Over 1,600 Palestinians have been injured[i].

The UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights make it the duty of states to uphold human rights. The British Government says principles of human rights should apply the world over and calls on businesses, trade unions and civil society to help them. Yet, they have continually failed to act over Israel’s violation of Palestinian human rights.

Instead, in recent months the British Government and its Ministers have unleashed a series of attacks on supporters of Palestine who advocate Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israeli institutions and companies complicit with breaches of Palestinian human rights. These attacks have been accompanied by systematic efforts to suppress legitimate criticism of Israel by branding it extremist, divisive, and antisemitic.

Human rights are indivisible and global. It is not racist to criticise a state because of its laws and actions, it is not racist to campaign for those laws and actions to be changed.

It is antisemitic to promote hatred or discrimination of Jewish people because of their religion or ethnicity. As an anti-racist organisation, we abhor racism directed at any group – we challenge it wherever it is found.

The government’s attempt to promote fear and intimidation of legitimate protest and to smear human rights defenders will only assist the real racists.

We support the Palestinian-led call for a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign which uses effective-yet-peaceful means to pressure Israel to end the occupation and ensure Palestinians have the rights we take for granted. It is civil society holding countries and companies accountable for their actions.

Boycott is the tool human rights defenders have used throughout history. It is a non-violent, global and traditional form of protest used to oppose oppression. It is not racist to refuse to buy, decline to invest in or stop supplying goods, arms or services to companies and institutions that are knowingly supporting breaches of human rights and international law.

Rather than attack those defending human rights, the British Government should be challenging Israel for its actions that breach international law.

Trying to suppress the right to protest will not undermine the campaign for Palestinian human rights – it will strengthen it.

We proudly continue in the tradition of civil and human rights activists before us. If it was good enough for Gandhi, Luther King Jr, and Mandela; boycott is good enough for us.

PSC is part of a growing global movement in support of Palestine, proudly refusing to do business with Israel’s occupation, colonisation, and discrimination.

Join us.

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“Whoever moves to establish a Palestinian state or intends to withdraw from territory is simply yielding territory for radical Islamic terrorist attacks”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu[ii]

“We are all against a Palestinian state; there is no question about it”
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Silvan Shalom [iii]

“I will do everything in my power to make sure they [Palestinians] never get a state”
Israeli Minister of Education Naftali Bennett[iv]

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Pew Research Poll Proves that Israeli Society is the Most Racist in the World

Nearly half of Jewish Israelis want to expel Arabs

 A very interesting survey of opinion amongst Israeli Jews.  There are flaws in the survey, in particular the question as to whether Israel’s Jews wish to live in a democratic society or one ruled by Jewish religious law.

Unsurprisingly the 40% of Israeli Jews who define themselves as secular said no to rule by the rabbis but that does not mean they are in favour of democracy.  It simply means they favour civil Israeli law based on Zionist principles of racial discrimination.

That is brought out most clearly when 79% of Israeli Jews say they believe Jews should get preferential treatment compared to Arabs.  And if there was any doubt about the matter 48% of Israeli Jews supported expelling Israel’s Arabs as opposed to 46% who were opposed.
Just imagine if, in any Western European country, a majority of the White population were in favour of expelling Muslims or Blacks.

What this survey proves beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the Israeli settler colonial state is a racist state unlike no other in the world.

It is also interesting that in Israel just 8% of Jews identify with the Left, however that is defined.  The socialist Zionist dream is, in other words, destroyed.  The pursuit of a society based on racial supremacy has resulted in society becoming an overtly right-wing society.  Those who identify as ‘centrist’ are also on the right.  In Israel centrist would be seen as right to far-right in most civilised countries.

55% of Israeli Jews see being Jewish as a matter of ancestry i.e. race

Equally interesting is that 22% of Israeli Jews see being Jewish as a matter of religion whereas 55% see it as a question of ‘ancestry’ and culture.  Ancestry is a code word for race and biological inheritance.  In other words 55% see being Jewish as a racial not a religious question.
Literally are the chickens coming home to roost.

For full report go here

Tony Greenstein

Israel’s Religiously Divided Society

Nearly half of Jewish Israelis want to expel Arabs, survey shows

Israeli security forces frisk Arab Israelis near the Central Bus Station in Herzliya on January 5, 2016. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Pew study finds 79% believe Jews should get preferential treatment over Arab citizens; number of those who believe settlements are helpful to Israel’s security growing; majority identify as centrist
Nearly half of Jewish Israelis agree that Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel, and a solid majority (79 percent) maintain that Jews in Israel should be given preferential treatment, according to a Pew Research Center in Israel survey published on Tuesday.

The poll, with 5,601 in-person interviews of Israeli adults, conducted between October 2014 and May 2015, found that Israeli Jews increasingly believe the West Bank settlements help, rather than hurt, Israel’s security – and most (61%) believe Israel was given by God to the Jewish people.

Three-quarters of Israeli Jews feel deeply connected to American Jews, but over half feel US policy is not supportive enough of Israel. Meanwhile, support for the two-state solution among Jewish Israelis hasn’t changed considerably in past years (though they are less optimistic than their American counterparts), but among Arab Israelis, it has plummeted.

And overall, the majority of Israelis identify as political centrists.
Expulsion of the Arabs
The survey makes no distinction between Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and citizens of Israel in its question about whether Arabs should be expelled from Israel. And yet, 48% of Jewish Israelis said they were in favor, 46% were opposed, and 6% said they didn’t know.

Breaking it down into religious groups, the Modern Orthodox (the report uses the Hebrew term dati’im), were the most likely to support such a measure, at 71%. At the opposite end, secular Jews were most opposed, with 58% against (but over one-third supported it). Jews of Sephardic or Mizrahi ancestry — many of whom have ancestors who were expelled from their countries of origin — were more keen on the idea (56%) than their Ashkenazi counterparts (40%).

Nearly half of Jewish Israelis agree with the statement: Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel (screen capture: Pew Research Center)

Self-identified right-wing respondents were significantly more enthusiastic about the idea (72%), while those who identified as left-wing were solidly opposed (87% against). Among centrists, 37% backed it, 52% opposed it, and 9% replied that they did not know. There were no considerable differences found between settlers (54% support it) and those residing elsewhere (47% support it).

Most Jewish Israelis believe they should get preferential treatment in Israel (Pew Research Center)
Overall, Israeli Jews also overwhelmingly feel (79%) they deserve unspecified “preferential treatment” over non-Jewish minorities in Israel. Settlers were slightly more inclined to support preferential treatment (85%) than the rest of the population, but the view was popular among all Jewish groups in Israel regardless of religious level, particularly among the ultra-Orthodox (97%) and Modern Orthodox (96%), although 69% of secular Jews and 85% of traditional (Masorti) Jews also agreed.

At the same time, the majority of Israeli Jews (76%) said they view a Jewish state as being compatible with democracy – but the opposite was found among Arab citizens, with 64% maintaining Israel cannot be both a democracy and a Jewish state (63% of Muslims, 72% of Christians, and 58% of Druze feel this way).

Just 8% of Israeli Jews see themselves as identifying with the Left

God, the land of Israel, and the settlements

Some six in ten Israeli Jews (61%) believe God gave the land of Israel to the Jews. The ultra-Orthodox and Modern Orthodox were nearly unanimous on this point (99 and 98 percent, respectively), while 85% of traditional Israeli Jews concurred. Among secular Israeli Jews, 31% agreed, 19% disagreed, and 50% said they don’t believe in God or don’t know.

Roughly one-fifth of Christians and Druze in Israel held this belief as well (19% and 17%), but “due to political sensitivities, Muslims in Israel were not asked this question.”

Marking a shift from past polls, some 42% of Jewish Israelis say the settlements help Israel’s security, 30% say they hurt Israel’s security, and 25% say it makes no difference. The differences were largely divided along partisan lines, with 81% of left-wing participants maintaining the settlements are damaging, 62% of right-wing respondents saying they are helpful, and centrists divided equally on whether it helps, hurts, or makes no difference (32% for each). Asked to place themselves on a political scale, some 55% of Israelis identified as centrist, 37% as right-wing, and 8% as left-wing.

View of the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, in the West Bank, February 25, 2016 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

In a 2013 Pew survey, 35% said the settlements hurt Israel, 31% said they help, and 27% said it made no difference at all.

Just 14% of Israelis identify with the racist Israeli Labour Party or the left-Zionist Meretz.  There is no support for the mixed Jewish-Arab communist party Hadash

Israel and the US

Three-quarters of Israeli Jews feel they share a common destiny with American Jews to a great extent or to some extent, and 59% maintain US Jewry have a “good influence” on Israel (only 6% said American Jews have a bad influence on Israel; the remaining 31% said their influence was neither good nor bad.)

But generally speaking, Jewish Israelis find US support lacking.

Some 52% say “US policy is not supportive enough of Israel,” while 34% say the amount of support is about right, and 11% say the US is too supportive. Some 62% of right-wingers, 49% of centrists, and 33% of left-wingers espouse the view that the US is not sufficiently supportive.

Meanwhile, a majority of Arab citizens – 77 percent — said the US was “too supportive” of Israel. Some 86% of Christians, 76% of Druze, and 75% of Muslims feel this way.

The end of the two-state solution?

Some 43% of Israeli Jews believe Israel and a Palestinian state can coexist peacefully side-by-side, while 45% do not, and 13% say it “depends.” Those who identified as left-wing were far more likely to believe in the two-state solution (86%), than those on the right (29%) and those in the center (46%). The figures were not dramatically different from those recorded in 2013 (when 46% said it was possible.)

Half of Arab Israelis are optimistic about the two-state solution, while 30% said it was not viable. This poll marked a deep decline in Arab Israeli faith in the two-state solution, from 74% in 2013, to 64% after peace talks broke down in 2014, to 50% after the 2014 Gaza war.

The Pew study also cited an annual Haifa University poll that asked Arab Israelis whether the two-state solution should be the guiding principle to end the conflict, but not whether it was possible. The data shows that since 2003, the numbers have fallen from 89% to 71% in 2015.

But while Israeli Jews and Arabs increasingly feel the two-state solution is not feasible, the poll points to a population that is holding out (at least until 2013): American Jews. Some 61% of US Jews believe the plan to be possible. The greatest optimists are American Jewish self-described liberals, 70% of whom maintain it can happen. The data on American Jews was drawn from a 2013 Pew study, and compared to the recent findings on Israelis.

An interview with Netanyahu's brother-in-law Hagi Ben-Artzi

Netanyahu's gormless brother-in-law tells the truth about Bibi's belief in a 2 state solution

Interview conducted in Beit El, West Bank, with Hagi Ben-Artzi, a leading figurein the settler movement, whose sister is marriedto Netanyahu.  

@ 6:22

Hagi Ben-Artzi: Unfortunately, the Israeli government, including my brother-in-law Benjamin Netanyahu, they unfortunately, I am sad to say that, agreed to the 2-state-solution. And here I must say that I have read very carefully, I have also taken part with my brother-in-law in writing his book, and in his famous book "A Place Among the Nations", he writes very clearly against the establishment of a Palestinian state. What I feel is that he made a manoeuvre,  some kind of tactics: "I say that I agree, but I will act against it." I don't think that it's a good move, although it's regarded (as) sophisticated. But I have said, I have told him several times: You have to be sincere. And I believe, and I know in his heart and in his mind he is against a Palestinian state.

Reporter: So, what you are saying is that your brother-in-law, Prime Minister Netanyahu, is essentially lying to the world when he says he believes in the two states, that he doesn't believe in two states at all and certainly doesn't believe in an independent Palestinian state

Hagi Ben-Artzi: I think that what he is trying to do is to say "I agree", but to set conditions that he believes will be absolutely unacceptable to the Palestinian side. And as a result "I will be good, the international community will say: Oh, he's supporting peace because he's in favour of a Palestinian state." But in fact it won't happen, because he sets so many conditions that it makes it impossible, practically speaking.  So it's not really lying. He's saying "I'm in favour". For example, I'm in favour of flying in the air. But on condition that you give me a plane. You're not going to give me a plane so I won't fly in the air. Something like this. But my dispute with him is that I think that it makes bad pubic relations; it's a bad propaganda. You have to be sincere and authentic and you can say clearly what you really believe. That the Palestinian state is not justified on historical basis, on religious, national and also strategic and economic, whatever... "