Israeli rulers are racists. They agree to the Palestinian state because they don’t want Arabs from the territories to inundate Israel, dismantling its Jewish identity. The inevitability of the Arab demographic threat to Jewish state, however, is a scapegoat.

For one, Israel is not a state of Jews even now. Arabs already constitute 34% among her youngsters, and there are 19% of Slavs with ephemeral connection to Judaism. Other non-Jews constitute 6% of Israeli population. Additionally, there are huge swarms of Arab residents of Israel who won’t move voluntarily to the pauperized Palestinian state when it is created, and Israel lacks the political will to revoke their residence permits and expel them. Even after a Palestinian state is created, Jews would hardly constitute a third of the young Israeli population. Arab international family reunions would drive the percentage of Jews still lower. This cannot be emphasized enough: Jews are already a minority in Israel.

Israel is not a Jewish state. If, incredibly, the government would come up with some scheme of creating a Jewish majority in Israel: say, by purging birth records of Israeli Slavs, Israel would remain an un-Jewish state. A state which doesn’t honor Sabbath or other basic tenets of Jewish religion, which abandons the Temple Mount to Muslims, cannot be meaningfully called Jewish.

The Allies at Potsdam Conference explicitly sanctioned “orderly population transfers” of ethnic Germans from Poland and Czechoslovakia after WWII for a total of about 12 million. The Treaty of Lausanne provided for Greeks and Turks expelling each other’s minorities a little earlier. The world did not care when Arab countries pushed out their Jews. The world accepted the Jews running out the Palestinians in 1948, and generally supports the Jews in refusing them back in. The world is sensible, and would tolerate expulsion of Arabs from Judea and Israel. The one thing the world hate, are calls for compassion, especially from TV screens. So whatever Israel does about the Arabs has to be done swiftly and irreversibly; no refugee camps.

The Arab problem is not really so big. Israeli government prevents the West Bank Arabs from emigrating. Instead, teach them useful employment, and they would move out. Young Palestinians, educated as doctors or engineers, will move to other Arab countries in search of a better pay. A simple measure of distributing free condoms would considerably reduce the Arab birth rate. Boycotting Arab labor in Israel would push able males to emigrate, and their families will later join them. At least, crack on the illegal labor market; forced to pay Israeli taxes, economically inefficient Arabs would emigrate. Reining in the theft-based Palestinian economy would cripple the Arab industries dependent on stealing electrical power, building materials, and other goods from Israel.

The number of Arabs in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is grossly overstated. Mortality is officially almost non-existent in Palestinian communities: Arabs receive the UN and EU subsidies for their long-dead relatives. For the same reason, the reported infant mortality in refugee camps and Palestinian towns is unusually low, much lower than in the similar places in the Third World. There are many documented cases of fake births, when Palestinian women borrow babies from each other to register more children and receive more subsidies. Many Arabs are counted twice: as Israeli Arab residents and inhabitants of the West Bank, sometimes thrice when a part of their family lives in Gaza. Arabs who moved from one West Bank town to another are often counted in both places. Illegal emigration from the West Bank and Gaza to Arab countries is not accounted for. Realistic estimates put the Arab population of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza at 1.5 to 2.5 million. Close to 60% in Judea and Samaria is virtually empty, settled by mere 1% of the total Arab population. Basic enforcement of Israel’s laws on Arabs, such as making them pay taxes, serve in the army, and razing their massive illegal construction would make Israel unattractive to Arabs. Property buyouts at fair value would also induce some Arabs to leave Israel for cheaper neighboring countries. After Israel pushes some Palestinians out by economic policies, induces others to emigrate through compensations, the number left to be expelled won’t be huge.

Israel will be in existential danger regardless of the policies concerning her Arabs and the Palestinian state. A Jewish state among the sea of Muslims can never be safe, especially considering the Islamic prohibition of non-Muslim statehood in the Middle East. In any major conflict, Palestinians will be a fifth column because they are normal people and would like to have back the land they consider theirs. There is no reason for Jews to refrain from expelling the Palestinian Arabs.

The Arabs believe we took their land. No amount of propaganda would change the fact that their dunes have become our gardens. “Their” is more important than “dunes.” On the contrary, Israeli education, available to Arabs, emphasize the nobility of nationalism, perseverance, and national liberation struggle on Jewish example; Arabs readily apply the example to themselves. There is not a single example in history where conquerors (and to Arabs, Jews took over their land) lived peacefully with the conquered. The victims were always eliminated to insignificance. Otherwise, acting in the very human (“inhumane”) manner, the victims revolt. They don’t believe in conqueror’s benevolence but read it as moral or physical weakness, and see it as an opportunity to prevail.

Peace negotiations lead to peace only when the argument is not essential for the warring parties; both France and Germany would love to annex Alsace-Lorraine, but can also live without it. When the argument is over the essential territory, the soul of the nation, it is not amenable to negotiations. The only way to live in peace is eliminating the threat. This truth is simple, but not nice, and so many imagine that somehow the history has stopped in our time, and all which was true before is false now, and wolves lie with lambs, and nations negotiate the core issues. That mindset is apocalyptic; our days are hardly the last days, and the human mentality does not change. If anything, the wars become bloodier.

Media coverage show us the enemy faces, and we see the enemy as individuals rather than the mass. Individuals arose compassion while masses – fear. Seeing your enemy, unwarlike as he is on TV, makes you unwilling to fight him. Imagine Allies’ media reporting live from fire-bombed Tokyo and Dresden, showing burned children. That would naturally have an impact on American public. The extensive media coverage of Arabs similarly turned them from enemies into “people like us.” Few understand that enemies are indeed like us, and their goals are like ours – and that is exactly the reason we fight, because both of us critically want the same tiny piece of land. Each of us wants to be a master of his life rather than depend on the possibly benevolent rule of aliens.

Assimilated Jews know a single line from the Torah: “You shall love the alien.” Many even imagine it runs as in Christianity, “Love your enemy.” But there is Exodus 23:31: “And I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall expel them.” The aliens whom we shall love are those who accepted basic tenets of Judaism. They are either full converts or God-fearers, but in any case we are mandated to love them because they are loyal and strive to be good citizens of Jewish state. Nothing can be farther from Israeli Arabs who identify with Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians – not with Jews or Israelis.

The Torah is practical. We cannot come to an agreement with sworn enemies, or live peacefully with those who consider themselves rightful inhabitants (and therefore sovereigns) of the land. There is no peace process, but there is a process that brings peace: namely, cleansing the land of our enemies.

Giving the Palestinians all areas they want won’t bring peace. Palestinians control all those areas now. Except during the riots, Israeli police don’t show up in the Arab-occupied areas. Even Arab villages inside Israel are off-limits to police and court officers: the police enter the Arab places like Lod in armored vehicles only; that’s in Israel, not the West Bank. Palestinian state would be a permanent offense to the Arabs: did they fight all those years for a tiny, nonviable statelet? So the Palestinians will press with more demands: free trade with Israel (flooding our markets with their tax-free produce), migrant labor, access to Gaza (contiguous Palestinian state means discontinuous Jewish one). Palestinians will unite with their brethren in Jordan, who form a majority there and will take over that country in democratic fashion after the inevitable failure of Jordanian monarchy – after all, monarchy fails everywhere. The West Bank will annex Jordan rather than vice versa. Refugees returning from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Gaza would turn the Palestinian state into a state of criminal anarchy: those people have no useful skills for four generations, no place to live, and no desire to work; imagine resettling Harlem inhabitants into Manhattan.

Israeli left has no compassion to Arabs. The West Bank is given away only because Israel doesn’t want to assimilate another three million Arabs. But Arabs in Israel bred from 150,000 to 1.5 million in sixty years. They are already 34% among Israel’s young. Israeli Arabs contribute to violence against Jews statistically much more than Gazans or West Bankers. Israeli troops find it easier to conduct operations in Gaza than in the Arab villages of Galilee. Separation barrier can stem the flow of terrorists from Gaza, but attackers from Arab communities in Israel reach Jewish areas unimpeded.

Israeli left doesn’t like the Arabs; it hates Jews – or, rather, Jewishness. Inundating Israel with Arabs is the left’s way of finishing Judaism off. The leftists resist feeling themselves second-rate Jews, Jews without Jewishness, and so do away with it. Zionism is a no-brainer; Judaism requires decades of studies. Any crook can become Zionist politician; they stand no chance to become a prominent Torah scholar. Abandoning Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Gaza, Galilee to Arabs is not meant to establish peace or justice – these are the last things the leftists are concerned about. The concessions mean ending the left’s ideological humiliation – ending the Jewish state in the process. At some point, the leftists will change their course. Like King Herod, they will realize usefulness of religion for their statehood needs, and will embrace Judaism. By that time, it may be too late.

Religious matters are black and white. God either told us to take and keep Jerusalem, or he didn’t. Jews, therefore, must either hold on to Jerusalem no matter what, or give it away as the hilly town is not worth the trouble. Negotiating Jerusalem is exactly like negotiating Jewish religion with Palestinians. The religion is either true or not, there is no ground for discussion.

Sovereignty is a fiction. East Jerusalem is to all practical purposes an Arab territory now. Israel’s sovereignty only gives Jews the honorary right of subsidizing the Arabs there. Jewish conservative activists make a great fuss about taking another acre for “illegal outposts,” but their efforts are irrelevant: even if Israeli government annexes all the Jewish-squatted land, Arabs would still control Judea and Samaria demographically. Arabs fully control East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, Lod, Akko, most places in Galilee. Jews are increasingly left with the Negev desert (also roamed by Bedouin) and a beach strip. The peace process solves nothing, but only institutionalizes Israeli defeat.

Israeli conservatives act like ostriches: Olmert soothes their conscience by promising to relegate the Jerusalem issue to the last stage in peace talks with Palestinians. It’s not even important that Olmert lies and, as Palestinians never fail to announce, negotiate Jerusalem now.

Leaving the core issues for the last stage in negotiations is fundamentally wrong. Would you discuss a delivery time for the furniture set if you don’t agree with the seller on price? In our situation, the seller doesn’t even want to sell.

Leaving the core issues for the later assures that Israel would give way on them, as the entire pressure now dispersed over several subjects will be concentrated on the issue of Jerusalem. The story would go thus: “Okay, we have agreed with Palestinians on just everything else, the peace is so close. Should we refuse peace because of the Arab-populated Jerusalem areas which we the Jews cannot live in, anyway?” Once all other issues are settling, partitioning of Jerusalem will be passed automatically. Neurotic Jews can rebel and refuse such peace, sublimating into the issue of Jerusalem all the distrust they feel to their government, but if counting on that, then what the peace process is for?

Israeli policy of piecemeal concessions is devastating. Jews give away their bargaining chips one by one, lose bargaining power, and have the international pressure on the “leftover” issues increase. Back in 1972, Israel rebuffed Sadat’s peace offer (whether realistic or not) of comprehensive peace with Arabs in return for Sinai; the Palestinians were ignored. Four decades later, Israel will find herself without the Sinai, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank – but still not at peace with Arabs. Almost every Muslim leader have already declared that even ceding the West Bank and Jerusalem to Palestinians would not lead to immediate peace with Arab countries. And even where Israel has peace, there is no normalization: common Egyptians and Jordanians hate Israel now just as before we signed the peace treaties. Iraq and Kuwait, two countries under the US foot, flatly refused peace with Israel. Iran cannot be expected to sign peace with the Zionist entity even if Palestinians get a state. Saudi Arabia is the last country Israel wants to be at peace with, as the flow of Saudi oil money into Israel, already considerable, will skyrocket as Saudis buy out the Holy Land. Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon cares not a bit about the Palestinians and would not embrace Zionists even if Arafat is re-buried on the Temple Mount, as he might be if the Palestinians get Jerusalem. Peace with Syria would spell a military fiasco for Israel, as Syria will upgrade its arsenals under the protection of peace agreement like Egypt does – to strike later with vengeance.

Negotiations over Jerusalem with Fatah are puzzling. British hunted down Jewish terrorist groups Etzel and Lehi instead of negotiating with them. Fatah members continue attacking Jews, Fatah pays salaries to Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades with the money dutifully transferred by Israel, and in especially odd occurrence, a bodyguard of Ahmed Qurei, a top Palestinian negotiator, was killed in a firefight with IDF.

The peace process is fraud. Israel is not at war with Palestinians – or if we are, then bomb them out of existence rather than supplying them water and electricity. Palestinian threat to Israel is laughable: just ban the Arab migrant workers, and suicide terrorism, already happening just once a year, would almost cease. At any rate, Arab terrorism claimed many times less Jewish lives than ordinary car accidents. Ending Kassam and Katyusha rocket fire is also a no-brainer – not with the absurdly expensive Iron Dome system, but with the common police measure of invading Gaza once a year or so, killing a couple of thousand Palestinian guerrillas, damaging their infrastructure to the Bronze Age level, and enjoying calm for another few months. Banning the UNRWA and other aid sources from Gaza and the West Bank would be a much greater service to peace than ceding the Arabs Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa together: Palestinians should care about employment rather than live on foreign aid and use the ample idle time for radical activities. Paupers in search of food won’t have time for terrorism.

People hate weak enemies, and so Jews despise Hamas and refuse negotiating with it. But note the two crucial things: Hamas doesn’t attack Jewish targets abroad or proclaim Palestinian statehood.

Hamas can easily achieve publicity and political advantage by attacking the Israeli soft targets: Jews, Jewish businesses, and community centers abroad. Protecting them all is impossible. Faced with persistent attacks, American Jews would pressure Israeli to accept whatever concessions Hamas demands.

Surely Hamas has plenty of means for low-level terrorist attacks against Jews in many countries, but especially in Western Europe and Latin America. Surely Hamas understands that Israeli won’t summarily retaliate against Palestinians. Hamas leaders are mostly hardened operatives unlike the Fatah hoodlums, and most of them don’t fear targeted assassination. It is clear from the February rocket attacks on Sderot that Hamas guerrillas refused scaling down their offensive to avoid targeted assassinations Israel threatens them with.

Israeli intelligence capabilities abroad are limited in comparison to the free pass Shabak enjoys in the West Bank. Hamas would find foreign attacks on Jews much easier than the operations in Israel.

The relations between Israel and Hamas imply a high degree of cooperation. Shabak now intercepts 99% of terrorist attacks. Even accounting for the immense Israeli intelligence network in the territories, it is incredible that the Palestinians can carry out just one suicide bombing per year. Not so many terrorists participate in the planning, and discovering a mole after a few failed operations should not be a problem. Evidently, Hamas and other terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, willingly limit their operations to the level acceptable both to Israel and their supporters.

Nothing precludes Hamas from proclaiming Palestinian statehood in Gaza. The recent breach of border with Egypt demonstrates that Hamas is willing to risk alienating its major sponsor. Even though Hamas depends on Egypt for all its logistics, it still initiated a major crisis and presented the Egyptians as Israeli collaborators who blockade Gaza. Hamas won’t care about Muslim opposition to Palestinian statehood (Muslim governments depend on the burning Palestinian issue to sublimate the energies of their own radicals, and don’t want a Palestinian state). Someone like Haniyeh or Mashaal would love to go into the annals of Palestinian history as the founder of their state before Israel assassinates him; still, they do not proclaim independence.

Hamas offered Israel long-term truce. Any Muslim who says differently is a liar: Islam positively forbids non-Islamic state in this land, and Muslims may recognize the conquerors only temporarily. Hamas, therefore, offers as much as it can under the Islamic law. Hamas is an honest and, in its own way, decent Islamic organization unlike the Fatah thugs.

Hamas was the first Palestinian organization which tried to enforce order in Gaza, and could succeed – but independent and Fatah-supported militias refused to submit, and Hamas shrunk from civil war in Gaza. Stuck between Israeli sanctions, local militants, and discontent population, Hamas cannot do any better.

Hamas refrained from attacking Israel for long time. The attacks attributed to Hamas are actually perpetrated by Izz ad Din Kassam Brigades loosely connected to Hamas. There is no way Hamas can give an order to Kassam Brigades to stop shelling Israel. Their relations are cooperative rather than hierarchical. The militants have no part in the diplomatic process and naturally resist to be left out of the game; so they enter the game with rockets. The cycle of violence around Gaza is self-perpetuating: minor violence from Gaza, sanctions and reprisals from Israel, more attacks, more sanctions – until it’s hard for everyone to stop.

Israel has no alternative to negotiating with Hamas. Fatah is a bubble. It always was a bubble, a one-man’s operation. Hamas can easily replace assassinated leaders, but Fatah cannot. Short of Abbas, Barghouti, and a handful others Fatah has no popular figures. Palestinians support Hamas as an organization, but Abbas – as an individual leader. Fatah amply demonstrated that it cannot enforce security in the West Bank even with Israel’s help. For some odd reason Israel punishes Gaza (where Hamas tries to end the attacks), but rewards the West Bank (where Fatah payrolls the terrorists).

It is a big question whether Israel needs peace with Palestinian Arabs. But if she does, then we must be talking to Hamas.

Jews believe in the peace for various reasons. Some Jews are plainly self-hating, and just want a trouble for the Jewish state. Others are too tired of war, and just want to close their eyes to see the ivory tower of peace and happy relations between Jews, Egyptians, Iranians and whoever else. Some are primitive rationalists – look at the numbers of Jews in the utopian movements such as the communist one – and believe that every human problem, however immensely complex, can be reduced to a formula, discussed, and settled. Some politicians are crooks who use peace process to fool the masses into electing them. Some, notably the security establishment officials, see clearly that military methods fail to solve the problem, and opt for peace settlement. They just don’t realize that even in mathematics, and surely in social relations, some problems are inherently unsolvable. Or it may be the other way around: the leftist Israeli establishment appoints the brainwashed ultra-leftists for security positions, and naturally they support the hollow peace.

So instead of seeking an immediate solution, which ought to be wrong, Jews must accept the reality of intermittent low-level conflict which would drag on for the foreseeable future. We really don’t know what would happen in a few decades. Improvements in nuclear power generation can devaluate oil, causing immense poverty and hunger in overpopulated Arab countries. Such a scenario would increase the number of desperate terrorists but diminish the threat by impoverished regular Arab armies.

Arabs might get nuclear weapons, and surely leak them to terrorists who might or might not detonate them in Israel. That threat would only increase if peace agreements are signed, as Israel will find it diplomatically hard to preempt against friendly Arabs’ nuclear facilities.

Arabs might breed in Israel to the third of voters, join coalition with Jewish ultra-left and non-Jewish parties, and vote Jewish state out of existence, thus solving the problem of coexistence with Arabs. Or Jews might drive the hostile elements out of Israel.

There are so many unknown variables in the peace process that trying to predict it amounts to nonsense. Some things, however, are easy to understand. The Arabs don’t need peace with Israel: both peace and its absence are fine with them. They don’t need Israel’s assistance and don’t fear her attacks. Peace treaty won’t change the Arab behavior: they will continue supporting anti-Israeli terrorists if only to drain their countries of radicals and won’t entrust Israel to be a vizier of Muslim funds (economic cooperation). The only substantial economic feature that would come out of Israeli-Arab peace is heavy investment by Muslims in the politically sensitive Israeli real estate, the process which is well underway now and only waiting to be legalized.

Arabs, being completely indifferent to the peace process, offer Israel no concessions: Judea and Samaria must be abandoned, Jerusalem divided, and the refugees – compensated, with some of them allowed returning to Israel. That’s not really a peace plan, but an odd demand for capitulation of a victorious power to the defeated aggressors.

Israel, on the contrary, gives way continuously and receives nothing in return. Arabs did not reciprocate the evacuation of Jewish settlements from Gaza, a major step which divided Jewish nation and left a scar for decades. Rather, Arabs intensified their attacks on Israel. Superficially, that applies to Palestinian militants only, but they enjoy support of every major Muslim state: Syria (weapons), Iran (money and training), Egypt (logistics), and Saudi Arabia (money and diplomatic support).

Back in 1972, Sadat offered Israel peace with all Arabs in return for the Sinai and the Golan Heights, with no heed paid to the Palestinian state. Recently, Saudis offered Israel peace with all Arabs in return for Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem. Now Israel negotiates with the Palestinians minute details of transferring them Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem without expecting reciprocal peace with Arabs countries. The terms become progressively worse.

But the real peace problem, it’s not without, it’s within Israel. Israeli Arabs form a third of Israel’s young and absolute majority in several regions. The Jewish state now abandons religiously, historically, and strategically important lands to the Palestinian state so as not to be swarmed by two million Arabs living there. Reduced to the nine-mile-wide beachside state, Israel will be swarmed by her own Arabs – who accept no peace process. It is an official policy of the PLO – indeed, a democratic maxim – that the Palestinians will breed to majority in Israel and then vote to unify it with the West Bank Palestine. Moderates among Palestinians proclaim they have no problem with Jews living in the resulting Arab state.

Time solves the insolvable problems. Communism vanished from the book of time, leftist terrorism of 1970s ran to the end, and Islamic terrorism won’t be eternal. Radical ideas do not last long as burning societies fall back into tranquility. The current levels of Palestinian terrorism are artificial, entirely propped by Beilin-Peres policies which brought the defeated PLO from Tunisia to the West Bank, enthroned it, subsidized heavily, and promoted internationally as a peace partner. So a shabby cat felt itself a lion. Palestinians support fighting Israel for two reasons: hope and hopelessness. A hope to prevail, and daily hopelessness of their lives. Both can be solved, by the overwhelming force and emigration, respectively. The Muslim Brotherhood, PLO, Hamas, in turn became political organizations; other guerrillas will follow the same road. Palestinians will always remain hostile to Israel, as Jews took over what the Palestinians think is their land. Such hostility would translate into low-level sabotage, but not a meaningful war.

The peace process lacks a historical precedent. Never did hostile states negotiated peace for decades under fire. Peace never came through negotiations, but only through one side’s defeat. America negotiated with Vietnam for decades, but Vietnam was not at war with America; North Vietnam was at war with the South – and utterly defeated it. So the peace process failed in Vietnam, like elsewhere. Peace process is a leftist fallacy, a primitive rationalist approach to immensely complex problems which in fact can be exhausted, but never solved.

Exhausting the Palestinian problem is easy, and Israel did it with success: behead the national organizations, expel their leaders, everyone of the slightest stance in Palestinian society. No great numbers are involved: ousting a few thousand top members of Fatah, Hamas, and other popular organizations would do. When Israel kept systematically expelling PLO associates in 1960-80s, everything was quiet on our Western Front. Even though the PLO tried ruling Palestine through its Department of Popular Organizations which oversaw everything down to students unions, it was nothing compared to the electrifying fact of Arafat’s presence in the West Bank.
Beilin-Peres clique brought Arafat from Tunisia to the West Bank, literally let the jinn of terrorism out of the bottle. They meant good, they meant Arafat to be their peace puppet. So they were wrong. As usual, societies pay in blood for leftists’ crumbling projects.

The majority of the Netherlands’ population was good to Jews during Holocaust. But the problem is, the Dutch were also good toward their minority who collaborated with Germans. The minority hunted us, and so 75% of Jews were murdered. The majority of Israelis are decent Jews who wish their country well. But unless they stand up to the vicious leftist minority, too few Jews would survive in Israel.

Why doesn’t Israel accept the Arab peace initiative? It offers Israel normalization with all Arab states (though not Iran) in exchange for returning to the 1967 border, Jerusalem, and a solution to the refugee problem. That’s basically what the Israeli government agreed to; most Israelis accept the solution except partitioning Jerusalem. The differences are mundane: Saudis want full return to the 1967 borders while Israel offered to exchange settlement blocs for similar tracts of empty land, and Palestinians agreed. The peace plan does not require Israel to accept the refugees, just to find a solution: presumably, compensation will do, and the US and EU would be happy to foot the bill for resettling the refugees in Palestine.

The issue of Jerusalem is the matter of names. What is the Jerusalem which Jews want for our eternal capital? The sprawling Arab neighborhoods of “East Jerusalem” are not Jerusalem in the biblical sense. Jews lived there, but we also lived in Hebron, Schem, and the entire Judea. In religious terms, giving away Hebron and Schem (which the majority of Israelis accept) is a crime incomparably worse than abandoning the districts of no special significance east of the ancient Jerusalem.

The Old City’s issue is commonly misunderstood. The Old City of Jerusalem is merely an Ottoman structure. Razing the Old City’s walls would clarify the point that most of it lacks biblical significance. The only real problem, the land plot of tremendous importance to both Jews and Arabs is the Temple Mount. It is unthinkable for a state claiming biblical rights for its existence to abandon the most central place in Judaism. Although unthinkable, it actually takes place now: Israel bans praying Jews from the Temple Mount while Arabs enjoy the place even for their latrines.

So what are the options regarding the Temple Mount? First and preferable, raze the Muslim structures and build the Third Temple. That, however, won’t be. A combined opposition of leftists, assimilated Jews, and religious Jews would preclude such a scenario. To clarify, almost all religious Jews believe that the Third Temple will supernaturally descend from the sky. Maimonides derided that view, but it gave root among the clerics who would rather be praying than doing anything.

The second option, advocated by some nationalist Jews, is to build the Temple on the Temple Mount without destroying the Muslim shrines. That, too, is unrealistic as Muslims would object to desecrating their holy place, religious Jews would demand supernatural Messiah coming on the clouds, and animal rights groups would protest the intended offerings.

Counter-intuitively, Jews save their national face by abandoning the Temple Mount. If the place is not in our hands, then at least we can claim innocence for not building the Temple. And if a true leader like Meir Kahane would arise, he would have no trouble cleansing the Arabs out of the Temple Mount, Judea, Samaria, and all the way to Nile and Euphrates.

If we do not intend to build a religious state of Judaism,
If we are not going to maintain a Jewish state by expelling the Arabs,
Then it makes every sense to accept the Arab peace initiative.

There is one statement that drives me mad during almost every lecture. Invariably, someone stands up and says something along these lines, “I know a little about Judaism, but the one thing I know for sure is that we should love our neighbors and not oppress strangers. That’s the entire Torah.” That’s what they were told by incompetent teachers and progressive rabbis. Love your neighbor and throw out the other 612 commandments and the heap of halacha. Don’t forget to baptize, too.

Exodus 23:9: And ger, [him] you shall not oppress – you, too, know the soul of ger, for you were gerim in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 23:31: And I will set your limits from Reed (“Red”) Sea to Philistine (“Mediterranean”) Sea, and from steppe (“Sinai Desert”) to the river (Euphrates), for I will give in your hand the yeshvei [of] the land, and you shall displace them (gerashtamo) from yourself.

What is the difference between yeshvei and gerim, those who must be displaced and those who must not be oppressed? The root i-sh-v means, to stay, such as in settlement. Thus yeshvei are the natives. The natives must be cleansed out because their hostility is inherently implacable: they, even their remote generations will always remember that Jews took away their land. This is not an issue of land ownership, but of sovereignty: the country belonged to Canaanites or the Palestinian Arabs, but now the state is Jewish. Modern Jewish rulers believe that Arabs will ignore the insult in return for generous aid, but the Torah’s author was infinitely wiser: if Jews want to be sovereign on this land, they must cleanse it from yeshvei.

The Torah economizes suffering: yeshvei have to be evicted (Exodus 23:31), ravaged (Deut20:17), but not necessarily killed. After the Jews cleared a country for themselves and uprooted yeshvei, security issues become less pressing and Jews can take measured risks. Deuteronomy 20, therefore, speaks of the wars which the Jews start voluntarily rather than by the divine commandment to take Canaan. In such wars, the natives need not be uprooted if they agree to submit to Jewish rule. If they did not defend themselves against the advancing Jews, such natives are allowed to remain, performing “labor duty for you and shall work for you” (Deut20:11). That law applies only to the towns far away from the Jewish population centers (Deut20:15).

The conquered people lack the high status of gerim, who are not to be abused. The labor duty in question was likely the border defense, or perhaps public works in Jewish towns. Other than labor conscription, the conquered populations remain free and enjoy all the property rights. Their major difference from gerim is that the conquered populations may continue their pagan worship, as they do not live in the Land of Israel proper and so do not pollute it by their idolatry.

Now back to gerim. The Torah, particularly the section of Laws (Exodus 23 is a part of it) is not laid down in chronological order. Exodus 23:9 applies to the situation later than 23:31. How do we know that? Exodus 23:10 speaks of Shmita, seventh-year rest for agricultural land. Settled agriculture was the last stage in Jewish conquest of Canaan, after the land was taken from its original inhabitants. So gerim appear after yeshvei are displaced.

Who are gerim? They are not natives, as the natives are exterminated or evicted already (yes, Jews are not nice). In the Biblical Hebrew, the cognate gur has an unquestionable sense of, to huddle together, to reside timidly. That sense is very far from the toneless Modern Hebrew, to live. Even in the most aggressive sense, Psalm 56:6-7: “… all their thoughts are against me for evil. They iaguru secretly (or, from north – the left side in ancient coordinates)…” Likewise Psalm 140:3-4: “Who think evil things in their heart, every day iaguru conflicts. They sharpened their tongue like a serpent.” The main theme about gerim is timidity, submissiveness.

In modern terms, gerim must absolutely accept Jewish sovereignty. In ancient Judea, gerim were not oppressed, but neither had they have political rights. It is in this sense that the Torah speaks about Jews: “… for you were gerim in the land of Egypt.” Whether the Jews were slaves or ate meat from full pots, they lacked political rights in Egypt.

Rabbis traditionally understood gerim even stricter, as converts to Judaism. Such reading is semantically (though not etymologically) correct, as foreign religions were banned in Judea, and resident aliens had to practice Judaism. In particular, not even slaves or gerim were allowed to work on Sabbath, erect altars, worship idols, sacrifice to foreign deities, or eat blood; they adhered to the restrictions of Pesach and Yom Kippur. They submitted to the laws given to Jews on the Sinai, and acted like Jews in all practical matters except marriage.

The terms ger and i-sh-v converge in some situations, as when Abraham pleads with the tribe of Heth to allow him burying his wife who died in Kiryat Arba (in our days, the place of notorious Jewish settlement which “took the Arab land”). Genesis 23:4: “I am a ger and toshav with you.” Abraham, a great legal mind, is precise here: he is a submissive resident (ger) now, but will settle (toshav) this land. So Abraham insists on buying a cave for the burial instead of accepting the offer of receiving it free. Israel abandoned that cave, Mearat a-Mahpela, to Arab jurisdiction.

Even toshav, a status higher than ger, relates inferiority. He is not allowed to partake of Pesach sacrifices (Exodus 12:45) unless he converts to Judaism and circumcises (12:48). He is just a bit higher than a slave (Leviticus 25:35, 40). His right to live in the Land of Israel is unquestioned, but his status is far below Jewish freeman.
There is not a single instance in the Bible where ger lacks the clear sense of submissiveness.

What, then, is the meaning of “oppress”? We can only marvel at our lawgiver who preceded every political theorist. The Torah differentiates between natural law and special rights. Oppression means depriving a person from what is inherently his: life and ownership. Political rights, the rights to change or influence Jewish character of the state - he doesn’t have them.

Jews were oppressed in Egypt where we were slaves (Exodus 3:9). Syrians oppressed us so that we needed a deliverer (2 Kings 13:4-5). To our lawgiver, oppression was tremendously more severe than mere absence of voting rights.

The parallel prohibition in Exodus 22:20 clarifies, “And ger, you shall not squeeze (toneh) or oppress him.” The word toneh (i-n-h) has a root cell cognate i-n-k (to suck), testifying to the reading, to squeeze out. What can be squeezed out of a person? Surely not his political rights, but life and property.

The important sense of l-h-tz root for oppression is its communal character: in the word’s common usage, one polity oppresses another. When the oppression is between individuals, it is referred to as a-sh-k, such as, “You shall not trample upon (taashok) your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:13).

Long before Christians adopted this commandment as their major tenet, Jews were told, “You shall love your fellow [man] just as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Not to the extent that you love yourself, but the way you do. Your love to fellow man should be in the likeness (cmo) of your love to yourself. An alternative reading is that you should love a man who is like you, your fellow man.

The common translation of r-y-h as “neighbor” does not relate the word correctly. In Psalm 45:15, for example, the virgins in the king’s wife’s train are definitely not her neighbors. The translation friends also falls short, as Leviticus 19:13 won’t prohibit trampling upon one’s friend. The r-y-h sense has to do with following, going in the same direction. That sense makes for the double meaning of r-y-h: evil (to bend someone, to steer away) and friend (to bend together with someone, to have a common path unlike the others’).Thus, r-y-h is not an abstract neighbor, but someone sufficiently close that you “bend the rules” together, deviate from the others’ road. For example, the Tower of Babel builders are described as r-y-h, fellows. Rather than neighbor, the proper translation of r-y-h is compatriot (with co- relating the sense of sticking together) or fellow.

The critical difference between us and Christians is who to consider a fellow man. Modern Christians unrealistically pronounce all people fellows, and surely fail to treat them as such. But their own parable of the Good Samaritan is instructive: even a despised Samaritan could be one’s fellow if the Samaritan helped him. Fellow is the one from whom help is expected. Such a definition surely excludes Canaanites and Palestinian Arabs from the commandment to love your fellow.

What is the love enjoined to our fellows? The context clarifies: “You shall not oppress your fellow” (19:13), “You shall not hate your brother” (19:17), and the 19:18: “You shall neither take revenge, nor restrain [yourself to take revenge later] at the children of your nation.” This, by the way, refutes the claims that human vengeance is prohibited in Judaism, but is the power of God only. Revenge is prohibited only against fellow Jews, on the double presumption of their general goodwill and efficient law enforcement. In such a society, revenge on the personal level was superfluous. But taking revenge on the enemies of Jews (even their distant offspring) is not merely a right, but an often-reiterated obligation: “a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:8).

The commandment of love concludes a list which parallels the Decalogue, and is therefore comparable to the prohibition of jealousy (Exodus 20:13).

The prescribed love to one’s fellow is the absence of hatred, vengeance, oppression, and jealousy. While gerim must not be oppressed, fellows must also not be hated. The Torah distinguishes between several circles of people: the closer is the circle, the more rights are accorded to it. Extended family, a closer circle, enjoys still more rights: one must respect his parents. One’s own family, the closest circle, awards generous rights to wives. Later on, when Hebrew society became strong and gerim were fully integrated, the commandment of love was expanded onto them (Deuteronomy 10:19); converts became treated strictly on par with native Jews.

The Torah prescribes, “The ger who resides among you in your land shall be for you like a native, and you shall love him just as you love yourself” (Leviticus 19:34). You cannot be more compassionate than that. But why the Torah, so short on words, reiterates, “in your land”? So that the ger absolutely recognizes the land as ours. And indeed the parallel Exodus 12:48: “And if a ger will reside with you, and will keep the Pesach to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised… he shall be like the native…” In order to be like a Jew, ger must be like a Jew: he must circumcise, keep Jewish customs, and to all purposes become a Jew. Then, sure enough, we must love him just as we love any Jew, including ourselves.

To summarize: In “You shall not oppress strangers” the Torah enjoins us against arbitrarily taking life or property of the submissive resident aliens who are loyal to Judaism. In “You shall love your fellow just as yourself” the Torah enjoins positive attitude toward one’s compatriots, the like-minded people only.

"I'm ready to negotiate with the PLO. I believe we should sit with them and tell them, No." Rabbi Meir Kahane

Arab countries don't care much about Jews getting a tiny state somewhere in the unruly lands of Palestine - unruly to the extent that even Ibrahim Pasha's army, acting atrociously, hardly enforced a semblance of order here. Like the kids from a bad neighborhood, they tested the newcomer with kicks and found him okay. Arab rulers judge the issue of Israel pragmatically: in 1967, for example, the annihilation of Israel would have given Nasser the laurels of an undisputable pan-Arab leader and solidified his support at home. Today, Egypt finds its peace treaty with Israel highly useful, as it allows Egypt to receive massive American aid, build an advanced army, bug Israel with the time-tested fellaheen strategy, and feel safe against Israeli retaliation. Egypt's domestic propaganda uses Israel to vent the mob's feelings, and its security services steer radical Muslim organizations to fight Israel rather than the Egyptian government. Egypt, thus, is perfectly fine with its status quo vis-a-vis Israel.

Saudis enjoy both the laurels of peacemakers and pan-Arab diplomatic leaders, and of the flagship of Islamic anti-Israel struggle which supports Fatah, Hamas, PIJ, and other terrorist organizations. Just like Egypt, Saudi Arabia finds Israel useful to suck the energies of domestic radicals.

In a famous piece of folly, Moshe Dayan announced after the 1967 victory, "I'm waiting for a phone call from Hussein." The idea was that the Arabs would rush to get back their lands in return for peace. Rational Jews like Moshe Dayan have long forgotten that national pride is not for sale; for those Jews, everything has a price tag. Naturally, Arabs reacted contrary to Dayan's expectation with their famous Three No's: no to negotiations, no to peace, no to recognition of Israel. Syria cared very little about the Golan Heights which it only acquired decades before; Jordan accepted losing the West Bank, which was never its major concern, anyway, and Egypt couldn't care less about the Sinai: a useless desert settled by hostile, unruly Bedouin away from Egypt's traditional sphere of influence or the Nile farmers' mentality. Arabs were smart enough to sense that Israel seeks peace, and would eventually give way to their demands, especially as the implacable Arab hostility pushed the West to push Israel for a settlement. Cunning politicians imagine that they can fool their opponents in artful negotiations; in reality, the simple, straightforward, firm positions often win. The Soviet Union routinely prevailed in diplomatic encounters with Foreign Minister Molotoff as the "Mister No" and so do the Arabs. When one side refuses to give in, the other side does.

Israeli peace mavens (and Talmud describes doves as the most cruel beings) imagine that Arabs want economic and financial cooperation with Israel. Those countries, however, are so backward that they cannot even refine their own oil into petroleum. The idea of economic development is alien to Arab mind. Economic cycles in Arab countries proceed in this manner: pump oil - waste the proceeds - steal the balance. Even if Arabs miraculously convert to Adam Smith's faith, they have plenty of qualified pastors with the best economic degrees from England, France, Germany, and the United States. They simply don't need Israel. Besides, there is not much of the touted Arab wealth. The ten-fold population increase in the twentieth century created huge pressure on Arab budgets which no oil can compensate. Unable and unwilling to work productively - work is just not a part of their Bedouin culture - Arabs consume oil revenues for welfare in the real time, and per person allocations continue shrinking.

There are other, non-Bedouin Muslims, mainly in the Nile Delta of Egypt and in the river plains of Iran and Iraq. The millennia-long agriculture imbued them with certain work ethics, but their habits are still tremendously behind those required in the technological age. It is not for nothing that even in Israel Arab graduates of Jewish universities lag behind the Jews in employment tremendously, or that the Israeli Arab farmers are backward compared to Jewish farmers just a few miles away from them. The world's economy is satiated with diligent hands of China and Southeast Asia: there is no demand for Arab hands. Agricultural revolution, which touches the Islamic world only now, will produce huge unemployment in agriculture, flood Muslim cities with jobless, unskilled peasants and radicalize the societies - such as happened in Russia in the early twentieth century and as happens in Turkey today. No amount of Israeli involvement would significantly improve Arab economies.

The current Middle East is different from the one sixty years ago. The Arabs bullied a new kid on the block, found him tough, and accepted him - without saying so much. A watershed comment was reported recently in Jerusalem Post: a senior Kuwaiti adviser said that Israel's strike on Iranian nuclear reactor is preferable to the American one. On the surface, he meant that Israel is Kuwait's enemy, America is a friend and Kuwait would be embarrassed if its friend attacks Iran. But the fellow said, "less embarrassing," implying that Israeli strike doesn't differ from the American qualitatively. His point was that Israel is "one of us" and so can exert a sort of brotherly admonition on Iran. Russians exhibit love-and-hate relationship with America which parallels the Arab hate-and-admiration attitude to Israel. So long as Israel acts strongly and avoids pleading for peace, Arabs would respect her and eventually enter into de facto peace.

What should be done about peace talks with Arabs is simple: nothing. Israel gains nothing from peace treaties with Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and the like. We will not risk substantially reducing the IDF, and Arabs will not start loving us as cousins. Palestinian peace advances should be ignored: if they want a state, let them proclaim it in whatever areas they actually possess. If they continue fighting us, we will fight back as one fights states. If they carp at Jerusalem or settlement blocs, we will repel that aggressor state. No Palestinian migrant workers in Israel, no trade with Palestine, no services provided to it, just abandon the areas densely settled by Arabs. Many countries have unruly border areas, and Israel can live with unruly West Bank. Don't object to Palestinian statehood and don't agree to it, but ignore it. In any negotiations, Israel only gives, but takes nothing. Abandoning all negotiations with Arabs is objectively the most beneficent approach Israel can take.

The Arab position on Israel didn’t change at all. Human mentality doesn’t change. About ninety years ago, a prince of Mecca named Faisal signed an agreement with Zionists recognizing the Jewish right to the land and actually welcomed Jews. His successor recently unveiled Arab peace plan which ostensibly welcomes Jews in the Middle East. Saudi rulers even secured theological backing from their corrupt and subservient clergy for the peace with Israel.

Egypt, too, is fairly consistent in dealing with Jews. It fought Israel under the king Farouk, communist Nasser, pragmatic Sadat, and cynical capitalist Mubarak. In Mubarak’s case, the war is tacit, as Egypt allows Palestinian terrorists a free hand in supplying weapons. That policy is not new, either: Egypt supported Palestinian fellaheen fighters from 1948 to 1967, at which time Israel took over the Sinai and pushed Egypt sufficiently far away. Israel fought Egypt in 1956 specifically because of its support of fellaheen, and the US intervened on Egypt’s behalf: first diplomatically, followed by a military threat to Israel.

Jordan’s policy didn’t change. It treats the West Bank as Jordanian territory, banned or ignored native Palestinian organizations from 1947 onwards, and intermittently hosted and ousted Palestinians. Jordan’s goal is clear: to swallow as much land as it can. Pursuing that objective, Jordan cooperates with Palestinians to destroy Israel, but keeps the Palestinians in check so that they don’t destabilize Jordan. If other Arab countries do away with Israel, Jordan would love that, but it doesn’t want provoking a powerful Zionist neighbor. When Jordan had an upper hand against Israel, it annihilated virtually all traces of Jewish presence in Jerusalem, but when there is no hope of prevailing, Jordan is equally ready to sign peace treaty with Israel.

Palestinians could have proclaimed statehood long ago, but beyond the empty declaration of statehood by the PLO in Tunisia, they didn’t. Peace with Israel means for Palestinians accepting responsibility for their lives, which they cannot. Palestinian economy, meager before the 1940s, is irreparably damaged. A million-something Gazans cannot be meaningfully employed, the refugees coming back from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Gaza would find no arable land for themselves. Some Palestinians will always be discontent, and the continued guerrilla attacks on Israel, even if reduced to a minimum, would still provoke retaliation which disrupts Palestinian attempts to build a normal life. Palestinian state, no more the focus of world’s anti-Semitism, will gradually lose the massive foreign aid. In other Arab countries, agricultural improvement went slowly, and the influx of displaced peasants into cities was gradual, though even such an influx shifted national politics greatly. In the case of Palestine, refugees who have long lost the employment skills will flood the cities, double and triple their population, and make them into perpetual slums, where poverty breeds more poverty, one unemployed generation breeds another, and all of that breeds crime and terrorism. So the Palestinians leaders sensibly ask from Israel maximum concessions in the peace process to delay their statehood as much as possible.

Iraqi Arab Nazis repressed the Jews, prompting their emigration in the late 1940s. After the US occupied Iraq and manipulates its government as puppets, there is still no peace agreement with Israel.

Israel cooperated with the Shah of Iran even to the extent of helping him with his nuclear program, but peace was not an option. Neither is it an option now, regardless of the Saudi peace plan.

Lebanon is too fragile to sign peace with Israel. Opposition would haunt the government which signs such an accord, and now that Iran-backed Hezbollah controls Lebanon, peace treaty is altogether unlikely.

Syria was a prominent enemy of ancient Israel, and so is now. Syria’s core territory includes a part of the Land of Israel, and Syrian mentality, notorious even among Arabs, precludes any true peace with Israel.

This brings us to the question, what does peace with Arabs mean? Israel has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but comes nowhere close to normalization. The people of Egypt and Jordan are hostile to Israel, government media approves and fans the popular hatreds, and economic contacts are negligible (short of the few high-profile traitors of Jewish background using Jordan to skip on taxes and ecological regulations).

Centuries of prosperity made Westerners, including Jews, straightforward. That laziness of thought is often presented as honesty. Affluent people who live in established societies want a degree of honesty from others and offer it in return. The cultural phenomenon of honesty is not inbuilt: the medieval poets’ praise of knightly honesty was a blunt lie. And so the Arabs are not honest in the Western sense. Not dishonest, either - just practical. Westerners, too, are not paragons of honesty or morality in foreign relations, but Arabs don’t even bother substantiating their whims with acceptable rhetoric.

And so the Arabs claim they want peace with Israel.