For three hours on Monday, March 3, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met in the Oval Office with U.S. President Barack Obama. Obama has been carrying the torch for the so-called “Two State Solution,” which he inherited from his predecessors. He made it clear, as he has repeatedly in the past, that he wants Netanyahu to get with the program.
If Netanyahu “does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach,” Obama said. “It’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible.”
Not really.
Caroline Glick, the journalist and deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post has articulated precisely that. And right on cue, too.
Glick’s book, “The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East” (Crown Forum 2014) was released on Tuesday, March 4, and this Jewish Press reporter sat down with her that afternoon in a mid-town delicatessen in New York City, to talk about the book.
Glick wrote the book, she said, because she realized that the vast majority of pro-Israel Americans think the only way to support Israel is to support the option of the so-called “Two State Solution.” They believe that because it is the only thing they hear from their leadership.
“But after twenty years of abject failure, of nothing but death and destruction in the wake of the Two State effort, surely it is time to begin a discussion about alternatives. My book is meant to be the starting point for that discussion,” Glick said. “And I can’t thank President Obama enough for providing me with the perfect invitation!”
Glick’s credentials for writing such a book are comprehensive. From 1994 – 1996, at the height of the “peace negotiations,” she was a core member of Israel’s negotiating team, and she was personally involved in the negotiation of a half-dozen major agreements with the PLO.
In 1996, when she completed her IDF service, Glick became Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s assistant foreign policy adviser. By the time the Palestinian Arabs had officially stopped pretending to be a part of a peace process and instead were fully engaged in their bloody and extended terror campaign, Glick was a columnist and editor for major Israeli papers, including the Jerusalem Post.
Glick’s book is divided into three parts.
The first part deals with a detailed history of the failed attempts to create two states in the tiny area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Although most careful observers of the Middle East will flatter themselves that they know this history well, it is doubtful that anyone has had a more up-close and personal opportunity to observe, analyze and record this history than Glick.
The second part of the book lays out what she believes is the best option for moving forward for all citizens living in the area currently known as Israel and the disputed territories (also known as Judea and Samaria or the West Bank).
Glick’s plan is liberal, democratic, and it provides the best chance of a good life for the greatest number of people who live in the area, whether Jewish, Muslim or Christian.
The third part of the book addresses the likely responses to the One State of Israel plan. She articulates and addresses the anticipated responses by Palestinian Arabs (both terrorism and diplomatic threats), by others in the region (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan), by the European community, and by the United States.
The harshest response, Glick anticipates, will come not from the Palestinian Arabs, but from the European community. The answers she offers are not sugar-coated. They are realistic and well worth the consideration.
