President Obama is trying to make the West Bank “Judenrein”? That’s bunk.
Some are arguing that President Obama’s call for a freeze of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank, and the likely removal of Jewish settlers to achieve a two-state solution, is an attempt to make the West Bank Judenrein. [1] Why, they argue, should Jews be able to buy property and live anywhere in the world except the West Bank?
The term Judenrein is deeply offensive to Jews and others around the world, as it refers to a term Nazis used to describe areas “cleansed of Jews” once they had been massacred or deported to ghettos and murdered en masse in concentration camps. [2]
It’s a cheap, inflammatory argument to accuse those who see settlements as an obstacle to a two-state solution of supporting a Nazi-like anti-Jewish policy – and it’s intended to obscure the facts of the matter.
Here’s the truth.
1. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad has said Jews would be free to live as equal citizens in a future Palestinian state and would receive the same rights at Israeli Arabs that currently live in Israel. [3] Of course, it’s likely that many settlers will choose to relocate to communities within Israel’s final borders in order to live in a majority Jewish state – but it’s pretty hard to argue that a two-state solution would end any Jewish presence inside the West Bank.
2. Many Israeli leaders believe removing most Israeli West Bank settlements is good for Israel’s security as a Jewish democracy – a fact that is obscured by such inflammatory rhetoric.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert drove the point home when he explained why many West Bank settlements would have to be removed: “If we have to make a choice between a Jewish state and the whole of Israel, unfortunately I have to prefer a Jewish state and that means also dividing the land…. This is necessary if we want to remain a democratic, Jewish state.” [4] He went on to warn that “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.”
Former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, now leader of the centrist Kadima party, has said that “My need as an Israeli and a Jew is to keep a Jewish homeland for the Jewish people, a sovereign, Jewish and democratic state with a Jewish majority. So how do we [do that]? The idea is to divide the land, to give up some of our rights on the land of Israel and to establish a two-state solution.” [5]
3. Some Israeli West Bank settlements near the 1967 border would likely become part of Israel under a peace accord. Every peace proposal since the Camp David summit of 2000 involves mutually agreed changes to the 1967 border which would allow Israel to incorporate larger West Bank settlements near Jerusalem within its final borders. This would permit Israel to annex some West Bank territory – perhaps 5% – compensating the Palestinians with an equal amount of territory from Israel in a land swap. This annexed territory could account for as many as two-thirds of all settlers.
[1] “A recipe for even more delay on Iran,” by Anne Bayefsky. The Jerusalem Post, August 5, 2009.
[2] See related: “Removing West Bank Israeli settlements is ethnic cleansing?”
[3] “Fayad: Jews welcome in our future state.” The Jerusalem Post, July 5, 2009.
[4] “Olmert: ‘Many’ West Bank settlements to be removed.” The Jerusalem Post, August 12, 2004.
[5] “Q&A: Tzipi Livni, Israeli Foreign Minister: ‘There Will Be Two States’.” The Washington Post, January 22, 2006.