Shocking to imagine that a Republican congressman is calling for Palestinians to have second-class citizenship in a land far away from ours, but here's Joe Walsh, whose district swings Democratic and includes a lot of Chicago's northwestern suburbs, doing that in the Washington Times:
The only viable solution for the Middle East is a one-state solution: one contiguous Israeli state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. There will not and cannot be lasting peace in the Middle East until then...
The two-state solution can never work when one of the domains, the Palestinian state, does not even acknowledge the other state’s (Israel‘s) right to exist and has as its entire purpose in life wiping Israel off the face of the earth. Never will peace come when one side possesses such hate and routinely expresses that hate through violence and blood. It is time to let go of the two-state-solution insanity and adopt the only solution that will bring true peace to the Middle East: a single Israeli state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
This solution is the best for everyone, especially the Palestinians. They will trade their two corrupt and inept governments and societies for a stable, free and prosperous one. Those Palestinians who wish to may leave their Fatah- and Hamas-created slums and move to the original Palestinian state: Jordan.
brilliant! adopt the only solution that will bring true peace : ethnic cleansing!
It’s amazing how these Israel firsters assume that if they are pitching for Israel it’s o.k. to be a racist or that no one will see them racist.
Here’s another one:…….this is Beinart idea of ‘discussion’?…featuring a racist like this Open Zion?
link to thedailybeast.com
I have another slogan now….’Israel legitimizes racism. That’s their “achievement”…. their ‘contribution’ to the world.
After a long meditation on this topic I have come to the conclusion that the real slogan is: ‘Zionism legitimizes Jewish colonial supremacism’
And Walsh is offering his final solution for the Palestinians.
Expect the liberal Zionist ‘shoot-and-cry’ brigade to come around in a few years, those who were never liberals to begin with(Goldberg, Dershowitz et al) to this proposition.
It will look something like this:
———————————————————————
Yes, they will sigh with a heavy heart, this is far from ideal. And we should make the transition as peaceful as possible. In fact, we’re so good liberals that we will even sponsor their budgets to a large extent the first few years(actually those people won’t, nor will Israel, it will be the American taxpayer who will foot the bill under ‘security arrangements’).
We’ve tried it all and we cannot accept the 1 state solution, sorry, not after the Holocaust. Perhaps our peoples can live in peace if they have some distance, perhaps, if one might dream a little, might some of them return one day?
But we’ve tried it all, and it’s useless to blame anyone now. Create a new state in Jordan, we will do everything we can to help them succeed. We don’t like this, believe us, it hurts a lot. And it has made us depressed(I even started taking Xanax…) but it’s come to this. There’s no other way out. Those who criticize us always wanted to destroy Israel. The extreme left and the extreme right both won.. us moderates in the middle are left holding the bag and we’re forced to this now…
So create a new state in Jordan. This is better than destroying Israel, as it will plunge into civil war. There will be bloodbath. I fear a new Holocaust. This is the only solution now, after the zealots on both sides of the political spectrum won. Us liberals are simply too nice. To be liberal is to be divided etc etc. From now on, however, we must never fold to these two extremist camps, both on the right and on the left. We musn’t let the zealots dictate the agenda anymore. It’s their fault this happened, while we stayed mum and let them run the show.
This must change.
And the first step to that is a new, fresh start in Jordan. Free from the historical baggage and bad blood. Avoiding the end of Israel and the horror of a new Holocaust. It is the only way out now. It breaks my heart, believe me, it does. But we are now forced into this position, betrayed by all centrists who refused to stand up against the extremists. May we never return to that situation ever again, and most importantly of all, may we never forget about peace!
// Liberal Zionist over ‘n’ out.
-”a new, fresh start in Jordan” -
Fair enough. But do the Palestiniens in the occupied territories have Jordanian citizenship, Jordanian passports? No, they don’t. If they did, no problem.
Do the settlers in the occupied territories have US or EU etc. citizenship, passports? Yes, they do (or they are entitled to). – Let them have “a new, fresh start” in the US or the EU (or Russia or Argentinia). No problem.
75% of Israelis are born in modern Israel. Your argument is as silly as it gets.
Perhaps you could tell me what the borders of Israel are?
In the portion quoted Mr.Walsh does not explicitly say that he wants the non-Jewish population to be disfranchised in his one state. Perhaps he makes this clear elsewhere in his remarks. It would be hard to think that there could be all this peace, prosperity and absence of hatred if there were – that is to say, were still, just as there is now – minority rule and extensive disfranchisement.
Return to Jordan, the original Palestinian homeland, does not seem to be required for all but to be an option for those who wish to take it. That suggests that the new Israel will take responsibility for improving the welfare of all, Palestinians included, in situ. It would be hard to do this with even a semblance of fairness if only a minority has the vote. And where there is no semblance of fairness it is hard to achieve peace and no hatred.
I agree with Krauss about where liberal Zionism is going. That is because it is Zionism, ie the belief that rights of sovereignty in the Holy Land belong only to Jewish people and to such others as Jewish people may, by grace and generosity but never by obligation, choose.
The liberal element might indeed express itself in professed readiness to pay for a population transfer, though the traditional expression, endless talk and more talk of two states some day but not yet, plus a bit of weeping, seems to me to have bags of life in it yet.
I’d say to Edwin that the full Holy Land is defined at least approximately by the Bible’s references to the Euphrates and the River of Egypt. As an act of grace, sovereignty over some of these areas may be conceded through treaties. This has indeed been done with Egypt and Jordan and the intention is surely to honour these treaties until ‘Amalekite’ forces on the other side break them.
We have to remember that Zionism, even in its least liberal form, has always been intended to include an element of generosity, at least of what looks like generosity given the fundamental truth, as Zionists see it, that Jewish people have rights which non-Jewish people cannot share. Everything centres and revolves around and returns to that point.
Mr. Walsh’s words express what he thinks of as generosity to the Palestinians, don’t you think?
@ edwin
The Himalaya mountains. Israel needs defensible borders.
-”75% of Israelis are born in modern Israel”
So what? And probably 75% have (or are still entitled to) the citizenship of the country they themselves or their parents/grandparents came from.
Why are so many Israelis coming to Germany? They are entitled to German citizenship. – Your ‘birth-argument’ is as silly as it gets.
Correction is in place here-Jews are coming to Germany, mostly from former Soviet republics. Israelis are coming as anywhere else for traveling, business and education-it is called open economy. As for the permanent relocation to Germany, I very much doubt that they would do so. Anyhow this argument is really stupid since Israelis define themselves by living in Israel. Having additional citizenship makes it easier to travel. I do not have any other passport beside Israeli one.
Here is an article from the Forward.
- ‘JEWS STREAM BACK TO GERMANY’ – By Donald Snyder
Published April 08, 2012, issue of April 13, 2012.
Read more: link to forward.com
____________________________________________________
- “Berlin’s Jewish population jumped in 2008 to an estimated 50,000 from 6,000 in 1990, amid an overall population today of 3.4 million. The surge in Jewish population reflects, in part, a huge influx of Russian Jews. Many of them have at best a weak sense of Jewish identity thanks to the long Soviet era, during which this was suppressed. But an estimated 15,000 Israelis reside in Berlin, drawn there to work and study, and to enjoy the city’s freedom, cheap rents and exciting intellectual life. For these mostly younger Jews, the experiences of their grandparents and great-grandparents seem a distant trauma.
“I fell in love with Berlin, its freedom, its great space” said Maya Nathan, a 33-year-old Israeli student with a German passport. Asked about the implications for her, as a Jew, of living in the country that unleashed the Holocaust, Nathan replied, “Our family was never anti-German.” But she said she does know Israelis who will never come to Germany.”
__________________________________________________
So, there are Jews from the former Soviet Union and Israelis who come to live in Germany. You may be among those Israelis “who will never come to Germany”, as Maya Nathan says.
berlin is a fantastic city.
I’ve visited Germany twice, one visit very recently. I’ve enjoyed it very much-but I do not see myself living there for life. That would be very difficult for me if not impossible.
The best solution for Israel …
… that a Jewish friend suggested to me long ago was: Have a few resorts for Jewish pilgrims to come on vacation and visit their holy sites – plus a large cemetery for those who want to be buried in the Holy Land. The rest of Jewry would be in the diaspora, by historical standards the ‘natural’ state of Jewry.
Walsh’s Hasbarrow overfloweth with distilled ignorance.
“has as its entire purpose in life wiping Israel off the face of the earth.”
Jeez, talk about Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It’s not always about you, Israel.
As well as I remember, Pamela, you are about to visit the UK this month and talk about your book. Are there times and venues published somewhere?
New plan — I finally got a publisher for my book, so I’m putting my touring on ice until it comes out again next spring. Too bad, I’m sure the UK is lovely now. Next year, inshallah!
Wow. Good news, Pamela!
Your gain is our loss but next year would be good. You may have made a good choice – I’m in the United States today, just about to fly home, where I hear the weather is miserable.
Legally speaking the US [and its friends] do regard themselves as above International Law, which is probably true, since the UN architecture was conceived by the victors of WW2 [ China and France later came on board ] as a means to give legitimacy to any act they wished to implement. And since there is no higher authority than the 5 permanent members of the Security council to stop them, any action that any one of those members takes [and their friends] even if in theory illegal is ipso facto legal, the other 4 may condemn that member and put forward a resolution to that effect, but that resolution would be vetoed. The US could never get away with condoning ethnic cleansing on this scale with world public opinion, but legally, from a UNSC point of view, in my opinion they could.
Walsh’s Kampf.
Hey, Joe Walsh:
The two-state solution can never work when one of the domains, the Israeli state, does not even acknowledge the other state’s (Palestine‘s) right to exist and has as its entire purpose in life ethnically cleansing the indigenous Palestinians off the face of the earth. Never will peace come when one side possesses such hate and routinely expresses that hate through violence and blood. It is time to let go of the two-state-solution insanity and adopt the only solution that will bring true peace to the Middle East: a single “Pal-Isra-stine”* state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, with equal rights for all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity or religion.
Fixed it for ya, baby!
——
* Actual new state name to be chosen by democratic referendum at some later date.
Taxi & I have solved that one tear-stained uzi ~ Republic of Jerusalem. It means neither Palestinians or Israelis will think of themselves as victorious or defeated, but they are all in this together…
Reminder: link to mondoweiss.net
Things have come to a head at a local school. The constant turmoil there since a bully arrived has become intolerable, with students being prevented from playing on the playground equipment and many injuries as fights have broken out with the bully.
The school principal calls an assembly with the police standing behind him and announces that all the kids but the bully will be moved to another school so that the bully will have the place to himself without the constant strife that has made it so difficult for him.
This is Joe Walsh’s reasoning and why we have a need for the acronym “WTF”.
I looked Walsh up on the list of Congressional recipients of Israel lobby money in the current issue of Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and, remarkably, he is not listed. So perhaps this position of his is from the heart?
Really? That’s a good sign- it means that a man thinks for himself.
Walsh has raised a whole lot of money in this election cycle, the largest chunk from The Freedom Project. That is a PAC receiving lots of money that does not work for US interests.
Walsh did not write the letter published, but it was mostly written for him, submitted to his legislative aid for Walsh’s signature.
That is how it works.
the net result of israel firster joe walsh’s pushing his “final solution” would be to inflame the arab/islamic world such that our nation (israel’s main backer) would be endangered, making it risky for americans to venture elsewhere. he may think that his proposal will help him win in november, but little does he know that his israel firstness leaves him vulnerable to being defeated by a carefully planned campaign that challenges him for advocating policies that if carried out would pose a threat to these united states of america.
Joe Walsh’s solution would mean enraging a million and a half Muslims in the world, a minute fraction of whom are in the process of kicking the butt of the greatest army the world has ever seen out of Afghanistan. The US political scene is full of f…… crackpots, I despair sometimes.
Shocking to imagine that a Republican congressman is calling for Palestinians to have second-class citizenship in a land far away from ours
Considering 40 million Americans have no health insurance and are worse than second class and the Republicans want to keep it that way why would they be any different in respect of the Palestinians?
The Jordan option is mainstream settler filth. It’s the most reasonable and most just solution to the problem of how to reconcile Judaism with evil.
Sometimes I think that it would be good idea to quizz a congressman like Walsh why does he think that Israel shares American value if it tolerates gay in the military, has socialized medicine and people in the cities have no right to carry concealed weapons?
“Jordan is Palestine”, by the way, is a position vehemently opposed by Avigdor Lieberman. Who those people (who actually wrote the letter that Walsh signed) think they are to criticize democratically elected government of our ally?
Scott Atran: ‘US foreign policy is set by people who’ve almost no insight into human welfare, education, labour, desires or hopes’
link to guardian.co.uk
And the Republicans are even worse
>> … here’s Joe Walsh …
I’m glad this idiot is not the *real* Joe Walsh. :-)
>> The only viable solution for the Middle East is a one-state solution: one contiguous Israeli state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Why is that the only viable solution? Why not one continguous Palestinian state?
>> Never will peace come when one side possesses such hate and routinely expresses that hate through violence and blood.
Yes, that’s true. As long as Zio-supremacists possess such hate and routinely express that hate through violence and blood, peace will not come.
*This* Joe Walsh is an asshole.
Robert Wright in the Atlantic all over this:
link to theatlantic.com
I followed the link to the website of Joe Walsh to check if he is an idiot.
After all, Zio-supremacism may be a sign of moral decrepitude combined with above average intelligence and/or education. But this is not the combination we have here. One should not be snobbish against carrier of teaching “American government” in community colleges and even in Hebrew Theological College, but one should be worried about recipients of Walsh’s wisdom during his teaching years. Consider this recent statement of good Congresscreature:
“The Muslim Brotherhood has had one of the worst women’s rights records in the Middle East and upon assuming power in Egypt after the fall of President Mubarak, they have illustrated this fact. The Brotherhood has scaled back the right to legally seek a divorce and the right to make basic educational choices for their children, and in 2007 their platform forbid that a woman could be President of Egypt.”
Where to start… Egyptian parliament is still not ruling in Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood does not have majority in that parliament, and as Egyptian press informed one month ago “Parliament rejects proposal to cancel women’s right to divorce.” This was news two days before Joe Walch made his statement to condemn Administration contacting Muslim Brotherhood. As a student of government, Walch should be aware that party platform do not forbid anything.
Also, if Walsh has even most elementary curiosity, his working at Hebrew Theological College should made him aware that Sharia is quite similar to Halacha in many respect, and conservative Jewish theologians (and their political parties) are very similar to conservative Muslim theologians in their views on proper occupation, education and dress of women. Should US government refuse contact with MK’s and ministers from those parties? And closer to his education, American conservative Catholics have similar views and many Latin American countries, including our best allies, limit rights to divorce, abortion and contraception.
Which of course raises questions what are the views of Joe Walch himself on the rights to divorce, abortion, contraception, equal pay, gay and transgender people, gay in the military etc. Consider the end of Walch’s statement:
” It is insulting that the President would meet with a group that blatantly disregards religious freedom on the eve of Passover and Good Friday, and a group that does not even recognize Israel’s right to exist. I call on the President not to meet with or recognize groups that do not respect women’s rights and basic freedoms.”
Basic women’s right is the right of Israel to exist? And what is the Good Friday connection? Perhaps one should desist from any controversial activities at an anniversary of some atrocity, e.g. “Good Friday Massacre”. From the pages of history:
The Good Friday Massacre, (French: la bataille du Vendredi saint), was a second-round playoff match-up during the 1984 NHL Playoffs. The game occurred on Good Friday, April 20, 1984 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, between the Quebec Nordiques and the Montreal Canadiens. After a number of fights, a bench-clearing brawl broke out near the end of the second period. When the teams returned to ice for the extended third period, a second brawl broke out between the teams, including players who had already been ejected from the game but had not been notified prior to their return to the ice. [...] A total of 252 penalty minutes were incurred and 10 players were ejected. Amongst the fourteen altercations were the Canadiens’ Mario Tremblay smashing the nose of the Nordiques’ Peter Stastny, and Louis Sleigher knocking Jean Hamel unconscious by hitting him in the eye
My comment above should have said enrage a billion and a half muslims in the world, not a million and a half, sorry, big difference.
You know, one consideration I think people overlook in assessing the Israeli perspective on all this is the issue of the flow of American dollars.
Say you are *very* moderate Israeli, that is, one who doesn’t like the idea of a either becoming a formal apartheid practitioner or an en-mass ethnic cleanser, and realizes that doing either—such as this Walsh guy advocates or as Danny Danon does in that link to Beinart’s pages that AMERICAN provides—will only result in continued hostilities with no end in sight.
Okay, but what’s your option now? To argue for a two-state solution that the Palestinians might actually accept (as Olmert says) and thus no doubt provide an incredible additional amount of real peace?
Well but … what does this two-state solution do for Israel though really? It’s already essentially invulnerable from conflict with the Palestinians, so how is true peace with them all that much better given that it may mean that the flow of dollars from Uncle Sucker starts to dry up?
Not that this isn’t a dynamic that people haven’t forecast before, just that now especially as things seem to be coming to a point where Israel has to make some change in its posture, this consideration would seem to loom very large indeed even in the most moderate of minds.
What good is a peace deal, after all, if it gets you not much more security you had before, and a cut-off of that previous fire-hose of American dollars that you received before?
Speaking objectively then, what seems in Israel’s best interest is not true peace at all, but instead really a chronic, never-ending low-intensity state of conflict with its neighbors. And bad objective realities are bad because even though the good-hearted person in the world might try to resist them, it’s all too easy for everyone else to just shrug and say that they have to accept reality.
Am I wrong in seeing the word Transfer, as used here by Walsh, as a euphemism for Ethnic Cleansing? It might be a good thing to insist on using the term Ethnic Cleansing when we comment on or discuss this proposal, or at least putting the t-word in scare-quotes, “transfer,” to indicate that it is a euphemistic falsehood. If there is any meaningful distinction between what Walsh is calling Transfer and what we all called Ethnic Cleansing in other contexts, like the Balkans, I’d be grateful to anyone who could explain it. And yes, I am aware that Ethnic Cleansing has no specific, codified legal meaning, which is not the least of its virtues.
There is no distinction Chesperito – transfer is ethnic cleansing is transfer.
Just more hollowing out of language and trying to make atrocities more palatable. It’s a staple of hasbara and even most western foreign policy since at least Vietnam (think “friendly fire”; it isn’t friendly at all – it’s deadly).
As always you can test this out by asking the person making the proposition how they would feel if their family or friends were “transferred”.
Recall the uproar when Helen Thomas said European jews should go back to Europe? She didn’t even say it should happen forcibly (i.e.. transfer/ethnic cleansing) – just that they should go back to Europe.
It’s OK to say a Palestinian should be ethnically cleansed but not that European jews should go back to Europe?
No, no and no.
This Nov. 2011 video of Walsh says it all about the man. He’s just not that smart.
Rep. Joe Walsh Yells At His Constituents
Peace activist Jeff Halper speculates that Israel may annex Area C – with the consent of the Palestinian Authority.
link to aljazeera.com
There’s some pretty big implications (beyond annexation) in that piece. Especially toward the end. I’m not sure I quite understand what Halper is saying (e.g. whether Palestinians taking an exclusive lead in the (traditionally)/their (as Halper states[?]) own struggle is a good or bad thing) yet.
This article has the kind of “out of left field-y” (to me anyway) recombinant (factually) niggle of revelation – just out of reach. Or it could be nothing. Don’t know yet.
Thanks, Talkback. I’ll have to re-read it a few times to understand it. I hope it’s discussed here.
Hi ritzl – if you haven’t seen it already check out Halper’s talk on YT from about 2 years ago:
Interview – Jeff Halper – The Global Pacification Industry
When I first saw it I was really surprised because I’d only known about Halper as the founder of ICADH but this talk is about much broader issues, in particular the second half. Now reading the AJ piece I can see Halper has gone full circle and brought it back to Palestine.
This article from him makes more sense when taken with the YT vid.
Leaving aside the mind-numbing rhetoric designed for AIPAC ears and dollars, what he suggests would be a great step forward as it eliminates the biggest obstacle to a resolution which is the current dead end impasse stemming from the attempt to split a swiss cheese into cheese and holes. Even a one state where Palestinians have no voting rights but are acknowledged as permanent residents (such as East Jeruslalem residents) who can move freely, work freely and buy property is better than the current Bantustan paradigm. The rest, i.e. full equality, could be achieved within a generation of civil rights movement.
“The rest, i.e. full equality, could be achieved within a generation of civil rights movement.”
That’s wishful thinking. I have no doubt that the vast majority of Israeli’s population will be happy to keep the Palestinian population in a state of oppression forever. Nothing in the last 70 years of them having a state has demonstrated that they have any degree of committment towards human rights when Arabs are concerned. Absent coercion, the Zionist will no more provide freedom, liberty and human rights to the native Palestinians whose land this is, than would the KKKers have voluntarily given the same rights to African Americans.
I am just surprised by the knee jerk reaction here to oppose anything that comes from what appears to be yet another AIPAC groveling American politician. Of course on the surface it sounds ridiculous but I think Joe Walsh is onto something. He’s not calling for expulsion like some people here hastily concluded.
It is perhaps the most pragmatic solution that I have heard so far as it both gives Palestinians citizen status and alleviates Jews’ demographobia. If Palestinians are no longer under military rule, if they can move freely, buy property and work anywhere inside Israel and state policies are no longer designed to discriminate and dispossess them, voting rights should be a minor concern for the time being (after all, 20% – 40% of people choose not to participate in elections in most democracies anyway).
Anyway, he may be a loony but even a drunk can sometimes land a punch and we should not dismiss such ideas out of hand. Human rights and pragmatism can co-exist until we reach the promised land.
>> … I think Joe Walsh is onto something. He’s not calling for expulsion like some people here hastily concluded.
>> It is perhaps the most pragmatic solution that I have heard so far …
In the Washington Times article, JW’s solution is to give Israel everything and to permit Palestinians who aren’t happy with this super-sized, supremacist Jewish state to leave for Jordan.
The article concludes with this gem of a statement:
>> The goal should not be peace at all costs. The goal should be a strong, free and prosperous Israel. The United States should not be some honest broker between two side, but rather should stand publicly with one side – Israel.
This is the most pragmatic solution you’ve heard so far? Seriously?
If Walsh thinks it would be morally acceptable to expel the Palestinians, what objection could he raise to the idea of expelling the Jews?
lysias,
You wrote:
“If Walsh thinks it would be morally acceptable to expel the Palestinians, what objection could he raise to the idea of expelling the Jews?”
Think through the logic here: Zionism may succeed in providing retroactive legitimacy to thousands of years of antisemitism — including the repeated violent expulsion of Jews from non-Jewish nations.
One suspects that some Christian Zionists are not quite as dull-witted as they appear to be and figured out this simple calculus a long time ago. They get the endgame here.