Trying to save two-state consensus, ‘Washington Post’ invokes ‘demographic’ threat

Santorum

After Rick Santorum’s surge had the result of publicizing his view that no Palestinians live in the West Bank–that’s Israel, too–Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post did an emphatic “fact-check” of the statement, showing how deluded Santorum is. What I find interesting about the piece is its need to save the two-state consensus in Washington at all costs.

This is one case where Washington is living in an alternate reality, Hunky-Doryland. There is not a word about the occupation– no sense that Palestinians are killed for trying to regain an occupied village’s access to its water supply! No sense that 20 years of peace process have produced further dispossession. The Post invokes Israelis’ sense that things are movin right along on the West Bank:

Moreover, because of a series of agreements between Israelis and Palestinians, Palestinians have now acquired self-government over tracts of West Bank territory. A map on the [Israeli] Foreign Ministry Web site shows the sections of the West Bank that are subject either to full Palestinian military and civilian control or just civilian Palestinian control….

 In other words, Israel makes no claim that the Arabs residing in the West Bank are Israelis and in fact has already given up some governmental control to Palestinian self-rule — with the implication that even more territory will eventually form a Palestinian state…

Then notice how the Post attaches Santorum’s one-state idea to the belief of Palestinians like Ali Abunimah (its link), ignoring the many non-Palestinians who also have called for democracy.

Santorum, by labeling the Palestinians as “Israelis,” appears to be adopting a position similar to that favored by some Palestinians increasingly skeptical of a two-state solution — a one-state solution that would grant equal rights to Jews and Arabs.

What about the late Tony Judt, a Jew. Or Virginia Tilley. Or Peter Beinart, who says that West Bank Palestinians should be able to vote for the government that rules their lives.

And finally, notice (my emphasis) how this idea of “equal rights,” only favored by Palestinians, forces Kessler to put forward a racial argument that he would never offer so neutrally in the context of American liberal democracy. Imagine expressing such concerns about the black majority in Washington, D.C.!

Under such a [one state] proposal, demographic changes might  lead to a greater Arab population than a Jewish population in the single entity, which is why some Israeli politicians, such as opposition leader Tzipi Livni, have accepted the need for a separate Palestinian state.

P.S. The Washington Post has more work to do. The National Review has run this evangelical Jewish piece by Barbara Lerner: “Instead of the ‘two-state solution,’ restore what God gave Abraham’s people.” Abraham’s people are not Muslims, no, Lerner is into the religious war: “This war began in the seventh century, when Muhammad, believing that God had ordered him to conquer and rule the whole world in the name of Islam, first used Taqqiya to trick and then slaughter Jews in Saudi Arabia who did not bow to his new religion…”