Ignite the Pulpit
Two state solution draws Swiftian protest
The two state solution for Israel and “Palestine” has now drawn a protest worthy of Jonathan Swift. The man who made it might not realize that the Bible proposes the same solution he did.
The classic two state solution
In 1967, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria fought a war with Israel and lost it. Since then, the Arabs, and the United Nations, have talked about a two state solution. According to this, a state called “Palestine” would occupy the same lands that Egypt and Jordan lost in that war, or something close to it.
But the leaders and educators in that other state always preach hate toward Israel and toward Jews in general. Your editor cannot repeat some of the things they say. Israel’s leaders know, or should know, that a two state solution cannot succeed as long as one state has such a baleful attitude.
Israel has tried. On the day that the Tzahal took over East Jerusalem, they told the Arab residents to go home, stay there, and wait for the new mayor to tell them what to do next. Today, Jerusalem’s Arabs don’t even want to live in a Palestinian state. They like living in a united Jerusalem.
That effort at peacemaking worked. But turning the Temple Mount over to an Arab authority did not. Only recently have even Christians been able to pray on the Temple Mount without the SWAT-armed Waqf police threatening to chase them away. This year, Jews could come up and pray on the Tempe Mount for the first time since the war ended.
Last month, President Barack Obama laid out the two state solution, using the same unworkable premises that “Palestinians” have demanded for 44 years. Anyone should know that that will not work. In fact that solution has no legal basis. But more recently, an American commentator came up with an alternative.
Andrew Klavan’s one state solution
Andrew Klavan runs a short program titled Klavan on the Culture. Every two weeks he issues a three- or four-minute video containing often biting satire on American or worldwide cultural issues. A week ago, he issued this video, which Arutz-7 discovered and embedded this afternoon.
Klavan says to forget the two state solution. He then proposes a one state solution: “give the Middle East to the Jews.”
Klavan made these points, to show that the Arabs would be better off under Jewish rule:
- Muslims and Christians have complete religious freedom in Israel.
- Holy sites under Jewish control are open to everyone. Holy sites under Muslim control are open to Muslims only.
- Israel is the only respecter of women’s rights in the Middle East.
In fact, your editor has traveled in Israel, including Jerusalem, its Old City, and the Temple Mount. Your editor will personally vouch for everything that Andrew Klavan said in his video.
A two state solution has no legal basis
The two state solution, with a Palestinian state being contiguous (all in one piece of land), depends on the 1949 Armistice Line. That line existed for military convenience only. King Abdullah of Jordan said so when he signed it. After he signed it, he annexed all the territory west of the Line and on the western shore of the Jordan River between the Sea of Galilee and the desert of Ein Gedi. And in 1967, his son and successor Hussein violated the Armistice. So the UN might as well never have drawn that line.
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The Bible proposes a one state solution
Andrew Klavan never mentioned the Bible. But the Bible states that the Promised Land extends “from the Nile to the Euphrates.” That would include the eastern half of Egypt, the western half of Iraq, and everything in between. (It would not include Iran, despite Andrew Klavan’s map.)
Few people today expect the Jews ever to control all those lands. But control them they will. It will not be easy. It will come only after the Jews—and indeed all of mankind—suffer under the most oppressive dictatorship that history will ever know. But when God makes a promise, He keeps it. As He will keep this one.
Featured image: the Damascus road. Eventually the Jews will control it. Photo: CNAV.
Terry A. Hurlbut has been a student of politics, philosophy, and science for more than 35 years. He is a graduate of Yale College and has served as a physician-level laboratory administrator in a 250-bed community hospital. He also is a serious student of the Bible, is conversant in its two primary original languages, and has followed the creation-science movement closely since 1993.
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