The two-state solution and the Jewish Tanach

Progressives everywhere want to see a two-state solution for the Arab-Israel conflict. The way they see it, both Israel and an Arab ‘Palestine’ will benefit from “two states living side-by-side in peace and security”. For them, the only road to peace is to create two states for two peoples on land currently held by Israel.

We’ve heard about this idea of “side-by-side in peace and security” from the US, the UN and the EU. We’ve heard it repeatedly. We continue to hear it. It’s Man’s mantra for peace between Muslim and Jew.

Progressives have been repeating some form of this ‘peace mantra’ for a long time—perhaps 23 years running (since the Oslo Accords), perhaps longer. Progressives have never wavered in their commitment to two states.

Progressives have been forever hopeful about peace between Jew and Muslim. But they have also been forever disappointed. Why?

Look at the progressive’s problem this way: if Man so wants peace in the Middle East, why hasn’t a ‘two-state solution’ happened? This isn’t rocket science. What’s the problem?

The simple answer is, neither party wants it. Neither the Jews nor the Muslims will agree to create two states.

According to conventional wisdom, Israel refuses to ‘let go’. It won’t surrender the land ‘Palestinians’ need to make their state. The ’Palestinians’, meanwhile, won’t accept anything less than ‘from the river to the sea’, a position that requires the destruction of the state of Israel before ‘Palestine’ can be born.

That’s the conventional wisdom. It’s perhaps the best explanation wise men on both sides can articulate once they put aside their usual made-for-TV propaganda declarations.

Of course, this conventional wisdom is wrong. We know it’s wrong because if it had been right, a solution to these problems would have been found long ago. After all, this isn’t rocket science.

For the Arab-Israel conflict, conventional wisdom is insufficient. Something more compelling than ‘conventional’ wisdom is needed.

The simple explanations of conventional wisdom do have some merit. They explain the intractability of the problem. But they’re not sufficient. They don’t explain the impossibility of the solution.

Beneath the simple but insufficient explanations of conventional wisdom there lies an even simpler explanation for the failure of the ‘two-state’ dream.  Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon recently (unwittingly) hinted at this when he said that the Arab-Israel conflict might never be resolved (Kobi Finkler, “Ya'alon: The conflict might never be resolved”, Arutz Sheva, January 22, 2016).

There’s a very simple explanation for this failure. The problem is, no one wants to hear it.

The simplest reason the ‘two-state solution’ doesn’t work is that G-d Himself doesn’t want it. How else can you explain why the best and brightest of Mankind fail so regularly—and so often--to bring peace to this region?

G-d isn’t new to Israel. Israel sits on a land where an intense belief in G-d has been an inescapable part of the political landscape for thousands of years. It’s a place where Man has fought over G-d almost since the beginning of recorded time.

This isn’t rocket science. It’s not difficult to understand.

Israel is G-d’s country. History confirms that. We ignore that fact at our peril.

If there’s one thing this Middle East conflict teaches, it’s that Man does not live by his self-image alone. Man does not control the world. Man does not control history. Man does not control Israel. Man is not G-d.

Progressives don’t understand that. They reject it. They think they know better than G-d.

Here’s a secret no one wants to acknowledge: G-d doesn’t want a progressive two-state solution for Israel. We know that because G-d has told us what He wants for Israel.

He tells us what He wants in the Tanach (the written Torah) and in the Talmud (the Oral Torah). It’s all there—almost every detail of His Grand Plan.

Those details start with G-d’s explicit Promises to His people for this land. Many of those Promises have already come true. Many more are on the verge of becoming true.

The truth is always simple. This Truth is simplest of all: HaShem, the G-d of Israel, follows a Blueprint He wrote down thousands of years ago--for all to see. That Blueprint does not include any ‘two-state solution’. 

That’s the simplest reason Man’s ‘two-state’ solution has failed. The Middle East isn’t about Man. It’s about G-d. It’s about G-dly Promises.

You might not want to hear this, but in the battle between Man and G-d, G-d wins. G-d is Supreme. Man is not.

Pick up your Tanach. Read it. Compare it to what you read in history. You’ll learn something about G-d in History.

Then, you’ll understand why the two state solution is doomed to fail.