Author John Matthews should try playing peace-maker in his own sandbox

Author John Matthews has just written an article with the boastful, pretentious title, “The Ultimate, Definitive Peace Plan.” Matthews is like all those who come up with all kinds of peace arrangements for Israel, with all the best of intentions, but missing what this old cartoon says so clearly:

Some pro-peace activists still harp on about a two-state-solution, others promote some kind of federation or confederation structure, and all try to pay due attention to the security and demographic concerns of the Israeli Jews. After all, Jews could be physically eliminated if the former is not ensured or democratically eliminated — which will lead to physical elimination— if the latter is not. So pro-peace writers try to come up with all kinds of creative proposals that still require Israel to “compromise” to genocidal jihadists. (Is it politically incorrect for me to call them that in the context of peace activism?)

Like so many sincere, well meaning individuals and organizations, Matthews wants to see peace between Israel and the Arabs-who-now-call-themselves-Palestinians. While Oct 7th caused him to make adjustments to his pre-Oct 7th proposal, it did not cause him to sufficiently rethink the issue.

A big part of the problem

Before I get into specific criticism of Matthews’ article, let me state that part of the problem with foreigners thinking they can instruct us in how to run our affairs is because Israel has not been clear (to put it mildly) about the fact that Gaza is actually Israeli territory, as is the entirety of Judea and Samaria and the Temple Mount.

Case in point: Israel extended her sovereignty over the Golan after the 1967 Six Day War. The international community would occasionally make noise about it but it was never seriously challenged.

Most importantly

And let me remind Matthews of something he seems to have overlooked: in the comments section under his article he suggests that members of Knesset with whom he has spoken — and he hints that this is apparently across the political spectrum — agree with his plan.

However, in July 2024, the Knesset passed a vote opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state, even as part of a negotiated settlement of the conflict.

There were 68 votes in favour (included some members of Gantz’s centrist party in the opposition), nine opposed (the Arab parties), and 43 abstentions. I can only guess at why Yesh Atid and Jewish parties farther left of this exited the Knesset plenum rather than vote either “yes” or “no.” I leave it to readers to suggest why they think this was so.

Critique of Matthews’ article

Let me point out four issues I had with his article.

FIRSTLY: Matthews wrote:

In essence, the main reasons for failure at Camp David were put down to lack of any ‘right of return’ on one side and ‘expansion of settlements’ the other.

And then he engaged in lengthy discussion of how the basis of his marvelous plan for us all to get along is for the provision of an

‘exchange of prisoners-settlers-returnees’, whereby Israeli settlers would be allowed to stay in the West Bank-Judea-Samaria if an equivalent number of Palestinians were allowed to settle in Israel.

The details are unimportant for the purposes of my argument here. Matthews is suggesting that there is some kind of equivalence whereby:

On one side of the equation, we have the Arabs who ran away when five Arab armies invaded what had been the British Mandate of Palestine in an attempt to wipe the Jews out, but lost…

AND on the other side of the equation, we have the rebuilding of the Jewish villages in Judea-Samaria that had been wiped out when Jordanian occupation resulted from this war and then liberated when Jordan again tried to wipe out the Jewish state in 1967 — and lost.

There is no ‘right of return’ to lands their people tried to conquer in the offensive war they lost.

SECONDLY: Regarding re-education of the Arabs who now call themselves Palestinians: At least he is clear about the Jew-hatred indoctrination of school children in the Palestinian Authority, something released Israeli hostages talked about upon their return home. I have written about this separately here. In that article I clearly point out that characteristics in Germany and Japan that allowed for their de-Nazification do not exist in Arab society.

THIRDLY: Matthews writes:

the proposal would be for a six-nation committee to run the territories – Gaza and the WB-Judea-Samaria – until such time as they were sure any trace of Jihadism and ‘destruction of Israel’ policies had been eradicated. The six proposed parties would be USA, Saudi, Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Jordan.

Here is where we see the problem with the fact that Israel did not declare her sovereignty over Gaza and Judea-Samaria after the Six Day War. Given that we did not incorporate those lands into our nation under the naive belief that we could exchange land-for-peace, we are now forced into the humiliating position whereby other countries think they have the right to tell us how to manage Gaza after this war.

Furthermore, his suggestion that Saudi Arabia be involved

. .. because much of the money to rebuild Gaza will come from them [and the USA], so they would in part be ‘looking after their investment’

is not exactly what we need given that Saudi Arabia, in spite of its growing liberalization, is not a democracy, not a model we would want to import as a role model for our Arab neighbours.

And:

Israel and Palestine because they both have direct interests, …

Thanks for including Israel in that team. How kind of you. But Palestine? What Palestine? Oh! You mean the Palestinian Authority. That political unit that in another part of this same article you said no country in the world would consider moderate. But sure, let’s let them have a part in developing the New Gaza.

and Egypt and Jordan because since the late 1970s they know how to maintain peace with Israel.

No they do not. They only maintain the quiet because they have an interest in doing so. Israel provides water to Jordan and helps prop up the king who would otherwise likely be in danger of being toppled just like Assad was in Syria. And Egypt’s interest is not in peace with Israel but in the military and financial aid they get from the USA as part of the negotiated peace agreement.

In both cases, it is a very cold peace. When I was in northern Jordan several years ago on a humanitarian aid mission, the Jewish members of our team were told not to go out of the building alone, not even to buy sweets at a store across the road as our safety could not be guaranteed. Some peace!

FOURTHLY: Matthews writes:

Quite frankly, with the end aims of the destruction of Israel – whether through physical attacks or flooding of Muslim voters – completely headed off, terrorism should die with it. No remaining purpose.

Here he is quite naively suggesting that building up a successful and prosperous ‘Silicon Valley’ of the Middle East will get the Arabs to change their theological scripts and no longer challenge Jewish sovereignty over land that once “belonged” to Muslims. Does he not recognize that this is the pre-Oct 7th ‘conceptzia’ that got Israel into trouble in the first place?

While there are individual Arabs who are more interested in raising healthy children and having a good life than in killing Jews for jihadic purposes, this is not the goal that rules the Arab street.

The solution in a nutshell

This will be expanded upon in a future article, but for now, just let me say that, in my opinion, the best potential for resolving the jihadic conflict against us first resides in Israel winning the war against Hamas and other jihadic bodies, military occupation for as long as necessary or, preferably, out and out application of Israeli sovereignty to those lands, and respect for Arab societal means of organization. This latter is the clan system — Israeli military occupation would provide the safety required for tribal leaders to re-establish their authority over their villages and communities and form a kind of United Emirates project here in accordance with Mordechai Kedar’s proposal.

First in Gaza, then in Judea-Samaria.

The important point to keep in mind is that Arab society is not western society, has no ambition to be like western society. Before anyone suggests what will bring peace to Israel, first let them demonstrate an understanding of Arab society.