The end of two-state solution: Israeli opposition leader unveils plan to separate Palestinians from Jerusalem

Despite language that is critical of Netanyahu, Isaac Herzog's plan would be detrimental to hopes of a contiguous Palestinian state.

In a sad, bizarre, but perhaps unsurprising twist, the Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog effectively gave up on the two-state solution--that his party has championed for years--in a speech at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.

The center-left Zionist Union MK and Chairman of the Labor Party boldly declared, “I wish to separate from as many Palestinians as possible, as quickly as possible,” as Haaretz reports. Herzog's party lost against Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu's reelection bid in March 2015.

“They over there and we over here; we’ll erect a big wall between us. That is the kind of co-existence that’s possible now. You exist there and we exist here. Ariel Sharon did the right thing when he put up the fence that prevented the infiltration of suicide bombers, but he didn’t finish the job. We want to finish it, to complete the barrier that separates us. We call it the establishment of a security line, the red line … Israel must part from Netanyahu so that it becomes possible to part from the Palestinians,” Herzog added.

Decrying the recent escalation in violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank, Herzog echoed what many in the Palestinian grassroots have already declared: that Israel and the Palestinians are in a third intifada.

While still criticizing Netanyahu, Herzog aligned himself with the rhetoric of the right-wing, invoking the fears of ISIS. “If we continue denying the truth it can become an intifada that’s crueler than the preceding ones, an intifada in the spirit of ISIS. But here people are still dreaming," he said. “Two nations with such a strong national consciousness, both claiming this land, can never live together in one state at peace. The nightmare in which Netanyahu is ‘managing the conflict’ blew up in our faces and stabbed all of us.”

Since 1 October, 2015, 155 Palestinians and 24 Israelis have been killed, many in stabbing or car ramming attacks.

Herzog’s criticisms of Netanyahu are particularly hollow coming from the “so-called” leftwing, as it is the rightwing which calls for annexation of the West Bank. Yet, both the right and left now officially agree on the policy of completing the separation wall and effectively barring Palestinians from Jerusalem for good. And many of the settlement blocs bordering Jerusalem already exist over the “green-line,” and within the West Bank--so Herzog is effectively calling for annexation. Just no further annexation than Israel has already undertaken.

In his new diplomatic proposal, Herzog further calls for separation of Palestinian villages already bordering Jerusalem and inside the separation wall. The 60 to 80,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem receive “permanent residency status,” allowing them to move relatively freely throughout Jerusalem and greater Israel--a right denied to West Bank Palestinians. Currently, however, the status can be revoked any time Israeli authorities deem it necessary.

Herzog’s call for the unification of Jerusalem as a Jewish city, while not only revisionist as it rejects Jerusalem as home to Palestinians--is utterly impossible without Israel waging an all out war on East Jerusalem Palestinians.

“Then we’ll re-unite the true Jerusalem without hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who will remain on the other side of the barrier” he said. “Issawiya is not and won’t be part of Israel’s eternal capital. Neither is the refugee camp in Shoafat. We’ll separate from them. We’ll build a wall. Terrorists won’t have access to Jews. Those who want to work and make a living rather than stabbing people – we’ll leave those for the consideration of the defense establishment.”

At the same security conference in Tel Aviv, the U.S. ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro denouncedIsrael's "two standards of adherence to rule of law in the West Bank - one for Israelis and one for Palestinians," in a surprisingly candid characterization of the Israeli occupation. But where Herzog called the two-state option all but dead, Shapiro said that the two-state solution is the only hope in preventing Israel "from turning into a bi-national state."

Herzog’s plan also calls for “Convening a regional security conference with the participation of moderate Arab countries,” a misnomer of course; the IDF’s “continu[ed]...control” of the West Bank; and for Israel to “maintain the principle of not taking steps that would vitiate a two-state solution geographically or diplomatically.”

It seems Herzog’s plan is a definite step in the direction of voiding a two-state solution and maintaining Israeli supremacy and the occupation of Palestine.

http://ahtribune.com/world/north-africa-south-west-asia/396-israeli-opposition-leader-herzog.html