Stars align for 2-state solution, Mideast peace

By Brian Greenspun (contact)

Sunday, April 3, 2016 | 2 a.m.

They put the ad in the wrong paper!

Last week, the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace published a most powerful ad in The New York Times under the heading, “Israel’s Security Chiefs Agree: Separation into two states is in Israel’s vital security interest.”

I have been arguing for years that real life happens in Las Vegas, so why do people with an important message insist on running their ads in the Times? OK, I know the answer, but still!

Here’s why I’m frustrated. The power elite of Jewish Republicans and their political supporters — many of whom are publicly supporting a two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli peace enigma but privately stating the idea is never going to happen — will meet next weekend at the Venetian. So why isn’t an advertisement from the top security chiefs of Israel screaming out for a two-state solution where it will do some good?

It is hard to overstate the case being made by chiefs of staff for the Israel Defense Forces, directors of the Shin Bet (Israel’s domestic security agency) and the heads of the Mossad, Israel’s vaunted intelligence agency, each of whom insists there can never be a safe and secure, democratic Jewish state in Israel unless there is also a demilitarized Palestinian state with people of both countries living side by side in dignity and peace.

If it is true what we hear from the campaign trail, especially from some of the Republican front-runners for the presidential nomination, that as commander in chief the president should rely on the experts, the generals, the spymasters and the rest of the people who know such things, then it must follow that Israel’s top security folks are telling the unvarnished truth and should be listened to and respected.

And that is: A two-state solution is the only long-term answer for peace in the Middle East. Especially now.

At probably no other time in the state of Israel’s relatively brief history have the stars aligned in such a way as to make a peace with the Palestinians not only a moral imperative but a political and security one.

And if the Palestinian people and their leadership can’t or won’t see this as their opportunity to make a good life for their own families moving forward, it is incumbent upon the rest of the world to give them a nudge.

It is not Israelis who are car-bombing, bus-bombing and stabbing innocent people almost daily. It is not Israelis who are indiscriminately launching missiles from Gaza into Israeli cities full of innocent men, women and children. And it is not Israelis who are exporting terrorism through tunnels dug deep under hospitals and schools and reaching into Israeli population centers to allow terrorists to murder with impunity.

No, that is the province of the Palestinians and their terrorist sponsors in Iran and elsewhere.

The good news is that Iran is not only doing mischief in Israel. It has spread its terrorist tendencies across the Middle East and now threatens whatever stability exists in places such as Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and other places where for far too long the leadership was allowed to sit on the sidelines and cheer whatever mischief was foisted on Israel.

Those countries and their leaders are no longer free from the violence that until now was saved only for the Jews in Israel. Now it is hitting close to home, which means there is common cause between Israel and her Middle Eastern neighbors who are not Iran.

If ever there was opportunity for the “enemies of our enemies” to become friends and build a Middle East to fulfill biblical expectations, it would seem now is that time.

So this coming weekend, when the Republican donors meet with their political donees at the Venetian, topic No. 1 should be how to move a peace process forward in the manner that secures the long-held dream of a peaceful, democratic, Jewish state that Israelis have wished for since 1948.

On that issue, Republicans, Democrats, independents and every other coalition of goodwill can agree.

The opportunity for long-term peace is upon us. Let’s not blow it, yet again.

Brian Greenspun is owner, publisher and editor of the Sun.