Monday, February 23, 2009

The Everyone Wins Peace Plan Answers the Critics

By the Grace of God.

The political right wing of Israel needs to settle on a viable path to peace as soon as possible. The ideas that the left has offered so far have been nothing more than Roadmaps to roadblocks. If the Right can find a workable solution to the decades old quagmire, then, considering the current political environment, they are primed to be able to build the political consensus needed to implement such a plan.

This must be a priority of the right; especially the religious parties. According to Talmudic law, a physical messianic war is not mandatory before world peace can come. Positive prophecies must occur, yet negative prophecies can be forestalled or even rescinded with penance and good deeds. (Maimonides, Fundamentals of the Torah, chapter 10)

Which would seem to indicate that the messiah can come even without a physical war of Gog and Magog (as was foretold in Ezekiel chapters 38 & 39). If this interpretation is true, then to avoid seeking a peace plan and waiting for a War of Armageddon as a geo-political fix-all would violate the commandment of “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” (Leviticus 19.16) Therefore the theoretical vehicle towards peace that we use must resolve not only all major secular issues it must also not preclude the resolution of religious ideals as well. It must be pragmatic and yet prophecy-friendly as well. Only in this way can Israeli Jew and Gentile, Arab and Bedouin, Religious and Secular achieve a lasting and secure peace that not only prevents external threats, but serves to heal internal trans-societal rifts.

Rabbi Benny Elon’s Israeli Initiative peace plan does not end false accusations against Israel of Arabic land grabbing, but the Everyone Wins Peace Plan does. In fact, any Kahane type plan, that seeks to toss out all Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza, that is not implemented only following a massive, map changing war, would not likely serve to eliminate false accusations against Israel, but would likely, Heaven forefend, only increase such slander and libel. We need to work towards bringing forth a peace plan that resolves all the problems at once, and yet does not depend on an apocalyptic war to smooth out any ruffled feathers that may remain when all is said and done.

Apartheid State” (and other such false claims like that) would simply not hold water when the Palestinians have been accepted into Israeli society. At that point if anyone criticizes Israel, they would be criticizing the homogenized Jewish/Arabic post-conflict democracy of the Israel of tomorrow. The key is in removing terrorists and their supporters from Palestinian Arab applicants of naturalization into the State of Israel, plus doing this at a rate that does not overwhelm Israel’s immigration and naturalization infrastructure, nor significantly alter electorate configuration to give unfair advantage to naturalized Arabs. Once you do that, not only is it safe to integrate Palestinian Arabs into Israeli society, it would help to remove international animosity and slander against Israel and delegitimatize discrimination in favor of Palestinian Arabs and against Israeli Jews and Arabs as viable foreign policy. The façade of hating Israel as a pseudo-legitimate way to get away with anti-Semitism would crumble and people and nations would simply have to admit bias against Jews or pack their bags and go home. Israel’s new nickname among its former critics would then be, the “Humanitarian State.”

By implementing the principles of the Everyone Wins Peace Plan the Israeli government can find a single and straight path towards secular redemption and the requisite freedom for its citizens to choose to pursue religious salvation. As I mentioned before, however, should any peace plan that does not surrender Jewish holy sites be enacted before my peace plan could be, we should support it wholeheartedly, and not pursue the Everyone Wins Peace Plan as the better policy for the State of Israel. Life must come before anybody’s personal honor, so let me be clear on this point to any and all readers, students or fans of mine who end up in positions of power with the capacity to help implement “Everyone Wins” in actual practice. “Everyone Wins” should not be used as a hammer or an anvil to create headaches for the government of Israel. In such a case we should help the Israeli hasbara movement and help explain that true peace is good, however bumpy the road is.

Practical good-peace is better than theoretically perfect-peace. For if peace is not in the realm of actuality then it is not true peace. But if Israel should find itself in a new peace venture that does not lead to peace, then we must definitely be prepared to shout out loud and clear in support of the peace plan that seems to be the most consistent with the will of God and the needs of humankind, no matter how simple its author may be.