AIPAC’s Endorsement of the Two-State Solution Won’t Win It Bipartisan Support

At the recent annual conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), its executive director declared the organization’s total commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Isi Leibler sees this move as a misguided attempt to regain support from younger, left-leaning Jews and thus maintain AIPAC’s bipartisan bona fides:

American Jews, like Israelis, are entitled to have varying views on the two-state solution. But in the face of the intensified Palestinian Authority campaign of terror and incitement, most Israelis, like myself, who once supported a two-state solution now realize that it is impossible.

The Palestinians have one goal—Israel’s destruction. A nascent terrorist state in Judea and Samaria would be opposed by a clear majority of Israelis across the political spectrum. For diplomatic reasons, the government has not explicitly stated this but it has assiduously avoided endorsing a two-state solution. . . . Even the Trump administration has repeatedly announced that it would support any decision both parties endorsed and did not call for a two-state solution.

Thus, it is with incredible hutzpah that an organization purporting to act with Israel’s and America’s best interests in mind has formally adopted a two-state policy. AIPAC is, in effect, pressuring Israel to move beyond what President Trump himself has demanded, and is encouraging the administration and Congress to pressure Israel in this direction.

This outrageous behavior will not induce liberals to support AIPAC but may encourage our American supporters to view Israel as intransigent and press it to make further concessions. . . . The only way to strengthen Israel’s support among Democrats and liberals is painstakingly to explain the case for Israel, which is not difficult—if they are willing to listen.

Read more at Israel Hayom

More about: AIPAC, Israel & Zionism, Israel and the Diaspora, Two-State Solution, US-Israel relations

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF