Remembering the Real Yitzhak Rabin

This week, Israel commemorates the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Many, especially on the left, imagine that the late prime minister, had he lived, would successfully have ushered in an era of peace. But as politicians and pundits scramble to laud Rabin’s legacy, it is important to remember that he opposed a return to the 1967 borders, believed a military presence in the Jordan Valley was necessary for Israel’s security, and was committed to a united Jerusalem. In other words, writes Yair Rosenberg, his positions at the end of his life are nearly indistinguishable from those of Benjamin Netanyahu:

Following Rabin’s shooting, the Israeli left moved to his left, while the Israeli right gradually adopted Rabin’s own positions from when he led the Israeli left. (Recent Israeli skepticism about the peace process has far more to do with Gaza’s rockets than with Yigal Amir’s bullets.) As Ben Birnbaum, the journalist who co-wrote the definitive account of the most recent peace talks for the New Republic, has put it, “The untold story of the peace process is the fact that by any objective measure, Benjamin Netanyahu today is to the left of where Yitzhak Rabin was in the 90s.”

Read more at Tablet

More about: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli politics, Peace Process, Yitzhak Rabin

Expand Gaza into Sinai

Feb. 11 2025

Calling the proposal to depopulate Gaza completely (if temporarily) “unworkable,” Peter Berkowitz makes the case for a similar, but more feasible, plan:

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE should persuade Egypt by means of generous financial inducements to open the sparsely populated ten-to-fifteen miles of Sinai adjacent to Gaza to Palestinians seeking a fresh start and better life. Egypt would not absorb Gazans and make them citizens but rather move Gaza’s border . . . westward into Sinai. Fences would be erected along the new border. The Israel Defense Force would maintain border security on the Gaza-extension side, Egyptian forces on the other. Egypt might lease the land to the Palestinians for 75 years.

The Sinai option does not involve forced transfer of civilian populations, which the international laws of war bar. As the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other partners build temporary dwellings and then apartment buildings and towns, they would provide bus service to the Gaza-extension. Palestinian families that choose to make the short trip would receive a key to a new residence and, say, $10,000.

The Sinai option is flawed. . . . Then again, all conventional options for rehabilitating and governing Gaza are terrible.

Read more at RealClear Politics

More about: Donald Trump, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula