To Grant Autonomy, Sovereignty must be Applied First Attorney Elyakim Haetzni has accompanied the settlement project from its beginnings and sees how, time after time, Israel misses opportunities to create a political turning point in its international approach. Even now, he explains, we are presented with such a window of opportunity. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Good afternoon, Attached to this post, a new article written about Attorney and former M.K. Elyakim Haetzni. In this interview Haetzni deals with the Idea of Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, and the way it should be done. The article was published in the political journal Sovereignty which was attached to the Jerusalem post, and was published on May 2014. I wish you all both an intellectually stimulating and an enjoyable reading, Shabbat Shalom, Itai, (Elyakims page operator) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contrary to others on the Israeli Right, Attorney Elyakim Haetzni, former member of Knesset and one of the central ideologues of Gush Emunim, does not ascribe little importance to the demographic issue, which he thinks might threaten not only the Jewish character of the State of Israel but also its future as such. With this being his central issue of concern, Attorney Haetzni presents a political plan, the goal of which is to establish Palestinian autonomy; but in order to implement such a course of action, the State of Israel must first apply sovereignty over all of the territories of Judea and Samaria, if only for legal reasons. Haetzni regards the conduct of the State of Israel on the seventh day, the day after the Six Day War, as one of the greatest mistakes in the history of the State of Israel. “This is one of the greatest mistakes and there are no words to describe it,” he says and likens that window of opportunity, like other windows that have opened, to the closing of a camera’s lens. It opens for a second and then closes. If you didn’t seize the moment, it is gone. Nevertheless, he emphasizes with satisfaction that another window, the window of settling Judea and Samaria, was not missed. “Imagine what the reality would have been today if the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem were in the hands of the Arabs… it is hard to imagine the State of Israel surviving. ”Annexation after the Six Day War – this was also the advice of the mayor of Hebron In Haetzni’s estimation, if only Israel, after the Six Day War, had immediately annexed the entire territory and granted autonomy to the Arab population there, the Israeli public would have accepted it, and it would have been accepted by the local Arab population, as well as in the eyes of the world. “This was what was suggested by Sheikh Mohammad Ali Jabari, who was then the mayor of Hebron, and who considered us members of his household at that time.” Haetzni is convinced that with proper explanation in the world, the State of Israel could have shown that “not the whole world is anti-Semitic,” in his words. He, indeed, does not believe that the world would have run to embrace Israel and its citizens, but as nations usually behave toward other nations, they would have been indifferent toward events in Israel, except for the usual anti-Semitic group that, in his opinion, would have always remained as a sort of eternal evil versus the eternal People of Israel, one opposite the other. Haetzni defines Israel’s conduct in the world of Israel advocacy today as “the greatest of failures.” He mentions the claim that the Jewish People control the world media and Hollywood and despite this when he is asked to explain the basic matter of the Jewish People’s existence as a nation, he “still has not come down from the trees, while the Arabs win with awkward and childish explanations and rationalizations, on falsehoods that are sewn with threads so crude that they should not have been accepted by anyone, and nevertheless, they conquer public opinion. If this is the situation it is difficult to blame the world.” Haetzni finds the proof of his claim about the great failure of Israel’s public relations efforts in the vigorous activity of the Samaria Council that is doing such great work. It sends people to the strongholds of European enmity and they are surprised to find a sympathetic ear and on the sidelines they also manage to convince people and demonstrate successes. Until now, only the Left spoke to the world, in deleterious and defamatory ways, in an attempt to bring international pressure on us in order to promote what they did not succeed in achieving in the voting booth, but now there is someone who is beginning to present things differently.” That political window of opportunity of the seventh day of the war indeed has closed, however Haetzni is convinced that “not all is lost but we have to begin from the beginning.” In his opinion, the People of Israel must clarify to itself where it wants to arrive and advance toward this clear and defined goal. Aware of the complexity of the vision of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, he also does not deny the concerns over a bi-national state on the day after equal citizenship is granted for all. Haetzni sees a Jewish majority of 60 percent of the citizens against 40 percent of Arabs as a marginal situation in which it will not be possible to exist. According to him, the demographic claim should be taken into account but it is not like the lies of the Left, as he defines it. “If the choice is between bi-nationalism or two states I would prefer two states because with them, at least we are left with one small state. A bi-national state will not leave me with even one such small state” he says. The goal – sovereignty while protecting a Jewish parliamentary majority. According to Haetzni’s version, the goal is “presenting a model of sovereignty that will not harm the Jewish parliamentary majority,” and according to him, the solution, in one word, is “autonomy.” “This autonomy already exists,” Haetzni stresses, speaking of the current reality in which the Arabs of Judea and Samaria (J&S) have a parliament, a flag and even more representation in the world than Israel has. He also mentions the economy in the Palestinian Authority, which, had it not been for the Paris Accords, would have been independent. And he also mentions the armed police militia that poses no danger to Israel because it does not have aircraft or tanks. Haetzni mentions the current Israeli security control over the area, the fact that it controls the border passages, the fact that Arabs cannot sign international agreements and covenants with countries such as Iran, Israeli control of water and more – the picture of a situation that signifies the existence, in practice, of Arab autonomy. Moreover, Haetzni points out one necessary legal detail. In order to grant autonomy to the Arab population, first sovereignty must be applied on the territory because the meaning of granting autonomy is “that I, the sovereign, set aside certain areas for independent rule by part of the population. That is, first of all we must annex the entire territory of Israel west of the Jordan and afterward the same Knesset that applied sovereignty can set aside the relevant areas for autonomy.” Haetzni continues and adds that such a policy will enable us to determine the areas of autonomy according to the outline that will include Um al-Fahm and additional Arab communities because, after the application of sovereignty, the status of the various areas will be equal. He also adds that the nature of autonomy is that it can be changed by the sovereign. In this reality of autonomy, says Haetzni, in order to be fair, we must make the rights of Arabs equal to those of the Jews, as it is today for the status of the Arabs of Jerusalem. However, in order to maintain the parliamentary majority, Haetzni believes that the Arabs of the autonomous areas should be denied the right to vote, in contrast to the reality that exists for the Arabs of East Jerusalem, who are given the choice of whether or not to vote for Knesset. In his opinion, indeed the model of the East Jerusalem Arabs has proven that they do not rush to the voting booth and few of them come to vote, however, we should not gamble the future character of the national society of Israel in case they decide someday to mobilize and come to vote deliberately to affect such a revolution. “I don’t want to give them the voting option because tomorrow they may want to take it and then I will find myself in a bi-national state.” Do you want to vote in a national framework? Please do it in Amman. Haetzni divides the matter of voting into two parts. First he mentions that the Arabs of J&S already vote for the parliament of the Palestinian Authority so that “whoever claims that there is occupation is lying.” Nevertheless he is aware of the possibility that the citizens in the autonomous areas will want to be able to vote for a state parliament. In this case, he says, I come to the Jordanian matter. “The government of Israel cannot say these things openly because of the delicate relations with the government of Jordan. The prime minister cannot say openly that Jordan is Palestine, but I can say it clearly and just to remind you, the Land of Israel defined in the British Mandate included the area over the Jordan River, and one and a half months after the Mandate was approved, the League of Nations decided to temporarily take out the Jewish clauses that relate to the area East of the Jordan. This temporary condition has continued until today. The reality today is that seventy to eighty percent of Jordanians define themselves as Palestinians. There is a game with names here. In order for the Palestinians to claim that they have no national home the area east of the Jordan River is called Jordan, but this name game has resulted in them getting two thirds of the territory and they still claim that they have no home.” With this being the situation, Haetzni sees the solution for national voting rights for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria as being permitted to vote for the Parliament in Amman, a vote that should be carried out in voting booths in Nablus, Ramallah and the rest of the cities and would be sent by mail to Amman, just as votes of citizens living abroad are sent from one country to another country. Haetzni is aware of the uniqueness and complexity of the solution that he suggests, but he is not deterred by this. “True, there is no similar situation in other places but the situation of the Jewish People is a situation that is unlike any other place in the world. Just as with a patient who needs medicine that is unique to him and medicine that is suited to another patient may kill him, it is the same for this matter as well. The medicine that we need is a unique medicine for our problem. A medicine that is suitable for another place might kill us.”
Posted on: Fri, 16 May 2014 14:23:41 +0000
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