Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) told Channel 2 Saturday night that Israel will be expected to make concessions to the Americans after Washington relocates its embassy to Jerusalem.
“There is no free lunch,” the defense minister pointed out, alluding to recent speculation that United States President Donald Trump will unveil his administration’s plan to partition the country into two separate states – one Jewish and one Palestinian – soon after the new Jerusalem embassy’s May 14 opening ceremony.
The interview came in the wake of reports that Lieberman was presented with portions of Trump’s plan while in Washington at the end of April.
According to these reports, Lieberman was told that Israel would be expected to relinquish control over four Palestinian Jerusalem neighborhoods – Abu Dis, Jebl Mukabar, Isawiya and Shuafat – within the context of a two-state solution, a policy Washington has aggressively pushed on Israelis and Palestinians for decades.
If implemented, Palestinian residents of these neighborhoods would likely lose their Israeli residency status, as well as the rights and protections afforded them by that status, in exchange for inclusion in the American-backed Palestinian Authority.
According to a report in the Hebrew-language Maariv newspaper Friday morning, the American plan also includes the internationalization of Jerusalem’s Old City.
Trump tasked a special team comprising Jason Greenblatt, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to create a new Israel policy over the last year. All three are widely viewed as sympathetic to Israeli interests and have personal histories of supporting Jewish communities in the West Bank that could potentially face destruction if plans for partitioning the country were to be implemented.
Liberman said Saturday night that there “will be a price for the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem and it is worth paying it,” adding that the US Embassy relocation “is important, historic and dramatic.”
Since Maariv first reported that Washington would demand the division of the country and Jerusalem, many right-wing Jewish figures have rushed to Trump’s defense by claiming the reports to be fabricated. But the fact that Israel’s own defense minister continues to not only repeat the allegations but even to defend the plan should lead us to assume the reports have validity.
Based on over half a century of experience, it would make sense to err on the side of caution and assume that any American administration, whether Republican or Democrat, would seek to partition the country into two states dependent upon American power for survival.
Even if the Trump plan has not yet been finalized, Lieberman’s statements should be viewed as a test balloon on Washington’s behalf, which would mean that the Jewish reaction to the news – whether fake or not – could determine how far Trump’s team feels it can push Jerusalem without losing domestic Jewish support.
Rather than rushing to defend Trump and dismiss reports of his regional agenda as fabricated, those who would be troubled by the notion of his administration forcing partition on Israel should be expressing their outrage as aggressively as possible.
Some deniers of the report have claimed it unlikely that Greenblatt or Friedman would support partitioning the country, given their personal views and histories with Jewish communities that would be threatened with destruction by such a plan. But like most pro-Israel American Jews opposed to the two-state solution, neither Greenblatt nor Friedman are likely to have any realistic alternatives to suggest, and their personal opposition to partition is likely weaker than their desires to keep their jobs.
It’s therefore not a question of them wanting to push Israel into concessions but rather an issue of them being willing to push Israel in order to maintain and advance their own positions. Either way, those Jews opposed to the two-state solution would be well advised to loudly protest in order to display strong opposition before any plans are concretized or made public.
How Jews respond to rumors of Ameican pressure to divide the Jewish homeland could determine the extent to which that pressure is applied. If all Greenblatt, Kushner and Friedman see from Israeli nationalists and the right-wing Jewish Diaspora community is blind support and understanding, they’ll be less likely to experience any significant pangs of conscience when pushing Israel to surrender the cradle of Jewish civilization.
