An image of the front page of The Jerusalem Post on October 27, 2025. (credit: The Jerusalem Post)<\/p>\n
Consider the strange case of me. I consider the Jews a people by any reasonable historical definition of that word, rather than merely adherents of a religion scattered among diasporas.<\/p>\n
Peoples are entitled to national self-determination, and Jews, therefore, had every right to establish a nation-state in their ancestral homeland, even after a diaspora lasting 2,000 years, which I do admit is odd (many things in life are odd).<\/p>\n
I also regard the fixation on the Nakba as disproportionate. Israel\u2019s creation involved displacement and brutality, which was tragic for individuals, but the middle of the 20th century was filled with collapsing empires, border changes, and population movements. The partition of India uprooted many millions of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs to create coherent states.<\/p>\n
Elevating the Palestinian displacement into a uniquely monstrous event that confers an eternal claim against the very existence of Israel is absurd. Much more unusual was the abuse of refugees in their host societies, from which they were mostly ethnically indistinguishable.<\/p>\n
And while Palestinian national sentiment exists powerfully today \u2013 whether Israelis like it or not \u2013 its historical claims are far weaker than advocates pretend.<\/p>\n
Before the confrontation with Zionism helped forge a distinct Palestinian identity, the Sunni Arab inhabitants of (and migrants to) Mandate Palestine were part of the wider Arab Levant, with local and religious identities, mainly.<\/p>\n
Being right-wing doesn\u2019t alter the perspective on how the Palestinian identity was formed<\/p>\n
On a national level, the differences between Palestinians and people in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon were minor at best. There was no ancient Palestinian nation marching through history toward sovereign statehood, and the world does not owe this<\/a>. I do think it may offer a way out of the conflict \u2013 but the borders must be safe for Israel, and any Palestinian statehood must be demilitarized.<\/p>\n I am also extremely hawkish about terrorism. When lives are in imminent danger, I favor giving the security services extreme latitude to stop the threat. My concern for the rights of terrorists resembles my concern for the rights of mobsters: minimal, and mainly because one is innocent until proven guilty in a civilized society.<\/p>\n By this point, I should be safely ensconced on the Right \u2013 no? Yet by the bizarre twists and turns of Israeli politics I\u2019m a left-winger (or, via the rebrand, a \u201ccentrist\u201d).<\/p>\n Why? Well, I want Israel to remain a Jewish state.<\/p>\n There are millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel can incorporate them with equal rights and not be a Jewish-majority state; it can rule them without equal political rights and not be a democracy; or it can attempt to remove them, which would be both immoral and strategically insane (as this would bring on global isolation on a scale that could devastate its economy, destroy crucial alliances, and undermine its ability to defend itself).<\/p>\n That leaves some form of partition. I have no particular attachment to the precise arrangement. The territory Israel relinquishes could become an independent Palestinian state, yes.<\/p>\n But one of the great missed opportunities in Israeli history was Likud\u2019s scuttling of the 1987 London Agreement pursued by former prime minister Shimon Peres and King Hussein, which might have enabled Israel to withdraw from much but not all of the West Bank while placing it under Jordanian rather than independent Palestinian control.<\/p>\n Demilitarizing a region of an established country is easier than attempting to demilitarize an entire sovereign state. Likud\u2019s<\/p>\n Yitzhak Shamir was not smart enough to see this. Citizens possess rights that survive elections, minorities require protection from majorities, and an independent judiciary is critical in a country lacking a written constitution, a second legislative chamber, and other checks on executive power.<\/p>\n This was once an entirely respectable position on the Israeli Right. Former prime minister Menachem Begin\u2019s reverence for independent courts was central to his political worldview<\/a>, and Netanyahu long defended the independence and stature of Israel\u2019s judiciary.\u00a0<\/p>\n The strange transformation of judicial independence into a supposedly left-wing cause attaches directly to Netanyahu\u2019s criminal trials.<\/p>\n
My second \u201cleft-wing\u201d credential is wanting Israel to remain a liberal democracy. Elections determine who governs, while democracy requires institutions that constrain what governments can do.\u00a0<\/p>\n