June 8, 2022

Michigan U.S. Rep. Andy Levin led a bill late last year that proposed to take steps to encourage a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Levin’s bill placed a ceaseless focus on the occupation, and for that reason alone, the bill’s proposal would not have produced the desired solution it sought to achieve.

The consensus among mediators has been to meet each Palestinian rejection with terms that are better for the Palestinians and worse for Israel.

Since 2000, when the head of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, turned down Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s offer at Camp David which would have birthed a sovereign independent Palestinian state with no occupation, no settlements and a division of Jerusalem, the consensus among mediators has been to meet each Palestinian rejection with terms that are better for the Palestinians and worse for Israel.

This approach can only incentivize further conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Why? Because in any conflict if the losing side can get better terms by rejection and violence, it will keep rejecting and pursuing violence. If the winning side gets worse terms by making peace than by maintaining the status quo, it will seek to maintain the status quo. None of this is new or particularly insightful, it’s conflict resolution 101. It is how the expert class approaches every conflict in the world – except for the one involving the Jewish state. 

The discussion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains one of a remarkable reversal of cause and effect. The occupation looms large over every proposal which claims resolution as its goal with diplomats underwriting that the occupation is the “heart of the conflict”. 

This flies in the face of all logic. Through this lens the occupation is birthed merely on its own and out of nowhere. When in truth, occupations aren’t birthed out of nowhere and they have never caused war; instead, occupations are the result of war. When two sides clash in a conflict, it is more usual than not that at the end of the conflict, one or both sides is occupying territory previously held by the other. Ordinarily, this is where negotiations begin for a diplomatic settlement. Only once a new line is agreed upon by both sides, does the occupation dissolve and both redeploy to opposite sides of the agreed upon lines.  

Every mediation plan in the history of the modern world has understood this notion, yet it is repeatedly abandoned in Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking. Why? Because to acknowledge this truth, would mean acknowledging how the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began and why it has lasted so long. It began with the defeat of a coalition of three Arab armies in their attempt to wipe Israel off the map. The occupation’s continuation is in the refusal, initially of these Arab states and today of the self-governing Palestinians, to accept any peace deal that requires them to reconcile with the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East.

The way to end this occupation is the same way previous occupations ended, by reaching some sort of diplomatic agreement that either ends the conflict completely or at least effects some sort of agreed-upon truce. Pursuing an end to the occupation as a means to end the conflict is a misguided approach, impossible to achieve as it ignores the root cause of the conflict. It is astonishing to realize that the accepted view of learned opinion on Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy runs so counter to any tried and tested conception of peacemaking.

If mediators were at all serious about their underwriting of a two-state solution and an end to the conflict, they’d begin with an approach called “Yes to the Occupation, no to the settlements”, a term originally conceived by my colleague Dr. Einat Wilf. I will attempt to articulate my view on why they should undertake this concept merely as a starting point for a renewed approach to engaging with the conflict. The policy of “yes to the occupation, no to the settlements” proposes even-handed steps towards resolution by safeguarding the right of Israel to protect itself from hostile neighbors, while holding it accountable to its commitment to a two-state solution and simultaneously making it clear to the Palestinians that there will be no sympathy plays for their continued rejection of further peace proposals. 

 The proposal must clearly state that Israel must continue to recognize the existence of another people that also view the land as their homeland and, as such, has a right to part of this land. It must be stressed unequivocally that the Palestinians are expected to limit the fulfillment of their right to the land and that their claims are not supreme or exclusive.

The Palestinians must eventually lay down their arms and, in doing so, recognize that the Jewish people have a right to a state in the Land of Israel. Until this stage, Israel will continue to hold territory east of the border militarily.

As long as Israel adopts a clear policy that proves its willingness to divide the land, the military occupation of these territories to foil terrorism and protect the lives of all Israelis is justified until the Palestinians demonstrate the same willingness.

 Military occupation is an essential system of government in territories that are not intended to be annexed. Yet, one is often likely to encounter propagated canards such as “end Israel’s illegal occupation” from uninformed members of the United States Congress, namely “the squad”. Occupation of territories acquired in war is legal according to the Hague Convention of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. Therefore, as long as Israel adopts a clear policy that proves its willingness to divide the land, the military occupation of these territories to foil terrorism and protect the lives of all Israelis is justified until the Palestinians demonstrate the same willingness.

 So along with “yes to occupation,” a policy of “no to settlements” must be declared by mediators. The military occupation east of the border can be justified to provide necessary security. However, the continuation of settlement expansion cannot. A willingness to divide the land and recognize the right of another people to the land cannot exist alongside the settlement enterprise. 

 The support of such policy by mediators will result in the acknowledgement that the military occupation of the territory will have a single legal system and a single population under this rule of law, without Israeli territorial demands and with a clear statement to the Palestinians of the requirements they must adhere to in order to end the occupation. This in essence also ends the indulgence of support for continual Palestinian rejection. Such a policy will achieve maximum separation between the two peoples and result in minimum friction.

This policy recognizes the existence of two distinct collectives between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. It states that land must be left for the Palestinians, but Israel must remain militarily in the territory until they lay down their arms against the Jewish state. This proposal would be a policy that utilizes essential geopolitical opportunities to forge major achievements, without the danger of expansion and without endangering the safety of Israeli citizens.

For Israel, an end to the settlement project is not a defeat, but a return to its basic principles; the integration of a stirring vision that operates according to pragmatic policy that underwrites its commitment to peace and its responsibility to protect its citizens all within the bounds of morality and international law.

Samuel Hyde is a writer and editor at The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance, based in Tel Aviv. His work focuses on topics that range across Israel’s political climate, antisemitism, the Arab-Israeli conflict and extremism in the education sector.

Fanny Brice, born Fania Borach at the turn of the century in New York, was an institution in twentieth-century entertainment. The musical “Funny Girl,” originally starring Barbra Streisand, tells the story of Brice’s rise to fame through the venues of vaudeville and later Broadway, winning over the hearts of her audiences with her absurd, crass, often raunchy humor. Brice used comedy and her explicitly Jewish disposition to set her apart from other stars of the age and has thus been immortalized in the Jewish canon as a pop-culture icon. 

I had the opportunity to see the revival of “Funny Girl” last week, which now stars Beanie Feldstein of “Ladybird” and “Booksmart” fame, and Jane Lynch, known by most for her role on “Glee.” Critics felt lukewarm (at best) about this production, and I cannot argue with most of their comments. If the production were to be rated simply on quality, viewers would leave disappointed. It feels more akin to a community theatre revamping of a time-honored classic that perhaps was destined to fail, scoring close to zero Tony nominations, as the person who made “Funny Girl” a roaring success, Barbra Streisand, was not on stage. 

I was able to take insights from “Funny Girl” that transcend the critical success of the production, however. The first is the popping Jewishness of Brice’s story, expressed by the Yiddish idioms sprinkled throughout the show and the historical throwback to when Jewish Americans burst from the Yiddish theater scene into the mainstream. And like most Jews watching this production, I left with the feeling of innate familiarity with a figure like Brice. When Brice is praised for connecting with fans so strongly, she attributes her success to the word “heimishe” — meaning “comforting” and “home-like.” This simply means that Jews have a talent for entertaining just as profound as our love for being entertained.

We are everywhere in the laughing business, and it appears to have always been this way. In 1978, Time Magazine famously proclaimed that eighty percent of American stand-up comedians were Jewish. 

“Funny Girl” reminded me of just how many Jews in my life work in comedy. Two of my closest friends in New York are both aspiring stand-up comedians and comedy writers, along with my sister, who performs in Chicago, and a handful of friends and acquaintances from my childhood who bounce around from various open mic-nights in search of name recognition. I then thought of the impact of Jewish people on comedy at large, from giants like Joan Rivers, Mel Brooks, and Larry David, to contemporary idols like Sarah Silverman and Alex Edelman, not to mention television shows like “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Seinfeld,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Broad City.” We are everywhere in the laughing business, and it appears to have always been this way. In 1978, Time Magazine famously proclaimed that eighty percent of American stand-up comedians were Jewish. And still today, if you find yourself at an open-mic night anywhere in New York City, you will notice the room practically overflowing with curly hair and Magen David necklaces. 

Many have attempted to understand the Jewish proclivity toward humor and our own specific comedic dialect. Sigmund Freud hypothesized, and his hypothesis stuck, that Jewish humor is a defense mechanism against an often-threatening world. By laughing, especially at ourselves, we ease the pain the outside world has in store. Many clinical psychologists indeed agree that humor is a silver bullet to trauma. This theory is supported by perhaps one of my favorite Jewish jokes: 

“A high-ranking general approaches a policeman one day and tells him to round up all the Jews and all the bicyclists, to which the policeman replies: ‘Why the bicyclists?’” 

Professor Ruth Wisse goes deeper in her book “No Joke: Making Jewish Humor.” She writes: “Stand-up comedy is all about nerve.” It’s “a battle between aggressor and victims with wit as the weapon and laughter as the prize. Different from prizefights that pit people against one another in the presence of paying spectators, comedy pits the fighter against the paying customers, with silence as the killer, and the detonation of laughter as the victory.”

Perhaps the Jewish flocking toward comedy lies in our history, but not in the self-defensive way that Freud proposed. Rather, as Wisse suggests, it reflects our cultural custom of relating to one another not through militancy and aggression, but through being together and learning to live with one another. For two thousand years, we were denied the right to raise our own armed forces and to protect ourselves. Simultaneously, we much preferred studying Torah and feasting on Friday nights than teaching our children to be warriors. The recipe leads to people who rely deeply on socialization for comfort. Of course, talents for storytelling, music and comedy would develop naturally. 

It’s true that half of the world’s Jewish population was raised in a climate quite different from the American Jewish experience. In Israel, children are sent to the army, there is a perpetual threat of war, and the founders of Zionism did well to pedestalize masculinity and stoicism in their new society. In other words, actual conflict, not the conflict that ends “in the detonation of laughter,” as Wisse notes, is cooked into the fabric of Israel’s Jewish culture. While American Jews make friendship bracelets around campfires, Israeli Jews learn how to use a gun. Therefore, as much as I love Israelis, I can concede that American Jews are on average funnier than our counterparts. Tel Aviv may boast eclectic bars and beautiful beaches, but its comedy scene pales in comparison to those of New York City or Los Angeles, composed significantly of Jews.

Jewish humor is heimishe, New York-esque, and Americana all at the same time. It reflects our own unique Jewish perspective, the culture of a city comprising eight million people, and the tastes of an entire country all at the same time. 

Jewish humor is heimishe, New York-esque, and Americana all at the same time. It reflects our own unique Jewish perspective, the culture of a city comprising eight million people, and the tastes of an entire country all at the same time. When I was in Israel this summer, an astounding number of locals responded with “Oh! Like Seinfeld!” when I told them I was from New York, revealing the straight line that runs through America, American Jews and humor in the foreign imagination. The blueprint of this phenomenon is Fanny Brice. 

The ghost of Fanny Brice lingers in all the young Jews who aspire to be comics. She haunts all the seedy clubs in Brooklyn where I have met new friends, work contacts and potential dates. She blesses each performance that lampoons the stereotypes of Jewish mothers. In the beginning of “Funny Girl,” Brice asks: “Who’s an American beauty rose? With an American beauty nose?” At a pivotal time for Jews in America, she was able to connect our intimate culture to the appetite of the public, with no censorship or diluting of identity to be found, resulting in immeasurable success. Many have dared to follow in her footsteps, a tradition delightfully quintessential to the American Jewish experience.

Blake Flayton is New Media Director and columnist for the Jewish Journal.