OXON HILL, MD — The Arab world must shoulder the responsibility of the Palestinian people, who they have for years used as pawns against Israel, and the world must stop using the phrase “two-state solution,” according to guests at a panel discussion at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday.
The panel, titled, “The New Jerusalem: Alternatives to the Two State Solution,” was moderated by Erielle Davidson, a scholar at Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution. Lisa Daftari, editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk, and Jeff Ballabon, of the American Center for Law and Justice, joined them.
Ballabon argued that the world must refrain form using the phrases like two-state solution and said the question of what the alternatives to a two-state solution are “is really a question of what methods we are using.” He added, “If what you’re trying to achieve is suffrage, a Palestinian state, you are not going to achieve anything.” He noted that that responsibility should fall on the Arab world.
“Israel is the model of the solution; not the problem,” despite efforts to paint it otherwise, Ballabon said. He noted that other examples of the is are the Kurds and the Alawites and condemned Barack Obama for destabilizing the region.
“Until 2015 we called for a two-state solution. Why are we calling for any solution?” he asked. “America’s objectives should be to stabilize and protect Israel. If there’s any country in the world that looks like American exceptionalism, it’s Israel exceptionalism.”
President Donald Trump’s historic recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital was a turning point in history. Yet, Daftari argued that there will still “many on both the left and right were not satisfied with his answer which was I want what both sides want… That’s a very profound and accurate way to tread lightly on the situation.”
She spoke about efforts across campuses nationwide that seek to justify the Palestinian struggle. She said, “None of the kids on the grounds of these school campuses in favor of a Palestinian state are Palestinian.” She recalled having spoken with one student who happened to be of Palestinian descent at a college campus who told her, “I wish they would all go home. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Daftari said this whole situation “would be much easier if they were stripped of this leadership that has haunted them,” speaking of Hamas. She added that political Islam uses the model of hatred for Israel as its guide and cited Iran and Hezbollah as examples of this.
“We don’t have any responsibility that is picked up by the Arab countries” for the Palestinians to eradicate terrorism off their borders, which requires “making the situation in Israel is stable first,” Daftari said. She said the Europeans must also take responsibility for this.
“If Saudi Arabia wants to keep the Iranian regime at bay… they have to understand that they have to help Israel,” she noted.
Ballabon said, “there are Myths that derive from this narrative that there is a deprived, indigenous people int he region, if they ever existed.”
He said Sunni states have not been racing to develop nuclear weapons against Iran. He said this was because despite using Israel as a foil to rile up their own people, the Saudis, and other Arab nations, know that Israel would never use weapons in a defensive war and that unlike Iran, they use them as mere deterrents, whereas Iran will likely use these weapons to cause mass casualties.
“Israel is the most partisan issue in Washington,” despite these liberal Jews calling it the most bipartisan issue, Ballabon said.
“Republicans are right on this. Conservatives are right on this,” he said. “We need to take a lead based on what we think is right based on our morality and our politics.”
Daftari said, “I think a lot of presidents up to now have wanted to do what Trump very courageously did” and noted that Trump’s Jerusalem announcement highlighted the double standard on the left.
“We have to rewind eight years and say there have to be preconditions. You have to say that Israel has the right to exist before talking about anything,” Daftari said.
The Palestinian Authority continues to deny and reject Israel’s right to exist.
Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
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