The Day After

This past week I had the honor of participating in the World Zionist Organization’s Jerusalem meeting on the challenges facing the Jewish people in a post October 7 world. As I listened to all the leaders from within Israel and around the globe, I was struck by just how many challenges our people face. The war in Gaza, the return of the hostages, and the multiple traumas facing Israel – the victims of the October 7 attack, the over 100,000 internal refugees displaced since October 7, the ongoing psychic trauma of the soldiers and their families, and the knowledge that Israel’s war with Hamas is coming at the cost of thousands of innocent Palestinian lives. There are challenges in the media, on social media, a spike in global antisemitism, the about-to-bubble-over question of Haredi service in the IDF, the global politicization of this conflict – be it the Michigan primaries or the British House of Parliament – and the generational divide in how this war is being understood by diaspora Jewry. It is a lot, it is overwhelming, and those are just a few of the topics on our people’s docket.

But the subject that seemed to be coming up most, about which I want to talk this morning, is what Israelis call Yom Aharei, “the day after.” For me, and perhaps for you, it feels disorienting, verging on the unseemly, to talk about Yom Aharei, the day after. There are families still shattered in their grief, hostages whose fate hangs in the balance; this war is very much being prosecuted. I was to attend a memorial service at the site of the Nova Music Festival massacre, but it was canceled due to a roadblock by protesters demanding the release of the hostages. The families of the hostages are not thinking about Yom Aharei, they are focused solely on hayom, today. Bring back the hostages now, and then we will talk about tomorrow. 

And yet in the plenaries, in the breakout sessions, in Israel, in America – Yom Aharei is what is being talked about. If, please God, and when this war concludes, what exactly is the path forward? Specifically, what is the future vision for Israel and Palestinians. Because if you haven’t noticed, things are already in motion. The ground is shifting from beneath us. The President, by way of Secretary of State Blinken and other proxies, is laying the groundwork for US recognition of Palestinian statehood. The two-state solution, in Blinken’s words, is “the only way to end a cycle of violence.” This past week, Prime Minister Netanyahu presented his own plan, which – other than the shared use of the word “plan” – bears very little resemblance to the Biden plan. The Prime Minister has adamantly rejected “international diktats,” stating that a Palestinian state would be a reward for terror. Not to be outdone, Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, advanced a proposal for the construction of an additional 3,000 settlement homes, in his words, “an appropriate Zionist response to terror.” Pronouncements are being made, roadmaps are being drafted and resolutions are being sponsored, in the Knesset and in the US Senate. Active as this war may be today, the train to tomorrow is leaving the station. 

So let’s, as they say, dive in. There is no shortage of press on the subject, some of which, I imagine, lots of you have read, and much of which, I know, many of you have forwarded to me. Mind you, if you ever worry that you forgot to send me an article, rest assured that my news-aggregating father has already done so with an explanation attached as to why the article is the most important or the most idiotic thing he has ever read.

Those who advocate for a two-state solution have reasons that are a combination of historical, political, practical, moral, and Jewish. As Gidi Grinstein recently pointed out, historically speaking, calls for a two-state solution are not actually new. Ever since the 1936 Peel Commission, there has been broad international consensus for some sort of Israel-Palestine partition plan. Every American president since Clinton has endorsed it, as have many Israeli Prime Ministers, including Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, Yair Lapid, and the 1.0 version of Benjamin Netanyahu. One may not like the thought of US recognition of Palestinian statehood, but there is ample precedent: 193 countries have already done so. 

A second reason is practical. Whatever your feelings may be for the Palestinians, if you are invested in the security of the Jewish state, then the Palestinians must be given the opportunity and burden of self-governance. As Harvard’s former president Larry Summers once said, “In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car.” There is nothing – I repeat, nothing – that justifies the terror of October 7 or any terror, but commonsense dictates that unless a people, Palestinian or otherwise, are given a path to self-rule, then the cycle of violence will continue. Besides, as many have argued, myself included, Israel’s present war remains just in the eyes of America, the Gulf states, the global community, and its own citizenry, only insofar as it takes place alongside a diplomatic path. Netanyahu’s half-baked post war plan, his recent boasts of having stymied the two-state solution, and his finance minister’s plan to harden the Jewish presence in the West Bank undercut Israel’s short- and long-term global standing and security.

Third, or third and fourth, the moral and Jewish reasons. Israel’s founding documents state the goal of being both a Jewish and democratic state. The present path to what some call “the one-state non-solution” stands in opposition to those stated values. Math is math. Israel can be a Jewish state. Israel can be a democratic state, but it can’t be both without a two-state solution. And as Jews, if the promise of Israel is the right to be a free people in our own land, then how can we possibly deny another people that selfsame right. Everyone deserves a place to call home. Nobody knows that better than Jews. 

I am thinking that half the room is feeling really affirmed right now, and half the room – along with my father – is really annoyed, so let’s flip the switch.

Those who advocate against a two-state solution would say that calling for a Palestinian state is the delusional, self-soothing, shortsighted, and seductive siren song of liberal Jews who are oblivious to the harsh history, facts, and lived realities of the Middle East. Yes, there have been partition plans, two-state plans and otherwise for over 100 years. You know what there hasn’t been? A Palestinian peace partner who is willing to embrace Israel’s right to exist. From the long history of Arab rejectionism to the instrumentalization of the Palestinian refugees in a manner that betrays the truth that it is the borders of 1948, not 1967, at the root of the Palestinian grievance, to October 7 to the present chants of from the river to the sea,” whom, exactly, are we inviting to be our neighbors? History cuts both ways; two can play at that game.

And yes, present calls for a two-state solution are a reward for terror – a vindication of Hamas’ strategy of October 7. It is not just that those who call for a two-state solution are putting the carriage before the horse, having yet to figure out small details like borders, capitals, governance, security, refugees, and otherwise. October 7 revealed to the world the murderous intentions of a would-be Palestinian state. Why in the world would Israel be interested in establishing a Hamastan as its next-door neighbor, an autocratic state poised to launch an endless series of Iran-supplied October 7s, only now not just from the south or the Hezbollah north but in Israel’s center, a stone’s throw away from major populations centers. Attacks that will make October 7 look like a picnic.

Practically speaking, having just returned, I can tell you that Israel is emotionally threadbare right now. There is zero trust in the Palestinians after October 7. The Israeli left is dead. If there is a time that is ripe for a full court press on two states, now is positively not that time. And don’t lecture me about Israel’s standing in the international community. Last I checked, there is no shortage of stateless people on this earth. The fact the world is championing the Palestinians and not, say, the Kurds, Rohingya, or Uyghurs, says more about the world’s feelings towards the only Jewish state than it does about Israel. 

As for the moral or Jewish argument, of course democracy is a value – a value, incidentally, not enjoyed by the Palestinians under present Hamas leadership or, presumably, any future Palestinian state. So given the choice between a less than democratic Israel and a Groundhog Day October 7-filled future, I would take the former over the latter any day, as would any sensible person. I can also make an argument based on Jewish values and not just because, as many good Jews hold, Ma’aleh Adumim, Ariel, and Alon Shvut are just as much part of Israel as Tel Aviv, Beersheva, and Afula. The last two thousand years provide a case study in the price of Jewish vulnerability. The first priority of any state, all the more so the Jewish state, is the security of its citizenry, and it should be priority number one of the global Jewish people. A two-state solution will bring neither peace nor security. It is time for liberal Zionists to move on. 

I could do this all day; we all could. Putting an argument in one column and then the other – every point having its counterpoint on the other side. I am reminded of the rabbi who was asked to settle an argument between a husband and wife. The rabbi listened to the wife, nodded his head, and said, “You’re right.” Then the husband stated his case, and the rabbi nodded his head and responded, “You’re also right.” The rabbi’s intern, who had been there the whole time, blurted out, “But Rabbi, how can they both be right?” To which the rabbi responded, “You’re right too!” 

It is an old joke, but it is also, on a certain level, the fundamental role of religious leadership, from the rabbi’s office to Moses in the Torah reading. To acknowledge that in any family dispute, especially one with such incredibly high stakes, we need to find a way to keep the conversation civil, to make sure both sides keep talking, even if, and especially if, they passionately disagree. Isn’t that what Moses did in this morning’s Torah reading after Israel sinned and God’s wrath reached a boiling point? Moses played the role of prophetic intercessor, on the one hand making it abundantly clear to the Israelites that they had sinned in creating the Golden Calf, and on the other hand, staying God’s hand from destroying Israel in a fit of divine rage. It is, arguably, Moses’s finest hour. Not standing before Pharoah, or standing at the splitting of the sea, but standing in the breach on that mountain, keeping the community and God together, enabling them to journey forward no matter the fault lines within. It is an intercessory role not just for Moses, and not just rabbis, but for all of us, to keep the conversation civil, to acknowledge the argument of the other side, and to know that in a world in which the Jewish people do not lack for enemies, we dare not make enemies within our own ranks.

Were I a younger rabbi, or maybe an older rabbi, I would just leave it there. You’re right and you’re right, and now we rise for the Musaf service. But to do so strikes me as lacking that all important leadership value of courage. I want to recognize that some of you may not like what I am about to say, but in the spirit of what I have said, I hope you feel that that your voice has been heard and has a place in our community.

I think, based on all that I have seen and all that I have heard, that the time is not right for a top-down two-state solution. Israel is in the midst of a war, there are hostages to be saved, we are traumatized. It is presently too raw; the time is not ripe.

And I believe, based on all that I have seen and all that I have heard, that the only path forward is a two-state solution. Not today and not tomorrow, but in a future about which we speak openly and proudly, toward which we seed and fund ideas and initiatives, supporting all those leaders in Israel and America working toward such a vision and opposing those who don’t. It is toward that future that our eyes should gaze. Liberal Zionism – the belief in a Jewish and democratic state, in two states for two peoples, – may be on the wane, in decline, or even dead, but that doesn’t mean it is not a noble and necessary idea to pursue. 

To hold onto an ideal, to publicly affirm it, and to work toward it – even if its realization is not for the here and now – is not an obvious position, and it contains, no question, a bit of an inner contradiction. But then again, is it not the spirit that has impelled our people since our very beginning? What is the story of the wilderness wanderings if not the journey to a Promised Land whether we get there or not? What is the vision of the prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel – if not the aspirational return from exile? What is the story of our last two thousand years, if not the tale of a people who, no matter what, in thick and thin, never lost hope? Od lo avda tikvatenu. There is nothing wrong, in fact there is everything right and everything Jewish, about staying true to an ideal, whether we realize that ideal in our lifetime or not.

So let’s add – or retain – one more ideal to our list: a two-state solution. Please God, when the time is ripe, may we live to see its realization.

Abrams, Elliot. “The Two-State Delusion.” Tablet Magazine. February 1, 2024.

Grinstein, Gidi. “Palestinian statehood: Do it right.” Times of Israel, February 11, 2024. 

Taub, Gadi. “Sorry, but There is No Two-State Solution.” Tablet Magazine. February 12, 2024.