Top Faith Leaders, Conservatives Gather to Reject Biden’s Failed Two-State ‘Solution’ for Israel
4/21/2024, 11:43:10 AM
As President Joe Biden and his Democratic colleagues continue to undermine the U.S.’ longtime strategic alliance with Israel, a recent event saw top faith leaders, Republican lawmakers, and conservatives gather to underscore a unified stance against the failed two-state solution, while promoting the idea of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) as integral to Israel, grounded in a religious and political opposition to Palestinian statehood.
A Tuesday event of the Keep God’s Land organization in Washington, DC, brought together 150 top Christian, Jewish, and conservative leaders to “make their voices heard in opposition to the Biden administration’s push for a unilateral decision of a two-state solution.”
The Leadership Reception, hosted by the Heritage Foundation, featured an array of special guests, including Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, Republican Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, Heritage Foundation President and Army veteran James Carafano, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Israel365 founder Rabbi Tuly Weisz, Knesset Member Ohad Tal, and Trump’s faith adviser Pastor Paula White.
David Friedman, ambassador to Israel under president Donald Trump who serves on the leadership of Keeps God’s Land, rejected the proposed two-state solution, citing widespread Palestinian support for recent attacks on Israel, and arguing for peaceful coexistence for those willing to accept Israel’s sovereignty.
“There is no pathway to statehood for people who feel that way,” he said. “God gave this land to the Jewish people, and the Jewish people can’t give it away.”
“And by the way, not only will the Jewish people prosper in the land of Israel, but those who are willing to live in this land who are non-Jewish people, who are Christian people, who are Muslim people, who are Palestinian — if they accept God’s sovereignty over this land, they will prosper as well,” he added.
Describing the deep impact of the October 7 massacre, he highlighted the widespread support and solidarity for Israel from Jews and Christians globally.
In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News at the event, Executive Director of Israel365 Action Rabbi Tuly Weisz, who serves as part of the Keep God’s Land leadership, described the group as a “new movement of Christians and Jews, united together for a greater Israel,” and, specifically, to “push back” against the failed two-state solution, and support “sovereignty throughout Judea and Samaria.”
In addition, he explained:
Although the event was planned before Iran attacked Israel, obviously it took on more urgency today than ever before; everybody feels it, wants to be involved, and understands that Israel is going to be okay, because God promised an eternal promise of the land. But people are worried about America, and America is making the wrong decisions. And as the Knesset member Ohad Tal, spoke about, America seems to be cursing Israel more than it is blessing Israel, in violation of [Genesis] 12:3. America was always in fulfillment Genesis 12:3, but there’s a second clause: “I will curse those who curse you,” and for so many of the faith leaders that are here; we are concerned not only for Israel, but for America’s future as well. Because we’re stronger when we’re together, Israel needs America – but America needs Israel also.
Israel Heritage Foundation Executive Director Rabbi Katz, a participating organization, told Breitbart News that such gatherings are “crucial,” because Israelis have been “living for decades under constant attack,” with rockets being fired at Jewish communities since its unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Stip:
Never in history have people had to get up from their Sabbath meal, grab their children and seek shelter — and no one condemns it; the world is silent. Has anyone here had to run and take shelter in the middle of a family gathering? Or in the UK or Europe, in Muslim nations or anywhere in the world had to live their lives like that? The problem did not start on October 7 or when Iran attacked Israel with a barrage of hundreds of missiles. The problem is the world did not emphatically condemn or act against this decades prior. When the first missile was fired into and landed in Israel from Gaza by Hamas, Iran’s terror proxy, decades ago and after Israel uprooted every Jewish person, including those buried in the ground from there, it should have been immediately stopped and established that such actions would never happen again.
Katz also expressed his hope that meetings of these kinds continue to “bring awareness to the world of what Israelis are going through.”
Israeli lawmaker Ohad Tal, who also participated in the event, vowed that Israel will act to protect its citizens and combat the Islamic Republic of Iran regardless of U.S. support, while lamenting that Israel has become “too dependent” on America.
Israel is “fighting for America too” and Iran’s declarations of its ambitions to destroy the U.S. should be taken seriously, he told Breitbart News.
Citing scripture, he asked whether the US is “blessing Israel or cursing Israel when we are fighting for our lives,” while slamming President Biden for imposing “personal sanctions against Israeli citizens, just like myself, who live in Judea and Samaria, as if we are that problem that threatens world peace.”
“Friends, this is not just our war,” Tal continued. “We are fighting against a murderous ideology that seeks to harm the entire free world. Iran’s ambition is to become a global superpower and destabilize the entire world.”
Judea and Samaria are the original biblical names of the territory currently referred to as the West Bank (of the Jordan River), a term that became common after Jordan’s illegal occupation of the area in 1950, highlighting its geographic position rather than its historical names. After Arab terrorist groups attacked Israel for decades, Israel took control of Judea and Samaria in a defensive war in 1967.
While Jewish kingdoms ruled the areas for centuries, a continuous Jewish presence in Israel has endured for over 3,000 years. In fact, “Palestine” itself is a Roman term aimed to erase Jewish ties to the land, with the term “Palestinian” historically referring to Jews.
The matter comes as the largely failed two-state solution for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — vehemently rejected by both sides — is still being pushed by President Biden, who insists that it is the “only way” to ensure long-term security for both Israelis and Palestinians in a new post-Hamas Gaza.
Biden’s insistence stands despite the recent October 7 massacre, which saw the Hamas terrorist group perpetrate the deadliest attack against Jewish people since the Nazi Holocaust. The massacre saw the torture, rape, execution, immolation, and abduction of hundreds of Israeli civilians, as well as widespread Palestinian support for it.
The large-scale slaughter, which drew parallels to scenes from the Holocaust, resulted in roughly 1,200 dead inside the Jewish state, over 5,300 wounded, and at least 241 hostages of all ages taken — of which nearly 140 remain in Gaza.
The vast majority of the victims are civilians and include dozens of American citizens.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has even reportedly asked the State Department to review options for a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state at the end of the war between Hamas and Israel — in what would be a major break from past U.S. policy, and from Israel.
The so-called two-state solution — which calls for the creation of a Palestinian state, ostensibly in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and some eastern sections of Jerusalem, in exchange for the terror-supporting Palestinian Authority ending its conflict with Israel and living at peace with the Jewish state — has long proved to be an abject failure.
Despite the numerous proposals, every Israeli attempt to offer land concessions for a Palestinian state has been met with terror waves. After years of failed negotiations and Israel’s disastrous evacuation of the Gaza Strip, which resulted in Hamas’s takeover of that territory and repeated rocket attacks from there, a growing share of Israelis have grown more skeptical of a two-state solution, largely rejecting any withdrawal from the West Bank, according to a Pew Research Center survey which took place prior to October 7, 2023.
Since the October 7 massacre, Israelis — even more so — overwhelmingly no longer desire a two-state solution. Additionally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that he will not allow a Palestinian state as long as he remains in office.
In contrast with the Biden administration’s policies, President Trump did not unequivocally endorse the two-state solution, saying he was also open to a one-state solution — presumably meaning Israeli annexation of the West Bank — and that he would accept whatever solution Israelis and Palestinians themselves chose. In addition, the Trump administration cut aid to the Palestinians over its boycott of the U.S., as well as its so-called pay-for-slay scheme, and closed the Palestinian mission in Washington, expelling the Palestinian Ambassador to the U.S., Hussam Zomlot.
In November, Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders caused an uproar after declaring that the country of Jordan should be considered the true national homeland for the Palestinian people, given that it has a majority Palestinian population and integrating Palestinians into Jordan could lead to a more stable regional situation, as the Hashemite Kingdom has successfully integrated Palestinian refugees.
Previously, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson suggested the creation of a Palestinian state in Egypt in order to distance Israel from threats posed by it.