Translation of Tzipi Hotovely’s ‘The Five Stage Plan for the Greater Land of Israel’

The below is a translation of Tzipi Hotovely’s expansionist tract, ‘The Five Stage Plan for the Greater Land of Israel’. The article was written in 2013, when Hotovely was a member of Knesset for the Likud Party and chairwoman of the Committee for the Advancement of Women. We have translated this from the original in Hebrew, so that our community can have no misapprehensions about the current Israeli ambassador to the UK’s positions.

The Five-Stage Plan for the Greater Land of Israel

The long years of propaganda for the vision of “two states for two peoples” have obstructed the most basic desire harboured by a majority of Israeli citizens — not to give up territory that was conquered through blood in a defensive war. The solution: annexation of all parts of the country, without fearing the Arab minority that resides there.

It is said that after the Six-Day War, [PM] Levi Eshkol said “the dowry [i.e. the territory] is handsome, but I don’t like the bride [i.e. the Palestinians].” This sentence elucidates the Israeli fear regarding annexation of Judea and Samaria: dealing with the Arab problem. The left built a separation barrier and agreed to establish a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel, and the right has been waiting for a miracle — maybe there will be voluntary migration, or maybe the Jordanians will decide to adopt their Palestinian brothers. Both sides are looking for a magic solution that will eliminate the Arabs from the equation.

Over the years a huge settlement enterprise has been established, but the right sank into political passivity. When [Yossi] Beilin ran to Geneva, the right ran to the hills and the squares — but the more they went out in rage against Beilin’s vision, the more the majority of Israeli leaders drifted in the opposite direction. Lieberman, Netanyahu, Lapid and Yachimovitch, and even Bennett who is prepared to annex only Area C, all speak the Oslo language [i.e. two-states]. And yet, whoever still thinks that it’s possible to abandon the ideological arena and throw all political weight behind [settlement] construction, probably didn’t learn the lessons of the disengagement from Gush Katif [i.e. Gaza].

For 46 years the vision of Greater Israel was put to the side. Every Israeli leader — from Eshkol to Begin — refrained from implementing it because they didn’t want to deal with the Palestinian issue. But the real battle over consciousness starts now, when the idea of a negotiated two-state solution has failed. Will the leading discourse now be a unilateral withdrawal plan, which will lead to a reconstruction of the Gaza nightmare in the centre of Israel, continued harm for the residents of Gush Dan and the Sharon, and perpetual deterioration of Israel’s standing in the world? Or, alternatively, the adoption of the most moral vision, which allows us to be sovereign in the only land of the Jewish people, at the relatively low price of increasing the proportion of the Arab minority in the population.

Such a plan depends solely on the Israeli will, without needing the grace of foreign countries, and it leaves control of the process, from start to finish, in the hands of the Israeli government rather than the goodwill of terrorist regimes.

Five Stages

Annexation plan made up of five stages, and the gradual imposition of sovereignty:

Stage 1 — Preparing a national plan for immigration. Nine million Jews live today in the diaspora, and the immigration figures speak of a few thousand per year. If we add to these figures the decline among elites, it’s difficult not to say that the State of Israel has forsaken the vision of the ingathering of the exiles which was a cornerstone of Zionism. In order for the State of Israel to be able to deal with the absorption of a million and a half Arabs [i.e. the population of the West Bank; Gaza is ignored], the goal needs to be bringing two million [Jewish] immigrants within a decade.

Stage 2 — Legislating a Citizenship Law which stipulates that full Israeli citizenship is conditional on equal obligations. That is, obligation of national [i.e. military] service for those who wish to become an Israeli citizen with the right to vote for the Knesset.

Stage 3 — Applying sovereignty over the areas of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria, currently defined as Area C, in which about 100,000 Palestinians live [*actually 200–300,000], who will receive full Israeli citizenship.

Stage 4 — Adopting as a Basic Law the principle of the State of Israel being a Jewish nation-state [fulfilled by the Nation-State Bill of 2018], which will act equally towards its citizens. In addition, anchoring state symbols — the anthem, Israeli holidays and the Law of Return — in Basic Laws which will be passed by a majority of 80 MKs, and won’t be changed except by the same majority.

Stage 5 — Establishing basic principles for the education system in Israel, such that incitement to terror will not be allowed.

As part of the plan it will be determined that the completion of the citizenship process for the other Arabs [i.e. residents of Area A and B] will be possible only upon completion of the national [i.e. Jewish] immigration project, out of responsibility for the power relations between Jews and Arabs and without endangering the principle of a solid Jewish majority.

The Scam of Bi-nationalism

At first hearing, the idea of citizenship for one and a half million Palestinians is very uncomfortable to the Israeli ear that doesn’t believe in Jewish-Arab coexistence in Israel. But it should be remembered that when Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the state there were 660,000 Jews who were supposed to share the tiny Jewish state with 440,000 Arabs (according to the UNSCOP plan).

This was no easy demographic problem, certainly alongside the challenges of a state in the process of being established. But the knowledge that there are 13 million Jews in the world, and the challenge of immigration, provided Ben Gurion with the courage to follow the Zionist vision, even without full assurance that the Jewish majority would be maintained. And what was true for Ben-Gurion is certainly true today when the resilience of the State of Israel is several times greater.

The long propaganda years of the two-state vision have obstructed the most basic desire harboured by a majority of Israeli citizens — not to give up territory that was conquered through blood in a defensive war. Now is the time to restore our self-confidence.