Martin Sherman

Billed as one of Israel's intellectual warriors, Dr. Martin Sherman indeed has impressive credentials. He was born in South Africa and has lived in Israel since 1971. He holds several university degrees: a BSc (Physics and Geology), an MBA (Finance), and a PhD in political science and international relations.  He was the first academic director of the internationally renowned Herzliya Conference and is the author of two books and numerous articles and policy papers on a wide range of political, diplomatic and security issues.  He served for seven years in operational capacities in the Israeli Defense establishment.  He was a ministerial adviser to Yitzhak Shamir's government and lectured for 20 years at Tel Aviv University in Political Science, International Relations and Strategic Studies. He writes a column in the Jerusalem Post entitled "Into the fray."  Dr. Sherman is currently involved in an endeavor to establish an independent policy center, the Israel Institute of Strategic Studies (a US non profit tax-exempt entity see www.martinsherman.net ).

His lecture on Sat evening at the New Synagogue was entitled "Rethinking Palestine: what Sherlock Holmes would say."  This is my summary of his talk.  It was based on the aphorism by Conan Doyle, "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"  In a systematic way Dr. Sherman assessed and eliminated the conventional wisdom regarding "Palestine."  First he showed by quotations that even the Arabs themselves and so-called Palestinians, agree that there was no such ethnic group as Palestinians, they are identical to the surrounding Arab peoples in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.  Second, he showed that the so-called "Two State solution" is not a viable solution because the so-called State of Palestine has not been achieved by the Palestinians in over 60 years of fighting.  From their own mouths he showed that their aim is not to establish a State, but rather to destroy a State - Israel.   

From geographical, topologial and hydrological evidence he showed that establishing a so-called Palestinian State on the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) would be a death knell for Israel, since they would command the heights overlooking the densely populated coastal plain of Israel and would control many water sources.  Any small group of terrorists could bring the life of Israel to a halt, including the operation of Ben Gurion airport.  This would be a suicidal pact if Israel agreed to such a State.  Accordingly a Two-State solution is indefensible, what Abba Eban called "Auschwitz borders" and Yitzhak Rabin strongly opposed. 

Likewise a one-state solution is eliminated,  in which Jews would quickly be out-numbered if the "right of return" of the so-called Palestinian refugees was agreed.  Dr. Sherman pointed out that UNRWA that adminsters to the needs of these refugees perpetuates the situation, since they define refugees as including descendents, that the offical international definition of the UNHCR does not.  So while all other refugees problems in the world are decreasing, that of the Palestinians is increasing, which is totally illogical.  Even without the returned refugees, the demographics of natural increase means that the Arabs would out-number the Jews within a few generations. 

So what is left?  Dr. Sherman's proposed humanitarian solution that avoids coercion is a payment to individual Palestinians to leave the West Bank and settle elsewhere.  He calculated that this would cost less than more wars and he had a poll taken in which a majority of Palestinians agreed that they would prefer to leave with cash than stay in their miserable situation.  However, there were criticisms of Dr, Sherman's approach.  First, even though he gave many supportive quotations, you can prove almost anything by selective quotation, those whom he quoted mght well say that they were wrong when they said that and now have changed their position (this would be true of Pres. Shimon Peres who he quoted often).  Second, it was felt to be a case of "wishful thinking." 

Also, in political reality, neat solutions rarely happen, as the former head of Mossad, Yehoshafat Harkabi, once said "everyone has their own favorite solution, but problems like the Arab-Israel conflict don't get solved, they get resolved in unexpected ways over time."  One example of this was the visit of Pres. Sadat of Egypt to Jerusalem, that no expert predicted.  Finally, many felt that the Palestinian terrorist organizations would not allow anyone to accept individual payments and leave and certainly no Muslim countries would accept them and non-Muslim countries would be reluctant. The Arab/Muslim dispute with Israel is not over the rights of the Palestinians, these countries have shown themselves indifferent to their suffering, but over the principle of a Jewish sovereign state in their midst.