{"id":33810,"date":"2019-12-13T03:56:55","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T11:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=33810"},"modified":"2019-12-12T09:37:54","modified_gmt":"2019-12-12T17:37:54","slug":"an-advocate-for-two-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2019\/12\/13\/an-advocate-for-two-states\/","title":{"rendered":"An advocate for two states"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eli Kowaz is communications director at the Israel Policy Forum. (photo from Eli Kowaz)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This article is one in an occasional series about people with British Columbian roots having positive impacts in Israel and elsewhere.<\/em><\/p>\n

For Vancouver-born Israeli Eli Kowaz, there is only one path to ensuring Israel remains both a Jewish state and a democracy: a two-state solution. The road to that ideal may be long and the slogging hard, but this is the core mandate of the Israel Policy Forum, where he serves as communications director.<\/p>\n

Though focused on Israel and its situation, IPF\u2019s mission is to \u201cshape the discourse and mobilize support among American Jewish leaders and U.S. policymakers for the realization of a viable two-state solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel currently has military control over the entire land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River but, to continue being a Jewish state as well as a democracy, Kowaz said, Israel faces a decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can decide to annex the West Bank, keep the entire land and, if it wants to be a Jewish state, it will have to give up on the democracy aspect because, if it was to grant all the citizens living between the Jordan and the Mediterranean equal rights, then already today, Jews would be about 50-50, a small majority,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The answer is not cut and dry, he acknowledged. The Jordan Valley is a vital Israeli security interest and, come what may, Israel is likely to maintain military control there for the foreseeable medium-term. But both Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump have recently obfuscated their countries\u2019 erstwhile support for a two-state solution. In Netanyahu\u2019s case, it\u2019s at least partly political, said Kowaz.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is dependent on his right-wing coalition partners, he\u2019s willing to say things and even do things to secure his position as prime minister, even though he\u2019s already surpassed [David] Ben-Gurion as Israel\u2019s longest-serving one,\u201d Kowaz said. \u201cA lot of it is right-wing pandering to those people. Another part of it is a genuine security concern. The research done by the top security experts in Israel and others show that there is a way to keep that area secure while advancing a gradual separation of Palestinians and an eventual two states. Obviously, it\u2019s not something that\u2019s happening tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kowaz, now 29, grew up in Vancouver\u2019s Oakridge neighbourhood with an Israeli father, Joseph Kowaz, who moved to Vancouver in his 20s, and a mother, Andrea (Rogow) Kowaz, who moved here from New York at a young age. His late maternal grandparents were community leaders and academics Dr. Sally and Dr. Robert Rogow.<\/p>\n

He attended Vancouver Talmud Torah and Hebrew Academy for elementary school and Magee and King David high schools, \u201cso I kind of got a taste of Orthodox Jewish education, more of a secular traditional and also public school, so it was nice to have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kowaz did a gap year in Israel after high school, studying at Hebrew University and Ben-Gurion University. Returning to Canada, he graduated from McGill University in Montreal and then completed a graduate degree in digital media at Ryerson University in Toronto. His final project for his degree addressed ways to remember and educate about the Holocaust in the 21st century.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the beginning, I wanted to do something that was Israel-related,\u201d said Kowaz. \u201cSo, it was either move straight to Israel or look for something Israel-connected that was outside of Israel.\u201d He moved to New York City and soon got work at IPF. He moved to Tel Aviv last year and, in July 2018, married Tal Dor, a former graphic designer for the Israel Defence Forces newspaper BaMahane<\/em>. She occasionally gives Kowaz advice and support from her experience.<\/p>\n

Part of a generation that gained political awareness during the Second Intifada, Kowaz said he has been affected by the violent imagery of those days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI obviously want the best for everyone, but Israel is most important to me and I want Israel to be a Jewish state,\u201d he said. \u201cI want Israel to be a state that\u2019s also accepted in the world to the best that it can be. Obviously, there will still be people that hate us but I don\u2019t want Israel\u2019s best allies to be Hungary, Poland, these right-wing [governments] with elements of fascism. We don\u2019t want those to be our best friends, so, at the end of the day, I don\u2019t think we have a perfect partner and the Palestinians, they\u2019re never going to be a perfect partner, but we should do what\u2019s best for Israel, which is at least preserve conditions for a two-state solution, a form of separation to secure Israel as a Jewish and democratic state as a goal for the next five, 10, 15 years. Keep that a possibility. And, right now \u2026 I think it\u2019s definitely still an option. It\u2019s still on the table. We haven\u2019t killed it. But it\u2019s treading in the wrong direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Israel Policy Forum began in 1993, said Kowaz, on the very day the day of the famous handshake on the White House lawn with Yitzhak Rabin, Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time, Yitzhak Rabin was looking for American Jewish support for his vision of peace,\u201d he said. \u201cEven back then, AIPAC were already becoming close with Binyamin Netanyahu, who [had been] Israel\u2019s ambassador to the UN and, at that time, he was already opposition leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

IPF does a lot of work in Washington, D.C., with policymakers, convening roundtable discussions and panels with congresspeople, congressional staffers and opinion leaders, as well as organizing events in synagogues around the United States, all focused on preserving conditions for two states.<\/p>\n

Their positions are credibly backed up, said Kowaz, by security experts in Israel, called Commanders for Israel\u2019s Security, which was begun by former major-general Amnon Reshef, a hero of the Yom Kippur War, and includes a cadre of 290 former IDF generals, Mossad and Shin Bet division heads and others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey work in Israel, so we work closely with them to relay their policy proposals and their messaging to an American audience,\u201d he said. \u201cIt represents about 80% of the retired security establishment. It doesn\u2019t get more legitimate than that. These are people that, I think, between all of them have 6,000 years of experience at the highest positions, making decisions constantly with people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

While AIPAC has an upstart challenger on the left, J Street, Kowaz sees IPF as a more fact-based alternative to the politically oriented advocacy groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are looking for a voice that is different, that\u2019s more policy-based, less trying to rally the troops and more looking at the facts,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we provide that kind of home and, in a way, everything\u2019s very fact-based.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kowaz looks forward to continuing to work toward the perpetuation of Israel as a Jewish democratic state.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really doesn\u2019t matter to me what the role is, I think that\u2019s where I\u2019d like to see myself,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cI\u2019ve given up on the professional soccer career.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eli Kowaz is communications director at the Israel Policy Forum. (photo from Eli Kowaz) This article is one in an occasional series about people with British Columbian roots having positive impacts in Israel and elsewhere. For Vancouver-born Israeli Eli Kowaz, there is only one path to ensuring Israel remains both a Jewish state and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4329],"tags":[5628,9522,4330,9521,1673,2721,1044],"class_list":["post-33810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","tag-advocacy","tag-eli-kowaz","tag-israel","tag-israel-policy-forum","tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","tag-peace","tag-two-state-solution"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}