No chance for 2 states
On Tuesday, I mentioned an article by former chairman of Israel's National Security Council Giora Eiland in which the 'obvious' 'two-state solution' was called into question. YNet now has an English translation of the article on its website. Here's his diagnosis, which is accurate:The idea of "two states" is based on a series of assumptions: First, the assumption that the primary Palestinian national ambition is statehood. There is no basis to this. The Palestinian ethos is based on values such as justice, victimization, revenge, and above all, the "right of return."I like his diagnosis better than I like his solutions. Those who want to see his solutions should go here. Neither solution is new. One is to give the 'West Bank' to Jordan. That won't work for a lot of reasons starting with Israel not being able to count on Jordan to maintain Israel's security and continuing with the fact that the Hashemite 'kingdom' is scared of nothing more than being overrun with 'Palestinians,' since their 'country' is already 70% 'Palestinian.'
It's true that the Palestinians want to do away with the occupation, but it's wrong to assume that this translates into a desire for an independent state. They would prefer the solution of "no state at all" – that is, the State of Israel will cease to exist and the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River will be divided among Jordan, Syria and Egypt.
The second assumption is that if a Palestinian state is created, it will be ruled by "moderates." There is no basis to this. It is likely that the regime in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank will fall within a short time into the hands of Hamas.
The third assumption is that two stable states can exist in the narrow strip that lies between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It is easy to prove this is not possible: the Palestinian state will not be able to be independent and Israel will not be able to defend itself.
The fourth assumption is that Israel can implement this agreement; that is, an agreement that entails evacuating 100,000 settlers from Judea and Samaria. Even if we ignore the social and political intricacies of this, such an operation would cost more than $30 billion, not including billions more that will be required to redeploy the army. Is this possible?
In short, the most the Israeli government can offer the Palestinians, and still survive politically, is less than the minimum that a Palestinian regime can accept, and still survive politically.
His second solution is to expand Gaza by giving it land from Egypt, with Israel giving Egypt land in return and the 'Palestinians' renouncing claims to land in Judea and Samaria so that Israel will 'only' have to expel 30,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria to reach the 'final solution.' Eiland suggests a land bridge between Egypt and Jordan. It's not clear to me whether he intends for Gaza and the 'West Bank' to be part of the same
Let's face it: We all know what's wrong, but there is no way to fix it short of a total military victory for one side or the other. Israel needs to wake up to that reality - and soon.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:54 PM
5 Comments:
Every one is thinking of the 1993 Czechoslovak breakup but in any divorce, both parties have to want it. The Palestinians don't want to go through with a divorce since they don't want to live apart from their "marriage" partner; they want to murder their partner and take over his assets.
The other solutions won't work because the Palestinians don't trust Jordan and Egypt for about the same reasons Israel doesn't trust them.
Given the above reality, the conflict is destined to go on forever. The only way it would ever end is if one side somehow gets vanquished. All the Israelis can do is mitigate the violence but they do not have the power by themselves, to make the Palestinians reconcile with Israel. The sooner Israelis accept that the other side is not interested in peace, co-existence and statehood, the better off they will be.
Kahane was right.....
i have the solution, but you'll not like it.
first: with a plane send panflets with this saying:
you have 6 month to leave gaza.
for those who are willing to do it, the state of israel will pay you $xxx per person and give you save passage to any border country you choose. otherwise stay there and die.
second:
in 6 month pull the trigger and wipe out gaza with napalm, micro nukes and every damn thing you can imagin until there is no more than a hole in the whole gaza strip.
and that's it. put all the misile silos in paralel with one button, so only one person should press it and be jugded for his actions.
no more gaza problem :P.
the arab world will see what the state of israel is capable of doing to be alive.
and only one person should be jugded for this (the prime minster in turn).
As I said they can have their 2-state solution. Give the Arabs New Jersey and Michigan.
Chaim,
Yes, he was. About a lot of things.
Ariel,
No one will let us get away with being that blatant. But I would say that every time they shoot a rocket at us, we ought to permanently take over some more land. Where to put the 'Palestinians'? There's an awful lot of room in Sinai....
Post a Comment
<< Home