The 'two-state' mirage
This is from an op-ed by Tony Blankley in Tuesday's Washington Times.Now comes reality on to the stage to darken the dreams of would be peace makers. As shrewd old Talleyrand also once said: "I know where there is more wisdom than is found in Napoleon, Voltaire, or all the ministers present and to come - in public opinion." So consider this dismal data from the authoritative polling of the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Project. The report tabulated the response to the key question No. 60: Which statement comes closest to your opinion? (1) A way can be found for the state of Israel to exist so that the rights and needs of the Palestinian people are taken care of, or, (2) the rights and needs of the Palestinian people cannot be taken care of as long as the state of Israel exists?President Obama will be on the world stage until January 2013 (hopefully) or January 2017. But the consequences of creating a 'Palestinian state' could - God forbid - be with us for long after that. Are any of the conditions that are conducive to peace really present? It sure doesn't look like it.
The specific percentages are as follows, with the key results being, by 77 percent to 16 percent, that Palestinians don't believe they can live side-by-side with Israel, while by 61 percent to 31 percent Israelis do believe they can live side-by-side with a Palestinian state. Note that all the Arab states are very negative, and all the Western states (plus Israel) are quite positive for a two-state solution.
Keep in mind, also, that after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed a Sinai peace treaty with Israel, in October 1981 he was assassinated during a military parade in Cairo. A fatwa authorizing the assassination had been issued by Omar Abdel-Rahman, a cleric later convicted in the United States for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
It would take an unusually courageous leader to sign a peace treaty and his own death warrant in one document. And lest there be any doubt as to acceptability of a peace treaty without a right of refugee return (which would turn Israel into a majority Muslim, rather than Jewish state), consider the writing this week in the Los Angeles Times of Mustafa Barghothi member of the Palestinian parliament, a candidate for president in 2005, and currently secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative:
"Palestinians in the occupied territories have no standing to sign away the rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel in order to get Israel to the negotiating table. To tell the truth, we don't believe that Israel can be a true democracy and an exclusivist Jewish state at the same time."
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:35 PM
2 Comments:
The Two-State solution will founder on the rocks of
(1) Jerusalem
Israelis probably will not cede control of any part of it to anyone else (why should they)?
(2) "Palestinian refugees" Not back to Israel, so where? If not where they are now?
(3) Palestinian violence
Who controls it? Sovereignty issues? What happens when the PA is an independent state and rockets are lobbed into Israel?
(4) Hamas: They aren't about to disappear so what then? What if a PA state was proclaimed and Hamas won the next election?
(5) Gaza: Is it part of the Palestinian State? If so, how does it communicate with the WB?
(6) If Gaza and WB are part of a Palestinian state then does Israel have continuing obligations to Gaza? No. (At least that's a good thing)
They don't exist. Because if in fact the US intends to issue an ultimatum to Israel, it would underline the demise of not just the peace process but also of the long standing trust that hitherto existed between the two countries.
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