Israel Matzav

Knesset speaker publicly rejects 'two-state solution'

Here's a guy who is willing to tell it like it is. At a memorial session for Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin on Sunday rejected the 'two-state solution.'

The two-state solution has failed, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said Sunday at the official Knesset memorial marking 17 years since the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, best remembered for his tenacious efforts to make peace with the Palestinians through the Oslo Accords in the 1990s.

"In so small a space between the Jordan [River] and the [Mediterranean] Sea there cannot be more than one country," Rivlin said. The two-state solution, he continued, is based on the assumption that Jews and Arabs cannot live together and therefore must separate.

"But even today cities and towns across the country refute this claim," he added. "On both sides of the Green Line, Jews and Arabs live with one another," noting how the two peoples study in universities together.

The idea of separation failed at every step along Israel's short history, he continued, not in the 1947 UN Partition Plan, not in cease-fire agreements, not in UN declarations and resolutions, not in Oslo I or II, or any of the subsequent agreements penned by Israelis and Palestinians.

Of course, the 'Palestinians' will not agree to live with us in one state either. But it's nice to see that someone who is considered a 'moderate' in the Knesset understands that the 'two-state solution' is a failure. Too bad his party leader doesn't seem to get it.

Labels: Ruby Rivlin, two-state solution, Yitzchak Rabin

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:35 PM