Most everybody I meet is currently vexed by the Israel - Palestine conflict. There is endless talk of ceasefires and, more helpfully, solutions. The solutions fall into two broad categories:
1) Hamas must stop launching missiles at Israel from the Gaza strip. Time will pass and the Israeli's will trust the Palestinians enough to ease then end the siege of Gaza.
2) Israel must stop besieging Gaza and let a free flow of goods, services and terrorists into its country. Time will pass and the Palestinians will not be so angry that that they lob incompetent missiles toward Tel-Aviv
There are grander versions of these solutions: Palestinians accept new Israeli borders, Israel mollifies Palestinians but they are essentially variations of the above. Neither is likely to happen.
The Palestinians have a claim on both the occupied territories and Israel itself that they are unlikely to renounce, the Israeli's know this and are not going to facilitate Palestinian retribution in any way. The two state solution continues to fail.
News Bunny's specialist subject is "the bleeding obvious". The bit missing from this story is war.
There was a war and the Palestinian's lost. Someone needs to tell them. When you lose a war, the winning side get to run your country. They can annex your country or they can colonise it. Someone needs to make the Israeli's step up and do this. As Israel and Palestine are adjacent the obvious answer is to annex Palestine. This is consistent with the Greater Israel policy of the Zionists.
Of course, this is where the problems for the Israeli's begin. The country is a democratic ally of the west, particularly America. It will be very difficult for them to run an explicitly apartheid state for any length of time. There is a fine Jewish tradition of tolerance and humanism that would probably give the vote to all adult nationals within its borders voluntarily. Alternatively there would be an extraordinary weight of international pressure and opprobrium if the Israeli's renounced democracy in favour of theocracy.
The Americans don't really believe in theocracy. For all their God fearing bible belt tub thumping, America is as much an idea than a country. The idea is that you cannot be persecuted for your religious beliefs. This is fundamental to American DNA. Most of the rest of the world has eschewed theocracy too, although a perverse alliance with Iran is possible, I suppose!
Let Israel win!
We'll have more of these... List of Arab members of the Knesset
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2 comments:
That kind of "we won, you lost so please be good sports and accept it" logic was behind the Sykes Picot agreement when the middle east was carved up after WW1. It's obviously working now isn't it?
If grievances are not addressed they fester and become much worse.
I agree that the best solution for Israel/Palestine is one state with everyone with equal access to vote, human rights and water supplies.
I can't see Israel agreeing to this as they have no reliance on Palestinian labour now they have 1m+ ex soviet union immigrants. Of course, some of those immigrants are in parliament dictating (far right) policy.
Another blocker is the annual $3bn of military aid coming from the US. If you give that amount of arms to one side, and place an arms embargo on the other side it's very clear which side you want to win.
Given how Tel Aviv has carved up the West Bank into a hundred unconnected bantustans (zones A and B), can they be trusted to suddenly treat everyone equal once they've annexed the West Bank and Gaza?
Great comment, Mr D. Ultimately, my point is that a one state solution is what we need to be marching for. The one state solution needs to be the focus of international pressure and, in an ideal world, what moderate Palestinians and Israeli's and the Arab and Jewish diaspora need to lobby for. The pressure needs to be clear, consistent and argued simply by all those who seek peace and reconciliation.
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