Moses, there is an increasing body of thought which believes that the two state solution train has left the station. On one hand you have ever expanding settlements, and although when Israel withdrew its citizens from Gaza, it left the settlements that it had built there and could do the same again if a peace deal were to be reached abut where the borders of a two state solution would actually be, there is no doubt that the settlements are an attempt to create 'facts on the ground' and also, hard liners within Israel can point to what happened when they left Gaza to bolster resistance to the idea of leaving any settlements. When I joined the board of the International Crisis Group, it had just produced a report with actual maps of the West Bank and Jerusalem suggesting where the borders might actually be drawn. Of course everybody immediately started arguing that the lines should not be here, or there, and so on and so forth, but at least it forced people to condescend upon the particular, instead of talking airily about a 'two state solution' without ever having to think about what it really means. Almost a decade has passed since then, and the 'facts on the ground' have changed - if one is talking about the complications created by settlements for the two state solution - not necessarily for the better.
On the other hand, you have the demographic facts on the ground too. Yes, Orthodox Jews may be doing their best to maintain a high birth rate, but some in the Arab world are wondering whether it might not be better to take the long view, and just wait it out.
You have an analogy of distant cousins, A and B, sharing a house, when cousins A receive some closer relatives C who have had a bad time where they were staying and have now come to stay with their cousins A. Everybody is trying to manage themselves, but the new arrivals C insist that the house should be divided so that everybody knows what is his. While cousins B are resisting the idea that the house that they have been living in together with cousins A should now be divided at the behest of the relatives C, Gbam! The division - of a sort - takes place, but because cousins B refused to take part in the idea of dividing their house, they find themselves squeezed into two or three rooms from which they can't even get out without the permission of cousins A and relatives C, or pushed to go and stay with their own closer relatives D. Some of B, let's call them b, get left in the A & C part of the house, but what with the way C seem to just keep on coming, its definitely an A & C set of rooms. While B is still waiting to wake up from this bad dream, A & C set about decorating their rooms, making them nice and comfy, and generally getting on with life. Mind you, what with one thing and another, a lot of C have been having a bad time in lots of different parts of the world, so they all need a place that they can really call 'home', but the effect is that they do tend to find themselves encroaching into the rooms that they originally left for B. After all, it's not as if B is doing much with their rooms is it?
Well, it's kind of B's fault, because they were still arguing about the idea of dividing the house when they should have just accepted that it was indeed going to be divided, and instead of wasting time arguing about whether it should be divided, should have spent more time negotiating and agreeing which rooms were going to be theirs. B has not made a very good job of explaining that they didn't think it was serious, the idea that the place they had been enjoying together could just be taken away from them like that ... No, not taken away, say A & C: shared out. So that everybody can plan properly ...
With not much to do and no place to go, B is making babies, while A & C ... well, not all C wants to come and join them any more. They've got their (quite large) share of the house, including the extra bits that they have to stay in, and of course, to avoid friction, they have to control how B comes and goes because there is usually trouble when they rub up against each other. B is weary. B's own closer relatives D haven't done much to help: even the B who went to stay with D, thinking it would all blow over and they could soon come back home are still living out of suitcases, and anyway, nobody else really thinks that C are going back to wherever they came from, and even if some of C, and even A do go, everybody else is pretty firm that A & C need a place to call home. Yes, so do we need a place to call home, thinks B, and the way to satisfy everybody may not be to allot a few rooms to us and several rooms to A & C, or even the same number of rooms to B as to A & C, but to go back to how it was before C started coming, when we all enjoyed everything together. I mean, we can't even agree whether our B who are staying with D can come back to our set of rooms or A & C's rooms, meanwhile, b are making babies too, so if we wait it out, even A & C may come to see that we'll do better as one big happy family, in one big happy home ...
Yeah, right. Anyway, with the two state solution just never seeming to get done, some minds are turning that way.
Ayo
Ayo
I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama
In addition, the writer cannot be serious when he adopts a dismissive attitude to a two state solution. Every reasonable analyst subscribes to the two state solution. The debate is how and by whom should the two states be constructed. So, when the author refers to "the myth of a two state solution" he situates himself against the tide of reasonable punditry on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Is he suggesting, like Hamas, that a one state solution, presumably peopled by Palestinians to replace a defunct Israeli state, should be the end goal of the Palestinian struggle? How practical is that? This vision, just like the ultra-radical Jewish--and Christian Right--vision that God has ordained only jews to own and populate the lands of historical Palestine, is outside mainstream opinion and is a recipe for continued crisis.
On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 11:46 AM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:discussing is one thing; polemics is another
here are the polemics. even someone like me, totally sympathetic to the palestinians, can recognize that increasing the firing of rockets on israel was likely to have a consequence. we can talk about that
this statement, however, doesn't admit for the possibility of discussing: it lectures us, in so one-sided a manner as to leave out actual thought
ken
On 11/20/12 11:56 AM, OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Muhammad Jameel Yusha'uThe Focus(33): Five reasons behind Israel's terror on Gaza
by
Muhammad Jameel Yusha'uSo the blood of Palestinians has become a political capital in the hands of Israel. By the time you finish reading this piece probably more people have died in the State of Palestine as a result of Israel's bombardment. The terror unleashed on Gaza, which already is under siege by Israel has taken away attention from another terror taking place in Syria from television screens.The question to be asked is why did Israel attack now, what will the Netanyahu government benefit by killing innocent civilians under the pretext that Hamas is firing rockets into Israel, ignoring the fact that the emergence of Hamas itself is a reaction to the occupation of Palestine by Israel? There are at least five possible reasons for the attack on Gaza.The first is a political strategy to get Netanyahu re-elected in the January elections in Israel. Politicians in the so called advanced democracies for a long time have been using war as a way to get voters attention. They use conflict to shift public opinion to issues of national security rather than economic well being. Two examples here will be useful. Before the 2004 presidential election, the American economy was showing signs of decline, which is not good for an incumbent, more especially one like George Bush who inherited a healthy economy from Bill Clinton. The war on Iraq, though already in the agenda of some neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld, was brought forward, linked to the war on terror, and Bush was re-elected. But it does not always work. Former French president, Nicholas Sarkozy used the attack on Libya and the ousting of Laurent Gbagbo in Ivory Coast in order to improve his approval rating, we know the rest of the story.The second reason behind the attack is the reconstruction effort in Gaza. Since the 2008 assault on Gaza by Israel, there has been more sympathy for the people of Palestine, of recent there has been series of visits by foreign governments in order to reconstruct Gaza, the most recent being the visit by the Emir of Qatar who promised more investment and reconstruction. Much earlier than that, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has pledged on behalf of the Arab governments the sum of £1 billion dollars towards reconstruction in Gaza. Although the world will prefer to see more concrete steps towards ending the occupation from the Arab governments, at least the reconstruction can bring some relief to the people.The Turkish president was also on his way to provide additional support. But in whatever form support will come, Israel sees it as detrimental to its interest. As King Abdullah of Jordan stated in his recent autobiography, the ultimate aim of Israel is to expel all Palestinians and occupy the remaining areas in West Bank and Gaza, and suggest Jordan as the new country of Palestinians; this even by the standard of King Abdullah, one of the Arab leaders who believe in the myth of two states solution, is unacceptable and could result in war.The third reason why Israel hastened to launch this attack is the re-election of Barack Obama. Binyamin Netanyahu had openly supported the candidature of the Republican Party nominee Mitt Romney, because of the doubts he has about Obama's approach to the Palestinian issue, even though supporting Israel by American presidents is like an article of faith. But Israel still doesn't like the approach of presidents like Obama and Jimmy Carter, who although they are pro-Israel, they believe also that unquestionable support for Israel hurts American interest in the Middle East.As such immediately after the re-election, Israel tied the hands of the American president by starting an aggression, so instead of peace talks between the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmud Abbas and Israel, effort will now be made towards stopping the aggression, and by the time Obama spend two years in office without conducive atmosphere for peace talks, then he will become weak, because the US will enter an election mood, first, the midterm congressional election and then the presidential election, a time that politicians normally withhold their plan on foreign policy due its implication on their campaign.The fourth reason is that Israel wants to test the military capability of Hamas, and the real foreign policy position of the Muslim brotherhood government in Egypt. The position of the Egyptian government is becoming clear now, the hands of Muhammad Mursi's government are tied, refusing to support the people of Gaza will cause outrage among Egyptians. Open confrontation with Israel will attract economic problems from western governments, particularly the aid from the US which has been used to blackmail Egypt, and Mursi has not been in power long enough to put Egypt in the path of economic independence.The fifth reason is to link the response of Hamas with Iran, something the international media is already promoting. As reported by NewStatesman newspaper, on 16th November, BBC's Today radio programme interviewed chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, at the end of the interview, unaware that he was still live on air, he was asked about the attack on Gaza, and he responded, "I think it's got to do with Iran, actually".http://jameelyushau.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/33-five-reasons-behind-israels-terror.htmlTwitter: @jameelyushau
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