The “Two State Solution” is dead. On the Israeli side, because they have offered it repeatedly since 1938 and been rebuffed every time. On the Palestinian side because they don’t want “Two States”, but “One State” -- Palestine, free, from the River to the Sea.
What’s the point of everyone -- Lavrov yesterday, Wang Yi, Biden, et al. -- calling for the 2SS, when it’s just a fantasy. Or, at least, if you’re going to call for it, how about putting the pressure on the Palestinian side, as the ones that have been blocking, not -- always! -- on Israel.
Jerry Coyne (who I met when he came to Hong Kong in the aughts), has a good and thorough take on the issue, views I share:
This post (and probably the next one) will be devoted to the war in Israel and Palestine, an event that has got me deeply depressed for many reasons: murder, hostages taken with no good way to get them back, lack of a feasible solution to the violence, and so on.
But what depresses me most is the worldwide celebrations of Hamas's attack on Israel accompanied by kidnappings and mass slaughter, most of the dead being civilians. We had demonstrations in Chicago yesterday by supporters of both Israel and Palestine, and they interviewed some of the latter. I don't mind people coming out to support the creation of a Palestinian state (though now I think it's nearly impossible), but many of the protestors seemed to be there in support of the slaughter and kidnapping of Israeli civilians. That indicates a complete loss of the protestors' moral compasses.
When interviewed, they'd say stuff like this:
"We don't want blood, we don't want to fight Israel forever. We just want our land back and just free Palestine," said Wisam Zeidan.
"Freeing Palestine," to those who are familiar with the use of that phrase, is a synonym for "destroying Israel." That's what supporters of Palestine mean when they chant, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." The "sea", of course, washes against the west coast of Israel. Read on...
PS: Hamas truly are a horrid organisation. They’re fascist to the point of nazi. They regularly throw the Hitler salute in their exercises. They have dripping blood lust to kill Jews -- it’s right there in their Charter, for goodness sake!
I have friends -- friends who seem to care deeply about Israel -- friends who say they care deeply about Israel, friends who have lived and worked in Israel, friends who have converted to Judaism, friends, who yet support Hamas.
“Hamas were democratically elected”, they say. As if that excuses their perfidy. In any case, Hamas were elected for a four year term -- 18 years ago!
Now that’s a thing I don’t get. Nice old leftie friends, who support a vicious, bloodthirsty, murderous, fascist, jew-hating organisation. Because of long-nurtured grievances, morphed into “oppression” and “genocide” (both bogus). A thing I don’t get.
