LETTER TO SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST [295 Words]:
Alon Ben-Meir urges Donald Trump to "pressure Israel" to agree a two-state solution (Trump must try to get Israel's acceptance of a two-state solution, Letters, 19 November).
There is little to indicate that President Trump will want to tread into a dispute that has been the graveyard of hopes for seventy years. As Ben-Meir himself notes, even Obama has failed, despite "supreme efforts".
But even if Trump were to wade into these murky waters why is it that only Israel should be pressured? After all, Israel has repeatedly accepted a two-state solution over the last 70 years. Various iterations of Palestine have rebuffed all solutions.
On 1 September 1947, the UN Special Committee on Palestine issued a report proposing a split of the Palestinian Mandate along lines similar to those pursued by Palestinians today. The Jewish Agency accepted the proposal. The Arab Higher Committee rejected it. [UN Security Council Report October 2016]
Just imagine if the Arabs had accepted the proposal. We would have had none of the murderous mayhem of the last seventy years. Instead of destruction, construction.
Israel has 82 companies listed on the NASDAQ, more than all countries except the U.S. and China. Imagine if this Israeli entrepreneurial spirit had been harnessed with that of the Palestinians. They would today be the mega-Switzerland of the Middle East. They could by now have developed an Israeli-Arab-Palestinian common market, perhaps even a Federation.
Instead, we've had attacks on Israel (all unsuccessful), belligerent intifadas (mostly unsuccessful), and the infamous "Three Nos" -- No peace with Israel, No recognition of Israel and No negotiations with Israel. How is one to negotiate with such intransigent interlocutors?
And yet it's Israel who must be "presssured"?
There's a great deal of hypocrisy amongst observers of the Israeli Palestine conflict.
Yours, etc...
