Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: The Global March to Jerusalem, a brave and admirable attempt to awaken the world’s conscience [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)and still retain any credibility and authority.
You'd have to concede that NO Palestinian leader could ever survive in office if he or(eventually, perhaps, she)were to accept Bibi's arrogant and demeaining "security concept"-a concept that would make Palestinian independence perpetually conditional and provisional, subject to being undone by the Israeli government through the use of force at any given moment. How could you possibly think it's reasonable to expect them to agree to those things(the permanence of the major settlements, a state of affairs that would by itself make it impossible for Palestinians to have a real state; complete demilitarization, a requirement that would make such a state helpless and a humiliation that is demanded of no other state on the planet;
IDF troops in the Jordan Valley, which would mean that the Occupation would, in effect, go on forever, to name but a few).
All I did was lay out the things any valid two-state deal would have to include. You can't really quarrel with any of them, especially the no interrupting the water and electricity.
If a two-state solution is to succeed, it cannot put EITHER state in submission to the other, nor can it be something that makes one side or the other lose face...this is all that I'm saying. And the few things I laid out are required to avoid a Palestinian state be seen as pathetic and subservient. You don't have to think that Palestinians are saints to know that a two-state solution must result in a state that is seen as being equal in status and prestige to Israel-that putting Palestine into the status of statehood on sufferance is to doom the two-state idea to failure.
Why is it so important to Bibi and his government to humiliate the Palestinian side? Why does the government you risk your life for think that "winning" is more important than making sure the war actually ends?
(and in any case...why does Bibi harbor the delusion that, if only he got the Pals in some back room, they'd gladly accept whatever crumbs he'd toss them?...it's as silly as the notion that, if it hadn't been for, first, "the other Arabs" and, later, the PLO, that ordinary Palestinians would have been glad to make peace with Israel WITHOUT getting their own state as well).