Last chance for two states

[Englander]

Negotiation rather than unilateralism is the way out of the spiralling Israeli-Palestinian crisis

Manuel Hassassian
Wednesday April 19, 2006
The Guardian

Monday's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv rightly drew international condemnation, yet criticism of Israel's relentless shelling of civilian population centres in the occupied Gaza Strip has been blocked by the US at the UN security council. This month alone, Israeli forces have killed more than 30 Palestinians, including at least six children, and injured 130 others, while about 200 shells have been fired into the Gaza Strip every day.

While prominent members of the international community call on Hamas to make statements in support of a two-state solution, their own policies are rapidly foreclosing that option. Following Hamas's accession to the Palestinian Authority, the EU and the US seem more intent on punishing the Palestinians for the results of their exemplary elections than on persuading Israel that peace and security will only materialise through negotiated political accommodation.

Ostensibly, the US-led decision to cut funding to the PA is designed to penalise Hamas for failing to renounce violence, recognise Israel's right to exist and publicly commit to previously-signed agreements. But this approach is certain to backfire. One million of the estimated 3.8 million Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories rely on PA salaries for their livelihoods. Impoverishing and embittering our people will not only exacerbate the existing humanitarian predicament, it will likely worsen the security crisis for Palestinians and Israelis alike.

The real threat lies not in the rhetorical positions of the PA - an institution with limited powers administering a stateless people under occupation - but in Israel's deluded faith in unilateralism. Now rebranded as Ehud Olmert's "convergence plan", unilateralism still translates as the sustained colonisation and occupation of Palestinian land.

It is true that Olmert intends to dismantle some failed settlements in the occupied West Bank, but only so as to bolster the more strategic blocs. This would entrench, not solve, the problem. As Israel's illegal settlement and wall construction on occupied Palestinian land continues, the possibility of establishing a viable, territorially contiguous Palestinian state is being destroyed.

More at;
Guardian Unlimited

[cali]

1. I believe the US and the EU

should be funding the PA. It doesn't help the situation if the PA slides hopelessly into debt. However, though the author notes that the suicide attack on Monday drew international condemnation, he neglects to note that Hamas endorsed it as legitimate. That certainly doesn't work as an incentive toward getting the US or the EU on board.

[Phx_Dem]

3. If you mean financial support

for PA security I agree with you. It does not make a lot of sense to allow whatever civilian control there is to fail.

[King Mongo]

4. The US and EU have nukes (weapons of mass terror) to defend themselves....

... Thus, unlike the US and the EU, the Hamas is honest about its desire to murder civilians when self-defense is necessary. The US and EU need to examine why they would practice terror to defend themselves, as they have done in the past, and then act appropriately, such as pressuring both Palestine and Israel to recognize that both exist as independent unoccupied nations. It is rather bigoted to criticize the others for things that we would do if we were in their situation, such as dropping nukes on cities to prevent ourselves from becoming occupied.

[Jim Sagle]

2. Last chance, my ass..

The Palestinians are setting up their state even as we post.

[Englander]

6. 'Bantustans' = not State. n/t

[King Mongo]

5. A two-state solution is unavoidable...

... The real question is really how long it will take until Palestinians stop using violence. Israel is going to create a two-State solution because they have no other choice and they will certainly fuel hostilities by creating it through unilateral steps. The main problems is that more pressure is not being placed on Israel to create a fair solution and Palestinians are not demonstrating that they will stop using violence in the near future regardless of how Palestine is recognized. Thus, both sides are doing everything possible to ensure that many more people are going to get killed in the future.

[Englander]

7. I think a 2-state solution is impossible.

Virtually all of the resources/land that's necessary to create a viable State, the Jordan
valley, Jersualem, &tc, is being/has been annexed. The 'facts on the ground' have acheived their
purpose, namely ruining the chances of a Palestinian state becoming a reality. A series of
cantons that aren't linked, & have no means of access to the rotw, & is surrounded by a hostile
occupier, isn't a State.