Will the U.S. Congress kill the two-state solution?

[azurnoir]

Why would an Israeli prime minister mount the podium of the United Nations General Assembly to rebut a historic address over Palestinian statehood, only to sound like a man running for Congress in a Tea Party district?

He opens by attacking the United Nations, calling it a place of darkness and quoting a fundamentalist leader as branding it a "house of many lies."

But as Israel celebrated the long new year's weekend of Rosh Hashanah, members of the U.S. House, in their zeal to punish the Palestinians, have left their Israeli counterparts in the dust.

Congress, effectively freezing $200 million in humanitarian aid, as House sources put it, "until the Palestinian statehood issue is sorted out," may have taken its first step toward crippling the Palestinian Authority and scuttling the possibility of a two-state solution.

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/will-the-u-s-congress-kill-the-two-state-solution-1.387676

[Donald Ian Rankin]

1. You can't kill something that isn't alive.

The two-state solution is not viable, and won't be without a massive change in Israeli attitudes, and I don't see any likelihood of that.

The status quo will continue, the settlements will grow, Israel will continue to prosper, and the Palestinians will continue to suffer. The US congress is just adding another nail to the coffin.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. Just Israeli attitudes?

Little solipsistic there aren't you? Both sides need to change their positions massively. Israel is a much more rational nation, so I expect they will be much more likely to change than their enemies

[Donald Ian Rankin]

4. No, just the Israelis need to change their positions.

Abbas is roughly where he needs to be already. I see little chance of Hamas changing their positions, but if there were a realistic chance of peace I think it probable (though not certain) that Abbas could render them irrelevant.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Abbas is where he should be? Hardly

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. I presume we have different ideas about what it is and isn't reasonable for the two sides to demand.

My view is that

Legitimate Palestinian demands on Israel include

:-*A sovereign state on all the land outside the Green line, including Jersusalem.
:-Full right of return to Israel for all those who choose to return there rather than living in Palestine, with compensation for lost property.
:-*The removal of all settlements and settlers established since 1967 outside the Green line.
:-An end to the blockade of Gaza

I'd like to see Israel going further than this and becoming a state for all its citizens, rather than a Jewish state, apologising for the Nakba and offering compensation, massively improving the treatment of its indigenous minorities, and the like, but I don't think that it's fair to make peace conditional on that.

Legitimate Israeli demands on the PA include

:-A complete repudiation of all violence against civilians
:-As much effort as possible to prevent Hamas and other third parties using violence against civilians
:-The right for those Jews resident outside the green line whose presence predates 1967, and their descendants, to remain as full citizens in Palestine
:-The right for other Jews to immigrate to and live in Palestine on equal terms to other immigrants.
:-*Recognition of Israel as a legitimate state with the Green Line as its border, conditional on it meeting the demands above (but not recognition as a Jewish state).

I'd like to see the Palestinians going further than this and permitting all those settlers not living on private property to remain, apologising for the various acts of violence against civilians the PA has perpetrated, and but I don't think it's fair to make peace conditional on that.


*All of these have a slight proviso "or possibly for some compromise involving shared sovereignty over Jerusalem".




Now, I don't for a minute think that there's any chance of Israel meeting the demands I've set out above, and if there were to be any chance of peace it would involve the Palestinians giving up a lot of things I think they have a perfect right to. But, while the Palestinians have met all the things I've listed above (except allowing pre-1967 settlers to remain, which I think is basically a non-issue because there are virtually none, except in Jerusalem, which is its own issue) and Israel refuses to do so, I think it's Israel and not the Palestinians we need to be pressing to change.

[shira]

7. You're right Donald, your expectations are unreasonable. Totally. n/t

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. Not unreasonable, just unrealistic. N.T.

[Jefferson23]

2. When confronted you're losing control of the situation, you can take

council and go forward accepting your loss, move forward with a plan that at the least, doesn't make matters worse.

Or dig in your heels and pretend the world has not changed, you're still top dog and always will be, there will be
no blow-back from this move.