More on the
Israeli-Palestinian issue. From a NYT
editorial. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/opinion/is-israel-abandoning-a-two-state-solution.html?_r=0
The Times has never been
known to be anti-semitic or anti-Israel. Scoff if you want, but there are serious issues to be faced if one has an open mind and looks at the facts. Yes, Israel has serious security issues, but the current path is not he solution.
“Inconveniently
for Mr. Netanyahu’s claim that the Security Council resolution was the result
of perfidy by Mr. Obama, the measure was adopted 14 to 0, with support from
Russia, China and Egypt, among others. It
declared that the settlements, in territory that Israel captured from Jordan
during the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, have no legal validity; affirming
longstanding United Nations and American policy, it cited the Fourth Geneva
Convention of 1949, which prohibits any occupying power from transferring
its own people to conquered territory.
Under Mr. Obama, the United States continues to
subscribe to the position enshrined in the 1993 Oslo accords that the future of
Jerusalem, like that of the West Bank, should be decided through negotiation —
not by diktat by either side. Settlements
represent such a diktat. Anyone
who doesn’t think so hasn’t looked at the map or studied the history of the
settlement movement. Right-wing Israeli settlers have been quite open for
decades about their patient approach to claiming Jerusalem and the West Bank by
strategically placing settlements to prevent the creation of a viable
Palestinian state. Since 2009, when Mr. Obama took office, the number of
Israeli settlers in the West Bank has grown to around 400,000, a gain of more
than 100,000, and the number of settlers in East Jerusalem has grown to roughly
208,000, from 193,000, according
to Americans for Peace Now. During the same period, construction has begun
on over 12,700 settlement units on the West Bank. . ..
When the world
is silent, Israel can build settlements; when the world objects, Israel must
build settlements. Under any scenario, settlements will grow, and the
possibility of a two-state solution will recede.
Settlements are
certainly not the only impediment, or even the principal one, to negotiations
today. The Palestinians remain divided and their leadership malicious or
hapless, with Hamas, which advocates terrorism, reigning in the Gaza Strip, while
the Palestinian Authority, rife with corruption, governs ineptly in the West
Bank. But the settlements are an obstacle to any eventual deal, and they are
Israel’s responsibility.
For a long time, Mr. Netanyahu gave lip
service to a Palestinian state. But there is no longer any room for illusion. Mr. Netanyahu recently described his
government as “more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history,” and
Naftali Bennett, one of his coalition partners, declared that “the era of the
two-state solution is over.” Mr. Netanyahu’s own United Nations ambassador, as
Mr. Kerry noted on Wednesday, rejects that solution, too.
What could be
the endgame, if it does not include a Palestinian state? Mr. Kerry warned that
without a two-state solution, Israel faces a choice between being a Jewish
state and a democracy. If Israel annexes the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, this
logic goes, Palestinians, many of whom are Muslims, would become the majority
in the resulting state of Israel. At
that point, Israelis could give these Palestinians full rights as citizens,
thus diluting the Jewish character of their nation, or deny them rights and
forsake democracy.
But the Israeli far right has long
imagined a different scenario: Egypt would be somehow induced to take control
of the Gaza Strip, while Israel would hold most of
the West Bank and somehow offload the bulk of its Palestinian residents into
Jordan. Jerusalem, presumably, would be entirely under Israeli control.
This one-state
solution may remain a fantasy, but it’s gathering adherents. In an opinion
piece in The Wall Street Journal on Monday, John Bolton, a fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute and a former American ambassador to the United
Nations, advanced just this scenario. Mr. Bolton is said to be on
President-elect Donald Trump’s list as a possible deputy secretary of state.
Mr. Obama has
stayed true to the values and policy aims that American administrations have
held across the decades for the Middle East, but Mr. Trump has signaled that a
major change is coming. He has already appointed to the post of ambassador to
Israel a settlement advocate who is, if anything, to Mr. Netanyahu’s right.
[Nethanyahu is
a close-minded bully and blowhard. He
will get along splendidly with Trump.] If Mr. Trump envisions working with
Israel’s extreme right to foreclose the dream of a Palestinian state, he
envisions a tragic future indeed, one in which Israel is likely to never have
the peace and security that it deserves.”
With Trump in
the White House and Republicans in control of Congress, I would not want to be
a Palestinian living in Jerusalem or the West Bank. Expect illegal settlements and
coerced/authoritarian confiscation of Palestinian land to speed up. What is to become of the Palestinians? They will be sold out and abandoned while the
U.S. continues to send billions to Israel. The injustice will only continue to
feed violent Islamic radicals.
Eventually, the U.S. will suffer another major terrorist attack. Why can’t we face up to where this going?
"If the Arabs lay down their guns there will be no more shooting. If the Jews lay down their guns there will be no more Israel" -- Bibi Netanyahu.
ReplyDeleteTruer words were never spoken.
Art
Thanks for the comment. No one is being asked to lay down their guns. Ray
ReplyDelete