Posted on 02/20/2017 5:53:32 AM PST by SJackson
President Trump raised eyebrows when he mentioned the possibility of a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The context was ambiguous, and no one can know for sure what message he was intending to convey. One possibility is that he was telling Palestinian leader that if they want a two-state solution, they have to do something; they have to come to the negotiating table with the Israelis, and make the kinds of painful sacrifices that will be required from both sides for a peaceful resolution to be achieved.
Put most directly, the Palestinians must earn the right to a state. They are not simply entitled to statehood, especially since their leaders missed so many opportunities over the years to secure one. As Abba Eban once put it: “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
It began back in the 1930s, when Great Britain established the Peale Commission, which was tasked to recommend a solution to the conflict between Arabs and Jews in mandatory Palestine. The commission recommended a two-state solution, with a tiny non-contiguous Jewish state being created alongside a large Arab state. The Jewish leadership reluctantly accepted this sliver of a state; the Palestinian leadership rejected the deal; for them, it was more important that no Jewish state existed.
In 1947, the United Nations partitioned mandatory Palestine into two areas: one for a Jewish state, the other for an Arab state. The Jews declared statehood in 1948; all the surrounding Arab countries joined the local Arab population in attacking the new state of Israel, and killing one percent of its citizens — but Israel survived.
In 1967, Egypt and Syria were planning to attack and destroy Israel, but Israel preempted them and won a decisive victory, capturing the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai. Israel offered to return the captured areas in exchange for peace, but the Arabs met with Palestinian leaders in Khartoum and issued their three infamous “no’s”: no peace, no recognition and no negotiation.
In 2000-2001 and again in 2008, Israel made generous peace offers that would have established a demilitarized Palestinian state, but these offers were not accepted. And for the past several years, the current Israeli government has offered to sit down and negotiate a two state solution with no pre-conditions — not even advance recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. Still, the Palestinian leadership has refused to negotiate.
President Trump may be telling the Palestinians that if they want a state, they have to show up at the negotiating table and bargain for it. No one is going to hand it to them on a silver platter in the way that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon handed over the Gaza Strip in 2005, only to see it turned into a launching pad for terror rockets and terror tunnels. Israel must get something in return: namely real peace, and a permanent end to the conflict.
The Palestinian leadership’s unwillingness to come to the negotiating table reminds me of my mother’s favorite Jewish joke about Sam, a 79-year-old man who prayed every day for God to let him win the New York lottery before he turned 80. On the eve of his 80th birthday, he railed against God: “All these years I’ve prayed to you every day asking to win the lottery. You couldn’t give me that one little thing.” God responded: “Sam, you have to help me out here — buy a ticket.”
The Palestinians haven’t bought a ticket. They haven’t negotiated in good faith. They haven’t accepted generous offers. They haven’t made realistic counter proposals. They haven’t offered sacrifices to match those offered by the Israelis.
Now President Trump is telling them that they have to buy a ticket. They won’t get a state by going to the United Nations, the European Union or the International Criminal Court. They won’t get a state as a result of the BDS effort or other anti-Israel movements. They will only get a state if they sit down and negotiate in good faith with the Israelis.
The Obama administration applied pressures only to the Israeli side, not to the Palestinians. The time has come — indeed it is long past due — for the United States to tell the Palestinians in no uncertain terms that they must give something up for a Palestinian state, and that they must agree to end the conflict, permanently and unequivocally. Otherwise, the status quo will continue, and there will be only one state — and that state will be Israel.
The Palestinians are not going to win the lottery without buying a ticket.
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So a two state solution was already tried and what is happening now is actually a three state solution. None will work because the “Palestinians” with their Hammas and Hezbollah minders only want the destructions of the Jewish people. Period.
The Palestinians can their own state, but they cannot have Israel.
The palies play for the long haul. Problem with that is that the agreement they’ll agree to is always greener in the future.
They observe correctly, and all too well, that the US is schizophrenic. 8 years of varying degrees of republican (more friendly to Israel) see-sawing with 8 years of ‘Rat (more friendly to palies).
They’ll probably just plan to sit the next 8 years out, and wait for the almost inevitable ‘Rat that in their minds must surely follow post-Trump. And, with the history of the last 20 years as a guide, where each ‘Rat POTUS is more and more cozy to the palies, whose to say that the next ‘Rat after Øbama, the most palie-friendly POTUS in US history, will be even more pro-palie than Ø himself.
Israel does not have to give up anything to these cretins...NOTHING...
There will never be an independent west bank. It will never happen. I feel quite comfortable to say that, even knowing that the internet has a long memory and if I’m wrong I would some day have to eat my words.
But separate from Israel, and separate from Jordan, the arab west bank has no economy, no trade, no manufacturing, no source of employment, no window to the world that doesn’t go through Tel Aviv or Amman.
And quite frankly the people on the arab side at least who govern there have no interest in building an economy, they have no interest in building any state at all. The only thing that makes them important, the only reason the world beats a path to their door and the money flows and the diplomats scoot back and forth to see them is war and the threat of war, terrorism and the threat of terrorism.
In the absence of war, they would be mere backwater mayors of a backwater city of no importance. These guys didn’t come to Palestine hoping to be mayors worrying over storm gutters and trash removal, making municipal salaries to settle petty grievances between city utility departments. That is not what they are there for. To imagine otherwise is to kid yourself about who these people are.
So, if the west bank will never be independent, what then is the path forward? Simple, though maybe not easy. The land is under Israeli control, so accept that as reality. Israel should simply stop discussing it. Settle it, develop it, govern it, and get on with it. Arabs who don’t mind living under Israeli governance can stay, if they cause no trouble, and the rest can seek lives elsewhere.
To hell with that.
The Arabs in the West Bank are Jordanians.
The Arabs in the Gaza Strip are Egyptians.
Kick them all out back to their respective countries and annex the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights.
Why does anyone think a two-state situation will happen?? The PA has said that they will never accept a two-state solution. The destruction of Israel is their goal. Period. And we give them boatloads of money.......why should they want to build a Palestine? They would rather have the issue than ANY solution.
Trump’s position should be, and I believe it is, that he favors a one-state, two-state, three- or four-state solution, whatever the people themselves favor, he will support. Its not his call, not his business, his only declared position is that whatever the people on the ground decide is right for them, the US stands with Israel.
“None will work because the “Palestinians” with their Hammas and Hezbollah minders only want the destructions of the Jewish people. Period.”
Pick either Hamas or Hezbollah and destroy them. The other one will come to the table.
If Dersh is right, the single state (Israel) will be majority Muslim.
The Moslem Jihadi in Israel have no right to steal Jewish land and declare a state. They need to be destroyed like the rabble death cult they are.
The “Palestinians”, a made up people, have always had a two-state solution: Israel and Jordan. As originally designed. Jordan unfortunately has been way too successful in buying off the UK, especially, and the West.
There is the simple answer.
The Two-State solution has been OFFERED QUITE A FEW TIMES.
What the media never tells people .. THE PALESTINIANS ALWAYS VOTE AGAINST IT .. even though they have been all over the media whining how awful Israel is because they won’t comply with what Palestine wants.
ENOUGH ..!!!!!
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