Today Let's Discuss the "Two State Solution"

JINSA
Report #: 993
02 June '10

This may not seem like the best time to open a discussion of the "two state solution," but it may well be the best time to call the Palestinians', and the world's, bluff and put the necessary discussion of Gaza and the future of the blockade on a more serious and realistic footing.

Point 1: Fatah on the West Bank has no desire to be responsible for Gaza, no ability to wrest control of Gaza from Hamas, and no ability to administer the West Bank if Hamas is freed from its Gaza prison. Despite the posturing, Gaza blockaded by Israel and Egypt suits Abu Mazen and Fatah more than it does anyone else. For now, none of the three governing bodies between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River will disappear.

Point 2: The West Bank has more in common tribally, economically and culturally with Israel's Arab population in the Galilee and the Palestinian population of Jordan than it does with Gaza Palestinians. It is unsurprising that the brief but bloody Palestinian civil war in 2007 resulted in Hamas, an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood that began in Egypt, expelling Fatah from Gaza. Since then, Fatah has been building a security force on the West Bank with the assistance of the U.S. military under Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton.

Readers know JINSA's objection to the force, but it always puzzled us why the Israeli government insisted that it appreciated Lt. Gen. Dayton's work and liked the Palestinian "police force" even as it morphed into something closer to an army. And even as senior IDF officials complained that the grave risk Israel had undertaken by supporting the force was unappreciated by the United States (and, perhaps, by JINSA).

Maybe that's because they didn't explain themselves clearly.

(Read full report)

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