A Future History of Palestine: You Want a Two-State Solution? Then Do It Right.

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
20 September '10

(A number of questions that should trouble anyone who gives it some thought. Y.)

The following article isn’t intended to reject a two-state solution but to point out issues that would inevitably arise if one ever came about. Recently, a once-major American magazine ran a cover story saying Israelis aren’t desperately eager for “peace” without ever mentioning the real reasons why that's so:

It's simple: Rather reasonably, Israelis want to know whether they would be better or worse off after making a deal to get a promise of peace in exchange for accepting a fully independent Palestinian state.

Making a strategy requires figuring out where things can go wrong and working to avoid or reduce the consequences. Pretending problems won't happen is the best way to engender catastrophes. So let's look at what would happen:

A gala celebration marks Palestine’s day of independence. Some world leaders come bearing promises of financial aid. Arab leaders attending offer little money and, except for Egypt’s president and Jordan’s king, avoid contact with Israel’s delegation.

These celebrations are marred by the absence of leaders from countries--including Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Yemen. refusing to recognize the new state.

Hamas, ruling the Gaza Strip, along with Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups, also reject the “traitorous entity.” Gaza’s rulers mark the occasion by firing rockets into Israel. Palestine's president boasts hollowly that his country includes all of the Gaza Strip but controls nothing there.

Hardly any of the Western media cover statements by some leaders of Palestine’s ruling Fatah group that the new country's independence is not the conflict's end but the first step toward total victory and conquest of Israel.

Nor do many note statements of Islamist and Palestinian nationalist Arab groups among Israel’s citizens that they now seek to dismantle the Zionist nature of the Israeli state, a goal several European newspapers endorse.

Nor is it widely highlighted in the Western media that the new country officially proclaims itself an Arab and Muslim state while ridiculing the idea of accepting Israel as a Jewish state.

(Read full article)

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