Mitchell's Challenge: After Gaza, Five Questions About Palestinian and Israeli Realities

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

The deep irony of the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" first struck me in 1996 as I was driving through the West Bank from Hebron to Jerusalem. I had turned off the potholed main road that passed through Palestinian villages and refugee camps and headed west into Kiryat Arba. In that Israeli settlement, admirers had erected a graveside monument to Baruch Goldstein, the settler from Brooklyn who, in 1994, gunned down 29 Palestinians in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs. From the settlement's creepy candlelit shrine I cut north, and soon found myself on a quiet, smooth-as-glass "bypass" road. The road, I would learn, was one of many under construction by Israel, alongside new and expanding settlements, that would allow settlers to travel easily from their West Bank islands to the "mainland" of the Jewish state.

How strange, I thought naively, as I traveled that lonely road toward Jerusalem on a gray winter afternoon: Isn't this part of the land that Palestinians would need for their state? Why, then, in the middle of the Oslo peace process -- barely three years after the famous Rabin-Arafat handshake on the White House lawn -- would Israeli officials authorize construction that was visibly cementing the settlers' presence into Palestinian land?

Twelve years later, these post-Oslo "facts on the ground" have all but doomed the traditional path to peace. The two-state solution, the central focus of efforts to end the tragedy of Israel and Palestine since 1967, has been undermined by the thickening reality of red-roofed Israeli settlements, military outposts, surveillance towers, and the web of settlers-only roads that whisk Israelis from their West Bank dwellings to prayer in Jerusalem's Old City, or to shopping and the beach in Tel Aviv. So dense had the Israeli West Bank presence become by 2009, so fragmented is Palestinian life -- both physically and politically -- that it now requires death-defying mental gymnastics to imagine how a two-state solution could ever be implemented.

Five Questions for an Israeli-Palestinian Future

Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, Obama's respected, fair-minded Middle East envoy, will bring his considerable skills to bear on this ever more daunting problem. It is Mitchell's widely acknowledged fairness that has prompted jaw-dropping comments from some hardline pro-Israeli lobbyists and Christian Zionists who became accustomed, under George W. Bush, to getting whatever they wanted; this in itself is a signal that Obama's approach to the region may represent a genuine break from the past.

To an honest witness like Mitchell, for whom the facts and the aspirations of both peoples seem to actually matter, it may become quickly evident that the traditional two-state solution is now on life support. Seeing that, he would do well to keep an open mind and be prepared to ask some hard questions. Among them might be:

1. What does the unending march of Israeli construction actually mean for a "viable, contiguous" Palestine?

The only way anyone can viscerally understand the thousand cuts inflicted on the two-state solution is by driving through the West Bank. I've crisscrossed this landscape a hundred times since 1994, and never has the hardware of settlements and Israeli military control been so dense. Since the beginning of the Oslo "peace process" in 1993, the West Bank Jewish settler population has jumped from 109,000 to 275,000 -- and this doesn't include the Jewish "suburbs" in East Jerusalem, which bring the total settler population to nearly half a million. Some 230 settlements and strategically placed "outposts" are now strung along hilltops across the West Bank, towering above whitewashed Palestinian villages.

The ragtag outposts, technically forbidden under Israeli law but encouraged by some within the government, are meant to connect with larger settlements to form an everlasting Jewish presence on Palestinian land. It's no longer possible to drive any significant stretch of the West Bank without encountering a settlement, military post, settler road, surveillance tower, roadblock, stationary checkpoint, or "flying" checkpoint. The number of West Bank barriers (roadblocks, checkpoints, and other obstacles) has increased nearly 70% in the last three years, and now exceeds 625 -- this in a land about the size of Delaware.

How all this could be removed in order to create a "viable, contiguous" Palestinian state seems, increasingly, a question without an answer. During the Camp David talks in 2000, and in more recent discussions between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, there was much talk of large, consolidated "settlement blocs" and land swaps to facilitate a contiguous Palestine.

To the extent an unbroken Palestine was ever possible -- and there was much behind-the-scenes debate about this, even among American negotiators at Camp David all the way back in 2000 -- the facts on the ground, placed there deliberately by Israel, have by now made the issue virtually moot. Maps of many would-be "solutions" show the West Bank fractured into pieces, cut up by walls, settlements, military posts, and "security zones." Far from the two-state solution envisioned in the wake of the 1967 war, today's maps tend to look like advertisements for a sci-fi movie entitled "The Incredible Shrinking Palestine."

2. How can a viable Palestinian state exist when a city of 20,000 Israelis sits in the middle of it?

In 1978, Ariel, the city of Jewish settlers, was founded, over U.S. and international objections, in the heart of the West Bank district of Salfit. Fully one-third of it juts onto Palestinian land. Israel's "security barrier" (known as the "apartheid wall" to Palestinians), which ostensibly follows Israel's border with the West Bank, in fact doesn't; at Ariel it veers east 11 miles to enfold the full settlement in its embrace. For this reason, Ariel's leaders say confidently that their settlement, essentially a bedroom community for Tel Aviv with its own university and industrial park, is "here to stay."

Indeed, the removal of Ariel -- a red line for the Palestinians -- has been mandated in almost none of the peace plans going back to Camp David, including the 2001 informal Geneva peace plan much heralded by the Israeli and American peace camps. That is why Ariel's city fathers feel comfortable in sending its young "director of community aliyah [Jewish emigration to Israel]," Avi Zimmerman, raised in West Orange, New Jersey, across the U.S. to recruit more American Jews to move to the settlement. "It's the ingathering of exiles," Zimmerman told me, standing on a hilltop above Ariel. "You have to make sure there's a constant flow of people."

For Palestinians who live nearby, the existence of Ariel and other settlements makes traveling anywhere a nightmare. Osama Odeh, born in the village of Bidya (which means "olive grinding stone" in Arabic), told me that, if he wants to visit friends in a village five miles away, he must drive east, then south, then west, crossing multiple Israeli military checkpoints where he will have to show documents, open his car's trunk, and face questions about his intentions and past whereabouts. The journey could take an hour. Or two, or three. "It becomes forty kilometers, instead of three or four," he points out. "It's ridiculous. In the name of security, they can turn your life to hell."

For the many villagers without a car, the trip simply becomes impractical, thus encouraging political and social disconnection. "All the time they are expanding," Odeh says of the settlements. "You feel trapped. Villages that have been there for hundreds of years, now they feel like they are fragmented." According to U.N. maps, Palestinians are restricted from entering some 40% of the West Bank, while the major Palestinian cities now essentially function as isolated cantons.

Some Israeli negotiators, including deputy speaker of the Knesset Otniel Schneller, a longtime leader of the settlers' movement, have called upon Israeli engineers to design workarounds. Their answer: a network of tunnels, "flyover" ramps, and bridges to ferry Palestinians under and around the settlements. For Schneller, these concrete fixes would keep a prominent Jewish presence in "Judea and Samaria," while allowing Palestinians ostensible "freedom of movement" through tightly controlled funnels: Not exactly what Palestinians had in mind during the decades of their liberation struggle.

3. What kind of Palestinian state would have its capital in a village far from Jerusalem's Old City and virtually sealed off from huge portions of the West Bank?

Palestinians have always insisted on having East Jerusalem, including portions of the Old City which encompass the Muslim holy sites, as their capital. At Camp David in 2000, PLO leader Yasser Arafat refused an American-Israeli offer of a "sovereign presidential compound" beside the Muslim holy sites. He derided it as "a small island surrounded by Israeli soldiers." More recently, Israeli negotiators have reiterated their intention to hold onto the Old City and its holy sites. They have suggested that the actual Palestinian capital should be located in some of East Jerusalem's Arab "neighborhoods" -- actually, small villages never considered part of Jerusalem by Palestinians, but now incorporated into greater Jerusalem, thanks to the redrawn administrative boundaries of Israeli city planners.

Even were the Palestinian capital to be located in the Old City, its ability to govern the rest of Palestine would still be hamstrung. Since Israel's capture of East Jerusalem in 1967, the Israeli government has built a ring of Jewish "suburbs" around Arab East Jerusalem. Nearly 200,000 Israelis now live there. This ring essentially seals off East Jerusalem from Bethlehem, Hebron, and Palestinian villages to the south.

One of the last pieces to snap into place was Har Homa, a settlement built between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on a hill known to the Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneim. I recall seeing the hill from Bethlehem in 1996. By then, Israeli chainsaws and earth-moving equipment had already sliced lines into the hill's conifer forest, giving it what looked like a bad haircut. Palestinian activists, desperate to hang onto this part of the West Bank, had set up a 24-hour emergency camp, pledging not to abandon their peaceful protest until Israel withdrew its claims.

Today, the trees are gone, replaced by long rows of new white houses for Israelis. "This is the last resort from which you can establish the umbilical cord between Bethlehem and Jerusalem," said Jad Isaac, director of the Applied Research Institute, a Palestinian think tank in Bethlehem. "So the construction of Har Homa destroys the peace process. Unless Har Homa is totally destroyed and returned to the Palestinians, there is no peace."

For Bethlehemites like Isaac, the wedge of Har Homa and the other East Jerusalem "suburbs" effectively renders moot Palestinian aspirations for a contiguous state. If any doubt about this lingered, Israel's separation wall put an end to it.

Driven into the land at the northern end of Bethlehem is the 25-foot-high concrete curtain with two narrow, single file pedestrian lanes running beside it. Each is about 150 feet long, framed by steel bars from concrete floor to metal ceiling. These give the few Palestinians with permits to travel from Bethlehem the inescapable feeling of moving through a cattle line. (Actually, Palestinians prefer a poultry analogy, calling the lanes ma'aatet al-jaaj, the chicken-plucking machine.) When I walked through the line, emerging near the southern edge of Jerusalem, I gazed back on the northern face of the wall, stunned at a banner unfurled beneath the gun turret and watchtower. From the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, it proclaims in Hebrew, English, and Arabic, "Peace Be With You."

4. How can you build a viable state by negotiating only with the weakened representative of one Palestinian faction?

Even if the obstacles outlined above were to miraculously disappear, George Mitchell's work could be badly crippled by an outdated American strategy of dealing only with Fateh and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas. Long backed by Americans as a Palestinian "moderate," in the wake of the recent Israeli offensive in Gaza Abbas has lost virtually all credibility among his people. (As of January 9th, he also technically ceased being the Palestinian president.)

Despite the death and destruction of these last weeks, Hamas is increasingly seen by observers in the region as gaining strength in the West Bank, while firmly holding power in Gaza. "The Islamist movement is going to come out of this war strengthened politically vis-à-vis its rival Palestinian factions, including Fateh, and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah," wrote the shrewd political analyst and former Palestinian labor secretary Ghassan Khatib in a commentary for bitterlemons, a website run by Israeli and Palestinian analysts. He added, "The Israeli war on Gaza, which increased public sympathy with Hamas... [has] further shifted the balance of power against Fateh in the West Bank and left the Palestinian Authority politically very vulnerable."

Indeed, some West Bankers, who hold no brief for Hamas, are echoing the words that many Lebanese said of Hezbollah in the wake of the 2006 war in Lebanon: "They put up a resistance for 22 days -- Fateh leadership did and said nothing," the Palestinian-American journalist Lubna Takruri wrote me from Ramallah this week. "People in the West Bank are still smoldering that while they were watching all these worldwide protests here, Fateh forces were preventing the Palestinians from protesting against the Israelis at checkpoints. This was huge. It made people feel like the PA [Palestinian Authority] was doing Israel's work for them, while Israel handled business in Gaza."

Early signs strongly indicate that the Obama team will continue the strategy of propping up Abbas, with credibility-destroying "help" from the CIA, while refusing to deal with Hamas until it recognizes Israel. Clearly the Hamas charter is despicable: It describes the Jews as aspiring to "rule the world," and declares that the elimination of Israel would be a historic parallel to the defeat of the Crusaders by Saladin.

American and Israeli officials have, however, ignored more subtle signals from Hamas -- which was, after all, brought to power in free and fair elections -- that it would abide by the expressed will of the Palestinian people for coexistence with Israel. One of the strongest signals was the 2006 "Prisoners' Document," initiated by leaders of Hamas and the imprisoned former Fateh leader Marwan Barghouti, that called for negotiations with Israel in pursuit of peace. The Bush administration, siding with the Israelis, who insisted that there was "no partner for peace," chose to ignore such signs and so undermined any efforts toward a Fateh-Hamas unity government.

It would be disastrous for Mitchell to go down this same road. Hamas is here to stay. These last weeks, Israeli dreams of defeating it in Gaza have been shattered, and any attempt to deal only with the rickety shell of Fateh will ensure that the U.S. obtains the same bleak results. The fact is: engaging Hamas will be a much better way of keeping the rockets silent.

5. Given these immense obstacles, is a viable, contiguous, sovereign Palestinian state even possible anymore? And, if not...

Given the overwhelming odds facing a two-state solution, a strong American negotiating presence will be necessary, of a sort not seen since... well, ever. The hallmark of the last eight years (and to a large extent the previous eight Clinton years) has been an utter lack of American pressure on Israel. This has been in no one's interest, including Israel's.

Ehud Olmert, who in 2008 spoke -- apparently sincerely -- of Israel's need to withdraw from "most or all" of the West Bank settlements, received no support from Washington for saying so. In the vacuum of American leadership, Olmert capitulated to the settlers' bloc in his ruling coalition. Hence, the arrival of yet more Israeli facts-on-the-ground on the West Bank. This American administration has to do much better.

The last 16 years have also been marked by an inability to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through anything but Israeli eyes. Now, Mitchell will, hopefully, bring a willingness to understand six decades of tragedy through two sets of aspirations: this will be essential if a just, lasting piece is to be forged. This will also have to include confronting one of the most vexing issues of all, that of the 4.4 million Palestinian refugees and the insistence of many of them that they be allowed to return to their original homes in what is now Israel. This is, of course, a red line for Israelis who insist that the "right of return" would mean the end of their state.

Essential for George Mitchell in all of this will be an openness and a creativity absent from American diplomacy since the violent birth of Israel and the Palestinian catastrophe in 1948. Increasingly, small groups of Palestinians, a handful of Israelis, and even motivated outsiders like Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, are looking at coexistence anew, by exploring the possibility of a third way. The alternatives differ sharply: some call for a one-state solution; others for a binational state; others for an Israeli-Palestine confederation or a Middle East Union.

The words "single state" spark a visceral fear among many Israelis who see this, too, as the end of the Jewish state. But the dreams of what Albert Einstein called the "sympathetic cooperation" between "the two great semitic peoples" are rooted, in large part, in the history of progressive Zionists, who, like Einstein and the great Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, believed in their bones in a just coexistence. Buber advocated a binational state of "joint sovereignty," with "complete equality of rights between the two partners," based on "the love of their homeland that the two peoples share."

For many, the two-state solution remains, in the words of former U.S. Middle East negotiator Aaron Miller, author of The Much Too Promised Land, "the least bad alternative." But should George Mitchell take an honest look at the immense obstacles now involved in a two-state solution and determine that they are insurmountable, he would do well to remain open to other possibilities, and bear in mind the words of Albert Einstein.

"No problem," said Einstein, "can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."

Sandy Tolan is the author of The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East, and associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California.

Comments

[robeson]

Mitchell's task will be more easily defined after the coming election, between Netanyahu (pro settlement) and Livni (pro two states).

[BubbaC33]

With luck it will be Bibi.

[Fireslayer]

This is a good article and useful towards getting to the main points of contention.

But what about points of agreement? Three million Palestinians in the West Bank are not going anywhere. Do you think it is time yet to start treating them like human beings?

How about, for starters, everyone is deserving of equal rights, respect and dignity under the law?

Don't we all agree on this point?

How about, pAll eople who have been wronged deserve redress of grievances?

Don't we all agree on this point?

[Eclectic Radical]

"The last 16 years have also been marked by an inability to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through anything but Israeli eyes."

I found this to be an interesting quote. I make note of it because of the tendency of many liberals to have precisely the opposite problem: to either be unable or to actively refuse to see the conflict through any but Palestinian eyes. Quite a few of the comments on this article bear that fact out.

I am in favor of a two-state solution because I do not believe that the Palestinian Muslims will accept a one-state solution unless they are in charge, and a one-state solution with a Palestinian Muslim government will not be an improvement over the current situation. Indeed it will be the current situation, in reverse. Those speaking on behalf of the Palestinians do not acknowledge that fact. Yet the Palestinian leadership has rejected two-state solutions since 1947. Those advocating for the Palestinians do not acknowledge that fact either.

Comment was made about how the attack on Gaza has strengthened Hamas, politically. Comment should be made about waves of anti-Israel backlash in the media strengthen Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman politically.

[JacksonJones]

Settlements can be moved, given away, or plowed under. Its been done before, twice in fact, once in Sinai, once in Gaza. The settlements are a sticking point, but aren't the central obstacle. The central obstacle has always been the absolute rejectionist stance of Arab parties to the very existence of the state of Israel and to any Jewish self-determination in the middle east. Although many on the trendy side of the argument don't like to see it, the Palestinians and other Arab factions don't hide this. It was expressed honestly and openly in 1948, in 1967, in the Three Noes of Khartoum, before the Yom Kippur War, in the PLO charter and now in the Hamas charter. I am not making this up, look up these things for yourselves. Read the Hamas charter. Read the PLO "phased plan". Read the Three Noes of Khartoum.

"But Palestinians have been denied self-determination too!" is often the reply. True. But that's down to their rejectionist position and promises to use any land they secure to destroy Israel (again, don't take my word for it, read the PLO's "phased plan" and Hamas charter, then tell me how you get to a 2 state solutiuon from there). You can't complain that your rights have been denied when, almost in the same breath, you promise to use any ability to excercise your rights to deny those right to others. That'is why the two-state solution's the only solution, unless both parties agree otherwise.

[betz55]

Your just repeating rhetoric that doesn't work anymore.Israeli rejectionism has been the biggest road block to any sort of peace, and you know it.

Israel walked out of the Taba talks and Camp David was a joke.

There remain too at the core of the Annapolis process and at the heart of the Palestinian divide the three Israeli – U.S. “good conduct” preconditions that qualify Palestinians to be partners to peace negotiations as well as to evade military siege, economic blockade and diplomatic isolation, namely to unilaterally renounce violence without any guarantees of Israeli reciprocity, recognize the existence of the state of Israel without any Israeli reciprocal recognition of the state of Palestine, and commitment to the accords signed by the PLO with Israel regardless of Israeli reciprocal respect thereto.

These 'preconditions' are outdated, irrelevant, and biased towards Israel. Palestinians must agree to first recognize Israel, second to end all violence, third to accept past agreements? Try to find a mention, ANYWHERE, of the fact that Israel rejects all three of those. They don't recognize a Palestinian state, they certainly don't withdraw the use of violence or the threat of it,in fact they insist on it,and they don't accept past agreements­,including the road map.When will Israeli leadership come to the table accept intl law and make the concessions necessary for peace? Because Israel rejectionism has been the greatest deterrent to peace over the last 40 years.

[justice2all]

Great article as usual. Thanks for stating the facts as they are

[bodan1]

Great article : thank you for exposing the propaganda fed to everyone !!
The true heart of this matter is the ever expanding settlements!!
Thank you for intelligently and throughly explaining the truth!

[TruthSeeker2009]

I am glad that propaganists are running out of ideas and talking points. It's getting harder for them to be able to play their spin game in light of this article's extensive factual information about the daily suffering of Palestinians. I hope we can see many more articles like this.

[billybunterbatter]

I heartily agree sir. Toodle Pip !!

[Diplomacy]

Excellent article, kudos to the author. This well written & researched document gives much food for thought. It does appear that all has been lost from the gains made in the 90's. None of the players are now alive with the exception of Shimone Peres. So, as I see it, George Mitchell is really starting from "scratch". If anyone can apply diplomacy to this situation, it will be George Mitchell.

I used to sympathize with Israel. However, since their war with Lebanon in 2006 & now this latest "slaughter" in Gaza, I have lost all respect for Israel's cause. Israel is a "barbaric" nation that lives by the sword & the belief in "an eye for eye; and a tooth for a tooth times 100".

I would like to add one statistic to this discussion, and that is 50% of the population in Gaza is under the age of 14. Israel's latest incursion in Gaza is GENOCIDE of a young population. If it is proven that Israel used phosphoros bombs on this population, then those involved need to charged with "Crimes Against Humanity". The days of looking the other way in this situation are over. These bombs have killed & maimed children & the long term consequence is exposure causes cancer.

Israel MUST be held ACCOUNTABLE for THEIR ACTIONS!

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

[sam49]

A very good article and I enjoyed it very much. The points stated in the article are very critical and a huge obstacle to bringing peace to the region. Having said that, there is even two bigger issues that was not mentioned and should be tackled before going forward with Tolan's five points. The first issue is the Israeli Lobby here in the United States. When you have the Congress of the United States endorsing Israel with a resolution that it supports Israel in the war against Gaza while over 1300 innocent lives perish, you have to ask yourself what drives our representatives to adopt this resolution in the face of such horrific violence. All you have to do is follow the money and see why. The second issue is the National Media here in the United States. There will be no peace in the region until the Media puts pressure on Israel with objective and fair reporting. It is so ridiculous for me, as an American, that I have to search the internet to find out what is really happening to the Palestinians, which by the way usually comes from foreign sources.

[TruthSeeker2009]

Finally, we start to get more objective reporting about the ME, not the usual talking points we've been brain washed with for the last couple of decades.
Please keep writing, and hopefully pretty soon we can have peace in the ME

[almazza98]

I noticed a difference also along generational lines. The younger Jewish generation are also more likely to accept a one state solution more than their parents or grandparents generation. We need a period of normalization first before anything like that could actually occur. Sort of like the Civil Rights Act of 1964(?) era. Many were against it but a generation or 2 later, it became an afterthought and those who were alive prior to the Civil Rights Act and who maintain that same mentality are becoming more and more annoying and irrelevant. Its like driving behind an old lady in the street.

[Cesco AfroMontreal]

I've been saying the same thing for years... Israel as a jewish state will fail and one of the main reason is the expansion of the settlements AND thus the non viability of a palestinian state.

However, it will take a GREAT israeli to make that happen... a sort of Gandhi, or Luther King or Mandela ...

[BubbaC33]

A "Palestinian" homeland has been in existence since 1922. It came with the creation of Transjordan as a homeland for those Arabs unwilling to live among the Jews. If Arabs want peace, which it seems most do not, an acceptance of Israel's right to exist is necessary.

[ab73]

Stop spinning the facts.

The Palestinian homeland is where they lived for 1000+ years. Whether you call it Palestine or something else is irrelevant. The 1922 mandate was made against the wishes of the occupants of the land. It was morally invalid, and legally invalid when the League of Nations was disbanded. Would you recognise a UN mandate that gave control of all of Israel/Palestine back to the Palestinians.

We now live in an era of different norms enshrined in the UN charter. we now recognise the right of a people to self determination. We protect their right to remain.

It is the 1948 borders. They are internationally recognised. You know this. Israel will get Arab recognition when they stop pretending that the Palestinians can be fobbed off with beads and blankets.

[wiseapple]

Wow. I wasn't aware of the extent of entrenchment. That is lunacy over there- totally ungraspable!

[ajax2]

Not lunacy. The settlement plan would be based on apartheid.

[skialethia]

And who is the most at fault in all this??? The good ole U.S. of A., that's who!!!! For funding, aiding and abetting Isra el in creating the instruments of op pression and the instruments of v i o lence! Then everyone is pointing fingers at H a m a s!

This is what needs to be done: Get those d a mn settlers out of that land that they have absolutely no right to, and is the source of the entire world's di s gust and frustration, and the source of v i o lence that anyone with half a brain can understand is justified under these abhorrent circumstances.

Israe lis have collectively lost their minds and someone has to stand up and say so! It's time to withdraw funding, cease military aid and get tough and in their face! There is no other way!!!!

[BubbaC33]

The fault lies with the Arab nations surrounding Israel. It is those nations who have attacked Israel simply for existing. How can Israel be at peace with nations dedicated to the destruction of Israel? It cannot happen until these Arabs accept Israel.

[piul05]

Simple, a one-state solution (a federal republic) with a constitution voted for by both ethnic groups; and guess what? There'll be no Je*ish majority; but then, what did they expect from all this land-grabbing ?

[BubbaC33]

If Israel has been grabbing all of this land, as you falsely claim, how is it that Israel is smaller in size than it was in 1968?

[ab73]

Stop spinning.

This is an issue of Israel and the Palestinians.

The Egyptians are a separate issue.

[BADRALDUJA]

does isreali propagandists pay you weekly or monthly, to keep mialeading the simple people in beleiving you.
i

[ab73]

Israel continued expansion has created an enormous problem for itself. Forget the one state solution - neither side will accept it, despite platitudes to the contrary.

Israel now faces 2 ugly choices:

1. Keep what it has grabbed and live in perpetual conflict with Palestinians. In all likelihood the Palestinian resistance would become further radicalised, leading to a more intense conflict that ultimately metastasizes into a regional war.

2. Create the conditions necessary for a Palestinian state by removing the settlements. We have all seen the unrest that results from removing a few thousand Gaza settlers and a few hundred West Bank settlers. What happens when this is say 300,000 Israelis and 100+ settlements? These settlers make up 25% of the IDF. This has the potential to be a civil war.

I am not optimistic.

[BubbaC33]

Arabists conti ue to lament Jewish expansionism while ignoring the fact that Israel is actually smaller now than it was in November 1967. That's right, most of the land taken during the 67 War has been returned, including oil fields capable of providing most of the oil needs of Israel.
A two-state solution has been in existence since 1922. In that year the Mandate Authority took over 70% of the proposed Jewish Homeland to create Transjordan, a homeland for those Arabs unwilling to live among the Jews of eretz Israel.

[ab73]

Why Arabist? Is that so you can lump Palestinians into a polyglot? Is this a precursor to expelling them to another Arab territory? Or is it so you can praise Israeli generosity in returning the Sinai to "Arabs" and ignore the fate of the Palestinians?

You can look back wistfully at the 1922 Mandate where England and France sliced up other peoples land and denied their rights according to the romantic notions of a English lord and the desires of a cadre of Zionist Europeans. How many millions have died to prove that almost all the borders drawn up in the post-WWI era were spectacularly ill-conceived. The belief that Eretz Israel could be established by simply declaring it so is pure fantasy. Jabotinsky understood this.

Those borders are part of a different era, the dying throes of European colonialism. A time when half a billion Indians were ruled from London. When white Europeans were united in a Nietzsche-an belief in their superiority. It is an era that finished with the exclamation point of Nazi Germany. The ideals of that time are now abhorrent to most of us.

It is the 1948 borders that matter. The gains of 1967 were accomplished militarily. Israel can try to keep the lot, but they will have to maintain them militarily. This is what they have done for 41 years now. It doesn't appear to be making anyone happy except for messianic settlers and jihadists in search of a rallying cry.