Juan Cole in Salon argues the inevitable:
Saeb Erekat, chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization Steering Committee, said Wednesday that Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas should be frank with the Palestinian people and admit to them that there is no possibility of a two-state solution given continued Israeli colonization of the West Bank.
It is morally and ethically unconscionable to leave millions of Palestinians in a condition of statelessness, in which they have no rights. (Warren Burger defined citizenship as the “right to have rights” as my colleague Margaret “Peggy” Sommers pointed out in her new book.) Therefore, if there isn’t going to be a two-state solution, there will have to be a one-state solution, in which Israel gives citizenship to the Palestinians. (As it is, 20 percent of Israelis are Palestinian Arabs and that proportion will grow to 33 percent by 2030, if they are not expelled by sometime-Moldavian-night-club-bouncer and now foreign minister of Israel, Avigdor Lieberman.)
Debate about a one-state solution – below is al-Jazeera a few days ago, featuring Saree Makdisi – is growing around the world. True justice for all peoples of the conflict, Jews and Arabs, can only be obtained through a one-state equation:
Hi Anthony
That is very interesting about a one-state solution; i haven’t heard about this before, but i have only recently been interested in the politics of this country. Do you think it could ever work, with the current right wing political agenda of Israel and the in-house squabbling between the Fatah and Hamas factions in Palestine - do any of the high level politicians on either side really want peace when there are so many vested interests?
If the Liberals and Labour in Australia and the Democrats and Republicans in America can’t even work together on the critical issue of Climate change and the effect on the future of our earth, how will these other two nations with so much ‘baggage’ from their past and their religious differences ever reach a workable compromise?
Kind Regards
Gaenor