Friday, September 05, 2008

One-State Solution Poorly Treated in NYTimes

The New York Times' Isabel Kershner (wife of former So. African, Hirsh Goodman) writes in Support for 2-State Plan Erodes, that
"Even among the most moderate Palestinians, the credo of a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is beginning to erode."


Actually, though, this "one-state solution" is another formulation of 'let's through Israel into the sea'. See:-

Prominent mainstream Palestinians are increasingly warning that if they fail soon to achieve the kind of state they want — sovereign and independent, with East Jerusalem as its capital — they will opt instead for a one-state solution based on a long-term fight for equal rights within the state of Israel, a struggle they compare with what took place in South Africa.

At one level the one-state ultimatums are intended as a pressure tactic to wring concessions out of Israel — granting equal voting rights to millions of Palestinians in the territories would ultimately spell the end of the Zionist project of Jewish self-determination and a Jewish state.


One source used by Ms. Kershner is

The Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, a well-established organization long dedicated to promoting the two-state solution,


Well-established? Really? What does that mean?

IPCRI's board of directors is very well established:-

1. Mr. Hillel Adiri – Agro-business expert, working on joint Israeli-Palestinian agriculture cooperation for more than 15 years
2. Prof. Alfred Abed Rabbo - Director/Associate Professor in Water & Soil Environmental Research Unit, Bethlehem University
3. Dr. Sufyan Abu Zayda – Director of Al Quds University programs in Gaza and former PA Minster of Prisoner Affairs
4. Mr. Rafi Benvenisti – Consultant to the World Bank, Former Senior Advisor to the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of Regional Cooperation
5. Ms. Lilly Habash – Founder and CEO of Partners, Women and Men for the Empowerment of Palestinian women
6. Prof. Tamar Hermann - Director, Tami Steimetz Center Tel Aviv University, Dean, Open University
7. Mr. Fouad Jabr – Former CEOin Palestine, Egyptian Arab Land Bank, VP Palestinian Businessmen’s Association
8. Gadi Kenny - Peace Activist
9. Saman Khoury - Deputy Chairperson of the Board of Trustees and General Manager, Peace & Democracy Forum/Jerusalem
10. Dr. Alon Liel – Professor and Businessman, Former Ambassador to South Africa and Turkey, Former Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
11. Ms. Etty Livni – Former MK, Shinui, member of the International Women’s Commission
12. Ms. Nancy Rumann – Water Planner, National Water Council, Consultant GTZ
13. Prof. Galia Golan – Professor at the Hebrew University and the Inter-disciplinary college of Herzliyeh
14. Prof. Alice Shalvi - Professor Alice Shalvi, Chairwoman of the Israeli Board and former President and Rector of the Schechter Institute, Founder of the Israel Women’s Network. Winner of the Israel Prize.
15. Prof. Gabriel Salomon – Prof. Education, Haifa University, Director and Founder, the Center for the Research of Peace Education. Winner of the Israel Prize for Education
16. Mr. Azzam Shawwa – General Manager Al Quds Investment Bank, Former PA Minister of Energy
17. Mr. Mohammed Yazegi - Businessman, Gaza


This is a collection, with perhaps one exception, of a bunch of left-wing, radical progressives who have linked themselves with the PA. For example, Galia Golan was a founder and long-time (well-established?) leader of Peace Now. Gadi Kenny describes his Interests and activities as "Sea Kayaks, Islam, girls :-) " (how Islam and girls go together with a Jew and Israeli is truly an activists's story) and you can see him here in a Gush Shalom activity.

And notice how Isabel touches on the topic of...terror.

...the “never-ending peace process,” which has sputtered along for the past 15 years...[an] effort has been hampered by bouts of violence that culminated in the Palestinian suicide-bombing campaign in the years after 2000 and Israel’s subsequent military reinvasion of all the Palestinian Authority-controlled cities of the West Bank.


A bit of a whitewash, no?

And, among other issues, my home is Shiloh:-

But what Palestinians view as the main obstacle to the realization of the two-state solution is Israel’s continued settlement construction in parts of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, strengthening a 40-year-old enterprise that was intended to guarantee a permanent Israeli presence and control.


But if we're all one state, what's the problem? In a two-state solution, is Israel demanding that all Arabs leave Israel for "Palestine"? Or, is Israel being subverted by demands for political autonomy within the 1967 borders already even before we go the route of one-state for all of CisJordan?

Parts of Fatah are already coming over to binationalism


Er, fellows, binationalism is just not on the agenda. The autonmy plan of 1978 just might provide a basis.

In any case, Kershner's article is a promotional one, charcaterized more by advocacy in what she doesn't deal with than what she provides the reader.

2 comments:

Hadassa DeYoung said...

Thanks for the list.
Shabbat Shalom,
Hadassa

YMedad said...

Pleasure. That's part of the blogging empire