Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Peres Promotes "Palestine" in Washington Post

Shimon Peres can't stay away from politics, despite being Israel's President, a figurehead position.

He has an op-ed in the Washingtion Post, One Region, Two States and in it he writes:

I believe that a two-state solution is not only the best resolution to this age-old conflict but one within our reach.

The one-state solution has enough intrinsic flaws to render it no solution at all. From Israel's perspective, it is not possible for the Jewish people to accept an arrangement that signifies the end of the existence of a Jewish state. From the Palestinians' perspective, they should not be denied the opportunity to take their national destiny into their own hands.

Dissenters from the two-state solution contend -- not without some reason -- that Gaza and the West Bank are too small to absorb the Palestinian refugees. Yet this would also be the case under the one-state formula; it would result in a state that is merely 24,000 square kilometers and that already overflows with a population exceeding 10 million (5.5 million Jews and 4.5 million Arabs)...


[ah, but I have made other geographical suggestions - enlarge in order to better divide. If a "Palestine" is to arise, then the territory to be partitioned must revert to the original "Palestine" of the Mandate as the League of Nagtions envisioned in 1922]

...Establishing a single multinational country is a tenuous path that does not bode well for peace but, rather, enforces the conflict's perpetuation. Lebanon, ravaged by bloodshed and instability, represents only one of many examples of an undesirable quagmire of this nature.


[and in Lebanon, the residents are all Arab and they can't coexist so, in Israel it'll be achievable?]

...Indeed, six miles will be too narrow to guarantee full security, which only reinforces our belief that Israel's safety is not embedded only in territorial defense but in peace. Peace provides breadth of wings, even when the waist is narrow.


[a narrow waist is fine when we're referring to ladies, not in geopolitics. I would suggest that security permits peace to flourish, not the other way around]

...The Jewish people want and deserve to live in peace in their rightful, historical homeland. The Palestinian people want and deserve their own land, their own political institutions and their right to self-determination. It is vital that this cause be based on the prospect of coexistence between Jews and Arabs, which translates into cooperation in fields such as the economy, tourism, the environment and defense. Achieving all this will be possible only by granting each people its own state and borders, to enable their citizens to pray according to their faiths, cultivate their cultures, speak their own languages and safeguard their heritages.


[so, the Arabs who refer to themselves as "Palestinians" deserve, a la Peres, a state, but that is not in territory that could justifiably be termed "their historic homeland". with that I agree in principle]

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