A palestinian state... good or bad idea?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Oct 15 2007, 01:23 PM) [snapback]525898[/snapback]</div>

I think it is inevitable. That being said, they got the first half of it about two years ago and what did they do with it?

It will require a willingness on the Palestinians part to accept Israel's existence. I wonder still what they will offer for peace?

 

Can of worms, but I have advocated for at least 15 years that the best chance at peace is a single, unified Israel-Palestine. A single state which would be homeland to both Jews and Palestinians, on an equal footing, with a parliamentary democracy similar to Israel's, but with a strict separation of religion and government, with constitutionally-guaranteed rights for both groups and strict anti-discrimination laws. Palestinians who have left, for any reason, as well as their descendants, must be allowed to return under the same terms that Jews can immigrate to Israel now.

Of course this would require reconciliation, just as Nicaraguans on both sides of the Contra war reconciled at the end of that war. And Jews and Palestinians seem disinclined to be reconciled. But a two-state solution would have them constantly militarized against each other, hostile, and probably skirmishing whenever they were not in open warfare.

These are the two most educated populations in the region. If they could reconcile their differences and live together peacefully in a single state they would be an economic powerhouse. There are those on P.C. and elsewhere who will insist that one side or the other is ready for peace and it is all the other side's fault. That is baloney. Both sides in this conflict seem determined to keep the feud alive forever, condemning their grandchildren to eternal war so that their grandfathers may be avenged. Reconciliation is the only path to peace, and it will require both sides to ask forgiveness for their crimes, as they forgive the other side theirs.

And a single state, which allows the two peoples to live side by side, and therefore learn to know each other as human beings, rather than as the mythical monsters they have painted each other to be, is both the requirement and the fulfillment of that reconciliation.

Just my opinion.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 15 2007, 03:55 PM) [snapback]525972[/snapback]</div>

This is a nice idea but will never ever happen for one single reason - demographics - the same reason that Israel wants a two state solution. Israel was created by the UN as a Jewish State - that would end if/when there are more non-Jews than Jews in Israel.

Again, it is my belief that when the Palestinians accept Israels existence - peace will happen. unfortunately, as a test of the system, when they got the first half of their state they responded with anything but peace. Sad. I just want one piece of evidence one show of good faith from the Palestinians - where they suit for peace - just one......

 

It's amazing how people can read every word of a piece yet completely miss every word. Daniel says (in essence) "finding fault with one side or the other only perpetuates the conflict" and the Dr. says (in essence) "yeah, but it's all the Palestininan's fault." Guffaw!

I'm with you, Daniel, I deplore the drive toward fracturing mankind into ever smaller nations when what we should be doing is everywhere possible unifying ourselves into a single people - a single people is what we are in every significant parameter: physiology, intelligence, industry, talent, skill, the desire to lead a decent life - we differ only in the most trivial of matters: what color robe does "god" wear, how many fingers to use when shaking hands, whether to play music in a major or a minor key, how much Tabasco sauce to put in the cheese.

The biologists have affirmed that even so slender a concept as "race" doesn't, in any biological sense, even exist.

I'd bet that within another decade the EU will take steps that make it more of a unified political entity, ironically, considering what I've just said, to give itself greater stature against the economic powerhouse that China is becoming - but it would be nonetheless unification, not fragmentation, that would confer that stature.

This is the stuff that makes the Dr. Bermans of the world shudder in horror. They can't conceive of such unification as anything but a threat: loss of political autonomy, loss of personal affluence, loss of religious freedom all loom as inevitable to them. But such dogmatic and pessimistic insistence on preserving the institution of "nation" condemns every future child to a fate dependent on what side of river it chanced to be born on, all those precious autonomies no more than a crap shoot.

We're better than that. I just hope we learn that before we blow ourselves up over some idiotic trifle like what time "god" takes lunch.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

Appeasement seems the order of the day. Once "The Palestine Situation" is not a hot-button issue attracting suicide bombers, maybe things will calm down.

Of course, appeasement didn't work so well in the 1930's...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 15 2007, 12:55 PM) [snapback]525972[/snapback]</div>

It will never work out. All you have to do is to take a look at Lebanon, which was established as a parliamentary democracy with constitutional protections for the rights of the Sunnis, Shiites and the Christians.

The former Yugoslavia is another prime example of the inability of ethnic and religious groups to get along with each other. Remember the split up of the Check Republic and Slovakia? Same thing. Even Belgium is in danger of partition.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Oct 15 2007, 02:46 PM) [snapback]526026[/snapback]</div>

My favorite lapel pin said. "BE REALISTIC: DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE"

I am aware of many reasons why a one-state solution "cannot" work. I continue to believe that it is the only way peace in the region can ever be achieved. So I continue to advocate the "impossible," as an alternative to complete destruction.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 15 2007, 11:43 PM) [snapback]526174[/snapback]</div>

One state solutions - perhaps you can have other friendlier nations join up before you try to put two antagonists together? Jordan and Syria or Jordan and Egypt? How about Lebanon and Syria - a solution Syria has been striving for and continues to strive for for decades.

Tell me - how can a one state solution be effected with Israel and the Palestinians when they cannot even govern themselves yet? How about a trial period of self-rule for them - perhaps a trial of ten years of terror free existence with their neighbors?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 15 2007, 11:43 PM) [snapback]526174[/snapback]</div>

Peace can also be achieved if one side completely annihilates the other, but then that's not a very desirable solution.

Tom

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(qbee42 @ Oct 17 2007, 02:20 PM) [snapback]526978[/snapback]</div>

Sometimes from a heap of ashes goodness is born - witness Japan and Germany. In my opinion I believe the Palestinian people want peace and are being held captive by the controlling powers there that dont. If these powers were to be destroyed I think the prospect for peace would be fantastic.

 

I'm not a political expert - but how can anything ever justify murdering Israeli women, men and children who were innocent of any crime just because of his own beliefs.
But it’s pretty unfortunate to the same happening with Palestinian by the Jews.
I think their is no difference between Hitler and Jews now.