So you might expect the mood in the Middle East to be awful, bordering on desperate. Although it is sombre, those who know the region feel that there is all to play for. There are two reasons for this.
The first is the complex personality of Mr Netanyahu. I have met him several times and had informal conversations with him. He is usually reticent on strategy but a master at tactics. I have no doubt that he deeply dislikes the concept of a Palestinian state but that is not the same as saying that he could never endorse one….
That brings me to the second and, perhaps, decisive reason why the situation is more fluid than might first be apparent. Unlike George W. Bush, Barack Obama is engaging himself in the Israel-Palestine issue from the very outset of his presidency. He is doing so with more goodwill from the Arab world than any recent president.
One only has to listen to Arab rhetoric about Jews to be pessimistic. The idea that it is the U.S. which has been the problem ignores the real problem. Check the speech made by the imam who went on a ten-minute tirade at the ecumenical meeting with the Pope.
Katherine, does the Imam have any political power? Or is it like one of those fundamentalists who think 9/11 happened because of Gay people?
When the political director of Hamas comes out for a 2 state solution, and both kings of Saudi Arabia and Jordan promise peace with Israel – of all 57 Muslim states, at some point, Israel had better come up with a counter offer. Waiting for the entire Muslim world to change its attitude would almost be like insisting we force all whites to change their mind about blacks before passing the civil rights act.
Where is the Israeli peace plan?
Yes, John Wilkins, this sheikh has large political power. CNN reports he is the chief judge of the Islamic (Sharia) courts in both the West Bank and Gaza. As you may know, Islam has no separation of the secular and religious power. It’s a package deal, and the imams/muftis/sheikhs of the various Islamic courts and schools are powerful individuals.
What worries me about a two-state solution is the very evident insistence on the part of the Palestinians that Israel is to be a multi-cultural non-Jewish state. This is the effect of the so-called “right of return” in which 2-3 million or more people who claim descent from the 750,000 original refugees would move back into Israel. Meanwhile, no Jews currently live in the West Bank, Gaza, or Jordan (I think). Nearly one million Jews were pushed out of their homes in all of the Arab-speaking countries following 1948, more than the Palestinians who were pushed or fled from their homes in what is now Israel. The Palestinian areas are apartheid regimes far worse than the restrictions on non-Jews in Israel (and I realize and accept that Israel has not always done what was right). Just recently there was a news item about the execution of a Palestinian man who had sold property to a Jew. This is a capital offense. Around the Arab-speaking world the majority of people believe the wildest stories about Jews. They believe in some version of the old blood libel. They believe the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is a legitimate Jewish document, not the Russian fraud it is known to be. Do you think that Jews will be treated properly if they are submerged in a “secular” nation whose majority believe they are literally demons, subhuman? Not likely.
There are current news stories, concurrent with the Pope’s visit, too, about harsh treatment of Christians in the Palestinian areas. With Sharia taking hold, their treatment is not likely to improve.
Better make that, “No Jews live in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank.” Obviously they do live in little villages, the “settlements.” They require heavy security to stay alive there. I do think that probably, if a peace ever does come, a lot of those people will have to be pulled back behind the security wall.
The two state solution already exists. One is a democracy and the other a haven for terrorists. Israel has the right to ask for more than what is not working.