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dafydd and silkensteel, here's a New York Times op-ed column on what it's going to take to peacefully resolve the Palestinian situation ... from Muammar Qaddafi.
THE shocking level of the last wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, which ended with this weekend’s cease-fire, reminds us why a final resolution to the so-called Middle East crisis is so important. It is vital not just to break this cycle of destruction and injustice, but also to deny the religious extremists in the region who feed on the conflict an excuse to advance their own causes.
But everywhere one looks, among the speeches and the desperate diplomacy, there is no real way forward. A just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians is possible, but it lies in the history of the people of this conflicted land, and not in the tired rhetoric of partition and two-state solutions.
Although it’s hard to realize after the horrors we’ve just witnessed, the state of war between the Jews and Palestinians has not always existed. In fact, many of the divisions between Jews and Palestinians are recent ones. The very name “Palestine” was commonly used to describe the whole area, even by the Jews who lived there, until 1948, when the name “Israel” came into use.
Jews and Muslims are cousins descended from Abraham. Throughout the centuries both faced cruel persecution and often found refuge with one another. Arabs sheltered Jews and protected them after maltreatment at the hands of the Romans and their expulsion from Spain in the Middle Ages.
The history of Israel/Palestine is not remarkable by regional standards — a country inhabited by different peoples, with rule passing among many tribes, nations and ethnic groups; a country that has withstood many wars and waves of peoples from all directions. This is why it gets so complicated when members of either party claims the right to assert that it is their land.
The basis for the modern State of Israel is the persecution of the Jewish people, which is undeniable. The Jews have been held captive, massacred, disadvantaged in every possible fashion by the Egyptians, the Romans, the English, the Russians, the Babylonians, the Canaanites and, most recently, the Germans under Hitler. The Jewish people want and deserve their homeland.
But the Palestinians too have a history of persecution, and they view the coastal towns of Haifa, Acre, Jaffa and others as the land of their forefathers, passed from generation to generation, until only a short time ago.
Thus the Palestinians believe that what is now called Israel forms part of their nation, even were they to secure the West Bank and Gaza. And the Jews believe that the West Bank is Samaria and Judea, part of their homeland, even if a Palestinian state were established there. Now, as Gaza still smolders, calls for a two-state solution or partition persist. But neither will work.
A two-state solution will create an unacceptable security threat to Israel. An armed Arab state, presumably in the West Bank, would give Israel less than 10 miles of strategic depth at its narrowest point. Further, a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would do little to resolve the problem of refugees. Any situation that keeps the majority of Palestinians in refugee camps and does not offer a solution within the historical borders of Israel/Palestine is not a solution at all.
For the same reasons, the older idea of partition of the West Bank into Jewish and Arab areas, with buffer zones between them, won’t work. The Palestinian-held areas could not accommodate all of the refugees, and buffer zones symbolize exclusion and breed tension. Israelis and Palestinians have also become increasingly intertwined, economically and politically.
In absolute terms, the two movements must remain in perpetual war or a compromise must be reached. The compromise is one state for all, an “Isratine” that would allow the people in each party to feel that they live in all of the disputed land and they are not deprived of any one part of it.
A key prerequisite for peace is the right of return for Palestinian refugees to the homes their families left behind in 1948. It is an injustice that Jews who were not originally inhabitants of Palestine, nor were their ancestors, can move in from abroad while Palestinians who were displaced only a relatively short time ago should not be so permitted.
It is a fact that Palestinians inhabited the land and owned farms and homes there until recently, fleeing in fear of violence at the hands of Jews after 1948 — violence that did not occur, but rumors of which led to a mass exodus. It is important to note that the Jews did not forcibly expel Palestinians. They were never “un-welcomed.” Yet only the full territories of Isratine can accommodate all the refugees and bring about the justice that is key to peace.
Assimilation is already a fact of life in Israel. There are more than one million Muslim Arabs in Israel; they possess Israeli nationality and take part in political life with the Jews, forming political parties. On the other side, there are Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Israeli factories depend on Palestinian labor, and goods and services are exchanged. This successful assimilation can be a model for Isratine.
If the present interdependence and the historical fact of Jewish-Palestinian coexistence guide their leaders, and if they can see beyond the horizon of the recent violence and thirst for revenge toward a long-term solution, then these two peoples will come to realize, I hope sooner rather than later, that living under one roof is the only option for a lasting peace.
I find myself stunned and amazed — but pleasantly so — to hear words of such reason from such a seemingly unlikely source. Perhaps the Middle East as a whole really is starting to realize that the present state of affairs simply cannot continue forever.
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Qaddafi is an interesting fellow, mad as a hatter but very, very smart and in many way very forward-thinking. I think he realised some time ago that if he wanted to stay in power he needed to stay under the US radar, so he stopped making inflammatory anti-American speeches.
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This is a major failing on my part, I have to admit. I always read shit like this and my brain just reels back and yells "Why the fuck can't you people just all get along!?!"
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(Wife has suggested nuking Jerusalem as being the only long-term solution, removing the religious factors from the equation. Wife is a non-Zionist Jew.)
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Now, if peace can actually be achieved, and the rug pulled out from under the various terrorist organizations, Jordan could offer right of return to any Palestinians who wanted to move back within the current borders of Jordan. But that'd have to be up to Jordan.
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Given the wonderful treatment of religious minorities in the area, this is not a situation that Israel will willingly accept.
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The right of return of Palestinians into Israel -- even if they were recompensed monetarily rather than permitted to return to their original homes -- would make Israel over 40% Arab. The fraction of Israel that isn't Jewish increases every day, and at some point soon, the majority cultural group will change. At that point, Israel has a choice: it can either become an Arabic democracy or a Jewish theocracy.
Of course, the United States will blindly support Israel, no matter what.
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Of course, the demographic problem makes a one-state solution almost overwhelmingly impossible for Jews to accept.
What might work, though, is a loose and peaceful union of two or more separate sovereign states -- Israel and Palestine, or Israel and Gaza and the West Bank. Heck, if Jordan and Lebanon would join, then it would become even more stable. This Levantine Union would function much like the European Union, with free trade, mutual defense treaties, and very liberal rights to travel and establish residency wherever you want within the LU. Each state in the LU would retain its own sovereign government and citizenship.
Jerusalem could possible function like the District of Columbia, but it holds such a special place in Jewish culture and religion that I don't see Israel ever giving it up -- it would be more like Brussels.
This makes so much sense to me, I wonder why it's never been proposed?
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http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/1998/pulpit_19981022_000588.html
The truth is that I not only got along with Qadhafi, but in some ways, I kind of liked him. But Major Jolloud gave me the creeps. This is because Qadhafi, like many national leaders of any long-term standing, understood that much of his job was show business, not reality. But Major Jolloud, like many top lieutenants, didn't always know what his boss knew. Major Jolloud took Qadhafi more seriously than Qadhafi took himself. The result of this was that while Qadhafi could talk the talk of terrorism, I got the sense that most of it (though obviously not all) was for show. Major Jolloud, on the other hand, thought every word from Qadhafi's mouth was sincere. On a couple occasions, I even laughed with Qadhafi about his absurd positions, but there wasn't a second when I could let down my guard that way with Major Jolloud, who always seemed ready to kill me.
Ever since I've read that, I've noticed that Khadaffi (and this was a hellvua hard thing to find since I couldn't guess how he'd spelled it!) has made a LOT more sense.
And I've given him a lot more credit for being smarter, and less crazy... It didn't take a lot for him to give up the North Koreans and Iranians after we went into Iraq...
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