Commentary By Ron Beasley
Josh Marshall gets it right - Time to Face Reality
Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn't want a two state solution. Period. End of story. Whether this is a principle of deeply held belief (probably) or just a desire not to see his coalition government fall (certainly) doesn't really matter. His clear aim is to perpetuate the status quo indefinitely -- something that is simply not compatible with Israel's security, America's security or the Palestinians need for a state.
This is hardly surprising for anyone who has followed the issue closely. But any remaining ambiguity is destructive in itself. His attack against a sitting American president for proposing the 1967 borders (which are actually the 1949 borders) with land swaps as the basis of negotiations is the final tell.
His policy is perpetual occupation. Time to accept that reality and draw the appropriate implications.
I think this is right and the implications will include the end of Israel in the not too distant future. Israel has one friend left in the world and the US is not in a position strategically or economically to shield Israel unilaterally.
"I think this is right and the implications will include the end of Israel in the not too distant future. "
ReplyDeletewhat? are you saying they will fall apart and give up and move out? no way. are you saying they will be attacked and lose? not likely. If anything the Isrealis will take over more and more land and herd the palis into camps. Like the blacks in SA they can be exploited for labor and as a market for sub-standard goods.
or will they be raptured..? please explain
South Africa is actually a good example to use. So long as they had the unilateral support of the US, the apartheid regime managed to chug along just fine. Once the US joined the rest of the world in condemning said regime, white rule ended in fairly short order.
ReplyDeleteIsrael as it is today survives because the US gives it billions in aid and assists in keeping it on the cutting edge of technology. Robbed of those benefits, and the protection of the US at the UN Security Council level, its technological advantage will fade away, its economy will wither. South Africa was lucky enough to have a Nelson Mandela who had the authority and will to keep the reprisals to a minimum. Not all of the former colonies in Africa were so lucky, and Israel may find themselves in a similar boat. It won't simply disappear, of course, but the violence level will rise, its best and brightest citizens, the ones with the money and means, will look for safer locales, and at some point the balance will have shifted far enough that Israel as it is today will become little more than a historical footnote. It can still avoid that fate, of course. The real question is whether or not it will choose to.
Daniel Levy, in Foreign Policy, has an interesting description of the actual Israel today relative to the one I suspect generally imaged in North America - http://fam.ag/l8ZO4d . What I take from his description is that Israel has within itself now the seed of it's own destruction - i.e. an unproductive backward looking segment of extremist (aka ultra orthodox sects). One could think of the Shakers as a sort of example of a society with a built in flaw that can't be righted. BO mentioned the "population time bomb" in his speech to the lobby group by which he seemed only to mean the Palestinians and not the unproductive cuddled extreme sects of Israelis nor former East block emigres who seem almost, by some, to come from pre-entitlement cultures with little in common with the country's dead-hard supporters.
ReplyDeleteBill Clinton made a similar point last year in FP.
ReplyDeletehttp://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/21/bill_clinton_russian_immigrants_and_settlers_obstacles_to_mideast_peace
Thanks for the link John I've bookmarked article.
ReplyDelete