I have long been an admirer and supporter of the Oslo Accords, which set out a step-by-step roadmap for establishing peaceful relations between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza–a so called “Two State Solution.” The new HBO film, “Oslo” premiers today. Continuing the work started by my IMF colleague, Arne Petersen, I spent two years leading IMF technical assistance missions to Israel/WBGS to develop the Palestine Monetary Authority. “My travels to Jerusalem” A growing consensus has concluded that the two-state solution is dead, and sadly I reluctantly agree. It has failed because of poor Palestinian leadership, Israeli governments (especially Benjamin Netanyahu’s) that were happy with the stalled status quo, and American governments that allowed the Israeli government to get away with it.
Israel has behaved like most other colonial powers of the last century and in many ways worse. It has populated its Occupied Territories with illegal Jewish settlements and has carved up the West Bank with walled off, exclusively Jewish highways that make normal life for the Palestinians impossible. It is small wonder that Palestinian youth are fed up and revolting. It is either ignorance or dishonesty to blame the tensions on Hamas, the bad guys in Gaza–the Israeli prison of Palestinians between Egypt, the Mediterranean and Israel proper, and cut off from the rest of the West Bank. “How Israel lost the culture war”
But of course, Palestinians outnumber Jews in the land of Canaan despite seven decades of effort by Zionists to attract Jews from around the world to the new Israel. This threatens the Zionist dream of a democratic Jewish homeland. The starting point for a one-state or any other solution should be the insistence that Israel honor the human rights of all inhabitances of the land it controls, i.e., from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. A recent report of the Human Rights Watch concludes that Israel is an Apartheid state. Large numbers of Jews around the world are offended by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians as second-class citizens. The United States has embarrassed itself and undermined its moral standing by supporting the Israeli government’s behavior. Fareed’s Global Briefing”
One state with a constitution that protects all of its residents equally should protect Jews as well as Palestinians to live and worship as they see fit. Such rights should not depend on having Jewish governments. More Jews live in the United States than in Israel and such an arrangement works well for them here.
I remember well being driven from Gaza to Jerusalem in 1995 by an Arab Israeli cab driver. As we chatted about the situation in the area, he volunteered that “you know, the Palestinians and Jews are cousins.” I replied that “maybe they are even brothers.” He paused and replied: “No, brothers would not treat each other this way.” “The Economist: Two States or One?”
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