It is regretful that the Arab nations had formerly rejected the idea of a bi-national state. I can only pray that they now realize that in lieu of fighting we can build a brighter future in two separate, independent states," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Monday at a Knesset ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the UN vote to partition British-mandate PalestineSo now Tzipi is saying that the ideal solution in the past would be a bi-national state - something rejected by most Zionists as well as the Arabs? Is she now more wise than Israel's founders? What is she smoking?
"The state of Palestine will serve as a homeland for the Palestinian people; providing the single comprehensive answer to their national aspirations."This must be a continuation of her prayer, because there is nothing concrete to support such a position. If a Palestinian Arab state would solve the problems, why exactly must it encompass every square millimeter of the territories? Livni is making it sound like the existence of a state is the important thing, but hasn't she yet realized that the PalArabs are far more hung up on getting 100% of their demands and not a state they can have tomorrow? Hasn't she been listening to their rejection of Israel as a Jewish state and their insistence on the bogus "right" to "return"?
Here was the Peel Commission proposal for two states back in 1937. This plan was accepted (albeit reluctantly) by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs. The Jews accepted it even though it included essentially no sites holy to Jews, even though it was far less than had been promised by the Balfour Declaration, even though it was just a tiny sliver of a state, indefensible and non-contiguous.So why did the Jews accept such a flawed solution? As Chaim Weizmann put it, the Jews would be foolish not to accept partition even if the Jewish state was the size of a tablecloth. Their goal then was to gain a state in any way possible.
The Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, have shown no desire to gain a state, despite what Tzipi fervently prays for. They desire to gain an end to the Jewish state. Once that goal is reached, their own independence is far less important, and it seems more likely that they would immediately become absorbed into Jordan and Syria (or, as Hamas wants, into a Islamic caliphate.)
To even imagine that a Palestinian Arab state alone would make Arabs happy and peaceful is the apex of replacing facts with fantasy.
Similarly:
Labor Chairman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Monday that creating two states for two people in Israel is inevitable: "We have to admit that there is no way around it… it is the only reality possible."What exactly makes it "the only reality possible?" Because he, with his amazingly stupid Taba offer, made it so! If the Israeli leadership had stuck to its guns and made it clear that the entire West Bank would always remain under Israeli sovereignty with some other accommodation for PalArabs, whether it is self-rule or a confederation with Jordan or whatever, then that would become the reality - not the "inevitable" creation of a hostile, terror-supporting state that juts into Israeli territory.
It is mind-blowing how the current Israeli leadership has so little faith in the righteousness of its own cause; not only are they in deep personal despair but they have turned this despair into a national policy. How can the leaders of a great state lead when they don't believe in their own cause, in their own people, in their own nation?
Sometimes, there is no solution, and the best you can do is do the best you can do. Creating "solutions" out of exhaustion or despair is not what leaders are supposed to do.
And leading their people into a suicidal "solution" is not leadership.