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The Mirage of the Two-State Solution

(The Hill) Stephen Blank - From every corner comes pressure upon Israel to acquiesce to a two-state solution. Israel's sovereignty and security are to be overridden by the EU and the U.S. to, if necessary, impose a Palestinian state. At best there will be so-called "robust guarantees" of Israeli and Palestinian security. Here we should remember that earlier UN, U.S. and EU guarantees of Israeli security have always been found to be unavailing. Israel has fought by itself in 1967, 1973, 1982 and in the multiple intifadas and wars since then. Even in 2007 when Israel discovered that North Korea was building a nuclear reactor for Syria, Washington refused to act, leaving Israel no choice but to act alone to destroy it. The idea of a two-state solution has been around for almost a century but has consistently failed because the Palestinian leadership has never been willing to accept the legitimacy of Israel. Palestinian leaders have rejected all offers of an opportunity to begin a state because they insisted on a one-state solution, i.e., a wholly Palestinian state that would be free of Jews. So the Palestinian leadership has exercised a veto on self-determination. Instead, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have regularly resorted to terror, most recently on Oct. 7. Therefore, it should surprise nobody that Israeli public opinion, not just Prime Minister Netanyahu, uniformly opposes a two-state solution. Similarly, most Palestinians oppose this solution. The effort to impose this solution in the wake of powerful historical and real political contradictions gives rise to the thought that many of those urging it do not know what they are talking about. Certainly, no state in the world would accept the presence of a terrorist movement or state on its border that regularly lobs missiles into its territory. The writer is a Foreign Policy Research Institute senior fellow and a former professor of national security affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College.
2024-02-16 00:00:00
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