Meteor Blades asked everyone on D-Kos, and my position got a lot of good ratings, more than almost any on the message thread, so I thought I should put it up here too.
1. Palestinians have to recognize that Israel exists. It's not going anywhere. It's not part of the International Elders of Zion Conspiracy. It's people who started out as poor refugees, just like the Palestinians are today. It's not even a European invasion. As much as it is Holocaust refugees, it is the Jewish millets of the Ottoman Empire coming together. If the Palestinians want to blame anyone for that, they can blame their "Arab brothers" the same "brothers" who don't do anything for the Palestinians except say "Let's you and him fight." and "Here are some guns. Please kill our Jews for us. We'd do it ourselves, but we're scared of the big bad Jews."
2. Israel has to recognize that Palestinians exist. Not Arabs, Palestinians. Arabic has been called a dead language that they refuse to bury. Israelis and their apologists have to stop insisting that other Arab countries have to take in refugees the way Germans took in refugees after World War II. Besides the fact that Germans realized that they had brought their problems on themselves, while Palestinians blame others for the situation, Arabs are coming to speak different languages. Arab nationalism is bull[bleep] and even Colonel Qaddafi has come around to realizing it.
3. Obviously that means a two-state solution. Recognizing the need for a Palestinian State is probably the only thing G. W. Bush has gotten right his whole time in office. But he hasn't moved it forward, he's moved it backward. That's why going back to a Democratic administration is necessary to solve this problem. Carter and Clinton moved things forward. Bush balled it all up.
4. Back when Clinton was helping the negotiations they almost got it solved. They had everything divvied up except for one small hill in Jerusalem. The only way I can see out of that is to internationalize the city under religious control. I know many Muslims and Jews think this is just a Christian conspiracy to take over without fighting, because Christians outnumber Muslims and Jews put together. Tough. The Jews and Muslims have, between them, driven out almost all the Christians. The least they could do is let the Christians share in the rule of one city.
That's my two cents, FWIW.
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1 comment:
Not bad, maybe a mention of gaza and the west bank could've been good. I found your second point a little confused, and the last sentence about arab nationalism could be easily applied to other places.
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