Thursday, September 10, 2009

What is the Two State Solution supposed to solve anyway?

 

by Sultan Knish

  

With all the talk about a Two State Solution, the question should be asked, what is it coming to solve anyway?

 

If it's coming to solve terrorism, it's not clear how a state run by a government consisting of two terrorist organizations that are dedicated to the destruction of Israel, neither of whom are ready to recognize Israel or stopping terrorism... will stop terrorism.

 

Nor has Obama or any of the currently enthusiastic backers of the "Two State Solution" offered any realistic plans for how terrorism will end. And yet turning two terrorist groups into the government of a new country is certain to make their existing terrorism a good deal worse. Especially since neither Hamas nor Fatah are ready to concede the right of a Jewish state to exist on the remaining land.

 

So clearly the Two State Solution is not here to stop terrorism, it's likely to only make it worse. This also kills any notion that the "Solution" will stabilize the Middle East. How can the Middle East be stabilized by any solution that makes terrorism, the current source of much of the regional instability, worse?

 

Creating a country run by two terrorist organizations will mean an open terrorist haven in the Middle State. This is no small problem when you consider that not only Hamas and Fatah, but even larger terrorist groups such as Al Queda, have found a base within the autonomous territories of the Palestinian Authority. If that is the situation now, imagine how bad it will get with open borders, an accessible port and airport? Not to mention all the arms that the new state of Palestine will be able to buy with international loans.

 

And the instability will not simply remain within Israel's borders. Hamas is a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks to overthrow Egypt's government and replace it with an Islamic state. Palestinian Arab terrorism has long been a destabilizing factor in Jordan and Lebanon's politics. What they lacked before was a secure national base of operations. Something that the "Two State Solution" will finally provide them with.

 

The US and its allies have spent countless blood and treasure struggling to clean up Afghanistan for the last 7 years. It would be the worst kind of folly to then turn half of Israel into the new Afghanistan. But that is exactly what the "Two State Solution" would accomplish, carving out a danger zone dominated by Sunni and Shiite terrorist groups looking to export their vision of Islam through the bullet and the bomb.

Osama bin Laden's best possible birthday present would be if the US were to force Israel to set up a new Afghanistan in Gaza and the West Bank, allowing him to recreate the murderous chaos of Iraq.

 

So if the Two State Solution will not end terrorism or being stability to the Middle East, what exactly will it solve? Diplomats say it will move the "stalled peace process" forward, but then their fallacy has always been to treat the peace process as an engine pulling a Palestinian state into place, greased by Israeli concessions. Every time the Palestinian Arab terrorist groups revert to type, and Israel locks down the area in self-defense, the diplomats declare that the "peace process" is stalled and demand more concessions from Israel.

 

This disastrous approach has led to the current fragmented Fatah/Hamas terrorist camps on the land gotten from previous Israeli concessions, the Israeli Separation Wall meant to keep their terrorism at bay, and the constant state of war. But like Sisyphus turned international mediator, the diplomats keep assuming that more of the same will make things better, when in fact it won't. By ignoring the general corruption, violence and dishonesty on the Palestinian Arab side-- the international peacemakers have insured that the process would fail at every point and turn. Their "See No Evil" approach insured that the process would fail at every point and turn, a failure that has not only been disastrous for Israel, but equally disastrous for Palestinian Arabs.

 

And yet Obama is bent on repeating that same process in spades, once again disproportionately pressuring Israel, while ignoring Fatah and Hamas' refusal to negotiate in good faith, recognize the State of Israel, end their own domestic human rights abuses and terrorism.

 

Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them, and Obama has demonstrated in no way that he has learned anything from the history of America's interventionist Middle East "Peace Process" which at no point during its 17 years under 3 Presidents has produced anything resembling peace. There is no reason to anything that now will be any different.

 

So if the Two State Solution won't stabilize the region, end terrorism or lead to peace... what in the world will it solve?

 

It might be argued that the Two State Solution will at the very least create a Palestinian state. And it might indeed do that. Just maybe. The odds of it are long though, when you consider that the current Palestinian autonomous territories are split between two warring terrorist factions, Hamas and Fatah.

 

The only thing that has preserved Fatah thus far is US backing. But how long will the US be able to save Fatah from Hamas? And since Hamas is not motivated by Palestinian nationalism, but the creation of a regional Islamic caliphate, its real goal would be to make Gaza part of a Muslim Brotherhood run Egypt. A similar plan would likely follow for Jordan and the West Bank, once Hamas is able to shove Fatah out of the way, as it did in Gaza.

 

Then there's the fact that the Palestinian territories are wholly funded entities of the UN, the US, Israel and Iran; who provide what there is in the way of money, food, jobs, power, medicine and all the other basic necessities that prevent the locals from turning to cannibalism.

 

The two biggest employers in the Palestinian territories are the UNWRA and the Palestinian Authority, whose funding comes from the US and Europe. Those are pretty much also the only employers, aside from various Israeli companies who bring day laborers across the border, often on construction projects. Paradoxically the very same construction projects in the Settlements and Jerusalem, that the Obama administration is furiously working to shut down. That of course would mean that the only major source of jobs in the Palestinian territories would be US and European funded bureaucracies, such as the UNRWA, that would have no reason to exist once a Palestinian state was created.

 

Which means that if a Palestinian state were created, it could not exist for 5 minutes without a workforce paid for by the US and the UN. A workforce that mostly consists of militia gangs who express their displeasure at not being paid with their AK-47's.

 

Any reasonable person would agree that this is not a workable plan for a state. At this point a Fatah run Palestinian state would be a fiction propped up by the US. A Hamas run Palestinian state would be a fiction propped up by Iran. Neither would be a workable political entity that could care for its people and manage their affairs.

 

So if the Two State Solution can't even create a Palestinian state, what can it solve? Absolutely nothing.

 

 

Sultan Knish

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

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