The Practical Utility of Two States
Think about it, sixty years of torment and grief. Time willingly sacrificed in the name of a grudge, however justified in the estimation of the self-proclaimed victims. It is in human nature to balk against sharing something as precious as territory with all it entails, when one is convinced one is the sole and rightful owner thereof. That too can be in the mind of the aggrieved. Two demographics living side by side, in restive neighbourliness.Each pursuing their own dreams and aspirations, each reflecting their own heritage and traditions, neither sharing the unifying possibilities of a single religion. Accommodating themselves to the presence of the other. While at the same time having to accept the occasional demonstration of hostility through violence and bloodshed. Settling down anew to begin the process of grudging accommodation, and the cycle continues.
Until finally cataclysmic world events conspire to offer to one group an opportunity it required no enticements to grasp. For the establishment of a state, for ethnic-inspired nationhood, for a badly needed salve to heal the wounds of the assaults against its imperative to exist as a people. A state that would be its own, to offer refuge and sanctuary where none could be found elsewhere in the world.
Discommoding the alter demographic in the process, but this would represent nothing particularly new in a world so often comprised of shifting and migrating populations. The Palestinian rejection of partition, the allocating of a specific portion of the shared geography to a nascent Jewish state, the rest to the Palestinians was rejected outright by the Palestinians.
The resulting abandonment of their place in the geography through panic, temporary accommodation to an assembled Arab-nations assault, to the enthusiastic urgings of Jews, led to refugee status for some half-million Palestinians. In a world environment where there were hundreds of millions of displaced persons, post-war, awaiting eventual settlement elsewhere in the world.
A spirit of acceptance, of generosity, of co-operation in the face of a fait accompli, might have accomplished much. It would have led inexorably to an initial two-state reality. With the more socially and technologically and educationally ambitiously-advanced state seeing it in both their interests to aid and assist the other in advancing both their futures.
The choice was otherwise. The choice was to stand firm, demand the obliteration of the new state. To demand full and total ownership of the geography for the Palestinian Arabs. Which bought them refugee camps and poverty. Non-acceptance into the social and political life of the countries that grudgingly, temporarily absorbed their presence within UN-funded refugee camps.
Which also bought the West Bank domination by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip, absorption by Egypt. But the burning ember leading to the firestorm of terrorism was never permitted to die out. It was coddled and smouldered and finally leaped into the full flare of violent jihad, and so it has remained to this day. Sacrificing opportunities for decent lives and livelihoods for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
And in the process teaching their sons and their daughters to value the concept of holy sacrifice, of offering up their souls and their presence on earth to the sacred duty to Allah of avenging the slur to His honour and their own collective honour. Suicide-murderers triumphed in the numbers of their victims. Their families basked in the honour due them through the brilliant suicide-murder exploits of their offspring.
Blood-money masquerading as the earnings of martyrs ensured their economic well-being through the kindly auspices of terror-supporting theocracies, kingdoms, sheikdoms.
Can that land ever be shared? Is it possible to salvage hope for the creation of a two-state solution? Will Arab countries ever unequivocally accept the presence of Israel in their midst? Are there no other Anwar Sadats in existence in the Arab world? Might there be some tempted to emulate his courage, but held back by his ultimate reward?
Will it forever be, as Yasser Arafat explained to Oriana Fallaci: "The end of Israel is the goal of our struggle. Peace for us means the destruction of Israel and nothing else."
Labels: Israel, Middle East, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, November 29, 2007
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