The idea is commendable. It is also one of long historical standing. All the way back to the earliest UN resolutions on the matter issued before the dust of World War II had begun to settle. The notion of two states, one Jewish and the other Arab/Muslim emerged in the distant mist of the past, way back before World War II and the Holocaust.
In those far away and ancient days when British statesmen and Royal Commissions still meant something, a body officially called the Palestine Royal Commission but generally known after its chairman as the Peel Commission offered the prototype two state solution complete with humane ethnic cleansing. (The 300,000 Arab/Muslims living within the borders of the proposed Jewish state would be removed voluntarily or otherwise to either the Arab portion or out of the region altogether.)
The original "Two State Solutions" in both the Peel Commission and UN versions were torpedoed by the Arabs who would be the chief beneficiaries of the concept. Unable or unwilling to accept a guaranteed sixty percent of the loaf, the Arabs of the disputed area with the support of their ethnic and religious confreres throughout the Mideast flipped a collective and self-destructive bird at the proffered solution.
Had the Arab Muslims of what is now Israel and coterminous territory possessed the slightest degree of diplomatic or political acumen there never would have been a conflict with the Jews of the emergent state. Whether 1937 or 1948 the Arabs would have been happy to have received the larger chunk of the disputed pie and gotten on with their lives.
Instead, demonstrating what seems to be a constitutional characteristic of the people and the region, the leaders of the Muslim Arab population in the old British Mandate of Palestine chose rejection, defiance and violence in the hope that some Higher Power would reward their effort with the exclusion of Jews and the Zionist vision of a state from the region. Demonstrations, assassinations and finally conventional war conducted by an Arab coalition failed in the object of rendering the two state solutions nugatory by force of arms.
That the Arabs were wrong is to belabor the self-evident.
Now, President Obama and a myriad of others have dragged the two state solution back from the grave to which the Arabs consigned it not once but twice. Such faith in the power of the presidency or the international community to revive the dead is touching but scarcely realistic.
Events of recent years have demonstrated that the Arab Muslim population and its leadership have in no way abandoned their faith in the efficacy of intransigence, defiance, rejection, and the power of violence and terror. Events have also shown the existence of a new, quite fatal impediment to the viability of the two state solution.
The new, fatal impediment?
Simple, bucko, there is only one state involved. The name of the state is Israel.
In 1937 and again a decade or so later, the assumption was that the artificial state then called Trans-Jordan, which had been created by the machinations of British and French bureaucrats during World War I and validated by the Versailles Peace Treaty, would be the basis of the Arab state in Palestine. This assumption was continued during the first couple of decades of the Arab-Israeli conflict but was finally unilaterally abandoned by Jordan.
The cause of Jordan's withdrawal from the role of core of Arab Palestine was (get ready for the big shock) the actions and words of Yassir Arafat and his terrorist group, Fatah. Arafat and Fatah's outgrowth, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, had ambitions. Among these until September 1970 was the takeover of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
The Palestinian bed was simply not big enough for both Arafat and King Hussein. Had Arafat had the good taste to have been blown up by one of his own bombs or shot by one of his own trigger pullers, the two state solution might have had a continued viability since Jordan was and is a genuine, legitimate state with a responsible government which by and large plays by the rules.
Thanks to Arafat's presumptuous ego and lack of any perceptible capacity for statesmanship, the situation today is characterised by the Arabs of "Palestine" having neither an authentic state nor a responsible, rule-following government. And, not to be too simple minded about it, without a second state, there can be no two state solution.
Instead of a single Arab Muslim state with a government which follows at least most of the norms of civilized behavior such as preventing armed attacks against a neighbor being launched from territory under its authority, there are two geographic expressions. One is headed by a semi-government, which at least makes the occasional pretense of following acting like a government is supposed to. The other, the Gaza Strip, is run by a criminal terrorist syndicate possessing the additional liability of being the servant of a foreign power, Iran, which is implacably hostile to Israel and rather incapable of abiding by many, if not most, forms of international good citizenship.
The two so-called governments are hostile each to the other. Using methods of dispute settlement and creative power sharing more suited to the Chicago underworld of Al Capone than normal political processes, Hamas and the PLO derived Palestinian Authority are putatively seeking the formation of a government of national unity. Unless and until Hamas and the PA bury the hatchet (and not in each other's back) there is not even the remote possibility of the two state solution becoming viable.
It is to be hoped that President Obama, SecState Clinton and special envoy George Mitchell have been exposed to both the past history of the assorted two state solutions as well as the present realities regarding the absence of the necessary Second State. Their public remarks, however, give no hint that such might have been the case.
The President and his people need to take a firm grip on a couple of realities. The first is that the US lacks the leverage necessary to push Hamas into some pretense of agreement with the PA. The second is that pressuring Israel to make significant (and politically risky) concessions in return for a desert mirage will not prestidigitate a Second State into existence.
Hamas is the rabid eight hundred pound gorilla at the dinner party. Period. Behind Hamas are the masters of intransigence, defiance, rejection and faith in terror and violence--the mullahs of Iran. And, short of complete compliance with the policy requirements of the perpetual Bad Boy of the Mideast including its nuclear ambitions and desire for acceptance as regional hegemon, the US has no leverage with the turban-wearing, Koran-thumpers of Qom.
That's a fact, Jack (and Barack, Hillary and George.)
There can be no two state solution without a Second State, the Arab/Muslim one. There will be no Second State without Hamas either surrendering its vaulting ambitions for total authority over the Arabs of "Palestine" and an end to Israel as a state or its ceasing to exist as an actor in the region.
Even without the Hamas barrier, there can be no two state solution unless the governments and peoples of the Arab states can bring themselves to accept Israel as a reality. The historical record gives no real reason for optimism on this. Even if the Arab Muslims most directly involved, the people of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, have reached a condition of war-weariness sufficient to accept a peace of exhaustion, this is no guarantee that the people and governments of other Arab states will go along with the idea.
The potential of the Arab states singing "give peace a chance" remains slim to none as long as the mullahs running Iran remain intransigent, defiant and rejectionist on the subject of Israel's right to exist without remaining forever as a garrison under siege. No bookie will give odds on that happening regardless of how much pressure is put on Israel or smiles bestowed on Tehran.
Whether President Obama and the "International Community" like the idea or not, the two state solution remains today what it was back in 1937 or 1947--a non-starter. The two state approach is no more viable now than seventy-two years ago for the same reason.
To have a two state solution there must be two states, two governments ready, willing and able to enter into meaningful negotiations and keep meaningful agreements. Today there is just one state. And, no real probability of a second one emerging from the wreckage of past Arab intransigence, defiance and rejection.
That's a fact, Jack (and Barack, Hillary and George.)
No comments:
Post a Comment