10-13-2014 Is Israel Abandoning Push for Two States? – J.J.Goldberg The Jewish Daily Forward

http://blogs.forward.com/jj-goldberg/207259/is-israel-abandoning-push-for-two-states/?

 

In a potentially explosive report, veteran Yediot Ahronot defense commentator Ron Ben-Yishai writes on Ynet that Israel is headed toward a new confrontation with the United States and its allies in the wake of this summer's Operation Protective Edge. The Americans and Europeans insist that Israel must strive for a two-state solution with the Palestinians, arguing that it's unacceptable for Israel to wreak destruction on Gaza every few years, leaving them to pay for its repeated reconstruction. They also claim that renewing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will help them to mobilize the Arab world to join the fight against ISIS and other extremist groups, Ben-Yishai writes.

Israel, Ben-Yishai writes, is reaching the opposite conclusion. In what he calls "a dramatic reversal," Israeli officials say that at a time of extreme instability in the Middle East, it would be suicidal for Israel to consider allowing full sovereignty in most of Judea and Samaria, even if the territory is demilitarized…

 

If Ben-Yishai is right about a new Israeli policy taking shape (and few Israeli journalists have a better record than his), it probably won't come as a surprise to skeptics of Israeli intention, who have accused the Netanyahu government for some time of insincerity in aiming for a two-state solution. However, it could require some rethinking among Israel's leading American advocates, who have long insisted that Jerusalem is eager to reach a two-state solution and end its current military rule over the Palestinian population…

It's going to be difficult to continue defending Israel as a democratic Jewish state if Israel plans to maintain a population of three or four million non-Jewish non-citizens under open-ended military rule…

Much of what the group has discussed so far has involved detailed security arrangements to ensure that materials for Gaza reconstruction aren't diverted to Hamas military use, either in rebuilding tunnels or re-equipping weapons workshops. For anyone who's wondered how such a security regime could conceivably work, the second half of Ben-Yishai's report is an eye-opener and well worth a read.

 

 

Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

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