A Conclusion That Should Follow?
Reader comment on item: PLO Acknowledges: Still at War with Israel

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Oct 30, 2008 at 18:29

Although this article by Dan Pipes is mostly self-evident, I read it with interest - until the last line with the dig at the "bright lights" in Washington and Jerusalem.

It is difficult to completely share (although I mostly do) the sarcasm in this comment , for the simple reason that nobody has given those "bright lights" any definite opposite focus to the current official policy toward the Palestinian question in both Capitals.

Could anyone name for me any well-known (or even slightly known) figure - either in government, or formerly in government, or otherwise known as a commentator major or minor, who has come out and said, "There may never, and perhaps there never should be, a Palestinian State, because there is no will on the Palestinian side, or among its friends and allies, to either fully accept the existence of Israel, or to accept a 'two-state solution' that does not wholly return to the status quo ante of the 1967 war."?

If I were either a Palestinian militant, as described by Pipes, or a moderate, apparently defined as someone who is implacably opposed to anything less than a complete undoing the results of the 1967 war plus a right of return to Israel, I wouldn't dream of departing from either position as long as everyone in Israel and Washington is foolish enough to be pledged to the 'two state solution.'

Nor do I see any stalwart defender of Israel who openly and publicly departs from this, to me, geopolitically, metapsychologically and otherwise indefensible adherence to a position that gives both the militants and moderates a perpetual veto power over the fate of Israel and the credibility component of the national security interest of the United States.

Therefore, unless a critic comes up with a genuine and affirmative "Plan B" opposed to the still unchallenged mantra of a 'two state solution', I can't quite share a dismissive reference to the "bright lights" of Washington and Jerusalem. Ron Thompson

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