It's not just about territory

Submitted by Fred Schlomka (Israel), Jan 3, 2009 at 10:38

'Land for peace' is an overused slogan. It worked with the Egyptians because the agreement to return the Sinai only involved land, and every square centimeter captured in 1967 was returned. However any two-state agreement with the Palestinians will need to include more complex elements, including the refugees, a shared Jerusalem, and a contiguous West Bank. Since over 500,000 Israelis now live east of the Green line, and about 1.2 million Palestinian Arabs are citizens of Israel, a two-state 'land for peace' agreement is essentially moot and a more complex resolution needs to be found.

Perhaps the old fashioned idea we teach to our children, of sharing, needs to be explored. Ethnically controlled states with exclusive ideologies are failing in Africa and eastern Europe. There's no reason to suppose it will succeed in Israel.

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