March 18, 2015
CUTTING OUT THE MIDDLE MAN:
White House says US will re-evaluate best approach to two-state solution after Netanyahu win (Associated Press, March 18, 2015)
The White House says the United States will re-evaluate the best way to bring about a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's election victory.Just ahead of the election, Netanyahu reversed his former position by opposing the creation of a separate Palestinian state.
The PM having coming out in favor of permanent apartheid, there's no point including Israel in negotiations anymore. The US can just recognize the nation of Palestine and we can all move on.
MORE:
America needs to wake up to the danger of grand apartheid in Israel (Ryan Cooper, March 18, 2015, The Week)
In South Africa, grand apartheid was the system of major racial separation that forced blacks out of the most developed parts of the nation (as opposed to petty apartheid, which consisted of smaller measures like a ban against interracial marriage). The keystone of grand apartheid were the bantustans, which were small, usually geographically non-contiguous "homelands" for each black tribe. With several fake nations set aside for blacks, the white government could pretend like it was doing "separate but equal" while stealing all the best land and mercilessly exploiting a politically powerless black working class.
I know that any invocation of the A-word inevitably sets off a storm of controversy. But the facts are these: Gaza and the West Bank have been dominated by Israel since 1967, and Palestinians who live there have few rights. They already live Israelis' worst nightmares. It's not democracy, to say the least.
Netanyahu openly says that there will never be a Palestinian state or an end to the occupation so long as he is prime minister. If that's not grand apartheid then the words have no meaning. As former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak once said, "If there is one state, it will have to be either binational or undemocratic. ... if this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state."
Israel Election Was a Referendum on the Two-State Solution (Spengler, March 18th, 2015, PJ Media)
Ha'aretz explains the discrepancy between the Israeli polls and the outcome as follows: "[Netanyahu] won this election by convincing over 200,000 voters who were planning to vote for Habayit Hayehudi, Shas, Kulanu and Yahad to change their minds in the last six days of the campaign." Why did they switch? The answer is simple and obvious: Most of those small-party voters oppose a Palestinian state, and Netanyahu ruled out a Palestinian state on his watch a day before the election.
Posted by Orrin Judd at March 18, 2015 1:25 PM
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