Posts Tagged ‘West Bank’


A fundamental plank of any peace plan has to be universal rights and full equality for all, and that is true whether the solution is one state, two states, twelve states or no states in Israel-Palestine. I elaborate at Souciant.

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As a long-time supporter of a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine, I can only mourn the success the settlers and the Israeli and US governments have found in destroying that path. But reality is reality, and I’ve been saying for some time that the Oslo process is dead. So what to do now? A single state is already a reality, and it is an ugly one. I examine an alternative and the prospects for getting there at Souciant this week.

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President Obama has now left Israel and is winding up his trip. His speeches sounded very counter-productive, offering no hope for progress. And I suspect that was just the message he was sending, especially to Israel. I explain in this week’s Souciant column.

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“How can the Jews, of all people do this?”

The West Bank Separation wall, covered with graffiti

The West Bank Separation wall, covered with graffiti

I hear this too often when discussing the dispossession and occupation of the Palestinian people. It’s a tiresome line. Sure, I understand that on the surface this seems a reasonable question. But one doesn’t have to look very far to see that it isn’t.

Oppression and suffering don’t necessarily lead to a greater sensitivity to these things. We see this on a personal level, as well as on a larger scale. The victim of child abuse may well grow up to become an abuser. The victim of sexual abuse may also react to such an experience by repeating it on someone else. Many such people do not repeat the cycle, but many do.

Similarly, some large groups of people face discrimination and then bring it to others. Puritans faced discrimination in Europe, came to “the New World” and visited worse upon the native population, on slaves, and as time went on, on various other ethnic groups. Power changed hands at different times in Eastern Europe, and discrimination against one group or another continued to flourish. Shi’a have faced great discrimination in the Muslim world, and this has not brought about an egalitarian government in Iran. Hutus were once the majority treated like a minority in Rwanda. The Nazis rose to prominence on the strength of wounded German pride after years of economic deprivation in the wake of the First World War. The examples are legion. (more…)

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Israel may not have a government, but the election settled one thing: both the governing coalition and the opposition will be led by and mostly composed of parties who range from indifference to ending the occupation to outright hostility to the very suggestion. I explore this in Souciant this week.

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