Vanishing solutions...

[Violet_Crumble]

Leader
Thursday February 12, 2004
The Guardian

Recent developments on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide raise a fundamental question that the international community is reluctant to confront: is a two-state solution now beyond reach?
Such a solution postulates two sovereign, internationally recognised, viable nations living side-by-side in peace and security. This idea dates back to the end of the British mandate and UN general assembly resolution 181 which called for the partition of Palestine into independent Jewish and Arab states while placing Jerusalem under UN administration. Nearly 60 years on, a two-state solution remains, with variations, the basis of the current Middle East "road map" - the latest of many international peace plans - and of the unofficial Geneva Accord proposals. The UN, the EU, Russia and nearly all Arab states now back such an outcome. George Bush became the first US president publicly to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state. Officially, a two-state settlement is still the aim of both Ariel Sharon's government and Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Yet despite this consensus, such an agreed, negotiated solution seems to be slipping further and further away. Always elusive, it is now in danger of growing illusory.

On the Israeli side, the causes of this regression are to be found in Mr Sharon's failure to deliver the security which he promised voters. For three long years, Mr Sharon has tried to end Palestinian violence with relentless violence - military, economic, political - of his own, as seen in Gaza again yesterday. During this time, he has paid only scant, sporadic attention to the peace process. Now, finding that his methods have not worked and under sharpening domestic criticism on a range of fronts, Mr Sharon has radically shifted tack. His new focus is on unilateral solutions, on security fences and withdrawal from Gaza and, potentially, from less desirable parts of the West Bank. Having failed both to cow or engage the Palestinians, he now seeks separation on imposed terms. Mr Sharon's Israel could come to resemble a medieval walled city, hunkered down behind moats, keeps and ramparts, more secure - but always under siege.

On the Palestinian side, the political failure is if anything more grievous still. Mr Arafat, and his latest prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, can and do blame the Israelis for all their problems. But there is no escaping the fact that the Palestinian leadership has consistently failed to stop the violence, especially against Israeli civilians, that so damages the Palestinian cause and so emboldens Israeli hardliners. There is no doubt that factionalism, corruption and incompetence at the top have badly weakened the PA's standing as a credible partner for peace. There is really no denying that Mr Arafat, in particular, has let his people down; that his Fatah movement is a shambles; that the nationalist banner is increasingly hijacked by the extremists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad; and that inter-Palestinian violence, in the quasi-anarchic context of the cities, is rising sharply. If there are no negotiations, no real prospect of a two-state solution, the PA surely faces collapse. And if Mr Sharon goes ahead, what will be left, comprising Gaza and perhaps 50% of the West Bank, will not amount to a viable state. The dream of independent Palestine may be replaced by a dysfunctional bantustan or rump homeland, by penned-in, impoverished cantons of misery, by a slum fiefdom run by Islamist bombers bent on unending war.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,1146154,00.html

[YellowDawg4Dean]

1. I think that to the contrary, the two-state solution is the only one.