[Previous entry: "Iran's Khatami Says Islam Is the Enemy West Needs"] [Next entry: "Task Force Urges Bush To Be Tougher With Russia"]

03/05/2006:

"Prof. Ilan Pappe, (Haifa Univ.) on the Israel-Palestine conflict"

...Q: The supporters of Israel, left supporters of Israel, basically say that the two-state solution is the only real possibility for Israel, and thatâ??s why they push its support in the US. What is your answer to that?

I can see a support for a two-state solution emerging, immediately after the Six-Day war, when Israel did not yet annex the East Jerusalem, did not yet build one Jewish settlement in it. There was a lot of logic of saying that despite, despite the fact that it is only 20% of Palestine could be a basis for a Palestinian state, next to Israel, and that these two states, in the future, would develop in such a way that they might turn it into one state, and even find a way of solving the refugees problem. But this is all water under the bridge.

In 2005, with the number of Jewish settlements, with the Greater Jerusalem becoming one third of the West Bank, and the local, and global, and regional balances of power, I think a two-state solution can only become an indirect way for continuing the Occupation. And as I said before, if we understand that the diplomatic effort has deepened the Occupation, has not brought an end to it, so in the case of the two-state solution we have to liberate ourselves from that paradigm. It can only help the Occupation and the Zionist colonization, and only the beginning of ideas of one-state solution can create a different future there.
informationclearinghouse.info