http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/opinion/22qaddafi.html
This article is borderline ridiculous. It is written by Muammar Qaddafi, the current leader of Libya, and proposes a one state solution. First of all, you would be hard pressed to find any Israeli or Palestinian, Arab or Jew, who thought a one state solution was a good idea. It may be true that Jews and Arabs coexisted peacefully prior to 1948, (although I think a history of Arab rebellions and Jewish rebel groups disputes that), but at this point there has been too much conflict, too much suffering, and too much internal tension for a one state solution to be possible.
Beyond that, the claims he makes, about Palestinian refugees needing to return to their homeland and Palestinians working within the Israeli or "Israeltine" government can never happen because Israel, by definition is a Jewish State, and an Arab majority population wise, in a democracy, would crush any opposition. Israel would not remain a Jewish state for long and by taking that away you are effectively destroying Israel. No Israeli will ever agree to that.
Also, the kind of refugee return plan Qaddafi is proposing is impossible. Palestinian refugees are not just looking to return to Israel, they are looking to return to specific places in Israel, many of those places now inhabited by others. For such a small country to absorb such a large influx of people is ludricrous. Imagine if the United States was told tomorrow that they had to give back all of the land of the Native Americans, and that everyone non native had to leave. It would be chaos and that is without the added influx of people. It just isn't possible.
ok it's Iraq but it's interesting
-
Here is a link to a blog put up by Morgan on a different Blog. There are a
number of entries that tie more to your topic than theirs. Enjoy.
15 years ago
Posts
While you may disagree with the premise of a one state solution isn't it amazing, hopeful, and utterly unexpected to read something this sympathetic to the Jews from QADDAFI? I grew up with hime being one of the boogie men of the Middle East, one of the supporters of 1970s/80s terror. I agree it would be very hard to have a one state solution for the exact reasons you mentioned, is a two state or status quo 'solution' any easier?
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don't agree with all that Qddafi is saying, I do agree with what KC mentioned that this is significant because Qddafi, who is/was a strong supporter of the PLO is suggesting compromise. Clearly compromise has to be a part of a peace process. Again, not to say that I am agreeing with his refugee return plan that Arabian_nights pointed out (I agree that it's not possible), but what do you think about his including compromise and cooperation from both sides? I think that he raised some good points:
ReplyDelete"In absolute terms, the two movements must remain in perpetual war or a compromise must be reached. The compromise is one state for all, an “Isratine” that would allow the people in each party to feel that they live in all of the disputed land and they are not deprived of any one part of it."
Do you think this is possible? To open the roadblocks and allow people to move freely and go about their daily lives in a more liberated fashion?
I think this would be possible and the best solution, ideally. However, like we were talking about monday night, there would be that extreme 1% of the Palestinian population who would mess it up for the rest. This isn't discriminatory against Palestinians... the same thing would happen if the situation were reversed, and 1% of the extremist Israelis would ruin it. The question is, how can we make it so that the extreme 1% isn't conflated with the other 99%? Therein lies one of the main obstacles to resolution in the conflict.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I forgot to specify that what I was saying could be possible was the opening of roadblocks.
ReplyDelete