[lbo-talk] Friedman's new line on Israel/Palestine

[Brad DeLong]

>    Every time I feel I ready to dismiss Thomas Friedman completely he says
>something I agree with, just as I am about to toss him on the ash heap.
>Today on the News Hour he was talking about the effects of the wall being
>built and (although his logic was a bit tortured) it led him to conclude
>that what is coming in Israel is the "one state solution".  That is,
>Palestinians will stop looking for a state and just start demanding the
>franchise in Israel.
>
>    Personally, I have always thought that this is the way to go.  The
>Israeli government should allow significant right of return, compensate
>those displaced persons whose land has been taken or property rights
>diminished, go through a truth and reconciliation process, declare a single
>state, change the flag and then bend over backwards to make Palestinians
>full citizens so that by the time Jews are overwhelmed demographically,
>Arabs and Jews can trust each other.
>
>   I just don't see another answer.  A state of Palestine can't really
>compensate the Palestinians for their losses of land inside Israel and the
>two state concept keeps alive the notion that Jews and Arabs can't live
>together.  Zionists and Arabs can't live together.  Jihadists and Jews can't
>live together.  Jews and Arabs can live together.
>
>    Compared to the horrors of Rwanda or even Guatemala, the
>Israeli/Palestinian conflict does not actually represent that much outright
>crime against humanity for the parties to reconcile themselves to.  It was a
>war but it was nothing like Korea or Vietnam or even the recent Balkan wars,
>for example.  If not for religion and foreign involvement, it would be a
>relatively small war in world terms.  I think it should not be fetishized.

You may be right. Certainly we two-staters have to start facing 
facts: our project has crashed and burned spectacularly in the 1990s. 
(Although I can't help wondering if Yitzhak Rabin's assassination 
really did materially change the course of history.)

Brad DeLong