Likud Debates a Palestinian State to Save Israel

[La_Serpiente]

Likud Debates a Palestinian State to Save Israel

JERUSALEM, Dec. 12 — In this place that often seems burdened by the past, it is the future that is suddenly bearing down.

Within the Likud, the dominant right-wing party, leaders who once advocated holding every inch of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and who for three years argued that Israel could make no concessions because it lacked a Palestinian peace partner, are now debating how quickly to concede how much of that territory.

The Likud is publicly grappling with a prospect long raised by Israel's left: that within a few years Arabs are likely to be the majority in Israel and its occupied territories, and that they may switch from demanding their own state to demanding the right to vote in Israel, threatening its Jewish identity.

The result is a breathtaking inversion: Though the Likud's platform opposes a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River as a threat to Israel, some members of the party say they have concluded that only the creation of such a state can save Israel as a Jewish democracy.

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Likud Debates a Palestinian State to Save Israel

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[Resistance]

1. In other words

They can't generate enough support for either transfer or continued, gradual ethnic cleansing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. This has been cooking for some time now

That interview was also incredible at many levels, it betrayed a sense
of failure.

Oh and Dan Meridor's statement at the end of the article is perfect for the Neo Cons as well... their whole vision is falling

Oh one more thng... if Israel manages to settle this sand the US... this will be bad for Bush...

Israel leaving behind the Greater Israel also affects Bush's base.

And here is teh kicker, politically this will be good for the ME... they don't need uncle sam to settle disputes if you know what I mean

If they pull this off, the consequences are incredible for world politics.

And yes it souds like the Likud (the worst of the offenders at some levels) and the Palestinians (the worst of the offenders at some levels ) and the seeming contradiction is not... are ready to take the first step and aknowledge the humanity of the other side.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Even Likud can do the math

Mr. Meridor had been a lonely voice in the Likud warning of the demographic shift.
The figures are striking. About 5.2 million Jews and 1.3 million Arabs are Israeli citizens, while roughly 3.5 million more Arabs live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Arab birth rate exceeds the Jewish rate.
"If we don't have a border within a short period of time, one day we will get up and hear Arafat or his successor say, `I don't want a Palestinian state. I want just one thing: Annex me,' " Mr. Meridor said.
Put another way, he said: "The problem now is not that we lose. The problem is that we might win."

[Resistance]

4. I guess the problem amounts to

What to do with all those native Arabs?

The "dovish" position is to slowly push them out with settlement building. The rightist position, of course, is to blatantly continue bulldozing their homes and murdering their civilians with American made missiles and daily gun-fire.

Yet, anyone who proposes a one-state/binational solution is quickly dismissed as living in "fantasy" and should step aside to let the elite planners continue the current treacherous course.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. I find quite a bit of fault with that

The "dovish" position is to slowly push them out with settlement building. The rightist position, of course, is to blatantly continue bulldozing their homes and murdering their civilians with American made missiles and daily gun-fire.

That seems to make no admission that there are Israelis who oppose the occupation altogether. Are you saying that Mr. Avnery is not an Israeli? Are you saying that BTselem is not an Israeli human rights organization?

Yet, anyone who proposes a one-state/binational solution is quickly dismissed as living in "fantasy" and should step aside to let the elite planners continue the current treacherous course

I happen to be among those who the one-state/binational solution is a fantasy. I could be persuaded that it's a good idea, but selling me on the idea that you can sell it to enough other people to make it worth discussing is another matter. Therefore, whether it's a good idea or not is beside the point.

The history of the Jewish people is one where they have been persecuted wherever they have found themselves to be a minority. They believe there is strength in their numbers. Consequently, the most secure way to make sure the Zionist dream carries on is to make sure there is a Jewish majority in Israel.

Swallowing the occupied territories destroys that majority. In short order, Jews will be outnumbered. The Israeli right is finally learning of what the Israeli left has warned all along: A Greater Israel cannot be a Jewish democracy; it will either be Jewish or democratic, but it cannot be both.

If Israeli Jews are going to continue to enjoy democratic freedoms, which I believe are precious, and at the same time have a Jewish state, then the only way they will do that is to let go of the territories and submit to a two-state solution.

That is why we will soon see a sovereign Palestine.