04-02 The Palestinians

The secret to the never-ending dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians is time. Lots of time to pass, so that most of their citizens can forget their religion. At some period in the future, everyone in the West Bank and Gaza will become a citizen of Israel. There is only one long-term solution, and that is a one-state solution.
Studying the attached map of Israel and the Palestine territories, an observer can see just how awkward the geography is of the whole area. Can you just imagine the West Bank as a separate hostile state that would not allow Jews as citizens?
And now with settlements expanding in the West Bank area and in East Jerusalem, talk of a separate state for the Palestinians is impossible to achieve.
Apparently, something like 400,000 Israelis have settlements in the West Bank area, and 200,000 live in East Jerusalem.
I love hearing the Prime Minister of Israel say he supports a two-state solution. Of course, he doesn’t. And now that President Trump says he supports a two-state solution we can know for sure the opposite is the unofficial US policy.
Here is how my thinking has evolved, and it is based on family history in Northern Ireland. Ireland has a two-state solution, because of the Protestant north not wanting to be under the control of the Catholic south. Just love all the hatred associated with “loving God”.
In the 1960s visiting Ireland, I experienced the bigotry and hatred amongst my father's many cousins. They were all seriously religious.
But now they have all died out and are replaced by offspring who never go to church and have lost all that old Catholic fear. And it is equally hard to find die-hard Catholics who pay much attention to the teachings of the Church either in the north or the south of Ireland.
And what this means is that if Britain withdraws from the European Union, we will see a political movement to unite the political north and south of Ireland. The long-term solution to the age-old Irish issue is a one-state solution.
Coming back to the problematic issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Compromises have been tried in the past and were called the Oslo Accords. Land for peace. That resulted in a right-wing Israeli extremist assassinating Prime Minister Rabin.
And how can you even imagine the evolution of a Palestinian state when the Hamas anti-Israeli Muslim movement that controls the Gaza strip cannot work with the moderate Palestine Authority that controls the West Bank.
And what makes matters even more impossible is the reality that sworn enemies of Israel like Iran provide Hamas funding. Here is something from the original Hamas charter. “Israel will exist until Islam will obliterate it.”
Here is the solution. Pretend you want a two-state solution. Build a Jewish state that is only quasi-democratic. Build walls. Allow time for the old super religious Jews and Palestinians to die out. Create Israel as a democratic state with equal rights for all. Take down the walls.