Yassir Arafat said on Thursday that
Israel must withdraw from all the lands it occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War and Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return to their homeswhich would seem to help undermine any chances that Abu Mazen might have to persuade the average Israeli that the Palestinians are sincere about seeking peace.
Meanwhile, "It's the demography, stupid": Israel Harel explains why the vision of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza is a delusion. Unless Egypt and/or Jordan agree to cede some of their enormous and underpopulated territory to the Palestinians, then the demands of the overcrowded Palestinians on tiny Israel will never end.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 15, 2003 10:00 PMI've always felt that Palestinians deserved additional land, and I have always worried that a noncontiguous state made of Gaza and West Bank would prove impractical. In a better world, Gaza would be part of Egypt, West Bank would be part of Jordan. Perhaps those better versed in history than me could explain why the future of Gaza, with much less strategic significance than Sinai, was not discussed in the 1979 Camp David Accords, or why Israel (as well as the US) did not try to make a deal (beyond the unrealistic Alon plan) with King Hussein - who only gave up Jordan's claims to the West Bank in 1987.
Me suspects the reason has to do with the same same two intractibilities that are precluding a settlement today and for the forseeable future:
1) Palestinian insistence on the '48 refugees right of return.
2) Dreams of "Greater Israel" in Judea and Samaria.
To me the solution is simple - give them both up, with the acknowledgement that they are both causes that have some moral validity, but that need to be sacrificed for a greater good.
Posted by: Markus Rose on May 16, 2003 06:57 AM