<Levi Eshkol did just this in 1967 - annexed East Jerusalem, and offered the rest back in a land for peace deal.>
No, I didn't know that. You know a lot of history. Guess I'll add that to my list of opportunities the Arabs passed up.
<The answer is to have a Palestine where it is not absurd to have Jews live under the same conditions that Arabs have in Israel, as citizens, promising loyalty to the state.>
Arabs are second-class citizens in Israel, a state set up explicitly as a Jewish homeland. Arabs have always been excluded from all coalition governments, and have gotten so discouraged about their rights as citizens, that they have stopped voting altogether. They are systematically discriminated against, in a thousand ways. The army is probably the most important unifying institution in the country, and the army is Jewish. You can point to statistics that show Arabs in Israel are better off than Arabs elsewhere, but that's like saying American Blacks are better off than Blacks in Nigeria. Doesn't prove there isn't discrimination.
And Arab nations, including Jordan when it owned the West Bank, have expelled all their Jewish populations.
So, Arabs will never be happy living in a Jewish State, and Israelis will never live in an Arab State. The whole point of Israel, was so Jews could live in a nation where they are the majority and run things for their own benefit.
The history of the last 60 years, has been unremitting daily violence between the two peoples. The solution you propose, works in places like Quebec and Belgium. Won't work in the Middle East. |
