Saturday, June 22, 2002

State split in two

John Derbyshire in the National Review seems to think the Palestinian state made up of two seperate parts won't work because of the 30 miles of hostile territory in the middle. But the point is that Israel is not necessarily hostile to a Palestinian state. It's the Palestinian state that is hostile to Israel.

Two points: A. Most Israelis are not hostile to the idea of a Palestinian state. They are hostile to a Palestinian terrorist state out to destroy Israel. They are hostile to a Palestinian state headed by terrorists.
B. If I remember rightly, the road leading from Ghaza to the West bank used by Palestinians was working OK until the Palestinians started misbehaving. What we're striving for here is peace between these two states, like the U.S. and Canada, otherwise it's no go. The Palestinian state will not be able to survive economically, anyway, without cooperating with Israel, so hostilities between the two states are not an option in the long run.

Unfortunately, all this seems highly unlikely in my lifetime.