Israel: Winning the Battle but Losing the War

[VCheng]

This editorial from The Economist is a very well-written piece, good for reading in full, and then discussion here, I think. I will quote an important excerpt:

Israel: Winning the battle, losing the war | The Economist

QUOTE: ".......
But more than that, Israel needs to hear what its critics say about the need for a two-state solution, which remains the only one that will work. Time is not on Israel’s side. Palestinians may already outnumber Israelis in the lands they share. Without two states, Israelis and Palestinians will be left with one that contains them both. The risk for Israel is of either a permanent, non-democratic occupation that disenfranchises Palestinians, or a democracy in which Jews are in a minority. Neither would be the Jewish homeland with equal rights for all that Israel’s founding fathers intended.

America’s secretary of state, John Kerry, has made a Herculean effort to forge peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians along the lines of two states for two peoples. When the talks broke down, a few months ago, he blamed Israel’s settler lobby. That outraged right-wing Israelis. And now the left has joined in the derision because he proposed a ceasefire in Gaza that Israelis thought favoured Hamas. But Mr Kerry is right. If Israel continues to build settlements in the occupied territory, it will gobble up land that would belong to an independent Palestinian state, making peace harder to reach.

The same goes for what appears to be Israel’s strategy towards both Gaza and the West Bank. Having created a huge open-air prison in Gaza, Israel remains committed to a blockade that contains Hamas—but also ensures that ever more Palestinians grow up angry. On the West Bank, Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has gone backwards: he has said that Israel cannot relinquish security control of the West Bank for fear of Islamist attack. That implies an intention to consolidate the occupation, thus withdrawing all hope from Palestinian moderates. The West Bank would be likely to explode too, then, while the demographic clock ticked on.
....."/QUOTE

@Chak Bamu, the demographic change is what we have talked about earlier, and I still no reason to doubt that a two state solution is inevitable.

 

[Chak Bamu]

I can not comment in detail. I shall only observe that Israeli policy seems to be blind to changing trends. IMV the point of no return has been reached. Two state solution has probably become irrelevant as of now. Let us see how events shape up.

I see a prolonged BDS campaign and slackening Jewish support in Weatern hemisphere forcing change.

 

[VCheng]

I can not comment in detail. I shall only observe that Israeli policy seems to be blind to changing trends. IMV the point of no return has been reached. Two state solution has probably become irrelevant as of now. Let us see how events shape up.

I see a prolonged BDS campaign and slackening Jewish support in Weatern hemisphere forcing change.

YOu are probably correct in that. This is what the ditorial above says in this regards:

QUOTE: "But as the occupation of Palestinian territory has dragged on, sympathy has seeped away. In a poll published in June, before the destruction of Gaza, the citizens of 23 countries put the balance of those who think Israel is a good or bad influence on the world at minus 26%, ranking it below Russia and above only North Korea, Pakistan and Iran. A growing number of Europeans call Israel racist (with the sinister flourish that Israelis, of all people, should know better). And even in America, where a solid majority backs Israel, the share that thinks its actions against the Palestinians are unjustified has risen since 2002 by five percentage points, to 39%. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, Israel is backed by just a quarter.

Many Israelis, and their most fervent supporters in Congress, see today’s hostility as the culmination of a long process of demonisation, double standards and delegitimisation. They have a point. Holding a country to high standards, as Israel’s critics do, can be a compliment—yet against Israel, morality is often used as a cudgel. The common slur that Israel is an apartheid state ignores the fact that Israel’s minorities, such as the Druze, Arabs and Bahais, are protected by the country’s independent courts—including the highest, which has a sitting Arab Israeli judge. The “BDS” campaign to impose boycotts, encourage divestment and introduce sanctions calls not just for an end to the occupation of the West Bank and for equal rights, but also for the right of return of all Palestinian refugees—in other words, for the erosion of Israel as a Jewish homeland. Protests in France against the fighting in Gaza led to attacks on synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses."/QUOTE