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Israel/ Palestine

As NYT’s Friedman Laments end of Israel-Palestine Two-State Solution, the Bantustan Alternative Looms

Jeffrey Rudolph 12/23/2022

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Montreal (Special to Informed Comment) – In a New York Times Dec. 18, 2022, opinion piece,  Thomas L. Friedman, echoing many other mainstream commentators, bemoans that Israel’s aggressive settlement policies and growing religious nationalism “could bury the two-state solution and the one-state solution in the same grave.”


However, what Mr. Friedman and other commentators fail to realize is that Israel has an obvious two-state (“strong-Israeli-state, marginal-Palestinian-state”) solution it can implement when necessary.

When Israel’s illegal settlement actions approach the ultimate political threat of a single Palestinian-majority state encompassing Israel and the occupied territories, Israel can simply implement a self-serving, unilateral withdrawal from areas of the West Bank that are overwhelmingly dominated by Palestinians. Once accomplished, Israel will easily gain the support of the only country that matters, the United States.
Article continues after bonus IC video
A Jazeera English: “Israel’s Netanyahu says deal agreed with far-right to form gov’t”


The resulting Palestinian “state” will be like many countries in the world: poor, authoritarian, and ignored.
 
Let’s remember that in 2005, as 8,000 Jewish settlers lived in Gaza — 0.6 percent of the Strip’s population — even Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recognized the demographic, security and public relations costs. Accordingly, he ordered the withdrawal of settlers and soldiers and paid little domestic or international costs.

That Israel still legally occupies Gaza hardly matters. And, the expected, low Jewish casualties from ongoing Gazan resistance have been easily handled and serve to reinforce Israel’s indoctrination of its Jewish population.


Filed Under: Israel/ Palestine

About the Author

Jeffrey Rudolph , a college professor, was a regional representative of the East Timor Alert Network and presented a paper on its behalf at the United Nations. He was awarded the prestigious Cheryl Rosa Teresa Doran Prize upon graduation from McGill University’s faculty of law; has worked at one of the world’s largest public accounting firms; and, has taught at McGill University. His political quizzes are here.

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