Ali Abunimah, the cofounder of the online publication, The Electronic Intifada, and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, reported this further development: One-state solution “gaining ground” UN envoy admits.

The obvious reason for this development is that Israel has gone so far in confiscating or colonizing the West Bank that there is no turning back. In fact, that Israel continues on a daily basis, today, to further the extent of its land grab in the West Bank, one might argue that it, Israel, does not believe it has gone far enough. But in so doing, it is obviating any possibility for a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Furthermore, that Israel, along with its United States co-conspirator, the Bush administration, has virtually decimated the Palestinian leadership by not accepting the democratically elected Hamas government, which leaves no Palestinian government available with which to negotiate.

Israel for years claimed that had no partner. It was of course pure propaganda to stall any serious peace effort until the Greater Israel dream was completed. That dream would be the return of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) to its rightful owners, the Israelis, damned the thousand of years of Arab presence. In Israel, it is claimed that King David gave birth to Jerusalem, when the truth is he only occupied a city that had been there for two previous millennium populated by Canaanites and related peoples, who in the views of some historians were likely forerunners of modern day Palestinians.

No matter. History for the Israelis began three not five thousand years ago and rightful ownership will not exceed that time span; absence is also irrelevant, and sharing is not even worthy of discussion.

Well, today it looks as if events in the West Bank and especially Gaza (see the latest news or Booman’s latest article) may require Israelis and Palestinians to eventually live together in one state, resulting in a historically self-corrected version of rightful ownership. As a two state solution has been rendered impossible, people who hate each other must learn to live together.

Welcome, Bishop Tutu.

This is Ali Abunimah’s 13 June 2007 report of a UN Envoy’s observations of the reality in the West Bank:

The one-state solution for Palestine-Israel is “gaining ground,” a senior UN diplomat has admitted in a leaked confidential report. Recently retired UN special envoy Alvaro de Soto wrote “that the combination of [Palestinian Authority] institutional decline and Israeli settlement expansion is creating a growing conviction among Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, as well as some Jews on the far left in Israel that the two State solutiuon’s best days are behind it.”

De Soto’s “end of mission” report delivered to his superiors in May, but published in The Guardian on June 13 contains stinging criticism of the anti-Hamas and pro-Israeli approach taken by the UN, the European Union and the United States. “The steps taken by the international community with the presumed purpose of bringing about a Palestinian entity that will live in peace with its neighbour, Israel, have had precisely the opposite effect,” de Soto wrote.

While his broadsides at the failed peace process have been widely reported, his acknowledgment of the decline of the two-state solution has drawn less notice.

De Soto, a Peruvian diplomat who has also served as a special envoy to Cyprus, observed: “Given that a Palestinian state requires both a territory and a government, and the basis for both is being systematically undermined,” an increasing number of Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and some Israeli Jews “believe the only long-term way to end the conflict will be to abandon the idea of dividing the land and instead, simply insist on respect for the civil, political and national rights of the two peoples, Jews and Arabs, who populate the land, in one State.”

Contradicting peace process industry conventional wisdom and spin, which long held that Israel’s 2005 settler pullout from Gaza was part of an effort to implement the “Road Map” peace plan, de Soto acknowledged that Israel was motivated entirely by concerns about the fact that Palestinians are once again on the verge of becoming the majority in Israeli-ruled territory (as they were prior to 1948). Israel is in a conundrum because further unilateral withdrawals are “off the table” while “the demographic clock continues to tick.” De Soto predicts that “Should the PA pass into irrelevance or non-existence, and the settlements keep expanding, the one State solution will come out of the shadows and begin to enter the mainstream.”

Signs that this is already happening include increased public discussion of a single state in the Palestinian solidarity community. This includes a seminar to be held this July at Spain’s Universidad Complutense de Madrid at which Palestinian academics and activists from inside Israel, the occupied territories and the Diaspora, along with counterparts from Israel, Spain, South Africa and other countries will discuss legal, practical and political opportunities and possibilites for a single state.

Drawing on his experience in Cyprus, de Soto speculates that a peace plan developed originally for Cyprus based on a binational confederation could be revived for Palestine.

 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7025.shtml

The latest synonym for the “one state solution” is “unintended consequences.”

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