Lost hope for two-state solution

A good friend is one who chastises you when you’re driving recklessly. They might even take away your keys, because they’re worried for your safety.

America is that kind of friend to Israel. In her “Explanation of Vote at the Adoption of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 on the Situation in the Middle East,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power reaffirmed America’s friendship and commitment to Israel’s safety.

For the past 50 years, the U.S. position on Jewish civilian settlements in Arab territories that Israel captured in 1967 is that it “undermines Israel’s security, harms the viability of a negotiated two-state outcome, and erodes prospects for peace and stability in the region.”

The entire world agrees, which is why U.N. Resolution 2334 passed 14-0 in December. This is only the latest of dozens of U.N. resolutions regarding Israel’s occupation of Arab land. The government of Israel has ignored every one of them.

The current Israeli prime minister recently said his government is “more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history,” and one of his coalition partners said, “The era of the two-state solution is over.”

Power explains, “The settlement problem has gotten so much worse that it is now putting at risk the very viability of that two-state solution. The number of settlers in the roughly 150 authorized Israeli settlements east of the 1967 lines has increased dramatically.” There are now over 590,000 Israeli Jews living on Arab land and there are plans for more than 2,600 new settlement units.

I once advocated for the two-state solution. I agreed with U.S. and world leaders that it was the best thing for Israel’s security. But at this point, I believe the continued settlement expansion and annexation of Arab lands has gone too far to ever allow for the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

This presents an existential dilemma for the Jewish democratic nation. By expanding its borders to encompass the land that was designated for a Palestinian nation, Arab Muslims will outnumber the Jewish population in Israel (“Palestinians to outnumber Jewish population by 2020,” Haaretz, Jan. 1, 2013).If the Palestinians are given the same rights as Jews, as democracy would require, Muslims will soon be running the country and Israel will no longer be a Jewish state. If Israel denies voting rights to the majority of its people, then it will no longer be a democracy.

There is only one way to preserve both democracy and Jewish supremacy in Eretz Israel and that is to expel 6 million Arabs from their homes. If it comes to that, I hope America will be the kind of friend that takes away the keys.

Sue Gray

Carbondale