Two-State Solution

Since the election I have had a real uneasiness in my spirit regarding our new President and the Middle East situation. Obama has attempted to allay fears by making statements supportive to Israel. However, in his collaborative style he insists on surrounding himself with people who seem to have more sympathy for the Palestinians than for the Israelis.

I have commented in the past about how opinions here and even in Israel are changing and cooling off regarding Israel’s destiny. The rapidly rising consensus in the world is that the Middle East needs the Gandhi approach. We remember Gandhi as a little Indian man who stood for nonviolence. But to hundreds of millions of Indians and Pakistanis Gandhi is the one who took Muslim belligerence and solved it with a two-state solution. Gandhi is the one who drew a line to separate most of the Muslims from the Hindus by creating the country of Pakistan. Since then over 1 million people have died due to border disputes, and most recently in Bombay the slaughter seemed to tell the world that Gandhi’s plan didn’t work.

However with the Middle East in mind, this two-state solution like the one in India seems to be the right thing to do. It is being touted as the rationale of non-violence. The missing question is: nonviolence by whom? The solution doesn’t end the racial hatred by the Muslims. It only provides another Petri dish to grow and multiply the virus of hate.

The uneasiness I have been feeling is that Obama, a peace loving, collaborative pragmatist is the perfect sucker for this solution. Here is a great You Tube video from Little Green Footballs . It shows a very articulate member of “The 18”, a group formed to debunk the two-state solution. You will find him very compelling.