Monday, June 08, 2009

Israeli Group Offers Alternative to 2-State Solution

Hillel Fendel
A7 News

The “Israeli Initiative” political lobby says Israel must ally with Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in order to stop the Tehran-Gaza-Beirut axis.

The organization made this statement after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced his plan to respond to U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo with one of his own next week. The speech might simply be an attempt by Netanyahu to sidestep the American pressure to stop building for Jews in Judea and Samaria, says the organization, which was founded by former Tourism Minister and MK Benny Elon. “However, the Prime Minister has a greater responsibility than that upon him. With Washington signaling an appeasing approach towards Iran, Israel must join with Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in order to put the brakes on the Tehran-Gaza-Beirut axis.”



Instead of Two-States, Israel Must Involved Jordan and Egypt

The Israeli Initiative, which has long said that the long-term solution for the Middle East involves Jordanian citizenship for most of the Arabs of the Palestinian Authority, warns against the two-state solution touted by Obama and rejected by Netanyahu: “Promoting a Palestinian state, which will immediately become a Hamas state, means promoting the Iranian axis. It is vital that Israel present the world and the moderate Arab regimes an alternative, in the form of a regional arrangement that renews the links between the Arabs of Judea and Samaria to Jordan.”

The issue of the refugees – millions of Arabs whose ancestors, some 500,000 of them, were displaced by the 1948 War of Independence – “perpetuates the conflict, and must be solved immediately, with the help of Jordan," the organization feels.

BESA Professor: Hamas + Fatah = No PA State

Prof. Ephraim Inbar of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA), has come to a similar conclusion. In a paper he issued earlier this year, Inbar proposed to do away with the two-state paradigm and to adopt a regional approach to the conflict. “Given that the two-state solution cannot be implemented,” Inbar wrote, “it would be desirable to re-link Judea/Samaria with Jordan, and Gaza with Egypt.”

“Most of the leaders in the West and in Israel still think that it’s possible, with some help from the outside, to build a ‘nice’ Palestinian state that will choose the path of co-existence with Israel. But that which can be attained by external political engineering is limited, as has been proven in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The Palestinian society still has a long way to go… The process, if it ever happens, can take decades.”

“In the meantime,” Inbar continues, “Israel is stuck with two rival Palestinian entities along its borders – two entities that are not even close to any kind of unity that will enable it to become a responsible partner with Israel. Thus, as of now, the two-state option simply no longer exists.”

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