Isreali Palestinian - a Two State Solution - Mandatory

galway | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Sunday January 17, 2010 19:41 by donkylemore

Palestinian sense of outrage at expansionism in Jerusalem by Israel

Unless the muscle of the US and its government can be turned around and Obama starts listening to his emissary George Mitchell and to a lesser degree Ms Clinton there will be no real change either in Gaza , the border crossings or any hope of Israeli compliance with International Justice and humanity.
Neither can any advancement towards a 2 state solution be even conceived until the Israelis agree to Jerusalem being the Capital City for both Israel and Palestine.

The glacial pace of peace of events in the Middle east , by even the smallest increments is frustrating to the point of exasperation and despair.
It ‘s stasis has become its own gravitational force which sucks into its own black hole all hope and possibility.

Unless the muscle of the US and its government can be turned around and Obama starts listening to his emissary George Mitchell and to a lesser degree Ms Clinton there will be no real change either in Gaza , the border crossings or any hope of Israeli compliance with International Justice and humanity.
Neither can any advancement towards a 2 state solution be even conceived until the Israelis agree to Jerusalem being the Capital City for both Israel and Palestine.

Further back , there can be no real progress for the Palestinians until the Israel return to their LEGAL borders which they have violated every day since 1967.The right of return of banished Palestinians must be acknowledged , and whereas Israel cannot be expected to take in such a huge migrant population , that ‘right ‘ must be accepted .
The historiography of the area from Moses leading his people across the Red Sea to the ‘Promised Land ‘ , through the Roman occupation, in the time of Jesus right up to the present time only serves to highlight the complexity of the situation .
By comparison the Irish Peace Process was a walk over . When asked why a solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians could not be found in a similar manner, a wise old Rabbi thought for a moment
- How long had the problem existed
- eight hundred years
He considered this and replied -
- ’ Ah Yes ! It was easy to settle a dispute of such a short duration.’

The vacillation of Mr Netanyahu on a daily basis ;one day pandering to the Jewish ultra Orthodox, the next to the liberals is evidence not of an unwieldy persona at the helm of the Knesset , but a conniving one; one well conversant with the dark art of double speak.

The embargo on S African food stuffs succeeded because a group of workers stood up to an international apartheid system. It was a world wide workers movement which culminated in the eventual release from prison of Nelson Mandela , and the gradual easing of apartheid .

Maybe it can happen for the Gazans , but the road for peace in the middle east , including in Iraq , Iran, Yemen , and further east in Afghanistan and Pakistan , is not through flowery prose in Cairo but through the Via Delarosa that is Jerusalem.
And it is not the Via Delarosa of the Old City , but rather more that Via Delarosa of the minds ,that bilateral obduracy ; mutual persecution complexes, the distrust and the fear of the Mortars and the suicide belt on one side , and the Sherman tank and GPS controlled drone

Did we all expect too much from Mr Obama .?
We all yearned for a new Camelot . And he sounded so inspiring ; his writing so poetic.
He has much to contend with domestically , but the two emissaries he has in Ms Clinton and Mr Mitchell are formidable and skilful politicians

Mr Mitchell is quite a remarkable man . His patience and perseverance through endless days and nights with hardened gunmen implacably opposed to one another slowly chipped away at the block of historical ethnic hatred.
The rock slowly crumbled and the IRA and the Unionists sat down together . This was utterly unthinkable for years before Mr Mitchell’s arrival.

That Mr Mitchell did not win the Nobel Peace prize is a source of gross disappointment across the island of Ireland.

In wishing him well for success in the Middle East one has to consider his age and the formidable task before him.

But at some stage Mr Obama must be less ambiguous on the continual violation of apartment blocks in Jerusalem , and then he must make a clearer statement of the two state solution with Jerusalem as Capital for the Israeli and the Palestinian.