Palestinian State Solution

Now, that is a dilemma. One that has been used as a threat, and now finally as an entitlement whose time has come. Or so its supporters claim.

The United Nations report Palestinian State-building: A Decisive Period is both congratulatory to the Palestinian Authority and to the United Nations itself which has helped guide the PA through a process of infrastructure-building. There has been another notable area of assistance which has helped guide the PA in the West Bank to realize prosperity and that is Israel.

On the theory that a budding and healthy economy with employment for a population eager to have a state of their own would leave them less inclined to restiveness at their unsolved condition as 'refugees' on their own land, and less willing to express violent tendencies toward a neighbour whom they see as an 'occupier', it has always been in everyone's best interests to guide the Palestinians toward nationhood.

When an agreement was made between the State of Israel and Fatah led by Yasser Arafat, with the creation of the Palestinian Authority and co-operation between Israel and the PA initiated, Arafat chose instead to declare an Intifada. The PA has since seen fit to incur a few other such sanctioned violent clashes with Israel, abrogating the mentor-client relationship, and expressing themselves through victimhood and hate-filled violence instead.

Having turned away from one opportunity after another to wrest a peace agreement out of hostile resentment and ongoing violence, the PA finally decided on two significant changes; an overt dismissal of violence even while covertly encouraging it among the population, and a refusal to continue peace talks with Israel. The international community has witnessed the PA speaking of peace, and Israel has heard the PA speaking martyrdom to its people.

Now, however, with a healthy economy and the infrastructure for a functioning state government at hand due to some needed internal discipline and a lot of help from the international community and its neighbour, the PA declares itself prepared for statehood. One it plans to achieve with the agreement of the General Assembly of the United Nations - 100 nations have already signed on - and without bothering to work out a peace agreement with Israel.

The Palestinians refuse to budge on their outright demands for 'right of return', division of Jerusalem and state borders, even though they are aware that it is entirely practicable and feasible to debate the borders, accept the return of Palestinians within a new Palestinian state and not Israel, and discuss side-by-side seats-of-government in Jerusalem; not necessarily that portion they envisage.

There would be no guarantees that any body, international or within the Middle East, could proffer to Israel that might guarantee its safety and security with the unilateral creation of a Palestinian State. The issue of a half-million Israelis living within the 'new borders' of a Palestinian state requiring the protection of the IDF from violent assaults by Palestinians would create a dilemma of huge proportions.

The two states existing side by side would create for Israel an even greater existential threat than currently presents if, having achieved statehood, the West Bank Authority continued to exhort its people to martyrdom, while the Gaza-Hamas faction stepped up its attacks against Israel. The resulting scenario would resemble a scene straight out of hell.

Unless that is precisely what the international community along with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and onlooking Arab states have in mind, to begin with.