I significantly expanded upon a post I wrote here about the Israeli elections for my latest piece in Tikkun Magazine. It lays out the thesis that Israeli electoral and party politics are essentially dead. Netanyahu will win the election, but that nothing will change for the better and nothing can change for the better. That the nation has no internal mechanism that can bring about a solution to the conflict. And that given such a predicament the only viable solution to the conflict becomes a one-state solution. Not a solution many Jews have sought, but one that appears more and more immutable the worse the political situation inside Israel.
RE: “the nation [Israel] has no internal mechanism that can bring about a solution to the conflict. And that given such a predicament the only viable solution to the conflict becomes a one-state solution.” ~ R.S.
ALSO SEE: “The Death of the Israel-Palestine Two-State Solution Brings Fresh Hope”, by Rachel Shabi, The Guardian, 10/23/12
With many Palestinians and Israelis coming round to the idea of a bi-national state, it’s possible to glimpse a peaceful future
LINK – http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/23-14
Netanyahu has called the early elections to boost his power in Knesset with more extremist lawmakers to face Barack Obama during later’s second presidential term – as their are many signs that Obama and his military advisers are not interested in a war with Iran, which could become another Vietnam for America and a new Holocaust for Israel.
The ‘third party’ candidates are oppenly criticizing America’s blind support for Israel and praising Iran for later’s record of peaceful co-existence.
http://rehmat1.com/2012/10/24/jill-stein-obama-romney-are-israels-slaves/
Israel “has no internal mechanism that can bring about a solution to the conflict.” Well, democracy is a mechanism, but the reality is that you are right, just as USA has no mechanism for giving up massive military spending, military action, and empire.
After 1945, Jews pretty much did not require passports to travel and live in the whole world. Jews were not stateless, and today are so very, very far from being powerless. Jews as such don’t need a separate state or an empire. Not that I can see. Israelis will of course want Israel to continue and, sadly, to continue as an empire, to expand beyond all reason, to remain without challenge but nevertheless constantly at war. Hard habit to break it seems. Taking the criminality [of 1945-1948, say] out of Israelity is the puzzle of our time and of our discourse.
One State, as such and tout court, is not a “solution” — it is a whole class of arrangements of which the present apartheid non-democratic in all of Mandatory Palestine is [1] a good example and [2] most likely to be permanent unless and until a significant international consensus toward BDS-like sanctions against Israel forces (encourages) Israel to do something else. The most likely “something else” (from the international viewpoint) is still, I expect, a removal of all settlers, destruction of wall and all settlement buildings, equitable sharing of water, and an end to the siege of Gaza. HOWEVER there is no likelihood of such international pressure anytime soon.
just a quick note,
Since yesterday, the “siege” of Gaza was broken.
but don’t take my word for it. that’s what the Hamas PM said.
You pretty much captured my thoughts as well. The “foreign policy debate” pretty much confirmed what we all know; there is no mechanism to change US foreign policy and military spending either. It put Romney at a disadvantage because he really couldn’t criticize anything Obama does. At best, he could have tried to”one up” him, but to do so when have crossed the line into absolute lunacy.
Are you going on record at this point as supporting the one-state solution rather than two?