In my internet surfings, I found this rather interesting post by Bernd Debusmann. Debusmann suggests that the Obama Administration is the last opportunity for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. I think he has a good point. As the Palestinian situation gets more and more desperate, the idea of a united Palestinian state becomes less and less likely. We already have effectively two Palestines, with Fatah and Hamas governing the West Bank and Gaza respectively.
More and more people are suggesting a one-state solution which sounds like the most positive solution to the conflict. See: (Haaretz: 'Is the two-state solution in danger?' and 'Which kind of bi-national state?', Alternative Palestinian Agenda: Peace Initiative).
While the idea of a federalised but equal state is appealing, it is also unimaginable. Israel is a unique country in that its sole reason for existence is the because of its religious separateness from other countries. If an agreement was made which included a considerable population of Muslims or Christians having political and social parity with the Jews in Israel, this would contradict the purpose of the Israeli state and render the Jewish state pointless. Why have a Jewish homeland if it is not exclusively Jewish? Israel's original purpose was to protect Jews and give them a homeland where they would be safe from the persecution they recieved in Europe. While I don't agree with the idea of an exclusive state for one religion, many in Israel do and the Israeli political lobby as well as the majority of the population would never accept Israel becoming a religiously plural society, where being Jewish wasn't a key element of National identity.If the Israeli state is unable to give up some of its war-acquired land for the foundation of a Palestinian state, it is certainly not going to give up the whole of its country to what would quickly become a majority Arab population. In any one-state solution, Jews would become a minority group and it would become totally unjustifiable for them to rule over an Arab minority, as the white population did over the black population in South Africa. The one-state solution was needed in 1947, before Israel became an exclusively Jewish land and when a multi-ethnic Palestine was still possible.
Over 60 years of violence and bloodshed make it impossible for a just and fair society to be built as if nothing ever happened in 2009. The current Israeli regime and political establishment would also attempt to co-opt the moderate Palestinians, while most Palestinians would expect a lot from their new state. This is likely to accentuate divisions between the Palestinian elite and the Palestinian people which Israel has already caused. Such a scenario could be far more dangerous than it is now for Jewish and Arab citizens in this new country.A two-state solution is the only viable solution to the current situation and this can only be achieved with the political support of a US Administration. The Obama presidency is certainly going to take a more balanced view of the conflict than the Bush administration did.
Obama obviously cannot ignore the US Jewish lobby and the rhetoric of democratic Israelis against 'terrorist' Palestinians that has been allowed to pervade the Western media. While this is an extremely crude and untrue representation of the situation, it has become the accepted belief of many. However, Obama has at least as much political capital in this situation as Bill Clinton did, and Clinton got the two parties talking and even got them signing agreements in Washington. I also believe that if Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had not been assasinated at the rally for peace and Netanyahu and Sharon come in and rolled back the peace process by years, we might today have a Palestinian state.
According to wikipedia, Obama is just as reliant on Jewish voters as Clinton was (both gained around 80% of the Jewish vote in the Presidential elections. (For more details go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008 & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1992)), and his rhetoric does not necessarily suggest he will tackle the solution head on, at least not immediately. He does have the financial crisis, Iraq, Afghanistan, Global Warming, Iran, India-Pakistan and all the other smaller issues to deal with as well.
I hope that he can get round to it soon though, as time and hope is running out for this generation of Palestinians and the US's leverage in world politics decreases every year.
