The way to peace.

Submitted by Warty (Australia), Dec 31, 2016 at 22:37

The two state solution is doomed to fail, not only because US president after US president, and their various Secretaries of States have attempted to apply the same unworkable formulae, with their much published shuttle diplomacies, and their inevitable results. Peace in their eyes was to be achieved by Israel giving up land for security.

As a result, the Palestinians say one thing to the Americans, or the French, or whoever else is trying to achieve the impossible, and then quite another to their own people. And it is the latter (their own people) that actually counts, and truly shows their intention, and why all their (American, French etc) efforts were not worth the paper they were written on. It has always been more a matter of Palestinians achieving sovereignty and 'dignity' than the Israeli concerns about Israeli security.

To tell the truth, Secretary of State John Kerry's speech was a bit of a nonsense. Oh yes, it sounded plausible, he always sound convincing, as well-honed rhetoric invariable does (speak to Goering and Hitler about that) but it was more about defending the indefencible

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For a start, he has the audacity to conflate American and Israeli values, superimposing his notion of an American form of democracy upon an Israel. Israel already has a vibrant, functioning democracy; the Palestinians don't, so how come he doesn't hammer them, particularly the Gaza leadership?
Let's face facts: any peace process will fail, and I'm sure, deep down, he knows this. But to cover his own failed efforts by saying he cannot in good conscience allow the expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, because it will compromise Israeli democracy is ridiculous, and not for him to say anyway: it is entirely a matter for the Israelis . . . end of story.

America's decision not to veto the UN Resolution 2334, was a knee-jerk reaction, nothing else. On one level, it was designed to sabotage any effort on Trump's part to bring the Palestinian question to a successful conclusion (can you imagine the egg on face, if Trump succeeds?). It also overlooks the fact that not a single peace initiative has succeeded since the failed Oslo treaty, despite the fact that every president since then has had a crack at it. Obama's round of talks were, if anything, the least successful of them all. Kerry participated in four years of this, and would no doubt like to deflect any possible criticism of his failure. I'm afraid all too many of us are wise to what he is doing.

We cannot be sure what Trump intends to do with regards to the Palestinian question, but all the indications are very promising indeed. The fact that David Friedman is his nominee as Ambassador to Israel speaks volumes in itself. As we all know, Friedman is emphatically pro-settlement and his nomination says as much about Trump as it does about Friedman himself. My hope is that all foreign funding of the Palestinian cause will cease, along with it their ability to continue their 'rejectionist' policies.

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