A chara,—In his article ‘The Law of the Innocents—Cáin Adomnáin—today’ (HI 32.4, July/Aug. 2024, Platform), James W. Houlihan, while commenting on the Israel–Gaza war, makes a reference to Israel’s alleged ‘dismissal of the two-state solution’.
Firstly, the war was started by Hamas when it chose to invade Israel and slaughter some 1,200 people and take hundreds of hostages. The war would end tomorrow if Hamas agreed to hand over the remaining hostages.
Secondly, Israel’s position on the two-state solution is more nuanced than a mere dismissal. However, if some Israeli leaders are becoming increasingly unenthusiastic about the idea, it might be because attempts by their predecessors have always ended in nothing or even undermined the security of their country.
The history of Israeli–Palestinian peace negotiations is also a history of Palestinian rejectionism. The Israelis put forward proposals; the Palestinians say ‘no’. For example, in 2008 the Israeli offer consisted of land swaps that would give the eastern portion of the proposed Palestinian state more territory in terms of area than the West Bank. It also offered to give up the Temple Mount and to accept 150,000 Palestinian refugees. There is evidence that the main Palestinian negotiator (the late Saeb Erekat) was amenable to the proposal and that it was ultimately senior people in the Palestinian Authority who rejected it.
When Egypt administered Gaza between 1948 and 1967, it made no attempt to establish Palestinian sovereignty in the area. Likewise, the Jordanians never sought to set up a Palestinian state in the West Bank during the same period. It will always be an inconvenient fact for critics of Israel that the only country ever to facilitate the establishment of Palestinian sovereignty over any area has been Israel—in Gaza and in Area A of the West Bank.
Israel left Gaza in 2005 and handed control back to Gazans. Hamas could have tried to set up a functioning state in Gaza that put the well-being of Gazans as its top priority. Instead, their top priority was launching missiles at communities and villages in southern Israel. Thus the handing back to Palestinians of one part of the proposed Palestinian state has rendered many areas in the south of Israel effectively uninhabitable owing to indiscriminate missile attacks by Hamas. Israel isn’t dismissing the principle of a two-state solution but if some Israeli politicians are expressing misgivings, those misgivings have been building for decades and are very well founded.—Is mise le meas,
CIARÁN Ó RAGHALLAIGH
Cavan