What a croc!!!! Israel ‘destroy(ed) the two-state solution’?

Quite the mystery. Who destroyed the two-state solution? Let us investigate Riyad Mansour’s slam-dunk allegation as to which party “destroy(ed) the two-state solution.”

Israel, of course. No question. Last Wednesday, Mansour, Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, accused the Jewish state of foiling the formation of an independent Palestinian state when he addressed an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. Conditions in Gaza led to the scheduling of Wednesday’s session.

Mansour must be right. The current Israeli government is solidly opposed to creation of a Palestinian state, and many supporters of Israel do not want to hear about an independent state.

What’s their problem? They do not appreciate that trivial skirmish back on Oct. 7, 2023, as Hamas terrorists massacred 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 250 more. How typical of us Jews to split hairs.

What’s more, the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed removing the people of Gaza and sending them elsewhere, and it has proposed annexing the West Bank and building so-called settlements at a site east of Jerusalem that would preclude a contiguous chain of Palestinian communities.

Ha-ha! So Israel is the culprit. Well, maybe not.

There is a matter of who the heck is the accuser. Mansour is listed by the United Nations as the Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine.

Advocates for the so-called State of Palestine neglect to define “Palestine.” The term has often been uttered for the past few decades, but nobody bothers to explain its meaning.

If there is no “Palestine,” how can there possibly be a “State of Palestine”? If there is no State of Palestine,” how can anyone serve as its ‘Permanent Observer?’ What is he observing?

Mansour’s job has no practical purpose, and he is irrelevant to the debate. He has no role and nothing he says can be taken seriously. One can argue that the U.N. authorised Mansoura to be a “permanent observer,” but that does not make him relevant.

The concept of a two-state solution is not the prime issue. The issues are hypocrisy, deception and distraction. I do not believe an independent state for Arabs will work, though I would be delighted if I turn out to be wrong. I think that the parties should look at all possible options.

Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank could have had an independent state 25 years ago when Israel proposed such an entity during a summit hosted by President Clinton at Camp David. Arab leader Yasser Arafat ignored the offer and initiated or facilitated a bloody uprising in Israel’s territories.

This sequence of events hardened the hearts of Israelis who soon voted out Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s center-left administration and replaced it with a right-leaning parliament. Successive governments, most of them conservative, backed away from consideration of a two-state solution.

Israeli governments were open to compromise since the modern state of Israel was established in 1948.

Back to Oct. 7 for a moment. Ilana Gritzewsky was among the 251 Israelis and others taken hostage to Gaza, where she was detained for 55 days. After Mansour charged Israel with “destroy(ing) the two-state solution,” Gritzewsky described the brutal conditions she suffered before she was released.

Of the world’s mostly one-sided attacks upon Israel, she said, “It is betrayal.”

Even before Oct. 7, the present Israeli government was leery of a two-state arrangement. After that day, the thinking goes that if Gaza could serve as a springboard for an invasion, what would the Arabs do if they were granted official control of Gaza and the West Bank?

Netanyahu’s critics have legitimate concerns about the deaths of thousands of Gazans and the starvation of those still left. Israel should neither automatically accept the creation of an independent state nor close the door to it.

But Israel is unmovable, so long as this right-wing administration controls the government. That would be Mansour’s idea of evidence, or proof, that Israel destroyed the two-state solution.

Israel may be blocking an independent state now, but it did not “destroy the two-state solution.” Besides, a more centrist government could later reconsider the idea.

The so-called Palestinians destroyed their creation of a state the instant they responded to the Camp David offer with a war that left 1,000 Israelis and 3,000 Arabs dead and persisted with ongoing hostilities in various forms. Up to and far beyond Oct. 7.

Case closed.