Israel/Palestine

Last edited Tue Feb 1, 2022, 10:07 AM - Edit history (1)

I am looking forward to links where Beilin and Peres compare Barghouti to Mandella. I doubt very much that Tutu, despite his nominating Barghouti, compared him to Mandella either, or even suggested he has full support of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories.

None of this, however, reflects on Barghouti's standing, ability, or even willingness to negotiate a two state settlement with Israel on behalf of the Palestinian people. Not only is he not an established representative of the Palestinian people, he is vehemently opposed to the very existence of the State of Israel. You don't believe that Israel is open to the proposition of dissolving itself, do you? Our respective opinions don't matter, but we can both safely assume that this part is not negotiable under any two-state framework, can't we?

But we are digressing here. The issue you raised was how practical the prospects of negotiating a two-state solution are, and what it will take to move the negotiations forward. My response was that, based on past precedents, it is possible and likely to find a bona fide negotiating partner in Israeli leadership, but it is extremely unlikely, again, based on existing precedent, to find such figure in the Palestinian leadership. I also gave a reason for this: the Palestinian leadership is being manipulated by the Shiah/Sunni interests in their struggle for regional dominance at the expense of the Palestinian people. As long as we remain blind to whose interests really drive the perpetuation of Palestinian/Israeli conflict, there will be no solution to it.

On edit: And calls to single Israel out for wholesale condemnation only keeps our our eyes closed to the never-ending conflicts within the Muslim world that deliberately perpetuate the status quo the Palestinian people find themselves unable to break.