Two God-Awful Essays and My Own Opinion, Volume 1: Israel

Patricia Berlyn arguing against a Palestinian state.

Rosemary Shinko arguing for a Palestinian state. The clumsy formatting isn't my fault here.

Both of these essays appear in a book that I was required to buy for my International Relations class. Both essays come across as simplistic, heavyhanded and ignorant of the reality of the situation. It's unfortunate that professors regard this sort of thing as a starting point. Why can't we start with the complex reality, and work our way toward understanding from there rather than a position of inherent, provoked bias? A quick opinion on a conflict this old isn't helpful in any way.

All that said, my provoked, biased opinion is that a two-state solution would be just fine provided that there is a groundswell of sudden and unprecedented civility between Palestinians and Israelis. Getting good leaders won't do it because a democratic public won't vote for a leader who's out of step with them. One of the limitations of a democratic nation is that policy can only move as fast as public majority feeling allows, which isn't very fast when there are ancient grudges involved. This change really does have to happen at the grass-roots level before it can happen in the policy arena.

That means a cease-fire that actually gets obeyed to give the people enough time to cool the hell off. Islamic extremists are dedicated to not allowing that to happen, and that is always to the detriment of Palestine, not Israel. Without crackdowns on terrorist activity and arms smuggling, a cease-fire in the policy realm won't matter. That's why Israel occasionally bombs smuggling tunnels and assaults the West Bank, but without the cooperation of the PA it isn't enough to hold the situation in place. And, with the repeated international condemnation of these security maneuvers, it's impossible for Israeli security forces to maintain a preventative presence in the area, counterinsurgency style.

The result of that is the constant flux between buildup, attack, counterassault, withdrawal, buildup ad nauseum. It would help Israel to have international support for their security measures, but that would be easier to get if they favored a more proportional response than they do now, and while they haven't been given much reason to change, a solid strategy in this sort of situation is really based on the least amount of force necessary, not overwhelming force. It's very hard to get to that understanding when you have towns that are being attacked by smuggled or home-made rockets every day.

As for the Palestinians, they need to cut political and real ties with jihadis, who they may feel are fighting for them but are really genuinely hurting their cause. It may feel good to sling rockets at people you hate, but it isn't always constructive and that's certainly the case here, because violence only matters if it can actually change the situation wether by magnitude or direction, and that has not been demonstrated in this context. Mutual non-aggression here has to start with the PA becoming very tough about halting terrorist activity. And as stated, without a miraculous swell of mutual good-will and understanding at the ground level, that won't happen.

So the answer isn't an absolute, til-death-do-us-part position, and it shouldn't be. It's a categorical "no" for the Palestinian state as the situation stands now, with the understanding that if and when the situation changes, that "no" can be re-evaluated.