I present to you the next winner of the smoking socks award - the weekly award in honour of a schtoooopid letter appearing in a South African newspaper. (Previous awards here and here).
First, the context to the letter. A while back The Star ran a pro-Israel opinion piece by Joel Pollack. This was followed by a scathing attack on Israel in a Firoz Osman opinion piece. Firoz Osman is from the propagandist Media Review Network (MRN) (who still lie about the route of the Israeli security barrier). The Star then published an excellent letter by Joel Pollack in response to the Osman article. But at the same time The Star ran a spurious article by Allister Sparks claiming that the two state solution is dead.
The letter in response to all this, in The Star today, wins the IAS Smoking Socks Award for this week.
Two State Solution is No Answer to the Conflict I read with interest the letter of Joel Pollak (September 21) in which he expressed his objection to the earlier letter by Dr Firoz Osman, secretary of the Media Review Network, that questioned Pollak's views in his article on the Gaza pull out. While Dr Osman may not have answered the question raised by him, namely, "What next for the Palestinians in Gaza?" that question has been answered in the comment article by Allister Sparks titled "Israel's two state solution is dead". (The Star September 21) Essentially what next can there be? Palestinians have no viable future either in the Gaza or in the West Bank. It is a fact that the envisaged independent Palestinian state will be totally dependant on Israel for its survival, a fact similar to the Bantustan homelands that the Apartheid government envisaged as a solution for South Africa. This dream failed with the collapse of Apartheid and here too will it fail with the dream of a two state solution. I salute Sparks for pursuing this debate and I would equally urge our government to reassess their position. Giving any credence to such a bogus solution that they themselves - as freedom fighters - rejected in their struggle for liberation in South Africa. |
A single state solution is an approach pursued mainly by those confined to the radical margins of the political discourse. The one state solution is merely a euphemism for the destruction of the Jewish state by demographic subversion.
Last year in Cape Town, at the conference of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, the MRN called for a one-state solution. At some point after this call, Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erakat spoke out against this call, saying that the Palestinian people want their own state - they support a two state solution.
The latest Palestinian Opinion Pulse backs this view with an overwhelming majority of Palestinians favouring a two state solution.
Even if the Palestinians do not support a two-state solution, Israel will still never destroy itself. No other country has ever been asked to expand its borders to swallow up land populated by hostile people who would dramatically alter the demographic nature of the state.
If as the letter writer claims, a state in Gaza and the West Bank is no viable (though he doesn't say why) then why should Israel bear responsibility for the Palestinian people? Gaza borders Egypt and the West Bank borders Jordan. Between 1948 and 1967 Egypt occupied Gaza and Jordan occupied the West Bank. The Palestinians have more in common with Egyptians and Jordanians than they do with Israelis. If the Palestinian state in Gaza and WB is not viable then why isn't there support for the annexation of Gaza by Egypt and the annexation of the West Bank by Jordan? I'll tell you why. Even though it would make more sense for Arab nations to swallow up the Palestinian people, anti Zionists still call for a single binational state because they cannot bear the idea of a succesful and strong Jewsih state.
Yup...you smoke your own dirty socks and then you lose all sense of rationality.
Posted by: Anti-UN | September 28, 2005 at 19:51