Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Was That A Typo?

From a New York Review of Books article, Israel & Palestine: Can They Start Over? by Hussein Agha, Robert Malley:-

Although their angle differs significantly, Hamas leaders too see things that way. Existential issues cannot be resolved now, they say, not with emotions so raw, not with an Israeli entity that remains hostile and has usurped the land from its original Palestinian owners. Future generations might find a more harmonious way of living together, but only after a cooling-off period. For the time being, a truce, or hudna, that involves a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders is the most that can be done.

Other suggestions fall in this broad category: a Palestinian state within provisional borders or resolving borders first, while postponing questions about Jerusalem and refugees.


Could/should that have been revolving borders?

Maybe.

This bit is even more interesting:

There is the shadow cast by the view long held by many Israelis that Jordan is Palestine, from which it follows that there is no need to establish another independent Palestinian state or for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank...

Yet arguments favoring some kind of Jordanian–Palestinian entity comprising Jordan, the West Bank, and perhaps Gaza are worth considering. Inserting a new variable would give both parties additional flexibility in an increasingly arthritic process...What Israel might not hand over to the Palestinian Authority, they conceivably could give to a joint Palestinian–Jordanian entity. In the absence of a continued Israeli presence, a Jordanian security force in the West Bank would be viewed as reliable—undoubtedly more than any alternative Arab contingent, Egypt included...

Palestinians would need to overcome the initial jolt. Their national movement has spent the past several decades emphasizing separation from Jordan...

Being closely linked to Jordan—a country of similar ethnicity and faith, where the majority are already Palestinian—and accepting a Jordanian security presence in the West Bank might seem a tolerable price to pay compared to the alternatives...

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