The Obama administration is going to press ahead with efforts to broker an agreement between Israel and the “Palestinians” that will include a “two-state solution.” There’s nothing new about this, of course–Bill Clinton pursued the vision of two states, “Palestine” and Israel, living side by side in peace, unsuccessfully, as, equally so, did George W. Bush. Leaving aside the question of whether in fact a state peopled by members of Hamas, the PLO, and Fatah would live in harmony with a Jewish state next door, the “Palestinians” face another problem: The state their “leaders” have actually embraced for them is that of victimhood, the condition in which they have presented themselves to the world for the 60-odd years of Israel’s existence. Their recent history of upping the ante after each Israeli offer of more–more concessions on land, more concessions on settlements, more on the status of Jerusalem–has secured the statelessness and immiseration of their people for a long time to come. Now, in an amazing display of honesty that aired on Al Jazeera in March, chief negotiator Saab Erekat admits as much:
And they’re right. How much easier it is to retail the fantasy of pushing Israel back to its pre-1967-War borders and proclaiming Jerusalem their own capital than to begin the tremendously difficult work of state-building. And how much more profitable, too, to carry on lining their pockets and bank accounts with the proceeds from their welfare-addicted hat-in-hand importunings of foreign governments.
