Aaron David Miller on the fragmentation and political incapacity of the Palestinian national movement
This recent piece by Aaron David Miller (Humpty Dumpty Palestine) offers an intelligent, illuminating, and compact analysis of one part of a larger and depressingly complicated problem. I recommend reading the whole thing and thinking about it, so I won't try to summarize his argument. But it might be worth saying a few background words about where Miller is coming from.
Miller is a veteran peace-processor. From 1985-2003, during his time in the State Department, he was actively involved in various US efforts to help broker Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements. For decades he has strongly supported the goal of achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement based on a two-state solution. He would still like to see that outcome, but has become increasingly pessimistic about the likelihood that it will happen any time in the foreseeable future. I hope he is wrong about that, but the analysis underling his pessimism (laid out, for example, in his 2008 book The Much Too Promised Land) is cogent and often convincing.
That's not to say that I always agree with Miller's arguments. But they always warrant careful consideration. Aside from the fact that he's intelligent and well-informed, his moral and intellectual perspective on these issues doesn't share the one-sidedness that (in various forms) tends to characterize most discussions of the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.
The unfortunate reality is that obstacles to a peace settlement are strong on all sides of the conflict—and it's important to recognize that at least three sides are involved, since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has never existed in isolation, but has always been bound up in a larger, very complex, Arab-Israeli conflict. And the situation is further complicated by the fact that rejectionist tendencies on all sides have always been very effective in reinforcing each other. Any serious analysis of these matters has to be able to grasp each of these pieces of the puzzle in its own terms while also recognizing the ways that they are comprehensively interconnected and (to mix the metaphor a bit) mutually interacting.
But most discussions of these issues are one-sided in ways that are both morally and analytically distorted. The more common tendency is to place all the blame on the Israelis (or on real or imaginary versions of "Zionism"). Obviously, that's true for people who think that Israel's existence is illegitimate in the first place, and that eliminating Israel is the way to solve the problem. But astonishing numbers of otherwise intelligent people, who believe that they favor some sort of peaceful solution, appear to share the delusion that the Israelis could simply make peace by themselves if they wanted to—and that, therefore, more US pressure on Israel would be sufficient to do the trick). Other people put all the blame on the Palestinians, often without recognizing their legitimate grievances and the impossible features of the situation they have had to face for over a half-century. (For the moment, we'll leave out the role of the larger Arab world in contributing to the problem and its responsibility for helping to solve it, since most discussions give the Arabs a free pass in these respects anyway.)
Neither of these approaches makes sense, either morally or analytically, and one of Miller's virtues is that he doesn't fall into either of those camps. In particular, he regards the Israeli-Palestinian component of the Arab-Israeli conflict as a genuinely tragic conflict between two legitimate national movements that both deserve sympathy and support. (And since that's the way I see it myself, this counts as a strength in my book.) There is no necessary or inherent contradiction between being "pro-Israeli" and "pro-Palestinian", though that kind of perspective is all too rare in practice, And I think Miller offers one example of how one can do this in a realistic and tough-minded way, without succumbing to any kind of mushy can-we-all-just-get-along sentimentality. Again, that doesn't mean he's always right. But it does add to the moral and intellectual credibility of his arguments—at least, in my view.
That may seem like an overly long-winded introduction to a fairly brief item, but I do think it's worth the trouble to put Miller's arguments here in perspective. The focus of this particular discussion is on the Palestinian piece of the puzzle; and given the high-strung character of polemics about the Arab-Israeli conflict, this fact may lead some readers to jump to the conclusion that Miller belongs to the one-sided blame-the-Palestinians-&-exonerate-the-Israelis camp. He doesn't.
Unfortunately, for people who really want to see genuine and durable Israeli-Palestinian peace, the actual and potential obstacles on the Palestinian side can't simply be ignored, whitewashed, or assumed away.
These problems go beyond the fact, which many people try to ignore or obfuscate, and one of the two most powerful forces in Palestinian politics, Hamas. doesn't want to make peace with Israel and rejects the whole notion of a two-state solution. As Miller observes, the disagreements between Hamas and the currently dominant wing of Fatah headed by Mahmoud Abbas "are not over seats in a legislature but over fundamentally different visions of what and where Palestine is." But the power struggles between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are are only one manifestation of deeper rifts in Palestinian society and politics. The most fundamental questions, Miller argues, have to do with whether there exists a coherent and effective Palestinian national movement that is actually capable of building a viable nation-state and making genuine peace with Israel.
Miller is skeptical. Some highlights:
—Jeff Weintraub
==============================
Foreign Policy
September 12, 2011
Humpty Dumpty Palestine
Even if the United Nations grants Palestine statehood this September, it's far from looking -- or acting -- like a real, functioning state.
By Aaron David Miller
Aaron David Miller is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former U.S. Middle East negotiator. His new book, Can America Have Another Great President?, will be published in 2012.
In coming weeks, we're going to hear quite a bit at the United Nations and in world capitals about Palestinian rights, unity, and statehood. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) -- the original organizational embodiment of Palestinian nationalism -- will either succeed in gaining new status as a nonmember U.N. observer state, or win a General Assembly resolution supporting Palestinian statehood.
But beneath the expressions of solidarity, celebration, and hoopla, a much darker reality looms: The Palestinian national movement has become a fractured Humpty Dumpty, with grave consequences for Israeli-Palestinian peace, regional stability, and Palestinians themselves.
The Palestinians are a people with a compelling and just cause; their nationalism and attachment to Palestine cannot be easily broken or undermined. Just consider the Jews in the diaspora, whose attachment and yearning for the Land of Israel survived centuries of rootlessness, persecution, and even genocide.
Still, geography, demography, and power politics drive history too, not just ethics, morality, and memory. And here the Palestinian story is much less compelling. Decentralized, dysfunctional, and divided, the Palestinian national movement has long lacked a coherent strategy for realizing its people's nationalist aspirations through either armed struggle or diplomacy. The Israeli occupation, the perfidy of the Arab states, and the Palestinians' own dysfunctional decision-making have left them adrift, without much hope of achieving meaningful statehood.
Over the years, centrifugal forces and history itself have broken the Palestinians into five very uneasy pieces. The current unity gambit between Fatah (the largest PLO faction, headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas) and Hamas (the organizational embodiment of a Palestinian Islamist nationalism) only highlights those divisions, which are not over seats in a legislature but over fundamentally different visions of what and where Palestine is. No U.N. resolution can overcome the reality that it will be hard to put the Palestinian Humpty Dumpty together again.
The first piece is Gaza, where more than a million Palestinians live in political and economic limbo. Here Hamas rules uneasily but supremely. The Israeli blockade, recurring war, restrictions on movement, and absence of real opportunity for economic growth have reinforced a sense of separateness and despair. Gazans are certainly part of the Palestinian family, and they will claim to lead its nationalist vanguard (the first Intifada started there, but Gazans are cut off and seen by West Bankers as less-sophisticated country cousins ill-suited for leading the national movement). How many Palestinians from Gaza have ever risen to positions of leadership in Palestinian national politics? Even Yasir Arafat, the world's most famous Palestinian -- and Gaza resident -- wanted it known that he was born in Jerusalem, whether it was true or not. As long as Hamas is in charge, Gaza will retain its provincial character and move in its own direction -- more traditionalist, more Islamist, and more oriented toward Egypt.
Second, in the West Bank, 2.6 million Palestinians comprise the closest thing to a Palestinian statelet. But here, the PLO doesn't so much rule as preside with the indulgence of the Israelis who still control a large portion of West Bank territory, expand settlements at will, and determine who and what gets in and out. Paradoxically, an improved security situation, some economic growth, and responsible governance and institution-building by Fatah's leadership have produced remarkable stability that has worked to preserve the status quo. The West Bank is hardly in a pre-revolutionary state, and both Abbas and the Israelis have a stake in keeping it that way. Still, tensions within Fatah -- driven by a generational divide, resentment over corruption, and opposition to the Palestinian Authority's (PA's) lack of respect for the rule of law -- abound; and Hamas waits patiently to increase its own leverage. Should Abbas resign or retire, Palestinians in the West Bank would be left with no recognizable national figure to guide the PA, further exacerbating division and dissension.
Third, in East Jerusalem, almost 300,000 Palestinians (roughly 38 percent of the city's population) are an anomaly. Not Israeli citizens, but permanent residents, these Palestinians worry constantly about losing their residency, their daily lives made harder by the separation barrier. They do receive Israeli state benefits, such as health care and education; and they pay taxes for it, though their share and quality of those benefits are hardly equitable to those of Israelis (yet still much better than what West Bankers and certainly Gazans receive). Palestinians here have learned to adjust and to survive -- a great many even to prosper. They resent Israeli restrictions and discrimination; and most would want their own state if it were well-governed. But many Palestinians here are worried that they would lose their right to speak freely under a PA-controlled Palestinian state and are concerned about governmental corruption and lack of respect for human rights.
Fourth, there are 5 million Palestinians registered as refugees -- with roughly a third, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, in 58 recognized camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and the West Bank and Gaza. When the PLO was itself in diaspora, these communities held greater sway. Even now, however, they continue to limit and even block what the PLO can do and what it can concede on the issue of right of return -- the Palestinian claim that refugees and their descendants have a right to return to their homes in what is now Israel -- during any negotiations with the Israelis. For all practical purposes, these communities represent a lost world; their options and future are grim. In the absence of a solution, they too will go their own way, vulnerable to radicalization and a continuing source of pressure on host governments. Nor has the Palestinian national movement -- unlike the Zionists -- been able to marshal the power of wealthy and influential expatriates in the United States, Europe, or Latin America.
Even without adding in the fifth piece -- the 1.3 million Palestinians who are citizens of Israel and want to remain so (though treated equitably) -- the consequences of these divisions are profound. No national movement can become a successful state without a monopoly over the forces of violence within its society, centralization of resources, and a coherent strategy. Rooted in the West Bank, the PLO lacks all these things. It cannot mobilize the people of Gaza or East Jerusalem; it cannot command their loyalties through money, show of force, or successful diplomacy, let alone marshal those in the diaspora.
And as long as Hamas has the power to trigger a military conflict with Israel through the use of high-trajectory rockets and missiles, Fatah will always be at the mercy of events and never really in control. Finally, President Abbas does not have the kind of legitimate and broad mandate he needs to negotiate a solution to the issues of refugees and Jerusalem on behalf of all Palestinians.
An Israeli government less than committed to a meaningful two-state solution -- such as the one led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- would look at the Palestinian Humpty Dumpty as just another reason to be complacent and believe that no conflict-ending solution is possible. Even a government that was serious about a settlement would ask serious questions about making concessions to a Palestinian president who doesn't control all of the people or guns of Palestine.
The fact is, it isn't the Israelis who have a demographic problem; it may actually be the Palestinians who simply cannot marshal enough control over their disparate parts to harness their people power into an effective strategy. Any Israeli government -- even one that was serious about negotiations -- would try to develop separate approaches to deal with these divisions: a military/security policy toward Gaza; a co-optation strategy toward the West Bank; and a border-security approach toward the diaspora.
If it looked like the forces of diplomacy, rather than the forces of history, might dictate the outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, perhaps these various pieces of the Palestinian puzzle could be worked out and addressed. But today, with no sustainable negotiations on the horizon, that does not appear to be the case. A Palestine in pieces does not bode well for a conflict-ending solution, and no paper resolution or upgrade in status in New York this month will change that.
Miller is a veteran peace-processor. From 1985-2003, during his time in the State Department, he was actively involved in various US efforts to help broker Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements. For decades he has strongly supported the goal of achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement based on a two-state solution. He would still like to see that outcome, but has become increasingly pessimistic about the likelihood that it will happen any time in the foreseeable future. I hope he is wrong about that, but the analysis underling his pessimism (laid out, for example, in his 2008 book The Much Too Promised Land) is cogent and often convincing.
That's not to say that I always agree with Miller's arguments. But they always warrant careful consideration. Aside from the fact that he's intelligent and well-informed, his moral and intellectual perspective on these issues doesn't share the one-sidedness that (in various forms) tends to characterize most discussions of the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.
The unfortunate reality is that obstacles to a peace settlement are strong on all sides of the conflict—and it's important to recognize that at least three sides are involved, since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has never existed in isolation, but has always been bound up in a larger, very complex, Arab-Israeli conflict. And the situation is further complicated by the fact that rejectionist tendencies on all sides have always been very effective in reinforcing each other. Any serious analysis of these matters has to be able to grasp each of these pieces of the puzzle in its own terms while also recognizing the ways that they are comprehensively interconnected and (to mix the metaphor a bit) mutually interacting.
But most discussions of these issues are one-sided in ways that are both morally and analytically distorted. The more common tendency is to place all the blame on the Israelis (or on real or imaginary versions of "Zionism"). Obviously, that's true for people who think that Israel's existence is illegitimate in the first place, and that eliminating Israel is the way to solve the problem. But astonishing numbers of otherwise intelligent people, who believe that they favor some sort of peaceful solution, appear to share the delusion that the Israelis could simply make peace by themselves if they wanted to—and that, therefore, more US pressure on Israel would be sufficient to do the trick). Other people put all the blame on the Palestinians, often without recognizing their legitimate grievances and the impossible features of the situation they have had to face for over a half-century. (For the moment, we'll leave out the role of the larger Arab world in contributing to the problem and its responsibility for helping to solve it, since most discussions give the Arabs a free pass in these respects anyway.)
Neither of these approaches makes sense, either morally or analytically, and one of Miller's virtues is that he doesn't fall into either of those camps. In particular, he regards the Israeli-Palestinian component of the Arab-Israeli conflict as a genuinely tragic conflict between two legitimate national movements that both deserve sympathy and support. (And since that's the way I see it myself, this counts as a strength in my book.) There is no necessary or inherent contradiction between being "pro-Israeli" and "pro-Palestinian", though that kind of perspective is all too rare in practice, And I think Miller offers one example of how one can do this in a realistic and tough-minded way, without succumbing to any kind of mushy can-we-all-just-get-along sentimentality. Again, that doesn't mean he's always right. But it does add to the moral and intellectual credibility of his arguments—at least, in my view.
That may seem like an overly long-winded introduction to a fairly brief item, but I do think it's worth the trouble to put Miller's arguments here in perspective. The focus of this particular discussion is on the Palestinian piece of the puzzle; and given the high-strung character of polemics about the Arab-Israeli conflict, this fact may lead some readers to jump to the conclusion that Miller belongs to the one-sided blame-the-Palestinians-&-exonerate-the-Israelis camp. He doesn't.
Unfortunately, for people who really want to see genuine and durable Israeli-Palestinian peace, the actual and potential obstacles on the Palestinian side can't simply be ignored, whitewashed, or assumed away.
These problems go beyond the fact, which many people try to ignore or obfuscate, and one of the two most powerful forces in Palestinian politics, Hamas. doesn't want to make peace with Israel and rejects the whole notion of a two-state solution. As Miller observes, the disagreements between Hamas and the currently dominant wing of Fatah headed by Mahmoud Abbas "are not over seats in a legislature but over fundamentally different visions of what and where Palestine is." But the power struggles between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are are only one manifestation of deeper rifts in Palestinian society and politics. The most fundamental questions, Miller argues, have to do with whether there exists a coherent and effective Palestinian national movement that is actually capable of building a viable nation-state and making genuine peace with Israel.
Miller is skeptical. Some highlights:
In coming weeks, we're going to hear quite a bit at the United Nations and in world capitals about Palestinian rights, unity, and statehood. [....] But beneath the expressions of solidarity, celebration, and hoopla, a much darker reality looms: The Palestinian national movement has become a fractured Humpty Dumpty, with grave consequences for Israeli-Palestinian peace, regional stability, and Palestinians themselves.As I said, I hope this assessment turns out to be excessively pessimistic. But it can't simply be waved away. So read the whole thing (below).
The Palestinians are a people with a compelling and just cause [....] Still, geography, demography, and power politics drive history too, not just ethics, morality, and memory. And here the Palestinian story is much less compelling. Decentralized, dysfunctional, and divided, the Palestinian national movement has long lacked a coherent strategy for realizing its people's nationalist aspirations through either armed struggle or diplomacy. The Israeli occupation, the perfidy of the Arab states, and the Palestinians' own dysfunctional decision-making have left them adrift, without much hope of achieving meaningful statehood.
Over the years, centrifugal forces and history itself have broken the Palestinians into five very uneasy pieces. [....] No national movement can become a successful state without a monopoly over the forces of violence within its society, centralization of resources, and a coherent strategy. Rooted in the West Bank, the PLO lacks all these things. It cannot mobilize the people of Gaza or East Jerusalem; it cannot command their loyalties through money, show of force, or successful diplomacy, let alone marshal those in the diaspora.
And as long as Hamas has the power to trigger a military conflict with Israel through the use of high-trajectory rockets and missiles, Fatah will always be at the mercy of events and never really in control. Finally, President Abbas does not have the kind of legitimate and broad mandate he needs to negotiate a solution to the issues of refugees and Jerusalem on behalf of all Palestinians. [....]
If it looked like the forces of diplomacy, rather than the forces of history, might dictate the outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, perhaps these various pieces of the Palestinian puzzle could be worked out and addressed. But today, with no sustainable negotiations on the horizon, that does not appear to be the case. A Palestine in pieces does not bode well for a conflict-ending solution, and no paper resolution or upgrade in status in New York this month will change that.
—Jeff Weintraub
==============================
Foreign Policy
September 12, 2011
Humpty Dumpty Palestine
Even if the United Nations grants Palestine statehood this September, it's far from looking -- or acting -- like a real, functioning state.
By Aaron David Miller
Aaron David Miller is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former U.S. Middle East negotiator. His new book, Can America Have Another Great President?, will be published in 2012.
In coming weeks, we're going to hear quite a bit at the United Nations and in world capitals about Palestinian rights, unity, and statehood. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) -- the original organizational embodiment of Palestinian nationalism -- will either succeed in gaining new status as a nonmember U.N. observer state, or win a General Assembly resolution supporting Palestinian statehood.
But beneath the expressions of solidarity, celebration, and hoopla, a much darker reality looms: The Palestinian national movement has become a fractured Humpty Dumpty, with grave consequences for Israeli-Palestinian peace, regional stability, and Palestinians themselves.
The Palestinians are a people with a compelling and just cause; their nationalism and attachment to Palestine cannot be easily broken or undermined. Just consider the Jews in the diaspora, whose attachment and yearning for the Land of Israel survived centuries of rootlessness, persecution, and even genocide.
Still, geography, demography, and power politics drive history too, not just ethics, morality, and memory. And here the Palestinian story is much less compelling. Decentralized, dysfunctional, and divided, the Palestinian national movement has long lacked a coherent strategy for realizing its people's nationalist aspirations through either armed struggle or diplomacy. The Israeli occupation, the perfidy of the Arab states, and the Palestinians' own dysfunctional decision-making have left them adrift, without much hope of achieving meaningful statehood.
Over the years, centrifugal forces and history itself have broken the Palestinians into five very uneasy pieces. The current unity gambit between Fatah (the largest PLO faction, headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas) and Hamas (the organizational embodiment of a Palestinian Islamist nationalism) only highlights those divisions, which are not over seats in a legislature but over fundamentally different visions of what and where Palestine is. No U.N. resolution can overcome the reality that it will be hard to put the Palestinian Humpty Dumpty together again.
The first piece is Gaza, where more than a million Palestinians live in political and economic limbo. Here Hamas rules uneasily but supremely. The Israeli blockade, recurring war, restrictions on movement, and absence of real opportunity for economic growth have reinforced a sense of separateness and despair. Gazans are certainly part of the Palestinian family, and they will claim to lead its nationalist vanguard (the first Intifada started there, but Gazans are cut off and seen by West Bankers as less-sophisticated country cousins ill-suited for leading the national movement). How many Palestinians from Gaza have ever risen to positions of leadership in Palestinian national politics? Even Yasir Arafat, the world's most famous Palestinian -- and Gaza resident -- wanted it known that he was born in Jerusalem, whether it was true or not. As long as Hamas is in charge, Gaza will retain its provincial character and move in its own direction -- more traditionalist, more Islamist, and more oriented toward Egypt.
Second, in the West Bank, 2.6 million Palestinians comprise the closest thing to a Palestinian statelet. But here, the PLO doesn't so much rule as preside with the indulgence of the Israelis who still control a large portion of West Bank territory, expand settlements at will, and determine who and what gets in and out. Paradoxically, an improved security situation, some economic growth, and responsible governance and institution-building by Fatah's leadership have produced remarkable stability that has worked to preserve the status quo. The West Bank is hardly in a pre-revolutionary state, and both Abbas and the Israelis have a stake in keeping it that way. Still, tensions within Fatah -- driven by a generational divide, resentment over corruption, and opposition to the Palestinian Authority's (PA's) lack of respect for the rule of law -- abound; and Hamas waits patiently to increase its own leverage. Should Abbas resign or retire, Palestinians in the West Bank would be left with no recognizable national figure to guide the PA, further exacerbating division and dissension.
Third, in East Jerusalem, almost 300,000 Palestinians (roughly 38 percent of the city's population) are an anomaly. Not Israeli citizens, but permanent residents, these Palestinians worry constantly about losing their residency, their daily lives made harder by the separation barrier. They do receive Israeli state benefits, such as health care and education; and they pay taxes for it, though their share and quality of those benefits are hardly equitable to those of Israelis (yet still much better than what West Bankers and certainly Gazans receive). Palestinians here have learned to adjust and to survive -- a great many even to prosper. They resent Israeli restrictions and discrimination; and most would want their own state if it were well-governed. But many Palestinians here are worried that they would lose their right to speak freely under a PA-controlled Palestinian state and are concerned about governmental corruption and lack of respect for human rights.
Fourth, there are 5 million Palestinians registered as refugees -- with roughly a third, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, in 58 recognized camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and the West Bank and Gaza. When the PLO was itself in diaspora, these communities held greater sway. Even now, however, they continue to limit and even block what the PLO can do and what it can concede on the issue of right of return -- the Palestinian claim that refugees and their descendants have a right to return to their homes in what is now Israel -- during any negotiations with the Israelis. For all practical purposes, these communities represent a lost world; their options and future are grim. In the absence of a solution, they too will go their own way, vulnerable to radicalization and a continuing source of pressure on host governments. Nor has the Palestinian national movement -- unlike the Zionists -- been able to marshal the power of wealthy and influential expatriates in the United States, Europe, or Latin America.
Even without adding in the fifth piece -- the 1.3 million Palestinians who are citizens of Israel and want to remain so (though treated equitably) -- the consequences of these divisions are profound. No national movement can become a successful state without a monopoly over the forces of violence within its society, centralization of resources, and a coherent strategy. Rooted in the West Bank, the PLO lacks all these things. It cannot mobilize the people of Gaza or East Jerusalem; it cannot command their loyalties through money, show of force, or successful diplomacy, let alone marshal those in the diaspora.
And as long as Hamas has the power to trigger a military conflict with Israel through the use of high-trajectory rockets and missiles, Fatah will always be at the mercy of events and never really in control. Finally, President Abbas does not have the kind of legitimate and broad mandate he needs to negotiate a solution to the issues of refugees and Jerusalem on behalf of all Palestinians.
An Israeli government less than committed to a meaningful two-state solution -- such as the one led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- would look at the Palestinian Humpty Dumpty as just another reason to be complacent and believe that no conflict-ending solution is possible. Even a government that was serious about a settlement would ask serious questions about making concessions to a Palestinian president who doesn't control all of the people or guns of Palestine.
The fact is, it isn't the Israelis who have a demographic problem; it may actually be the Palestinians who simply cannot marshal enough control over their disparate parts to harness their people power into an effective strategy. Any Israeli government -- even one that was serious about negotiations -- would try to develop separate approaches to deal with these divisions: a military/security policy toward Gaza; a co-optation strategy toward the West Bank; and a border-security approach toward the diaspora.
If it looked like the forces of diplomacy, rather than the forces of history, might dictate the outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, perhaps these various pieces of the Palestinian puzzle could be worked out and addressed. But today, with no sustainable negotiations on the horizon, that does not appear to be the case. A Palestine in pieces does not bode well for a conflict-ending solution, and no paper resolution or upgrade in status in New York this month will change that.
posted by Jeff Weintraub at 9:51 AM
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