Al Jazeera interviews Electronic Intifada's Ali Abunimah
Laila El-Haddad, Al Jazeera, 3 July 2007

For nearly 20 years, the two-state solution has been promoted as the agreed framework for negotiations and ultimately peace to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. But two decades on, it has failed to bear fruit.

In his book, "One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse," Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian-American writer and commentator on Middle East and Arab-American affairs and co-founder of the Electronic Intifada website, argues that the "conventional wisdom" of the two-state, land-for-peace equation needs to be rethought. Partition, he argues, is a flawed idea that is doomed to fail.

The only viable choice is a return to the proposal of a one-state solution -- one country with equal rights and votes for both Israelis and Palestinians. Al Jazeera's Laila El-Haddad interviewed Abunimah about his book.

AL JAZEERA: You go from reluctantly backing a two-state solution to advocating a one-state solution. When did you make the ideological shift and why?

ABUNIMAH: I always struggled with it, but I did for many years sincerely believe that a two-state solution was the best, the most possible, the most pragmatic.

I made the final shift about three or four years ago during the [second] intifada, when I recognised that all the talk of a two-state solution, all of the diplomatic initiatives, were so divorced from the reality of what Israel was doing on the ground that it became clear to me it was not possible. I learnt more, I read more about South Africa, about Ireland, about Palestine, and this is where I ended up.

AL JAZEERA: You spend a significant part of your introduction sharing your own family's exile from Jerusalem in 1948, and later acknowledge that some might say you have no desire for reconciliation because you dwell on history. How do you reconcile competing historical narratives in a future state?

ABUNIMAH: It is a hard question. Peace can never be built on denial. When someone has to deny their history, that is an exercise of power against them. When there's equality, people will be able to tell their history and tell their stories without it being seen as a threat to the other.

AL JAZEERA: You have repeatedly described efforts to push forth a two-state solution as "flawed conventional wisdom." What do you mean?

ABUNIMAH: You can get a majority of people to agree in principle to partition as in "yes it's a good idea let's agree on partition." But you can't get them to agree in practice. And nobody succeeded in getting to a partition plan that a bare minimum of Palestinians accept and a bare majority of Israelis accept and vice versa.

The absolutely maximum they were prepared to offer in Camp David was much less than the minimum that the vast majority of Palestinian would accept. And there was not even an Israeli consensus around Camp David. So, as long as we're vague, as long as we say "we agree on partition in principle," then everyone says we agree it's a good idea. But when you sit down to do it, nobody ever succeeded. The Israelis want too much and the Palestinians want too much to make it work.

You can't partition something that is inhabited by the same people. That's why partition failed in Ireland and brought about misery in India where still to this day [people] remember where they were displaced from and many bloody wars have since taken place.

Partition is about trying to create on the ground a purity that exists only in people's minds. Human reality is always about mixing.

AL JAZEERA: You draw on the South Africa case extensively. But ultimately, there was a desire among South Africans to live together in one state, a desire that many argue is currently absent in both Palestinian and Israeli societies. So why push for a one-state solution nobody in the mainstream necessarily supports?

ABUNIMAH: There is a common misunderstanding that there was already agreement on the goal of a united democratic South Africa. That is not the case.

The policy of the whites was separatism and Apartheid was about creating a separate state for whites and an artificial state for blacks -- the so-called Bantustans. So, actually, partition along the lines we see in Palestine was the model in South Africa that the whites were pushing, and I quote De Klerk saying so -- that they only accepted the notion of a united South Africa after they lost and recognised that they couldn't maintain their power.

Whites were not more ready to live with blacks than Israeli Jews are to live with Palestinians. The fact that they were willing to do so was the outcome of the struggle.

AL JAZEERA: But are Palestinians as ready to live with Israelis as blacks were with whites?

ABUNIMAH: In some ways more so. Another common misunderstanding is that most Palestinians want their own state. In the West Bank and Gaza you have about 60 per cent consistently over time that say they support a two-state solution.

But you also have consistently between a quarter and a third who say they support a bi-national state or a secular democratic state. Not an Islamic state -- but a state for Palestinians and Jews with equal rights. Support for an Islamic state gets three or five or 15 percent maximum.

So it's remarkable that support for a two-state solution is so tepid even in the West Bank and Gaza when there is a full industry -- a multi-billion- dollar industry -- to promote the two-state solution. I also think it is remarkable that support for a one-state solution is so high and increasing given the fact that there is no official leadership that is advocating it.

That's Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza. If you look at the situation within Israel, you find that the sort of united leadership of the Arab and Palestinian communities within Israel has called for transforming Israel into a bi-national state and interestingly the example they use is Belgium -- one of the examples I use in the book.

According to a recent poll of Arab-Israelis, only 14 percent of respondents thought that Israel should remain a Jewish democratic state in its current form. Fifty-seven percent said they wanted a change in the character and definition of the state, whether a state for all its citizens, a bi-national state, or a consensual democracy.

In other words, the clear majority want a bi-national state.

Then you move to the third group of Palestinians -- those in the diaspora. And the diaspora have not traditionally supported a two-state solution because they have a lot to lose. The price of that is the right of return.

AL JAZEERA: You ask whether it is really possible to separate two deeply intertwined populations (the Palestinians and the Israelis) and whether they really want what separation would entail. Are they really so deeply intertwined and haven't Israeli policies over the past few years been meant to "untwine" them?

ABUNIMAH: They are intertwined in the way that Catholics and Protestants are intertwined in Northern Ireland. Also in the sense that they are geographically completely interspersed, you have a million-plus Palestinians in what is supposed to be Israel, and half a million Israelis inside what is supposed to be the Palestinian state.

What I say is that partition -- drawing a line between these two peoples -- has never been possible. And when they recommended it in the Peel Commission [in 1937] for the first time, they said clearly that there is no way to draw a line between these two people, and that, therefore, the only way to create a Jewish state is by the involuntary transfer of hundreds of thousands of Arabs.

And that situation remains -- you cannot have a Jewish state without the forced transfer of Palestinians or a Palestinian state without forced transfer of Jews.

AL JAZEERA: What do you see as the biggest challenge to a one-state solution?

ABUNIMAH: There are many. But the biggest challenge is getting there. We shouldn't get to a situation where we say "it's so difficult and unimaginable. " Any solution is difficult and unimaginable. Who can imagine a two-state solution given the realities on the ground? I think peace of any kind, justice of any kind, seems very far from the perspectives of today.

When you look at South Africa, the darkest period came before the dawn, let's say. And I think we are going through the darkest period.

And we have to realise that Israelis will not look for a way out unless they feel they have to. And that's how it was with white South Africans. With a clear message that at the end there is a vision that everybody is part of.

AL JAZEERA: As part of the solution you propose, you argue for both implementing the right of return of Palestinian refugees, and for preserving the Israeli Law of Return, which grants automatic citizenship to people with at least one Jewish grandparent. Do you see this move as legitimising Zionism or at least incorporating a Zionist element into the new state?

ABUNIMAH: You could say that. And I don't see them as equivalent -- the Law of Return and the Right of Return. But I do see that as one way that the state can provide the kind of acknowledgment of the identity and interests of both communities that live in it.

And as I say also there are not floods of people coming in under the Law of Return.

AL JAZEERA: You say partition is intimately associated with ethnic cleansing, and cite the Israeli settlements as an example of this, yet you propose that the bulk of settlements would be allowed to remain in a future state. Aren't these two notions at odds with one another?

ABUNIMAH: No because the whole point is that a Palestinian state requires the removal of settlements and that is something that is unlikely to happen. We are not talking about 8,000 settlers in Gaza -- we are talking about half a million people, and half of those are around Jerusalem.

I'm saying let's end the hypocrisy of talking about opposing the settlements when in reality everybody is saying they are going to stay. Let's deal with what the problem is with the settlements: they are really basically racist colonies.

The houses are basically not the problem -- the problem is that the settlement is a closed space for Jews only. And it is an exercise of power. But if you say that the settlements become towns and anybody can live in them, then it's a different matter.

AL JAZEERA: And settlements that have been built on Palestinian land?

ABUNIMAH: There has to be full restitution for people. The principle is there. In a democracy you can make people give up land for a public good.

AL JAZEERA: So it could resolve the issue of settlements in one fell swoop?

ABUNIMAH: Of course it raises different problems, but resolves the issue of purification -- of forcing settlers out so there can be a Palestinian state. It's a recognition that the country is inhabited throughout by Israelis and Palestinians.

AL JAZEERA: There was significant public and international pressure that eventually helped break down Apartheid South Africa, forcing them to accept an ideological shift. Isn't this kind of intervention and pressure notably absent in the Palestinian case?

ABUNIMAH: Yes it's a crucial point. But that pressure did not come from the governments, it came from civil society. You'll recall that the European and American governments were not eager to put sanctions on South African -- they had a lot of good business with them. It was a civil society movement, very much ad hoc on campuses and churches that eventually forced governments to put sanctions in place.

its not gonna happen....

Unfortunately, those in power are not interested in making political decisions that is in the best interests of all people of the region for the long run. They are much more interested in using power to promote their own interests and continue to use fear and propaganda to keep the masses in line.

You are RIGHT on with this comment. I don't think Palestine could ever exist as one with Gaza and West Bank in two sections, not even connected. I honestly don't know if at this point Palestinians would be willing to live under "one state/equal rights". But the hardline zionist that are in the Israeli government will NEVER let that come to fruition.

Since my husband is Palestinian, I've had this conversation more times than I can count. I used to believe in the two-state solution, but I just don't know anymore what the answer is. I really don't know.

But the occupation HAS to end. When people are driven to the point of desperation, it's a recipe for disaster...as you can already see by what has happened the last couple of years.

Not gonna happen. Israel's raison d'être is to be a permanent home for Jewish people. It's structured to be a Jewish homeland: right of return, no more being a minority at the mercy of other lands, and all of that. It's not a straightforward republic; it's very identity is just the Zionist project.

That doesn't mean it's right or handed down from God or anything, but it does mean that a proposal that very innocently sounds like 'giving everyone same equal rights' does essentially mean that Israel as a Jewish homeland won't exist absent the structure it has now. In twenty years there would be a Jewish minority in a largely Arab state.

So I think a two-state solution is really the only way to go, though I do think that Israel as a concept isn't going to be sustainable long term. (Shoulda given them Wyoming...)

There is no doubt the "jewish homeland" is one of the most essential keys to why we are where we are and in what direction we move forward. It is also why we forget there are Arab Christians and Muslims who are also Israeli citizens and why we never talk about the tensions between the Arab Jews and the European Jews.

My husband likes to say that if this conflict could be resolved, it would resolve conflicts through the entire world. I am still an optimist. Peace is really in our hands after all.

My husband likes to say that if this conflict could be resolved, it would resolve conflicts through the entire world. I am still an optimist. Peace is really in our hands after all.

Why is it a requirement that two political parties, Hamas and Fatah, have to agree much less go to the bathroom together? When a group is democratically elected, and then the minority opposition is armed and then propped up as a puppet government, there is usually chaos. This isn't rocket science, nor is it unique to Palestine where the US has decided what it thinks best for a region not taking into account real live living breathing people with hearts and brains attempted to participate in the political process but then were told their type of democracy isn't the **right** kind.

The US needs to come to grips with this, but nothing will change during this administration. Clearly the GWB regime has decided to go balls to the wall with the we'll-do-what-we-want-because-we're-totally-unpopular-anyway route.

Nothing will ever change, IMO, until the American zionist lobby is stripped of it's influence. However, that influence has only grown in the last 20 years. I can only hope with the recent embarrassment of some of its players (Wolfowitz, Libby, anyone tied to Cheney), things will change. But unfortunately, democrats accept just as much money from the Lobby, so I really don't know how change will come to pass.

Slouching toward a
Palestinian Holocaust
Richard Falk, TFF Associate
June 29, 2007

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

There is little doubt that the Nazi Holocaust was as close to unconditional evil as has been revealed throughout the entire bloody history of the human species. Its massiveness, unconcealed genocidal intent, and reliance on the mentality and instruments of modernity give its enactment in the death camps of Europe a special status in our moral imagination. This special status is exhibited in the continuing presentation of its gruesome realities through film, books, and a variety of cultural artifacts more than six decades after the events in question ceased. The permanent memory of the Holocaust is also kept alive by the existence of several notable museums devoted exclusively to the depiction of the horrors that took place during the period of Nazi rule in Germany.

Against this background, it is especially painful for me, as an American Jew, to feel compelled to portray the ongoing and intensifying abuse of the Palestinian people by Israel through a reliance on such an inflammatory metaphor as ‘holocaust.’ The word is derived from the Greek holos (meaning ‘completely’) and kaustos (meaning ‘burnt’), and was used in ancient Greece to refer to the complete burning of a sacrificial offering to a divinity. Because such a background implies a religious undertaking, there is some inclination in Jewish literature to prefer the Hebrew word ‘Shoah’ that can be translated roughly as ‘calamity,’ and was the name given to the 1985 epic nine-hour narration of the Nazi experience by the French filmmaker, Claude Lanzmann. The Germans themselves were more antiseptic in their designation, officially naming their undertaking as the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Qestion.’ The label is, of course, inaccurate as a variety of non-Jewish identities were also targets of this genocidal assault, including the Roma and Sinti(‘gypsies), Jehovah Witnesses, gays, disabled persons, political opponents.

Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not. The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective tragedy. If ever the ethos of ‘a responsibility to protect,’ recently adopted by the UN Security Council as the basis of ‘humanitarian intervention’ is applicable, it would be to act now to start protecting the people of Gaza from further pain and suffering. But it would be unrealistic to expect the UN to do anything in the face of this crisis, given the pattern of US support for Israel and taking into account the extent to which European governments have lent their weight to recent illicit efforts to crush Hamas as a Palestinian political force.

Even if the pressures exerted on Gaza were to be acknowledged as having genocidal potential and even if Israel’s impunity under America’s geopolitical umbrella is put aside, there is little assurance that any sort of protective action in Gaza would be taken. There were strong advance signals in 1994 of a genocide to come in Rwanda, and yet nothing was done to stop it; the UN and the world watched while the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of Bosnians took place, an incident that the World Court described as ‘genocide’ a few months ago; similarly, there have been repeated allegations of genocidal conduct in Darfur over the course of the last several years, and hardly an international finger has been raised, either to protect those threatened or to resolve the conflict in some manner that shares power and resources among the contending ethnic groups.

But Gaza is morally far worse, although mass death has not yet resulted. It is far worse because the international community is watching the ugly spectacle unfold while some of its most influential members actively encourage and assist Israel in its approach to Gaza. Not only the United States, but also the European Union, are complicit, as are such neighbors as Egypt and Jordan apparently motivated by their worries that Hamas is somehow connected with their own problems associated with the rising strength of the Muslim Brotherhood within their own borders. It is helpful to recall that the liberal democracies of Europe paid homage to Hitler at the 1936 Olympic Games, and then turned away tens of thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. I am not suggesting that the comparison should be viewed as literal, but to insist that a pattern of criminality associated with Israeli policies in Gaza has actually been supported by the leading democracies of the 21st century.

To ground these allegations, it is necessary to consider the background of the current situation. For over four decades, ever since 1967, Gaza has been occupied by Israel in a manner that turned this crowded area into a cauldron of pain and suffering for the entire population on a daily basis, with more than half of Gazans living in miserable refugees camps and even more dependent on humanitarian relief to satisfy basic human needs. With great fanfare, under Sharon’s leadership, Israel supposedly ended its military occupation and dismantled its settlements in 2005. The process was largely a sham as Israel maintained full control over borders, air space, offshore seas, as well as asserted its military control of Gaza, engaging in violent incursions, sending missiles to Gaza at will on assassination missions that themselves violate international humanitarian law, and managing to kill more than 300 Gazan civilians since its supposed physical departure.

As unacceptable as is this earlier part of the story, a dramatic turn for the worse occurred when Hamas prevailed in the January 2006 national legislative elections. It is a bitter irony that Hamas was encouraged, especially by Washington, to participate in the elections to show its commitment to a political process (as an alternative to violence) and then was badly punished for having the temerity to succeed. These elections were internationally monitored under the leadership of the former American president, Jimmy Carter, and pronounced as completely fair.

Carter has recently termed this Israeli/American refusal to accept the outcome of such a democratic verdict as itself ‘criminal.’ It is also deeply discrediting of the campaign of the Bush presidency to promote democracy in the region, an effort already under a dark shadow in view of the policy failure in Iraq.

After winning the Palestinian elections, Hamas was castigated as a terrorist organization that had not renounced violence against Israel and had refused to recognize the Jewish state as a legitimate political entity. In fact, the behavior and outlook of Hamas is quite different. From the outset of its political Hamas was ready to work with other Palestinian groups, especially Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas, to establish a ‘unity’ government. More than this, their leadership revealed a willingness to move toward an acceptance of Israel’s existence if Israel would in turn agree to move back to its 1967 borders, implementing finally unanimous Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.

Even more dramatically, Hamas proposed a ten-year truce with Israel, and went so far as to put in place a unilateral ceasefire that lasted for eighteen months, and was broken only to engage in rather pathetic strikes mainly taking place in response to Israeli violent provocations in Gaza. As Efraim Halevi, former head of Israel’s Mossad was reported to have said, ‘What Isreal needs from Hamas is an end to violence, not diplomatic recognition.’ And this is precisely what Hamas offered and what Israel rejected.

The main weapon available to Hamas, and other Palestinian extremist elements, were Qassam missiles that resulted in producing no more than 12 Israeli deaths in six years. While each civilian death is an unacceptable tragedy, the ratio of death and injury for the two sides in so unequal as to call into question the security logic of continuously inflicting excessive force and collective punishment on the entire beleaguered Gazan population, which is accurately regarded as the world’s largest ‘prison.’

Instead of trying diplomacy and respecting democratic results, Israel and the United States used their leverage to reverse the outcome of the 2006 elections by organizing a variety of international efforts designed to make Hamas fail in its attempts to govern in Gaza. Such efforts were reinforced by the related unwillingness of the defeated Fatah elements to cooperate with Hamas in establishing a government that would be representative of Palestinians as a whole. The main anti-Hamas tactic relied upon was to support Abbas as the sole legitimate leader of the Palestinian people, to impose an economic boycott on the Palestinians generally, to send in weapons for Fatah militias and to enlist neighbors in these efforts, particularly Egypt and Jordan. The United States Government appointed a special envoy, Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, to work with Abbas forces, and helped channel $40 million to buildup the Presidential Guard, which were the Fatah forces associated with Abbas.

This was a particularly disgraceful policy. Fatah militias, especially in Gaza, had long been wildly corrupt and often used their weapons to terrorize their adversaries and intimidate the population in a variety of thuggish ways. It was this pattern of abuse by Fatah that was significantly responsible for the Hamas victory in the 2006 elections, along with the popular feelings that Fatah, as a political actor, had neither the will nor capacity to achieve results helpful to the Palestinian people, while Hamas had managed resistance and community service efforts that were widely admired by Gazans.

The latest phase of this external/internal dynamic was to induce civil strife in Gaza that led a complete takeover by Hamas forces. With standard irony, a set of policies adopted by Israel in partnership with the United States once more produced exactly the opposite of their intended effects. The impact of the refusal to honor the election results has after 18 months made Hamas much stronger throughout the Palestinian territories, and put it in control of Gaza. Such an outcome is reminiscent of a similar effect of the 2006 Lebanon War that was undertaken by the Israel/United States strategic partnership to destroy Hezbollah, but had the actual consequence of making Hezbollah a much stronger, more respected force in Lebanon and throughout the region.

Israel and the United States seemed trapped in a faulty logic that is incapable of learning from mistakes, and takes every setback as a sign that instead of shifting course, the faulty undertaking should be expanded and intensified, that failure resulted from doing too little of the right thing, rather than is the case, doing the wrong thing. So instead of taking advantage of Hamas’ renewed call for a unity government, its clarification that it is not against Fatah, but only that “[w]e have fought against a small clique within Fatah,” (Abu Ubaya, Hamas military commander), Israel seems more determined than ever to foment civil war in Palestine, to make the Gazans pay with their wellbeing and lives to the extent necessary to crush their will, and to separate once and for all the destinies of Gaza and the West Bank.

The insidious new turn of Israeli occupation policy is as follows: push Abbas to rely on hard-line no compromise approach toward Hamas, highlighted by the creation of an unelected ‘emergency’ government to replace the elected leadership. The emergency designated prime minister, Salam Fayyad, appointed to replace the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, as head of the Palestinian Authority. It is revealing to recall that when Fayyad’s party was on the 2006 election list its candidates won only 2% of the vote. Israel is also reportedly ready to ease some West Bank restrictions on movement in such a way as to convince Palestinians that they can have a better future if they repudiate Hamas and place their bets on Abbas, by now a most discredited political figure who has substantially sold out the Palestinian cause to gain favor and support from Israel/United States, as well as to prevail in the internal Palestinian power struggle.

To promote these goals it is conceivable, although unlikely, that Israel might release Marwan Barghouti, the only credible Fatah leader, from prison provided Barghouti would be willing to accept the Israeli approach of Sharon/Olmert to the establishment of a Palestinian state. This latter step is doubtful, as Barghouti is a far cry from Abbas, and would be highly unlikely to agree to anything less than a full withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 borders, including the elimination of West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements.

This latest turn in policy needs to be understood in the wider context of the Israeli refusal to reach a reasonable compromise with the Palestinian people since 1967. There is widespread recognition that such an outcome would depend on Israeli withdrawal, establishment of a Palestinian state with full sovereignty on the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as capital, and sufficient external financial assistance to give the Palestinians the prospect of economic viability. The truth is that there is no Israeli leadership with the vision or backing to negotiate such a solution, and so the struggle will continue with violence on both sides.

The Israeli approach to the Palestinian challenge is based on isolating Gaza and cantonizing the West Bank, leaving the settlement blocs intact, and appropriating the whole of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. For years this sidestepping of diplomacy has dominated Israeli behavior, including during the Oslo peace process that was initiated on the White House lawn in 1993 by the famous handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat.

While talking about peace, the number of Israeli settlers doubled, huge sums were invested in settlement roads linked directly to Israel, and the process of Israeli settlement and Palestinian displacement from East Jerusalem was moving ahead at a steady pace. Significantly, also, the ‘moderate’ Arafat was totally discredited as a Palestinian leader capable of negotiating with Israel, being treated as dangerous precisely because he was willing to accept a reasonable compromise. Interestingly, until recently when he became useful in the effort to reverse the Hamas electoral victory, Abbas was treated by Isreal as too weak, too lacking in authority, to act on behalf of the Palestinian people in a negotiating process, one more excuse for persisting with its preferred unilateralist course.

These considerations also make it highly unlikely that Barghouti will be released from prison unless there is some dramatic change of heart on the Israeli side. Instead of working toward some kind of political resolution, Israel has built an elaborate and illegal security wall on Palestinian territory, expanded the settlements, made life intolerable for the 1.4 million people crammed into Gaza, and pretends that such unlawful ‘facts on the ground’ are a path leading toward security and peace.

On June 25, 2007 leaders from Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority met in Sharm El Sheik on the Red Sea to move ahead with their anti-Hamas diplomacy. Israel proposes to release 250 Fatah prisoners (of 9,000 Palestinians currently held) and to hand over Palestinian revenues to Abbas on an installment basis, provided none of the funds is used in Gaza, where a humanitarian catastrophe unfolds day by day. These leaders agreed to cooperate in this effort to break Hamas and to impose a Fatah-led Palestinian Authority on an unwilling Palestine population. Remember that Hamas prevailed in the 2006 elections, not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank as well. To deny Palestinian their right of self-determination is almost certain to backfire in a manner similar to similar efforts, producing a radicalized version of what is being opposed. As some commentators have expressed, getting rid of Hamas means establishing al Qaeda!

Israel is currently stiffening the boycott on economic relations that has brought the people of Gaza to the brink of collective starvation. This set of policies, carried on for more than four decades, has imposed a sub-human existence on a people that have been repeatedly and systematically made the target of a variety of severe forms of collective punishment. The entire population of Gaza is treated as the ‘enemy’ of Israel, and little pretext is made in Tel Aviv of acknowledging the innocence of this long victimized civilian society.

To persist with such an approach under present circumstances is indeed genocidal, and risks destroying an entire Palestinian community that is an integral part of an ethnic whole. It is this prospect that makes appropriate the warning of a Palestinian holocaust in the making, and should remind the world of the famous post-Nazi pledge of ‘never again.’

Richard Falk is Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

He was the Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practise at Princeton University, as well as a prolific writer, speaker and activist for world affairs and the author or co-author of more than 20 books, among them "Crimes of War", "Revolutionaries and Functionaries", "The War System", "A Study of Future Worlds", "The End of World Order", Revitalizing International Law", "Nuclear Weapons and International Law" and "On Human Governance". Founding member of IALANA and of the World Order Models Project, WOMP.

Professor Falk became an adviser to TFF (The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research) when it was established in 1985.

ok... I break into your home.. I shoot your husband and oldest son cause they try to stop me.. I go outside and burn/ tear down Generations of your familys farm.. I let You and kids go with whatever they can carry.. Your house is Now Mine!!!!!!! You are now kicked off of whatever property you thought was Yours.

You are forced to move to another country.. Live in a "Camp".. You can NOT get citizenship in that country.. In fact, they dont even want you there. You can not go back to your old country.. You cant find your friends.. You cant find your neighbors... You are unemployed. You dont have your comforts.. You have now lost Generations of family history.

Years have now passed.. Government/ world pressure says Maybe you can have back some land..... BUT you have to share it With ME!!!!!!!!!!!

what would you do?

Me? I've give them the finger and tell them where to put it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Partition, a two nation solution, always brings more new troubles than it does resovles problems. What did Ghandi say about the partition of India? that his body would have to be cut into two pieces?

Unfortunately, those in power are not interested in making political decisions that is in the best interests of all people of the region for the long run. They are much more interested in using power to promote their own interests and continue to use fear and propaganda to keep the masses in line.

There are so many people in Israel and Palestine who want peace. We have to ask ourselves why their voices are drowned out from the debate.