Former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia looks on during an interview with the Associated Press in his office in Abu Dis, near Jerusalem. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
The Washington Post, Fox News, NPR and a whole slew of other news sources are carrying this AP article quoting former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia as saying the two state solution is dead. Well not exactly; but he said Israel killed it. So I guess that means it’s dead. He also said: “One state”
With gloom deepening over prospects for peace, a leading Palestinian is suggesting they might drop the “two-state solution” that has underpinned two decades of negotiations, aiming for Israel and a Palestinian state next to each other.
….
Deriding what remains of the peace process as “no more than a waste of time,” Qureia condemned the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for settling the occupied West Bank with Jews and blocking Palestinian access to their hoped-for capital in Jerusalem.
“If this is the policy, I think it is a big lie to talk about the two-state solution,” said Qureia. “They are killing the opportunity of two-state solution. If it dies … there are other choices.
“One state is one of the choices.”
Qureia is subtly aligning himself with a narrative that turns the standard Israeli-Palestinian discourse, with its focus on Palestinian victimization, on its head: Israel may need an end to its occupation of Palestinian lands more urgently than the Palestinians do, to avoid being overwhelmed by sheer numbers of Arabs.
He is the highest ranking Palestinian to articulate a view that is increasingly heard behind closed Palestinian doors: Despite the privations of the occupation, time is oddly on their side, and Israel is shooting itself in the foot with its settlements and stalling.
There’s really nothing extraordinary about this article other than the fact it’s heavily covered. It carries all the usual we’ve been hearing for years; both sides want Jerusalem (“it’s a minimum payoff needed by any leader to “sell” his people on a deal” ), demographic scare lingo, Israel won’t accept it, mini Palestinian Authority, and the interim accords history (the sides were supposed to reach a final peace deal within five years) etc.
I’m wondering why this article is getting so much traction. Does it signify something? Yes: the shifting paradigm.
NICE!!
I had sent this to the MW guys, was hoping it was gonna get posted. Robbins to the Rescue!! :)
“. . . quoting former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia as saying the two state solution is dead. Well not exactly; but he said Israel killed it. So I guess that means it’s dead.”
Like . . . huh?
AP: “Israel captured the territories in the 1967 war.”
While it may not be new news, it is worth mentioning that AP and WaPo are propagating this Israeli line that the territories are now Israel’s in spite of a number of UN resolutions condemning that position.
““If this is the policy, I think it is a big lie to talk about the two-state solution,” said Qureia. “They are killing the opportunity of two-state solution. If it dies … there are other choices.
“One state is one of the choices.”
What other choices?
Sounds like Mearsheimers take is becoming common
https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2010/09/mearsheimer-there-will-be-no-two-state-solution-only-a-greater-israel-and-palestinians-will-need-the-intl-community-in-the-coming-fight-against-apartheid.html
Yup a version of this has run in the Guardian today and it doesn’t read well for Israel. Slowly the terms of reference are changing…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/24/middle-east-two-state-solution
I don’t see this interview in today’s print Washington Post, and I don’t remember having seen it in yesterday’s. The Washington Post often posts AP stuff on its Website that doesn’t make it into the print edition.
Let us give credit where credit is due. This interview seems to have been the work of AP Jerusalem Bureau Chief Dan Perry.
However, an article that is in today’s print Washington Post (p. A10) is Palestinian hunger strikes draw attention to Israeli detention practice, by Karen Brulliard, datelined Arraba, West Bank (Special correspondent Samuel Sockol in Jerusalem contributed to the report).