J.E., a student from the United States, who is currently living, working and learning in a refugee camp in Occupied Palestine, reports from the recent conference United in Struggle against Israeli Colonialism, Occupation and Racism. J.E. blogs at http://tasteofapear.blogspot.com/.
Martha Myers, the country director of the West Bank and Gaza for CARE International, a standard BIGNO (Big International Non-Governmental Organization) operating with a multi-million dollar budget in the West Bank and Gaza, said something incredible recently. Well, what she said wasn’t incredible, what was incredible was that she said it in public. . .
The really interesting part came during the question and answer period. I don’t even remember what the question was but I perked up when she prefaced her answer with (and I’m basing this off my notes) “Well I’ll probably be escorted directly to the airport by Israel or the PA for saying this but…just drive to Ramallah, there’s no room left. The only choices are genocide, ethnocide or a one state solution”
I took this to mean either a) Israel wipes out all the Palestinians (genocide) or b) Palestinians give up on Palestine and move to other countries (ethnocide). Now obviously neither of these is likely to happen which leaves us with c) one state for all. And Martha Myers is not saying this based on an ideological position, after she made her statement there were cheers among the crowd, which did seem to ideologically support a one state solution and she chastised us, saying “you shouldn’t be clapping you should be crying”.
But the facts are clear that a one state solution regardless of what you think ideologically is what we’re left with. Driving between Bethlehem and Hebron today I was reminded again just how entrenched the settler presence is in the West Bank as I passed the massive settlement of Efrat. It cost Israel 2.7 billion dollars to move 8,000 settlers out of Gaza. There are 500,000 settlers (200,000 of these in East Jerusalem) in the West Bank. You do the math.
