You surely know that Nancy Pelosi was in Israel with a group of Democrats including Trump prosecutor Adam Schiff and a couple of progressives, too, visiting the Knesset and military facilities. The pictures make it look like Disneyland. Pelosi met the rightwing prime minister, and tossed off one of her favorite lines: Israel’s founding was the greatest political achievement of the 20th century.
So the Democratic Party kisses up to a rightwing “apartheid” government (per Amnesty International and other global human rights groups) that regularly kills Palestinians under occupation and declares Palestinians’ leading human rights groups to be terrorist groups, for a simple political reason: to keep the Israel lobby on its side in the coming elections. “Our donors,” as Rep. Elissa Slotkin once described Jewish contributors.
The Dems cover themselves for their complicity in persecution that Washington has known full well for nearly 75 years by saying they are for a two-state solution so Palestinians can finally get their rights. Nancy Pelosi says she’s for a two-state solution. So does Ro Khanna and nearly every other progressive Democrat. Trump prosecutor Adam Schiff says the two-state solution is the only way forward.
The two-state solution is the Democratic Party’s way of assuring progressives who support the obvious policy, punishing Israel for its violations of international law, that We care about Palestinians. The two-state solution is their way of brushing aside the apartheid reports. The two-state solution is the liberal Zionists’ way to try to convince the left that We are actually doing something to help Palestinians.
The two-state solution is a big lie. It is never going to happen, and all the Democrats know it.
But just like Trump and his big lie, the Democrats and their liberal Zionist friends spend neverending time and energy spouting a claim that they know is a bald lie because it allows them to have their cake and eat it. Though in this case the media has the delicacy not to bust them for it. Because they’re in on it.
The truth is actually pretty simple. For the last 75 years the international community has declared its commitment to a two-state solution to the Palestine problem, and for 75 years only one side has gotten a state. The 1947 promise to the Palestinians vanished within a few years, and so did the 1978 promise in the Camp David agreement, and so did the 1993 promise in Oslo, and Wye or Geneva or Annapolis, ad nauseam.
It really is a charade, and a cruel one. Again and again the world said that there must be a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state, and the only thing to show for it is expanded Israeli control of lands that were supposed to go to that state, with 750,000 Jewish settlers moved into the hilltops of those Palestinian lands in violation of the Geneva Convention, with regular violence to push the Palestinian villagers aside, along with the annexation of the supposedly-shared capital, Jerusalem. And not a peep out of the United States, beyond the occasional exasperation of the John Kerrys of the world.
The Israelis have never wanted Palestinians to get a state. The prime minister whom Pelosi embraced yesterday announces all the time that it won’t happen.
Anyone who has visited Palestine can tell you that there’s one state between the river and the sea, and there is no possibility of making a sovereign state in the bits and pieces that Israel has left– tiny bantustans. What J Street laments as “deepening occupation and creeping annexation” continue unabated, with no meaningful protest from the U.S. or the liberal Zionists. No, J Street visits the prime minister too.
Even as Pelosi tours Israel, the country is throwing Palestinians out of their homes in annexed Jerusalem, and the House Speaker has nothing to say about it. She and her delegation got a clinic on Jerusalem yesterday not from the Palestinians who are being cleansed but from an Israeli who hangs on to the “Zionist vision.”
It’s a joke, except it’s worse than a joke, because American liberals lie to Palestinians and the world about it and then tell themselves they’re for Palestinian rights.
They are all in on the lie, because– again– it allows them to reconcile two unreconcilable positions: they back Israel to the hilt, which is the position of the Israel lobby, and they say they are also for Palestinian rights. Or to quote the liberal Zionist group J Street, they are pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. Which is like saying, We’re pro-Jim Crow and pro-desegregation.
If any of these leaders were actually sincere about a Palestinian state, they would have called for sanctions against Israel a long time ago. Because Israel only responds to outside pressure. And Democratic voters are all for pressure. But of course there’s never been pressure because the Israel lobby demands that the White House and Congress back the Israeli government, and the Democratic Party leadership doesn’t want to be out of line with the lobby. The Capitol would crumble and fall before the Congress abandons Israel, Nancy Pelosi lectured “the Squad” after they got into Congress. And even progressives are soon piping the tune — Bernie Sanders and AOC and Ro Khanna all support a two-state solution.
While Russiagate hero Adam Schiff posts a photo of his son in a Mossad t-shirt, and the media could care less about Israeli influence.
There are signs of cracking, outside the Capitol that is. The Washington Post ran a long article on a tour of the occupied West Bank showing that it is delusional to speak of a Palestinian state. Carnegie Endowment last year said what everyone knows, the peace process has failed, and it’s time to abandon that scaffolding and focus on Palestinian rights. “There is no two-state solution open for the taking at the moment and likewise a one-state outcome that offers equal rights for all is just as unlikely,” Zaha Hassan said frankly. “We only call for the… U.S. [to] support an outcome that insures equal rights for all those living under Israel’s control and jurisdiction.”
That view is catching on in the Democratic base and in the thinktanks. “There’s as much chance of a two-state solution as there is of me walking out that door and flying to the moon,” Harvard scholar Steve Walt once said.
It tires you out to carry a lie. You have to remember what you said, as Mark Twain put it. Because you’re continually denying reality.
And then at a certain point it becomes an open farce. Like Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic delegation touring apartheid like it’s Disneyland.
h/t Scott Roth, Dave Reed, Adam Horowitz, James North, Michael Arria.
“The Israelis have never wanted Palestinians to get a state.” writes Phil. But take a step back – did Israel ever really want to even negotiate with the Palestinians on anything serious?
“Man in the Shadows – Inside the Middle East Crisis with a Man Who Led the Mossad” by Efraim Halevy is a very conservative book, trust me – Halevy calls the occupation the “occupation”, enough said. But here’s a quote from pages 165-166 – the emphasis is mine:
“Another incident served to deepen the king’s [of Jordan] feelings of betrayal. A few days before the incident, he had met with a senior Mossad officer…through this officer, he had transmitted a proposal by Khammas leaders that a thirty year truce – a hudna – be called between Israel and the Palestinians, including the radical Khammas movement. The King had not received any reaction whatsoever to the proposal.…I was to learn this later from the king himself….it later came to light that the message had not been given any priority…There is no way that I can determine whether this offer of the Khammas was serious and if it would have blossomed into a genuine thirty year or even a thirty day cease fire….there was a widespread consensus that Khammas was a deadly terrorist group…this may well have been so; however, we will never know if this method of dealing with them was the only valid one, for there was never a discussion of their offer of a truce at the time it could have been operative.”
This from a man who ran Mossad.
RE: “The two-state solution is a big lie. It is never going to happen, and all the Democrats know it.” ~ Phil Weiss
MY CONFESSION: I thought long and hard about the shortcomings of the two-state solution/scenario back in the early 1970s while I was in law school. Despite some misgivings, I decided to support it as the best realistically possible outcome.
More recently, I have pretty much given up on it because not only does it no longer seem realistically possible, I also very much doubt that it would constitute a real solution.
I have also decided not to commit to any alternative solution/scenario.
What an insufferable fool I’ve been!
Your essay is correct. I had the same insight the first time I looked at B’Tselem’s map of the West Bank many years ago.2SET (two state empty talk) is the safe zone for US politicians.
Regarding the land, I had a strange thought. Suppose Israel set aside an area, let’s say the Golan Heights, and agreed that there would be full equality for all there, Jews and Palestinians alike, under Israeli law. A test case to see what happens, but with the condition that the population be 50/50 Jews/Palestinians. Israel would use the full control it has to admit only Palestinian volunteers that Israel would approve, that had no record with the IDF, the border police, etc., (I bet it already has a list of such from the population registry) and Jews would be volunteers subject to having no record with the authorities. Then let the experiment begin.
Of course this would never happen, but consider if it did. Would it be sabotaged by one side or the other, or both? Or might it work? It’s hard to imagine Palestinians making trouble because it would be a move toward what I think they want to see happen generally. There would be a firestorm of protest in Israel that “our” land is being given up along with the requirement for a substantial Jewish majority. Heck, even the 20% Arab presence in Israel now makes many Jewish Israelis nervous. The greatest danger to Israel would be that the experiment would work, be seen by the world, and a call to allow it to happen to the whole area from the river to the sea would follow.
The fact is, Jewish Israelis can say today, if anyone anywhere on the planet can, “I’m alright, Jack!” and with such as Pelosi, the future looks very secure no matter what AI says.
“The Two State Solution is the football and the Democrats are Lucy from Peanuts. Face it, Chuck! It ain’t never gonna happen!” – Jasonius Maximus
The thing is for all the talk of a Two State Solution, what exactly have the Dems done to make it a reality? Nothing. Not a single thing. Their’s is the carrot and stick approach. Carrots for Israel that has gorged itself on the largesse of the US taxpayer and military industrial complex. The best military, equipment, and stick American money can buy for them to use on their Palestinian hostages.
It’s embarrassing for them to even say that they support a Two State Solution, when they’ve literally done everything in their power to the contrary. Every time the Palestine asks for recognition or a motion is moved to recognize the State of Palestine, the US literally blocks it. Saying that they believe in a Two State Solution, but are not going to allow it, because they want a Two State Solution, not a Two State Reality.
There’s no money, power, or leverage in a cure, there is plenty in treating the symptoms!
No to mention that they stand there in the Knesset and in front of military equipment and spout that schtick right next to Israelis, who themselves have said that they don’t even want two states. How do we know this? They’ve said a hundred times and not once in more than 70 years have they held a single referendum asking the people of Israel or even the Palestinians what THEY really want.
Credit where it is due, at least the GOP has moved on from the Two State Lie. They aren’t even pretending anymore, they just openly say that Israel has the right to all of it, from the river to the sea. and the Palestinians must just accept their Apartheid reality. Only they can’t really say “Apartheid” so they just say things like “Jewish Sovereignty”. Nice. Classy. Not even remotely anti-semitic *sarcastic smiley face*
Thanks, Phil! Right on the money as always.
The Dems simply can’t give up on the Two State Solution lie, because that leaves only the One State Apartheid Reality.
So they loudly reaped the old “We believe in a two-state solution…” mantra, and quietly and tacitly accept the “One-state Apartheid reality…”
More and more people are saying the quiet part out loud. The so-called liberal Zionists in Washington DC will be the last hold outs until not even their well-lined pockets can keep them in office.