[New York Daily News] Mortimer Zuckerman - President Obama's speech in Cairo illustrates his commitment to a major outreach to the Muslim and Arab worlds. But it is dangerous to court new friends if you risk doing it at the expense of old friends, in this case the long-standing friendship between Israel and America. Mahmoud Abbas is the Palestinian leader who rejected the most generous ever outline for Palestinian statehood put forward by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. He survives only because of massive economic aid from the West and massive support on security from Israel. His Fatah is so unpopular that, if elections were held today and the votes properly counted, it is probable that Hamas would win a majority. There is much glib talk of "a two-state solution," but who would govern a Palestinian state? Abbas and Fatah are chronically weak; Hamas is strong and has not diminished its radical objective of obliterating Israel. So there is no "two-state solution" if one of the two sovereign states is intent on destroying the other. The conventional "two-state" formula is a problem masquerading as a solution.
2009-06-09 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive