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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/05/guardian-200-israel-middle-east-ian-black-reporting
Wishful Thinking on a Palestinian State
(Guardian-UK) Oliver Holmes - As the Guardian's outgoing Jerusalem correspondent, I spoke with Ian Black, the paper's Middle East correspondent 30 years ago. Black recalled "discussing when there might be a Palestinian state. We thought maybe it would happen in two or three years." In the three years I have spent as a Jerusalem correspondent, I cannot remember a single conversation with another reporter in which a Palestinian state was considered a likely near-future scenario. Looking over his old clippings, Black said he saw an article from the mid-80s. "I was astonished to find there were only 30,000" Jews living in the West Bank. Roughly 600,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem with no intention of leaving. One criticism made of the Guardian is that it focused too much on voices in Israeli society calling for an end to Israeli rule, having the effect of perhaps misleadingly magnifying their domestic influence. "I think in the big picture, the Guardian indulged - including the correspondents and including me - in wishful thinking. I really do," said Black. "Israeli society was more divided then, 30 or so years ago, than it is now." The turning point was the second intifada, which decimated any trust between Israelis and Palestinians.