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Israelis, Palestinians Happy to Continue Status Quo

(Providence Journal) Joel Brinkley - A new poll of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza provides a startling conclusion: Fully one-third of the population no longer wants a separate state of their own. No, these Palestinians now say they want to live in one state alongside the Israelis. This number has increased by 60% in the last ten months. Fewer than half now say they support a two-state solution, a sharp decline since last year. Israel is not likely to accept such a solution, afraid of what might happen if Palestinians eventually outnumbered Jews. But that's not the point. Special envoy George Mitchell is now shuttling from Jerusalem to Ramallah and back in the latest iteration of American-sponsored peace talks. But it's apparent that no one really wants a peace agreement, except maybe a few officials in Washington. When Israel pulled out of Gaza five years ago, look what happened: Hamas seized control and began firing hundreds of missiles at Israel. What is to say that a new Palestinian state would not be the same? That's how many Israelis view it. The Arab world has been championing the Palestinian cause for more than 40 years. Most Middle East analysts believe Arab leaders continually promote this view primarily as a means to distract their subjects from the sorry state of their own lives. For now, these leaders say, all our resources must be devoted to fighting the Zionists, freeing our Palestinian brothers! If Israel and the Palestinians reached a peace agreement, removing that issue from the region's political equation, how long would it be before Arabs began looking at their own problems instead? Peace would not be good news for Arab dictators. The writer, a former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, is now a professor of journalism at Stanford University.
2010-05-26 08:38:55
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