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Historian Benny Morris: The Palestinians Are Not Interested in a Two-State Solution

(Ha'aretz) Coby Ben-Simhon - Benny Morris, a professor of history at Ben-Gurion University and one of the most prominent Israeli historians of his generation, declared: "The decades of studying the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, which led to nine books, left me with a feeling of deep despair....I've written enough about a conflict that has no solution, mainly due to the Palestinians' consistent rejection of a solution of two states for two peoples." Regarding his book One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict, he says, "The objective is to expose the goals of the Palestinian national movement to extinguish the Jewish national project and to inherit all of Palestine for the Arabs and Islam." He asserts that unlike the Zionists, who consented to dividing the land between the two peoples living in it, since its inception the Palestinian national movement has never retreated from its demand to establish a single state in the disputed territory. "In the end, both sides of the Palestinian movement - the fundamentalists led by Hamas and the secular bloc led by Fatah - are interested in Muslim rule over all of Palestine, with no Jewish state and no partition." "Abbas currently refuses to hold negotiations with the Israelis because negotiations could lead to a resolution to the conflict. He has no desire or intention of reaching a solution of two states for two peoples." "In the Israeli education system, in general, there is no demonization of the Arab. He might not be described positively, but he's not the Devil. There [in the PA], the Jews are completely demonized. The Palestinian authorities are busy deeply implanting the demonization. The Palestinian people think we can be made extinct. We don't think that about the Palestinians." "What I am doing is describing the history; I'm not demonizing. The book describes the Palestinian position. If there's demonization in it, it simply derives from the things that they themselves say and do. I'm only letting them express themselves. What they say is what has adhered to their image."
2012-09-25 00:00:00
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