Palestinian Intentions

Last Monday the New York Times carried an opinion piece by Michael Tarazi, an American who is a legal adviser to the PLO. The piece was clearly sanctioned by the Palestinian leadership, and expressed the Palestinians' new line of attack (or more precisely, original line of attack) against Israel - demand for "one state for two people". Barry Rubin sees this as just one more mistake that the Palestinians are making. (Clifford May also shows Tarazi's argument for what it really is.)

The explicit demand to dismantle Israel rather than seek a Palestinian state alongside it is growing also as a result of the current Palestinian assessment. It is a "right of return" to the 1960s and 1970s arising from the combination of a lost intifada, victory in the international propaganda war, and refusal of a real compromise peace.

It is also one more in a long series of Palestinian mistakes. For every person in the West ready to go along with the Palestinian demand to destroy Israel there are five or 10 willing to accept the movement's supposed nationalist narrative.

They will buy the argument that Palestinians just want their own homeland, but not the idea that it should include Israel as well.

This is even truer of Western states and politicians. The PLO's new line is likely to be a public-relations disaster, undoing many of the movement's apparent gains in the battle for public opinion.

I think that Rubin is somewhat overly optimistic to believe that no one will fall for this ploy. There are plenty of leftists, academics, and Israel-haters who will jump on this and attempt to frame Israel as another apartheid state like South Africa.

More and more it is clear that there is only one solution to the conflict. It is not one that anyone wants to talk about, and most dismiss as complete extremism: The Right Road to Peace. A few years ago, no one thought that a separation barrier was possible, now it is a reality. This also will become a reality, and then there may finally be peace (or at least lack of war).