THE "TWO STATE" NON-SOLUTION TO THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

April 18, 2002

Letters to the Editor
San Francisco Bay Guardian
520 Hampshire
San Francisco, CA 94110

Editor,

It's bad enough when a know-nothing, non-elected Republican president and a cabal of corrupt Arab reactionaries propose a "two-state" non-solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it's even worse when the Bay Area's leading alternative newspaper echoes them. ("Beyond Sharon and Arafat," 4/10/02).

Instead of leading to peace, segregating the two groups into separate, unequal "states" would result in an impoverished ghetto "reservation" for Palestinian Arabs. By negating the Palestinian right of return, the two-state scenario would encourage Israel to be even more aggressive in its ethnic cleansing efforts. And assuming Israel would even agree to a "two-state" scenario--a big if--and assuming they would drop their objection to UN peacekeepers, such a force would likely be necessary for decades.

The only real solution to the conflict is a single, secular, multicultural, democratic state that protects the rights of all inhabitants--Jewish, Muslim and Christian. Current demographic trends--with higher Arab birth rates and Jewish reluctance to emigrate from secular, democratic states in Europe and North America to Israel--make such a solution inevitable. White South Africans learned that segregated Bantustans and excessive violence will NEVER maintain minority power. How much blood must be shed before Israeli Jews learn the same lesson?

Peaceful coexistence IS possible between Muslims and Jews. For most of the past 1400 years, Jews fared far better living alongside Muslims than they did residing in Christian Europe, where they were victims of frequent pogroms, inquisitions, witch hunts and a heinous Holocaust.

True peace will come only when there is justice for all parties. Justice is what's needed, not separate states.

Sincerely

Paul Dorn
Davis CA 95616