Two State Solution?

 The pressure on Israel to embrace a “two State solution” by carving out a Palestinian State on the “West Bank” is enormous and growing.  But what is going to be solved by this “two State solution” that hasn’t been solved by the “Multi-State Solution” already in existence?  This proposal is the same “solution” that has been proposed  for the last 90 years or more.

When Britain was given the task of creating a homeland for the Jews by the San Remo Conference of the League of Nations in 1920, they promptly gave 77% of the land to King Hussein and called it Trans-Jordan (now called Jordan).  With Anti-Semitism becoming open virulent hatred across Europe, Jews began immigrating to Palestine in droves in the early part of the 1900s.  As the Jewish population grew to a majority of the population of Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s there were also several massacres of Jews by Arabs.  Couple this with Britain’s refusal to protect the Jewish population and their outright enforcement of laws allowing Arabs to carry weapons while not allowing Jews to do so—it is no wonder that the Jewish leadership finally proclaimed a Jewish State in 1947.  It was a matter of survival.

            Thus, when Israel became a sovereign nation in 1948 it was in the context of hostile Arab nations that refused to recognize or give any room for a Jewish homeland.  One day after becoming a nation, Israel was attacked by four surrounding Arab nations. Since that time, there has been unrelenting pressure on Israel to give up more land, with the ultimate goal of elimination of any Jewish State or presence in the Middle East.  Israel only expanded its territory to include the Old City of Jerusalem and the “West Bank” in 1967 after being attacked by surrounding Arab nations (Syria, Jordan, Egypt, etc.).  In winning that conflict, Israel included this territory that was originally part of the land designated for a Jewish homeland by the British Mandate. 

            This pressure now to carve out a “Palestinian State” is the same pressure they have been under for the last century.  And the creation of a new Arab state will not satisfy the demands from Muslim-motivated nationalists who want all Jews out of the region.  Such a state will only embolden those who want to eliminate Israel completely.