I'll rep you as soon as I can again. Great post. You always bring a fantastic insight into Palestinian and Israeli daily life. I'm sick of hearing about what the politicians on both sides want. More and more I've realized that they are completely disconnected from the majority of their people. While I don't think it would ever be possible to engulf the west bank with settlements, I think they sure are trying hard. At the same time, there are other major external factors and conflicts IMO - the Egyptian army wants to continue to appear relevant as a negotiatior, and Hamas has no interest in the West Bank Fatah model being more succesful than their own model. Add to that recent shifts in ideology such as a surge in peaceful protestors on both sides, and historically high tension levels in the current Israeli government and you have yourself too many chefs in the kitchen. As for Obama, I'm less surprised than I used to be. The American people have allowed this kind of speech to become a prerequisite to becoming the president and I eagerly await a change in this philosophy. From my own personal experience, I feel that nothing will change it other than time but we'll see.
Most people don't understand what statehood means. When you hear the word statehood today, it means that the major powers in the United Nations have agreed that a certain land and government and people form a state. For example, I'm fairly certain that most of the world already recognizes Palestine as a state. I'm also fairly certain that there are fewer countries in the world who support Israeli statehood. One would assume that, if Israel is a state, then surely Palestine must be a state. But it's not, and Palestine is not even a state. This a simple case of some people's votes count more than others. Those people believe that Israel is acting in accordance with their own values and Palestine is not (yet or fully). The irony of it is that this group of people goes around the world meddling in sovereign affairs waving the flag of democracy and equality. At the moment, basically the US heavily dominates the ability to accept a nation's declaration of statehood. To this day I'm not aware of how this can go unnoticed. I assume it's because most people are not concerned with statehood anymore. But it's baffling how such a core concept of sovereignty can be ignored by so many people. You can not become a sovereign nation unless you are allowed to do so by a biased group of countries (less than 5% of total). In fact it only makes sense if you're selecting on the basis of the largest (not the best, just largest) economies. Uhh, that's not sovereignty. So essentially, since this policy has been in place, no country anywhere in the world has "officially" come into existance against the wishes of this group of countries. Whatever the hell "officially" means". Then again, I guess it's possible that there are other factors to becoming a state that I haven't read about.
Mathloom and/or Deji, Do you think peaceful protests between both Israelis and Palestinians would ever gain enough momentum to overwhelm the political parties and corner them into completing the two state solution? It would seem regular people are ready for some peace between the two nations and that they could intermingle creating huge protests. That may also be a situation ripe for violence if there were some bad players mixed in with the protesters to cause division, but lordy something has got to give.
IMO it's very possible, which is why I believe Gaza is blockaded and the West Bank is walled up. IMO the Israeli government, possibly in collusion with Palestinian leaders, is fully aware that separation is essential to them pumping fear into people. One thing you can guarantee is that if you can't see, hear or talk to the PEOPLE on the other side, then most people will believe whatever information is allowed onto their tv sets and radios. The good news is I believe the Israeli and Palestinian governments have been very erratic and I think they will lose some power as a result.
Interresting post. I bet you did not go to Gaza so you have not much more info about it than if you has stayed here. BTW did you spend much time with settlers in the West Bank? Anyone taught to hate Palestinians there?
About the only Westerner reporting from Gaza is Amira Hass. I think Al-Jazeera English still has people there. That's about it. As for the West Bank, protests have been happening weekly at the wall in places like Bil'in for many years, coordinated with both Palestinians and Israelis. They can get pretty rough. Inside the Green Line, there were the J14 protests, which while were carefully avoiding the Occupation in particular, addressed government corruption in particular and had participants from the whole Israeli spectrum.
