And now, some wretched reality to bring us down from our post-inaugural bliss (or to lift us up from post-inaugural blues, dependent on ideology):
A comment about how all-American it debatably is to indulge Israel unconditionally in the "Goodbye Bush, Hello Obama!" thread jarred my memory about something I'd just read in the New York Times recently. Libya's head of state, al-Qaddafi, essentially brushed off the idea of a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, citing the likelihood that such a move would only breed more hostility and further undermine what little stability is to be had at present.
Who is in the right has been debated as long as the Balfour Declaration (at least in the West). Apologists for both sides' incursions against the other never seem to tire of repeating themselves. The questions I have are not in the vein of who is right, because that does not so much foster debate as much as invective. What I put to you instead are two questions: is a two state solution more viable than a single state solution? And what role should the Western powers play in shaping that particular solution, if any?
Honestly I think that that's true. India and Pakistan split up and are still constantly threatening each other and they had a lot less reasons to hate each other than Israel and Palestine do.
If the government of the region was well run and neutral it might work, but at this point I think it would be impossible to go multiethnic there unless both countries were nullified and started over. Each national identity is rather caught up in ethnic identity. The Israelis who voted for Netanyahu deserve a lot of the blame if my limited understanding of the region is accurate.
