Cutting the Baby in Half, Madness of the Two State Solution

And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.

Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.

------I Kings 3, 26-27.

Of course the two state solution offered in the Israel/Palestinian peace process has never been about equality or halving. But it, in a deeper sense, will destroy any hope of a viable state by demanding two, unequal, ethnically pure states. This spurious judgment is the truth of the entire process. When the United States, advocate for Israel and not an honest broker, leads the effort, do not expect justice or peace. Israel sits back and cares little whether peace is accomplished or not. It can always build illegal settlements and then claim them as "Demographic Conditions" or "facts on the ground" to argue for more extensive "land swaps" in later peace negotiations. Creating a weak and bifurcated Palestinian state without a right to defend itself is to posit the annihilation of any viable state for Palestinians. The two state policy takes the wisdom of King Solomon's gesture and warps it into a de facto destruction of what he, in the end, saved.

Separate but not equal was a hallmark of American segregation in the first three quarters of the 20th century. Perhaps the United States wants the same for Israel. A split, refugee laden, Palestinian state, with no right of defense or to water, will be placed next to a US taxpayer subsidized and well armed Israel. The two state solution with land swaps ensures a failed Palestinian state and ratifies ethnically cleansing Palestinians from the territories.