An interview with IAW 2010 keynote speaker Ali Abunimah from this week’s Vue Weekly.
Two nations should be one
Israeli-Palestinian solution may lie in creating one nation, not two
Samantha Power / samantha@vueweekly.com
One of the world’s oldest and most intertwined conflicts has hammered against a solution for decades—a solution that may be the cause of more problems than it seeks to solve. The resolution to the human rights abuses and oppression heaped onto the Palestinian nation has been to seperate the two nations into their own countries, but progress has been slow in coming. Journalist and author Ali Abunimah proposes the reason is the two nations should not be seperate, but together.
A radical proposal long forgotten, Abunimah posits the reason these two nations have not realized the two-state solution is because they are meant to be together. Abunimah submits the only way to realize the rights of every person is to fully realize a single state with full citizenship rights for each nation within it.
It’s a difficult solution for any two nations that have committed atrocities against each other, but it may be the answer that guarantees the democratic freedoms of the oppressed Palestinian nation. Abunimah, author of the book One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, believes the only way to guarantee the full citizenship rights of Palestinians is to start looking at a one-state solution. Vue Weekly spoke with Abunimah in anticipation of his talk next week for Israeli Aparthied Week.
Posted by psnedmonton 
Who Determines Canada’s Israel Policy?
February 4, 2010A rabble.ca blog on Canada’s Israel policy by Murray Dobbin.
It has been said by many American commentators critical of Israeli policy in the occupied territories that Israel in effect writes U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. It is hard to dispute the claim even though on occasion the U.S. does balk at the most outrageous Israeli plans such as its eagerness to bomb Iranian nuclear sites (the U.S. knows it wouldn’t stop there and a wider war would almost certainly ensue). If any proof were needed one only has to look at the policies of Barack Obama who, it could be argued, is even more sycophantic towards Israel than George Bush was.
Before he was inaugurated as president, Obama made it clear that the enormous military and civilian aid provided by the U.S. — some $2.5 billion a year — was not on the table. In other words, before even developing a policy towards Israel, Obama gave up literally the only leverage he had. And just in case the Israelis were too slow to get the message he followed by allowing Israel to continue building more settlements in the West Bank — literally the only deal breaker as far as the Palestinians are concerned. It was an unmistakable message: the U.S. has no intention of pressing for a peace deal and the two-state solution, the focus of bargaining for 20 years, is dead.
Read the rest of this entry »
Share this: