War in the Holy Land - Two State Solution

Horrifically... predictably... it was bound to happen. On Tuesday, October 17th, a deafening explosion struck the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, in the besieged Gaza Strip. Located in the Zeitoun neighborhood in the south of the city, it is managed by the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem. The massive blast killed nearly 500 Palestinians, triggering global outrage at the slaughter of people, many of whom were taking shelter from nearly two weeks of relentless Israeli bombing of the besieged enclave.

“The devastation witnessed, coupled with the sacrilegious targeting of the church, strikes at the very core of human decency. We assert unequivocally that this is deserving international condemnation and retribution” ...the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem, which runs the hospital, said in a statement.

Such are the inevitable consequences of modern warfare, especially in an urban theatre. Triggered by the brutal surprise attack by the Sunni Islamist military organization commonly known as Hamas on October 7th, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), having declared a state of war soon after, have been retaliating with air raids and missile strikes for the last three weeks. And in all such conflicts, it is the innocent population who pays the price... heartlessly known as collateral damage.

To date, the grim death toll stands at...

1,400 Israelis killed

7,326 Palestinians killed

As of this posting date, other current grim statistics include...

5,431 - Number of Israeli’s injured

18,967 Number of Palestinians injured

250,000 - Number of Israelis displaced

1.4 million - Number of Palestinians displaced in Gaza

229 - Soldiers and civilians being held hostage in Gaza

4 - Hostages released

84 - Aid trucks let into Gaza

27,781 - Residential units destroyed in Gaza

To be clear, the this bloody war is a continuation of an ancient, tribal grudge match... perpetrated by warring, tribal, desert-religious factions. This animosity and ethnic hatred has been raging since pre-biblical times. So it's complicated.

To add insult to injury, this latest bloody eruption has been exasperated by the proliferation of mis-information and dis-information on multiple social media platforms. X (previously known as Twitter), recently driven into the ground by the megalomaniac and American Archon Elon Musk, being the most glaring example and easiest target. If the grim realities of the Hamas/Israeli War are occluded in the fog of war, then modern social media platforms act as fog machines.

Ancient hostilities by Tribal Desert Religions aside, most of the world's population recognizes the horrific insanity of war... especially this one. Political and military posturing by Hamas and the Israeli government aside, the Palestinian and Israeli people are paying the bloody price... and deserve the basic humanity of raising their children in peace.

In the minds of most, the ultimate solution is necessarily a two-state solution. However, the unlawful intrusion by Right-wing encouraged, Israeli settlements into what rightly should be part of the Palestinian State, create an impossible obstacle. Israeli settlements continue to eat into Palestinian spaces... and over the course of the 30 years since the Oslo Accords (signed in the White House in September 1993) the settlements completely prevented the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state within that two-state framework.

In 2022, Benjamin Netanyahu’s incoming hard-line Israeli government put West Bank settlement expansion at the top of its priority list, vowing to legalize dozens of illegally built outposts and annex the occupied territory as part of its coalition deal with ultra-nationalist allies.

So what could a two state solution look like? Discussions of a two-state solution center on a number of core issues. One is how exactly the borders would be drawn. Most international diplomacy favors Israel reverting to a version of its pre-1967 borders, without a consensus on how that would account for the Palestinians living within those borders or the Jewish Israelis beyond them.

Israel has annexed the whole city of Jerusalem as its capital, while Palestinians claim East Jerusalem for the capital of their state... which makes for another logistical question.

There's also the major question of Palestinian refugees of the wars of 1948 and 1967. The survivors and their descendants live mostly in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria and claim the right to return to Israel based on a 1948 U.N. General Assembly resolution. Israel views that right to return as a threat to its existence as a Jewish state and believes those refugees should go to the Palestinian state instead.

These are but a few roadblocks set before any diplomatic effort to bring a peaceful solution to this most ancient territorial power struggle.

Now that the IDF has commenced their much anticipated ground offensive into Gaza, all bets are off as to whether the bloody conflict will escalate into a regional war... dragging the US military into the madness. The really funny (bad... not ha ha) thing about this whole debacle is that ultimately, it is in the Israeli's best interest to facilitate a two state solution. 

If the long-stated goal of Israel having a Jewish homeland is indeed their real objective, it would be in their best interest to not only allow, but facilitate a Palestinian State. As it stands, demographics indicate that in the near future, the population of Israel will transition from a Jewish majority, to a Palestinian majority, based on total population. Hard to have a Jewish homeland where the largest population is Palestinian Arabs.

As we have seen within right-wing politics in the US, the old guard conservatives fear nothing more than being in an ethnic minority. In this regard, the true motivations of a right-wing Israeli government, can only be viewed with skepticism and suspicion. The ruthless, disproportionate way in which the Israeli's responded to the brutal Hamas attack of October 7th, indicates something more than responding in-kind and freeing the hostages.

In their campaign of annilation, the Israeli's appear to seek Borg-like assimilation. Thereby condemning the Palestinians to an apartheid future of second class, non-citizenship. The establishment of a Palestinian State would only strengthen the Israeli homeland. Ultimately, the most peaceful solution for all would be the two state solution. But in this day and age... perhaps this is too peaceful... too democratic of a solution.

Hamas and IDF aside, can we agree that the citizenry of Gaza and Israel both and collectively should be able to expect to live their lives in peace... free of the intrusions of Hamas and IDF ground assaults? Free of Hamas rockets and IDF fighter jets? The people of Gaza and Israel are not collateral... they are human beings... endowed with the same sacred spark of life and equal in their sacredness. Both deserve a homeland where they can raise their children in peace.

Sitting here in the relative comfort of the "Broken-Promised Land" ... it doesn't seem like too much to expect. When all is said and done... all we are saying... is give peace a chance.