Malley’s folly

The other day the New York Times published an op-ed by Robert Malley and Hussein Agha, The Two state solution doesn’t solve anything:

They conclude:

For years, virtually all attention has been focused on the question of a future Palestinian state, its borders and powers. As Israelis make plain by talking about the imperative of a Jewish state, and as Palestinians highlight when they evoke the refugees’ rights, the heart of the matter is not necessarily how to define a state of Palestine. It is, as in a sense it always has been, how to define the state of Israel.

Which led to quite a few comments.

Israel Matzav:

In other words, the real conflict isn’t about borders but about ‘refugees.’ It’s not about where the Jewish state will end and the ‘Palestinian state’ will begin but about whether there will be a Jewish state or a ‘Palestinian’ state. It’s not about the results of the 1967 war, which resulted in what much of the world calls an ‘occupation,’ but about the results of the 1948 war, which resulted in the existence of the State of Israel.

Well, at least we’re finally being honest. The conflict is existential after all.

Noah Pollak agrees as does Rick Richman.

But the question is what does that acknowledgment mean?
Barry Rubin:

Second, there is an op-ed by Robert Malley (who, if not exposed for his not merely anti-Israel but anti-American positions) might well be today an official or formal advisor of the Obama Administration and his Palestinian co-author Hussein Agha. This article claims, albeit in very subtle ways, that while Israel and Hamas have accepted a two-state solution, this isn’t enough. Israel must be wiped off the map altogether. And of course Hamas has not accepted a two-state solution, a deception on Hamas’s part and on by these two authors as well.

(For the record, Benjamin Netanyahu accepted a two-state solution in 1996. Hamas has still not and never will accept a two-state solution.)

By their own argument, this would make Malley more extreme than Hamas. This is the new double whammy: On the one hand, all the Palestinians and Arab states supposedly accept a two-state solution (not true) but the West should support Israel’s destruction. It is now 2009 and the Times has been going out of its way to publicize the PLO line of a half-century ago which was rejected then.

Jonathan Tobin:

What Malley and Agha seem to be doing is preparing for the moment Obama needs a scapegoat for his hopeless initiative. It is at that point that we can expect hardcore anti-Zionist opinions such as those exhibited on yesterday’s Times op-ed page to be given more prominence.

As such, this decision by Israel’s foes–and their enablers at the Times–to now focus on the delegitimization of Zionism rather than on traditional carping about Jerusalem’s policies may well foreshadow the not-so-distant future debates on the Middle East.

But the best analysis came from Yaacov Lozowick:

The lines of discussion are indeed becoming ever more clear, even if the team at the White House doesn’t see it. The issue is the right of the Jews to sovereignty in their ancestral homeland. Not the right of the Palestinians; that has already been acepted by any fair minded person. It’s the right of the Jews which is being discussed, evaluated, and in many cases rejected. This is what the Jews need firmly to keep in mind.

Given Malley’s claim to fame, I don’t think that there was anything benign about the op-ed.

But let’s give the last word to Martin Peretz:

Imagine for a moment the one-state solution in historic Palestine west of the Jordan. What peace will there be? What economic progress? What laws and what justice? What science? What kind of class system? Try to deny that all of this would be a nightmare.

The one-state solution is a fraud. Those who press it know that it is a fraud. And those who publish it do, as well.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.