When Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got standing ovations in almost gone-wild U.S. Congress last night, one might actually wonder what he actually meant by proposing his Two State solution by stating,

“So it is therefore absolutely vital for Israel’s security that a Palestinian state be fully demilitarized. And it is vital that Israel maintain a long-term military presence along the Jordan River. Solid security arrangements on the ground are necessary not only to protect the peace, they are necessary to protect Israel in case the peace unravels.  For in our unstable region, no one can guarantee that our peace partners today will be there tomorrow.”

It’s an apartheid One State solution, of course, with future Palestine as sort of Bantustan without its capital (East-)Jerusalem. It’s not what Shlomo Sand had had in mind, i.e., a true democratic state of Israel, not a Jewish ethnocracy. It will be a hollow victory in the absence of President Barack Obama.

Juan Cole writes today that Netanyahu has dug “the grave of his own vision of a Jewish state” yesterday. Well, let’s hope the best.

Last modification May 25, 2011.