The Core Issues
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11162585
I listened to Hilary Clinton roll off her tongue ’the core issues’ and reading it again in print, I am hoping for something more. When she says “territory, security, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements”there is no sense of the grand issues and the pain that each and every one of these words brings to millions of people. Refugees are people who have been displaced from their homes since the establishment of the state of Israel, people who may never have seen their children have children, people who have grown up in refugee camps, people who have seen ancestral homes demolished.
The rights of Palestinians to return to their homes in what will be the state of Israel is one of the most painful issues that is to be resolved. Demographers and others know that it will put at stake a core principle of democracy as with the right of return there is a possibility that Arab Israelis could out number non-Arab Israelis and would then a Jewish state be democratically obliterated? Any alternative would limit the democratic rights of citizens and this is just completely incomprehensible as Israel is seen as a bastion of democracy in the region. Hilary says this “will get no easier if we wait, nor will they resolve themselves.”but who can suggest what? Do refugees give up their dreams? Or is it an imagined volume of people? Given the right and the opening of the borders, how many Palestinians would want to return after they have spent the last 60 years building lives elsewhere? People on both sides are afraid and defensive.
Are creative solutions possible? Could Jerusalem become an international city of peace? A demilitarized zone where all the world’s religions can live and pray in peace and security. I have no idea what Hilary is expecting the Palestinians to do. Look for Property in Fethiye perhaps? What do I expect from the Secretary of State a magic pill that will save the world or simply more gravitas?
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