יום שלישי, יוני 26, 2007
East and West
Just over three months ago, when musing about the states created by the post-WW II partition of British India, I asked why India succeeded, and...
(But, I wondered, why has even post-second-partition Pakistan been essentially a failed state?) Little could I have imagined just how soon after those remarks Palestine would degenerate into its own separate statelets of East and West.
I have never been convinced that the "two-state solution" was viable. How many states with swaths of another state's territory between its parts have been viable? The US (with Canada separating Alaska and the rest). Not too many others. There is Russia's Kaliningrad, which, from what little I know, is pretty much a failed society. Cabinda has a separatist movement vis-a-vis the rest of Angola. These sorts of arrangements are bound to be difficult at best, if relations with the state between the two separate components are not good. And, even if the two-state solution were implemented tomorrow, mistrust between Israel and Palestine would not go away soon.
The events of the last weeks certainly have not shaken me of the view of non-viability. Which is not to say that I have a better solution. Occupation forever? One state? Three states? Gaza and the West Bank absorbed into neighboring Arab states? None of these looks too likely to succeed, either.
Why not Pakistan? It is almost self-evident that East and West were not going to be viable in one state (lesson for Gaza and the West Bank?)
(But, I wondered, why has even post-second-partition Pakistan been essentially a failed state?) Little could I have imagined just how soon after those remarks Palestine would degenerate into its own separate statelets of East and West.
I have never been convinced that the "two-state solution" was viable. How many states with swaths of another state's territory between its parts have been viable? The US (with Canada separating Alaska and the rest). Not too many others. There is Russia's Kaliningrad, which, from what little I know, is pretty much a failed society. Cabinda has a separatist movement vis-a-vis the rest of Angola. These sorts of arrangements are bound to be difficult at best, if relations with the state between the two separate components are not good. And, even if the two-state solution were implemented tomorrow, mistrust between Israel and Palestine would not go away soon.
The events of the last weeks certainly have not shaken me of the view of non-viability. Which is not to say that I have a better solution. Occupation forever? One state? Three states? Gaza and the West Bank absorbed into neighboring Arab states? None of these looks too likely to succeed, either.
תוויות: Pakistan, Palestinian Territories
