Plan B Forum

One advantage of a 2-party parliamentary system is that the floor sweepings of politics get weeded out before they get considered for the top job. In our system they're right there in the running.


http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/ ... east-peace
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Huckabee Opposes Middle East Peace


Mike Huckabee has a peace deal for the Palestinians -- nothing:

JERUSALEM (AP) — Potential 2012 U.S. presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Tuesday that if Palestinians want an independent state, they should seek it from Arabs — not Israel.

The evangelical minister and Fox News host said Jews should be allowed to settle anywhere throughout the biblical Land of Israel — an area that includes the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

He called the demand on Israel to give up land for peace an "unrealistic, unworkable and unreachable goal."

Note that not even the Likud government opposes a Palestinian state in principle. If Huckabee sets the pace for defining what constitutes "pro-Israel" in the 2012 GOP primary, we could be in for a race to the bottom.
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yrs,
rubato

Please note: There has NEVER been a "Palestinian" state, any more than there was ever an "Acadian" state (country) in North America.

The land known as "Palestine" (so named by the Romans, as an insult to the Jews) has been, politically speaking, an unimportant backwater, an insignificant region of the Ottoman empire, and the "Arab Community" wanted nothing to do with it or its people until the Zionists gradually made their intentions known. Since the inception of Israel, the surrounding Arab countries have continually made war on it, despite there being no threat whatsoever to them from Israel or any of its people. They could easily have absorbed the indigenous Arab populaton, but chose not to do so - indeed they chose to maintain a huge community of "refugees" as a permanent obstable to any reasonable peace.

There is and never can be a "two state" "solution" to the situation in Palestine. You have generations of indigenous Arabs who have been taught from the womb that Israel is an abomination that that Allah demands that it be obliterated, along with all of its jewish people. Anyone who has done any significant negotiations knows that there can be no negotiated settlement unless their is a possible outcome that is either desired by both parties or is equally onerous. Israel wants to live in peace within borders that make tactical sense - which of necessity includes much of what are very dubiously referred to as "occupied territories." The Arabs want nothing beyond the obliteration of Israel. Indeed, it appears that they cannot see anything beyond that preposterous objective. God knows, if Israel were to cease to exist tomorrow, they have about as much chance of sustaining a tenable government as I have of winning the big Lotto (I don't play).

Israel has, and continues to behave atrociously in much or this. The injustices visited on indigenous people have been incredible - comparable to how the U.S. has treated its native peoples. But Israel is not going away. Ever. And given that, there will never be a "two-state solution," or any other permanent, peaceful resolution of the difficulties over there.

Huckabee is committing nothing more than a gaffe. He is saying what is manifestly true, but perhaps better left unsaid.