Published: 26 November 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
US SECRETARY OF STATE Mike Pompeo’s statement that the West Bank settlements are not necessarily “inconsistent with international law” is a pathetic attempt to give political and legal validity to a demographic and territorial situation in which annexation of the settlements makes no sense.
Every year, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics discloses the truth about the settlements in the West Bank and in Jewish neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem. This year, the disappointment for annexation adherents is greater than ever, thanks to the expectations stirred by Israel’s most messianic-ultranationalist government ever and the unprecedented support of the Trump administration.
The figures again show that any annexation would harm Israel’s democracy and its Jewish identity, and that the settlements’ existence does not preclude a two-state solution — if and only if both sides and the US administration have a sincere, responsible political will to achieve it.
Even after 10 years of Benjamin Netanyahu heading religious-Haredi-ultranationalist governments including ministers who ruled out a two-state solution and were capable of advancing the settlement enterprise, the situation on the ground is as miserable as ever, contradicting the myth they cultivate.
FULL STORY The end of the two-state solution is just a myth (Haaretz)
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Arab thinkers call to abandon boycotts and engage with Israel (New York Times)
Boycotting Israel is a failure, and has only helped that country while damaging Arab nations that have long shunned the Jewish state, according to a small new group of liberal-minded Arab thinkers from across the Middle East who are pushing to engage with Israel on the theory that it would aid their societies and further the Palestinian cause.
