Saturday, June 5, 2010

Israel's Three State Solution II

A while back, I proposed that Israel's best chance for security peace would be a three-state solution; separating Hamas' Gaza and Fatah's West Bank in terms of the peace process, so that Qassams from Hamas won't be a deterrent to Fatah's peace process with Israel.

Since then, of course, it has been clear that Netenyahu doesn't particularly care to make peace with Fatah. Still, if some electoral miracle brings someone genuinely interested in peace around, the three-state solution will still be the best way forward. And it doesn't seem so preposterous to me as it once seemed, especially once I saw this in the BBC:
What could be the impact [of the Aid ship events] on the peace talks?

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said peace talks with Israel will continue. Proximity talks, mediated by the US, resumed in May after a two-year break.

At least from the perspective of the Palestinians, who I presumed would be the harder sell on the "three-state solution" idea, they're effectively acting separately from Gaza. If Abbas wanted to link their fates to the Gaza Strip, now would be the time to press forward, on their advantage -- maybe meet with Turkey, maybe withhold further talks until aid ships are allowed to progress.

Instead, Abbas is looking after his own people in the West Bank. His own incentive structure is to continue to serve his constituents, which are the people of the West Bank and it appears he's already making decisions with regards to them.