Over the years I have grown to trust certain journalists who cover Israel and the Middle East conflict for their accuracy and insight. Two of them are JJ Goldberg (Jewish Daily Forward) and the veteran defense reporter for Israel’s largest newspaper Ron Ben-Yishai (Yediot Ahronot).
Yesterday in this blog, I reviewed the key aspects of Ben-Yishai’s 2400-word report on Israel’s new “conflict management strategy” of Gaza and the West Bank. Among other conclusions, Ben-Yishai said that the Israeli government no longer is working towards a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that it now is in a “conflict management mode” that includes economic development of the West Bank, PA control over Gaza, the disarmament of Hamas, the refusal to remove Israeli settlements from the West Bank, and the indefinite Israeli control of the West Bank until Middle East instability ceases and the most radical terrorists (Hamas, Hezbollah, and ISIL) are eliminated.
In his piece in the Jewish Daily Forward, JJ Goldberg (Is Israel Abandoning Push for Two States?) sites Ben-Yishai’s potentially explosive report and pulls the veil off of the current Israeli government’s greatest deception, that it is serious about achieving through negotiations a two-state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
Goldberg corrects two misleading translations from the original Hebrew article of Ben-Yishai that indicates that the United States and the European Union are both deeply concerned that the Israeli government’s current policies will make a two-state resolution of this conflict impossible, and that there is growing tension as a result between President Obama and Prime Minster Netanyahu.
Those who continue to say that Israel’s current government actually believes in a two-state solution (though the majority of Israelis are clearly in favor) are fooling themselves, both JJ Goldberg and Ben-Yishai seem to be saying.
As a friend and passionate supporter of Israel as the democratic nation state of the Jewish people, I worry mightily about this Israeli government’s current direction.
JJ Goldberg – http://blogs.forward.com/jj-goldberg/207259/is-israel-abandoning-push-for-two-states/?#ixzz3G2MrnsQI
Ron Ben-Yishai – http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4579502,00.html
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.