As the bombs continue to fall, and the propaganda war rages, it is hard to imagine any way out of the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy. But that could reflect our failure to imagine two states whose purpose is to bring the two people closer, not to create two apartheid states where there is now one.
ATHENS – Recognizing a Palestinian state is the moral thing to do and the only way to achieve a just peace in the Middle East. To convince the next Israeli government that Palestinians must have full political rights, a fresh wave of countries extending formal recognition – as Spain, Ireland, and Norway have just done – is necessary. But, to prevent this wave from petering out in a puddle of performative symbolism, supporters must emphasize that the Palestinian state can be neither a mirror image of Israel nor a means of strictly separating Jews from Palestinians.
ATHENS – Recognizing a Palestinian state is the moral thing to do and the only way to achieve a just peace in the Middle East. To convince the next Israeli government that Palestinians must have full political rights, a fresh wave of countries extending formal recognition – as Spain, Ireland, and Norway have just done – is necessary. But, to prevent this wave from petering out in a puddle of performative symbolism, supporters must emphasize that the Palestinian state can be neither a mirror image of Israel nor a means of strictly separating Jews from Palestinians.