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Gato Palestine (2010-03-05) I don't believe in a 'two-state solution' for Israel/Palestine. I don't believe in it any more than I believed in the 'homelands' created during the Apartheid years in South Africa. Despite being told by both Israelis and Palestinians that a single-state solution would never be accepted, I'm still convinced that it is the only way to stop the violence and the causes of violence. You talk to certain Jewish Israelis and they talk about religious ideology and ancient, ancient history and argue that Israel/Palestine is a special case, but to me it looks like any other example of European colonialism. Sooner or later, the Palestinians and Israelis will have to learn to live together in one state, and until then the fighting and injustice and fear will continue. Since the whole place is under Israeli control, it is in effect a single state anyway, just a fractured one with terrible injustices and inequalities. Strange and disturbing echos of the Holocaust emerge in the way that the Jewish state is now treating the Palestinians. It's not to the same extent of course, but there is a degree of ghettoisation and collective punishment which can't be ignored or condoned.
I probably give the impression that I'm 'siding with the Palestinians' but in fact I identify much more with the Jews, and because of that I feel a sense of responsibility and shame at the injustice perpetrated against the Palestinians.
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