The protracted conflict

Gaza

David Atkins thinks we will continue to be a guarantor of Israel’s survival as an independent, Jewish state and I surmise he also believes we should.

As to the former, I agree.

As to the latter I am not so sure and am inclined to think not.

All the same, Netanyahu and others of his expansionist ilk are not all motivated, and not only motivated, by religious ideas.

And we could say just the same for non-Jewish supporters of Israel, whether expansionist or not.

Netanyahu, the neocons, and others who support Israel make the case when challenged that confining Israel to the 1967 borders and accepting a neighboring Palestinian state is a security risk too great to be acceptable when compared to going on as they are now or slowly expanding at least to include both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip within Israel.

Too, given its specific role as a Jewish homeland, neither Netanyahu nor many others are prepared to urge or accept any variant of the one-state solution in which that state is not distinctly and specifically and uniquely Jewish.

Hence the current policy of continuing near stalemate with continuous, low-intensity warfare mitigated only by incremental and slow approaches to a one-state, Jewish state solution.

For the Palestinians, in particular, the only consolation is whatever truth there is in the by no means new or original claim that the Palestinians already have a state, and its name is “Jordan.”

But Atkins and the American supporters of the two-state solution, including I think Barack Obama, suppose the security costs and risks associated with that alternative, to which the US is still publicly committed, are not excessive and the prospects of success sufficient to justify them.

Who is right depends on many things, but especially on whether and how far Israel’s neighbors would be willing to accept and live in peace with Israel as a Jewish state, confined to its 1967 borders, cheek-by-jowl with a Palestinian state comprising the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

If you were an Israeli, what would you think of the odds?