Strict Separation Is Not the Answer for Palestine and Israel | by Yanis Varoufakis - Project Syndicate

coherent Palestinian identity, and the ability of the Palestinian people to clearly define for themselves who they are, what they want, and what values they stand for, is of course crucial for the security of Israel, the region, and the rest of the world, but it is mostly crucial for the future of the Palestinians themselves. The Palestinians must

Creating a strong Palestinian state next to a strong Israel will require Palestinians to give up their unrealistic dream and Israel’s dreaded nightmare of several million people returning to Israel who claim to be refugees from Israel. This so-called Palestinian right of return, more than any Israeli action, including the misguided continued occupa

Israelis saw the unraveling of the Arab states created by Westerners and wondered why the West would want to make another artificial state run by a corrupt, nonelected regime. They watched Mahmoud Abbas name public squares after suicide bombers and extol the murderers of innocent Israelis. Americans traumatized by the jihadist bombers who killed fo

From the perspective of Israel (and pretty much every world leader who has studied this topic) the solution cannot include the return of 5.6 million people to a country of 9 million people. It must include an “end of demands.” And it must affirm Israel’s right to exist in safety and security.

may seem ironic that so soon after Israel offered the Palestinians nearly everything they and the international community wanted—a Palestinian state with Arab Jerusalem as its capital, return of the entire Gaza Strip and almost the entire West Bank, a fair and practical resolution of the refugee issue, and an end to Jewish settlements—it is now a p

Given the expressed goal of these increasingly popular radical groups, those who urge the eventual creation of a Palestinian state, as I do, cannot ignore the realistic possibility that such a state might well continue to support, encourage, or at the very least tolerate continuing terrorism against Israeli civilians in an effort, futile as it migh

While in Israel there were voices who advocated relinquishing lands so that the two people might live side by side, the PLO was hardly open to compromise. Its attitude to Zionism was explicit in its charter: Zionism is a colonialist movement in its inception, aggressive and expansionist in its goals, racist and segregationist in its configurations