Two States for Which People??
Today’s editorial in Ha’aretz, about the Fatah convention that’s taking place in the West Bank, leaves readers with a bit of a riddle.
In one sentence the editorial writer insists, “From Bethlehem, [Fatah] sent Jerusalem an unequivocal message: The Palestinian national movement’s strategic choice is still two states for two peoples.”
But a mere three sentences later, there’s the following admission: “The convention rejected the demand to recognize Israel as the ‘state of the Jewish people.'”
So there’s the riddle. If Fatah supposedly accepts “two states for two people,” but rejects the “state of the Jewish people,” then who exactly are the two people that Fatah accepts having a state??
To their discredit, much of the media have glossed over the Abbas’s open rejection of Israel as the Jewish state, even while, paradoxically, reporters continue to recite boilerplate language casting Abbas’s “moderate” Fatah movement as accepting a two-state solution.
As made so clear in the self-contradictory Ha’aretz editorial, the question journalists need to start asking in light of Fatah’s position is: Two states for whom?
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