It is depressing to hear supposedly informed and influential
global figures continue to tout a failed two-state theory as the only way to
solve the Palestinian problem.
It has been promoted, pushed and practised by the finest
diplomats since 1967. For fifty years
they have been flogging this dead bird and selling it to the public as if one
day it will become a wondrous peacock.
When will they admit that this birds corpse,
to paraphrase a Monty Python sketch, is deceased?
When discussing the two-state
issue with stubborn diplomats I get the depressing feeling that I have become a
character taking in a famous Monty Python sketch. You know the one. It’s the
one with a customer, brilliantly portrayed by John Cleese, who takes an
obviously dead parrot back to a pet shop in which the owner, played by Michael
Palin, stubbornly denies that the bird he had recently sold to Cleese is
dead.
The major flaw of the two-state
remedy is not only is it a solution going nowhere. It is the stubborn refusal
of an impotent diplomatic world to admit this obvious fact. Like Palin, they
desperately cling to it as the only bird in the menagerie.
And so I often find myself in
that diplomatic pet shop whenever I point out that this two-state parrot is
dead. The diplomats I talk to always give me the Palin response that it isn’t
dead. It’s just resting. They tell me that the two-state solution, when it
wakes up, will have beautiful plumage to which I am forced to remind them, “Forget
about the plumage. It’s stone dead!”
How many times have we heard the
international diplomatic community tell us that the two-state solution is
dormant? It’s no good demanding that they show us that it isn’t dead. As in the sketch we know that waving a
handful of birdseed at the dead parrot or banging on the cage door will not wake
it up.
We know it is dead. They insist
it is only stunned. They insist that the total lack of movement from this dead
parrot derives only from Israel not giving it enough sustenance or oxygen and
if we just did that the bird will quickly revive and begin to impress us with
its natural beauty.
It is at this stage we point out
that the only reason the two-state corpse has not dropped on the cage floor is
because its feet have been nailed to the perch by the two-state promoters
insistently determined to show us that it is still alive.
We have reached the point where
we must forcefully point out to the global pet shop owners that this parrot really
is dead, that it has finally gone to meet its maker, it is deceased, it has
passed on, it no longer exists, it’s pushing up the daisies, it has run down
the curtain and joined the invisible choir, it is bereft of life, it is no
more, it has ceased to be, it has kicked the bucket and shuffled off its mortal
coil. It is history.
And when you are pausing for
breath do not be deceived when the pet shop owner tells you that he has an
equally good two-state peacock in his storeroom to sell you.
It will take another fifty years
of staring at this parrot before you realize, once again, that this tropical
bird will not fly either.
Barry Shaw is the Senior
Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic
Studies. He is the author of ‘BDS for
IDIOTS’ and the new best-seller ‘1917. From Palestine to the Land of
Israel.’ https://www.createspace.com/6830537
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