News
Motlanthe against ‘two-state solution’
Former South African President Kgalema Motlanthe spoke out against the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, saying it had failed. Motlanthe was the keynote speaker at the BDS launch of the 13th annual Israel Apartheid Week last Sunday at Constitution Hill.
ROBYN SASSEN
Motlanthe’s view contradicts both South African government policy as well as the stated policies of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who aspires to national self-determination of the Palestinian people.
Speaking of his 2006 visit to Israel/Palestine, Motlanthe said he was convinced of the necessity of establishing democracy in the region, which includes the rights of each group living in the same area, to exist and enjoy sovereignty, which is currently not the case.
The two-state solution proposes two states for two peoples living in peace, side by side. While it ostensibly appears the most workable option, Motlanthe said, without pointing fingers at either side, that it has increasingly failed to be put into practice and as such remains purely conceptual.
Motlanthe, who advocates a one-state solution, submitted: “Those who oppose it, argue that it will lead to war. Such violence was also predicted in South Africa’s transition to democracy, but this didn’t happen, because of sheer human will and brave leadership.
BDS WORKS
March 9, 2017 at 11:21 am
‘Former President Kgalema Motlanthe: My version of a one state solution of a federal, democratic, and peaceful state where all share rights
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nat cheiman
March 9, 2017 at 12:48 pm
‘Unworkable with people that want to kill Jews.
But a point of view nevertheless’
nat cheiman
March 14, 2017 at 6:21 pm
‘perhaps a two state solution with NO JEWS in a Palestinian state and NO MUSLIMS in Israel.
Abass, will not have Jews in Palestinian state. A reciprocal approach will be advocated.’
Gary Selikow
March 15, 2017 at 10:06 am
‘He wants one Muslim Arab state ruled by Hamas where Jews can live at their sufferance and hope they dont massacre us’
Gary Selikow
March 15, 2017 at 10:20 am
‘To deny Israel’s Israel’s right to exist and call for a ‘unitary’ Arab dominated ‘Palestine’ to replace Israel, in which Jews would be a helpless minority at the mercy and whim of HAMAS , as the Jews in Europe and the Arab countries (from which 800 000 Jews where expelled in 1948.) were at the mercy of their persecutors. If Motlanthe’s demand became a reality, Jews would wait, huddled in their ghettos, to be massacred by the Arabs.
Tutu and others who call for Israel’s replacement by a ‘unitary Palestine’ know full well that this would lead to a second Holocaust of Israel’s five million Jews.
Those insulated academics who refer to the nation-state as an anachronism are ignoring the message of recent history, which has seen the birth (or rebirth) of a plethora of nation-sates, from the ruins of enforced multi-national artificial entities : Hence in the last 18 years we have seen the independence of nation-states including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Eritrea and East Timor.
The meaning of Israel is clear. The Jew has experienced too much death, and a portion of the Jewish people decided that they would die quietly no more (especially after Hitler’s Holocaust). So it is: and no argument, no clever political talk, no logic and no parading of right and wrong can change this fact.The Jews returned to Israel because it was their ancient land. From 1810 onwards, Jews in the Land of Israel have been murdered by Arabs. The pious Jews of Safed, who would raise no hand in their defense, were robbed and murdered and burned out again and again by Arabs – as where the Jews in Jerusalem and Tiberias. Bedouin Arabs passed through Land of Israel at will-and robbed and killed Jews for profit. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Arab feudal lords in the Land of Israel organized pogroms precisely as the Tsar had organized pogroms.
In 1920 Jews where massacred by Arabs in Jerusalem, in 1921 in Jaffa and in 1929 in Hebron. Thousands of Jews where murdered in 1936 to 1939 in the Nazi inspired Arab Revolt. Since 1948 Arabs have launched wars against Israel to try to drive Jews into the sea and since Arafat launched the latest war in 2000, after rejecting a peace deal, thousands of Jewish men women and children have died in Israel by bomb, bullet and knife. Jews will never again be put into a position where they can be subjected to another Holocaust (particularly in the ancient Jewish homeland).
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Choni
March 16, 2017 at 8:33 am
‘Well said, Yasher Koach, Gary’