Jordan King Says Two-State Solution Is Needed to
Defeat ISIS,But Prospects Are Dim
Allan C. Brownfeld, Editor
Special Interest Report
April 2016
ISIS cannot be defeated until the Israel-Palestine conflict is resolved,
says Jordan’s King.
Speaking in February at the Munich Security Conference, King Abdullah II
said: “Left unresolved, the Palestine-Israel conflict will become a
religious conflict of global dimension.” He noted that the “festering
injustice” of the unresolved conflict “continues to be exploited by ISIS and
its kind … It is only a matter of time before we may be faced by yet another
war in Gaza or South Lebanon. This is why reaching a two-state solution
should remain a priority for us all.”
King Abdullah called for “a new level of global action” focused on defeating
ISIS: “We, as Arabs and Muslims, have a responsibility and duty to be in the
lead in the fight against … the outlaws of Islam. This is a war to protect
our religion, our values, and the future of our people, but it must be
global in partnership, just as it is global in scale.” (Jewish Telegraphic
Agency, Feb. 12, 2016)
With Israel continuing to build settlements in the occupied territories, New
York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (Feb. 10, 2016) writes that, “The peace
process is dead. It’s over … The next U.S. president will have to deal with
an Israel determined to permanently occupy all the territory between the
Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, including where 2.5 million West
Bank Palestinians live.”
Asking, “How did we get there? Friedman writes: “So many people stuck knives
into the peace process it’s hard to know who delivered the mortal blow. Was
it the fanatical Jewish settlers determined to keep expanding their
footprint in the West Bank and able to sabotage any Israeli politician or
army officer who opposed them? Was it right-wing Jewish billionaires like
Sheldon Adelson, who used their influence to blunt any U.S. congressional
criticism of Bibi Netanyahu? Or was it Netanyahu, whose lust to hold onto
his seat of power is only surpassed by his lack of imagination to find a
secure way to separate from the Palestinians? Bibi won: He’s now a historic
figure — the founding father of the one-state solution.”
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro said in January that Israel’s fast-
moving expansion of settlements on Palestinian lands “raises honest
questions about Israel’s long-term intentions” and commitment to a two-state
solution. Mr. Shapiro also said that, “Too many attacks on Palestinians lack
a vigorous investigation or response by Israeli author¬ities, too much
vigilantism goes unchecked, and at times there seems to be two standards of
adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for
Palestinians.”
Editorially, The New York Times (Jan. 22, 2016) declared: “The criticism of
Mr. Shapiro, a vigorous advocate for Israel, was unusually personal and
unfair. He correctly identified a serious problem. Since 1967, there has
been a dual legal system in the West Bank in which Palestinians are subject
to military courts, where, experts say, they are almost always convicted.
Israeli settlers fall, under the Israeli civilian judicial system, with its
greater rights and protections. Israel is moving quickly to establish facts
on the ground that preclude a Palestinian state, leaving Palestinians
increasingly marginalized and despairing.”
Ambassador Shapiro was bitterly attacked by both Prime Minister Netanyahu,
who called his statement “unacceptable and incorrect,”and his former aide,
Aviv Bushinsky who said on television that, “To put it bluntly, it was a
statement typical of a little Jew boy.” Shapiro is an Orthodox Jew who
speaks Hebrew and studied, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem”
(Mondoweiss, Jan. 21, 2016).
In Israel, many prominent voices are increasingly critical of the
government’s policies. The respected author Amos Oz says_ that he will no
longer participate in official events sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. He calls the Netanyahu government “the most militant,
right-wing government Israel ever had.” He referred to the “Hilltop youth,”
Jewish settlers who commit attacks on Palestinians in the occupied
territories, as “Hebrew neo-Nazis … They’re not Nazis, but they have a great
deal in common with neo-Nazi hooligans all over the world: desecrating
churches and mosques, synagogues and cemeteries, violently attack¬ing
foreigners; filled with hatred and xenophobia; aspiring for some despotic
central regime to replace what they regard as anarchy. These are the
syndromes of neo-Nazism.” (The Forward, Feb. 5, 2016) •
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