Michael L.
The truth of the matter is that whether we end up with a single state from the river to the sea or two states for two peoples on historically Jewish land depends on the will of the Arab majority in that part of the world, not the Jewish minority.
We can continue to beg them to accept a state for themselves decade upon decade, but they have refused every such offer since 1937. Unless you have an interest in setting up Jews for never-ending bullying by Arabs and their western-left allies than the status quo is not desirable. It may be sustainable, but it is certainly not desirable because Arab and western-left malice toward Jews is not desirable. When Barack Obama said that the status quo was unsustainable he did not have Jewish well-being in mind. He was talking about what he considers a Jewish assault on the "indigenous" Arab population with the implication that the international community - led by the European Union, the Arab League, and the United Nations, with Obama helping to coordinate from the rear - would punish the Jews of the Middle East unless they give in to terrorist demands for Jewish land and Jewish timidity.
When Barack Obama and John Kerry said that the status quo was unsustainable, what they meant was that unless we Jews know our place that we would get our asses kicked. If this is not what they meant it is exceedingly difficult to see in what manner the status quo could be unsustainable. The status quo has been around for one heck of a long time and can continue unless Obama and the EU want to put the screws to the Jews. In truth, the status quo has been relatively good because it represents Jewish sovereignty and self-defense.
The fact of the matter, of course, is that the small Jewish nation has already given in to terrorist demands by agreeing to allow the vast Arab nation to take a mighty bite out of the tiny Jewish state for the purposes of creating yet another vicious, racist Arab-Muslim dictatorship. Obama and the Europeans are twisting Jewish arms to accept what we have already accepted for almost one hundred years and refuse to simply take "yes" for an answer.
It is not enough, apparently, that we agree to allow the Arabs to gobble up Judea and Samaria, the heart of the Jewish homeland, but we must also force Jewish people out of that land according to the racist whims of not only the Arab street and the EU, but also of the Obama administration. And make no mistake. We have not seen a presidential administration as racist as this one since the early part of the twentieth century.
The Obama administration supported the Muslim Brotherhood with both money and heavy weaponry and the Brotherhood called for the conquest of Jerusalem during a pro-Morsi campaign rally.
Case closed.
But the larger point is that it is simply not up to us.
The Palestinian-Arabs can have a state for themselves at any time if only their dictatorial leadership would declare the long Arab war against the Jews over with and promote the normal aspirations of economic and social development via education, infrastructure, finance, and diplomacy... in contrast to running Jewish babies down with their automobiles.
The old cliché is that if the Israeli-Arabs put down their weaponry there would be peace, but if the Jews did so there would be a horrific genocide.
This is true.
All the Jews want is to be left the hell alone on their tiny bit of real estate, while political Islamists, filled with visions from the Koran of head chopping, want to see the Jews dead or gone.
So, it is simply not up to us.
Israel is Fortress Israel precisely because the Arabs have made it so with their never-ending Koranically-based malice and violence and in the process they have ruined the lives of untold numbers of Israeli-Arabs who might otherwise have sought education and prosperity for themselves and their family.
My challenge to those who want a negotiated two-state solution is to explain how it can come about without Arab cooperation?
And, furthermore, it is for this reason that European and American arm-twisting on the Jewish-Israelis is so cruelly unjust and counter-productive. They are pressuring the wrong people.
If Barack Obama honestly wanted peace between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East he would pressure the parties responsible for the conflict, not the party who has for many decades already agreed to two states for two peoples.
