Common Grounds


Our Wednesday News Analysis | One federation for two peoples

September 20, 2023

Source: Il Manifesto
https://global.ilmanifesto.it/one-federation-for-two-peoples/

 

By Meron Rapoport, Two States – One Homeland
Published September 13, 2023


Read the accompanying commentary by One-State Foundation.

 

 

"Jews and Palestinians are geographically intertwined.
Both peoples view the entire land as their homeland.
For the Jews, that extends to Hebron in the West Bank as much as to Tel Aviv; for the Palestinians, Jaffa as much as Ramallah.

 

What’s necessary isn’t separation, but equality and partnership;
individual and national equality between all of the residents of this land –
through an end to the occupation, dispossession, and unequal privileges – and real partnership between these two groups."

 

 

The Oslo agreements were based on bad faith from the Israeli side, were implemented with even lesser good faith, and 30 years later we all see the result: violence is rising, settlements are widening, settlers’ attacks on Palestinian civilians are becoming an habit, and the apartheid regime in the West Bank consolidates itself by the day. What is maybe even worse: very few Israelis and Palestinians believe that a solution, any solution, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is possible. Without such belief, without a hope for a better future, political action becomes very difficult...

 

Read more: One federation for two peoples

 

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OSLO IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE PEACE PROCESS

Source: Al-Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/9/12/oslo-is-dead-long-live-the-peace-process

 

By Marwan Bishara
Published September 12, 2023

 

Reimagining peace in Palestine-Israel beyond the zombie process that refuses to die.

 

US President Bill Clinton watches Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat shake hands at the White House in 1993 upon the signing of the Oslo Accords [Reuters]

 


"That’s why Israelis and Palestinians seeking peace must realise, as I wrote 20 years ago on Oslo’s 10th anniversary:

 

“One state answers the requirements of true peace that were hardly addressed, let alone resolved, in the Oslo peace process. The differences over the Palestinian refugees, Jerusalem, the Palestinian minority in Israel, the settlers in Palestine, Israeli security, borders and water could all be resolved in the framework of one shared state based on citizenship and the constitutional protection of the religious and national identity of its inhabitants."

 

 

The Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, reached in Oslo and signed in Washington, DC in 1993, aimed to achieve peace within five years. However, after failing and resurging several times, the process ultimately led to a more violent occupation and culminated in a more entrenched system of apartheid. This prompts three critical questions: Why did it fail? Why has it been resurrected, repeatedly? And, what is the alternative 30 years later?

 

Five primary factors were behind the failure of the Oslo process...

 

Read more: Oslo is dead, long live the peace process

 

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The coming year – the worst is yet to come, unless

Source: The Times of Israel
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-coming-year-the-worst-is-yet-to-come-unless/

 

By Gershon Baskin
Published September 14, 2023

 

 

I imagine that the average Israeli sees very little of the content that I see every day in my Twitter (X) feed, from the Palestinian media, from Israeli, Palestinian, and international human rights organizations.

 

Those who see that content are witnesses to horrendous acts of humiliation, violence, and Israeli state sponsored terrorism against Palestinians of all ages – men, women and children all over the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

 

 

Every day ethnic cleansing is happening from the far north in the Jordan Valley to the south Hebron Hills. Arrests of tens of Palestinians, men, women, and children – boys and girls, occur every night in the wee hours of the morning.

 

 

Beatings, vandalism against property, homes, vehicles, cutting and burning of olive trees, and stealing of sheep and goats are a daily occurrence by settlers whose goal is to make life for Palestinians a living hell for those who live on land that the settlers covet...

 

Read more: The coming year – the worst is yet to come, unless