Walled in or walled out?

[Violet_Crumble]

The doubts expressed of late by British and American statesmen to the effect that "the Palestinian state will not be established in 2005" can generate only bitter laughter, as when one hears an exaggerated understatement: A Palestinian state? An actual state? Next year already? In the chaotic realm of the Palestinian Authority, where it's doubtful that one can establish a chicken coop safely?

Even the most ardent supporters of the Palestinians - from the UN's Terje Roed Larsen to newspaper columnists in the Western world - are by now asking themselves about how ready they are to establish a state entailing sovereignty and responsibility for its fate, not to mention democracy. Indeed, beyond Israel's assaults on that sovereignty, and more especially in light of the missing of every opportunity that has, despite everything, been given the Palestinians to establish "a state in the making" - one that will attest, even by the merest hint, to the ability and desire to create a law-abiding, peace-loving political framework - it is really not out of place to put to the Palestinians the blunt classic question of Flatto-Sharon: What have you done for state? Apart from the culture of the shaheeds and terrorism, what have you built? What minimal foundations have you laid for a state culture? What have you done with all the money that was injected for that purpose?

At the same time, our anti-Oslo architects, who did all in their power to demolish the few signs of Palestinian sovereignty and to snip off the buds of normalization, have no cause to rub their hands in glee in light of the anarchy, or to rejoice that "there's no one to talk to." In the first place, because of their part in this mess, and second, because the "there's no one to talk to" argument can just as easily be directed against them. And besides, do we have the right to observe the Palestinian chaos from some lofty perch? Especially when it appears that, along with the ruin of the vision of Palestinian normalization, the vision of our normalization is also being shattered. Somehow, like Siamese twins who died in the attempt to separate them, it looks as though the crash of the vision of coexistence alongside a Palestinian entity has also vitiated Israel's status as a progressive country, an honorable society among the nations of the world.

So we can put the question of "what have you done for state" to the Israeli government, too, with the emphasis on "state." Sharon, Mofaz & Co. made efforts on behalf of the security of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel and improvised solutions for the good of the "Yishuv" in the period of the "events" in our time. But did they strengthen, or perhaps mortally weaken, the status, image and self-identity of Israel as a state?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/455087.html