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Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Draft Republican Platform Effectively Calls for Annexation of Area C of West Bank

http://lobelog.com/draft-republican-platform-effectively-calls-for-annexation-of-area-c-of-west-bank/#more-34991

Draft Republican Platform Effectively Calls for Annexation of Area C of West Bank

by Chuck Spinney
The so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in my opinion, has always been a distraction to buy time for the Israelis to formally annex most of the West Bank to Israel.  Much like Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, annexation of this territory will be tangled up in the unexamined question of controlling access to scarce water resources.  
This posting builds on my posting of last April, “The Palestinian Question: Why the Two-State Solution is Kaput.”  My aim was to explain how the central and generally ignored goal of controlling access to the West Bank’s water resources water is shaping Israel’s long-term settlement policies.  That posting described how issues relating to control of these water resources go a long way toward explaining the “facts-on-the-ground” pattern of accelerating settlement growth in Area C of the now defunct Oslo Accord, which comprises about 60% or the West Bank.  Ensuring fair and equitable access to the water resources of the West Bank and the River Jordan’s watershed is a necessary although not a sufficient condition for an equitable solution to the complex Palestinian Question.  That is true regardless of whether that solution takes the form of a two state solution or a single-state bi-national solution.http://lobelog.com/draft-republican-platform-effectively-calls-for-annexation-of-area-c-of-west-bank/#more-34991

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