Whither goest the middle east?? ...or do the settlements preclude a two state solution?

Four recent depressing events may be setting the stage for a change in the middle east ...

1. The Gaza conflagration with its documented  human rights violations on both sides.   (As a side note, how come Richard Goldstone's UN sponsored report of these violations has been politely filed in the world circular file.)  

2.  Election of right winger and west bank settlement supporter Netanyahu.   Of course the moderates in Israel continue to shoot themselves in the foot or worse through seeminingly unending corruption scandals.  Possibly more depressing here is the apparent role of American Jewish money machers in using their financial clout to push the right wing in Israel.

3. Obama's caving in on settlements.   Here was the moment in the first flush of his election for America to stand up for peace and not toady to the settlement right wingers.  This isn't even a wink, but a green light.

4.  Abbas bowing out of the next Palestinian elections.   Most commentators assume he is just plain discouraged by the impasse and Obama's cave was the last straw.   When I worked in Labor Studies, I watched a management consultant and union buster lecture management that they (management) got the union they deserved.   Same goes for Israel and the Palestinians.....both ways!

An interesting thought suggested by John Nichols in the Nation is that successfully maintaining and expanding the settlements could lead to a new stage in the middle east.   If Jews occupy the West Bank, there is no way to achieve a two state solution.  That leaves two choices:   ethnic cleansing (which I continue to believe the Jewish people and state are not capable of either by will or by overwhelming Arab resistance) or a one state solution.   The latter (as Olmert has noted) would mean the end of Israel.   I translate this to mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state.   Are we looking at the renewed possibility of Arabs and Jews sharing the land?  Are we looking at a democracy that conciliates two warring peoples through elections (this has occurred...think of south Africa.)  As a nonzionist, I would call this a happy prospect...though one filled with tremendous irony.   Perhaps it's a fantasy, and impasse will continue at least as long as I live.   Now that's a sad prospect.