Rabbi Michael Lerner: What was being offered to the Palestinians was an impossible deal that no Palestinian leader could have possible accepted. Hussein Ibish: They proposed creating a Palestinian State in most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but this state was not going to have control over its borders, it was not going to have control over its air space, it was not going to have control of the only resource, natural resource, in that area, which were the major aquifers, and it was going to be bifurcated and criss-crossed by Israeli settlements and Israeli roads. So it was going to be broken up into at least four or five different pieces. It was a nominal Palestinian state within, effectively, a greater Israel. Sam Husseini: Its as if the Palestinians have been put in the basement of their house and they might be allowed most of the rooms, but Israel gets to control all of the hallways and some of the rooms. So you wanna go from your living room to your bedroom? Then youve got to go through Israeli checkpoints. You know from your kitchen to your bathroom youve gotta go through an Israeli checkpoint. Well do you really control your house under that set of circumstances? Rabbi Michael Lerner: It did not offer Palestinians unimpeded access to their holy sights, and it did not offer Palestinians any solution to the three million Palestinian refugees who live in these refugee camps under horrendous conditions. Toufic Haddad: The occupation was not being dismembered, it was being made more efficient. It was being consolidated. Where Israel would maintain its strategic interests, whether it would be hilltops or water, whether it would be different agricultural things that they had interests in, and the Palestinians would have what was left, basically. And if they wanted to call it a state, they could call it a state. If they wanted to print postage stamps, they could print postage stamps. If they wanted to have a national anthem, feel free. The transcript can be downloaded from mediaed.org/assets/products/117/transcript_117.pdf
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 14:59:18 +0000
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