Word: states
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...bigger problem facing the U.S. as it tries to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians is that neither side seems interested in having them. A majority of both publics still support the goal of "two states for two peoples," but years of stalemate have sown deep pessimism about the possibility that it will ever come about. A joint survey of Israeli and Palestinian public opinion taken last December found that while 75% of Israelis say they support the establishment of a Palestinian state, only one-third expect it to happen in the next five years. Among Palestinians...
...danger of such despair is that it feeds on itself: the longer that Palestinians have to wait for their own state, the more likely they are to return to armed struggle, gravitate toward terrorists like Hamas, or abandon the two-state approach in favor of a unitary state - in which Arabs would eventually become the demographic majority in the land encompassing Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. That would extinguish the dream of a Jewish homeland. So what should...
...engage in direct talks with Israel. A third option, outlined by the Israeli political analyst Ehud Yaari in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, would be an all-out push to get Israel and the Palestinian Authority to agree to the immediate establishment of an interim Palestinian state in the West Bank, where the institutions necessary for self-government are in place and working reasonably well...
...Gaza but would be excluded from the deal; among Israelis, it would provoke conservatives who would object to the inevitable dismantling of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Many of the knottiest issues, including the status of Jerusalem, would still be unresolved. But a deal on an interim Palestinian state would provide some measure of hope and allow Obama to show he is capable of extracting concessions from both sides. At this point, the alternative is more misunderstanding, bitterness and despair - a grim legacy for the man who promised to bring peace to the Middle East...
...nationalistic laws go, the one just passed in Slovakia seems rather tame on the surface. Earlier this month, the Slovak parliament approved a "patriotic act" mandating that every school play the Slovak national anthem on Mondays and that each classroom display a set of state symbols: the flag, the coat of arms, the lyrics to the anthem and the constitution's preamble. However innocuous this all may appear to be, though, Slovaks are outraged that the government is forcing them, by law, to be more patriotic...