Bush is a lame duck and Abbas is a cipher with no support among the Palestinian people. The Palestinians know that Abbas must play along with whatever script Bush and Olmert prepare for him.
The two-state solution probably died with Arafat. Thirty percent of Palestinians responding in a recent Israeli run poll support a single state while 43 percent expressed support for a two state solution. Since the respondents knew the face to face poll was run by an Israeli newspaper, the support for the single state is probably understated. More important, by all measures, Palestinian support for a two state solution has been steadily eroding since the second intifada and support for a single state has been increasing now that the total Palestinian population in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel equals the total Jewish population.
Oslo was driven by Rabin`s understanding that Israel had a very limited time to effectuate a two state solution before Palestinians became a majority. |
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