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Two-state solution makes Palestinians ‘weak and marginalised’

March 23, 2017 at 9:29 am

The president of Al-Sharq Forum said on Wednesday that the two-state solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict makes the Palestinians “weak” and “marginalised,” Al-Resalah newspaper has reported.

Wadah Khanfar’s remarks were his response to a wave of anger aroused among some Palestinian politicians who criticised his earlier comments on Australian radio. The head of the independent strategic network told listeners that the Israeli occupation does not accept that Palestinians will live with them in the same state.

Khanfar is the former director general of Al-Jazeera News Network and said that his remarks were taken out of their original context. He pointed out that he was comparing the South African negotiations with the apartheid regime and the PLO’s talks with the Israelis.

Read: Israeli annexation of the West Bank will bury the two-state solution

“Mandela and his comrades succeeded in reaching a solution that maintained the rights of all South Africans,” he explained, “and gained the right to full freedom and equality on the whole land of South Africa.” The South African negotiators ended the apartheid domination of the Whites despite the fact that the apartheid government had offered an independent state for the Blacks.

As far as the Palestine-Israel issue is concerned, though, the negotiations started on the basis of there being two states. “This, in my opinion, makes the promised Palestinian state — even if it ever sees the light of day, and this is impossible — weak and marginalised and it will live under the domination of a strong Israeli state.”