The "Two-State Solution": A (Water) Pipe-Dream

"The Jordan River Entering The Sea Of Galilee"
Here's EXACTLY why Israel cannot permit there to exist a permanent, legitimate, sovereign Palestinian state, (via Alternet):

Report Warns of Armed Conflict in the Middle East Over Water

Agence France Presse. Posted June 3, 2009.

Climate change threatens to reduce the availability of scarce water resources, increase food insecurity and hinder economic growth.

DAMASCUS (AFP) -- Some 160 villages in northern Syria were deserted by their residents in 2007 and 2008 because of climate change, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The report drawn up by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) warns of potential armed conflict for control of water resources in the Middle East.

"The 2007/8 drought caused significant hardship in rural areas of Syria. In the northeast of the country, a reported 160 villages have been entirely abandoned and the inhabitants have had to move to urban areas," it said.

In Syria and also in Jordan, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, "climate change threatens to reduce the availability of scarce water resources, increase food insecurity, hinder economic growth and lead to large-scale population movements," the report said.

"This could hold serious implications for peace in the region," the Canada-based institute said.

The study, financed by Denmark, predicts a hotter, drier and less predictable climate in the Middle East, "already considered the world's most water-scarce and where, in many places, demand for water already outstrips supply."

Oli Brown, who co-wrote the report with Alec Crawford, said: "Climate change itself poses real security concerns to the region. It could lead to increased militarisation of strategic natural resources, complicating peace agreements."

"Israel is already using climate change as an excuse to increase their control over the water resources in the region," he said.

In the study's conclusions, Brown and Crawford said: "As a region, the Levant produces a tiny fraction of global emissions -- less than one percent of the world total.

The exception among Levant countries is Israel, "whose emissions -- 11.8 metric tonnes per capita -- exceed the European average of 10.05 tonnes," they said.

"This may exacerbate the existing deep mistrust of the West, including Israel, which would be seen as causing a problem that it is unable or unwilling to resolve," they said.

Israel cannot tolerate an independent, sovereign, Palestinian State within its boundaries, with which it would be compelled by international law and custom to fairly share the region's resources. Can ANYONE foresee an Israeli prime-minister turning water OUT of kibbutz fields and into Arab olive orchards (assuming any survive)? And to admit failure and accept a one-state solution, where Arabs and Jews participate in full equality is also an historic non-starter. So except for killing and/or completely expelling the Arabs, the only solution appears to be some sorts of "reservations" for the Arabs, like the bantu-stans the Boers set up for the blacks around the borders of (white) South Africa; or, like the reservations the USers set up to give our displaced, dispropriated, dispossessed indigenes the appearance of sovereignty.

Maybe "we" can teach the Arabs to do quaint handicrafts? Pottery? Jewelry? Baskets? Kitchy poster-art?