More thoughts on politics

On Friday night, I talked with a friend of mine who has a pretty deep understanding of Israeli politics. I asked him my questions about Israel 50 years in the future as viewed from the perspective of the right (he's on the left himself). He said that as well as he can figure, their current political views don't really address this question. They are more concerned with working their way out of the current crisis then planning for 50 years from now. His thoughts on Bibi's response to Obama is that Bibi is playing cards and when he lays down the "freeze settlement card" he wants to get something big in return. In fact, he thinks that most of what Bibi says and does are just part of the card game in hopes that he can land the big pot (which may or may not be peace, it's hard to tell).

I talked to several other friends who are right wing, and came to the same conclusions. On the right, there is no thought to Israel in 50 years, which, to me is pretty scary. For me, I'm still stuck on the left with the vision of a two state solution and the hope for (but no expectation of) peace. Then the questions are how to get there. Bibi has stated in the past that he also supports a two state solution, though I've also read that he's against dismantling the settlements, so I don't know how those two thoughts can both be true. Then again, this is the middle east where everyone has at least two opinions and no one cares if they are logically consistent.

I guess the people who are indefensible are the 30% of Israel who are extreme right and are against the creation of a Palestinian state in any circumstances. The question is if the government becomes indefensible when it supports those 30% over the 70%.

It's also interesting here because the discussion within Israel allows us to have these discussions without problem. In the states, and I suspect, much of the world, the anti-Israel crowd has succeeded in implying that if you are critical of the government of Israel, you are critical of her right to exist. The mistake the Palestine supporters make is that they tend to be very black and white - either Israel or Palestine. The boycott comes out of this world-view.

But the truth (in my view) is that there is a state of Israel (no matter how you feel about her creation - I personally support it) and there is a Palestinian people who live primarily in the West Bank and Gaza (no matter how you feel about that). And Peace will come with a recognition of both sides, not a denial of either.