Sunday, May 03, 2009

Does The Continuity Principle Guarantee A Palestinian State?

Bloomberg News reports that on a statement from Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon has said:
“The government of Israel, because of our democratic tradition and because of the continuity principle, is going to abide by all previous commitments the former government took, including the acceptance of the road map to peace which will lead to a two-state solution,” Ayalon said, referring to the internationally backed 2002 peace plan. [emphasis added]
Needless to say, such an explicit statement on the Bibi government backing the idea of a second Palestinian state appears to contradict what Netanyahu has been saying so far, emphasising the need for an 'economic' peace.

According to Arutz Sheva, this is mostly a defensive move:
Shmuel Sandler, a political scientist at Bar Ilan University, told Bloomberg that Ayalon’s statement was meant to ensure Israel wouldn’t be blamed for slowing down peace negotiations. “They realized that it is not worthwhile not to accept this and pay dearly for it internationally,” Sandler said. “Why should they be punished for something that is very theoretical?”
Theoretical? Maybe when Ayalon said Israel accepts the Continuity Principle, he was referring to this:
As stated by Lachlan (1893), the principle states that if, from the nature of a particular problem, a certain number of solutions are expected (and are, in fact, found in any one case), then there will be the same number of solutions in all cases, although some solutions may be imaginary.
Sounds dead on to me.

In the meantime, no matter how vague Obama has been in responding to questions about his own policies, someone I don't think he will allow Israel the same kind of leeway.

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