re: #51 sagehen

Contiguous. He means that since the West Bank and Gaza don’t touch, and the only way from one to the other is through Israel, there’ll have to be a land swap to put all the people from both into one chunk of space.

(does that mean Israel will get Gaza by giving up a section that borders on the WB? Another great Mediterranean resort? WIN!!)

Somehow we’ve had this phrase rolling around U.S. foreign policy for a while—I recall Bush using it, although that WILL be forgotten when the wingnuts start to wail.

I honestly cannot see how it’s going to happen. If I were the PA, I would never give up Gaza for more of the Judean desert. Hamas will not give up their Fortress on the Med. Gaza’s legal status is totally vague, deliberately so.

Ideal solution would be if Egypt would take back the strip, under some sort of working agreement about patrol with Israel, and offer the Gazans a choice of repatriating to Egypt as Egyptian citizens, or relocating to the newly minted Palestine in the West Bank.

Never, ever going to happen.

And this is BEFORE we start to argue about the settlement blocks or Jerusalem, or the Hamas Charter, or what might go into the Constitution of any Palestinian state to be declared.

I seriously wish I had an answer for any of this.