Israel, Palestine Need Outside Support for Lasting Fix

Neighbors must be involved: Friedman
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 28, 2009 12:33 PM CST
Israel, Palestine Need Outside Support for Lasting Fix
Palestinians look up at an Israeli air force unmanned drone as they stand in the rubble of their destroyed house in the area of east Jebaliya, in the northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009.   (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

The dominant theory holds that the two-state solution is the answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the war in Gaza has pushed tensions past the point where an equitable sharing of geography is enough, argues New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. He wants a "five-state solution—Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia."

Friedman puts on his mind-reader hat and casts his plan as a pitch from Saudi King Abdullah to President Obama, laying out each party's role in "an Arab solution that would put a stop to Iran’s attempts to Persianize the Palestinian issue." "Too much has been broken to go straight back to the two-state solution," he argues. "It would be like trying to build a house with bricks but no cement."
(More Arab Israeli conflict stories.)

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