Mondoweiss: A lot of the grief over Shimon Peres is grief over the end of the two-state solution

[Little Tich]

Source: Mondoweiss, by Philip Weiss, September 29, 2016

A lot of the grief over Shimon Peres is grief over the end of the two-state solution. The obsequies for Peres may be helpful to mainstream figures in coming to terms with a passing that is more tragic to them personally, and that so many have denied: the death of the idea of a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel.

And that is good news: because it is a reflection of reality.

Peres died at a time of growing signs that the U.S. establishment is waking up to realities that it has denied for a long time. There will be no Palestinian state. Israel will not withdraw from the occupation. We have entered the era of a binational state, and people should recalibrate their expectations, and their demands on the sovereign, the Israeli government.

This awareness is explicit in eulogies to Peres. Roger Cohen has a very good column today; because he writes sincerely about his love for something that has passed and acknowledges that the dream of an idealistic Israel has died in the eyes of the world:

I began by saying that a void fills the soul. It does, for those like myself who love Israel. But because of the politics of the past two decades, fewer people love Israel today, more people are reflexively hostile. In Peres, a noble idea of the Jewish State clung on against the dismal tide.

And now?

Read more: http://mondoweiss.net/2016/09/grieving-mainstream-acknowledges/