Kerry: Way off the bend

The establishment of a sovereign and legitimate future Palestinian state has been and continues to be the most talked about subject in the Middle East.Kerry's current trip to the region is marked as a hope building measure that peace is within reach. Kerry believes that a final solution can be accomplished by extending the current dead line of talks between the Israelis and Palestinians which is scheduled to end by April 30-2014 with no agreement in sight. Kerry needs more time to help both sides to negotiate a final peaceful agreement. Kerry calls his new initiative a framework to guide the negotiations forward.Meanwhile, Israel's leadership is continuing with its strategy to divert the centre point of discussion from establishing a sovereign and democratic Palestinian state to changing the status of the Israeli state to a Jewish state of Israel. The ironic element here is Netanyahu's insistence that establishing a long and lasting peace in the region totally depends on the Palestinian's recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Should it not be the United Nation's responsibility to recognize the Israeli state as a Jewish state? And why has the United Nation thus far, has not recognized Israel as a Jewish state?Netanyahu knows very well that the Palestinians will not accept such conditional terms for two reasons:1 – The Palestinians leadership will never jeopardize the current status of Palestinians living under Israeli control since 1948. There are approximately 1,656.600 Palestinian living in Israel since 1948 (March 31, 2013 statistics). This figure constitutes 20.6% of Israel's total population.2 – The Palestinian leadership, and the rest of the world, recognise that such demands by Israel's leadership is seen as a time wasting mechanism to divert the centre point of discussion from the real issue of establishing a Palestinian state.The question that remains to be answered is: Why negotiate if Israel continues to present unacceptable and unachievable demands?The Israeli populace, despite its religious belief, know for a fact that the current occupation status is not sustainable. If Israel does not accept the two-state solution, then the consequences would ultimately lead to the establishment of a one- state solution.We all know for a fact why the one-state solution does not play in the interest of Israel and this is why: Israel believes it is a democratic state. Any democratic state would have to offer its citizens the equal rights and freedoms which include the right of the individual citizen to elect a government representative of his or her choice. Under the terms of the one-state solution, Israel's population must include all Palestinians who are currently living in Gaza (one million seven hundred thousand), all the Palestinians living in the West Bank (two million eight hundred thousand) and all the Palestinians who have lived within Israel since the 1948 war (one and a half million). This is a total of approximately 6 million Palestinians of Muslim or of Christian backgrounds. Because Israel's Jewish population approximately stands at 6 million one hundred thousand people, so, you can clearly see why Israel would be opposed to the one-state solution.To summarize it all up, maintaining the status quo of occupation or choosing a one-state solution are not sustainable options. What is left is choosing the two-state solution.Under the two-state solution, each country can have its secure and open borders where they can exchange goods and services. In addition, Israel can secure peaceful co-existence and maintain trade relations with all of its neighbours in a civilized manner. The economic gains Israel can reap cannot be measured on any known scale to man.Solving the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is not as complex and you may think. What is complex is finding the right leaders who are willing to gamble on peace rather than wars, love rather than hatred, economic cooperation and prosperity rather than colonization and isolation.