THIS refers to the article ‘American embassy shift’ by Nafisa Hoodbhoy (June 12). Suggesting the South African example ignores the basic fact that in South Africa whites were less than 10 per cent of the total population. Additionally, South Africans did not have US presidents and their administration at their service like the Israelis have, whose relations have now grown to family connections.

Moreover, the Europeans and other Western countries have been squarely on Israel’s side and even now they do not proceed beyond symbolic gestures towards the Palestinian cause, which was not the case with South Africa.

For a few decades, the West kept fooling the Palestinians cause with the two-state story and now they have another ploy to do the same in the form of one-state solution.

Criticising Saudi Arabia and Iran for not solving Palestinian problem for 70 years is wrong. The Saudi government had offered normalisation of relations with Israel subject to a satisfactory solution of the Palestinian problem.

The two-state solution still remains the only practical solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Why can’t some illegal settlements by Israelis be removed to give Palestinians a contiguous piece of land with East Jerusalem as capital in the land that belonged wholly to them not all that far back? After all, just how much land does Israel need for its six million Jewish population?

If the international community can’t solve the problem with a two-state solution now, it could hardly restrain Israelis from pushing the remaining Palestinians to Jordan.

S. Riaz
Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2018