WHERE HAS ALL THE EXCITEMENT gone for statehood in the West Bank? A year ago in September there were festivities and public displays of hope on the streets of Ramallah; one year later, little attention was paid to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s United Nations speech reiterating the need for an independent Palestinian state. Lackluster support for the PA should come as no surprise. In the past 12 months alone, the United States blocked the PA’s bid to declare statehood; Israel has intensified settlement growth while Israeli settlers have rampaged, destroying property and desecrating holy sites with impunity; the international community, focused on Iran and the threat of regional war, has stood idly by. An equitable two state solution between Israel and the Palestinians is all but dead.
Read the full review in the Los Angeles Review of Books