With the settler movement encroaching more and more on land in the West Bank and the IDF planning to shrink Gaza of population and land space in the course of this one sided war, a two state solution would require a return to a status quo ante. Where that exactly is would be an issue of great contention. A one state solution is wishful thinking, I would say, detached from political realities and animosities on the ground. The resistance from both sides would make it completely impractical. Some will surely differ.

For any two state solution to have any meaning or justice, the majority of 600,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank will have to be relocated to Israel. But they will fiercely resist any such action. It’s a deeply reactionary and racist movement. How could it be anything else? Not surprisingly, settlers who have been violently attacking Palestinians in the West Bank with near impunity even before the recent Hamas attack on innocent Israelis, have intensified those attacks in recent weeks.

At some point this deeply reactionary and racist movement will have to be confronted. Otherwise a two state solution is dead on arrival. No Palestinian leader, even a collaborationist one, would sell such a solution that gives legitimacy and legality to the extensive usurpation of land on the West Bank by Israeli settlers.

The pursuit of peace requires boldness, creative thinking, and courage. Fadwa Barghouti should be freed and resume his role as a leader of the Palestinian people. Finding peace and justice will take more than reshuffling the old deck.

It may seem naive, but the only way to weaken and isolate Hamas in Gaza is to aggressively pursue peace, a robust two state solution, a viable Palestinian state.

The French Party statement, strongly condemning the mass murder of Israelis, was an outlier in the communist movement. Other parties either condemned the killings in a low register or not at all. I include the U.S. party in the low register category.

Such a posture, however, is inconsistent with the longstanding policy of the party that guided its approach to the Middle East over a half century. Hy Lumer and Danny Rubin, who wrote extensively on the Middle East for decades in party publications, would find the statement, I’m sure, not to their liking.