U.N., U.S. fail to nurture a state for Palestinians

Uri Dromi’s May 16 op-ed, “What will finally break the cycle of violence between Israel and Hamas?,” proposes to stop the bloody fighting between Hamas and Israel by launching a worldsupported Marshall Plan for Gaza, as if the root cause for the fight is the poor state of Gaza’s economy.

The root cause is that, despite many efforts, the United Nations and the United States have failed to find effective ways to establish an independent Palestinian state with sovereignty over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Indeed, as time passes, the situation is getting worse.

The Netanyahu administration, by its supportive settlement policies, seems to be making the West Bank a province of Israel. That would be a disaster for democracy in Israel.

As a clear sign of how serious the situation has become, we see now for the first time, street brawling between Israeli Arabs and Israeli civilians in local bi-cultural communities that have been peaceful for years.

It’s plain to see that a major economic development plan for Gaza as proposed by Dromi will do nothing to calm the tumult caused by Israeli policies that encourage new settlements on the West Bank and that threaten the establishment of an independent Palestinian state that could live in peace with its Israeli neighbor.

The Biden administration and others should try once again to find the only way to permanent peace in the Middle East: an Israel-Palestine twostate solution.