Fatah official: Two-state solution is dead
No Palestinian leader can sign away claims Arafat refused to forgo, says former security chief Tawfik Tirawi
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleElhanan Miller is the former Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel
The two-state solution is dead, a senior member of Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah organization said on Monday, calling on the Palestinian leadership to seek “new solutions.”
Speaking to Jerusalem-based TV channel Hona Al-Quds, Tawfik Tirawi, former head of the General Intelligence Agency in the West Bank and a member of Fatah’s Central Committee, accused Israel of turning the Arab-Israeli war into a “religious war” and ignoring 67 years of UN decisions stipulating territorial withdrawals and the return of Palestinian refugees.
“The two-state solution has ended and no longer exists after Israel abolished it completely,” Tirawi was quoted by the official Fatah website as saying. “Therefore, we must search for other solutions. I personally do not believe that a two-state solution will materialize, and say that within approximately 50 [years] there will be no solution but one state.”
Tirawi has been known not only for his hawkish statements but also for involvement in overseeing acts of terror during the Second Intifada period, according to Israeli intelligence. Former Shin Bet security agency chief Yuval Diskin described Tirawi — who was appointed Palestinian Authority national security adviser with the rank of minister by Abbas in 2008 — as “psychopathic, cruel, dangerous and prone to extreme mood swings” in leaked minutes of a meeting with the American ambassador in Tel Aviv in June 2007.
Given the impossibility of a political resolution to the conflict, Tirawi said, a coordinated national strategy must be devised to oppose Israel. The strategy could either be directed from within the PLO or without it, he said, alluding to the inclusion of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
“No Palestinian leader can sign away our rights in Jerusalem, the refugees, water, or leave the settlements,” said Tirawi, who was filmed seated next to Abbas during a meeting with Fatah’s regional leadership on Saturday.
“Whatever Arafat didn’t sign on, no one else can sign on. The conflict will remain in force,” he concluded.
The Times of Israel Community.