MARK CARNEY & A 2-STATE SOLUTION

 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has stated Canada recognizes a Palestinian state to exist beside Israel. His “envisions” this yet to be state of Palestine that will living harmoniously with Israel, “building its future in peace and security alongside the State of Israel.” Didn’t we go down a similar path with the Oslo accords of 1993 and 1995? 

The idea of a two-state solution or land-for-peace has been proposed for decades, without success. The idea is as deeply flawed as land-for-peace efforts of the Clinton Administration in the 1990s. The Oslo Peace Accord eventually collapsed with both Israel and the Palestinians blaming each other. I predict (and I hope I am wrong) that the latest attempt at a two-state solution will have as much of a chance to succeed as the Oslo Accord. 

Nearly 30 years ago (June of 1996) I wrote to then Secretary of State Warren Christopher about the unstable Middle East and the proposed land-for-peace solution. As noble as the idea was, many people suspected it wouldn’t work. There was no desire of either party for it to work. How could it? Both parties claimed historic ownership of the same land dating back to antiquity. There have been oceans of blood shed over historic grievances. But the central ingredient for a two-state solution or land-for-peace is missing. What was the missing ingredient? A desire by both parties—an authentic wholehearted desire for peaceful coexistence. It didn’t exist 30 years ago, and it doesn’t exist now! The foundation of a two-state solution is too shaky and fragile.

In my correspondence to US Secretary of State Warren, I stated: 

“Any peace worth having must be based on peace for the sake of peace. That is a peace of substance. It’s rather like love motivated by money versus love motivated for love’s sake. The first is counterfeit, the second is genuine. Love based on pecuniary motives is not love at all.  Peace motivated by securing land is a counterfeit peace. The real question arises: What happens after the land swap? Will the memory of land for peace be steadfast when the next grievance is on the table? (Desiring is a strong motivation until the object is attained, then often the desire for more raises its ugly head. It’s human nature.) Deep-seated, historical hatred between peoples will remain—not to mention wild variables like Hezbollah and Hamas. … Land for peace can be a motivation, not the motivation. Peace for the sake of peace is the only peace worth having.” 

Fast forward to 2025. What makes Mark Carney think it will work now? It may well be that the Palestinian authority gets will get sidelined again by Hamas. Will Hamas willingly step aside from power when their goal to wipe Israel off the map is still unattained (and hopefully never will be attained)? They will regroup. They may combine forces with other terrorist groups in the area such as Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Resistance Committeesand/or the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade to seize power in a newly establish Palestinian state?  

Remember how ineffective the PA was after the Oslo Accords of the mid-1990s? Why wouldn’t they be equally ineffectual now? The central ingredient for peace is still missing: A desire to achieve peace for the sake of peace and a willingness of both sides to sacrifice something to achieve such a worthy goal. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has emphatically vowed to prevent a Palestinian state. His first priority is protecting Israel and its people and eliminating Hamas. That’s his job. He has no other choice. And so the impasse to a two-state solution will continue as long as Hamas is part of the equation.  Prime Minister Netanyahu has clearly stated that he will not stop hunting down Hunting down Hamas until they are completely eliminated and all hostages released. So why haven’t the Palestinians cooperated with Israel to eliminate Hamas from their midst? The war will be over. Could it be that the Palestinians actually support Hamas? If that is true, how can there be any peaceful two-state solution?

Carney’s regurgitated two-state solution remains an unstable vision for Israelis and Palestinians as two independent states living peacefully side by side. Why would Israel agree to live side-by-side with a state in which an entity remains embedded that has vowed for their destruction and will likely continue campaigns of terror against them? Hamas wants Israel’s destruction and Israel may rightly believe they are in Gaza. There is still no overwhelming desire in for peace from those who surround it Israel. Israel cannot allow itself to be next to a state that poses a clear and ever-present danger to very existence.

Until Hamas is eliminated there can be no two-state solution, no land for peace. The risk is simply too high and unstable regardless of what Prime Minister Carney wants to envision. Desiring is not having. Until peace is wanted for the sake of peace there will be no peace. 

President Trump can provide a critical stabilizing role in finding a solution for the Palestinians and Israels. I think it begins with the complete elimination of Hamas by whatever tough or brutal means are required short of nuclear. This may create deterrence for other terrorist groups who threaten the security of Israel. They must understand that President Trump is resolute in protecting Israel (surrounded by hostile nations). If that means Israel’s allies must assist them in rooting out and neutralizing Hamas, then so be it. Once Israel feels safer, a path forward for peace and economic renewal for all can begin. 

 

 

CHARLIE KIRK'S ASSASSINATION AND AMERICA'S FUTURE

 

Did Charlie Kirk die in vain? He was such a good man with wisdom beyond his young years. Charlie Kirk was a husband, a father and a Patriot, but he was first a lover of Jesus Christ. He openly proclaimed his faith to the world. For the sake of goodness and Truth, he willingly took the poison darts and arrows of the woke left. Millions of people across America (and at least one old man in western Canada) are tearfully asking the question: Why? Vision is blurred when clouded by tears. Charlie Kirk has become a Christian martyr.

 

Under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Saint Paul said that all things work together for good to those who love God, those who are called according to His purpose. That describes the life of Charlie Kirk.

God can use what has happened for good. God can use conservative America’s pain to accomplish wonderful things far beyond what we can imagine. 

Let me illustrate this with an example from my own life. Early in my career I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). It was very aggressive.The upward trajectory of my career stalled. Eventually I was put out to pasture at the age of thirty-eight. I sank into a clinical depression as MS ravaged my body and a creeping paralysis became apparent. I asked God ‘Why?’ My life seemed over. 

It was in the dark shadows of depression and defeat that God gave me a task: Be willing to go with my canes, or crutches or wheelchair anywhere I was given the opportunity to proclaim a simple message. What was that message? Every human life has incalculable value and worth for no other reason than they bear the indelible image of God. America and many jurisdictions were contemplating legalizing euthanasia. Jack Kevorkian was leading the charge. I said Yes, thinking God would only send me around the Canadian province where I live. Nope. He sent me across Canada and the United States—from Victoria on Canada’s west coast to Nova Scotia on Canada’s east coast, from Los Angeles to Boston, Whitehorse in the Canada’s Yukon to Louisiana and Alabama on the Gulf of America and countless small towns and big cities between those points. My last speaking engagement was Dubuque, Iowa in 2018. Travel had become too difficult.

What seems like a tragedy or defeat can be the beginning of something much larger, like using Charlie’s martyrdom as a turning point for America to return to being one nation under God? I believe with all my heart that being one nation under God was what raised America’s economic prowess for unprecedented prosperity, and a colossal military for the forces of good, and human liberty (not licence) to heights never known before in history. God blessed America.

Now that is threatened because half of America has forgotten they were one nation under God. America is at a crisis point. You can either crack apart and make a mockery of your noble experiment that thrived for more than two centuries; or will this hour of crisis be an opportunity for America’s renewal. Take Charlie Kirk’s example. 

Reject the evil of the woke far left who seek to destroy America as we know it and replace it with communism or some grotesque entity concocted in their own image.They and their Democratic friends (with a compliant media) fan the flames of American against American. Christ said: "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand".

I don’t want that for America! I love America! Take the love of Christ to Americans who are so lost they don’t even know if they are male of female, take it to women in crisis pregnancies to choose life not death for their babies, Make killing old and disabled people—who have sunk beneath the waves of their circumstances—anathema. Remove gender ideology from schools, encourage faith and family and pray for God’s guidance in the coming dark days of crisis that will either lead to America’s demise, or America’s renewal. Understand that free speech must have its limits. It stops with the espousing the killing of fellow American, or the destruction of the nation: its institutions, its laws and constitution, its mores and long-established Christian ethos that has been a blessing to America. The left is trying to bring all that down.

Their treacherous and treasonous ideas cannot be tolerated. They must be rooted out by whatever means necessary to preserve the American Union and the integrity established from the nation’s beginning. Granted, there were dark chapters, but the journey toward a more perfect union has always been the goal within the Founder’s original vision. They had a vision of what America could be but was yet unattained. Do not lose sight of their great vision and stay the course toward it.

Reflecting on the 1787 Signing of the American Constitution in Philadelphia, one of the nation’s Founding Fathers, James Madison (1751-1836), remembered words Benjamin Franklin spoke at the Constitutional Convention. He wrote:

“Whilst the last members were signing, Doctor Franklin, looking toward the President’s chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members around him, that the painters had failed to distinguish in their art, a rising from a setting sun. I have, said he, often and often, in the course of the sessions, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President’s chair, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length, I have the happiness to know. That it is a rising, and not a setting sun.”^[1]

Now, 238 years after the great man spoke those immortal words, Americans must again determine whether the sun is still rising or is it setting on the United States. If the sun is setting on your great nation, understand that darkness always follows sun sets. If the sun is still rising on the sacred uplands of America, there will be a light of a renewed and hope-filled future. American’s must decide which it will be. I pray you will follow Charlie Kirk's example, choose to a rising sun, and Make America Great Again. 

MDP

Alberta, Canada.

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[1] Lefton S. Stavrianos, ed., Reading in World History (Boston: Allyn and Bacon Inc.),  p. 258.