The Editorial From Kiryat Arba

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rhetoric has become more reasonable since his election victory. He apologised to Arab-Israelis for complaining they were voting in 'droves' on election day. He also claimed to support a Palestinian state, but not under current conditions."

So begins a most peculiar editorial in last Wednesday's Australian, Eight-state solution floated.

How "reasonable" is that:

Netanyahu during the election: 'The f...ing Arabs are voting, man the barricades!'

Netanyahu after the election: 'Sorry about that. I don't know what came after me.'

Netanyahu when asked about a Palestinian state: 'Palestinian state? What, now? Are you serious? The weather's f...ing terrible. Come back and see me when it's cleared up, OK?'

Now here's where it gets seriously weird:

"Within a week of Likud's victory, prominent Israeli academic and commentator Mordechai Kedar, a former Israeli Defence Forces spook, urged Mr Netanyahu to act on what is quietly referred to as the 'eight emirates' plan. In addition to Gaza in the east [!!!???], Dr Kedar and others advocate the creation of seven geographically separate and discrete Palestinian emirates on the West Bank."

"Emirates"?

Impoverished, besieged Palestinian bantustans spun as entities on a par with the wealthy Persian Gulf United Arab Emirates. Nice one!

The United Palestinian Emirates (UPE)?

Except they're not united. They're "separate and discreet."

Remember the good old days of the 'viable, contiguous Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital'? Gone with the wind. Once used to distract the easily distracted from dealing seriously with Jewish State in the Levant (JSIL) while Ziojihadis from around the world flocked to the Zionist Emirate, the formula has served its purpose and can now be safely dispensed with.

"These would be centred in Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Jericho and the Arab neighbourhoods of the city of Hevron."

Hello... "Hevron"?!!

WTF is writing this shit? Some fanatic in Kiryat Arba?

Now I knew that The Australian had long ago been taken over by Zionist dead-enders but I had no idea they'd set up an IDF-defended enclave in the editor's office and were now writing its editorials.

"Israel would control the rural space between them."

But of course. How could it be otherwise? Maybe the Palestinians in the "emirates" could be supplied by air (when not being bombed from the air that is).

"Nobody, Dr Kedar argues, can guarantee that a single Palestinian state in the West Bank would not fall to Hamas, endangering Israel's future..."

The only one that matters...

"Dr Kedar, known for his extremist views, once claimed the only thing that could deter a suicide bomber was raping his sister or mother."

What a mensch is Dr Strangelove Kedar!

"But regardless of whether his hawkish 'eight emirates' proposal gains traction..."

So caging the indigenous population of the West Bank in 8 urban ghettos emirates is merely "hawkish"?!

"... the prospect of a peaceful and sustainable two-state solution is bleak. Likud's official platform 'flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river' and any division of Jerusalem. It says Palestinians should be 'able to manage their lives freely in the framework of an autonomous regime' but not 'as a sovereign independent state'. The number of settlers in the West Bank is now more than 400,000 and Mr Netanyahu is encouraging more. They occupy 40% of the territory and a Palestinian state would involve massive disruption."

And that's it. Not a hint that anything's amiss here. Not an editorial eyebrow raised anywhere in the piece. Clearing settlers out of the places they've illegally occupied is simply not on. They should, therefore, be given free range and the Palestinians simply confined to ghettos.

I think we can safely conclude, absent a clarification, that that's now Rupert Murdoch's official position on the subject.