Recently the House of Commons Committee on Foreign Relations decided to undertake a review of Canada’s policy toward the Israel/Palestine question. Canada has made the idea of a “two state solution” a cornerstone of its policy. At the invitation of the Canadian International Council, Jon Allen former Canadian ambassador to Israel and Peter Larson, Chair of the Ottawa Forum on Israel Palestine expressed opposite views on whether a “two state solution” is still possible. Read more and watch the video of the discussion….
Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in the mid ‘1990’s, the international consensus has been that the solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict lies in creating two states – a Palestinian one and an Israeli one, side by side.
But there have been no negotiations since Netanyahu came to power, and there have been no elections on the Palestinian side for over 16 years, leaving the Palestinian Authority with little legitimacy. And now with the continued expansion of the settlements, many are saying that a two-state solution is no longer possible.
Could a 2 state deal provide the basis for a solution?
Jon Allen, former Canadian ambassador to Israel, feels that the two-state solution is imperilled, but it can still be saved if there is the will on both sides to see it happen. Allen’s views were outlined in a speech he made last summer and have been widely circulated by Canadian Friends of Peace Now. The main elements of his proposed “compromise” solution are based on what are commonly known as “The Clinton Parameters” first proposed by US President William Clinton.
On the other side, I argued that the “two state solution” CANNOT work. In part, because the settlements have so carved up the West Bank that it’s hard to imagine a Palestinian “state”. But more fundamentally, because it doesn’t even attempt to address the basic issues of the majority of Palestinians who live as refugees or who face legalised discrimination as non Jews inside the Jewish State of Israel.
While there could conceiveably be a two state DEAL, I argued, most Palestinians will quickly find it doesn’t address their main demands, and the DEAL won’t turn out to be a SOLUTION at all. A deal based on the Clinton parameters, I argued, is more like a “capitulation’ than a “compromise”.
If a two state solution can’t solve the issue, I suggested it is time to start thinking about other options including one state, confederation, etc. etc.
Watch the 90 min debate by clicking on the link below. Or if time is of the essence, you can see my speaking notes here. (It’s a 6 minute read.)
This debate was organized by Dr. Hamid Jorjani, Chair of the Middle East Study Group of the Canadian International Council and was moderated by Richard Kohler a retired Canadian senior diplomat.
Thanks to the CIC, you can watch the entire 1h30 min debate by clicking below.
| Topic: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Is the Two State Solution Dead? |
| Watch the Recording |
| Passcode: 2VIbNx?3 |
Canada Talks Israel Palestine (CTIP) is the weekly newsletter of Peter Larson, Chair of the Ottawa Forum on Israel/Palestine (OFIP). It aims to promote a serious discussion in Canada about Canada’s response to the complicated and emotional Israel/Palestine issue with a focus on the truth, clear analysis and human rights for all. Readers with different points of view are invited to make comment.
Want to learn more about us? Go to Ottawa Forum on Israel/Palestine

Reblogged this on penelopap.
Reblogged this on QCpal.
of course it is long dead. Gaza was the test case that proved it is not possible. Failed miserably. You need to have 2 peoples that want 2 states to achieve this. Israel can’t do it alone.
Hey Jay, thanks.
I agree. I don’t think today most Palestinians or most Israelis would support a one state solution. They find it hard to imagine a state in which all would be equal and all rights respected. There is NO palestinian party (well, no major party) and no Israeli party that supports it. Only a few dreamers on either side.
BUT – will that dream spread? That is the question.
not until there is an Arab democracy. That means freedom to disagree without fear of being attacked, jailed, killed, forced to escape. This isn’t available in any current or passed Arab country. It will take generations of education to change current thinking and behaviour. This won’t happen as long as Islam controls free thought, a precursor of free speech.
Hey Jay,
thanks. I agree that there are no Arab democracies today – at least in the sense we have of democracy in Canada. Most of them have dictatorships, more or less supported by the USA. Do you believe that Muslims are by nature unable to hlive with democracy? How about Turkey – I think they are an Islamic country, yet they have elections.
Christian countries had dictatorships (though we called them kingdoms) for thousands of years. But gradually our religious fervour declined, and democracy emerged.
If ever there is a one democratic state in Israel/Palestine, it can only work if religion is a private matter as it is in most European countries. In that sense, Israel is more like its Middle East Neighbours than it is like European countries.
However unlikely the two state solution may look it is still far more plausible than any other alternative.
A single state with the right of return to the descendants of 1948 refugees would undoubtedly result in a bloodbath on the same scale of the Syrian or Lebanese civil wars.
Hello Ahik,
Please note that I did not advocate a one state solution. I argued that there is NO 2 state solution, and that another approach will have to be taken.
The kind of bloodbath you are predicting would be as unacceptable to me as it would be to you. So the challenge for those who advocate for one state is to find a way to make it happen peacefully. In South Africa, there was a referendum in 1992 among whites only on whether to support the President (de klerk, I think) engaging in the kind of reforms that would end apartheid. The result was a large majority of whites voting yes.
I think that only ten years before that, it would have been inconcieveable.
Peter, I appreciate you making the full debate available to the readers here. In particular it is a very worthwhile thing for the folks here to read a progressive argument in favour of the two-state solution as offered by Jon Allen.
I encourage your readers to read his argument carefully as it provides a lot of insight into the conflict as it is seen from the point of view of Zionists (which to the best of my knowledge includes most of your Canadian Jewish neighbours).
I also encourage them to read the text of his earlier speech for which I provided a link.
A referendum is the obvious & most likely to be peaceful next step that should be taken in Palestine / Israel.
Throughout the UK mandate, which ended in 1948, Churchill (Colonial Secretary, Home Secretary, PM) as well as the Zionist leadership, consistently & insistently opposed & blocked any statehood referendum in Palestine.
Churchill, throughout the 1920s & 1930s, proclaimed that Jews were entitled to receive Palestine “by right, not by sufferance.”
So much for democracy.
Churchill confessed the reason for avoidance of Democracy in Palestine: Jewish immigrants, comparatively few in number, could not overcome the will of the majority Palestinians population, who would (as would, let’s say, Canadians) vote NO! to the transfer – without compensation – of their homes, villages, towns, farms, orchards, livelihoods, mountains, lakes, airspace, beaches & seacoasts – to be given to a foreign population, immigrating from elsewhere, at the behest not of the local people but of foreign governments, who refused to take in Jewish refugees, in the numbers sought, at first, by Zionist leadership (who, in some instances, would not cooperate with Jewish relocation elsewhere than to Palestine).
Seven Palestinian Congresses convened during the 1920s & were simply ignored by the UK.
In the mid-1930s, some Palestinians, despairing of ever receiving fair UK treatment under Mandate governance, turned to armed struggle and were met by wholesale arrest, killing, torture (eg water boarding) and deportation to Asian or African nations.
In Dec. 1947, the UN Security Council voted down a proposed “partition” designed by a UN committee (lacking Arab State representatives) to give a majority of the land to the tiny minority of European Jewish immigrants, imported from Europe, now living in Palestine.
In late Dec 1947, despite the murders of UN representatives and other diplomats at the hands of Israeli assassins, the UN signaled its neutered non-intervention, which opened the door to Zionist/Jewish death squads, supplied and funded by Europeans and Americans, who began attacking Palestinian towns and villages, killing thousands and evicting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, whose heirs and descendants, to this day, have not been allowed to return to their lawful homes.
This horrific anti-Semitic crime, ongoing in its scale and suffering, is treated by Western governments as somehow, the consequence of the behavior of its millions of of victims, who initially (1) sought recognition by the UK, the European power put in charge then (2) asked for a referendum as to their own wishes for their own country, then (3) entitlement to armed struggle to preserve themselves in their homes, only to be (4) tortured, deported, murdered, (5) with the survivors evicted – their human and legal rights figuratively spat upon by victorious WWI nations – and (6) literally given over to and abused as a war spoil by viscous, foreign interlopers, who (7) soon began attacks into neighboring countries, as they please, (8) garner illegal nuclear weapons and (9) repeatedly threaten not only regional peace but the peace and stability of democratically elected governments in Europe, eg the UK (by espionage & control of the press, wrecked Corbin & Labour), and the US (Biden: “I am a Zionist”) and beyond.
A referendum, conducted under international auspices and guaranteed by an international presence in Palestine, should take place in Israel / Palestine. This vote should be authorized by the nations of the world and must be free from any “veto” threat in the UN Security Council.
Apart from the UN, some other organization, confected by the nations of the world, is necessary to hold a democratic election in Palestine.
The UN is in thrall to major powers, who routinely veto democracy for Palestine and cast a blind eye to countless blatant criminal acts inflicted on the majority Palestinian population, both in Palestine and including those permanently exiled to “refugee camps” by the millions.
These generations of victims must at long last be formally heard and respected.
Formal Israeli objections to such a referendum should be dismissed.
Israel lacked legitimacy in its bloody 1948 founding and cannot be heard now, to object to a democratic expression of the will of Israel’s 11 million+ victims.
A referendum is the obvious & most likely to be peaceful next step that should be taken in Palestine / Israel.
Throughout the UK mandate, which ended in 1948, Churchill (Colonial Secretary, Home Secretary, PM) as well as the Zionist leadership, consistently & insistently opposed & blocked any statehood referendum in Palestine.
Churchill, throughout the 1920s & 1930s, proclaimed that Jews were entitled to receive Palestine “by right, not by sufferance.”
So much for democracy.
Churchill confessed the reason for avoidance of Democracy in Palestine: Jewish immigrants, comparatively few in number, could not overcome the will of the majority Palestinians population, who would (as would, let’s say, Canadians) vote NO! to the transfer – without compensation – of their homes, villages, towns, farms, orchards, livelihoods, mountains, lakes, airspace, beaches & seacoasts – to be given to a foreign population, immigrating from elsewhere, at the behest not of the local people but of foreign governments, who refused to take in Jewish refugees, in the numbers sought, at first, by Zionist leadership (who, in some instances, would not cooperate with Jewish relocation elsewhere than to Palestine).
Seven Palestinian Congresses convened during the 1920s & were simply ignored by the UK.
In the mid-1930s, some Palestinians, despairing of ever receiving fair UK treatment under Mandate governance, turned to armed struggle and were met by wholesale arrest, killing, torture (eg water boarding) and deportation to Asian or African nations.
In Dec. 1947, the UN Security Council voted down a proposed “partition” designed by a UN committee (lacking Arab State representatives) to give a majority of the land to the tiny minority of European Jewish immigrants, imported from Europe, now living in Palestine.
In late Dec 1947, despite the murders of UN representatives and other diplomats at the hands of Israeli assassins, the UN signaled its neutered non-intervention, which opened the door to Zionist/Jewish death squads, supplied and funded by Europeans and Americans, who began attacking Palestinian towns and villages, killing thousands and evicting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, whose heirs and descendants, to this day, have not been allowed to return to their lawful homes.
This horrific anti-Semitic crime, ongoing in its scale and suffering, is treated by Western governments as somehow, the consequence of the behavior of its millions of of victims, who initially (1) sought recognition by the UK, the European power put in charge then (2) asked for a referendum as to their own wishes for their own country, then (3) entitlement to armed struggle to preserve themselves in their homes, only to be (4) tortured, deported, murdered, (5) with the survivors evicted – their human and legal rights figuratively spat upon by victorious WWI nations – and (6) literally given over to and abused as a war spoil by viscous, foreign interlopers, who (7) soon began attacks into neighboring countries, as they please, (8) garner illegal nuclear weapons and (9) repeatedly threaten not only regional peace but the peace and stability of democratically elected governments in Europe, eg the UK (by espionage & control of the press, wrecked Corbin & Labour), and the US (Biden: “I am a Zionist”) and beyond.
A referendum, conducted under international auspices and guaranteed by an international presence in Palestine, should take place in Israel / Palestine. This vote should be authorized by the nations of the world and must be free from any “veto” threat in the UN Security Council.
Apart from the UN, some other organization, confected by the nations of the world, is necessary to hold a democratic election in Palestine.
The UN is in thrall to major powers, who routinely veto democracy for Palestine and cast a blind eye to countless blatant criminal acts inflicted on the majority Palestinian population, both in Palestine and including those permanently exiled to “refugee camps” by the millions.
These generations of victims must at long last be formally heard and respected.
Formal Israeli objections to such a referendum should be dismissed.
Israel lacked legitimacy in its bloody 1948 founding and cannot be heard now, to object to a democratic expression of the will of Israel’s 11 million+ victims.
Of course Arabs and Turks and Malaysians and …..are capable of democracy.
Religious Muslims that adhere to their belief that Islam should replace all other religions, that vote according to their Iman’s orders, that see the world only through the Quoran,,,are by definition unable to live with democracy unless they already live in Muslim majority countries.
You seem to think that Israel is closer to the Muslim dictatorships than to the West. Nonsense. There are more political parties in Israel than is good for it. A VERY vocal and robust democracy.
You seem to think that the Jewish state means the Jewish religion. Again,,,,nonsense. Being Jewish doesn not mean being religious at all. It is our ethnicity. What religion is an Arab? A Kurd? A Turk? Are they all Muslim? Are there not Christian versions of all of them, or atheists?
Jews are a people and we have had democracy for centuries, long before Europe, long before America. Don’t confuse the Jewish State with the Jewish religion. Israel’s laws are not from the bible….but from the courts.
If one is a religious Muslim, you submit your will to your religion.
Most, but not all, Jews vote their own minds. We argue with our Rabbis, authority figures and even god. Hence the disproportionate number of nobel prizes in Science.
We have to prove to ourselves, not take someone else’s word.
Fatah and Hamas are brutal thieving dictatorships….there are no legal protections of those that object to either. Do you really expect democracy to emerge in one generation? The brainwashing hatred of Jews and Israel will not disappear overnight, and there can be no ONE or TWO state solution with neighbours who want you dead.
You cannot compare Israel to Fatah and Hamas, but you can compare Israel to any and all western democracies. If you cannot see this, then perhaps you should travel to Israel and see for yourself the facts on the ground. Israel….not Palestine. Your education is at best a bit lacking.
I would reply on your website but you have a habit of censoring me.
Hey Jay,
Thanks for your comment.
I generally welcome opinion contrary to mine. I don’t censor anyone because they disagree. I do censor people for bad language, ad hominem attacks etc. If you have comments in the past that you think were unfairly ‘Censored” pls send them in again, and I will take a look.
Israel is similar to Middle east countries who have an official religion. Israel offers special rights and protections to those who are Jewish, as you know. There is not much democracy for Palestinian Israelis, let alone the millions of Palestinians who live under Israeli military occupation on lands Israel says belongs to it.
Finally, can I ask if you are Canadian? How many times have you been to Israel/Palestine and for how long? I have been many times and talked to lots of people from Eilat to Acre, and from Jaffa to Jericho. My education is still lacking, of course and I keep learning.
Finally, I don’t have an opinion on whether Jewishness is a religion or an ethnicity. It has characteristics of both. But whatever, in Israel Jews hav more rights than others.
Israeli Arabs have exactly the same rights as anyone else in Israel…..you are welcome to prove me wrong by stating which laws are unique to Jews and which laws are unique to non Jews.
Non Israeli Arabs are governed by Fatah or by Hamas. NOT Israel. This was the whole reason for the Oslo agreements.
There are no living Israelis or Jews in Gaza. Hamas dictatorship has sole responsibility and it is a brutal police state……is this your model for a 2 state solution Fatah is marginally better.
There is NO democracy for non Israeli Arabs BUT it has nothing to do with Israel. Their dictatorships are in charge.
You have no vote for any other country but Canada. They are not Israeli citizens….of course they can’t vote in Israel. Neither can I.
There is 100% democracy for Israeli Arabs. The Arab party (muslim brotherhood, which is ILLEGAL in all Arab countries except Qatar) was part of the previous Israeli government. Arabs have more than 20% of the vote, which is more than most israeli political parties ever get. Like our NDP controlling the Liberals, they could exert disproportionate influence.
You are quite confused mixing apples and oranges. Israelis can vote….all Israelis. Everyone else cannot.
Of course judiasm is the state religion. Most jews have jewish religious education and upbringing, from wherever we were born. ALL the neighboring countries are solid Muslim religious, and all the European countries are solid Christian. You seem to have a problem with one Jewish state, a state where all religions are protected, something not true of ANY of it’s neighbors. This includes atheists….something punishable by death in that neighborhood.
You seem to have a lack of understanding about ethnicity and how it differs from but may be associated with religion. There are NO genetic markers for Muslims, but there are for Arabs and Persians, NO genetic markers for Catholics or Protestant or all the other Christian sects, but there are for Irish, Italian, German etc and of course for Jews, whether or not they practice Judaism, Christianity, Islam or atheism.
Like the Kurds, we are a unique people from a specific origin with own history, culture and religion. We were forcibly dispersed by the Babalonians, then by the Romans….both civilizations long since extinct. We never entirely left our region of origin. Again not through the Arab, the Ottoman and the British invasions and colonization. We never left. With the final eviction of the British we were able to decolonize our own land.
Maybe it would be better for you to think of us as Hebrews, or Israelis if we live in Israel, and some of us continue to practice the religion of our people as we have for 4 thousand years, long, long before christianity and islam.
Of course the state religion is Judaism….but that doesn’t negate anyone else’s religious beliefs or absence of, or civil rights.
The Iranian regime hates Israel for sheltering Behai, threatening to bomb Haifa. Muslim Arabs, Christian Arabs, Druize and smaller religious sects thrive in Israel, while non Israeli Christians are murdered, flee and depopulate from Muslim majority Arab and African countries.
Jews didn’t have this same state protection and legal opportunities in Christian Europe, or in Christian Russia or in any Muslim Arab land in 19th and 20th centuries. We do now and we certainly remember our own history.
Your last paragraph is completely inaccurate. Nonsense. I don’t know if you are that ignorant or if you do know better and still choose to promote your opinion as factual.
I am Canadian, born and raised here.
Canada has an incredible amount of problems just now and I fear for the future here. I currently have no intention of leaving, but I would if I thought Canada was hopeless. I obviously would consider moving to Israel, despite what problems it has. I really don’t see other realistic choices at this point. Not USA, not Europe, not South America and not Africa. Maybe Australia. Too old to learn Korean or Japanese. So I am keenly interested in what goes on here and there.
Waiting to see which laws are unique to Jews. Of course we are discussing civic laws within Israel. Not the right of return, which several other countries also provide, and not religious laws, something the courts don’t adjudicate. We are discussing civic laws for citizens of Israel.
Prove your statement.
Hello Jay,
I have trouble trying to figure out if you are unaware of the situation inside Israel, or deliberately misleading. I will assume the former.
Your statement “Israeli Arabs have exactly the same rights as anyone else in Israe”: is mistaken.
Rather than me proving you wrong, I suggest you check with reliable human rights organizations, including Israeli ones like the Association for Human Rights in Israel, or B’tselem. You could start with this ACRI report. https://www.english.acri.org.il/arab-minority-rights
If you want a specific law, look no further than the Admissions committee law, which allows Israeli communities to discriminate as to who they will allow in the community. The law does not specifically mention Arabs or Palestinians but the intention and the practice is clear.
Here is a link to Adalah, a legal organization fighting for the Arab minority in Israel discussing the admissions committees.
https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/494#:~:text=The%20law%20gives%20Admission%20Committees,Organization%2C%20quasi%2Dgovernmental%20entities.
I could give you many more examples, but since you only asked for one, I think these two should suffice.
Finally, Jay, i reinvite you to show me comments from you that I have “censored” unfairly. Best.
Admission law was previoulsy discussed on your web page Apr 19.
Please comment.
“Ahik
April 19, 2023 at 6:34 pm
Less than 3% of the Israeli population lives in communities that have admission committees.
My Kibbutz is one of these communities, we do have an admission committee, we also have Kibbutz members who are Muslim Arab Israelis and were admitted by that committee
You are welcome to visit my kibbutz next time you plan a trip to Israel”
I would be pleased to visit your Kibbutz.
I know that some Kibbutz do decide to admit Muslims, but they have the right not to do so, and most don’t.
Your stats are a little misleading, Ahik, as you know. MOST Israelis live in 4 or 5 big cities – Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa etc.
The Jewish communities outside of those cities may have low population (like your kibbutz) but they control a lot of gthe land.
I don’t mind arguing/debating with you Ahik, but it frustrates me when you are deliberately misleading, and counting on the fact that the readers don’t know the whole story.
you have yet to comment on Ontario’s Admissions laws, that I replied to you about and which you still censored. Very misleading.,,,as you said.
Just as disgusting as state funded complexes here in Ontario where non Muslims are not allowed to live.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/islamic-association-muslim-seniors-home-1.6607218
https://globalnews.ca/news/2187517/toronto-city-councillor-says-muslim-only-subsidized-housing-is-acceptable/
Hey Jay,
I think disallowing a non muslim from living in a senior home is just as discriminatory as not allowing muslims to live in jewish seniors homes.
However, I think it normal that seniors (Jewish, or Muslim or Polish) might want to choose to llive in an environment where they feel comfortable – prayer hours, food etc. I don’t think it is wrong for a Muslim community to offer subsidies to certain people, just as Jewish communities do in Canada.
However, not allowing certain people from living in a town as is the case in Israel is a totally different matter.
In Canada, I can not oppose your buying the house next door to mine on the grounds that you are Jewish. Nor would I want to. In Canada that kind of discrimination is prohibited by both the law, and by the culture. In Israel, it is neither the law nor – more importantly – the culture. Discrimination is rampant.
I suspect you know this already. But I am grateful that your comments have allowed me to clarify things on this point for the other people who might be reading this exchange. Thank you in advance.
Thank you finally posting my April 19 letter.
Muslim ONLY publicly subsidized housing is discriminatory.
Publicly funded Catholic school board hiring of ONLY Catholics is discriminatory.
Seems Ontario is way ahead of Israel in discriminatory policies and laws, however civil they may appear.
As Ahik has mentioned, your complaint of restrictive residences pertains to 3% of communities. The vast majority of the communities obviously do not. And as our friend has mentioned, just because a community is restrictive does not mean exclusion….his kibbutz has Muslim Arab members.
Abbas has repeatedly said that NO Jews —-none—–will ever live in their future Palestinian state. There is even a Palestinian death sentence to anyone that sells land to Jews. Odd that this doesn’t rile you up….
Why do you discriminate against Jews?
20% of Israelis are Arabs, and they will likely remain as Israelis, even if there is ever a Palestinian state. Its up to them to decide, but everyone knows a good thing when they see and live it.
So in terms of “restrictive policies”, 3% restriction of some communities in Israel, 100% for all Jews in future Palestine. If this is your argument for an example of Israeli Apartheid laws, you are not too convincing. You admit it is not even a law. Seems that label applies to future Palestine.
As for discrimination being “rampant”, Israel tries to accommodate and integrate. The mixed communities, education, employment and political integration is an ongoing process. Trust is earned.
While there are Israeli efforts to improve ethnic coexistence, there is none in Jordan, none in Egypt ( Israel’s 2 peace partners) and of course, just the opposite from Hamas and Fatah incitements of “death to Jews”. More than half of Israelis are descendants from parents and grandparents who were attacked, robbed of their holdings, raped and murdered, and forced to flee from Arab countries, some 850,000 refugees, some from communities predating both Islam and Christianity. The Friday morning Muslim prayers’ obligation of antisemitism, as well as anti-Christianity, inciting hatred and mistrust. Fatah pays the families of murderers of Jews a pension for their act of murder. You are correct. Discrimination is indeed very rampant.
Dictator Abbas will likely die soon, of natural causes. There is no living successor, as there was never any attempt to build a democracy. Hamas dictatorship is pushing to overthrow Fatah in Judea and Samaria. Israel cannot accept that. This may spark a Palestinian civil war. It will probably get worse before there is any improvement.
Improvement won’t come from your opinions and comments though. It will only come when the local Arab communities decide they want better than what they have had for the last 100 years and rid themselves of their thieving, murderous dictatorships. Unfortunately that will only happen when the money to pay for these brutes dries up. Perhaps the Qatari EU and the Ukrainian Biden corruption scandals will pull the curtain wide enough open for the beginning of forensic audits. That would be a good start.
Hey jay,
Thanks again. I think there is a better way to carry on this discussion. What do you think of a public discussion live over zoom? I am sure that I won’t get you to change your position, and I am unlikelly to change mine (except on perhaps some specific points).
However, a live discussion/debate might interest many others. It would be an opportunity for you to try to win some people over to your point of view.
I am open to any topic – “is BDS antisemitic”?, “is Israel an apartheid state?”, “Is there still a two state solution”, If gthe Palestinians had gone along with the UN decision there would have been no nakba” “The Palestinians were not expelled – they left of their own volition”, etc. etc. These are some examples of issues on which I sense we disagree. Choose any one, or suggest another. We can just do it as a discussion, or we can agree on a ‘moderator”.
What do you think?