Forget the Two-State Solution
Israelis and Palestinians Must Share the Land. Equally.
There is no longer a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Forget the endless arguments about who offered what and who spurned whom and whether the Oslo peace process died when Yasser Arafat walked away from the bargaining table or whether it was Ariel Sharon’s stroll through the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem that did it in.
All that matters are the facts on the ground, of which the most important is that — after four decades of intensive Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories it occupied during the 1967 war — Israel has irreversibly cemented its grip on the land on which a Palestinian state might have been created.
Sixty years after Israel was created and Palestine was destroyed, then, we are back to where we started: Two populations inhabiting one piece of land. And if the land cannot be divided, it must be shared. Equally.
This is a position, I realize, which may take many Americans by surprise. After years of pursuing a two-state solution, and feeling perhaps that the conflict had nearly been solved, it’s hard to give up the idea as unworkable.
But unworkable it is. A report published last summer by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs found that almost 40% of the West Bank is now taken up by Israeli infrastructure — roads, settlements, military bases and so on — largely off-limits to Palestinians. Israel has methodically broken the remainder of the territory into dozens of enclaves separated from each other and the outside world by zones that it alone controls (including, at last count, 612 checkpoints and roadblocks).
Moreover, according to the report, the Jewish settler population in the occupied territories, already approaching half a million, not only continues to grow but is growing at a rate three times greater than the rate of Israel’s population increase. If the current rate continues, the settler population will double to almost 1 million people in just 12 years. Many are heavily armed and ideologically driven, unlikely to walk away voluntarily from the land they have declared to be their God-given home.
These facts alone render the status of the peace process academic.
At no time since the negotiations began in the early 1990s has Israel significantly suspended the settlement process in the occupied Palestinian territories, in stark violation of international law. It preceded last November’s Annapolis summit by announcing the fresh expropriation of Palestinian property in the West Bank; it followed the summit by announcing the expansion of its Har Homa settlement by an additional 307 housing units; and it has announced plans for hundreds more in other settlements since then.
The Israelis are not settling the occupied territories because they lack space in Israel itself. They are settling the land because of a long-standing belief that Jews are entitled to it simply by virtue of being Jewish. “The land of Israel belongs to the nation of Israel and only to the nation of Israel,” declares Moledet, one of the parties in the National Union bloc, which has a significant presence in the Israeli parliament.
Moledet’s position is not as far removed from that of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as some Israelis claim. Although Olmert says he believes in theory that Israel should give up those parts of the West Bank and Gaza densely inhabited by Palestinians, he also said in 2006 that “every hill in Samaria and every valley in Judea is part of our historic homeland” and that “we firmly stand by the historic right of the people of Israel to the entire land of Israel.”
Judea and Samaria: These ancient biblical terms are still used by Israeli officials to refer to the West Bank. More than 10 years after the initiation of the Oslo peace process, which was supposed to lead to a two-state solution, maps in Israeli textbooks continued to show not the West Bank but Judea and Samaria — and not as occupied territories but as integral parts of Israel.
What room is there for the Palestinians in this vision of Jewish entitlement to the land? None. They are regarded, at best, as a demographic “problem.”
The idea of Palestinians as a “problem” is hardly new. Israel was created as a Jewish state in 1948 only by the premeditated and forcible removal of as much of the indigenous Palestinian population as possible, in what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe, which they commemorate this week.
A Jewish state, says Israeli historian Benny Morris, “would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. … There was no choice but to expel that population.” For Morris, this was one of those “circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing.”
Thinking of Palestinians as a “problem” to be removed predates 1948. It was there from the moment the Zionist movement set into motion the project to make a Jewish state in a land that, in 1917 — when the British empire officially endorsed Zionism — had an overwhelmingly non-Jewish population. The only Jewish member of the British government at the time, Edwin Montagu, vehemently opposed the Zionist project as unjust. Henry King and Charles Crane, dispatched on a fact-finding mission to Palestine by President Wilson, concurred: Such a project would require enormous violence, they warned: “Decisions, requiring armies to carry out, are sometimes necessary, but they are surely not gratuitously to be taken in the interests of a serious injustice.”
But they were. This is a conflict driven from its origins by Zionism’s exclusive sense of entitlement to the land. Has there been Palestinian violence as well? Yes. Is it always justified? No. But what would you do if someone told you that there was no room for you on your own land, that your very existence is a “problem”? No people in history has ever gone away just because another people wanted them to, and the sentiments of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull live on among Palestinians to this day.
The violence will end, and a just peace will come, only when each side realizes that the other is there to stay. Many Palestinians have accepted this premise, and an increasing number are willing to give up on the idea of an independent Palestinian state and embrace instead the concept of a single democratic, secular and multicultural state, which they would share equally with Israeli Jews.
Most Israelis are not yet reconciled this position. Some, no doubt, are reluctant to give up on the idea of a “Jewish state,” to acknowledge the reality that Israel has never been exclusively Jewish, and that, from the start, the idea of privileging members of one group over all other citizens has been fundamentally undemocratic and unfair.
Yet that is exactly what Israel does. Even among its citizens, Israeli law grants rights to Jews that it denies to non-Jews. By no stretch of the imagination is Israel a genuine democracy: It is an ethno-religiously exclusive state that has tried to defy the multicultural history of the land on which it was founded.
To resolve the conflict with the Palestinians, Israeli Jews will have to relinquish their exclusive privileges and acknowledge the right of return of Palestinians expelled from their homes. What they would get in return is the ability to live securely and to prosper with — rather than continuing to battle against — the Palestinians.
They may not have a choice. As Olmert himself warned recently, more Palestinians are shifting their struggle from one for an independent state to a South African-style struggle that demands equal rights for all citizens, irrespective of religion, in a single state. “That is, of course,” he noted, “a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle — and ultimately a much more powerful one.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Saree Makdisi is a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA and the author of “Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation,” out this month from W.W. Norton.
© 2008 Los Angeles Times
If Makdisi’s thesis at the end of her piece is correct, that the Palestinians have adopted to go with a South Africa type struggle, then Olmert’s warning is spot on. If so, this would be one of the first smart choices by a population who’s prior strategic choices (led by an incompetent and corrupt leadership) have become textbook examples of what not to do. A potential side-benefit could be the minimizing of Hamas, who’s stated aim, an Islamist Palestine, is not a good outcome in the least.
Let all the Israel-Loving Americans give up THEIR homes & lands so the Zionists can have a “homeland”.
And give “Israel” back to the Palestinians.
I wonder what would happen if the palestinians were to get there hands on nuclear weapons? I would laugh my ass off if they were to turn Isreal to glass. Of course if they were to do that, would the land be habitable for them to return to? That would be my only worry.
A single state solution I think, shall never be worked out. The reason is simple; demographically it woud create an arab majority. In a democratic state, that is essentially converting it into just another Muslim state with a sizable non-muslim minority like Lebanon. The problems are:
1)This is essentially the end of Jewish national self-determination. Israel will not die without a fight.
2)If the recent democratic choices of arabs in egypt, iraq, and palestine are considered, this will be an islamist state eventually governmed by the dreaded islamic law and:
3)Violence would not end anyway. It would just be like Lebanon.
Regarding Massud’s concern, there are numerous countries in the world with multiple “peoples” speaking different languages and they manage to enable guarantees and security for both or all groups. Political power can be divided in a way that guarantees neither side will be subject to oppression by the other (which is obviously what we have now).
Good article.
Yes, Israeli leaders have chosen paranoid, counterproductive and immoral policies for decades. The very significant Israeli left has not succeeded in taking power, and has not been able to put an end to these unfortunate and wrong policies, and their very real consequences to the Palestinian people.
Some common dreams readers post anti- Israel and anti-Jewish assertions that feed the paranoid and wrong militarism of the worst of the AIPAC/Commentary reading crowd– it’s based on the fears of a people who lost 6 million (a huge percentage of its worldwide population) 60 years ago in Europe.
The ongoing manifestations of Zionism have been destructive, and they feed anti-Jewish feelings. Anti-Israeli diatribes feed right-wing militarism on the part of Israeli government officials. When we see a situation where peoples perceive one another as enemies, it’s probably not useful to feed the enemy mentality. It’s probably more useful to support those who are looking for a sane and peaceful way to work out conflicts.
Makdesi’s piece suggests one such approach, that is not likely to be popular with many Jews, because of their history– but it is a reasonable and worthwhile contribution to the discussion. If not one bi-national Palestinian state, are the Israelis willing to dismantle enough settlements to establish a Palestinian state that would be viable? Not yet, but it is worth working for justice on all fronts. Still, some understanding of one’s perceived ‘bad guys’(the Israelis) is very useful if we want to see some healthy progress toward justice for the Palestinians.
“All of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants and even their beasts”, Rabbi Yisrael Rosen.
“We will carry out a greater holocaust against the Palestinians”, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai.
Is it anti-Semitic if I condemn these words of hate from Semites?
RSterling1, you said, “there are numerous countries in the world with multiple “peoples” speaking different languages and they manage to enable guarantees and security for both or all groups.” Please, provide a few examples, since I can’t think of any, other than India, and even there religious violence erupts frequently.
The idea of giving up on an independent Palestinian state makes me feel bereft (and angry, if I allow it, which I try not to). The world powers’ original sins in Palestine started after the Holocaust, and while they were understandable given the time and circumstances, they produced a no-win situation. That the U.S. stood up for the Jewish survivors who made it into the new state of Israel was a moral imperative, but there was not an ounce of concern for the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians who lost everything and received no compensation.
I cannot imagine how these two groups of people could meld into one nation at this point. And it seems to me that the author’s claim of the two-state solution being impossible is only true if the world insists that all sacrifices there must be made by the Palestinians, and NONE by the Jews. I know this is our government’s position, but I cannot agree with it. Ever.
>>? I would laugh my ass off if they were to turn Isreal to glass. Of course if they were to do that, would the land be habitable for them to return to? That would be my only worry.<<
Really? You don’t worry that Israel would turn Cairo, Amman, Damascus, Beirut, Riyadh and Mecca to glass? If I believed in peace I think that hoping for genocide would be something I wouldn’t hope for.
Anyway, Arabs have proven for 500 years to be unable to do anything much about their future. I don’t think they will do much in my lifetime or my children’s.
‘the right of return’ - that’s what both sides want. Unfortunately both have been brainwashed by that Book of patriarchal dominance. Domestic tranquility is the domaine of the Goddess…
“Anyway, Arabs have proven for 500 years to be unable to do anything much about their future”
Repeat after me slowly — im a bigot — there … im sure you feel better now. You should try taking some history lessons. The only reason Israel exists is because of the U.S. and the ‘protection’ we offer. The cowardly actions of the israeli army is evident for everyone in the world to see. Crushing stone-throwing kids under tanks doesnt make them civilized — it makes them brutes.
You cannot reason with people who fervently believe an invisible cloud being has given them the inalienable right to call a piece of our small rock their exclusive ‘homeland’. I can’t see the ‘one state’ solution working under any circumstances.
I think Israel has ridden and beaten the Holocaust horse to death a long time ago as an excuse for 60 years of ongoing genocide against the Palestinians. It’s time the USA and the rest of the world stood up to this small arrogant country and started enforcing the many UN resolutions laid down over the past 40 years. They could start with forcing withdrawal of all settlers from the Occupied Territories through sanctions for example, and confining the State of Israel to the original 1948 borders, which founding itself is a travesty of justice and fairness.
They should have given them half of Texas back in ‘48. Oh wait, I forgot gawd gave Murka to the white xtian folk, Manifest Destiny and all that.
Many Palestinians and Israeli Jews have suggested this for at least the last 4 years. I know this because those our group spoke with in April of 2004 told us that the two state solution is no longer possible because of the numerous Jewish Settlements that exist throughout the West Bank, and at the time, in Gaza. They knew that Israel would never give-up the settlements that dot the West Bank so they had reconciled themselves to the idea that there no longer existed a chance for a two state solution, as a state of Palestine would have no cohesiveness to it due to the settlements.
Most of the Palestinians recognize this and would be mostly content with being treated the same as Israeli Jews, not Israeli “Arabs”. For those who don’t know it, there are Arabs that live in Israel proper but they do not have the same rights as Israeli Jews. More like blacks of the 1800’s, with their right to be counted as I believe 2/3′rds of a human being. Though I’m not sure that Israeli “Arabs” even enjoy this much equality.
As I pointed out earlier on these forums it is just as anti-Semitic to make negative comments about Palestinians as it is to make negative comments about Jews. They are both Semitic people. If someone wishes to say those who make negative comments about Israels government are anti-Israel, that would be acceptable, but to equate any negative comment about Israeli government actions against another Semitic people as being anti-Semitic is Illogical.
For a great informational video get the DVD “Beyond the Mirage” it can be purchased at the following site http://www.ajpme.org/documentary.htm and probably others. You can also view a few clips from the documentary at this site.
While it has held out the option of a Two State solution, Israel has worked to weaken and destroy Palestine and its people.
Israel is now in a position where it could, in a matter of days, push the remaining Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank into surrounding countries and achieve what it’s always wanted: a Jews-only state.
Israel cares nothing for its reputation. It cares only about its fanatical ambitions, its deranged notions of ‘religious purity’.
Israel, supported by America, is a dangerous scourge.
P.S. My blog has more details.
Adele how about Canada and Switzerland.
>>Crushing stone-throwing kids under tanks doesnt make them civilized — it makes them brutes.<<
No question they are brutes. I don’t condone that or support that or argue with that. They are brutes. So are Hezbolla and Hamas (and others…) No shortage of brutes in the area now.
Israel is still there though. This beat of “we can drive them into the sea” is old and always fails when put into action.
I might remind you that Israel beat the Arabs without US help in 1948, 1956, 1967 (in this case they beat the living crap out of the Arabs) although they were certainly saved by RESUPPLY from the US in the 1973 war. They did well enough through the 80’s and 90’s on their own.
If we did not sell them weapons, they wouldn’t have any problem getting them somewhere else or making them themselves. Rememeber that their original weapons were supplied by the Czechs, left over Nazi tanks and by the French who sell weapons to whomever they wish. Israel’s first American supplies came in the late 1960’s.
Israel’s armord personel carriers are US - cheaper, not superior to their own locally designed versions, their tanks are locally designed and made. They have US aircraft, but have developed their own and only did not build them only because of union-labor issues that made them more expensive than American products. They produce and export artillery to several countries. Their nuclear arsenal is modern and entirely out of reach of Arab armies.
All I point out is that a military solution to get rid of Israel will not work. Full stop.
Peace is easy to achieve in the ME. It simply requires that everyone put the guns down. Everyone.
Justice is by definition impossible to achieve because both sides believe they are right and if you buy into one side or another, you are simply perpetuating the violence.
In the end, if there is no peace, there will be a wall and an absolute separation of the two sides. Israel needs Palestinian labor less and less. They have the farms, they have the water, they have the military power. And no couuntry or countries have even come close to reining them in. They are going to have peace on their terms if the Palestinians don’t negotiate and if they don’t negotiate fully, they are going to be left in the dust.
Also my statement of the Arabs not taking control of their destinies for 500 years stands. Since the reconquista and the stop of the Moslem armies at Vienna, they have fallen into squables and tribalism from which the best of their leaders (few and far between at that) have not been able to remove them. I do not think that many in Israel stay awake at night fretting about the Arabs “turning them to glass”
The one state solution was rejected in 1948 by the UN in favour of the 2 state solution. The Palestinians rejected the 2 state solution as they had lobbied for a 1 state solution.
Now the Palestinians are willing to accept a 2 state solution, having no choice, so Israel of course sets out to make that unworkable with the settlements.
The problem will end after the genocide, or holocaust of the Palestinians is complete, and there are no more Palestinians in Israel.
We support Israel, so we are just as guilty of these crimes. They just keep piling up.
So Israel has it’s 60th birthday coming up. Should be interesting what she will give herself as a B’Day present, an attack on Lebanon, Syria or Iran?
Or maybe a new temple that would stir up the Palestinians and let them wipe a bunch of them out?
From the Old testament
For you are a people holy to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.
Deuteronomy 7:6
When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if its answer to you is peace and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; and when the LORD your God gives it into your hand you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the cattle, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourseves; and you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here.
But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save nothing that breathes …
Deuteronomy 20:10-16
[The Israelites] warred against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses, and slew every male…. And the people of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their little ones; and they took as booty all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods. All their cities in the places where they dwelt, and all their encampments, they burned with fire, and took all the spoil and all the booty, both of man and of beast …Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live? …Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”
Numbers 31:7-18
Foreigners (Gentiles) shall rebuild your walls, and their kings shall minister to you …Your gates shall be open continuously; day and night they shall not be shut; that men may bring to you the wealth of the nations, with their kings led in procession. For the nation or kingdom that will not not serve you; shall perish; those nations shall be utterly laid waste….
Isaiah 60:10-12
You shall suck the milk of nations, you shall suck the breast of kings; and you shall know that I, the LORD, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.
Isaiah 60:16
And strangers [Gentiles] shall stand and feed your flocks, strangers shall be your plowmen and vinedressers; but you shall be called the priests of the LORD, men shall speak of you as the ministers of our God; you shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their riches you shall glory.
Isaiah 61:5-6
If literally taken to be Gods word, then the Palestinians are being humanely treated by Israel since “[they] shall save nothing that breathes”.
I agree. Too much blood has been spilled on both sides for allow a two state solution to happen now. Unless Isreal is willing to do an ‘finial solution’ of it’s own against the palestinians-which would all but kill isreal if it did. And push to go that way will doom both sides (and continue to seriously damage the US itself in the process). A single democratic, secular and multicultural state is the only way out of this mess now. One that can happen IF you can remove the wacko’s on both sides.
Unfortunately, the Jews have been maltreated too often in too many places where they were a minority; it is rather like a case of post-traumatic stress effecting an entire people. Hence, they are most unlikely to agree to a state in which they are / will / might become a minority.
And the rest of the world’s Jews will go on supporting a state only if they are confident that it will continue to be a place where they are guaranteed admission if they have to leave where they are now.
Can a Jewish right of return be guaranteed in a bi-national state? Can such a state survive if it guarantees right of return to both populations, on different rules (religion for the Jews, ancestral residence for the Palestinians?
Israel has demonstrated that it has the ability, and can raise the money, to build many housing units and jobs very quickly (when it absorbed the immigrants from Russia.) It -could- move enough settlers back into Israel proper to make a reasonably connected Palestine feasible. I think a plausible solution is still a Jewish region governed by Jewish voters to which Jews have a right of return, a Palestinian area governed by Palestinian voters to which Palestinians have a right of return. Whether these are independent countries or Swiss-style cantons in a larger federation I’m neutral on.
With peace, eventually, people might move back and forth as freely as they do between the US and Canada, or between Swiss cantons, retaining citizenship in their home district but free to work in another, or even to reside in another (as non-citizens).
A short-term one-state peace solution seems infeasible, given the lack of trust. A two-state solution might allow improvement in the Palestinian economy, which is an obviously essential condition for peace and reduced terrorism (presumably this is why the US works so hard to damage the Palestinian economy.)
The premises of the article are incorrect.
The 2 state solution might include a redrawing of the entire map including areas in the north of Israel which are completely Arab-Israeli. Of course many of the settlements would also presumably be abandoned and Jerusalem divided.
The 2 state solution still remains the best hope for a workable peace in the short-term according to all 5 federal parties in Canada and all nations in EU.
AdeleTheCech writes “the author’s claim of the two-state solution being impossible is only true if the world insists that all sacrifices there must be made by the Palestinians, and NONE by the Jews. I know this is our government’s position, but I cannot agree with it.”
Its unclear why you would suggest that the Palestinians must make further sacrifices to have self-determination on their own land. The Palestinians have made numerous territorial sacrifices; Israel has made none, but instead has pursued an expansionist policy of taking land by force, a clearly illegal policy. We cannot ask the Palestinians to make concessions to Israel in exchange for Israel giving back what it has stolen. I think thats called blackmail, anyway its not called justice, and without justice, there is not going to be any peace.
The injustice of Israel only becomes perfectly clear when we ignore religion and ethnicity, and simply look at humans as humans with rights enumerated in the universal declaration of human rights. The majority of people living in Israel before 1948 were deprived of their right to live in their homes, deprived of numerous other rights such as owning property and moving freely, by violence. It does not matter whether the 700,000 people selectively dispossessed of their rights by the catastrophe of 1948 were singled out for dispossession because they were gay or Catholic or left-handed. It doesn’t matter from the perspective of human rights– the point is they are humans, they have rights.
The inhabitants as a whole– Jews, Christians, and Muslims– should have been given the opportunity to form their own government. If the region was ruled by an occupying power, the occupying power was obliged to consult the inhabitants. You can’t rightly say to a human– you have a right to exist and a right to self-government, but only if you go some place else first.
So, the injustice of Israel has nothing to do with Judaism or anti-semitism or anything of the sort. It has to do with basic human rights enumerated in documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Israel and the US, oddly enough, are signatories.
If there were a world court of competent jurisdiction, and if the case were decided according to the law of nations rather than the law of the jungle, Israel would quit all territory outside of its 1947, UN-mandated borders and turn over the existing infrastructure to the Palestinians. It might be a bitter pill for Israel to swallow, but it would be just and could lay the foundation for peaceful coexistence.
I will be called simplistic for this and probably attacked by somebody on every side of the question.
There is nothing (nothing) in the Old Testament that is not modified by the words of Jesus in the New Testament. The people of Israel are having great difficulty merely holding by force the lands they believe they “own” by virtue of words written thousands of years before Christ, and the Palestinian people displaced and mostly following a different Prophet who wrote hundreds of years after Christ are doing even worse.
The one-state solution, if there ever is one, will occur when and to the extent these two agree on a single premise spoken by Jesus. He said that the two MOST IMPORTANT commandments are these (and that EVERYTHING else is based on them):
1) Love God. (a concept found in the ten commandments)
2) Love your neighbor as you love yourself. (a concept not found in the ten commandments, but rather extracted from a far more obscure part of the O.T. writings)
Elevating this second item to the top “number two of two” is how Jesus “modified” everything else.
It is not necessary that either group “convert” to Christianity, but when they agree that these two little concepts shall supersede everything else, then they may get the one state solution that makes sense. American Christians ought to be helping, hoping and praying for this rather than holding Israel up to be the supposed victor of some end-times war from the vagueness of Revelation and other O.T stuff that prophecy wonks like to paste together.
God just didn’t send Jesus to tell us something as simple as Number One and Number Two expecting us ALSO to cling to a bunch of other “miscellaneous religious stuff” while hoping for a rapture after Jews and Muslims slug it out for a while in hatred. I’m simplistic. I think Jesus was too. Why not for the Middle East too?
Adele -
Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, South Africa.
Canada - Two colonial settlements, English and French. Not exactly friendly. One defeated the other militarily but since the populations were equivalent they made the compromise and agreed on power sharing, two national languages, etc..
One might add New Zealand where Maori language and political power or influence is guaranteed by law.
If a one state solution is not achievable then there could be a two state solution with the border being the Green Line and guarantees for each minority population in the other side. So Jewish settlers in Palestine would have guaranteed equal treatment with Palestinians …. just as Israeli Arabs would (in the future) have equal treatment with Jews in Israel. That would seem to be another option. What is not a viable long term option is Israel as a Jewish apartheid state.
F__k God. There is no God. God doesnt exist. Jesus is just another ‘Prophet’ in a loooong list of Prophets who claim the mantle of some friggin ‘God’ ! This is about peace and justice, land and livelihood. There is no peace without justice. For there to be peace, the Palestinians need to get their land and livelihood back, something that was stolen from them by jewish people who descended on them like the plague and disposessed them.
There is/was plenty of land here in the U.S. back then after the War .. heck we could have just given them Texas and not have to deal with Texans !! But nooooo … they just HAD to have the ‘promised land’ … promised by .. yup you guessed it … the same friggin God !
etordman: Unfortunately, the Jews have been maltreated too often in too many places where they were a minority;
It’s not really an ethnic issue. An ethnic catastrophe (”The Holocaust”) is being exploited as a pretext by a gang of hoodlum right wing thugs, the Likuds, to build their domination and exploitation establishment. The neocons in the US is a closely associated hoodlum gang exploiting whatever pretexts it can find to advance the same agenda. Don’t get side-tracked by the red herrings they sling around. Look straight at the core problem - the domination agenda.
Locust–
It’s legitimate to condemn hateful words spoken by anyone- Jews, Germans, Americans, Palestinians.
it’s illegitimate to equate an entire people with the hateful words of some individuals, even those who hold positions of leadership, and even those who cause great harm.
Dick Cheney’s hateful words- lying about Iran and Iraq to push for more war, Hillary Clinton’s hateful words (about her readiness to obliterate Iran- including all the people in it) don’t represent all Americans. Don’t equate all Jews with their worst leaders. Here in America we have Howard Zinn, Norman Solomon, Barbara Ehrenreich and dozens of courageous voices for justice, as in Israel Uri Avneri, David Grossman, Amos Oz and many more.
The struggle of those of us who want justice for all people is to find effective ways to take power from hateful and illegitimate leaders all over the world. Starting here in the US.
Israel has overplayed it’s hand in using the US as a surrogate for inflicting violence on native peoples of the Middle East. How? Well, for starters, the dual-nationality traitors at the top of our government have succeeded in bankrupting our country, making it less effective as a surrogate for Israel in it’s destructive quest. Secondly, US Zionists are going to be correctly identified as a cause of bankrupting our country, and it won’t be safe to identify as a Jew in our country–it’s not right, but it’s coming anyway. US support of Israel will fall off a cliff. Thirdly, Israel is fighting a losing battle against demographics and world pressure–they can’t incinerate EVERYONE with their nuclear weapons, can they? Can they?
“Don’t equate all Jews with their worst leaders. Here in America we have Howard Zinn, Norman Solomon, Barbara Ehrenreich and dozens of courageous voices for justice, as in Israel Uri Avneri, David Grossman, Amos Oz and many more.”
I agree. Some of the most progressive voices in the U.S. are definitely Jewish. Its Zionism and the Zionists that contribute to the current crisis.
It is a story that has been re-enacted since man/woman started making marks on cave walls, to pass on their story
The settings and trappings may change, the dialog’s language and symbols also, but the basic story is basic.. as follows…
“Power Maddened Rich Old Men Bicker Over The Spoils Of The Latest Contrived World-Wide_Crisis , Young Poor Men Die, The PreistCrafts Flourish”
All we manage to do is shuffle the set details and change the tune, but go on repeating this insane dance throughout history, because no one noticed that the DJ Is Greedy and only knows one tune
It’s easy to talk about “we should do this” and “they should do that”, “we should have done this” and “they shouldn’t have done that”, but the reality on the ground is that there is one piece of land shared by two peoples, who inhabit it together miserably.
In a world where democracy and human rights have come to be the universal standard, Israel stands as an anomaly, a holdover from the world of colonial empires in which it was born. Even a two-state solution won’t be enough to change this, for within Israel’s 1967 boundaries, are one and a half million Arabs, and within annexed East Jerusalem are many hundreds of thousands more. They cannot and will not ever consent to being second-class citizens without equal rights and privileges, but if Israel grants them equal rights and privileges then it ceases to be a Jewish state.
As for the West Bank, the Jewish settlers there are dug in, armed and determined to stay, and are very much a part of the Israeli nation. No government of Israel is going to have the will to force them out, and no conceivable outside pressure will change that, but no viable Palestinian state is possible if they stay.
So there we have it. There is only the one-state solution, or unending conflict, war and misery. The choices for the one-state solution are either a Jewish state secured by ethnic cleansing, the forceable expulsion of the Arabs, or a democratic secular state with equal rights for all of its citizens without regard to race or religion.
Given time, the democratic solution will emerge slowly out of the growth and struggles of a Palestinian civil rights movement that spans the 1967 borders, and out of its gradually winning support and alliances within the Jewish community.
The ethnic cleansing solution may well happen if the world’s nations and Israel’s neighbors allow it, perhaps in the context of the general Middle East war that Cheney and the neo-cons are promoting. Many Israelis - including leading members of Olmert’s governing coalition - are talking about it openly. The consequences would be horrific. The Jewish state would live on in fear, shame and infamy, surrounded by new waves of desperate embittered refugees. The hatred and conflicts would not end. We need to face this very real danger, and work to build a consensus in America that this path must not be enabled.
One land, one nation, two peoples, living together in peace and equality with respect and forgiveness. The difficulties are enormous, and success is not guaranteed, but it is possible because it is the only way forward that offers to all, Jews and Arabs alike, a future worth having.
I find it morally revolting to suggest that if you steal something, Palestinian land, and hold onto it long enough, it’s yours but there we have it, the glorious result for Israel of their “facts on the ground” strategy and “taking every hill” as Sharon was fond of saying. Might makes right, in the last great colonial war of time, at least I hope it’s the last one.
The settlers always knew the West Bank wasn’t theirs so I really do not want to hear them cry and lament that they cannot possibly give up what
never belonged to them in the first place.
One of the big problems in this conflict is a fair settlement–if one can hope for anything fair—-of the refugee “problem.” One way to deal with it is to turn the Israeli settlements over entirely to the Palestinian refugees who number around 450,000, an exchange roughly equivalent.
I usually listen to Richard Green’s show Clout on Air America on the weekend. Yesterday, on a recap of the week’s previous show, he spoke about Israel’s 60th anniversary.
Green is a liberal, and somewhat fearless in defense of the 9-11 Truth Movement, which is rare. He tackles all sorts of issues seemingly oblivious to the possible consequences. He also makes no efforts to hide his interest in new-agey spiritual things. He’s a peacenik.
He began his statement on Israel by claiming to support a two-state solution, and by expressing sympathy for the Palestinian people.
But then he went on to say, using the same tired old Zionist crap, that the whole problem was the fault of the Palestinians and other Arabs and that Israelis were all for peace. He knows this because he has been to Israel 9 times. He said nothing about expanding settlements, brutal attacks on civilians, extrajudicial killing, lack of rights for Israeli Arabs, nothing. He claimed Israel had the right to defend herself and that nothing Israel had done was apparently too unliberal, too unspiritual for him.
This is the problem. Once again we have a Zionist owned media outlet, Air America Radio, pretending to present a liberal or progressive viewpoint through spokesmen and women whose liberality stops at the yet undefined Israeli borders. Their concern for justice and human rights includes everyone except the Palestinians.
And they have apparently fired Sam Seder — again, who is fearless in his defense of the Palestinians and the only one to do so since Malloy was fired.
To say I was disappointed in Richard Green would be an understatement. To say I was suprised would be a lie.
Sorry to hear that … i didnt even know Air America is still alive. Democracy Now on Pacifica and the local KPFA news stations here in the SF East Bay are the best sources of radio news. Im pretty sure Amy Goodman is Jewish and so is Dennis Bernstein. Amy Goodman of course is the pre-eminent progressive radio journalist in the country and ive been listening to her unforgiving, unrepentant progressive views for years now.
riddimboy - Not familiar with Bernstein but I am a fan of Amy Goodman, who most certainly is Jewish.
It is a shame that some of the most eloquent and passionate voices for Palestinian rights and for detailing the abuses and injustices of the Zionist state are Jewish (American and Israeli), and remain largely unheard.
As for AAR, yes it still alive — barely. It is now run by Mark Green, who was a NYC politico for years. Most of the shows are shit, but I hung on to listen to Sam Seder. I also go to Nova M to listen to Mike Malloy, and they have now hired the also recently fired from AAR Randi Rhodes.