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Netanyahu and the One-State Solution
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address US legislators on Tuesday. He will, no doubt, tell members of Congress that he supports a two-state solution, but his support will be predicated on four negative principles: no to Israel's full withdrawal to the 1967 borders; no to the division of Jerusalem; no to the right of return for Palestinian refugees; and no to a Palestinian military presence in the new state.
Netanyahu's uncompromising stance is not grounded in unfolding events, and if his rejectionist policy continues, it will reinforce the idea of a bi-national one-state solution. (Getty)
The problem with Netanyahu's approach is not so much that it is informed by a rejectionist worldview. The problem is not even Netanyahu's distorted conception of Palestine's future sovereignty, which Meron Benvenisti aptly described as "scattered, lacking any cohesive physical infrastructure, with no direct connection to the outside world, and limited to the height of its residential buildings and the depth of its graves. The airspace and the water resources will remain under Israeli control..."
Rather, the real problem is that Netanyahu's outlook is totally detached from current political developments, particularly the changing power relations both in the Middle East and around the world. Indeed, his approach is totally anachronistic.
Netanyahu's not-so-implicit threat that Israel will continue its colonial project if the Palestinians do not accept some kind of "Bantustan solution" no longer carries any weight. The two peoples have already passed this juncture.
The Palestinians have clearly declared that they will not bow down to such intimidations, and it is now clear that the conflict has reached an entirely new intersection.
At this new intersection, there are two signs. The first points towards the west and reads "viable and just two-state solution", while the second one points eastward and reads "power sharing".
The first sign is informed by years of political negotiations (from the Madrid conference in 1991, through Oslo, Camp David, Taba, and Annapolis) alongside the publication of different initiatives (from the Geneva Initiative and the Saudi Plan to the Nussaiba and Ayalon Plan), all of which have clarified what it would take to reach a peace settlement based on the two-state solution. It entails three central components:
1. Israel's full withdrawal to the 1967 border, with possible one-for-one land swaps so that ultimately the total amount of land that was occupied will be returned.
2. Jerusalem's division according to the 1967 borders, with certain land swaps to guarantee that each side has control over its own religious sites and large neighbourhoods. Both these clauses entail the dismantlement of Israeli settlements and the return of the Jewish settlers to Israel.
3. The acknowledgement of the right of return of all Palestinians, but with the following stipulation: while all Palestinians will be able to return to the fledgling Palestinian state, only a limited number agreed upon by the two sides will be allowed to return to Israel; those who cannot exercise this right or, alternatively, choose not to, will receive full compensation.
Israel's continued unwillingness to fully support these three components is rapidly leading to the annulment of the two-state option and, as a result, is leaving open only one possible future direction: power sharing.
The notion of power sharing would entail the preservation of the existing borders, from the Jordan valley to the Mediterranean Sea, and an agreed upon form of a power sharing government led by Israeli Jews and Palestinians, and based on the liberal democracy model of the separation of powers. It also entails a parity of esteem - namely, the idea that each side respects the other side's identity and ethos, including language, culture and religion. This, to put it simply, is the bi-national one-state solution.
Many Palestinians have come to realise that even though they are currently under occupation, Israel's rejectionist stance will unwittingly lead to the bi-national solution. And while Netanyahu is still miles behind the current juncture, it is high time for a Jewish Israeli and Jewish American Awakening, one that will force their respective leaders to support a viable democratic future for the Jews and Palestinians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. One that will bring an end to the violent conflict.
Read more at Al-Jazeera-English.
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26 Comments so far
Show AllDoesn't the notion of a bi-national one-state solution fly in the face of the Zionist dream of a Jewish state? Maybe if all the Palestinian people agreed to convert to Judaism it would work. Since this will never happen, the one-state solution will never work.
New York is the Zionist dream of a Jewish state.
"New York is the Zionist dream of a Jewish state."
Knock it off, Ocean! I may not approve of what Israel's doing in the Occupied Territories, but there is no place for your stupid-a**ed bigotry here on this board.
Thanks.
Excellent article, but I take issue with Point 2 above.
"Both these clauses entail the dismantlement of Israeli settlements and the return of the Jewish settlers to Israel."
I'm sorry, if the settlers came from brooklyn, they should be taken back to brooklyn, and at their own expense since the moving and squatting on others' land was blatantly illegal. First dibs on "returning to Israel" has got to go to Palestinian refugees who choose to do so.
"I'm sorry, if the settlers came from brooklyn, they should be taken back to brooklyn,"
how about sending them back to the russian empire which is where the original settlers came from. netanyahu is the first and only Israeli prime minister actually born in Israel (palestine). his father, benzion (benjamin) netanyahu was born in warsaw, poland (then part of the russian empire).
and the beat goes on...
"Jerusalem's division according to the 1967 borders, with certain land swaps to guarantee that each side has control over its own religious sites and large neighbourhoods."
I suspect a fully internationalized, demilitarized old city, open to the world, would be more stable than trying to split the Wailing Wall off from Temple Mount and such. Old Jerusalem belongs to the world, not just these two peoples ...
Why is it that every time I hear the word "Jerusalem," and think of the three massively evil religions that have fought for it lo these past millennia, that I find myself wondering whether the Romans had the right idea when they conquered Carthage?
Religions susceptible to massive evil.
Doing as the Romans did in Carthage or as Charlemagne (Christian) did in Saxony is not a solution. Rather the monotheist religions are a useful sign as to where the problems reside for a monotheist believes the god of his mind is the God of All. Accordingly, monotheists must all be allowed to publicly identify and worship as they wish but never be allowed to rule entirely as they wish. This effectively means the monotheist religions are to be seen as open asylums for those who have delusions of divinity. Delusion is an idiotic affliction meaning it is common to all. Delusion is a matter of intensity and under the right conditions the Church and the Synagogue and the Mosque are more capable than anything else in dealing with the particular delusion of divinity we know as monotheism. China has probably the best record of all civilisations in this matter. The three great monotheistic faiths are regarded consistently correctly as forms of tribalism in China. As with all other tribalists, Christians, Jews and Islamic people have been readily promoted to the highest levels of government and highly esteemed but as with all other institutions of tribalism, monotheisms are demoted rapidly to the level of local enthusiasms and even expunged whenever their congregation's ambitions dance to the tune of domination and exclusivity as once the Dominicans and the Franciscans and the dear, current Dalai Lama did to their current disadvantage in China. Were these ever to recognise and publicly acknowledge this they would be welcomed back after a period of examination and testing.
One more alternative, that no one dares to mention. Genocide. 5 million Palestinians disappear. If Israel rejects the two state solution and also rejects the one state solution, then.....there is the final solution. That is the logical end of Likud policies.
Israel has already chosen genocide as the final solution, and despite photo ops and window dressing, present and past administrations support that alternative. For the sociopaths in charge, Justice is not possible, only murder.
The population of Israel and the population of Palestineans (are they saying there is no such place as Palestine) are about the same. We should do as King Solomon did and CUT THE LAND IN HALF.
Half, huh? The Palestinians are brutalized by a genocidal invasion, and you want them to accept half.
If you're not for the dissolution of Israel and reparations, you are for continuing the genocide.
No, no, no, no and Yes to Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide.
Yeah I mean genocide really is where we seem to be headed. Israel simply will not allow a Palestinian state on the 67 borders. Ok, it also won't allow a multiethnic democracy with equal rights for all either. So at some point, as Israel continues to move to the Right, past Netanyahu, maybe then a Lieberman, and then the genocide solution. They'll start shooting and it'll be 1947-48 all over again: the Palestinians will either die or leave. That's how Israel got its initial 78% slice of Palestine, they've been colonizing the rest for 40 plus years, finding ways to evict Palestinians from Jerusalem and so forth. And it seems that the Republican Party in the United States, as it moves further to the Right, and drags the entire political establishment with it, will support Israel no matter how gruesome things get. They deny the reality of and justify the Gaza Massacre; they'll do the same when the "transfer" option is rekindled...they'll cite "defense against terror." This is gonna get even uglier...and the American people are going to cheer...like Congress is gonna cheer for Netanyahu tomorrow.
Here's a documentary on the beginnings of Israel's "policy" toward the Palestinians, the Nakba http://vimeo.com/3714871/
If ethnic cleansing wasn't allowed for Nazis, why is it allowed for Zionists, even though on a smaller scale?
Is there any progress toward allowing Americans to watch Al Jazeera?
What's wrong with a multi-ethinc democracy in the ancient lands of Palestine? In the end it is probably the fairest solution and the Jews whose families have only been in the area for a couple of generations who really don't like it should be allowed the right of return to the European countries where their ancestors resided for the past 2,000 years.
Gordon's analysis is very perceptive and does point toward a genuine solution which is quite consistent with the original Zionist dream of a true democratic and socialist state, first articulated by Nachman Syrkin at the third Zionist Congress in 1899. The early pioneers were imbued with this dream, and sought solidarity with the native Arab proletariat. They rejected religion as such, saw it as a false distinction imposed on the working class by its oppressors, and were more than ready to forge a single nation with those already living in Palestine. Some Zionist Socialists were so enamored of socialism, and so little committed to the land of Israel as such, that they fell for Stalin's bogus offer of a Jewish republic within the USSR, and went to Russia in the 1930s in pursuit of this goal, in most cases to their deaths
Sadly, Nazi propagandists stirred up anti-Jewish feeling among Arab peoples even before World War II, and the Arab upper classes were happy, as upper classes are everywhere, to encourage divisions within the working class. Then came the Holocaust, and old dreams of shared solidarity among all peoples vanished.
The attack on Israel in 1948, largely promoted by a quasi-fascist regime in Syria, froze both peoples into 60 years of hostility. This could have been avoided if the British had not abandoned the region so precipitately, but they had been badly bruised by the Jewish version of quasi-fascism, the Irgun, and were desperate to just get out. So the fascists got what they wanted, in both Israel and its Arab neighbors, and mutual hatred served the interests of the ruling class of both peoples. But a new spirit is sweeping the region, and it resembles in some ways the vision that inspired Nachman Syrkin so long ago.
However, the pre-requisite for the one-state solution envisioned in this article is a new secularism and an abandonment of serious religious belief on both sides. Only with the decline of religious belief in Ireland did that seemingly intractable struggle end, and the same may happen in Israel/Palestine, however unlikely that may seem at this time.
This is a perceptive post.
Nevertheless, 'an abandonment of serious religious belief on both sides' will and must not happen for the simple reason that insanity must be seen for us to deal with it well. This because people who think in an insane way are often latent in that they never give a sign of it until the opportunity arises to do harm by it. There remains serious religious belief in Ireland. Latent or overt, it is now understood there as idiotic or common to all at the lowest level of identity (as is self-belief, family worship or tribalism everywhere) and therefore seen as a problem only if it is allowed to dominate.
After the Mexican/ American War. The winners and losers have lived side by side for generations now. We all celebrate Cinco de Mayo Day. Work together, kids go to school together. - Although, there are places in America where an Israeli style wall and surveillance we have upped our fear of the poor natives who have been walking to wherever there is work forever and making a big business out of imprisoning them on taxpayers dollars.
Gaza, the weapons; the phosphorous, DIME, the night arrests, the checkpoints, the starvation, the killings, the treatment of the native! Palestinan population by Israelis is inhumane, shameful!
I believe him when he says there will only be ONE state and THAT is the solution.
The World is not a safer place.
"After the Mexican/ American War. The winners and losers have lived side by side for generations now. We all celebrate Cinco de Mayo Day."
So what? did the losers have any choice? and celebrating may 5th... what does that prove? you both hate the french? sorry, i don't see the relevance to israel/palestine.
The losers got to be citizens like anyone else. Their distinct culture is an integral part of shared life, not one that has been erased.
The racism and hatred in the acts of Israelis toward Palestinians is shocking by any standard.
I do see relevance in how we treat our neighbors. We dont drop DIME bombs on Mexicans or Mexican Americans I guess Palestinans fall into a no mans land and Israel can test their weapons on them.
Actually, only the USA celebrates the 5th of May......and the City of Puebla in Mexico.
If we are talking about genocide outside the US/Israel perspective. The real numbers in this Planet are around 5 million and 1,3 billion. And as the bloody history of mankind shows, 5 million is possible. 1300 million is not. Every solution towards this end game is insane for the israeli people and to us all. How did the most talented artists become people of thinking a genocide as a solution? - Israeli people had been betrayed by their brothers and sisters abroad and because the rest of us are making it possible.
Mr. Gordon is either a coward or a hypocrite (or both), since he preaches for others to boycott Israeli academic institutions, yet at the same time he teaches in one (the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), and receives his paycheck from the Israeli government.
Ultimately, One State is the only way to go...let the majority decide in open elections like they did after the South African aparthide.
Gordon seems unaware of the laws in Israel which favor only jews, regardless of where they were born or else he is misguided into thinking that Israel is a state guided by democratic principles. Regrettably a one state solution would not work . A two-state solution which allows Palestinians authority to govern themselves is the quickest way for them to gain the justice they deserve. Neither a one-state nor a two state solution is feasible, however, as long as the Israel receives unstinting support from the United States and the approbation of other member nations of the UN. If it did not receive the money and arms so generously accorded by U.S. taxpayers, things might change.