The One-State Solution

[Kaminyu]

Olmert's Nightmare - The Growing Belief in a One-State Solution:

By NADIA HIJAB

Ehud Olmert's nightmare is at hand. Not only does the former Israeli prime minister now really have to fight those corruption charges. He also faces the realization of his fears that the Palestinians might give up on a two-state solution in favor of a struggle for equal rights that would mean, as he put it, the "end of the Jewish state."

Yo, Ehud, that struggle is a growing movement, and it isn't a threat to Jews -- on the contrary, Jews are very much a part of it.

Just last weekend in Boston, American and/or Israeli Jews accounted for nearly a third of the 29 speakers at a conference organized by TARI (Trans Arab Research Institute) with the William Joiner Center at the University of Massachusetts.

This is the second major public conference on how to achieve a single democratic state for Palestinians and Israelis. The first was held in London in November, and a third is slated for Toronto in June.

In a sign of the one-state movement's persistence, the conference was over-subscribed weeks before it was held; dozens were turned away because the hall only seated 500 people. Those who got in remained glued to their seats as one intense presenter followed another, in spite of limited time for questions and, on day two, no lunch.

For my part, I remain agnostic. As I said in my remarks at the conference, both states must provide equality for all their citizens -- Muslim, Jewish, or Christian, women or men, whatever their ethnicity. And, by the way, this isn't currently the case in either the established Israeli state or the putative Palestinian state.

In other words, even if two states are established, Israel cannot continue to be a state that privileges its Jewish citizens over its non-Jewish citizens. So either one or two states would mean the end of a Jewish state -- although not of the state of Israel.

Besides, I believe other vital challenges face the Palestinians, including how to keep Palestinians physically on the land of Palestine, and how to effectively and non-violently challenge a leadership that represents at best a quarter of the Palestinian people so as to prevent the abrogation of Palestinian rights.

I share the view of policy analyst Phyllis Bennis who warned at the conference that the United States might seek to impose a mini-state with minimal sovereignty and rights.

That's why my talk focused on an analysis of the sources of non-violent power available to the Palestinian people, including economic, moral, cultural, legal, and political power.

One important fact (simple but of utmost importance) was reiterated by several Palestinians -- from the occupied territories, from within Israel, and in exile. They said loud and clear that working for the one-state solution means working with Israeli Jews. As acting TARI chair Hani Faris put it, "The idea of one state cannot fly without a Palestinian wing and a Jewish wing."

Political scientist Laila Farsakh acknowledged this would be difficult given the anger Palestinians feel at Israel after Gaza and given their history of dispossession at Israel's hands. As one strategy to overcome this anger, she suggests a debate on identity that would cover the past and present role of Jews in resisting Zionism. Another is to examine treatment of Jews in Arab societies.

There is no "monolithic Jewish voice," Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti reminded, adding that it is anti-Semitic to claim otherwise. He pointed to the "disproportionate number of Jews" in the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel until Palestinian human rights are achieved.

And political scientist As'ad Ghanem emphasized that no one can decide for a people what their national consciousness is: "I know who I am as a Palestinian; I cannot decide for the Israelis who they are."

As for the Jews, several referred to the way that Zionism had subverted the values of Judaism, and highlighted alternative discourses. As law philosopher Ori Ben-Dor put it, "Zionism abuses the Jewish memory and the humanist message of the holocaust." Historian Norton Mezvinsky said Palestinians and other Arabs have not been the only victims of Zionism.

Historian Gabriel Piterberg held up the poetry of the late Avot Yeshurun as a model of blending narratives and identities by mixing Arabic and Yiddish idiom into Hebrew poetry. Anthropologist Smadar Lavie said a common struggle against the oppression of Jews of Arab descent and Palestinian Arabs offered a way out of Zionism towards co-existence. Historian Ilan Pappe pointed to many concrete "de-Zionising" projects on the ground, including shared kindergartens.

A remarkable aspect of the conference was the way nearly all speakers highlighted the Zionist project -- creating an exclusivist state -- as the root of the problem, and discussed ways to challenge it.

Civil rights advocate Nancy Murray and others suggested presenting the attack on Gaza in the context of how Israel was created as well as pointing to the parallels of the one-state discourse with the values Americans uphold.

One of the few - perhaps only - Zionist speakers at the conference, former deputy mayor of Jerusalem Meron Benvenisti, came to bury Zionism not to praise it. "As a Zionist, I wanted a Jewish state but that option is abrogated. The 'one state' is already here, the only question is what kind of state it will be."
Many critiqued the two-state political platform as the "savior of Zionism" -- especially well argued by Nadim Rouhana.

A shared theme was the urgent warning that future Israeli assaults on Palestinians cannot be ruled out. Ilan Pappe and this author drew the audience's attention to the Israeli High Court decision to allow 100 Israeli extremists, whose leader belonged to a banned Israeli party, to march in the Israeli Arab town of Umm El Fahem guarded by thousands of heavily armed Israeli security forces.

This is a scary echo of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's insistence on walking through Al Aqsa mosque, the spark that lit the second Palestinian Intifada in 2000 and set the stage for the brutal crushing of the Palestinian Authority in 2002. It is especially alarming given the loud calls for the transfer of the Israeli Arab population or denial of citizenship, most vociferously by Israel's new foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman.

A major theme was the need to reconstitute the Palestinian body politic. Political scientist Karma Nabulsi outlined existing efforts and strategies as she reviewed how the "discourse about solutions has derailed and disenfranchised the Palestinian popular collective and excludes the people as the source of legitimacy and sovereignty."

Several participants noted the need to move from discussion of the concept of one state to concrete strategies on how to get there to address not just agnosticism but outright opposition among many Palestinians, Israelis and the rest of the world. As law professor George Bisharat put it, one-staters need to address the "image that one state is utopian and unattainable."

Stating that "We are still at the first question," As'ad Ghanem offered a particularly frank critique. The Jewish state, the Islamic state and the two-state options all have more public support. The difficult questions are:

� Who are the citizens of the one-state, Israeli or Palestinian?

� What would be its relationship to the Jewish Diaspora and the Arab national movement?

� How could Palestinians and Israelis be convinced it would serve their needs?

In offering concrete strategies, Omar Barghouti's examples included ways in which restitution of inherent rights could be achieved without harming acquired rights.

The discussion of concrete steps challenged my agnosticism. So did the passion and creativity of the debate. The best vision of the one-state solution does make the alternative debates "barren," Ghada Karmi put it.

Think about it. Who's defending the two-state option today? The Palestinian Authority, its case ever weaker against the decades-long clanging of Israeli bulldozers as they colonize Palestinian land and demolish homes.

And the realists in the United States, Europe, and Israel, whose core argument is that a Palestinian state is the only way to save a majority Jewish state -- an argument that does not inspire.

Those who support a two-state solution must do better if they want to hang on to hearts and minds. For, make no mistake, as American politicians are fond of saying, the adherents of the one-state movement share a faith. And fear and brute force - whether exercised by Israel, America, or the Palestinian Authority - are no match for faith.

[Variable]

While that may work one happy day in the future... it's a long way off.

[MossadConspiracy]

the person who runs that blog has a crush or a gay crush on elmer fudd

[Kaminyu]

More from the same source:

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Netanyahu:

By Rannie Amiri

It is one of the great paradoxes of the modern Middle East:

When peace with the Palestinians is in sight, Israel will turn violent.

This is quite understandable though, when one realizes that the entire raison d’être of the Jewish state is based on the principle of establishing “greater Israel.” That could not happen of course, were there to be a just peace. As the country’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion infamously proclaimed, “To maintain the status quo will not do. We have to set up a dynamic state bent upon expansion.”

Relinquishing conquered territory, ending occupation, halting further settlement activity (let alone dismantling existing ones), stopping home demolitions or anything deemed to conflict with this fundamental objective will never be (seriously) considered.

Israel has also attempted to persuade us that it cannot but be on a constant war-footing. The reality is however, that an enemy must necessarily be present – or created – so it can avoid having to reach an equitable settlement with the Palestinians.

Israel’s siege and subsequent attack on Gaza was a prime example.

Enemy at The Gates?

Waged under the pretext of ending the launch of crude, home-made, fertilizer-based rockets from Gaza into southern Israel (which killed 16 Israelis in seven years and none in the year prior) and after a crippling 18-month siege left Gaza’s population starving and destitute, Israel claimed to be acting in “self-defense” when it attacked the territory. We now know the war was planned six months in advance.

The real motives for it were multifactorial. They included crushing any hopes or aspirations Palestinians may have had of establishing a fully independent, sovereign state under a freely elected leadership – one not under the diktats of Washington or Tel Aviv. It was also meant to collectively punish the people for having elected Hamas in that capacity.

But often overlooked and of equal importance was Hamas’ willingness to accept a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with Israel. This was clearly stated by both Hamas chief Khaled Meshal and the elected Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyah.

Without any rejectionist party present, Israel has no basis in refusing substantive talks. Hence, a premeditated and barbarous war initiated on flimsy and hyped pretense was conducted to ensure the people of Gaza and Hamas remain resentful, angry, and far less likely to sit at the negotiating table.

More of the Same, Only Different?

It is well known that all Israeli governments, be they Labor, Likud or Kadima, are interchangeable in terms of their foreign policy. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu though, has been exceptional in broadcasting its political platform.

Avigdor Lieberman, a veritable child-abuser and former member of the Kach party – a extremist group outlawed in Israel for its violently racist nature – was granted one of the most important portfolios in the administration, that of foreign minister. His approach to Hamas (“Do to Hamas what the U.S. did to Japan”), the loyalty oath he wants all Palestinians living in Israel to take, and his proposed annexation of Palestinian land have certainly given him a great deal of notoriety.

Regardless of whether Lieberman will ultimately make Netanyahu out to be the “moderate,” his positions underscore the moral temperament the government has adopted.

Just this week for example, Israeli transport minister Yisrael Katz called for Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyid Hasan Nasrallah’s assassination, while the “dovish” President Shimon Peres threatened Israel would strike Iran. With an aim to further incite, Peres felt he too must jump on the sectarian bandwagon, saying a clash between Sunni Arabs and [Shia] Iran was “inevitable.”

Netanyahu has remained silent during all this, including Lieberman’s recent declaration that the 2007 Annapolis peace conference (where parties agreed final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would involve two states) “is dead.” Netanyahu himself has been adamant there will be no withdrawal from the Golan Heights or dismantlement of settlements.

The confrontational and hostile tone of Netanyahu’s government has occurred, quite predictably, against the backdrop of a renewed atmosphere of engagement. There are now increasing calls for dialogue with Hamas, the United Kingdom has lifted its ban on speaking with Hezbollah and the U.S. rapprochement with Iran is slowly taking shape. Even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proclaimed Iran “… may forget the past and start a new era …” in its relationship with the U.S.

Like Benjamin Button, Israel is regressing; not in age, but politically and morally. And as its enemies become involved in more constructive talks with the U.S. and Europe, Netanyahu – or whoever the prime minister may be – will inevitably seek to instigate a new crisis in order to justify continuing Israel’s aggressive policies.

This explains why many who follow the Middle East, including this writer, remain pessimistic at the prospects for peace in the region.