By Libby Lenkinski Friedlander & Noam Sheizaf
972-Zone is a new feature on +972 magazine, in which we will periodically raise a central question dealing with current affairs to a selected group of experts. This week our panel includes: Amjad Atallah, Avrum Burg, Dahlia Scheindlin, Dimi Reider, Gadi Baltiansky, Joseph Dana, Lara Friedman, Mikhael Manekin, Sofian Abu-Zaida, and Zehava Galon.
They were all presented with the following question:
About a month ago, the US administration admitted the failure of its attempt to bring a settlement moratorium that would enable direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Some claim that the window for the two state solution is closing. Others are not so sure.
Do you think it is time to start discussing possible “One-State solutions” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Amjad Atallah | New America Foundation; Director of Middle East Task Force, Editor for Middle East Channel on ForeignPolicy.com
The acceptance of territorial partition by Palestinians with 78% for Israel and 22% for Palestine is considered a major concession to the realities of power politics. In effect, the Palestinians in Israel and in the Diaspora were asked to sacrifice representation of their interests in order to secure those of Palestinians living under occupation.
Without the possibility of real partition, Palestinians in Israel and in the Diaspora can be expected to reassert their interests and may find willing allies in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Non-partition solutions have now become a necessary part of the discourse.
Gadi Baltiansky | Director General of the Geneva Initiative
The discussion of the one-state solution is correct and logical, but too early. Maybe after generations of Israelis and Palestinians are brought up normally, each living in their own free and secure sate, after threats turn into co-operations and after the conflict turns into nothing more than a chapter in the history books, maybe then the inhabitants on this land will prefer to live in one state. Meanwhile, the collective memory of the Jewish nation of the dangers waiting to ambush it in the absence of a homeland of its own is too fresh. The Palestinian collective memory of the damage caused them by Zionism is too fresh. The US can not give up after tens of years of penetrating the consciousness of the majority of Israelis and Palestinians about what the solution should look like.
If we wait, then it will indeed be too late for a two-state solution, but right now it is too early for the one-state solution. If we do nothing, we will simply stay in the conflict with no solution.
Mikhael Manekin | Co-founder of Breaking the Silence, an organization of veteran Israeli soldiers working to raise awareness about the daily reality in the Occupied Territories
The answer is no. This question presupposes some factors: That the construct of two real states was on the table in recent years and that it failed. That today, a one state solution is practically more reasonable. That the Occupation and other issues pertaining to the conflict (historical justice etc.) are in the same category of problems. I disagree with all points.
Complete Palestinian sovereignty has never been offered. There is much less political will for one state — self determination makes most sense in a two state framework. Lastly, prolonged military Occupation is a unilateral action, morally untenable, regardless of solutions to the conflict.
Sofian Abu-Zaida | Former Minister in the Palestinian Authority
During the Oslo accords in 1993, the idea of a two-state solution was reachable. But in the time since, mainly because the Israelis have failed to release themselves from the mindset of the Occupation, this idea seems to be unreachable.
In the absence of the two-state solution – especially in light of the USA failure to achieve it – more and more Palestinian people and Palestinian leaders have spoken publicly about the possibility of leading a struggle toward a one-state solution. Some have done so because they really believe in in a one-state solution, like me, but some readily adopt this idea as a result of frustration with the alternative.
Zehava Galon | former MK for Meretz
Netanyahu’s government is not heading toward a Statehood solution anytime soon. Despite suspicion that the two-state solution is becoming impossible, it is the only practical, realistic solution. The one-state solution is a dangerous and mistaken illusion.
I believe that the State of Israel is the self determination of the Jewish Nation, a state for al citizens, and a state which grants communal rights to National minorities within it. Just as I defend Israel’s right to exist, despite my criticism, I also struggle for the establishment of a Palestinian state, that will put into practice Palestinians’ right to Statehood.
The demand to release Palestinians from the oppression of the Occupation is not only a human rights demand. Rather, it is a demand for the end of the conflict, for a division of land based on an agreement, in the spirit of the Arab League and Geneva Initiatives. The suggestion to establish one state, both when it comes from the radical left or from the right, will not only deter from reaching peace but will establish a new conflict over control over the one state.
Unlike them, I want to end the occupation, but not to end the state of Israel. I want to change the state I’m living it, but I don’t want to give up our independence. I believe that the Palestinians wouldn’t want to give up the hope for their own nation-state as well. According to a recent poll conducted by the Hebrew University, this understanding is shared by a majority in both societies.
Avrum Burg | Former Knesset Speaker
The window [for the two-states solution] is not closing. It has been closed for many years, because we have never admitted the fact that Israel and Palestine are two kidnapped friends. Kidnapped – by religious extremists; settlers and Hamas members alike, committed to their vision of one state, based on Halacha (Jewish law) or Shaariya (Muslim law). This religious minority, ours and theirs, holds the will of the majority at ransom for its messianic dreams.
This, among other things, has made both societies develop a kind of “Stockholm Syndrome”- identification with one’s kidnapper.
In Israel, there is a real fear of confrontation with the armed messianic forces living among us. Anyway our government policies are drawn from the power of the settler vision. It seems that the only way to balance this is an alternative suggestion of one state between the Jordan and the sea. Secular, democratic, egalitarian and civilian.
Lara Friedman | Director of Policy and Government Relations, Americans for Peace Now
The “one-state solution” is a fantasy shared by some anti-Zionists/post-Zionists and some Zionist hardliners. Fantasy, because no Israeli government will dissolve the State of Israel in favor of a bi-national state, and Israel will never be able to justify annexing the West Bank to create “Greater Israel.” And importantly, “one-state” is not the dream of either the Israeli or the Palestinian public at large.
The two-state solution is still possible and is the only alternative to a permanent state of conflict. Rather than wasting time on fantasy, energy should focus on achieving the two-state solution before it is too late.
Joseph Dana | West Bank reporter and contributer for +972 magazine
The Palestine Papers have given ultimate confirmation that Israel is not interested in an equitable two-state solution with the Palestinians. The secret documents reveal beyond a shadow of a doubt that even the most generous offers of land and security by the Palestinians in a two-state paradigm were rejected by Israel. During these negotiations, and in fact during the last twenty years of serious discussion of a two-state solution, Israel has doubled and redoubled efforts to create facts on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza which render a two-state solution impossible to implement.
Quite simply, Israel has created the one state. This state gives 80% of its citizens (the Jewish population) full democratic and civil rights. 20% of the citizens (Palestinian citizens of Israel) experience institutionalized discrimination in virtually all sectors of civil and political life. The remaining population in the West Bank lives in an apartheid like system of separate and unequal rights under full military occupation by Israel. The population of Gaza is surrounded by walls and predator drones which constantly monitor their movements while preventing the growth of a sovereign state.
Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories form one state under complete Israeli control. Israeli negotiators with the cover of continued American aid and diplomatic assistance have taken every opportunity to stop an equitable two-state solution from coming into existence. Since we live in one state and the two-state solution is dead, why not pragmatically work towards bringing democracy to the residents of this unequal state?
Dahlia Scheindlin | +972 contributer, International public opinion analyst and strategic consultant
Although the one-state approach proposes a united entity between the Jordan and the sea, in fact it represents King Solomon’s original proposal to cut the baby in half. In reality, one state means that Israelis and Palestinians each receive a mutilated and unsustainable version of its national dream. The Palestinians will never get the national self-determination they seek in a Jewish-dominated single state. Jews will achieve neither the democracy and inner harmony they seek (or ought to), nor legitimacy from the world, as long as they obstruct Palestinian rights to national self-expression in their single state – even before Jews become a minority.
Finally, this conflict is tragically likely to ignite again over ‘some damn foolish thing in the settlements’ (with apologies to Bismark). A one-state solution not only fails to prevent settlements from ripping into Palestinian land and courting violence, it legitimizes expansion – since there is no border. Sadly, we all need one.
Dimi Reider | Journalist, +972 contributer
The one state needs to be discussed not out of complacency – i.e. it’s coming anyway or is here already – but out of urgency: to prevent the irreparably deformed version of the two-state solution, as glimpsed by us through the Palestine Papers and Netanyahu’s and Lieberman’s public comments.
Having completely appropriated the two-state solution, the Israeli Right is now striving to ensure that at its best, it will create a disjointed, demilitarized, economically dependent Palestinian local council, with less sovereignty than a member state of the US. Meantime, what passes for the Israeli mainstream left – chauvinist-nationalist National Left, defunct Labor and Kadima, of Lebanon and Gaza fame – has no ability or interest to ensure Palestine will ever be a viable, independent state. The Palestinian’s own dead-end unilateral proclamation plan would only give Israel an excuse to concede even less.
What’s more, the two-state solution is increasingly tied to population and citizenship transfers – not only of settlers, but of Israeli Palestinians. The introduction of one-state thought is needed to put up a real alternative to the segregationist discourse, which dominates Israeli politics from Left to Right and which would almost certainly lead to tremendous human and political disasters.
Readers are invited to get involved in the discussion by leaving comments – we only ask that you stay on topic, proofread your post and stick to 972′s comment policy. We also encourage readers to use their real name on this page. This discussion will be moderated and inappropriate comments will be left out.
February 13, 2011
4:12 am
It alway’s fills me with hope when i see genuine people discussing possible solutions to this conflict especially that all important 1 state/2 state solution topic.
It also saddens me because i do not believe that a solution to this conflict is as simple as deciding on whether there’s going to be 1 or 2 states within historic Palestine. For me I strongly believe in the deep humanity of people involved and the ability to forgive for example the Families all around Palestine who come together and can forgive the other side and still be friendly with eachother showing their deep humanity on both sides.
However for me having researched the history of the conflict i feel that things have gone too far now for any kind of practical and implementable solution in this day and age we are at a time period where the is an impass. For example if this was 1947/48 i would be a person strongly opposing the creation of the state of Israel on somebody elses homeland (This is a very different idea than opposing the creation of a state of Israel in its entirety i would have had no problem with a state being created on land that really did have no people inside it already). If this was 1967 i would have been first in line to demand that Israel withdraw immediately from the occupied territories and a 2 state solution be formed.
Those are the only two dates at which i believe any kind of solution should have come out which could have been a Just solution.
My great belief is that such big questions like a one state solution can only be addressed after working hard on healing the Israeli and Palestinian society and by carefully getting the right people into government to effect the correct changes that will bring all the truly fundamental things into place: Justice, Equality, Human Rights, Freedom of movement, True Freedom, Democratic rights, and eventually Peace (Peace as in between the peoples not neccesarily a state solution with borders).
You can think up a 1 state, 2 state, 10 state solution to this conflict and yes of course the borders, the settlements, East Jerusalem, the Wall and all those things are the basic core issues on a political level but please we must not forget we are talking about human beings and people’s homelands here many of whom just want to be able to live their lives, get to their farms and pray at their holy sites in peace.
February 13, 2011
4:18 am
One state is not a dream. One state is the natural reality.
Violent dreams (of greatness) are what brought us here.
Religion is not nationality.
There is no good reason to keep the twisted and distorted state the existing Israel is.
February 13, 2011
4:55 am
Two states or a Bi-national State
Given the obvious difficulties, it is not yet clear whether the creation of a bi-national state is possible; it may well be, however, that in the long run, it would be more advantageous for both… peoples than the two state solution. Some commentators might wish to discuss whether the “right of return” should be considered before the discussion of the difficulties of its implementation, but it seems to me that the deliberations of legalisms, and the nitpicking that invariably accompanies them, serve only to obscure the more important thoughtful regard of categorical moral and ethical imperatives. Justice, when it conflicts with law, must prevail.
I hope that the ordered listing of some the difficulties of the implementation of the bi-state solution will make it easier, for those for whom it is a desirable goal, to find cogent counter arguments.
So then, as an initial personal catalog of impediments to the creation of a bi-national “Israstein”, see the following:
- Fear of the “other”.
- Most Israelis are uninterested and woefully ignorant 0f Palestinian culture and peoples. We fear what we do not know or understand.
- Many Israelis sense that, no matter what the justification, forgivable or not, we are the cause of the great suffering of the Palestinians, but reject those feelings in order to continue their normal lives. The sense of guilt is corrosive and engenders aversion and bigotry.
- Many Arabs, conscious of the low regard of the West for their culture, become more radical in reaction. Violence can be the result.
- The Palestinians have suffered in fact, and in fact, some of the younger men, incited by the older, find ways to justify violent vengeance.
- In my opinion most Israelis will not accept a theocracy, Jewish or Islamic; many Palestinians might prefer one.
- The present move to religion of a more fundamental nature by many young Jews and Muslims
does not bode well for integration.
- Even if there is enough land for another x-million, it is questionable whether there would be enough water; this is also a problem for the two state solution.
- It would be suicidal to allow a great number of people to return before the economic and commercial bases are converted to accommodate the returnees.
- The cost of the return of great numbers of people is beyond the capacity of either, or even both peoples. An enormous amount of resources must be donated by America, Europe and the Arabian oil rich countries. Until that money is secured, the greater part of the return of the refugees should not begin; the frustrations caused by an underfunded bureaucracy would destroy the project.
- On both sides there are too many old men enjoying the power of sending too many young men to kill and die for causes that young men misunderstand when filtered through hormone deranged minds. Strictly enforced limits on some forms of propaganda will have to employed, even if it is at the cost of limiting free speech.
Obviously the list is incomplete, other objections will be easily found. None the-less, the integration of Muslim and Jewish peoples, if done with intelligence and good will, might enrich our two cultures as has not been the case since the Spanish destroyed the high culture of the Cordovan Caliphate. The danger is that rather than the historically painful but now useful integration of the United States, or even better, that of Switzerland, the end result might mirror the tragedy of Bosnia or Burundi.
Is it credible to consider a two step process? If the two state solution succeeds when measured by mutually accepted criteria, would that not be a welcome signal for the integration of all citizens of the land of three Sundays?
February 13, 2011
4:58 am
Why are we only considering ‘unitary’ state solutions? This debate should be expanded to include various types of federation arrangement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation): Israel and Palestine can both exist as separate states, but there could be some sort of regional arrangement whereby they are also closely connected to one another.
Presumably this would be a rather asymmetric arrangement in the early years, but this would evolve over time. In fact, I think that there should eventually be some sort of larger regional federation which would include all of the smaller ‘multi-ethnic’ states in the region.
February 13, 2011
4:59 am
We do not have generations and we require real-politik solutions. A true and honest view of reality will, I believe, lead to the conclusion that the two state solution is no longer viable and if viable then definately not sustainable. The two people are too interlinked, too many settlers, too little land, and, probably key, is the fact that the resolution of the conflict resides in 1948 and not in 1967.
People in this very populated territory, need a vision. It is one that must cater to Jewish settlers, Palestinians, secular Jews, as well as Jews and Palestinians in the diaspora.
Such a vision can only truly be reached when talking about a land that is home to all of its inhabitants.
I would like to urge us all not to get fixed on the term “single state” solution. Let us first agree that the two state solution that involves removal of settlements (remedying an injustice by creating a new one) and leaving the Palestinians with a Bantustani type country with a wall/fence to separate both people should be trashed. Then, there are a very many different types of alternatives that can and should be discussed.
The time for this discussion is now.
The only thing to fear is fear itself – FDR
February 13, 2011
5:35 am
When the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations start afresh, the Palestinians should insist, and the international community must back them, that the borders of Palestine are those of the 4th of June 1967, including all the West Bank and East Jerusalem, set in stone and non-negotiable, not even an inch. UN recognition of a Palestinian state in these borders, an achievable object, would ground these borders in international law. This should not be seen as a bargaining position: the Palestine Papers reveal that these are the only borders over which any kind of long term agreement could be reached.
While the borders are fixed, the focus of negotiations should shift to the status of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the future of the refugees. With regard to the settlers, the principle must be that they will be allowed – and encouraged – to stay in their homes as permanent residents of the Palestinian state, protected by law and by international agreements. They must know that they will be guaranteed full security to their lives, their property, and their movements, even if deprived of the quasi-apartheid privileged resources they currently enjoy.
Given that all of these settlements are illegal under international law, the Palestinian traditional position has been that all these settlements should be dismantled. But while the Israeli government is responsible for establishing these settlements, the individuals who live in them – some for several decades now – should not be held accountable. Sharing the land and achieving peace will not come about by driving people from their homes, something the Palestinians know all too well.
In a future settlement, there could be a paradoxical symmetry between the settlers and the refugees; inasmuch as the settlers should be allowed to stay in their homes, the refugees should be allowed back in theirs, enjoying the same status. Some would receive land, proportional to the land taken up by the Jewish settlements in the Palestinian state. Perhaps they could have the opportunity to re-build sites of deserted villages. All should be allowed in as permanent residents of Israel, realizing the right of Return but retaining their Palestinian citizenship.
The logic is this: Once Palestine is recognized in the 1967 borders, and once such borders become a prerequisite to negotiations, not part of it, the two states would have to agree find ways to preserve the unity of the land and of Jerusalem, and to ensure the rights of the respective minorities, including settlers and refugees. And the objective should be that, while Israel and Palestine remain two sovereign states, every Jew and every Palestinian would have the right to live in peace anywhere in the shared homeland.
February 13, 2011
6:11 am
I think the one-state solution is a prescription for disaster, for an eternally warring, failed state if there ever was one. But I think that if the Palestinians were to start demanding it, to say, “Since Israel won’t give us independence, we want equality – full Israeli citizenship,” it would be an effective tactic toward ending the occupation. This “nightmare” is what converted Olmert to the two-state solution – maybe if it became reality, it could convert others.
February 13, 2011
8:25 am
Burg: “The window [for the two-states solution] is not closing. It has been closed for many years.”
This is conventional thinking. It is correct today (the USA being and having for years been unyielding) but Turkey’s ascendancy the recent South American consensus and Tunisia and Egypt suggest a possible adjustment of consensus, in favor of 2SS. Water politics may also play a role, as Israel might possibly see a way toward water-sharing at the price (as Israel insists in seeing it) (benefit as the rest of the world see it) of a just and lasting peace.
The road forward (absent Israeli willingness to join the Arab League consensus) is a UNSC command that Israel remove the 550,000 settlers and dismantle the wall and settlement buildings all w/i one year, according to a published schedule with verifiable milestones, and strict sanctions in place for Israeli failure to meet5 the schedule. If USA/UK veto the UNSC, then go to UNGA in a less formal manner.
This approach, if international consensus can be reached, would tell Israel that it is its actions that are illegitimate, not itself. It would also offer I/P one year to make a peace treaty that might save some of Israel’s settlements (and settlers) from removal. This is NECESSARY because Israeli settler-dominated and nationalist-dominated and maximalist-dominated politics today do not allow a just and lasting peace as imagined by the rest of the world and (I trust) Palestinians would not acquiesce in the miserable pretense at “peace” that some Israeli governments have more or less proposed to the PLO/PA.
February 13, 2011
10:24 am
The only logical solution would be one secular democratic state of Israel where former Palestinians would be the majority. South Africa has shown that there is no reason why that would not work. Jewish Israeli would not be worse of. The other alternatives are not fair.
February 13, 2011
11:01 am
It’s interesting that it should be seen that the natural trajectory should be towards a single state when in the rest of the world it tends in the opposite direction, in the breakup of of larger entities such as India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, Cyprus, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the former Soviet Union. The only merger I can think of is the reunification of Germany, which was separated against its will as spoils by the winners of WWII.
February 13, 2011
11:21 am
The one-state solution is the only genuine, viable solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is also the only ethical solution. The difficult fact for people in the West to confront is that the Zionists stole another people’s homeland (with U.S. and British collaboration)and have no legitimate right to a single inch of that Palestinian land. (Ilan Pappe’s “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” should be required reading) It remains a brutal, racist, expansionist, nuclear-armed settler colonialist endeavor, however fervently the Western powers and populations wish to deny that fact. The entirety of Palestine belongs to the people who were brutally expelled from their rightful homes and villages and towns. To give them back 22% of their land for a pseudo-state, a demilitarized “state” in which they have no control of their borders and cannot defend themselves by raising an army, is a “solution” that turns that land into an Israeli protectorate. The illegitimate state of Israel, thoroughly racist, thoroughly militaristic and expansionist, a state engaged in a continual theft of another people’s land, must be forced by a world-wide economic boycott into something much like the non-violent South African solution– it must be forced to abandon its racist dream and become a genuinely democratic state in which there is no law that privileges one ethnic group over others. The “homeland for the Jewish people” built on another people’s stolen land has turned Israel into a state that should not be tolerated by the world community. Our refusal to acknowledge that theft is at the heart of the conflict in the entire Middle East and that region’s perfectly justifiable loathing of the US and Western European colonial powers. A democratic–truly democratic– state in which all citizens have equal rights is the only solution. Once the Palestinian people have the right to return to their stolen land and all people are treated equally, the new Palestinian state will become a viable entity rather than the nuclear-armed racist entity and danger to the entire world, that it is today.
February 13, 2011
11:28 am
The only significant definition of “state” in this conflict is the ugly one: control of a border. Israel controls the border of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. (Yes there is now an interesting but unimportant detail at Rafah.) So, this is one state. The concept of “occupation” is a nonsensical distinction.
Only some of the residents of this state get to vote.
The only idea I have to offer is that the disenfranchised citizens of this state and its various citizens living abroad should vote in Israeli national elections — uninvited and illegally. They should hold a formal ballot and declare their choice for the Knesset, with write-ins where necessary, then leave it to the “real” voters to explain why this isn’t the only democracy in the Middle East.
February 13, 2011
12:01 pm
NewJudaism teaches the three pillars of SOcial Justice, Economic Justice, and Right of Return of Endogenous Peoples, especially the Palestinians. Once the Palestinians return, the absorptive capacity of the land will be exceeded. Fortunately, NewJudaism, by the insistance that every Jew can create their own personal Jerusalem wherever they live, allows the outmigration of Jews to accomodate the right of return of the Palestinians. Only this way will there be peace
February 13, 2011
6:11 pm
We can discuss all kinds of solutions, but there are urgent matters that need to be resolved immediately and without preconditions:
1. End to the blockade of Gaza
2. End to humiliating treatment and terror against Palestinians, including child arrests and interrogations, land theft, house demolitions, etc
3. Elimination of checkpoints in the occupied territories
4. Freedom of movement within the West Bank and Gaza and between the two
5. Stop to settlement construction and expansion
6. Free and fair, internationally organized and monitored elections, recognition of the winners of the elections as equal partners in further negotiations
If Israel is unwilling to act on these issues, than the international community should press Israel by all available peaceful means to do so.
As for a one-state solution, it was probably possible in and prior to 1948, but it does not seem realistic at the moment. I’d argue for a negotiated two-state solution within 1967 or maybe even 1948 borders or somewhere in between, without any forced transfers of populations. Illegal settlements don’t need to be dismantled, but because they will lose subsidies and military support from Israel, most settlers will leave voluntarily. Remaining settlements will be under Palestinian jurisdiction, will be open to Arabs and will compensate in one form or another to those Arabs on whose lands they were built. They may also be used to settle Palestinian refugees.
February 13, 2011
7:08 pm
I just want to say kudos to Steve Kowit’s comment.
Whats at the base of it all? that is perpetually under our noses the whole time the elephant in the room if you will? is the historic tragedy that the creation of this state has unleashed, and continues to unleash, upon the native people of this land.
No proposed abiding solution is relevant which does not take into account our(the Israelis) responsibility in driving out the majority of the native population and settling on their lands. A justice based on human and civil rights rather than feelings of entitlement, for what is a thief entitled to?
The One-State discussion is long overdue in Israel, its time to start now and not later. For anybody who understands that this country will not survive for long on the back of more wars and massacres.
February 14, 2011
4:19 am
The threat of an Arab majority, which is clearly what would happen in one state, might at least spur Israel to pre-emptively actually ensconce its laws and protections in a real constitution.
February 15, 2011
2:11 pm
I first wnat to very firmly state that I am against occupation/settlements, pro palestinian state. However, many people here are only going back to 1948/1967; when jews have lived and gone back to Israel for hundreds of years. Even as a minority, there has always been a jewish presence in the land!
Israel is now a fact, “Uvdah bashetach”, and most israelis do NOT want to leave their country; so with all due respect to Rabbi Jutner; he cannot decide for israelis wethewr they want to create their “personal Jerusalem” in London, Toronto, Chicago – it is not his pronouncement to make!!! – The idea of israelis leaving Israel is as naive as non-native (first nations) Americans and canadians leaving the U.S. and Canada now!!
On the subject of human rights, many americans and canadians should really look in their own backyard to see how first nations in America and Canada live: reservations are really nothing more than ghettos!
February 16, 2011
2:55 am
At least they’re ghettoes that don’t pay taxes.
February 16, 2011
11:44 am
What a powerful grip the notion of ‘separate and unequal’ still holds over two-statists! Have the lessons of historical attempts at segregation—of the Bantustan statelets, of Brown v. the Board of Education, of the Nakba—not sunk in yet even in 2011? It is only when we accept the essential fact that Israel, which provided much needed refuge for our parents and grandparents, necessitated the dismemberment of Palestinian life, since expelled into second-class towns, occupied territories, and diaspora. The pretense to ethnic democracy required ethnic cleansing, as Ben-Gurion, Jabotinsky, and so many other early Zionists readily acknowledged, but which many of us willfully ignore today. Our very souls as human beings depend on us embracing the fact that every system of segregation paradoxically intertwines those it intends to keep apart. There always was, and there will always be, one state. The question is only in how it is constituted.
February 19, 2011
11:56 am
Is it time for a one state solution? Well considering how well Lebanon, Iraq, Yugoslavia, the Ottoman Empire, Sudan, East Timor, Kashmir, etc. ended up, history proves to us that a one state solution is a prelude to mutual genocide.
A two state solution is the only one that guarantees, despite the injustice inflicted by such a settlement on both sides, that the “solution” of peace will be a tenable one.
February 20, 2011
6:00 am
http://972mag.com/please-no-more-peace-plans/
Enough with the planning already.