Counterpunch, the online journal which recently coined the term “Neo-Jew” - arguably the most significant development in the etymology of Jew-hating since Wilhelm Marr popularized the term “anti-Semite” - is at it again.
This time, the debate is over which solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be more effective in wiping out Zionism. In the two-state corner, please find Michael Neumann, a Canadian who teaches philosophy. In the one-state corner, meet Jonathan Cook, a British writer based in Nazareth, Israel.
It seems odd that Neumann, who in the past has happily exhorted us to “have some fun with antisemitism”, should be advocating a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which would permit the loathed Zionist entity to continue breathing. He has not, of course, joined Peace Now. He just thinks that the one-state formula is an airheaded ideal which would actually end up rewarding the Zionists, “because it leaves ‘Jewish property’, including the settlements, in place.”
So what is Neumann’s theory of justice, as it applies to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? “It would require,” he says, “that the Jews who came as Zionists to Palestine leave, and with them their descendants.”
(By the way, he adds, that’s not ethnic cleansing. Glad he cleared that one up.)
Since this absolute justice can’t be achieved, Neumann continues, and since recent experiments with the multinational or multiconfessional state model have gone awry (think of Lebanon or the former Yugoslavia), the best option for the Palestinians is to consolidate their fight for a smaller state alongside Israel.
Neumann does recognize a critical factor which most western advocates of the one-state formula are in denial over; that one-state would amount to a bloodbath. Palestinians and Israelis would kill each other in large numbers - and one suspects, given Neumann’s overall emphasis on power relations, that he thinks the Israelis would have the edge on the killing - so anyone interested in justice for the Palestinians would have to acknowledge the blind alley ahead there.
Nothing in Neumann’s piece should suggest that he regards two states as a permanent solution. The foundation of his argument, essentially a realist one, is that material power counts for much more than moral principles and noble declarations: the Israelis will thus never be persuaded of the need for a one-state solution. It can only be imposed on them: as Neumann says, the “right of return” is an empty demand until the Palestinians become “powerful enough to enforce it.”
The arrival of that day is, no doubt, one of Neumann’s favorite fantasies, but that’s not good enough for Jonathan Cook. Neumann, he complains, has taken his eye off the doctrinal imperative of discrediting Zionism. Two-states, Cook argues, is just as impractical as one-state; just as the Israelis won’t surrender their sovereignty, neither will they surrender their occupation. Cook offers a number of reasons for why this is so, ranging from the unimaginative (they don’t want to give up the West Bank’s water resources) to the outlandish (they would, apparently, lose their “usefulness” to the US in terms of managing the occupation of Iraq).
So who wins, in this particular battle of anti-Zionist wits? I say Neumann, hands down. Cook is woefully short on detail. He ends by insisting that attacking Zionist ideology will, eventually, lead the “respectable facade” of Zionism to crumble. As I’ve argued elsewhere on this blog, it’s fundamentally dishonest to make this particular case and not deal with the contention that one-state could only come about through the imposition of enormous violence against Israelis.
Neumann, on the other hand, does, perversely, get it. That’s why he asks the difficult questions (”Will the settlers be kicked out of their settlements?…Will Zionists be expelled from the armed forces?”) which the commanders of Hamas and Hezbollah would be delighted to answer. If you support a one-state formula, you have to accept that it won’t be possible without coercion. And every Qassam rocket which slams into Sderot is deadly proof of that.
I don’t understand why Israel doesn’t kick this Jonathan Cook, Brit bigot, out of the country ! If it’s because they’re concerned about getting a bad press, they get that anyway. Have the name, have the game !
Your article points to and discusses an interesting article by Professor Michael Neumann, a professor of philosophy with whom I have had a lively email debate going back and forth over the course of many years.
Professor Neumann’s views are probably better expressed in this article than elsewhere - and they need to be considered because he, while being in the camp of Israel haters, largely demolishes the views of those who support Israel’s complete demise. Which is to say, his argument assumes the views of the Anti-Zionist part of the left and then shows them to be, if carried to their logical extreme, a folly that would bring terrible suffering to all involved.
The real flaw I see in his thinking - and it is the type of flaw one might expect to see in a person trained in philosophy rather than history - is his inability to distinguish the present from the past. On Professor Neumann’s view, true justice would send Israelis, whenever they were born, back to Europe (and to Arab country? - he does not say) for the sin of displacing Palestinian Arabs. Which is to say, the children of sinners carry the sins of their parents.
One has to ask him at what point the children of conquerors are forgiven for their parents or their grandparents or their grandparents sins? If never, how is it that he sees the Arab side - who surely came as conquerors - as living exemplars of complete justice?
That problem eludes him entirely.
I think he hides this problem by asserting that Zionism is inherently racial in nature. He fails to note that this supposedly evil Zionism has formed among the most diverse, multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies on earth - far more than Canada where he lives and more than in most European countries, for sure. So, his description of Zionist Israel is ideological, not descriptive.
And, further, he has no answer to the fact that Israel has offered real compromises. I know, from corresponding with him, that he is unwilling to accept that the December 2000 proposal by President Clinton, which Israel accepted and Arafat basically ignored, would, had it been accepted and implemented, created the very Palestinian Arab state he says Israel never offered. On this, he relies upon the same people upon whom Noam Chomsky relies upon and, to be blunt, they are both wrong.
Moreover, he fails to consider that Jewish migration to what became Israel was well within the universally accepted and basic human right to migrate to a place where refuge is available. And, he fails to recognize that the right to organize politically is also a basic human right. He sees only that Jews eventually triumphed and, in the process, Arabs lost with people being displaced (and, evidently, he only remembers those who were displaced on the Arab side).
On the other hand, he is certainly correct that the other examples available where more than one discreet group has asserted contradictory claims with respect to the same land under one flag have led to bloodbaths of a far worse scale than anything which has ensued the dispute between Arabs and Israeli.
I also think that Professor Neumann knows, full well, that the claims made by Hamas cannot be squared with anything pragmatic. Hence, even if one accepts his view of Zionism’s inherent incompatibility with any justice for Palestinian Arabs, you cannot ignore the position really taken by Hamas - which is incompatible with the rights of any non-Muslims. In this regard, I think Neumann hides that view and substitutes the inherent difficulties that have arisen in places like Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia. While those are reason enough to oppose a one state settlement, they make sense with respect to Israel if one understands that Palestinian Arabs typically hold views incompatible with any one state solution - otherwise not, at least on Professor Neumann’s way of thinking.
the reason that the israeli government cannot kick “Jonathan Cook, Brit bigot” out of the country is that he is married to an Israeli Arab/”Palestinian”. furthermore, Israel, unlike any Arab or Muslim country has a free press and freedom of speech which allows those who call for its destruction to do so with virtual impunity.