Today’s LA Times marks the sixtieth anniversary of Israel’s independence with a report extolling the virtues of the so-called “one-state solution.”
It’s no secret that advocates of the two-state solution are worried that the prospects for such an outcome are being eroded - as the LA Times piece makes abundantly clear, with quotes from, among others, Yasser Abed Rabbo and Condoleeza Rice.
However, to argue that there needs to be a renewed effort in underscoring the credibility of a two-state solution is one thing; to ditch it in favor of the “one-state” option is something else entirely.
Here is the nub of the problem with the LA Times piece. If this article was your first exposure to the “one-state” idea, you would come away thinking that it’s eminently reasonable. That rather than being the preserve of genocidaires and antisemites like the Iranian theocrats, Hamas and Hezbollah, the “one-state solution” truly belongs to visionary democrats.
In the abstract, there is, of course, nothing wrong with states pooling their sovereignty or even merging with each other. Indeed, a principle rather like this has driven Europe’s political development since the Second World War. Israel, moreover, offers a democratic beacon in a region blighted by tyranny, corruption and reactionary ideas. In the LA Times piece, Sari Nusseibeh suggests “that many Palestinians would feel more at home in a democracy shared with Israelis than in a Palestinian state run by Hamas.”
Nusseibeh qualifies this statement by insisting that such an arrangement would need “to come about by consent.” But it is nigh impossible to imagine any circumstances whereby such a proposal would secure the agreement of Israelis.
To begin with, it would mean abandoning the ideal of a Jewish state. Someone like Tony Judt would argue that there is no cost in abandoning an “anachronism”; I would respond that there is nothing anachronistic about Israel. if the European Union is the model for the one-staters, they would do well to remember that the member states of the EU are precisely that - member states. These states have not been asked to abandon their independence and their identity, nor have they been compelled to do so. Conversely, Israel is not being asked to join a regional community of states; it is being told to dissolve itself, and to do so in a neighborhood which exhorts the slogan “Kill the Jews!” with alarming frequency.
Moreover, those who would demand that Israel dissolve itself are hardly duplicating the notion of equal legitimacy which underlies the EU. To the contrary, they regard Israel as a colonial usurper, born in “original sin” - a citadel of “neo-Jews’, in the words of a recent inchoate rant published on the one-statist website, Counterpunch.
For such people, a single state is an opportunity for Israeli Jews to atone for the historic crime of forming their own state, rather than an instrument for them to live with their neighbours as equals.
What the LA Times piece inadvertantly demonstrates is that it is ideology, rather than concerns about viability, contiguity, resources, open border policies and so forth, which primarily drives the one-staters. Prominently featured in the article is Hazem Kawasmi, a former Palestinian Authority official who is now busily researching the implementation of the one-state formula, having abandoned two states.
Why did Kawasmi give up on the two-state solution? Because the Israeli peace activists he met with “…dismissed two cherished Palestinian aspirations. Like Olmert’s government, they wanted to avoid talk of giving Palestinian refugees and their families the right of return to homes in Israel that they fled in 1948 or of sharing Jerusalem as capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state…At that moment, Kawasmi said, he realized ‘there is zero chance’ for a two-state solution. He didn’t sleep well for months. Then he embraced the single-state option, which had been debated for several years among Palestinians living abroad, and set out to create a buzz for it in the territories.”
Given that the “right of return” is code for the elimination of Israel, it’s debatable whether Kawasmi actually supported the two-state solution in the first place. And what is fanciful is Kawasmi’s claim, made elsewhere in the piece, that by throwing their lot in with one-staters like him, the Jews of Israel will be spared the inevitable wrath of the Islamists. Sad to say, but imperative to repeat: Islamism, and its integral antisemitism, is not going to disappear overnight.
In addition, when Kawasmi talks about Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities living with equal rights, what does that mean, exactly? That Jews in Israel will cease to be a nation and become just a religion? That schools in the single state will teach the crimes of Zionism in the history curriculum? That the descendant of an Arab resident of Jaffa in 1948 takes priority over a Jew who is resident there now? None of this has been thought through - and yet Israelis, who listen to blood curdling rhetoric echoing around their region every day, are supposed to be comforted by a glib formula which views their national project as inherently illegitimate.
So let’s not seduced by the talk of a “one-state solution.” At best, it threatens a repeat of Iraq or Lebanon, at worst it is a prescription for genocide.
Israel was created to be a Jewish state and it should stay so!
So is Judaism a nationality or a religion.Your fellow contributer to this blog Terry Glavin seems to thinks so,indeed he approvingly quotes Steven Plaut who said….
“Judaism has never defined Jews on racial grounds. Anyone from any race is welcome as a convert to Judaism as long as he or she is sincere”…..
So again which is it..?
As for a one state solution,I am inclined to agree it would resolve many difficulties.
After all what could be more democratic than one man one vote.Jews,Muslims and Palestinians would have to learn to live with one another.No one group could dominate.Perhaps that’s why you are opposed to a one state solution.The Zionist dream of a jewish state would be over.After all how can a state be a jewish state if half the pop was Palestinian.NO indeed,it would not be a jewish state but it would be a democracy.
Long term demographic trends point to the inevitable end of an Israel predominantly made up of Jews.
Countries can not be decreed,particularly when said country is erected on the land that was already occupied.The indigenous population “might” take issue with that idea.
But in the end we can argue till we are both blue in the face.
Demographics trends will eventually see a Palestinian majority inside Israel proper( as “its borders” are presently defined.
This is the main concern of Zionist,this is why Israel has different rules for Arab Israelis as opposed to Jewish Israeli’s.
What could be more ironic,some would even call it “poetic justice”.
Dirk a one-state solution while nice, is not feasable. Both populations are vehemontly nationalistic and distrustful of each other. Also the idea that no individual group would dominate is infantile and incomaptable with the demographic trends you espouse.
Also most recent data shows the demographic trend in Israel ‘proper’ as you call it leave the status qou more or less unchanged.
Ariel said…”Dirk a one-state solution while nice, is not feasable. Both populations are vehemontly nationalistic and distrustful of each other. Also the idea that no individual group would dominate is infantile and incomaptable with the demographic trends you espouse”…
So are you saying Arabs and Jews can not live together ?
But do they not already,after all Arabs make up more than 1/5 of the population of Israel.
Between the West Bank ,Gaza and Israeli there are for the first time as many Arabs/Palestinians as Jews I believe 5 million respectively.
The Arab birth rate is by far,much higher than the Jewish birthrate.What happens to the idea of a “Jewish state” when 1/2 the pop is Arab(a very real possibility)?
Seems to me the two people will have no choice in the matter.At some point they will have to learn to live with one another.So again the best solution remains a single secular state.
Indeed the continued fragmentation of the West Bank by Jewish settlers,makes a viable Palestinian state less and less possible.
Israeli actions & inactions are not only strengthening the argument for a one state solution, they are creating the conditions so that a one state solution will be the only practical option left.
Demographics and therefore time are on the side of the Palestinians.
Dirk, you appear to be arguing, on the basis of demographic projections, that Israel and Palestine will inevitably merge into one state.
Do you really believe that this can occur without the imposition of mass violence against the Israeli Jewish population? Can you give an example of one nation in history which has achieved a state and then voluntarily surrendered sovereignty? And would you care to comment on the thoroughly depressing record of the Arab states when it comes to the treatment of minorities? Is Lebanon a model? Or Iraq? Because you might want to recall that Saddam Hussein only achieved “national unity” in Iraq by committing genocide against the Shi’a and Kurdish populations.
As to your question, are the Jews a nation or a religion?, again, I would ask you why you put it in either/or terms. Are the Armenians, for example, a nation or a religion? For that matter, what does it mean to be a Saudi, or a Jordanian?
I would argue that Jewish identity is based upon several foundations, of which the State of Israel is one. In a globalized world with unprecedented records of emigration, and which is therefore full of diasporas, identity is a complex thing. We should get away from the formula that to be a nation, the vast majority of a particular group have to be concentrated in a particular territory, speaking a particular language.
Finally, Arabs and Jews DO live together. The question is what political arrangements are necessary to maintain that fact. My position is that a secure State of Israel is an integral component of these arrangements. And given that Israel is the closest thing to a secular, democratic state in the region - or would you dispute that an Arab in Nazareth has far more rights than an Arab in Damascus? - it is much better equipped than any of its neighbors to guarantee minority rights. There are 100 million Muslims living in India; if they can live there without having to flee to Pakistan, why should the Arabs of Israel be regarded any differently?
Demographic trends will change when Arab women get the education and work opportunities that western and israeli women have. arab christians might also be at risk with a one state solution, since the rise of islamic extremism in the region threatens jews and christians alike.
i’m naive enough to think that education, economic development and a two state solution will lead to long term peace and prosperity.
Ah, Ben, how refreshing- a voice of reason, of logic, of calm, of truth. Would that we had more Arab voices concurring. Of course, Israel must and will remain a Jewish State AND a Democratic one.
Thank you.
If one looks at the teachings of Islam, it advocates that anyone who is not a Moslem is of inferior status and in extreme cases it is being preached in mosques that they should be killed. This includes Christians as well as Jews. How could a one-state solution work especially if Moslems are in the majority? They are not big on human rights, rights of women and a look at history or even what Jews experienced in Israel under Moslem rule is enough to convince me that this would be suicide for the Jews. Of course this is the desired goal of many. Too bad Israelis refuse to go down without a fight.
Dirk:
Currently, it’s one man, one vote, within Israel’s boundaries, for all of its citizens, regardless of confessional. And while Israel’s “Arab” citizens may have every reason to feel like they are treated as second class citizens, they also know they live better lives than any of their Arab brethren living under the PA, Lebanon, Egypt or Syria. Where Israel and the territories merged into a single state, the result would be introducing the same thuggery that exists in the West Bank and Gaza to Israel, where the only votes that count are those of the loyal backers of Fatah and Hamas, whichever emerges as the top dog, and the rest of the population, Jewish, Christian or Muslim, live under the same conditions the average Iraqi did under Saddam… …afraid to utter an opinion less they end up in a mass grave somewhere.