I am surprised and disappointed to see that Bob from Brockley - a normally sensible left-wing blogger - appears to have embraced the one state solution. The reasons he offers are the following:
Many of my friends on the anti-anti-Zionist left think that the one state solution is essentially equivalent to the genocidal destruction of the Jewish nation. They argue that the Arabs (who have demography on their side, and formidable military allies in the form of the Saudis, Iran and so on) have proven themselves unable to share space with Jews. I reject this fatalistic view, and having recently been in Northern Ireland am more confident than ever that we can forge our own futures if we unshackle our imaginations. It feels to me that the idea of the two state solution [I think this must be a typo and that he means “one state solution”. Otherwise the rest of the text makes no sense] is steadily gaining ground, not just among the hardcore advocates of a “free Palestine”, but among younger Jews in both Israel and the diaspora. This slow awakening comes with a growing sense that another Zionism is possible, and a recovery of the memory of pre-1948 Zionism, the Zionism of Ahad Ha’am, Martin Buber, Gershom Scholem, Joseph Trumpledor, AD Gordon and Judah Magnes, which called for a “national home” for the Jews and not necessarily a nation-state. By the way, I have at various other times in my life called for a one state solution also for South Africa, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Ireland and Cyprus.
1. Bob rejects the frequently stated and restated opinion of the bulk of the Arab and Muslim world that the existence of a Jewish state is unacceptable and that (in the best case) Jews are more or less welcome to stay as long as they are willing to be subjects of the existing Arab and Islamic states. Why? Does he think the leaders of those worlds are stupid and deceitful? Does he think they are unable to express what they think with clarity? And, Bob, what of existing national and religious minorities in Muslim and Arab and countries? How exactly are they getting along?
2. Bob falls for the Northern Ireland analogy, a delusion we have constantly exposed here. Regardless of the smoke and mirrors about reconciliation what the resolution of the NI conflict has to teach us is that one side, the Catholic nationalists, were defeated by the other side, the British state and its Northern Irish Protestant allies, and they have now meekly accepted their place within the United Kingdom and a modest role in administering their small part of it. Their defeat was brought about by the use of targeted killings and mistreatment of prisoners amounting to torture, among other techniques. That was what was necessary to produce the rosy reality Bob perceives today. Furthermore, the losers in this conflict have accepted the current constitutional status of Northern Ireland as legitimate and only susceptible to change by a majority vote of its residents. Imagine Ismail Haniye glad handing Avigdor Lieberman, standing respectfully when “Hatikvah” is played and working as a Vice Minister of Transport in a new Greater Israel and you have an idea of how a real Northern Ireland type solution would look like in the Israel-Palestine context.
3. Bob says the idea is gaining ground among young some Jews. The sort of Jew who likes it is ashamed of having national rights and thinks, among other things, that antisemitism is caused by the behavior of Jews.
4. Bob wonders why there can’t be a national home for Jews without their having a nation state. Why not indeed? But why should they be first to try such a risky experiment? Why not suggest instead that Palestinians could find a national home for themselves inside a state that would be defined as neither Jewish nor Palestinian? Why does he think the Jews and Palestinians should give up a right that more and more peoples are seeking for themselves? Perhaps he also thinks it would also be best if the Kurds and Catalans packed in their struggle for statehood too.
5. Finally Bob says:
By the way, I have at various other times in my life called for a one state solution also for South Africa, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Ireland and Cyprus.
South Africa has been one state since the end of the Second Anglo-Boer War (1902) so I don’t get how one can advocate that it become one.
Yugoslavia and Bosnia: yes, shoving together a whole bunch of people who hate each others guts worked out just great when the old tyrant on whom the whole thing depended kicked the bucket, didn’t it?
Cyprus: that’s another great advertisement for the success of bi-national states, no doubt about it. The Turks and Cypriots tore into each other at every opportunity and the Greek pretension to enosis finally gave the Republic of Turkey an excuse to invade, ethnically cleanse a third of the island of its Greek population and to illegally occupy and settle what is now a member state of the EU ever since.
Parts of his ideas are mentioned here by Chomsky.
http://vimeo.com/14835834
Bad idea, Bob. Been there, done that.
Jews were a subjugated minority in the Arab world. They only enjoyed full rights under colonial rule. All Arab countries except Lebanon derive their constitutions from Islamic Sharia law, where Jews have fewer rights than Muslims.
Jews have not escaped the tyranny, violence and arbitrary nature of life under Muslim Arab rule to have it foisted on us in Israel.
Why does Bob from Brockley go so far. Charity begins at home. In this case in Europe. So he should try to convince Serbians, Albanians, Croats, Slowenes, Bosnians to live again in the same state they lived peacefully for more than 40 years and create one state.
This I recommend to all onestaters. I am sure they would be surprised by the reaction of those concerned.
Karl
what a brillant idea!
I second the motion
oh and I forgot to mention that in a totally unrelated Today-Program-Podcast I heard a big-wig say that trouble is on the increase in Ireland again …
But what doesn’t solve all problems in one place recommends itself by exactly that lack of perfection for implementation in another one.
Thank you Eamonn, for devoting the time to this - and for pointing out my typo! The post was partly intended as a provocation, although Noga will tell you I have previously advocated a one state position in comment threads.
To take your points, though, one by one.
1. Yes, many, perhaps the majority, in the Arab and Muslim world find the existence of a Jewish state unacceptable, and within that category many would not even tolerate Jewish presence without a state. But what is the case now is not a historical necessity and inevitability. The point I was trying to make was that consciousness changes. Your argument only invalidates the idea of Arabs and Jews sharing a state only if we believe that Arabs and/or Muslims are somehow congenitally antisemitic and could never live with Jews. A casual observer in, say, England in 1190 would have found it hard to believe that Jews and Christians might happily live together, but people change. Are Arabs and/or Muslims unique in their hatred?
2. I do not want to make an analogy with Northern Ireland. As I just commented at my place, one thing that prompted this post was my recent very brief visit to Belfast, only my second visit to Northern Ireland, so I can’t claim to have come away with any deep understanding of the Troubles. But I was struck by the number of people, from both communities, who spontaneously told me how much things had changed for the better, and how hard it would have been just a short while ago to believe it could be so. One man, a working class Republican in his sixties, said “Don’t get me wrong, I still want to see a united Ireland, and I think it will come, if not in my lifetime. But I’d never give this up to go back to the struggle.”
The situation in Is-Pal is in no way analogous to the situation on the emerald isle. But what is the same is the humanity common to Protestants, Catholics, Arabs and Jews. And part of that is the capacity to change. I don’t think the Troubles are behind us for good yet, but I do think that the change Northern Ireland has seen should inspire us.
3. I don’t think that the only Jews embracing one state are the ASHamed Gurvitzes, although to be sure there are plenty of them. I was thinking of the sort of people around Jewdas, who to be sure have confused and contradictory politics but are far from ashamed.
4. You are right, of course, that there is no reason that Jews should be the first to give up their statehood. But in fact precisely what I am calling for is that Palestinians could find a national home for themselves inside a state that would be defined as neither Jewish nor Palestinian. I think the whole idea of nation-states has been proven by the terrible last century or so to have been a really bad idea. Yes, the Catalans should pack in their struggle for statehood and so should all the other infra-national groups. What rights, really, do Catalans lack in Spain, and particularly in a Spain that is part of a bigger European Union? And some anarchists claim that Kurdish nationhood without statehood is in fact becoming a reality, as in this article I linked to in the summer: http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/a-kurdish-village-governed-by-none/ (not that I necessarily endorse the politics of the PKK!!)
5. My examples were intended to pre-empt the previous criticism: to show that lots of people advocate something like a one state solution in all sorts of places, and not just for Is-Pal. In Yugoslavia, “self-determination” of any of the nations has come at the price of massive ethnic cleansing and displacement. Most of the Yugoslav people I know bitterly regret that a united federal Yugoslavia was killed off by the nationalist movements. On Cyprus, I don’t think the current two state solution can be blamed on the one state solution that came before, but rather should be blamed on the aggression of the nationalists on one side. The two state solution was followed by ethnic cleansing and massive displacement, and then of course the effort in the North to change the facts on the ground through importing settlers. Another example of the inequity of a two state solution would be the Partition of India, the catastrophic results of which are stilling being played out. With South Africa I was thinking of the Bantustans, which were intended as the basis for black nation-states in a particularly unjust version of the two state solution.
Any nation state has a non-national minority, unless that minority is killed off or kicked out. Any nation state is a Nakba for its minority.
P.S. My point in the post about one state might also make more sense if read alongside my points about national sovereignty and no borders, which are different versions of the same point, as well as my points about BDS and the Israel Lobby. Or maybe not.
“I am surprised and disappointed to see that Bob from Brockley - a normally sensible left-wing blogger - appears to have embraced the one state solution. ”
As far I remember, Bob has always been THEORETICALLY in favour of the one state solution. He always, however, differentiated between what he conceded to be a desirable utopian idea (well more or less, I can’t reproduce his exact formulation) and what reality dictates.
What disappoints me is that he still believe that, theoretically, it is a good and not so outlandish an idea.
A hesitation, however, can be discerned when he feebly tries to boost this theory by stating: “… steadily gaining ground, not just among the hardcore advocates of a “free Palestine”, but among younger Jews in both Israel and the diaspora.”
I say “hesitation” because he seems to rely on “younger Jews in both Israel and the diaspora.”. Where is the real equivalent to this movement of: “younger Arabs in in both Palestine and the diaspora.”?
He can’t bring himself to offer such an equivalence. He can only speak of “the hardcore advocates of a “free Palestine”. Who are those? The most militant voices on academia, the ones who go out to rallies carrying signs like: “We are all Hizzbala” and wave flags in which the star of David is replaced buy a swastika.
How Bob can continue to believe, even theoretically, that a one state is feasible defeats my understanding. A theory, no matter how beautiful and heart warming, has to rely on some empirically-sound parameters. If it doesn’t meet at least a few conditions of acceptable reality, it should be discarded.
Bob, how did you know I was going to say that? I posted my comment before I read yours here.
Norm adds:
The one-state solution… Bob gives it the thumbs-up. But, to my mind, he does so on the basis of a misplaced premise; which is (as I read him between the lines) that the idea could come to be accepted voluntarily by Israelis and Palestinians and thereby become consensual. If so, then well and good. But the two-state solution rests on the assumption that this consensus does not obtain, or obtain yet. While it doesn’t, a one-state solution can only be coercive and therefore violate the right to self-determination of one or both peoples. We need influential ideas for different possible states of affairs and not only for ones that look out of reach at the moment.
http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2010/12/on-three-influences.html
It is certainly true that imposing a one state solution would be coercive, and I am not advocating the imposition of any solution. Would any solution, at this point in time, be not coercive? Would any solution be really congruent with “national self-determination” for both the “nations” involved? A two-state solution would be seen as violating national self-determination by the large national-religious community in Israel - under a one-state solution there would be no need to dismantle any settlements. (Hence support from some on the settler right http://www.promisedlandblog.com/?p=3173 as well as Likudniks like Moshe Arens and Reuven Rivlin.)
I offer my support for a one state solution as a (admittedly inconsequential) encouragement to think differently and find ways of forging a non-coercive solution.
Norm’s point about needing “influential ideas for different possible states of affairs” is a very valid one. I think it would be a healthier world if more different possibilities were circulating in the world of ideas.
On my feeble point about the idea gaining ground: the context of this was the notion of good and bad influences on the left, and the possibility that the one state solution might be an emerging good influence, shifting the consensus.
The lack of any equivalent among young Palestinians is a very good point. (Although polling suggests that a fifth to a third of Palestinian Arabs support a bi-national state, compared to a tenth who support a Palestinian state in the whole of historic Palestine.) However, I think that the only way that constituency will emerge is by allowing ideas like binationalism circulate more widely, and by treating Arabs as fellow human beings and not as monsters.
“A casual observer in, say, England in 1190 would have found it hard to believe that Jews and Christians might happily live together, but people change.”
Yes they changed. The Brits, especially the media stopped hating Jews living in England (for now) and started hating Jews living in Israel.
Bob why not start in Europe in former Yugoslavia with the onestate agitation? They at least lived together for more than 40 years in peace and most of them speak the same language, even if their religion is not the same.
Karl
why not? because once his model will have been reality tested and will have failed (no Tito in sight) they will have a harder time selling it to anybody else. You can create a wide and enthusiastic crowd of followers only for delusional untested schemes.
Facts are very cumbersome obstacles to the establishers of utopias.
ooops I forgot
not only no Tito in sight, but also no Stalin threatening to take over on the outside which can’t have been exactly unhelpful when Tito grabbed the reins of power.
Silke thanks for the answer to my very rhetorical question.
Bob from Brockley seems to move in circles where he meets young Jews and Israelis who are in favour or are moving towards a so-called One State solution, ie the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state.
All this demonstrates to me is that he knows a lot of Labour Party people and maybe amongst those meets those of the Independent Jewish Voices/Jews For Justice for Palestinians/AsAJews types..Likewise, he must be meeting a bunch of Israelis who represent less than 5% of the Jewish Israeli electorate.
He certainly can’t be meeting mainstream Jews, especially any who have any relationship with the United Synagogue or mainstream orthodox synagogues, or young Jews who’ve been to Jewish schools or been in JSocs at Universities. None of these groups of people are remotely interested in a “one state solution”.
In terms of Jewish and Israeli contacts, he should get out more.
“However, I think that the only way that constituency will emerge is by allowing ideas like binationalism circulate more widely, and by treating Arabs as fellow human beings and not as monsters.”
I’m bemused by Bob’s juxtaposition between rejection of binationalism and “treating Arabs as fellow human beings and not as monsters.”
Furthermore, I would put it to him that it is by far a more common and dominant tendency for Arabs to revile Israeli Jews as monsters. And when the vast majority of 400 million Arabs regard 6 million Zionists as monsters, it seems a bit sanctimonious to accuse the much smaller party of the demonisation of hundreds of millions of their haters, who have 1.4 billion Muslims supporting them, to say nothing about the oil and the UN.
It is a case where presenting the Arabs as the oppressed party, and extolling their virtue as such, is a truth so overstretched it snaps.
Let’s now suppose Bob gets his wish and Israel gets overrun with millions of Palestinian “refugees” getting “repatriated” into Israel proper. What does it mean? Israel is no longer a Western style democracy, nor is it Jewish, culturally, legally, or whatever. Jews become a minority in Israel as the Arabs get to control the means of political, economic, social and ethical production. Those Jews who can avail themselves of Western citizenship, whether American or European, will soon leave the country. If one has to be a minority, it is much better to be a minority in democratic societies. Who would those Jews most likely be? Those will be for the most part Ashkenazi Israelis. The Mizrahi Jews, always and still the weaker members of Israel’s society will then regain the pleasures of being a minority in an basically hostile and totalitarian Arab country, the kind of pleasure their parents and grandparents had fled from in fear for their life less than a few decades earlier. Thus the revolution will have been complete. It’s like a battered wife, always dependent on the good graces of a moody and irrational bully, managing to free herself from her abusive husband, and creating a reasonably happy life for herself, having to give up that independence and dignity by being forced to share a home with the bully. That “sharing” does not sound too plausible to me. Nor does it seem congruent with any notion of social justice that I can think of.
Karl
one must nip the crazies out there in the bud
I hope I didn’t spoil the fun for you by barging in
til another time - great to read you’re well and kicking ;-)
Yugoslavia, I think, works both ways as an example. Now that it has the equivalent of a two state solution in place, it would be hard to reverse that. But was the “two state” solution (in Yugoslavia’s case a is it a seven state solution?) the right solution in the 1991-1995 period? The one-state-for-each-”nation” solution only came about through the slaughter and displacement of a large percentage of the population. Is that a good thing, a path to be copied elsewhere? Surely not.
(In Yugoslavia, the Republika Srpska still has an ambiguous status. I guess it is Yugoslavia’s Hamastan. I wonder if ZWord readers support all its national self-determination?)
One state for each nation can only exist, as Israel Zangwill and Vladimir Jabotkinsky knew, if each nation dispossesses the other lot. A binational or federal state of some sort seems to me the only alternative to on-going ethnic cleansing in both directions.
Eloquent prose and carefully researched points aside, none of Mr. Bob’s material is ground-breakingly correct or stunningly incorrect. It’s simply the latest, if much less acidic and apocalyptic, statement in support of a premise the author believes can be implemented without genocidal violence. The problem is that it can’t.
Bob, could you name a state whose foundation and/or ongoing existence didn’t/doesn’t involve the supression of the national rights of some or other people? I’m sure there must be states like that somewhere but I’m damned if I can think of one.
Second, I’m sure many commenters here and over at your own blog don’t give a monkey’s about states *as such*, they think they they’re just the hnadiest way of obtaining a load of rather important goods like physical security, preservation of a language/culture etc. etc.
The thing that tickles me about all this is that I don’t see why the Jews should be the first ones to be asked to give up their own train set. Aren’t there other candidates - living in safer contexts and with less awful histories - that we could ask to have a go first?
So, down with nation states! Lets examine other ways of organizing ourselves. I have no problem with that and find quite an attractive idea in many respects. However, I’d say that Israel oought to be put, I don’t know, let’s say 150th on the list of countries to be be “denationastated” When we have rock solid proof of concept and when the idea is well bedded in and shown not to lead to worse problems than the ones we already have I think we could then ask the Israelis to have a go to
I found this article relevant to the discussion here. To Bob “human rights” is the ground on which his notion is based.
http://nationalinterest.org/bookreview/what-rawls-hath-wrought-4570
“What Rawls Hath Wrought” by John Gray
Samuel Moyn, “The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History”
“PEOPLE THINK of history in the long term, but history, in fact, is a very sudden thing.” This observation from one of Philip Roth’s novels applies with particular force to the contemporary cult of human rights. Most people today believe that the prominence of rights is the almost-inevitable conclusion of a long process of moral development. Originating in Greco-Roman philosophy and Judeo-Christian religion, so the story goes, the idea of human rights expressed a cosmopolitan vision of universal humanity, which went on to find expression in modern times in the English Civil War, the French and American Revolutions, various antislavery movements, the Second World War, and the struggles against colonialism and racism. The history of the West is a continuous unfolding of this majestic idea, and if contemporary Western societies are superior to others, past and present, it is because of their respect for personal liberties.”
For reasons partly stated in the article a one State solution is no solution but the beginning of different kinds of problems.
Bob, where does a one State begin and end? I am certain you thought about it. So, Bob, does it take in the West Bank, Gaza, and the Jewish State only or does it include also Jordan (with a Palestinian Arab majority, and what of the claims of Syria to “South Syria?”
If nationalism is partly the problem how do you solve it by introducing a super Palestinian State which might challenge Jordan and Syria? Do you really believe that they will create a kind of European super State with one currency and market?
So many one staters, beginning with Chomsky, seem to me to be like children acting out what they think are benevolent instincts rather than taking historical reality into consideration as well as what is actually possible today.
Bob so why not recruit your onestater friends and start a big campaign to unite Yougoslavia again? I am sure, if you succeed a lot of Arabs and Jews can be convinced that this could be done also in the Holy Land. But if you fail in a country with a common language, then you made your experiment not on Jews.
By the way when I was a young member of Hashomer Hazair in 1945 I believed binational State is possible.
Well it was not.
And your comparison of the Serb republic with Hamas is really showing you - I am sorry to say - as an ignoramus. The leaders of the Serb Republic do not declare that they want destroy Bosnia. They do not fire rockets on Bosnian territory.
But to unite Yougoslavia again would be for an European socialist a nice possibility to show that “proletarian internationalism” is worth while to fight for.
And if you go with your friends to former Yougoslavia please do not forget to inform us, how well you were received by those concerned.
Re Eamonn, “could you name a state whose foundation and/or ongoing existence didn’t/doesn’t involve the supression of the national rights of some or other people?” Yes, that is part of my point. There is nothing unique about Israel. The whole idea of the nation-state is problematic. The citizenship policy in Germany, giving rights to “ethnic Germans” born abroad but denying them to the children of Turkish nationals born in Germany (even children of those born in Germany) was an outrage, and Germany was right to finally reform its laws a little a decade or so ago - that is the correct direction of travel, and the direction of travel I would want Israel to take, and not the other way around. The idea of a Jewish homeland and a Law of Return do not require the idea of a Jewish state for the Jews and only the Jews. The premise of a two-state solution is that only the Jews have the right to live in Israel, and that Jews do not have the right to live in Palestine. That is to me clearly wrong. I am not a legislator or negotiator (thankfully) so it is not my job to propose technocratic solutions; I’m just a blogger. So, no I don’t have a concrete proposal for the solution of the problem of achieving both justice for Palestinians and security for Jews and peace for both. I simply think it is a good thing that the one state solution is back on the table and being seriously considered, and that the straitjacket of two-nations-two-states is not the only way people are thinking now. Just to remind people, the context of my post was “good and bad influences on the left”, and not “Bob’s solutions to the Middle East problem”.
Why do I start with Israel? Because I’m Jewish, and like nearly all Jews, Israel is close to my heart and what happens there affects me more than what happens in Kurdistan or Cyprus, despite my internationalist values. I am not saying that Israel and only Israel should deconstruct its nation-state and the world would be cured. It’s just that I think about Israel more than I think about the other troublespots of the world.
On the other hand, I think it is problematic that the left in general spends so much of its time deconstructing Israel and ignores the other countries. I am slightly saddened that all of the comments on my own blog have focused on the one state point, and ignore the other 14 points I made in the same post.
Maybe I’ll give some thought to which state I’d actually start with given the opportunity…
Again BobFromBrockley assumes that a one State solution will only affect Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs.
It will not. No Palestinian leader can guarantee that Jordanians of Palestinian origin will not join Jordan to Palestine.
A one State will change the dynamic of power relations in the Mid-East and will bring more and not less conflict to the area.
Moreover, what does it mean to have a homeland but not a State?
If Bob is serious that he is acting as “a Jew” then he must recognize that a one State will diminish the freedom action of Israeli Jews in that they will not be able to guarantee their own safety much less to be able to bring Jews from the galut who wish to live in the Jewish homeland.
Finally, how will Bob as a Jew deal with Jews in Israel (the overwhelming majority) who will not accept minority status in a Jewish State.
Correction: the last paragraph should have read:
Finally, how will Bob as a Jew deal with Jews in Israel (the overwhelming majority) who will not accept minority status in a Jewish homeland.
I believe that the decision, to live in one state or not must be left to the Israeli citizens, who pay taxes and defend their country.
Bob seems to care too much of what some left-wingers in the U.K. think about Israel. If he would really care so much about changing things in Israel he would relocate there.
Israel is not a perfect country, and it is criticised by its own citizens and own media. It should be treated like any other country.
Bob says: “Your argument only invalidates the idea of Arabs and Jews sharing a state only if we believe that Arabs and/or Muslims are somehow congenitally anti-Semitic and could never live with Jews. ”
No we do not believe this, however I recommend you reading my interview with Esther Webman published not long time ago. Then you can see anti-Semitism is part and parcel of Arab mainstream culture. I can not see for the next 2-3 generations a change. And the sad thing is that most of this anti-Semitism comes from the left, from trade unions in Egypt which expel members who visit Israel.
And let’s remember one thing. Jews are threatened in several European countries. In the Netherlands a conservative well wishing politicians advised religious Jews to leave the country and in Sweden’s Malmo it is not advisable to go out with a kippa. So there is a need for a Jewish country. And I believe if things go on like they do in your country (U.K.) where anti-Semitism on campuses is growing, the first worry should be not one state and what some trots sect members be they Jewish or not think about Israel but the fight against anti-Semitism.
Muslim Arabs are not congenitally antisemitic, just congenitally supremacist. Noga’s analogy is very apt of the battered wife agreeing to the bully. Trouble is, the battered wife sacrificed so much to gain her freedom, and all you want to do is put her back in chains, just because the bully says it is his right to dominate her. What kind of justice is that?
Bob is concerned about justice for Palestinians. What about justice for Jews?
All this self-indulgent preaching for a one state solution seems incredible considering that Israel has been a Jewish democratic state for over 60 years. The time to debate about aborting the baby was over the day Ben Gurion announced its birth. It should be crystal clear that when people talk about aborting the baby when he is 63 years old, they are no longer talking about abortion, but are contemplating murder.
“The premise of a two-state solution is that only the Jews have the right to live in Israel, and that Jews do not have the right to live in Palestine.”
No Bob, it isn’t. About 20% of Israel’s population is not Jewish and though it has many problems it’s at least equal before the law in formal terms. I’m sure more could and should be done to improve their situation. That doesn’t mean that they have the right to dismantle the existing state.
Many countries bugger along with more or less content/well treated/badly treated national minorities. Why shouldn’t Israel?
As regards the future Palestine it’s perfectly obvious that the only Jews who are going to be allowed to live there are of the professionally good type. No one seems too bothered by this.
Bob: “The premise of a two-state solution is that only the Jews have the right to live in Israel, and that Jews do not have the right to live in Palestine.”
Eamonn McDonagh “No Bob, it isn’t. About 20% of Israel’s population is not Jewish and though it has many problems it’s at least equal before the law in formal terms.”
Eamon nailed it. Much of Bob’s argumentation is based on assumption drawn from false data and non-supportable conjecture which contradict his basic premise that “the State is the problem. That being the case, why is a “single State” preferable to two States or more?
This applies not just to Israel: a single State would make its government that much more powerful and able to oppress its citizens not to mention to confront other “single States.”
I also find problematic that he is focused on the Jewish State first because “as a Jew” it is closer to his heart. This for a number of reasons; if as “a Jew” he focused on Israel, shouldn’t he expect that his British, French, Serbian, German, colleagues be focused on their respective States first and not demand that the Jewish State should be the first to abolish itself?
Why would European non-Jews given the long history of Jew hatred on that continent be so anxious to abolish the one sliver of land which was allotted to be a Jewish State and this at a time when the extreme right wing is growing in Europe?
It’s hard to imagine how the world will change with regards to Jews once their Jewish State is no more and they again become a stateless people.
When the totalitarian Soviet Union collapsed it changed more than just Eastern Europe. It affected the relation between capitalists and their workers everywhere. Gone were the fears of workers uprisings.
Similarly, the collapse of the Jewish State will have unforeseen consequences for Jews all over the world.
Rather than take away a reason for antisemitism in Europe (as many anti-Israel activists argue) it will have the opposite consequence (Do antisemites need a rational reason to hate Jews?)
I hope Bob will address some of these issues brought up here.
A couple of points from another “sensible left-wing blogger.” First, Bob states,
But was the “two state” solution (in Yugoslavia’s case a is it a seven state solution?) the right solution in the 1991-1995 period? The one-state-for-each-”nation” solution only came about through the slaughter and displacement of a large percentage of the population. Is that a good thing, a path to be copied elsewhere? Surely not.
This is a confused post hoc argument. The “one-state-for-each-’nation’ solution” did not cause the slaughter and displacement; it was the consequence of the already existent drive to slaughter and displace. To miss that is to miss everything.
Second, Bob states,
Why do I start with Israel? Because I’m Jewish, and like nearly all Jews, Israel is close to my heart and what happens there affects me more than what happens in Kurdistan or Cyprus, despite my internationalist values. I am not saying that Israel and only Israel should deconstruct its nation-state and the world would be cured. It’s just that I think about Israel more than I think about the other troublespots of the world.
jdyer has already offered one good response to this sentiment - for that is what it is, a sentiment, and not an idea - and that is that it should presumably hold true for all other nationalities and ethnicities, but we know that it does not, and why it does is just one of the many reasons that the one-state “solution” is an absurdity.
More fundamentally, such a personal sentiment is not any basis on which to consider and discuss international policy and the fate of nations. It cannot be taken as serious intellectual engagement with the complex historical and cultural forces that drive events. When Bob says,
I am not a legislator or negotiator (thankfully) so it is not my job to propose technocratic solutions; I’m just a blogger. So, no I don’t have a concrete proposal for the solution of the problem of achieving both justice for Palestinians and security for Jews and peace for both
this is to illustrate my point. What does it mean to endorse resolutions to problems for which one does not have “technocratic solutions” or “concrete proposals,” or even reality-based arguments - nothing greater than a vague faith in the long term ascendancy of a better human nature? Nothing serious.
Apologies for temporarily diverting this valuable debate with a protocol reminder. The comments on this blog are moderated - which means that abusive, expletive-laden comments like the one I just deleted (you know who you are) will be trashed. If you make your point like a grown-up, we’ll gladly approve it. If not, then don’t waste your energy.
Bob has engaged his critics here with honesty and integrity - ad hominem, vulgar attacks against him will not be tolerated.
Apologies, but I haven’t had time to read all the comments, so this is only a reply to some.
I don’t think you’ve really paid any attention to my last comment, where I tried to explain that I am not proposing to “solve” the Middle East question or anything like that. ALL I AM SAYING is that I think that it is very healthy that the one state solution is being seriously considered, and that this is a positive influence. That was the context of my original post, nothing more.
So, I don’t have a proposal to deal with the Jews of Israel who won’t accept minority status in a Jewish homeland – but then I don’t see how jdyer or advocates of a two state solution propose to deal with Arabs of Palestine who won’t accept minority status in a Palestinian homeland.
I assume that a one state solution will only affect Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs.
Of course I don’t, and I don’t see how you could read that in what I’m saying. But I don’t think it is a given that it would bring more rather than less conflict.
I am acting as a Jew
I am not writing here “as a Jew”, and find it distasteful when people do. My comment on my Jewishness was only in response to the question “why start with Israel”.
One state is incompatible with Jewish safety
Not if the right of return for Jews to their homeland is preserved.
The decision, to live in one state or not must be left to the Israeli citizens, who pay taxes and defend their country
Of course, and I have no desire to legislate any solution into being without the consent of those involved, but I would add that (a) Palestinian Arabs have a pretty big stake in the decision too, and (b) if it really is the Jewish homeland and not just the Israeli state at stake then diaspora Jews have every right to have an opinion.
I should move to Israel if I care so much about changing things there.
I said I am affected more by what happens in Israel than in other trouble spots of the world; I did not say that I care more about what happens in Israel than anything else, such as the land I was born in, which is the primary focus of my political energies.
Antisemitism is part and parcel of Arab mainstream culture and this will not change for 2-3 generations.
Yes, I accept this completely. But I don’t think the way to change it over the generations is by assuming that it will never change.
Jews are threatened elsewhere.
Sure, but I don’t think there is an existential threat to Jewish existence in the Netherlands or that it is close to genocide. And I don’t think that Israel is the safest place for Jews to live right now.
I don’t care about justice for the Jews
Israeli Jews have self-determination (justice) but not security, while the Palestinians have, well, not much. The challenge surely is how to maintain justice for the Jews while also giving them security and the Palestinians justice.
Bob, your responses are less than thorough and they are hard to take seriously.
Did you think this through?
Question: “Antisemitism is part and parcel of Arab mainstream culture and this will not change for 2-3 generations.”
Bob: “Yes, I accept this completely. But I don’t think the way to change it over the generations is by assuming that it will never change.”
Bob a seventy years ago or so, antisemitism was part of German culture. Today it isn’t, at least not openly so. In the interim Germany murdered millions of Jews, and suffered a catastrophic defeat. Do you really think that Arab culture is more sophisticated than German culture? That it will become more democratic and less antisemitic without some impetus from without? Will millions of Jews have to die in order to achieve some tolerance towards Jews in the Arab world?
I could also point to Russia were a traditional culture of antisemitism alive for centuries was not able to be extinguished by a communist revolution. What changed there is the emigration of millions of Jews.
Your answers are off the cuff and are not supported by historical evidence. Do you really believe what you are saying?
And finally your response to me:
“So, I don’t have a proposal to deal with the Jews of Israel who won’t accept minority status in a Jewish homeland – but then I don’t see how jdyer or advocates of a two state solution propose to deal with Arabs of Palestine who won’t accept minority status in a Palestinian homeland.”
Your use of the word “homeland” is imprecise. Could you clarify what you mean by “homeland?” How is it different from country? Is it a precise geographical area? Does it have borders? Are they recognized internationally? How is such an entity administered?
In any case, No one is asking Palestinian Arabs to accept minority status in a “Palestinian homeland.” This is why the two State solution is the only fair and realistic proposal out there. Those Arabs or Jews who do not wish to live as minorities in countries designated as Palestinian or Jewish can do so. Those who do not, they will be able to move to the other country.
As a Jew I would like to see Israel be a majority Jewish State offering full and equal rights to non-Jews as stated in the declaration of independence. Furthermore as a Jew I am willing to work towards that end.
I would also like to see the Palestinian State also be democratic and accord non-Muslims equal rights, but that is not my primary concern and I don’t intend to meddle in their internal affairs as long as the Jewish State is not threatened.
I would above all like to see Bob as he addresses issues offer some support for his proposals, be they historical, political, legal, or even in terms of logic.
Finally, and for the last time, Bob, I ask you why you are you skirting the main question I put to you: if the State (or government) is the problem, (Bob sounds like a member of the “Tea Party) why is one State better than two States?
You still haven’t answered that question.
I’m not a great fan of the one state idea, but I also find most expressions of a two state solution depressingly unimaginative. There seems to be a lot of boilerplate argument being deployed here, no doubt inevitable when a topic has been over-argued for so long, but unfortunate as it misses the opportunity for a more creative discussion. For the more wound up, I would recommend re-reading Bob’s phrase “I have no desire to legislate any solution into being without the consent of those involved.”
jdyer, you write “I would also like to see the Palestinian State also be democratic and accord non-Muslims equal rights, but that is not my primary concern and I don’t intend to meddle in their internal affairs as long as the Jewish State is not threatened.”
I would submit that developing democracy and civil rights not just in a Palestinian state but in the region as a whole should be a strategic priority to ensure Israel’s security.
And on your earlier argument about Arab culture not changing without some impetus from without, not even North Korea is wholly isolated from external cultural influence. The only constant is change.
How about it, then, we wait until democracy and civil rights are the dominant ethos in the Middle East before we talk about one state solutions and what not. If democracy and civil rights existed in any reasonable level among the Arabs, there would be no need for Israel to be overly concerned about its security and a political partnership of some sort could well be considered as a benign solution to the problem of two small states that, by pooling together their resources, will become a bigger, more solid and more prosperous unit.
Shimon Peres has a way of sharpening the absurdity of illusion of such theory: Israelis are not going to wake up one morning and find out that their neighbours have all turned into Swedes, or Finns.
Europeans are beginning to find out how difficult it is for their societies to integrate poor Muslim minorities into a democratic-Western culture and that’s when they are still the overwhelming and dominant majorities in their countries. And still they have no problem urging Israelis to surrender their own decent society and share their one half of a 0.1% of the Middle East with an enemy whose ethos has no knowledge or desire for democratic justice.
Jews are threatened elsewhere.
“Sure, but I don’t think there is an existential threat to Jewish existence in the Netherlands or that it is close to genocide.”
This is mind boggling. So antisemitism starts to be dangerous when one deports Jews to annihilation camps.
I hear this mantra from extreme leftwing “antizionists” and also that Israel is a dangerous place for Jews.
However in Israel Jews are masters of their own fate and do not depend on others.
And about the bitter fate of Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Today Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung publishes a report on Ramallah where an Arab speaks about a five star occupation.
Strange I googled in German
Israeli occupation Westbank and found 471.000 entries
Turkish occupation North-Cyprus and found 43.000 entries.
Why this difference?
AJ Adler: Bob states, “But was the “two state” solution (in Yugoslavia’s case a is it a seven state solution?) the right solution in the 1991-1995 period? The one-state-for-each-”nation” solution only came about through the slaughter and displacement of a large percentage of the population. Is that a good thing, a path to be copied elsewhere? Surely not.”
This is a confused post hoc argument. The “one-state-for-each-’nation’ solution” did not cause the slaughter and displacement; it was the consequence of the already existent drive to slaughter and displace. To miss that is to miss everything.
I don’t see how you can say this. Yugoslavia was one state for most of the 20th century, without slaughter and displacement. The drive to slaughter and displacement was identical to the drive for more than one state, to break it into ethnically pure “nations”.
Re Judy’s comment on me needing to get out more among Jews and Israelis. She is sort of right; I don’t spend much of my time among mainstream British Jews. (I spend even less of it with Jews for Justice types.) I don’t, though, for one minute think that one state is anything other than a tiny marginal view in the community, but it seems to me that it is growing among the younger generation.
I spend even less time among mainstream Israelis, but I have read of a number of surprising voices giving some support for the one state view, such as Moshe Arens and Reuven Rivlin, who I already mentioned. I wonder if the things you’ve said about me also apply to them.
(Sorry to be so slow in responding - I picked a really bad time to pick a fight (not that I intended to pick a fight!!) because I didn’t get a break from work yesterday, and spent most of today struggling through England’s crumbling transport infrastructure to spend my days off with my extended family, who will make me feel guilty if I spend too long in front of their computer!)
AJ Adler again: jdyer has already offered one good response to this sentiment - for that is what it is, a sentiment, and not an idea - and that is that it should presumably hold true for all other nationalities and ethnicities, but we know that it does not, and why it does is just one of the many reasons that the one-state “solution” is an absurdity.
Why would it not hold true for all other nationalities and ethnicities? I strongly believe that it is wrong for statehood to be based on ethnic purity. The massive displacement of people defined as Greek and people defined as Turkish in the population transfers there, for example, were a terrible thing, and minorities in Turkey continue to pay the price for that. The Partition of India in 1947 was a catastrophe for many millions of people, and Muslims in India continue to pay the price. To repeat: I have never said that Israel and Israel alone should be the site of some experiment with post-national citizenship.
More fundamentally, such a personal sentiment is not any basis on which to consider and discuss international policy and the fate of nations. It cannot be taken as serious intellectual engagement with the complex historical and cultural forces that drive events.
Again, to repeat, I never made an attempt to make some practical policy recommendation about the Middle East conflict. The current situation is clearly both unjust and unsustainable. The two state solution also seems unrealisable in the immediate future, because of the “refugee” issue, the Jerusalem issue, the impossibility of the consent of the settlers and so on. Some kind of binational solution may not be the right one, and I am not recommending some kind of road map. But I think that people need to think in different ways than they do now. That’s all.
Jdyer
“So, I don’t have a proposal to deal with the Jews of Israel who won’t accept minority status in a Jewish homeland – but then I don’t see how jdyer or advocates of a two state solution propose to deal with Arabs of Palestine who won’t accept minority status in a Palestinian homeland.”
Your use of the word “homeland” is imprecise. Could you clarify what you mean by “homeland?” How is it different from country? Is it a precise geographical area? Does it have borders? Are they recognized internationally? How is such an entity administered?
A very large part of the historical Zionist movement before 1917, including Ahad Ha’am and Joseph Trumpeldor, saw no necessary connection between a Jewish national home and a Jewish national state. I don’t think it is that radical a statement.
Most Jews see all of the land of Israel as their homeland, and not just whatever part of it would be the reduced Israel in a two state solution. Most Palestinians see more or less the same area as their homeland. This is all I meant when I said homeland. I am not talking about an administrative unit. I am talking about a situation in which the idea of one land being the homeland of more than one people is taken seriously.
Finally, and for the last time, Bob, I ask you why you are you skirting the main question I put to you: if the State (or government) is the problem, (Bob sounds like a member of the “Tea Party) why is one State better than two States?
You still haven’t answered that question.
This is a good question, and I didn’t mean to skirt it. I said in the parallel discussion at my blog that my ACTUAL position is a no state solution, but in the impossibility of that a one state solution, and in the impossibility of that a two state solution, which I admit is the most realistic. One commenter suggested that actually a no state solution is more realistic than a one state solution.
I would prefer a world with no states and no borders, but there is absolutely no way that I would call for Israel to try that experiment first - you can’t have one country with no borders, only a whole world, and I don’t see that happening soon.
In the meantime, I campaign for more open borders, more liberal understandings of citizenship and nationality, and against nationalism. I do that mainly in the country where I happen to live, the UK. But I don’t see why I should suspend that commitment for other places, least of all Israel, which I hope you admit is in need of SOME kind of solution.
“I’m not a great fan of the one state idea, but I also find most expressions of a two state solution depressingly unimaginative. There seems to be a lot of boilerplate argument being deployed here, no doubt inevitable when a topic has been over-argued for so long, but unfortunate as it misses the opportunity for a more creative discussion.” Kellie Strøm
Kellie, I recently participated in a discussion on social security and one of the discussants wanted to in good conservative fashion to us creative thinking and experimentation to solve the problem of social security. Her idea was to privatize it and let people invest monies in the stock or bond markets. I objected that an experiment to someone who could afford to lose may be fun but that to most working people the loss of even a fraction of their retirement income could mean at best going hungry from time to time or at worst lose their homes.
In the world of international politics creativity always comes at the expense of someone else’s life.
The futuristic art movement in Italy in the 1920’s wanted to experiment with war which they found to be an aesthetic experience. Marinetti founded the Futurist Political Party (Partito Politico Futurista) allied himself with Mussolini. They opposed democracy seeing it as a boring bourgeois ideal.
Many Russian futurists supported Bolshevism because they saw it as a creative experiment.
I am all for creativity, but not in international or national politics or economics. Here I would like to see arguments based on logic informed by historical knowledge.
“I would submit that developing democracy and civil rights not just in a Palestinian state but in the region as a whole should be a strategic priority to ensure Israel’s security.”
I hope you are wrong because there is no democracy in the region except for that of Israel. I don’t see much prospect for change in that direction for some time to come.
“And on your earlier argument about Arab culture not changing without some impetus from without, not even North Korea is wholly isolated from external cultural influence. The only constant is change.”
So what has changed in NK in the last fifty years except for the regime acquiring more lethal weapons? That’s a change alright. But it’s not a positive change.
Kellie writes,
I also find most expressions of a two state solution depressingly unimaginative. There seems to be a lot of boilerplate argument being deployed here, no doubt inevitable when a topic has been over-argued for so long, but unfortunate as it misses the opportunity for a more creative discussion. For the more wound up, I would recommend re-reading Bob’s phrase “I have no desire to legislate any solution into being without the consent of those involved.”
First, I’d be interested to learn what he considers to be the boilerplate, just so, rather than that general dismissal, we could examine what if anything actually meets that description.
Second, the phrase that Kellie quotes from Bob is one of the several expressions that renders Bob’s consideration of a one-state “solution” entirely pointless. May I say that I believe in the virtue of a single world government, and, being a U.S. citizen, I am most personally invested in the policies of the United States, so I advocate that the U.S. be the first to dissolve its claim to any unique national and cultural sovereignty. The U.S. being in every respect the most powerful nation on earth, it would be fitting for it to go first. I feel certain - I just do - that not other nation or parties will take advantage of this enlightened and forward thinking sacrifice.
Third, the premise that any degree of imagination needs to be employed with respect to Israel’s nationhood deserves challenge. Imagination in conceiving solutions to conflict and issues of dispute, e.g. a “right of return,” borders, and Jerusalem - of course. But the foundation of any discussion, to begin, is that claim of Jews to a nation of their own, in Israel, and the claim of Palestinians to a nation of their own are not among the issues of dispute. To seek to undermine those foundations - the basis for any engagement at all - is contrary to the existing world order for some centuries now, and generally speaking, an end truly desired by those who have an objection specifically only to Israel’s existence.
To suggest that advocacy of such a course is a solution to the problem, rather than the course of future and greater conflict, is the utmost fancy on the part of the well-intentioned, devious on the part of the ill.
Bob: “Yugoslavia was one state for most of the 20th century, without slaughter and displacement. The drive to slaughter and displacement was identical to the drive for more than one state, to break it into ethnically pure “nations”.”
It was also identical with the drive for freedom which is to say the drive against Milosevic’s autocracy. Are we to conclude from this that the desire for freedom was also the cause of the slaughter?
You seem to see independent States as the primary cause of evil in the world. States and individuals go to war and slaughter each other for all sorts of reasons including the desire for independence, for freedom and for establishing utopias.
The existence of independent States is not the only cause of war and slaughter.
Bob: “A very large part of the historical Zionist movement before 1917, including Ahad Ha’am and Joseph Trumpeldor, saw no necessary connection between a Jewish national home and a Jewish national state. I don’t think it is that radical a statement.”
1917 was not just another century, Bob, it was another universe. In that same year proud German Jews were dying for Germany homeland and proud Jewish socialists were defending the revolution neither saw a need for a Jewish homeland.
History has taught us different. If Ahad Ha’am and Joseph Trumpeldor they might not agree with their earlier view. I am confident that Trumpeldor whose last words were “Never mind, it is good to die for our country. He died defending the settlement of Tel Hai in 1920.
“Most Jews see all of the land of Israel as their homeland, and not just whatever part of it would be the reduced Israel in a two state solution. Most Palestinians see more or less the same area as their homeland. This is all I meant when I said homeland. I am not talking about an administrative unit. I am talking about a situation in which the idea of one land being the homeland of more than one people is taken seriously.”
Yes, and many Germans, Irish and Yugoslavians see areas outside their border as part of their “homeland.” This is why we have laws and treaties that define the limits of national territory. This is also why well defined nation States are necessary otherwise there would be interminable war and conflict over territory.
The abolition of the Nation State will not bring peace but perpetual war.
“This is a good question, and I didn’t mean to skirt it. I said in the parallel discussion at my blog that my ACTUAL position is a no state solution, but in the impossibility of that a one state solution, and in the impossibility of that a two state solution, which I admit is the most realistic. One commenter suggested that actually a no state solution is more realistic than a one state solution.”
I don’t understand your position at all, Bob. No state means no ability to defend oneself. In the Middle East a no State solution would mean that Syria which is very much a State or Jordan will try to annex the ‘no State’ to its own State.
There are no easy solutions but there are very bad solutions and a ‘no State’ solution is prescription for anarchy and continual warfare and the endangerment of the very existence of the Jewish people.
“I would prefer a world with no states and no borders, but there is absolutely no way that I would call for Israel to try that experiment first - you can’t have one country with no borders, only a whole world, and I don’t see that happening soon.
In the meantime, I campaign for more open borders, more liberal understandings of citizenship and nationality, and against nationalism. I do that mainly in the country where I happen to live, the UK. But I don’t see why I should suspend that commitment for other places, least of all Israel, which I hope you admit is in need of SOME kind of solution.”
Good luck to you, Bob.
Bob, the entire history of Yugoslavia, in its various incarnations, is of ethnic and national tensions straining very precisely against an idea of imposed unity. It was various authoritarian central powers – King Alexander, then Tito (and the Austro-Hungarian Empire before there was Yugoslavia) – that both kept these tensions bottled up and exacerbated them simultaneously. The nation’s entire history is about 60-72 years depending on how you count, and that divided by the dissolution of a world war. The very history of Yugoslavia is the history of an imposed one-state “solution” working only temporarily because of repressive authoritarian control and then blowing up once the lid was removed from the pot. It was not the idea of separate and sovereign nations that created these tensions ex nihilo. You profoundly misunderstand the history of the area. It is one of the greater arguments against one-state, as has was the whole twentieth century trend toward sovereign independence – except when people theorize about Jews and Israel.
You misunderstood my remark about your personal identification as a Jew leading you to focus this thought experiment on Israel. “Why would it not hold true for all other nationalities and ethnicities?” you ask. It is not a matter of “would” or “should,” but of is. Other nationalities and cultures are not directing an interest in the dissolution of the state to their own states. This whole counter-historical discussion is directed at only one state – the Jewish state of Israel.
You similarly misunderstand the vision of someone like Moshe Arens, whose idea of one state is rather the fulfillment of a Greater Israel, not exactly the idea that Israel’s opponents have in mind.
You state in reply to me, “I strongly believe that it is wrong for statehood to be based on ethnic purity.” I did not state such a thing or raise such an issue. However, the whole subject, in the context of Israel, of what states “should” be based on is a very sinister one, and I know you don’t want to innocently be drawn into identifying with it. The state is an empirical historical development, not a Platonic form. There is, as to the constituency of its population, no essential idea. In Germany, as in so many nations, a person of non-Germanic stock may become a citizen, but will never be German in any but that legal manner. In the U.S., in contrast, there is no original ethnicity, and to be American is nothing but the citizenship. There is that range, and other permutations, and attacks on the relationship between Jewishness and Israel are only attacks on the idea of Israel itself.
Finally, you argue, “Again, to repeat, I never made an attempt to make some practical policy recommendation about the Middle East conflict.” However, to promote ideas without having estimated in real terms – not those of ideal moral aspirations – what is their practicality is a pointless exercise. Worse, it can lead to very destructive consequences.
Bob why not start at your home country and abolish royalty which must be anglican? Why such a discrimination?
Since you live in the UK and I assume are also citizen of that country, why dont you start to realize your ideas in your next neighbourhood?
During the time of the Horthy regime some young students tended to become members of the illegal communist party. Usually the bourgeoise father called in his child and said: “look communism is a wonderful idea, but cannot be realised”. A Hungarian journalist made fun of this and said “communism is a wonderful idea unfortunately it can be realised”.
And that is what I think of the idea of one state. It would be the ruin of the Jewish people to loose self determination and be subject to rule of majority of Palestinians who are to a certain extent living in a tribal society.
Those are the facts of life. Nobody wants you to emigrate to Israel. But those Jews living in the UK or outside Israel and wanting Jews of Israel live in a way the big majority of them does not want to live remind me of Martin Luther who said about certain people, they want to ride into the fire on the arse of others. (Translated from German).
Karl, Bob why not start at your home country and abolish royalty which must be anglican? Why such a discrimination?
Since you live in the UK and I assume are also citizen of that country, why dont you start to realize your ideas in your next neighbourhood?
I am totally opposed to the royal family in my own country, to the established church and to all the many trappings of a feudal order that remain intact here, as well as to the way that the Church of England has enormous power while pretending not to.
If you take a look at my blog, the post Eammon links to is the only one (or possibly one out of two or three over the six years I’ve been blogging) where I’ve expressed an opinion about anything like a solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict. (Previous times the one state issue has come up, I believe, were in arguments in comments threads, against anti-Zionists).
This is less relevant, but if you take a look at my blog, you will note that in 99% of the times when Israel is mentioned, I am arguing against anti-Zionists, arguing against the boycott, or arguing against antisemitism in the guise of anti-Zionism. I am in equal parts bemused, flattered and dismayed that so many readers here have taken so much time responding to one paragraph in one post written in one insignificant blog, especially given that my blog is seen by many of the few people who have heard of it in the small world of the blogosphere as a “Zionist” blog.
I find some of the arguments put forward here against me convincing, and I am glad to have had the opportunity to think about this. In particular, I found the first comments Eamonn and Terry Glavin left on my post particularly impressive, and I think that the argument made by Noga and others about what it took for England and Germany to stop hating the Jews very powerful arguments. But I think that most of the commenters persist in missing my point completely, so I don’t think it is worth me keeping on repeating the same thing, which is all I really can do.
I need to read A Jay Adler’s last comment properly, as I think there are new arguments there. Then after responding to that I will not have much internet access for the next few days, so apologies in advance if I do not reply to other comments for a while.
Bob, the entire history of Yugoslavia, in its various incarnations, is of ethnic and national tensions straining very precisely against an idea of imposed unity.[…] The very history of Yugoslavia is the history of an imposed one-state “solution” working only temporarily because of repressive authoritarian control and then blowing up once the lid was removed from the pot. It was not the idea of separate and sovereign nations that created these tensions ex nihilo.
I defer to your greater knowledge of Yugoslavia, but it seems to me that the tensions, the genocidal drive, have come from nationalism, and not from the idea of a federal state. The Milosovic Yugoslav state was not a federal state in the sense that Tito’s (authoritarian) state was; it was precisely Greater Serbia analogous to the Greater Israel dreamt of by the Israeli far right. (And apologies if I have misrepresented Moshe Arens, and he falls into this category.)
“Why would it not hold true for all other nationalities and ethnicities?” you ask. It is not a matter of “would” or “should,” but of is. Other nationalities and cultures are not directing an interest in the dissolution of the state to their own states. This whole counter-historical discussion is directed at only one state – the Jewish state of Israel.
Israel is the subject of such discussions because the current territorial arrangements are unsustainable and not settled. Similar discussions obviously occur in relation to Northern Ireland, in relation to the Rep. Srpska, Cyprus and other places where there is a similarly unsustainable and unsettled state form. My default in all these places is for a state form that acknowledges to the maximum the rights of all the people’s sharing the space and against a state form that creates ethnically homogeneous units which by definition oppress, exclude or “cleanse” the remaining minorities. I argue the same for Israel.
The state is an empirical historical development, not a Platonic form. There is, as to the constituency of its population, no essential idea. In Germany, as in so many nations, a person of non-Germanic stock may become a citizen, but will never be German in any but that legal manner. In the U.S., in contrast, there is no original ethnicity, and to be American is nothing but the citizenship. There is that range, and other permutations, and attacks on the relationship between Jewishness and Israel are only attacks on the idea of Israel itself.
I get what you are saying about the range, and I always argue for the American civil model as the better model. Germany’s model is a bad model. The UK sits somewhere in between; I’d prefer it to be more like the US and less like Germany. I don’t see how that leads to the next point.
somehow the span of history you tend to look at seems all a bit narrow to me (except for Karl’s)
read a history of Byzantium, read a history of Venice, read Rebecca West on what the Ottomans wreaked in the area or any other history that touched on the Balkans and spans more than a few centuries and then use a bit of imagination?
What is the most likely to happen, if an area and a mountaineous to boot is subjected to millenia of divide et impera? Will all the people unite, always adhere by their oaths and withstand all the glitter empire may offer them? or will this or that unit break away every now and then and do a bit of a deal on its own, openly or on the sly?
Empires and I bet on the latter scenario.
Nationalism and identity lore and all that came later
the Balkans have amidst eachother probably more scores to settle than there are currently inhabitants.
Unless they find a uniting meme they’ll go on and on and on.
In other words without a uniting meme at least during a longish longish consolidation phase you can forget the whole thing. That said, maybe somebody writes a bestseller that convinces them that they are all one people. Maybe Serbian Christians and Muslims find common religious ground. Maybe they decide they want no great power nannying any longer. Lots of memes imaginable, bit without a compelling narrative I see no chances.
Silke, that’s a really interesting point. It seems to me that historically, it is multinational empires like the Austro-Hungarian and Byzantine that have been relatively hospitable to Jews (relatively!) and nation-states that have been the least hospitable. But I think that taking a longer view of history, it is more than plausible that nationalism will turn out to be a short-lived moment, a bad and destructive utopian idea for arranging human affairs. It seems to me a bad gamble to pin the hope for the future of the Jewish people on nationalism.
I have been thinking about this since last night, especially A Jay Adler’s last comment above, and I cannot think of any premise for the idea of a two state solution that does not start with the idea of two-nations=two-states, and any way that this cannot mean that a nation-state needs to be ethnically pure. However convincing the arguments for two states and against binationalism, as a practical solution, the thing I cannot accept is that it is a good thing to have a Palestinian nation in which Jews can only ever be an excluded minority and an Israeli nation in which Arabs can only ever be an excluded minority. I don’t think any of the arguments put forward in this thread have justified this, and I don’t see any conception of two states which avoids this.
your putting on an equal plane minority status i.e. quality of living for Jews in “Palestine” and Arabs in Israel clinches it for me. You aren’t serious, you are just babbling away.
Go on phantasizing of multinational empires of Shangri-Las. I believe that a state with defensible borders and a narrative acceptable to the majority of its people is the institution with the best chances at sanity.
Bob: “Silke, that’s a really interesting point. It seems to me that historically, it is multinational empires like the Austro-Hungarian and that have been relatively hospitable to Jews (relatively!) and nation-states that have been the least hospitable.”
Bob, the Byzantine Empire was not hospitable to Jews. It restricted Jewish life in the same as the Russian and Muslim Empires did. Moreover the lack of general freedom in Imperial life, the corruption of officials and the lax enforcement of the few laws favorable to minorities made the life of Jews extremely precarious: inn some areas better in most areas of the Empire worse than life in almost any other political arrangement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_of_the_Byzantine_Empire
The Austro-Hungarian Empire tolerated Jews only because of other fears:
“The situation of Jews in the kingdom, who numbered about 2 million in 1914, was ambiguous. Antisemitic parties and movements existed, but Vienna did not initiate pogroms or implement official antisemitic policies. This was mainly out of fear that such ethnic violence could ignite other ethnic minorities and result in violence that could spin out of control. The majority of Jews lived in small towns in Galicia and rural areas in Hungary and Bohemia, although there were large communities in Vienna, Budapest, Prague and other large cities.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary#Ethnic_relations
Moreover that Empire did not last very long and one cannot draw any general conclusions about Empires in general from it.
“But I think that taking a longer view of history, it is more than plausible that nationalism will turn out to be a short-lived moment, a bad and destructive utopian idea for arranging human affairs. It seems to me a bad gamble to pin the hope for the future of the Jewish people on nationalism.”
The nation State was the first socio-economic regime in which Jews were able to achieve equality. It was in France, England, the US and a few other nation States were Jews first became citizens.
On the other hand it was in the German National Socialist and Soviet Empires that Jews fared the worst.
It’s a cliché not supported by historical evidence that Jews lived more secure lives in large Empires than in nation States. Add to that the dissolution of Empires are always violent and lead to extreme violence against minorities and you get a picture of life being extremely uncertain for Jews.
“However convincing the arguments for two states and against binationalism, as a practical solution, the thing I cannot accept is that it is a good thing to have a Palestinian nation in which Jews can only ever be an excluded minority and an Israeli nation in which Arabs can only ever be an excluded minority.”
This is a reality, Bob. One can’t argue with the fact that the PA (not to mention Hamas) will not accept Jews as equal citizens. In fact Abbas has said recently that he will not allow Jews to live in a Palestinian State. (And he is supposed to be the most tolerant of all Palestinian leaders.)
Unfortunately, morality does not take precedence over politics in the life of Empires and Nations.
“I cannot accept is that it is a good thing to have a Palestinian nation in which Jews can only ever be an excluded minority and an Israeli nation in which Arabs can only ever be an excluded minority. ”
Never mind that Bob continues to insist on total moral equivalence between the way Arabs are treated in Israel and the way Israelis are treated in the Palestinian territories (Israelis cannot visit Palestinian towns without fearing for their life). If, however, this is the state of things when we speak of minorities, what does he imagine is going to evolve from these premises should Arabs and Jews find themselves jousting for who will set the laws, culture, mores, civil life, that govern his fantasy of the binational state? It seems to me that Bob thinks about how much better things will be, AFTER. After what, pray? After one community destroys the other?
Bob cited the case of Germany as a society that got over its judenhaas. Indeed there can be no doubt there was a radical change between the way the Germans of 1945 and the Germans of 1939 thought about Jews. But what happened to effect this change between 1939 and 1945? And wasn’t the changed attitude, such as it was, due in part to the fact that Europe no longer had a “Jewish problem”, that is, millions of visible and present Jews to irritate the delicacies of German sensibilities? Minorities in small numbers do not provoke the same kind and size of animus that large minorities do. This is simply a fact of life (except maybe in the US which is a nation built upon the idea of a collectivity of many minorities but that might be the reason why it works there: everyone belongs to a minority there).
For a polity to work together there has to be at least one unifying principle, something that bonds the two groups together and makes them care for each other enough to overlook the differences and, more importantly, their vastly diverging vision of their future and their society. There is no such principle that I can think of. The mere fact of common humanity does not seem to count for much as a binding force.
So what exactly is Bob counting on when he speaks about a functioning, prosperous, progressive, thriving two-nation state? What does he base his certainty that such is the best solution except his own hope, inspired by ideology, that somehow and against all the odds it will work as he wishes it to work?
All I can say is that there is something infinitely cruel about such a hope. Perhaps Bob should consider moving the One state solution from the category of Good Influences to the category of Bad Influences.
“There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a Plunge. To indulge, for a moment, in any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.”
Silke to Bob: “Go on phantasizing of multinational empires of Shangri-Las.”
I agree with Silke and others who believe that “a state with defensible borders and a narrative acceptable to the majority of its people is the institution with the best chances at sanity.”
I would add that Bob reminds me of a well-meaning medieval alchemist who is looking to make gold out of lead. In this case he would add to lead, mud and dross and hope it comes out shining bright.
He also reminds me of Tony Judt’s dream of enclaves of metropolitan areas within larger empires where Jews would be tolerated. To me this “dream” was more of a nightmare. What about Jews who wanted to farm the land? (No wonder Tony Judt hated Kibbutzim those exist in rural areas and are self-governing.)
Historically, and this is all we have to go on, empires had pretty bad records on human rights. When they kept the peace within its borders they did so by suppressing individual and collective freedoms.
The real problem in the Arab Israeli conflict is the animosity towards Jews stemming from the animosity Muslims feel towards Jews.
If in the West the real problem wasn’t the nation State, but centuries of Christian antisemitism. (This hatred made possible the acceptance of national-socialism’s program of destroying the Jewish people; it also made inevitable the resurgence of
antisemitism within the communist party soon after the October revolution. Yes, I know there were many exceptions in both cases; not enough though to make a real difference.)
If Bob and others who dream of a world without borders would concentrate on programs that would lessen Muslim anti-Jewish and Jihadist views especially in England where he resides, then I would take his ideas more seriously.
Jews shouldn’t be the ones required to give their hard earned independence for the sake of, at best, possible acceptance as second class citizens in an Arab/Muslim Empire.
A few small points:
1. Yes, the liberal democratic nation-states, like France and the US, have been much more hospitable to the Jews than the multinational empires. They have also been the nation-states with the weakest sense of nationalism, and certainly the weakest sense of nationalism tied to an ethno-national people.
I see the Soviet Union as a multinational empire and not a nation state, although nationalism played a major role at various points in its history, and it was precisely when nationalism was on the rise that it became least hospitable to the Jews. Nazi Germany on the other hand was emphatically not a multinational empire, but a nation-state; its “imperial” nature was about conquering land, something totally different from the way in which the Habsburg empire was an empire.
The fact that the end of empires is always accompanied with violence and often violence against Jews is not an indictment of empires, it is an indictment of the nationalist movements that come after them (just as Serbian violence is not an indictment of a federal Yugoslavia but of Serbian nationalism).
2. I do not see the treatment and attitude of Jews to Palestinians and that of the Palestinians to the Jews as morally equivalent or similar. My point is nothing more than that the idea of a Palestinian nation state and the idea of a Jewish nation-state are both inherently problematic in that they can only exist through the cleansing and/or fundamental second class status of the other. A state for all its citizens versus a state for the Jews are two incompatible visions, and the same with a Palestinian state.
3. For a polity to work there has to be a binding principle? What is it that allows Catalans and Castillians to share a state, that allows English and Scottish people to share a state, that allows any of the multitude of infra-national minorities living in European liberal democracies to share the state? Nothing really. Maybe I’m misunderstanding you.
4. As I said before, I find Noga’s argument about the difference between Germany 1945 and Germany 1939 the most convincing argument against me. I have no response to that. Nonetheless, I still think that there is no such thing as a people which is congentially hateful or congenitally supremacist, any more than there is such a thing as a people which is inherently virtuous. Of course the type of cultural shift we would want in Arab society is not likely to take place in a couple of decades, but that does not mean it can never take place.
Jews and the Jewish state have to be perfect. And because it has not achieved this stage of perfection some - especially Jews living outside Israel - demand its dismantling. They forget the lesson of History given by English diplomats to the Jews of the holy land. How naive were the Zionist leaders who believed in the basic Humanism of England. In 1943 England rejected many proposals to save Jews. The Jews of the Holy land had no cards in their hand; they had no big spaces, no country of strategic importance and no oil.
Remember they closed the gates of the only country where society wanted to integrate Jewish refugees in spring 1939 (the white paper). The British administration liked very much the eastern charm of the native Arabs and abhorred the cheeky Jews who came from Europe and thought to be equals of the rulers. The Zionist representatives came as beggars to London to beg. And now Bob let’s have the universalistic argument so much liked by so many extreme leftwing people (Jews and non-Jews alike). After all the big British Empire had also other important people and the Ernest Bevin even warned after the war the Jews not to jump the queue. The British knew very well the Jews had no other chance but to fight with the Allied forces and 30.000 went to the British Army. So why bother with those bloody Jews, when the Arabs, who were not so enthusiastic to fight Hitler, were so much more charming. And so Shertok (later foreign minister Sharet) was sent from office to office in War time London, and all those good proposals to save Jews were rejected.
So what ever you say about your blog by arguing for a one state solution - in my eyes - you neglect very important lessons the British gave us.
Probably it is easier to convince the British they do not need royalty than to convince Jews they do not need their own state.
Bob, you’ve engaged multiple interlocutors with equanimity and openness. I think that deserves appreciation and acknowledgment. There have been some fine arguments against your position since I last wrote, so rather than beat any more dead horses deeper into the ground, I’ll offer my final thought on a larger issue – your ideas about nationalism, which Noga touches on in speaking of the unifying principle of a polity. You seem to conceive of nationalism as an inherent evil because of all the negative manifestations of it with which we are all familiar. But this is a fallacy of accent, like misremembering the Biblical dictum that “The love of money is the root of all evil” as “Money is the root of all evil.” Excessive nationalism – chauvinism – is historically, demonstrably a destructive force. But all ideas can be pursued to extremes. It is simply a basic human quality to seek affective fields of association, in family, clubs, neighborhood associations. Most people, though certainly not all, find their greatest comfort and joy in a unity with others who share their frame of reference in life, temporally, geographically, culturally. Formative experiences bind people together too. Chess players like the company of other chess players, surfers that of other surfers. It is all a pleasure unless distorted. It is a sensible idea to say one has to be a surfer from Pismo Beach to belong to the Pismo Beach surfer’s club; it is another to say you can’t surf this beach unless you belong that club.
Nationalism – the idea of a unifying principle for a polity at a particular scale of organization –has been often perverted, yes, but so has the sublime conception of a loving God been perverted. Whatever is human can be debased. But people will seek those naturally occurring or empirically evolving affective fields of association. Attempting to thwart expression of the bonds people feel with certain other people is as destructive an act as expressing those felt bonds too meanly and exclusively. The “idea of a federal state” you speak of in contrast to nationalism, is still a state, is still a nation. The question is whether it is more sensible to unite and organize people according to any of the variety of their circumstantially arising impulses to unity, or to impose an unfelt, unempirically derived ideal upon them.
Bob, I disagree with you fundamentally on a couple of basic issues:
“The fact that the end of empires is always accompanied with violence and often violence against Jews is not an indictment of empires, it is an indictment of the nationalist movements that come after them (just as Serbian violence is not an indictment of a federal Yugoslavia but of Serbian nationalism).”
Sorry to disabuse you, but all Empires became and sustained themselves through tyrannical repression. I find it curious that you show a strong distaste for Jewish sense of privilege in their homeland, but show a similar sense of Judeo-centrism when assessing the claims of Empire to being a more just polity than the nation State because they showed according to you more tolerance of Jews.
Whether or not they are friendly to Jews (they really are not) Empires are evil because they are of necessity tyrannical. It’s not only nationalist feelings that come to the fore when Empires break down; it’s suppressed rage at having been oppressed for so many generations.
My second fundamental disagreement I have with you the unfounded belief that Nazi Germany “was emphatically not a multinational empire, but a nation-state; its “imperial” nature was about conquering land, something totally different from the way in which the Habsburg empire was an empire.”
Hannah Arendt has very eloquently argued against the belief that Nazism was a “nationalist” ideal. It wasn’t nationalism was both a racialist ideal based on what they took to be the “biological sciences.” It was also an international ideal that welcomed into their empire all those people they considered “Aryans” which included not just the Northern Europeans, but also the French and most tellingly Japanese who were considered “honorary Aryans” which strict Nazi doctrine should not have allowed. The leadership also made an alliance with “Semitic Arabs.” How does one explain that? Their doctrines were obviously very flexible and their strict antisemitism applied only to Jews.
Finally Nazism, just like Bolshevism, considered the nation State as a Bourgeois invention, a class that they hated almost as much as the Soviets. They also believed that it was a polity controlled by Jews. This was especially true of the liberal States such as England and the US.
Bob, I also want to second A. Jay Adler’s comment that “you’ve engaged multiple interlocutors with equanimity and openness. I think that deserves appreciation and acknowledgment.”
This will be my last comment on these issues, for now.
only today I read (carefully) Michael Oren’s Yom Kippur speech which I think is one of those speeches which need to be re-read often.
Why?
because he is courageous enough to admit that he sees no perfect solution while from all I know has proved more than once that he has the courage it takes to see action through once a course has been decided on.
I am sure I am not the only of the older generation around here who has learned through the decades that sometimes no action i.e. the fortitude to resist the itch to force a decision is the bravest action of them all
Enjoy!
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/09/michael-orens-warning-to-american-jews/63292
I came here armed with Hannah Arendt to find that someone already stole my thunder. Anyway as I already typed the relevant paragraph from “The Origins of Totalitarianism” (p.3) here it is:
“One of the hasty explanations has been the identification of anti-Semitism with rampant nationalism and its xenophobic outburst. Unfortunately, the fact is that modern anti-Semitism grew in proportion as traditional nationalism declined, and reached its climax at the exact moment when the European system of nation-states and its precarious balance of power crashed.
It has already been noticed that the Nazis were not simple nationalists. Their nationalist propaganda was directed toward their fellow- travellers and not their convinced members; the latter, on the contrary, were never allowed to lose sight of a consistently supranational approach to politics. Nazi “nationalism” had more than one aspect in common with the recent nationalistic propaganda in the Soviet Union, which is also used only to feed the prejudices of the masses. The Nazis had a genuine and never revoked contempt for the narrowness of nationalism, the provincialism of the nation-state, and they repeated time and again that their movement, international in scope like the Bolshevik movement, was more important to them than any state which would necessarily be bound to specific territory. And not only the Nazis, but fifty years of anti-Semitic history stand as evidence against the identification of anti-Semitism with nationalism. The first anti-Semitic parties in the last decades of the nineteenth century were also among the first that banded together internationally. From the very beginning, they called international congresses and were concerned with a coordination of international, or at least inter-European, activities.”
________
And, A. Jay Adler, you were right that you couldn’t find a more amiable and civil interlocutor than BobfromBrockley with whom to thrash out this (admittedly) vile idea. Nothing will please me more than to see him remove the OSS from the category of good ideas to the category of bad ideas. Maybe Arendt, with her acute distinction between simple nationalism and Nazi nationalism that is really not a nationalism but some kind of evil internationalism, will sway him in the right direction. As long as we keep on talking.:)
Thank you, Noga, AJA and JD for you kind words.
I have indeed changed my views during this debate, although I have not shifted from my fundamental understanding of nationalism as a bad thing.
I agree that Nazism is not “simple nationalism”, and is incredibly complex. I still think it is completely different from the kind of multinational empire represented by the Habsburgs. I will have to think about the Arendt quotes further. (As Noga knows, Arendt is a thinker close to my heart.)
Karl, I agree whole-heartedly with your indictment of British imperialism.
I do not ask Israel to be perfect - or, at least, only to the extent I ask other states to be perfect, knowing this is an impossible request. But that is not a reason to accept that Israel should be held to lower standards than I hold my own country.
Also, I want to make it clear that I do not see the multinational empires as good and just. They were indeed tyrannical and repressive, to a greater or lesser extent, but to me it was the least rather than the greatest of their tyrannies that they did not respect the national self-determination of their subject peoples. It was the lack of democracy and personal liberty that was their fundamental problem.
I also accept that there is a difference between nationalism and “excessive” nationalism, but I think it is a slippery slope and the latter is always lurking in the former because of the logic of the nation state.
I do not see how the Pismo Surfers Club example is a counter-argument to me. I argued for the possibility that we might think of a Jewish homeland without a Jewist state: that is precisely analogous to the Pismo Surf Club, whereas a Jewish state is where the the beach is FOR the club members and excludes everyone else. Maybe I’m missing something.
“I do not ask Israel to be perfect - or, at least, only to the extent I ask other states to be perfect, knowing this is an impossible request. But that is not a reason to accept that Israel should be held to lower standards than I hold my own country.”
Whether Israel is perfect or not is irrelevant to the question of the one state solution, Bob. Israelis cannot be punished for being flawed human beings by having their state taken from them. Israelis are doing the best they can under the most morally demanding circumstances, trying to care for an enemy that has not stopped declaring its intentions to destroy them. That there are shrill and unpleasant segments in this society I do not dispute. But democracy has to put up with them as it puts up with the likes of Gurvitz who wants to dissolve the state of Israel. Israeli society acts like a self-cleaning oven. It can take care of its own crazies in the proper way.
Just as a sidebar, I’d like to bring to your attention this article about a master’s thesis that militates for a “one state solution” just to alert you to what you would be inadvertently supporting if you continue to promote OSS as the best ethical solution:
“Last month, the Canadian journalist Richard Klagsbrun drew attention to a newly submitted Master’s thesis at the University of Toronto’s ed school: “The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education.” Proud author Jennifer Peto told a reporter for the Canadian Jewish News that Canada’s Jews push the Holocaust narrative because only “a victimized Jewish identity can produce certain effects that are beneficial to the organized Jewish community and the Israeli nation-state.” [-]
“Peto and her comrades in the anti-Zionist Israel-Apartheid movement don’t really care whether Holocaust education is disinterested or not. Their aims are bolder: the bloody dissolution of the state of Israel, among all the countries of the world. Distracted by Peto’s cruelty, the outraged defenders of the March of Remembrance and Hope pleaded (accurately) that their tour teaches “universal lessons of tolerance and empathy.” But they neglected to refute the underlying claim of the anti-Zionist movement: that Israel as a state deserves to be annihilated and its citizens dispersed; that Jewish citizens of Western democracies are bad Jews and disloyal citizens (of America, or Canada, or Sweden) if they believe Israel ought to exist; and that they are good Jews and good citizens only as long as they regard Israel as malign and unconnected to themselves (I cannot claim credit for the elegant terms “good Jew” and “bad Jew”—I borrow them from Professor John Mearsheimer).”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/holocaust-hegemony_524864.html
What a frightful sounding woman. Mearsheimer’s words, by the way, were even worse: it was “righteous Jews” versus “the new Afrikaaners”. See http://brockley.blogspot.com/2010/05/gnome-chomsky-6-button.html
Okay, Bob, so I have to chime in more time to clarify my passing Pismo Beach (along the beautiful California Central Coast) Surfers Club analogy. I didn’t intend it to be exact, but now that I need to clarify, I’ll beef it up a little.
The Pismo Beach Surfer’s club was established specifically to fulfill the desire for fellowship of surfers from Pismo Beach. While they surf together and stage events and parties together, they do not attempt to restrict use of the beaches in the town.
It so happens that next to Pismo Beach is Sunset Beach. There is also a Sunset Beach surfers club, but beyond regulated membership in that club, the members of that club are so territorial and hostile to outsiders that they do not - and have made it so known - welcome Pismo Beach surfers to surf their beaches. They have even (and this is actually so of some surfers) violently attacked outsiders (particularly the much despised Pismo Surfers, who think they’re all that)who have been found surfing in Sunset beach.
Of course, these clubs are not legal municipal authorities, but I’m not going to get crazy with this analogy. My true purpose, rather than exact analogy, was to argue that it is a natural human impulse to seek limited association according to all kinds of defining characteristics of the association. These associations may be benign and even life enhancing; they may be malicious and destructive. It is not the nature of association per se that can make them either, but elemental and unchecked human nature. Every science fiction writer who ever imagined interplanetary war perceived it so.
The idea of a Jewish “homeland” without a Jewish state is completely meaningless. It is the beach without the club. (And no organized defense when those Sunset Beachers get rowdy.) Interestingly, the Palestinians feel the same way, as they do not seek an Arab, but a Palestinian state. And the Kurds desire not an Iranic state, but a Kurdish one.
“It is the beach without the club.”
Or maybe a surfers’ club without a beach?
OK, that makes sense. Maybe you’re right.
But, first, what about a federation of the two beaches, where the Pismo guys are constitutionally guaranteed the right to surf on both Pismo and Sunset in perpetuity, and the club committee has guaranteed places for Pismo surfers? I don’t think there is an inherent reason that homeland without an exclusive state doesn’t make sense.
More important, the problem with the picture is when the Pismo club has not been surfing at Pismo for a few millenia, but has also been surfing on Sunset for a few millenia - and Sunset Club members in living memory recall a time when it was them that cultivated every rip and curl of not just Sunset but Pismo too? (I don’t know enough about surfing to stretch this the right way, but you know what I mean!) Or what about if there was a bit of beach that was considered to be an integral part of Pismo by some and an integral part of Sunset by others, and neither was ever going to concede that not to be the case? Wouldn’t it be more just if there was some way for both these claims to be recognised?
OK, that’s probably enough from me on this topic for the time being - sorry to take up so much space!!
It’s too complicated, bob, even for surfers, let alone Israelis and Palestinians. If you care for the well being of BOTH peoples, you will accept that the best way to establishing some calm and rule of reason between them is first to demarcate a strong separation line. I’m fully cognizant that for you, a soft-hearted liberal in the best sense of the word, that “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” but notice please that the poem is rightly entitled a “MENDING WALL”. We need well defined, clear boundaries in which we feel secure about our selves and our place in the world, before we can try to extend hands over that separation. No boundaries, or imaginary, complicated, blurred boundaries, will only worsen an already a bad situation with god knows what consequences.
It’s not enough to content yourself with thinking you only mean the best for all. This best may be well be “paving hell with good intentions”.
This is one of those times when a workable even if loathsome solution (it can be loathsome to you from the Left POV and it can be loathsome to religious settlers from their POV) is the only ethical solution. To suggest other ways in this case it is to indulge in dangerous fantasies. Fairy tales are not a good guide to life’s very muddy problems, Bob.
Please, don’t respond with a “Yes but no”. This problem calls for genuinely adult thinking.
Forgive my coming back late, but as it’s school holiday time, there have been offline family pleasures to keep me away. I would like to write more following on from responses by jdyer and Noga to my earlier comment.
Noga and jdyer, you seem to make a similar argument on democracy and civil rights in the wider region. jdyer, in response to my writing that “developing democracy and civil rights not just in a Palestinian state but in the region as a whole should be a strategic priority to ensure Israel’s security,” you say you hope I am wrong as “there is no democracy in the region except for that of Israel,” and you “don’t see much prospect for change in that direction for some time to come.”
Noga, you seem to take on my argument, writing that “if democracy and civil rights existed in any reasonable level among the Arabs, there would be no need for Israel to be overly concerned about its security and a political partnership of some sort could well be considered as a benign solution to the problem of two small states that, by pooling together their resources, will become a bigger, more solid and more prosperous unit,” but then dismiss this as absurd illusion with the remark that “Israelis are not going to wake up one morning and find out that their neighbours have all turned into Swedes, or Finns,” and seek to make this the end of the line for further thought by proposing that “we wait until democracy and civil rights are the dominant ethos in the Middle East before we talk about one state solutions and what not.” So your thinking is that we are at A, and C cannot come before B, so we should not discuss C before we reach B, but we cannot take B seriously because we have only ever been at A. Forgive me if I suggest this seems a little short-sighted, closed-minded, even ostrich-like.
Both of you seem to confuse past experience with future inevitability, and to conflate some known short term realities with all possible long term outcomes.
Let’s talk of Swedes and Finns for a moment. Sweden has been peaceable enough over the last century, but has a long history of war and conquest before that. When the Norwegians awoke in 1814 to find themselves surrounded by Swedes, it wasn’t in the peaceful democratic sense you mean. And they didn’t free themselves from Swedish imperialism ’til the 20th century. But there it is, things change. As for the Finns, their history of warfare, allied with the Nazis even, is rather more recent. But yes, things change.
And of course for anyone wanting to take a wider view of democracy than just Scandinavia, there are lots of young democracies to point to, ones that were at each other’s throats within living memory, and are now sharing open borders. Things change.
Fine, you may say, if it ever happens in the Middle East, time enough to think about it after it comes to pass. Not a very strategic approach, I suggest. Which brings me back to jdyer’s remarks…
jdyer, you hope that making regional democracy and civil rights a strategic priority is unnecessary for Israel’s security. I remember that Noga had a choice quote on her blog some time ago on the foolishness of relying on hope. You seem to regard you view as realistic. Others might describe you as a pessimistic. I would say that you seem recklessly optimistic in dismissing democracy and civil rights as a concern.
In talking about a strategic priority we are not just considering what will happen next year, or in five, ten or fifteen years. We should be considering probabilities up to forty or fifty years into the future, which is not even that long a period when you look back at Israel’s history. And in looking at that time span we should consider some potential downsides. Not even outlandish ones, just ones well within the range of the possible. What does Israel’s future security look like if there is serious political instability in Egypt? There we have now an undemocratic Western-backed regime, a fundamentalist opposition, and a squeezed centrist democratic opposition. Is it conceivable that something like the Iranian revolution might happen there. What else is conceivable over forty or fifty years?
What’s conceivable in Syria? If the political future is narrowed to past experience as you and Noga suggest, let’s say it stays politically the same, but with the weapons technology of 2050, of 2060. Advanced weapons technology in the hands of a regime with no democratic oversight. Should we all just wait and see if this happens? Should we just rely on Israel and its allies maintaining military superiority? We have seen all too recently that military superiority is not the same as invulnerability.
And what of Israel’s allies in 2050, in 2060? The US has a history of isolationism that hasn’t gone away. The US faces economic and military challenges elsewhere in the globe. How available will US help be in 2050?
Proposing regional democracy and civil rights as a strategic priority for Israel is not starry-eyed idealism, not optimism but realism in the face of serious threats. It is wholly necessary to have such a strategy in order to have any depth of security beyond the frontier’s thin line.
It is not enough to just secure your home if you live in a bad neighborhood, not enough to arm yourself and lock the doors. It is not enough to rely on your friend on the other side of town. It is not enough to pay protection money to a couple of local gangsters in the hope that they can continue to keep their boys in line. What will you do when new gangsters take over, what will you do when your friends across town are taken up with their own problems? What will you do if the whole neighborhood goes up in flames? Before that happens, you need neighborhood security, and not the protection money kind. You need policing with the consent of the majority of the population, democracy, civil rights, good neighbors who look out for one another. To just dismiss such an aim is suicidal.
What I take away from Kelly’s comment is that Israel’s most pressing need is to help the Arab world transform itself into a democratic environment.
Kelly castigates Jdyer: “jdyer, you hope that making regional democracy and civil rights a strategic priority is unnecessary for Israel’s security. I remember that Noga had a choice quote on her blog some time ago on the foolishness of relying on hope.”
And then Kelly says:
“Both of you seem to confuse past experience with future inevitability, and to conflate some known short term realities with all possible long term outcomes.”
I agree that hope in the face of looming catastrophe is not only utterly useless but probably death-bearing. Hope prevents people from doing what is necessary to secure their own future and life.
The quote about hope Kelly refers to comes from a collection of stories by Tadeusz Borowski , a Polish Auschwitz susvivor who put an end to his life six years after liberation:
“It is hope that makes people walk apathetically into the gas chamber, makes them shrink back from uprising … Hope that tears apart family bonds, makes mothers reject their children, makes women sell themselves for a piece of bread and turns men into killers. Hope makes them fight for each day of life, for maybe the next day will bring liberation … We did not learn to renounce hope, and that is why we died in the gas.”
Hope, says Borowski, in Auschwitz translated directly into corruption of proper feeling and reason.
http://contentious-centrist.blogspot.com/2007/02/dantes-catalogue-of-horrors-in-inferno.html
Yet I cannot see how Jdyer’s statement can be critiqued in light of what this quote is actually teaching. Quite the contrary. He says (at least that’s what I think he says) that we cannot hope for a democratic revolution to change the face and dynamics in the Middle East before we we solve the problem of Israel’s security and survival. While it would be very nice if Palestine, Syria, Gaza and Egypt were to become more liberal, more concerned with human rights and more attentive to the cultural, religious and self-determination rights of other peoples’ but themselves, it would be suicidal for Israel to just sit back and wait for that to happen.
No offense, but what Kelly recommends looks a lot more like the belief in Messianic rescue held by some ultra religious anti-Zionist Jewish sects than the firm foundation of reason and action that a secular and modern state is supposed to be based on.
Maimonedes instructed his fellow Jews in the Middle Ages that they were to believe with great sincerity in the coming of the Messiah, even if he tarries so. In the meantime, he also instructed his fellow Jews that they have to behave rationally and do whatever is necessary to preserve themselves alive.
I am willing to embrace, no, I do embrace Kelly’s vision of a democratic enlightened Middle East with every fiber of my being. In the meantime, as an Israeli and a lover of the idea of Israel’s continued survival which means life and pursuit of happiness for my family and friends, I will continue to support Israel’s quest for the security and well being for its citizens until such time as its neigbours see the light.
RE: The above long-winded comment.
“To dismiss such an aim is suicidal.”
No. To expect a successful, democratic and prosperous country to … do what exactly ….. in the hope of a nominal peace, now THAT’s suicidal.
How are we get “policing with the consent of the majority of the population, good neighbours who look out for one another.” It’s a fantasy, certainly at the moment. Nobody is saying that a “scandinavian” solution can’t be worked out, but the same scandinavian solution took 200 years, and here you are expecting it to be done in the next few years as though this were a resolution to a TV drama.
You are right that “it is not enough” to do the things you mention, but what you don’t say is that it is the best that can be done, given the current circumstances and the nature of the surrounding adversaries.
You say that “Proposing regional democracy and civil rights as a strategic priority for Israel is not starry-eyed idealism, not optimism but realism in the face of serious threats.” Sure, it’s realistic to PROPOSE it. I note, however, you don’t have boo to say about how to ACHIEVE it. With good reason, since that — along with Arab/Muslim rejectionism of Israel altogether — remains the crux of the issue. Unless you can provide realistic strategies for achieving regional democracy — something surely Israel cannot be responsible for on its own — your “proposal” is basically more pissing in the wind.
To sum up, the notion of a successful, prosperous and democratic country under existential threat transforming itself all on its own and still remaining under existential threat is not an attractive prospect. If I were Israeli, I’d way prefer the status quo, and take my chances on the future. True, Syrian weapons will be more powerful, but then, so will Israel’s deterrent power. Your energies would be better used getting the Arab/Muslim world — rather than Israel — to change.
Noga, the thing is that a long term strategy to promote democracy &c. doesn’t contradict thew need for short to medium term strategies and tactics to ensure more immediate security (or even long term strategies to prepare for a failure to promote democracy), though it should ideally inform them. Obviously only an idiot would drop rigorous security measures prematurely. The danger I see is that arguing that things are bad becomes a fatalistic argument against trying to make them better, resulting in them becoming unmanageably worse.
You write “we cannot hope for a democratic revolution to change the face and dynamics in the Middle East before we we solve the problem of Israel’s security and survival.” I don’t see how you can “solve” security and survival without it. Actually I think all talk of solve, of solutions, is misleading. Every time the problem seems to be solved, the problem will change.
On sitting back &c., what I’d like to see is the opposite of sitting back and waiting for things to happen.
vildechaye, of course I don’t suggest Israel is “responsible” for regional democracy - that would be silly. I’m arguing that Israel has a great strategic interest in such an outcome. I’m arguing against those here dismissing regional democracy &c. as merely feel-good inessential politics, but I’m not under any illusion that I know how to do it, nor am I so simple that I think it’s something easily or quickly or unilaterally achievable. There is one neighborhood area however where Israel has had a forty-plus year opportunity… if I read jdyer correctly, he would view failure to establish democracy and civil rights in a future Palestinian state to be of little consequence. I disagree.
“I’m arguing that Israel has a great strategic interest in such an outcome.”
Anyone who argues against such an idea[l] would be like that proverbial traveler in the desert arguing that water would be bad for his health. No one is making that argument. I can’t think of one Israeli or a supporter of Israel making such an argument, let alone working towards such an end. I must be missing something here. It seems to me that you are saying: It will be a great step forward on the road to peace if the region were to follow in the footsteps of Scandinavia.
But as I and other here have repeated, as a horizon, it’s good and highly desirable but Israel, right now, at this juncture, what can it do but look to its own interests in the very near future? And why am I made to feel that my concern for Israel’s very urgent and thisworldly plagues is tantamount to being “short-sighted, closed-minded, even ostrich-like”??
What exactly are you proposing needs to be done? WE are not the party in need of a paradigm change.
Well Noga, the term “absurdity of illusion” is yours. I would suggest that arguing that such an outcome is near impossible is not the best way of exploring ways of working towards it. And to suggest that looking to near future interests must somehow be incompatible with engaging in long term strategic thought is indeed ostrich-like.
That’s all well and right, Kelly but I notice you scold without offering any viable, doable way of achieving that regional democracy.
What exactly are you proposing needs to be done? Can you suggest at least one type of action that Israel, Israelis and their supporters can do in order to promote democracy in the entire Middle East? I mean, an action that actually yields some return? Does the road to democratizing the region go through the one-state solution? Is that what you are getting at?
Again, I must be missing something here. I am not a graduate of any school of ideology so it is possible that what seems obvious to you eludes me.
Hey guys, I think we’ll have to leave it there. The blog has officially ceased to exist in this form and the questions arising from BfB’s post have been thoroughly examined.