When the facts change, the solution should too

Grass-roots support for a one-state solution is higher than you might think.

By Ali Abunimah Published 18 July 2012

An Arab Israeli protestors holds up Palestinian flag during a march for the right of return for Palestinian refugees who were expelled during the 1948. Photograph: Getty Images

Israelis and Palestinians generally don’t agree on much, but a recent poll, financed by the Konrad Adenauer and Ford Foundations (pdf), suggested that 70 per cent of Israelis, and an almost equal proportion of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, rated the chances for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the next five years as “non-existent” or “low”.

They are right. There won’t be an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza and there will be no “two-state solution”. This is a conclusion that many diplomats and peace process officials acknowledge in private but refuse to concede publicly.

The immediate reasons are clear: since it occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967 (along with Syria’s Golan Heights and Egypt’s Sinai), Israel has devoted its energies to making the occupation irreversible by confining and displacing Palestinian communities, replacing them with sprawling, Jewish-only colonies.

This project failed in Gaza. Israel abandoned its settlements in the territory in 2005 and chose to turn it into a giant open-air prison to contain an impoverished, largely refugee Palestinian population for which Israel has no use because, although indigenous, it is not Jewish. In contrast, Israel redoubled its settlement efforts in the West Bank, to the point where well over half a million settlers live a privileged existence there, controlling as much as 42 per cent of the land, while more than two million Palestinians eke out an increasingly precarious existence in the spaces in between, surrounded by walls, checkpoints and the Israeli army. In the past three years alone, Israel’s settler population on the West Bank has grown by 18 per cent.

For decades, there has been a consensus –backed by numerous UN resolutions – that Israel’s colonies are illegal and must be removed. Yet, instead of confronting Israel, the “international community” has been complicit, channelling aid and Palestinian energies into maintaininga bantustan-like “Palestinian Authority” that, far from being the nucleus of a state, acts as an economic/military subcontractor for Israel. The dilemma, from a Zionist perspective, is that the settler project succeeded well but not quite well enough. Though Israel is entrenched in the West Bank, the overall Jewish population in historic Palestine hovers at just 50 per cent. In a short while, Palestinians will once again be the majority, just as they were before 1948 when more than 700,000 of them were expelled. There is no Zionist solution to Israel’s dilemma that does not perpetuate gross injustice. Despite the simplistic mantras about a twostate solution, Palestinians and Israelis cannot be separated into ethnically homogeneous nations without the risk of wholesale ethnic cleansing and violence, such as occurred when Israel was created.

If two ethnically distinct states are unachievable and unjust, where can we go? Remarkably, the Konrad Adenauer/Ford poll found that 36 per cent of Israelis (28 per cent counting only Jews) and 31 per cent of Palestinians agreed with the argument that “there is a need to begin to think about a solution of a one state for two people in which Arabs and Jews enjoy equality”.

These numbers are surprisingly high, given that no leading political party or international figure has advocated such an outcome; indeed, they routinely denounce it. It suggests that there may well be more realism and creativity at the grass roots. They are still more remarkable given that, even into the early 1990s –acouple of years before Nelson Mandela was elected president – the percentage of white South Africans prepared to contemplate a “one person, one vote” system in a non-racial South Africa rarely exceeded the low single digits.

Increasingly among Palestinians, the focus is shifting away from statehood towards a discourse on rights. Nowhere is this embodied more succinctly than in the 2005 Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel. Without stipulating one state or two, this call demands the end of the Israeli occupation that began in 1967; recognition of the fundamental rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and that any outcome respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return home.

Could these demands – rooted in universal rights and international law – be fulfilled by a two-state solution? Conceivably, I have argued, if such an approach is modelled on the 1998 Good Friday Agreement for Ireland. However, it is not a two-state solution that any Zionist would accept. No just political outcome, whether under one state or in two, can preserve Israelis’ demand for the supremacy of Jewish rights over those of Palestinians.

Ultimately, I believe, the logic and inevitability of a single state will be accepted. As in South Africa and Northern Ireland, any just solution will involve a difficult and lengthy process of renegotiating political, economic and cultural relationships. But that is where the debate, unstoppably, is shifting.

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Tags: Israel Palestine

15 comments

Sat, 2012-09-15 15:48 — Caroline Crampton

Comments on this article are now closed.

Sun, 2012-08-12 12:52 — Jehudah Ben-Israel

Israel is, and has always been, the liberal democratic nation-state of the Jewish people. Sadly, instead of accepting this fact, Israel's neighbors have attempted over and over again to bring about its demise, to terrorize its Jewish population and to poison the atmosphere so as to prevent any accommodation of peaceful coexistence between Arab and Jew, between the Muslim-Arab world and this tiny national home of an ancient people that has maintained presence, continuously, in its homeland and the cradle of its civilization of Judaism.

Legally, the way out is the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution, 242, as is. And, until that time, as has been agreed by the parties, the Sept. 1995 Interim Agreement will have to do.

242, it should be noted, doesn't call for the establishment of an additional state between the Jordan River and the Med. Sea, a call that would contradict of course international law, e.g. San Remo Conference decisions, 1920; League of Nations decisions, 1922; United Nations Charter, Article 80, 1945. In fact, 242 doesn't even make use of concepts such as "Palestinians", "Palestine", "Palestinian territories" or a "Palestinian state", all of which simply are not part of international law. It simply calls for an accomodation based on secure and recognized boundaries - no, not the 1949 armistice lines, wrognly dubbed "1967 borders", or any other lines - which can only be achieved through direct talks by the parties.

Sadly, one party, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), despite its written commitment to do so, refuses to come to the negotiation table and talk peace.

Isn't it time we pressed upon them to do so, and do it for the sake of bringing about an accommodation of peaceful coexistence between Arab and Jew, between the Muslim-Arab world, local and regional, and the sovereign liberal democratic nation-state of the Jewish people...??!!

Sat, 2012-09-15 12:37 — AAMVN (not verified)

I hesitate to engage in what I fear is a futile discussion - but honestly, if you were a Palestinian Arab and not a Jew (as I assume you are) what would you do? Accept the police state imposed by Isrealis or resist in some way?

One state solution. Civil rights for Palestinian Arabs. Isreali Jews assimilate or leave Isreal. It's so obviously the only way you'll have peace without the genocide of Palestinian Arabs that Isreal seems to desire or at least is indifferent to.

Sun, 2012-08-12 05:07 — Nick Ferriman (not verified)

Dear Gideon,

Your assessment is spot on. Good work.

Regards

Nick Ferriman
Bangkok

Sun, 2012-07-29 02:41 — Gideon Polya

Readers of this thread - the routine defamation of critics of race-based, genocidal Apartheid Israel (2 million Indigenous Palestinian deaths from violence or from war-, invasion-, occupation- and expulsion-imposed deprivation since 1936) as "racist" or "anti-semitic" is false and defamatory and when applied to anti-racist Jews, among the most forthright critics of Apartheid Israel (e.g. Google "Jews Against Racist Zionism"), it becomes repugnant anti-Jewish anti-Semitism. One can see why the racist Zionists are not just the worst anti-Arab anti-Semites in the world today, they are also the worst anti-Jewish anti-Semites.

Tue, 2012-07-31 08:47 — Georgie. (not verified)

I'm sure that Gideon Polya's figures are incorrect. The Jews didn't kill 2 million Palestinians. The accepted figure is 420 million dead Palestinians and these were just blind children. When you add the Palestinian adult fatalities the figure comes close to 1 billion dead Palestinians.

Sun, 2012-07-29 16:36 — Elizabeth. (not verified)

Gideon Polya: madman extraordinaire!

Sun, 2012-07-29 00:29 — Gideon Polya

A very carefully researched comment of mine on this article was rejected by the MS "profanity filter". By way of experiment I have tried posting the same comments but with links removed:

Excellent article. The issue has always been the right of Palestinians to live in their own country with equal rights and indeed full human rights. The de facto situation for about 45 years has been that a race-based Israeli state has been ruling all of Palestine (plus a largely ethnically cleansed part of Syria) and currently still excludes all but 6.7% of 12 million Palestinians from voting for the government ruling this entity. Indeed about 6 million Palestinians are forbidden to even step foot in their own county.

The gross human rights abuse of an Apartheid Israel has been obfuscated for too long by the hypothetical possibility of "peace" via a "2-state solution". With 90% of Palestine now ethnically cleansed by the Zionists, the possibility of any such remotely just or viable solution has gone. Currently 1.6 million Palestinians are imprisoned in the Gaza Concentration Camp and 2.5 million Occupied Palestinians are confined to Zionist-encircled West Bank Bantustans, and these 4.1 million people are deprived of all human rights (see "Israel excludes Occupied Palestinians from Universal Declaration of Human Rights").

Of about 5.7 million Palestinians still living in Palestine only about 14% (the adults of 1.6 million Palestinian Israelis) are permitted to vote for the government ruling all of Palestine. Palestine is ruled by an Apartheid Israel that is a democracy by genocide (see "Palestinian Genocide") .

Jewish American Peter Beinert describes himself as "liberal Zionist" (an oxymoron because Zionism in theory and horrible practice involves racism and ethnic exclusion) and in his recent book "The Crisis of Zionism" argues for American Jews to demand a 2-state solution for the sake of Israeli democracy - the only utterly appalling and totally unacceptable alternatives being (a) an Apartheid state and attendant gross human rights abuse (as at present and as for the last 45 years) or (b) a final, Nazi-style genocidal expulsion of about 6 million Palestinians still variously living in Palestine to join their 6 million refugee brethren forbidden to even step foot in their own country (for a cogent critique of Beinert's book see: "Review: “The Crisis of Zionism” ignores Palestinian Genocide & Zionist racism" ) .

There need to be urgent, comprehensive Boycotts Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and its supporters as were successfully applied to Apartheid Israel-backed Apartheid South Africa. Further, the racist Zionists should be sidelined from public life as have been like racists such as the Nazis, neo-Nazis, Apartheiders and KKK.

A one-state genuine democracy with justice, equality, non-racism and reconciliation is required as in post-Apartheid South Africa. Any die-hard racist Zionists who can't bear the thought of Arabs having equal rights could go live in racist Chicago, Illinois, USA, where under a Black but racist Zionist-beholden President Obama only about 20% of African-American adult males are permitted to vote, the remaining 80% having been certified as felons for life (see Michelle Alexander, "The New Jim Crow").

Sun, 2012-07-29 00:23 — Gideon Polya

My attempt to post a carefully researched and documented comment on this article was rejected by the NS "profanity filter" although it contained no profanity. However a succinct summary did get through for which I have been subject to repeated highly obnoxious, anonymous, false, defamatory, ad hominem abuse on this thread.

Sat, 2012-07-28 08:38 — Frederick. (not verified)

I too believe in a 'one state solution'. The majority of the inhabitants of Israel , the West Bank and Gaza are Jewish. The majority would like to see the One State called Israel with a capital in Jerusalem. There is therefore no need to outlaw Jewish 'settlements' in Judea and Samaria in the context of the 'one State'. However illegal arab settlements, those founded by Iraqi and Jordanian settlers will need to be removed.