Israel/Palestine: A True One-State Solution

fuck

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 04665.html

Israel and Palestine: A true one-state solution
By George Bisharat
Friday, September 3, 2010
"Where is the Palestinian Mandela?" pundits occasionally ask. But after these latest Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington fail -- as they inevitably will -- the more pressing question may be: "Where is the Israeli de Klerk?" Will an Israeli leader emerge with the former South African president's moral courage and foresight to dismantle a discriminatory regime and foster democracy based on equal rights?

For decades, the international community has assumed that historic Palestine must be divided between Jews and Palestinians. Yet no satisfactory division of the land has been reached. Israel has aggravated the problem by settling roughly 500,000 Jews in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, eliminating the land base for a viable Palestinian state.

A de facto one-state reality has emerged, with Israel effectively ruling virtually all of the former Palestine. Yet only Jews enjoy full rights in this functionally unitary political system. In contrast, Palestinian citizens of Israel endure more than 35 laws that explicitly privilege Jews as well as policies that deliberately marginalize them. West Bank Palestinians cannot drive on roads built for Israeli settlers, while Palestinians in Gaza watch as their children's intellectual and physical growth are stunted by an Israeli siege that has limited educational opportunities and deepened poverty to acute levels.

Palestinian refugees have lived in exile for 62 years, their right to return to their homes denied, while Jews from anywhere can freely immigrate to Israel.

Israeli leaders Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak have admitted that permanent Israeli rule over disenfranchised Palestinians would be tantamount to apartheid. Other observers, including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have said that apartheid has already taken root in the region.


Clearly, Palestinians and Israeli Jews will continue to live together. The question is: under what terms? Palestinians will no more accept permanent subordination than would any other people.

The answer is for Israelis and Palestinians to formalize their de facto one-state reality but on principles of equal rights rather than ethnic privilege. A carefully crafted multiyear transition including mechanisms for reconciliation would be mandatory. Israel/Palestine should have a secular, bilingual government elected on the basis of one person, one vote as well as strong constitutional guarantees of equality and protection of minorities, bolstered by international guarantees. Immigration should follow nondiscriminatory criteria. Civil marriage between members of different ethnic or religious groups should be permitted. Citizens should be free to reside in any part of the country, and public symbols, education and holidays should reflect the population's diversity.

Although the one-state option is sometimes dismissed as utopian, it overcomes major obstacles bedeviling the two-state solution. Borders need not be drawn, Jerusalem would remain undivided and Jewish settlers could stay in the West Bank. Moreover, a single state could better accommodate the return of Palestinian refugees. A state based on principles of equality and inclusion would be more morally compelling than two states based on narrow ethnic nationalism. Furthermore, it would be more consistent with antidiscrimination provisions of international law. Israelis would enjoy the international acceptance that has long eluded them and the associated benefits of friendship, commerce and travel in the Arab world.

The main obstacle to a single-state solution is the belief that Israel must be a Jewish state. Jim Crow laws and South African apartheid were similarly entrenched virtually until the eves of their demise. History suggests that no version of ethnic privilege can ultimately persist in a multiethnic society.

Israeli perspectives are already beginning to shift, most intriguingly among right-wing leaders. Former defense minister Moshe Arens recently proposed in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Israel annex the West Bank and offer its residents citizenship. Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin and Likud parliamentarian Tzipi Hotovely have also supported citizenship for West Bank Palestinians, according to the Haaretz. In July, Hotovely said of the Israeli government's policies of separation: "The result is a solution that perpetuates the conflict and turns us from occupiers into perpetrators of massacres, to put it bluntly."

Is one of these politicians the Israeli de Klerk? That remains to be seen. Gaza is pointedly excluded from the Israeli right's annexation debate. They still envision a Jewish state, simply one with a larger Palestinian minority. But their challenge to the two-state orthodoxy, which empirical experience has proven unrealistic, is healthy.

If Americans aspire to more than managing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict via perpetual and inconclusive negotiations, we should applaud this emerging discussion. Having overcome our own institutionalized racial discrimination, we can model the virtues of a vibrant, multicultural society based on equal rights. President Obama, moreover, would be a fitting emissary for this vital message.

The writer is a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestinian Studies.

rafie

I just love how people who do not live in the region always seem to have "the perfect solution"...

TriumphantAngel

_outlaw wrote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/02/AR2010090204665.html

Israel and Palestine: A true one-state solution
By George Bisharat
Friday, September 3, 2010
"Where is the Palestinian Mandela?" pundits occasionally ask. But after these latest Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington fail -- as they inevitably will -- the more pressing question may be: "Where is the Israeli de Klerk?" Will an Israeli leader emerge with the former South African president's moral courage and foresight to dismantle a discriminatory regime and foster democracy based on equal rights?

For decades, the international community has assumed that historic Palestine must be divided between Jews and Palestinians. Yet no satisfactory division of the land has been reached. Israel has aggravated the problem by settling roughly 500,000 Jews in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, eliminating the land base for a viable Palestinian state.

A de facto one-state reality has emerged, with Israel effectively ruling virtually all of the former Palestine. Yet only Jews enjoy full rights in this functionally unitary political system. In contrast, Palestinian citizens of Israel endure more than 35 laws that explicitly privilege Jews as well as policies that deliberately marginalize them. West Bank Palestinians cannot drive on roads built for Israeli settlers, while Palestinians in Gaza watch as their children's intellectual and physical growth are stunted by an Israeli siege that has limited educational opportunities and deepened poverty to acute levels.

Palestinian refugees have lived in exile for 62 years, their right to return to their homes denied, while Jews from anywhere can freely immigrate to Israel.

Israeli leaders Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak have admitted that permanent Israeli rule over disenfranchised Palestinians would be tantamount to apartheid. Other observers, including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have said that apartheid has already taken root in the region.


Clearly, Palestinians and Israeli Jews will continue to live together. The question is: under what terms? Palestinians will no more accept permanent subordination than would any other people.

The answer is for Israelis and Palestinians to formalize their de facto one-state reality but on principles of equal rights rather than ethnic privilege. A carefully crafted multiyear transition including mechanisms for reconciliation would be mandatory. Israel/Palestine should have a secular, bilingual government elected on the basis of one person, one vote as well as strong constitutional guarantees of equality and protection of minorities, bolstered by international guarantees. Immigration should follow nondiscriminatory criteria. Civil marriage between members of different ethnic or religious groups should be permitted. Citizens should be free to reside in any part of the country, and public symbols, education and holidays should reflect the population's diversity.

Although the one-state option is sometimes dismissed as utopian, it overcomes major obstacles bedeviling the two-state solution. Borders need not be drawn, Jerusalem would remain undivided and Jewish settlers could stay in the West Bank. Moreover, a single state could better accommodate the return of Palestinian refugees. A state based on principles of equality and inclusion would be more morally compelling than two states based on narrow ethnic nationalism. Furthermore, it would be more consistent with antidiscrimination provisions of international law. Israelis would enjoy the international acceptance that has long eluded them and the associated benefits of friendship, commerce and travel in the Arab world.

The main obstacle to a single-state solution is the belief that Israel must be a Jewish state. Jim Crow laws and South African apartheid were similarly entrenched virtually until the eves of their demise. History suggests that no version of ethnic privilege can ultimately persist in a multiethnic society.

Israeli perspectives are already beginning to shift, most intriguingly among right-wing leaders. Former defense minister Moshe Arens recently proposed in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Israel annex the West Bank and offer its residents citizenship. Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin and Likud parliamentarian Tzipi Hotovely have also supported citizenship for West Bank Palestinians, according to the Haaretz. In July, Hotovely said of the Israeli government's policies of separation: "The result is a solution that perpetuates the conflict and turns us from occupiers into perpetrators of massacres, to put it bluntly."

Is one of these politicians the Israeli de Klerk? That remains to be seen. Gaza is pointedly excluded from the Israeli right's annexation debate. They still envision a Jewish state, simply one with a larger Palestinian minority. But their challenge to the two-state orthodoxy, which empirical experience has proven unrealistic, is healthy.

If Americans aspire to more than managing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict via perpetual and inconclusive negotiations, we should applaud this emerging discussion. Having overcome our own institutionalized racial discrimination, we can model the virtues of a vibrant, multicultural society based on equal rights. President Obama, moreover, would be a fitting emissary for this vital message.

The writer is a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestinian Studies.

excellent article

Commy

History suggests that no version of ethnic privilege can ultimately persist in a multiethnic society.



very true.

TriumphantAngel

rafie wrote:

I just love how people who do not live in the region always seem to have "the perfect solution"...

i love it too, especially when they are right on. and lets be realistic here, the ones that are living there clearly have not had any success at sorting things out in a fair and just way after all this time. have they.

fuck

rafie wrote:

I just love how people who do not live in the region always seem to have "the perfect solution"...

way to criticize the author, who is Palestinian by the way, and not the article at all. And you write the perfect solution in quotes as if you're actually quoting someone but no one ever said anything about a "perfect solution." so what the fuck are you talking about?

TriumphantAngel

a one state solution, where all would have equal rights.

yes please.

rafie

_outlaw wrote:

rafie wrote:

I just love how people who do not live in the region always seem to have "the perfect solution"...

way to criticize the author, who is Palestinian by the way, and not the article at all. And you write the perfect solution in quotes as if you're actually quoting someone but no one ever said anything about a "perfect solution." so what the fuck are you talking about?

At the end of the article, it clearly says that the author lives in San Fransisco. As for the quotation marks around "the perfect solution", my point was that it is easy to preach about something and say that you have the solution that will work if people just listened to you while not living the complicated day to day life in the region. Even if he is of Palestinian origin, fact is, he does not live there now.
No need to get all bitchy about it...

mickeyrat

rafie wrote:

_outlaw wrote:

rafie wrote:

I just love how people who do not live in the region always seem to have "the perfect solution"...

way to criticize the author, who is Palestinian by the way, and not the article at all. And you write the perfect solution in quotes as if you're actually quoting someone but no one ever said anything about a "perfect solution." so what the fuck are you talking about?

At the end of the article, it clearly says that the author lives in San Fransisco. As for the quotation marks around "the perfect solution", my point was that it is easy to preach about something and say that you have the solution that will work if people just listened to you while not living the complicated day to day life in the region. Even if he is of Palestinian origin, fact is, he does not live there now.
No need to get all bitchy about it...

so, since you live in this region, what is your viable, workable, EQUITABLE solution?

rafie

mickeyrat wrote:

so, since you live in this region, what is your viable, workable, EQUITABLE solution?

I never claimed to have one. I am not a politician, nor am I an expert on the subject.
As I have posted here repeatedly, I believe this to be a complicated situation which will only be solved by both sides making compromises on their positions through negotiations that are acceptable on both sides. You can not achieve a true and lasting peace when only one side gets what it wants. Look at Germany after WW 1 for example...

mickeyrat

rafie wrote:

mickeyrat wrote:

so, since you live in this region, what is your viable, workable, EQUITABLE solution?

I never claimed to have one. I am not a politician, nor am I an expert on the subject.
As I have posted here repeatedly, I believe this to be a complicated situation which will only be solved by both sides making compromises on their positions through negotiations that are acceptable on both sides. You can not achieve a true and lasting peace when only one side gets what it wants. Look at Germany after WW 1 for example...

ok, I understand that. It takes courage. So please share from a man in the street point of view , what compromises Israel should make to show an honest desire for peace. We'll start there. Then we can get to what Palestinians can compromise on. Have to start somewhere, do we not?

rafie

mickeyrat wrote:

rafie wrote:

mickeyrat wrote:

so, since you live in this region, what is your viable, workable, EQUITABLE solution?

I never claimed to have one. I am not a politician, nor am I an expert on the subject.
As I have posted here repeatedly, I believe this to be a complicated situation which will only be solved by both sides making compromises on their positions through negotiations that are acceptable on both sides. You can not achieve a true and lasting peace when only one side gets what it wants. Look at Germany after WW 1 for example...

ok, I understand that. It takes courage. So please share from a man in the street point of view , what compromises Israel should make to show an honest desire for peace. We'll start there. Then we can get to what Palestinians can compromise on. Have to start somewhere, do we not?

For me personally, I do not think a one state solution will ever work, because that would pretty much erase Israels existence as a Jewish state. Very few Israelis would accept this as a solution. You have to be Jewish/Israeli to understand the deep feelings on this subject.
I think the only solution that would work is a 2 state solution separating the Israelis from the Palestinians and granting the Palestinians control of their destiny with no interference from Israel. The problem with this (and for this I have no solution) is the division of land. Any future Palestinian state would need to include the Gaza strip and parts (not all) of the west bank. These 2 areas are separated geographically and therefore would make running/controlling such a state near impossible. Trying to connect the 2 areas would effectively divide Israel in half and that is obviously not an acceptable solution for Israel. The only thing they could probably do is a kind of land swap giving the Palestinians Israeli land adjacent to the Gaza strip in exchange for land in the west bank and therefore create a continual land mass for the Palestinian state. The problem with this idea is that it would lead to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in the west bank.

Like I said, complicated...

mickeyrat

rafie wrote:

mickeyrat wrote:

rafie wrote:

I never claimed to have one. I am not a politician, nor am I an expert on the subject.
As I have posted here repeatedly, I believe this to be a complicated situation which will only be solved by both sides making compromises on their positions through negotiations that are acceptable on both sides. You can not achieve a true and lasting peace when only one side gets what it wants. Look at Germany after WW 1 for example...

ok, I understand that. It takes courage. So please share from a man in the street point of view , what compromises Israel should make to show an honest desire for peace. We'll start there. Then we can get to what Palestinians can compromise on. Have to start somewhere, do we not?

For me personally, I do not think a one state solution will ever work, because that would pretty much erase Israels existence as a Jewish state. Very few Israelis would accept this as a solution. You have to be Jewish/Israeli to understand the deep feelings on this subject.
I think the only solution that would work is a 2 state solution separating the Israelis from the Palestinians and granting the Palestinians control of their destiny with no interference from Israel. The problem with this (and for this I have no solution) is the division of land. Any future Palestinian state would need to include the Gaza strip and parts (not all) of the west bank. These 2 areas are separated geographically and therefore would make running/controlling such a state near impossible. Trying to connect the 2 areas would effectively divide Israel in half and that is obviously not an acceptable solution for Israel. The only thing they could probably do is a kind of land swap giving the Palestinians Israeli land adjacent to the Gaza strip in exchange for land in the west bank and therefore create a continual land mass for the Palestinian state. The problem with this idea is that it would lead to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in the west bank.

Like I said, complicated...

why does Israel NEED to be a jewish state? Ethnic or religious reasons? And yes I'm fully aware of history. The Holocaust affected more than just the jewish people in europe.

yosi

Why does Greece need to be a Greek state? Why does Turkey need to be a Turkish state? The whole reason why Israel was established was to be a Jewish state. You don't have to like that fact, but please don't pretend that it doesn't matter to the people living there (I assure you, it very much does).

Commy

Is there a Christian state?

mickeyrat

yosi wrote:

Why does Greece need to be a Greek state? Why does Turkey need to be a Turkish state? The whole reason why Israel was established was to be a Jewish state. You don't have to like that fact, but please don't pretend that it doesn't matter to the people living there (I assure you, it very much does).

Yosi , I asked an honest question. No where in my post did it say it doesnt matter or that I dont like it. My point would have been , why is it not possible to coexist peacefully? so please, answer the question. Where is the NEED NOW?

redrock

yosi wrote:

Why does Greece need to be a Greek state? Why does Turkey need to be a Turkish state?

Greece does not say it needs to be a greek orthodox state. Turkey does not say it needs to be a muslim state. You are mixing citizenship with religion.

rafie

mickeyrat wrote:

why does Israel NEED to be a jewish state? Ethnic or religious reasons? And yes I'm fully aware of history. The Holocaust affected more than just the jewish people in europe.

It may surprise many here, but it has VERY little to do with the holocaust. The idea of Israel as a Jewish state was born as a result of the nationalist movements of the mid 1800's. Jews started to immigrate to Israel because of nationalistic reasons as early as 1878. Zionism has been around since the end of the 19th century. When Israel was established in 1948, there were around 600,000 Jews living here. The minority of them arrived to Israel after the holocaust.

The thing people here do not seem to understand is that Judaism is more of a culture/nationality these days than a religion. Most Israelis lead entirely secular lifestyles (not to mention Jews worldwide too). With that being said, it is still very important for most Israelis to live around Jews due to a lingering connection to Judaism as a religion. Maybe in 50 or 100 years from now, attitudes will change, but I think that as long as there is Antisemitism in the world (it even exists on this forum with certain members) Israel needs to stay a state that has a majority of Jewish citizens (Israels population today is roughly 80% Jewish).
Jews around the world feel a connection to Israel not necessarily because of religion, but because of nationality. I have worked with groups of north american youth in the past visiting Israel for extended lengths of time, and very few of them came because of religion. I think that what Yosi meant in his post above is that it is similar to an African American feeling a connection to Africa or an Italian American wanting to visit Italy and see "where he came from".

OutOfBreath

Commy wrote:

Is there a Christian state?

Aye. The Vatican State.

Peace
Dan

rafie

OutOfBreath wrote:

Commy wrote:

Is there a Christian state?

Aye. The Vatican State.

Peace
Dan

He got you there

But being serious, the are plenty of Muslim states (Iran for example), so why not a Jewish one?

TriumphantAngel

rafie wrote:

I think that as long as there is Antisemitism in the world (it even exists on this forum with certain members) Israel needs to stay a state that has a majority of Jewish citizens (Israels population today is roughly 80% Jewish).

i see no antisemetism on this board. i see no hate against Jews. what i do see is anger, revulsion, etc. against the zionist Israeli government, with all its implications. defending Palestinian basic human rights and being critical of the Israeli government, does not make someone anti-semetic.