The way out of the Palestine/Israel mess
Last Monday, during my Plain Talk episode on Boom FM, I had an epiphany. When “Bing” Joseph asked what I saw as the answer to the Palestinian-Israeli problem, I said the creation of a single Palestinian-Israeli state. I make no claim to uniqueness. I’m sure I read it someplace. Since then, I’ve been forced to gather backing for my notion after a few people approached me and stated I was a daydreamer.
“Among the Western democracies’ countless unsayables, the greatest of these is that the state of Israel, founded on injustice 75 years ago, is a failed experiment,” writes Patrick Lawrence, a superb independent journalist. Instead of jubilee celebrations, it is ethnic cleansing a defenseless populace – a horrific memorial to the six million people whose names it was supposed to honor. Similarly, no one in Washington or among America’s European vassals can say what has to be said about America’s lengthy record of ‘unconditional support’ for Israel: it is the gravest foreign policy failure – among many, of course — in the postwar period.”
These were my thoughts when Bing inquired about solutions last Monday. We clearly cannot continue in this manner. The circle of violence, anguish, and suffering is far too raw, frequent, and pervasive. How can you lie about babies being beheaded in order to demonize your Palestinian “enemy” and then bomb a hospital, murdering over 500 people?
Last Tuesday, a buddy asked me what had happened to the two-state solution to the Palestinian/Israeli problem, and I told him it never had a chance. The’solution’ was to provide Israel a state while legalizing Palestinians’ fractured existence in the West Bank and Gaza.
Interestingly, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, was aware that his vision of a Jewish state had flaws. “There is no example in history of a people saying we agree to renounce our country, let another people come and settle here and outnumber us.” He moved ahead regardless. Over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes between 1947 and 1949. Thousands of people were massacred when they were driven out of hundreds of towns and villages to make space for Jewish settlers. Many of these refugees’ children and grandchildren now live in Gaza.
The erudite Palestinian thinker Edward Said authored an essay for the New York Times titled “The One-State Solution.” “It is time to ask whether the entire process that began in Oslo in 1993 is the right instrument for bringing peace between Palestinians and Israelis,” he said. In my opinion, the peace process has actually postponed the genuine reconciliation that is required to end the century-long conflict between Zionism and the Palestinian people. Oslo laid the groundwork for separation, but true peace can only be achieved with a binational Israeli-Palestinian state.”
I had already read Said and went in pursuit of his ideas. The Oslo Accords gave birth to the concept of a two-state solution. Edward Said was dissatisfied. “To its great shame, Oslo exacerbated the inevitable mess.” It confined Palestinians to non-contiguous swaths of land, accounting for around 10% of the West Bank and 60% of the Gaza Strip. The longer current patterns of Israeli settlement, Palestinian imprisonment, and resistance endure, the less likely it is that either side will have true security.”
“Palestine is and has always been a land of many histories; it is a radical simplification to think of it as primarily or exclusively Jewish or Arab,” he concluded. While the Jewish presence is longstanding, it is far from dominant. Canaanites, Moabites, Jebusites, and Philistines were among the ancient tenants, as were Romans, Ottomans, Byzantines, and Crusaders in the contemporary era. Palestine is multiethnic, multireligious, and multicultural. Today, there is as little historical grounding for homogeneity as there is for concepts of national, racial, or religious purity….”
“The first step is extremely difficult to take. The majority of Israeli Jews claim that they are unconcerned about the Palestinian situation…. My generation of Palestinians, still reeling from the trauma of losing everything in 1948, finds it difficult to comprehend that another people took over their homes and fields…”
“I see no other way than to start talking about sharing the land that has brought us all together in a truly democratic way, with equal rights for all citizens.” There can be no reconciliation unless both peoples, two suffering communities, decide that their presence is a secular fact and must be dealt with as such…”
“The first step is to create something that is completely absent from both Israeli and Palestinian realities today: the concept and practice of citizenship, rather than ethnic or racial community, as the primary vehicle for coexistence.” By virtue of their existence and the sharing of rights and obligations, all members of a contemporary state are citizens. As a result, citizenship entitles an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Arab to the same rights and resources. A constitution and a bill of rights are thus required to move the conflict beyond Square 1 because each group would have the same right to self-determination; that is, the right to practice communal life in its own (Jewish or Palestinian) way, with a joint capital in Jerusalem, equal access to land, and inalienable secular and juridical rights. Religious zealots should not be allowed to hold any side hostage.”
These concepts are wise, but no one wants to acknowledge their underlying realities. This tragic reality is represented in the fact that, in the aftermath of the most recent Palestinian uprising, the West unthinkingly supports Israel’s deadly onslaught on Palestinians, proving their erroneous belief that an Israeli life is more valuable than a Palestinian life.
However, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict demonstrates unequivocally that there can be no enduring peace without substantial justice. The only cure to conflict is equal human rights. Only one democratic state can put an end to the violence.
