Israel's settlement program in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is so far advanced that the moment is approaching - if it has not arrived already - when there will be no possibility of a Two State Solution. The only alternative will be a One State Solution; whether it be a binational state, an apartheid state, or an ethnically cleansed state.
Former U.S. National Security Advisors are saying it:
We will not turn the Middle East into a zone of peace instead of a zone of violence unless we more clearly identify the United States with the pursuit of peace in the Israeli/Palestinian relationship. Palestinian terrorism has to be rejected and condemned, yes. But it should not be translated de facto into a policy of support for a really increasingly brutal repression, colonial settlements and a new wall.
Let us not kid ourselves. At stake is the destiny of a democratic country, Israel, to the security of which, the well-being of which, the United States has been committed historically for more than half a century for very good historical and moral reasons. But soon there will be no option of a two-state solution. Soon the reality of the settlements … [will] mean there will be no opportunity for a two-state solution… Indeed as some Israelis have lately pointed out, and I emphasize some Israelis have lately pointed out, increasingly the only prospect if this continues is Israel becoming increasingly like apartheid South Africa — the minority dominating the majority, locked in a conflict from which there is no extraction.
American academics are saying it:
All the while and day by day, Israeli construction crews have been crunching and grinding through the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, laying roads and erecting thousands of new housing units in well-planned communities. 'Settlement' suggests a few hilltop caravans defended by zealots, but what we have is a massive grid of towns penetrating deep into the West Bank and Gaza and now housing some 200,000 people (in addition to the 180,000 in the East Jerusalem city settlements, which no one believes will be abandoned). Tens of thousands of homes and apartments are served by schools, shopping malls, theatres and arts centres, connected by major highways, elaborate water and electricity supplies, dykes, walls, perimeter fences and surveillance systems. The grid is immovable both because of its massive infrastructure and because of the psychological investment of its residents. A decade ago, a concerted international effort might have arrested its growth. But it has now gone too far, and nothing stands in the way of its expansion.
Carved up by populous Jewish-Israeli settlements, neither the West Bank nor the Gaza Strip is a viable national territory. And it follows that if there can be no reversal of the settlement policy, a Palestinian state is not practicable….[T]he one-state solution, in whatever form (binational or ethnically cleansed), is now the only option.
The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State is warning of it:
The demographic picture is very stark. Within the next decade or so, Jews will be a minority in the area encompassing Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. As Israeli settlements expand and their populations increase, it becomes increasingly difficult to see how the two peoples will be separated into two states. The fact is that settlements continue to grow today, encouraged by specific government policies -- and at enormous expense to Israel's economy. And this persists even as it becomes clear that the logic of settlements and the reality of demographics could threaten the future of Israel as a Jewish democracy.
Eminent scholars are saying it:
[I]f a two-state solution were to provide the stability and security that both peoples so desperately crave, the resulting Palestinian state would have to be just as viable as the Israeli state with whose fate it would always be so closely entwined. But continued implantation of Israeli settlers and all their supporting infrastructure into the West Bank has brought about a situation in which the establishment of a viable Palestinian state looks impossible.
Over the years, Israel has planted more than 400,000 settlers into the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. All that land - like Gaza, like Syria's Golan - has the status in international law of being "occupied territory," and the 4th Geneva Convention expressly states that it is illegal for the occupying power (Israel) to transfer any of its citizens into these occupied lands…
But now, most of the 400,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank want to stay in the luxurious communities that hefty government subsidies have provided. Politically, it would now be almost impossible for any Israeli government to suggest that they move back to Israel - or to leave them where they are under a Palestinian ruler. But if they stay where they are, and under Israeli sovereignty, then the land left for the Palestinians can never provide the basis for a viable Palestinian state. As with the "Bantustans" created by the old apartheid regime in South Africa, the Palestinian-ruled area would be resource-starved and totally under the control of the stronger power. No recipe there for long-term stability - for white South Africans, or for Israelis.
Israel's former chief negotiator is saying it:
Ending our rule in the territories and ceasing to manage the lives of millions of Palestinians is an existential Israeli interest. In less than a decade the Palestinians will constitute the majority of the population between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. In other words, unless Israel divests itself of rule in Judea-Samaria and the Gaza Strip as far as possible, though not necessarily in the form of an agreement, it will with its own hands put an end to the Jewish state and bring into a binational state into existence. The hour is ripe for this because more and more sane Israelis, from the right and the left, understand the importance of a democratic state with a Jewish majority, and the danger that threatens the very existence of such a state.
Jewish historians are discussing it:
Israeli liberals and moderate Palestinians have for two decades been thanklessly insisting that the only hope was for Israel to dismantle nearly all the settlements and return to the 1967 borders, in exchange for real Arab recognition of those frontiers and a stable, terrorist-free Palestinian state underwritten (and constrained) by Western and international agencies. This is still the conventional consensus, and it was once a just and possible solution.
But I suspect that we are already too late for that. There are too many settlements, too many Jewish settlers, and too many Palestinians, and they all live together, albeit separated by barbed wire and pass laws. Whatever the "road map" says, the real map is the one on the ground, and that, as Israelis say, reflects facts. It may be that over a quarter of a million heavily armed and subsidized Jewish settlers would leave Arab Palestine voluntarily; but no one I know believes it will happen. Many of those settlers will die—and kill— rather than move. The last Israeli politician to shoot Jews in pursuit of state policy was David Ben-Gurion, who forcibly disarmed Begin's illegal Irgun militia in 1948 and integrated it into the new Israel Defense Forces. Ariel Sharon is not Ben-Gurion.
The time has come to think the unthinkable. The two-state solution— the core of the Oslo process and the present "road map"—is probably already doomed. With every passing year we are postponing an inevitable, harder choice that only the far right and far left have so far acknowledged, each for its own reasons. The true alternative facing the Middle East in coming years will be between an ethnically cleansed Greater Israel and a single, integrated, binational state of Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians. That is indeed how the hard-liners in Sharon's cabinet see the choice; and that is why they anticipate the removal of the Arabs as the ineluctable condition for the survival of a Jewish state.
Even the Palestinian Prime Minister can publicly talk about it.
Well, no; actually he can't. Because when the Palestinian P.M. states what is obvious to everyone, i.e. that there cannot be a Two State Solution if one state has taken all the land, he is of course "making an empty threat that Israel is obviously not going to think seriously about", and trying to bring about "the destruction of Israel".
It will in fact cause such a scandal that the PA will be forced to issue a clarification, venturing to point out that P.M. Qureia is simply stating the obvious, and entering late into a discussion that is aready well advanced in Israeli society, and in academic and other interested forums worldwide.
How ridiculous that the people most affected by the swallowing up of the land that was supposed to be their state are the only ones not allowed to mention the obvious outcome. In accusing the PA of seeking "the destruction of Israel" because they dare to say the words "binational state", the Israeli government is simply using emotive codewords to prevent honest debate about a perfectly legitimate political issue. In this respect, "the destruction of Israel" serves the same purpose as throwing "self-hating Jew"/"anti-Semite" in the face of anyone who dares disagree with current Israeli government policy. Both have the same purpose of intimidating legitimate critics into silence, but both have the same drawback: once your critics catch on to the ruse, they will take you no more seriously than the boy who cried wolf. In a world where there are people who really do seek the destruction of Israel, and who really are anti-Semites, how short-sighted do you have to be to cynically misuse these terms till you empty them of any real meaning?
I have been absolutely fascinated by your discussion of the development of the binational idea for Israel/Palestine. In my opinion that is where all great Jewish thinkers are pointing, such as Marc Ellis, Jeff Halper, Meron Benvenisti, Yehudith Harel, Amira Hass, Tanya Reinhart, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Gavron, Tony Judt etc etc. And I have always thought that the leading advocates for one-state will come from Israel; in order to save it as a truly Jewish homeland it must become a land of where justice prevails and that means sharing it as a Jewish and Palestinian homeland. Anyway I have collected lots of related articles at www.one-state.org/articles.htm if anyone wants to study.
Mortaza Sahibzada
Posted by: Mortaza Sahibzada | 15 February 2004 at 10:00 PM
Introducing the Movement for One Democratic Secular State
As the Israeli occupation continues to grow ever more entrenched, more and more people around the world are reaching the conclusion that the ethnic separatist "two-state solution" is no longer viable possibility. The level of physical integration between Palestinians and Israelis, both inside and outside the Green Line, as well as simple demographic realities has effectively negated any realistic separatist schemes aside from the current "ghettoization" policy being employed by the Israeli government, which is not sustainable.
The alternatives to ethnic separation within Mandatory Palestine (“between the river and the sea”) are the "one state models", both racist one state models based on ethnically cleansing "the others" from Israel/Palestine and the progressive one state models based on integrating Palestinians - including the refugees - and Israelis into a single state and polity. For progressives, the idea of ethnic cleansing is utterly anathema and can therefore be ruled out as an acceptable solution.
Among the progressive one state models there is an extremely broad array of opinion on how this can best be brought about. The federalist model envisions separate ethnic states or cantons, and draws much of its inspiration from the examples of Belgium and Switzerland. The binational model envisions separate group-specific laws and rights within the framework of a united state, similar to the existing status quo in Israel proper or the situation in modern Lebanon, sans the overt discrimination against particular communities. The integrationist models hold the view that separate can never be equal and generally look to the South African model for inspiration, based on core principles of anti-racism, "one person - one vote", and the nondiscriminatory employment of the rule of law to all citizens. Each of these models has its own advantages and disadvantages and it is impossible to say which model will eventually gain the most support.
Right now the one state perspective is a minority one. However, some 25-30% of Palestinian refugees, the vast majority of Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship, and smaller percentages of other Israelis and Palestinians already view the one state proposition as an acceptable compromise. All of these percentages can be increased if we, as in the global peace, justice, and human rights community take on the issue and make it mainstream.
In order to advance the progressive one state concept - regardless of the model preferred - we have decided to launch the "Movement for One Democratic Secular State" project. At this early stage we are primarily forming an online community in order to enable networking between one state activists, to share tips and opinions on effective one state advocacy, as well as to generally develop the progressive one state concept by allowing advocates of the various models to make their respective cases and then debate the issues. This is an essentially progressive project, meaning that we expect all participants to stay within the basic - though very broad - perimeters of the project as defined on the "Positions of the Movement" page. Further the community is fully democratic, each member has the right to propose new initiatives, vote on previous initiatives as well as to discuss various concerns in an open forum among other members.
The Movement is meant to accommodate both the intellectual as well as the activist, though you need not be either to participate. On the intellectual front there are the discussions regarding the various models as well as how to get from where we are today to actually realizing the one state ideal in Palestine/Israel. For the activist, we discuss ways and means of arguing the point, effective rebuttal of ethnocentric/racist positions, examples of other activities elsewhere that can be employed in your area, as well as a news service to advertise your own efforts at promoting the one state ideal.
Please visit the Movement for One Democratic Secular State website at http://www.onestate.org Read the "Positions" and "Purpose" of the Movement and if you find your own views compatible with ours, please consider joining us. In most respects, the one state case is much easier to make than the ethnic separatist "two-state solution" one, therefore it behooves us to encourage the one state case to become a mainstream suggestion. The initiative is new, having only went public on August 7, so there is plenty of room to for everyone to participate.
John Sigler
Movement for One Democratic Secular State
http://www.onestate.org
Posted by: John Sigler | 10 August 2004 at 12:31 PM