Last September ICAHD, the Israeli
Committee Against House Demolitions, which had long argued that the
two-state solution was dead, decided to bite the bullet and endorse a
one-state solution. We first circulated a draft among our Palestinian
partners for comment. The reaction was deafening in its silence. Either
fewer of our counterparts than we thought were willing to abandon the
two-state solution, the goal of their national liberation struggle these
past 25 years, for one state, or they objected to our framing it within
a framework of bi-nationalism. In the end we pulled back, putting out
instead a position paper in
which we tried to insert a critical Israeli voice into the one-state
formulation. It is clear that despite the fact that most Palestinians
realize that the two-state solution is gone, they have as yet to shift
to a one-state solution in meaningful numbers.
While I understand the dilemma of moving
from a solution that, in principle at least, is acceptable to the
international community to one that has little chance of being accepted,
a nagging feeling of frustration and fear has dogged me ever since. How
could we be in the midst of a political struggle without a political
end-game? What do we say to political decision-makers, the general
public or our own activists when they ask: What is it exactly that you
want? “Ending the Occupation” provides a partial answer at best. Indeed,
we shifted to the one-state solution because, in our view, the
Occupation will end and a Palestinian state will not emerge in that
small and fragmented territory. At the same time, we fully appreciate
the Palestinians reluctance to give up a national liberation struggle in
favor of a struggle for civil rights, which is what a one-state
solution inclusive of Israeli Jews would entail, even if it was
achievable.
We are, in short, “between solutions.”
We are in a state of transition from the two-state solution to something
yet undefined. That is to be expected: political struggles must adapt
to changing circumstances and adjust their strategies and even their
end-goals accordingly. But if we are to maintain our political momentum,
we must transit fairly quickly to an end-game that genuinely resolves
the conflict. BDS (boycotts, divestment, sanctions) is a valuable tactic
for keeping the issue alive, but it cannot replace an end-game and an
effective strategy for achieving it.
This paper attempts to hasten the
process of transitioning to a new end-game by making the case for a
democratic yet bi-national state. Not that this necessarily “the”
solution, and it certainly needs to be fleshed out, but discussing it
helps clarify the issues at stake; it bring out fundamental differences
of view upon which a constructive and much-needed exchanges is based. It
is incumbent upon us, the grassroots civil society, to formulate
solutions that, if not ideal, contain elements that progressives can
support and advocate. For governments will not do this; they are not our
partners. Rather than resolving conflicts, the international community,
including the UN, merely manages them. And if a fellow government like
Israel can subdue the Palestinians to a point where they cease to
disrupt the international system, they can live perfectly well with
occupation, apartheid and warehousing. It is up to us to formulate a
genuine and just solution -- or at least direction – and then generate
pressure from below on governments to act. That’s just the way it works.
So if this paper can help crystallize the issues and catalyze
discussion, it will have served its purpose.
The Range of Possible Solutions
The best place to start is to survey the
various “solutions” that are out there, each espoused by a different
community of interest and therefore of significance even if in the end
they prove unacceptable. The range of possible solutions and their
advocates goes something like this:
- Two States (majority of Palestinians living in Palestine and, in principle, most Israeli Jews). The internationally-accepted solution to the conflict envisions partitioning the country between the two peoples so that each enjoy national self-determination – although Israel would occupy 78% of country and the Palestinian state only 22%. The two-state solution is also supported by the majority of Israeli Jews. In a Peace Index survey in 1999, before the complete collapse of the Oslo peace process, it garnered the support of 58% (only 15% favored the bi-national model, while 7.5% said there was no way out of the conflict). The number of those supporting the two-state solution rose to 78% in 2003, during the second Intifada. This was not because Israeli Jews were convinced that a two-state solution would actually resolve the conflict, explains Tamar Hermann of the Peace Index, but because they desired “separation” from the Arabs – a “divorce,” in the inimical words of Ehud Barak.
Of course, in politics one can never
shut the door completely on solutions, and the same is true of the
two-state solution. It could be salvaged if
- Israel accepted the General Assembly vote of November 2012 recognizing Palestinian sovereignty over the Occupied Territories and agreed that Palestine become a full member state of the UN;
- Israel formally acknowledged the Palestinians’ right to national self-determination within the 1967 lines (never done to date); and
- The settlements which would fall under Palestinian rule would be integrated, Israeli residents allowed to stay in their homes as Israeli citizens living in mixed cities in Palestine, a situation in which the Occupation could be ended without having to physically dismantle the settlements, the major obstacle to achieving a two-state solution.
All this being highly unlikely, and with
the US and Europe unwilling to force Israel out of the Occupied
Territory, the “two-state solution” exists on paper only. Hence the
necessary shift to a bi-national solution. Nevertheless, PNGO, the
Palestinian NGO Network of almost 100 left-oriented associations, keeps
the two-state solution alive by continuing to promote three fundamental
principles for resolving the conflict:
- Ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
- Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
- Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
ICAHD and a number of critical left
Israeli organizations accept these principles. The vast majority of
Israeli Jews, even among the majority that support in principle the
two-state solution, consider them, however, merely a another means of
achieving a single Palestinian-dominated state.
- Two States: Apartheid (Labor/Center-Left Israeli governments). Successive Israel governments have expressed vague support for the two-state solution, either coerced out of them by American leaders or hinted at. For Labor-led Israeli governments, the two-state solution has always meant three things: (1) separating Israelis from Palestinians (hafrada); (2) seizing control of the Occupied Territory – “East” Jerusalem, which Israel has formally annexed, the massive settlement “blocs” in the West Bank, the Jordan Valley and the country’s borders, airspace and even the electromagnetic sphere – including all its resources, from water to tourism; and (3) finding collaborators who will agree to Palestinian autonomy on as little non-contiguous land as possible without compromising Israeli security. Indeed, the settlement blocs and the route of the Wall clearly delineate a fait accompli, a truncated Bantustan on only 15% of historic Palestine. The only problem left to resolve is how to normalize it. Apartheid, ironically, is the plan of Israel’s center/(Zionist) left; it is the liberal Israeli approach to “peace.”
- One Ethnocratic State (Hamas, right-wing Zionists, some anti-Zionist Israeli Jews and (perhaps) a growing number of Palestinian intellectuals). There is a remarkable, mirror-like correspondence between Hamas and the right-wing in Israel, the latter ranging from the Likud through the religious settler movement. Both contend that Palestine/Israel is one indivisible country that “belongs” exclusively to Palestinians or Israelis respectively, and for both the claim to exclusivity rests primarily on religion (Palestine being Islamic waqf land; the Land of Israel given to the Jews by God). Although Zionism secularized that claim, its ethnocratic nationalism continued to assert an exclusive claim over the country. Both would allow the “others” to continue living in the country, but only as second-class citizens. Hamas would permit individual Jews to continue living in Palestine, but as Jews, not a national minority called Israelis. By the same token, right-wing Zionists would tolerate individual Arabs living in Israel, but also not as a national Palestinian minority.
There are also voices among a number of
prominent anti-Zionist Israeli Jews, Palestinian intellectuals and
academics sympathetic to the Palestinian cause denying the very
existence and legitimacy of “Israeli.” Viewing Jewishness as merely a
cultural or religious identity but not a national one (or rather an
“invented” and therefore fictional national one), they have gravitated
to the position that Zionism was nothing but a form of settler
colonialism, and that therefore “Israel” and “Israelis” are nothing more
than artificial and illegitimate colonial constructs.
Finally, “warehousing,” a strategy of
Likud/center-right Israeli governments, is yet another variation on the
theme of one ethnocratic state. A form of imprisonment (the term
“warehousing” comes from the prison world), it is never declared as
policy or even mentioned; rather, it simply “becomes” by default the
political reality. For Israel’s past and present Likud/center-right
governments, even apartheid represents too much of a concession – after
all, it requires the establishment of a Bantustan. Netanyahu & Co.
say: 15% is too much of “our” land to give to the Arabs. Why should they
get anything? In their view the status quo is perfect: there
is no political process, the Palestinians have been pacified (to a
significant extent by their own American-trained PA militias) and Israel
de facto rules the entire country. Besides mild criticism, the
international community stands firmly behind Israel, or at least will
never sanction it. Netanyahu & Co. believe they can get away with
warehousing. So why compromise on any “solution”? After the 2013
election, his government declared its goal of “a million Jews in Judea
and Samaria.”
Despite a certain internal logic that
might contain elements of truth (especially reference to Zionism’s
settler colonial behavior), none of these options are inclusive and
none, in my view, would win the support of progressives.
- One State (Palestinians on the left). Although the contours of a solution shifted over time, one element shared by both Palestinians and Israelis of the left remained the same for a long time: whatever form peace eventually took, it would be inclusive. On one level this is expressed most explicitly in two documents: the “One State Declaration” issued in London on 29 November 2007 by the One Democratic State Group, and a similar if more detailed declaration entitled One State in Palestine, which calls for a Republic in Historic Palestine. Both were authored primarily by Palestinian intellectuals with important input from a number of Israelis and others. The principles they suggest as the basis of a single state reflected express the values and structures of liberal Western democracies. The London Declaration begins by affirming that “The historic land of Palestine belongs to all who live in it and to those who were expelled or exiled from it since 1948, regardless of religion, ethnicity, national origin or current citizenship status,” and adds: “Any system of government must be founded on the principle of equality in civil, political, social and cultural rights for all citizens.” Both documents naturally include provisions of restorative justice: the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees, of course, and their inclusion in the building of the new state, together with “redress for the devastating effects of decades of Zionist colonization in the pre- and post-state period.”
What these declarations omit, however,
is any reference to national or collective rights. Since their
Palestinian signers continue to invoke their national rights, it is not
clear what status Israeli Jews will in fact enjoy in this conception of a
democratic state. Even if Israeli Jews are “allowed” to stay in
Palestine as individual Jewish citizens, would they ever agree to stop
being “Israelis”? A lot rides on this question, even if it is left
unstated, and I will return to the issues of inclusivity and equality.
- One Bi-National State Dominated by Israeli Jews, With Palestinian Autonomy (the settler movement). Committed to the idea of an indivisible Land of Israel, the Yesha (Judea, Samaria, Gaza) Council of Settlements proposed in 2003 a bi-national state divided into ten ethno-national cantons under a single federal government. But separation of Jews from Arabs and Jewish control of the entire country are also fundamental principles for the settlers. In their plan, then, only two of the cantons would be Palestinian, thus guaranteeing an overwhelming Jewish majority. Another version of federalism, advocated by Elazar and academics of the Israeli right, envision a country where the Palestinians remain but as Jordanian citizens.
- One Democratic Bi-National State (Anti- or Post-Zionist Israeli Jews; critical Palestinian intellectuals and a good number of Palestinians in Israel and the Diaspora). In my view, the majority of anti- or post-Zionist Israeli Jews support a bi-national alternative over a unitary democracy. Although historically only the Marxist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine supported such an outcome, a majority of Palestinians would probably accept it – or at least not oppose – if only out of an acknowledgment of the political fact of Israel’s existence. The vision of a democratic bi-national state is fairly straightforward. Two peoples share a common country – the hyphen in Palestine-Israel assumes prime importance – the challenge being to find a balance between collective rights of national self-determination and equal individual civil rights. No easy task, but as Meron Benvenisti and others have pointed out, a bi-national reality already exists and functions de facto, despite official Israel efforts to contain and thwart it.
Bridging a Growing Gap: Can a Common Vision Be Achieved?
So where does this all leave us? Which
alternative do we choose that is as just and achievable as possible? Any
political struggle is characterized by a necessary give-and-take
between ideology, analysis and justice on the one hand and political
realities on the other. The absence of meaningful political movement on
the Israeli/Palestinian issue over the last few years and the steady
advancement of Israel’s “facts on the ground” to a point where there is
no more possibility of even a small Palestinian state has destroyed that
give-and-take. The shift to the “settler colonial” discourse by many of
the most articulate Palestinian intellectuals and activists carries the
risk of disconnecting political analysis from political reality (in
which two peoples inhabit the country), thus neutralizing as a useful
contribution to peace-making. Its concomitant, the withdrawal of
Palestinian activists from working with even anti-Zionist Israeli
activists under the rubric “anti-normalization,” is similarly
self-defeating. That is not to say that an argument could not be made
that Zionism was indeed a settler colonial movement and therefore
Israelis do not constitute a legitimate nationality – Collins,
Piterberg, Shafir and Veracini make a strong case for that – but
following the inner logic of that analysis to the exclusion of political
realities leads to political formulations that structurally prevent
Israelis and Palestinians from arriving at a common framework of
coexistence.
Indeed, an equally strong case could be
made that Zionism, for all its settler colonial crimes of displacement
and replacement against the Palestinian people, was in fact a genuine
national movement, as least in its initial impulse. Self-determination
means just that, self-determination. Say what they want,
Palestinian critics of Zionism are not those who decide whether Jews are
a nation, a people, a culture or just a religion, whether they have a
genuine tie to the Land of Israel or whether they in fact possess the
right of self-determination. This is so even if their identity and
narrative are “invented,” as are all national identities, including that
of the Palestinians. Settler colonial is not the only possible
framework for viewing the problem; one could make just as strong a case
that we are witnessing a clash of legitimate national movements. Be that
as it may, I will make an assumption here that no solution will win
widespread acceptance unless it conforms to human rights and
international law, unless it embodies substantive justice regarding all
the parties involved, unless it is inclusive. No solution that entails
the forced expulsion of an entire community or their exclusion from full
participation in a future polity will or should be accepted. As Khaled
Mashal has said: “Our concern is to liberate Palestine, not to create
more refugees.”
I am saying all this because the status
of Israeli Jews in the Palestinian state envisioned by the authors of
the London and One Democratic State Declarations is left unclear;
indeed, the question is either ignored or fudged. True, the Declarations
speak of the “creation of a non-sectarian state that does not privilege
the rights of one ethnic or religious group over another,” affirming
that “Any system of government must be founded on the principle of
equality in civil, political, social and cultural rights for all
citizens.” In this they return to the PLO’s notion of a secular,
democratic state. But what of the collective national rights of both
peoples? The answer is vague: “Ethnic, religious, cultural or national
minorities,” says the London Declaration, “shall be protected by law but
not assigned any specific rights.” Where does that leave Palestinians
and Israeli Jews, neither of whom can be described as “national
minorities”? Are they both being expected to renounce their national
identities and rights of self-determination in order to become simply
individual voters? “One should distinguish between ‘bi-national’ and
‘secular democratic’ states,” cautioned Edward Said. “These terms cannot
be used interchangeably….”
And is this really the whole story? In an early discussion of the one-state solution, Nasseer Aruri
argued that “A solution will require determined, systematic, and
protracted struggle unifying Palestinians as a whole with Israeli Jews
who wish to be neither masters of another people, privileged in an
apartheid system, nor colonial settlers denying the existence of the
indigenous peoples and wishing for their disappearance.” Over the past
4-5 years, however, with the rise of “Zionism-as-settler-colonialism,”
the discourse of the Palestinian left has changed – and become less
transparent. How does one reconcile the principle of “a non-sectarian
state that does not privilege the rights of one ethnic or religious
group over another” with this: “There can be no ‘inherent or acquired
Jewish right to self determination in Palestine that is equivalent, even
morally symmetric, to the Palestinian right to self determination’ as
this would blur ‘the essential differences between the inalienable
rights of the indigenous population and the acquired rights of the
colonial-settler population’”? – the latter position articulated by Omar
Barghouti and quoted approvingly by Ali Abunimah, both signatories to the London Declaration.
Such a view, shared though not usually
articulated so clearly by many of the Palestinian left, begins to
resemble the position of Hamas (or, inversely, the settlers), based
though it is on anti-colonial indigenous rights rather than religion. It
leaves unclear the civil status of Israelis/Jews in this one democratic
but not bi-national state. At best, this would lead to an ethnocracy
comparable to Israel today, with Israeli Jews possessing the
unacceptable civil status suffered by “Israeli Arabs” today. Or it might
take the form of Zimbabwe, where a European minority was allowed to
stay but ended up with limited civil rights, or even an Algeria where
the French settler colonialists were forced to leave immediately upon
liberation. In short, crucial issues of collective rights in a single
state have been left deliberately vague.
The urgent task before us, I contend, is
to reunite our analysis with the political and sociological realities
on the ground – or risk rendering ourselves theoretically correct but
politically irrelevant. How can we take the disparate elements and
principles contained in the various scenarios presented above (those we
can consider accepting, of course) and begin formulating a common vision
of a just and comprehensive peace? Permit me to offer a set of
fundamental elements shared by progressives upon which, I would argue,
any just and workable resolution of the conflict must be based.
Following that, we can return to the various scenarios, combining the
best elements they offer and fleshing them out until we begin to arrive
at a program for which we can actively advocate among governments and
the international public alike.
The Essential Elements of a Just and Sustainable Israeli-Palestinian Peace
What, then, are those fundamental
elements upon which a just peace must be based? Building on what has
been suggested in past discussions and declarations as well as upon my
own analysis of what is just and achievable, I offer these seven as a
starting point:
1. A just peace and the process leading up to it must conform to human rights, international law and UN resolutions
in respect to both the collective and individual rights of both
peoples. The Oslo process failed primarily because it was based only on
power relations, and if power alone determines the outcome, Israel wins
and the conflict, as we are witnessing today, becomes irresolvable.
Inequality and oppression are inevitable when human rights and
international law are brushed aside.
2. A just peace must accept the bi-national reality of P/I, and be inclusive of both peoples;
national identities cannot be ignored or denied. A just peace must be
inclusive. Two peoples reside in Palestine-Israel, and the collective as
well as individual rights of both must be respected and protected.
Since both peoples aspire to national self-determination, a right firmly
embodied in international law, national expression must be provided for
both Palestinians and Israelis. The two peoples are not merely ethnic
groups in a larger national society, or simply a collection of
individuals, but comprise national entities in themselves. The right to
self-determination, to participation without discrimination in public
affairs, to develop and advance one’s community economically, socially,
culturally, and politically, has been authoritatively upheld by the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its 2004 Advisory Opinion: “The
Court also notes that the principle of self-determination of peoples
has been enshrined in the United Nations Charter and reaffirmed by the
General Assembly in resolution 2625 (XXV) cited above, pursuant to which
‘Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which
deprives peoples referred to [in that resolution] […] of their right to
self- determination.’”
3. A just peace must find a balance between collective rights (self-determination) and individual rights (democracy).
4. A just peace requires that the refugee issue be addressed directly.
Eighty percent of the Palestinians are refugees; therefore any
sustainable peace is dependent upon the just resolution of this issue. A
“package” of three elements is required: Israeli acceptance of the
refugees’ right of return as set down in UN General Assembly
resolution 194, rather than limited “goodwill” or “humanitarian”
gestures; Israeli acknowledgement of its responsibility in creating the
refugee issue, a symbolic act upon which closure and eventual
reconciliation between the peoples depends; and only then technical
solutions involving a mutually agreed-upon combination of repatriation,
resettlement elsewhere and compensation.
5. A just peace must be economically viable.
All the inhabitants of Palestine/Israel must have equal access to the
country’s basic resources and economic institutions. Here post-apartheid
South Africa presents a cautionary tale: how a unitary state was
created that endowed all the country’s citizens with equal political
rights but economically retained a structure that has rendered much of
the Black African population a permanent underclass. Once viable
economic and political structures are in place, the Palestinian Diaspora
can be expected to invest in the country, supporting especially in the
Palestinian sector, just as the Jewish Diaspora has done. This
constitutes a resource of major significance that is seldom taken into
account in discussions of the Palestinians’ future or their ability to
achieve parity with Israeli Jews.
6. A just peace must address the security concerns of all in the region.
7. A just peace must be regional in scope.
Israel-Palestine is too small a unit to address all the issues at
stake, be they refugees, water, security, economic development,
environmental sustainability or others that are by nature regional. Such
a broadening of any peace process is necessary if Israel-Palestine is
to have a suitable regional environment in which to integrate. The
almost exclusive focus on Israel/Palestine has obfuscated another
crucial dimension of the conflict: its regional context.
Three Stages Towards a Just and Comprehensive Middle East Peace
Stage 1: A Bi-National State in Palestine/Israel
All proposed solutions to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict begin with a state structure, whether one
or two states. This is not because states are appropriate frameworks for
resolving the conflict – in fact, states are an extremely inappropriate
colonial imposition that only foment ethnic conflict; it simply
reflects the fact that the international system is organized on the
basis of discreet states.
One reason why states themselves are
inappropriate to Middle Eastern societies has to do with their inherent
hostility to the very cultural, religious and political groups of which
they are comprised. States consist of central governments claiming rule
over an atomized collection of individual citizens who are expected to
demonstrate loyalty solely to the state itself as the exclusive
repository of “national” identity. Yet the body politic is in fact made
up of ethnic, national, cultural, religious, political or even class
associations able to address the deeper identities, belief systems,
experiences and loyalties of their adherents better than can the distant
and antagonistic state. This sets up an inevitable competition that
leads to the take over of the state either by political and military
elites whose interests and policies stand at odds with most if not all
of its citizenry or by a particular ethnic, religious or political
community to the exclusion of the others. In Western Europe, unlike the
Middle East, states succeeded in establishing “democratic” structures
and procedures (such as elections) that largely de-ethnicized their
citizens and reduced “intermediate” groupings to the margins – although
this modus vivendi is being challenged by the massive waves of immigration over the past couple decades.
In the Middle East, by contrast,
multi-culturalism was the norm. To be sure, Islam became the hegemonic
religious/civil authority, but the other major religious communities,
Jews, Christians and some others, plus ethnic communities granted the
status of millets, were both legitimized and given the authority to
conduct their internal affairs according to the own religious laws and
customs. There was no state, and the authority of the centralized
governments of empires, provinces or countries often did not reach into
the more rural or distant regions. Even when states were established by
European colonizers, they had to be despotic, largely militarized,
regimes because they and the elites that ruled them had little claim to
legitimate power. A certain measure of national identity still pertains –
being Egyptian, Syrian, Palestinian or even Lebanese or Jordanian has
some cachet – but it is being challenged by the rise of politicized
Muslim religious movements (the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, al
Quaida, Hizbollah, Sunni and Shi’ites in Iraq and others) and/or strong
ethnic groups (Bedouin and Palestinians in Jordan; Christians, Muslims
and Druze in Lebanon; Kurds in Iraq, among many others). If functional,
peaceful, representative states or regional confederations are to have
any future in the Middle East, they will have to find a balance between
the traditional state structure and the multi-cultural reality of their
societies.
In terms of Palestine, three political
developments of the past two centuries cannot be ignored: the rise of
states as the organizing framework of the international community; the
corresponding rise of nationalism and its demand for a nation-state;
and, much more recently, the rise of Hamas and other groups that fuse
nationalism and religion. The first two provided the rationale for the
two-state solution, but given the irreversible “facts on the ground”
that Israel has imposed on the Occupied Territory and the rise of
political Islam, that solution is dead and gone. That leaves, I would
argue, one of three one-state alternatives:
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