Adam Horowitz, the co-editor of this site, has done a lot of speaking on Israel/Palestine and is regularly asked, "But Mr. Horowitz, tell us what you think of the two-state solution!?" Recently, for instance, he was asked this question by a pro-Israel student at Temple University. What's his answer? Horowitz:
There is a short answer and a longer answer to this question. The short answer is that I don't take a position on one state or two states. In the end I'm not invested in one end product, but in ending the conflict. For that to happen, there are several principles that any just solution will have to meet. Some of those principles are equality (in the personal and collective sense) and self-determination. These are principles that can be met in theory in any configuration of solutions, whether they be one state, two states, a confederation, etc. I have heard compelling arguments for the need for one democratic state in Israel/Palestine and for separate states called Israel and Palestine. In the end it is up to people living on the ground to find a solution that works for them.
From our perspective in the US we just need to know that regardless of what the solution looks like, the conflict will not end until these principles are met. Also, it has to be said that the current "two state solution" that is being touted by the US, the Quartet, and some Israelis (ie Olmert and Livni) does not meet these conditions. Their two-state solution is being used to formalize the unequal relationship between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians, not end it. It will only deepen the conflict.
The longer answer gets to the real reason I think people tend to ask this question, especially if they're confrontational: they are asking if I support a Jewish state. The simple answer is no. This is for the reasons stated above: it is impossible for there to be equality in Israel/Palestine while there is a state that offers special and exclusive rights to Jews over other people. This is the case inside Israel, where Jewish citizens enjoy special rights over Palestinian citizens, inside the occupied territories where Palestinians live under military occupation, and in the diaspora where Palestinians' collective rights are ignored while Jewish people are offered incredible privileges. The example I give for this is that, as a Jew, I can move to Israel tomorrow and become a citizen with incentives and benefits from the state, while my Palestinians friends who still have the key to their family homes in Jaffa or Haifa would be arrested at the border if they tried to return.
That is currently the situation in Israel/Palestine. The conflict, and the suffering that comes from it, will not end until this system ends.
Does this mean that the Jews will be thrown to the wolves? No. I tell my questioners if their real concern is for Jewish safety, it is a concern I understand. I also understand why people would think that a Jewish state is necessary to ensure Jewish safety. But in fact the opposite is true. Setting up a system of perpetual domination of one people over another can only lead to endless conflict. The missiles hitting Sderot in southern Israel from the besieged captives of Gaza is one example of this.
I tell them if they're interested in Jewish safety, then they need to be working for a just solution to the conflict in Israel/Palestine because that is what will end the violence. If they are concerned about Jewish safety then they need to be concerned about Palestinian safety. Jews will feel safe in Israel/Palestine once everyone feels safe, but not before.
If instead they are simply concerned with there being a "Jewish state," then they are consigning the people of Israel/Palestine to endless violence. Right now the logic of a Jewish state is leading Israeli politicians to propose kicking non-Jewish citizens out of the state and the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the occupied territories. This is the process that has to be stopped. The future of Israel/Palestine depends on it.
This is good, indeed excellent, but the important explicit step is to envision jewish safety without a jewish state at all, including many jewish colonists in palestine leaving for the US, European countries, Australia etc, just as the Afrikaaners and French settlers in Algeria have done. Unless you offer an alternative vision of jewish safety, too many of your listeners will think – and be allowed to think – that you just mean a gentler, kinder Israel.
This is superb analysis. I completely agree with the part about the greater importance of Jewish safety than a Jewish state. It seems Zionists assumed that a Jewish state was the only path to safety, and I don't doubt that at the time it looked like a pretty good assumption, especially for those bamboozled by the myth that the land was empty. But today the assumption is clearly no longer valid and Zionists have lost sight of the original objective: a safe-haven.
Adam – Beautiful post!
Otto – Not having a state where only Jews are privileged does not necessarily mean that the Jews who live there now will have to or should go somewhere else. Many Afrikaaners have stayed in South Africa, as that is the only home they know. While concern for Jewish safety is indeed often used as a cover and a diversionary tactic for maintaining an untenable and immoral status quo by some of Israel's supporters, the question of safety for all of the inhabitants of Palestine/Israel is a legitimate one that needs to be confronted and tackled. In fact, it may be one of the most difficult for both parties, which is why it has often been relegated to the backest of burners, beyond platitudinous rhetoric and often hysterical verbosity.
The French colonial experience in Algeria was quite different – it was always meant to be an inextricable appendage to nearby France, in the classic 19th century colonial project sense, and the French settlers never really developed the complex roots or national feelings about their adopted country like the Afrikaaners and Israeli Jews have; they weren't nearly as ideologically driven in their colonial enterprise. Hence, it was relatively easy for them to repatriate after the war for independence. This is one of the unique features shared by Afrikaaner nationalism (as represented by Apartheid) and Zionism, and one of the reasons why the conflicts that arose because of the implementation of these ideologies proved or have proven so resistant to a peaceful solution based on equal rights for both the descendants of settlers and the indigenous populations they uprooted or suppressed. It's not that the French didn't feel superior to the Algerians; they certainly did, and that they alone had the right to the political and economic spoils of the land. But both Zionism and Afrikaaner nationalism were essentially a nation-building process which included this exclusion and exploitation of the indigenous population and their resources. The French never intended to create a new, exclusive "French" nation in Algeria.
Of course each racist colonial enterprise is not exactly the same, butI think putting the real decolonisation option on the table – i.e. that many of the jewish colonialists of the last 90 years will leave Palestine – is a crucial aspect of ending Zionism, just as in Algeria and South Africa. By the way, many many South African whites, Afrikaaners and others, have left South Africa, and many many others will continue to do so. Native majority rule means the de-privileging of the colonial population, and given the de-privileging, many of the colonists will want to leave, and live in the US, Europe, Australia and so on. Ending what Adam correctly calls the jewish colonists "incredible privilege" necessarily entails many of them leaving.
Good lord! I just wanted to make one more point. We only have to look to the history of our own country – America – which was also a country with an indigenous population that was settled by colonists determined to build a new nation (based on a system of slavery no less), to see how long and painful the process has been of establishing a society and system based on fundamentals of dignity, rights and economic opportunity for all of its citizens. And we still have so far to go. I think our similarity in this sense with Apartheid South Africa and Israel has led to more than a little problem with American identification with those nation-building projects, and helped hinder a more open-eyed and honest public appraisal of the situation in both countries, which continues to this day with Israel.
And in spite of our own roots as a brutal and exploitative colonialist enterprise, I don't think Otto would suggest that the descendants of settlers and other non-indigenous people go somewhere else for their safety. The answer, at least in large part, lies in all of us working to (or at least not consciously contributing to) peacefully transform the ideology and the system built upon it, where rights and dignity and basic humanity are no longer seen as a zero-sum game like they are now, whether in Israel or in the USA. And yes, too many citizens and politicians in our country continue to have this worldview.
If the Palestinians have adopted this zero-sum view of the situation now, as well, they are only reflecting the mirror we have held up to them for too long. The US and Israel are the pot calling the Palestinian kettle black.
I don't agree at all. In the US, Australia and so on, we should of course try to offer the most generous treatment for the native peoples possible but the balance of populations makes leaving implausible, but in places like Palestine, South Africa, and Algeria, where the native population massively outweighs the settlers, real decolonisation is still the best option. The South Africans and – I am sure – the Algerian settlers said, look at the US, we are just doing what you once did, but the world wisely decided that ending political support and enabling/requiring the colonists to leave was the better option. The same will be true with jewish colonialism. Getting the colonists out is an essential part of the solution.
Adam,
I think its a ludicrous post.
BOTH Zionism and Palestinian nationalism are nationalist movements that propose privileges for their chosen. Within Israel the extent of those privileges are as you said, that you can emigrate with expedited processing and unique support services when you arrive, while a non-citizen child of a former Palestinian resident of Jaffa or Haifa cannot. (A Palestinian Israeli citizen can come and go.)
In contrast, in the West Bank portions that are under Palestinian control, a Jew cannot buy property even in a private sale, even someone that was born in the West Bank area (and there moderate size communities expelled). There are NO Palestinian or even Jordanian citizens that are currently Jewish. (Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there are 60 or so. There are more than a million Palestinian Israeli citizens. A considerable contrast.)
If you are to be consistent, then if you oppose any Palestinian nationalist based screens for any rights at all, then your approach is hypocritical.
A Jewish state is a national construction. It is a great benefit in the world, the degree of democracy that does exist there. There are 2 Arab parties and at least two multi-cultural parties. There are cities which are genuinely multi-cultural (Haifa, Jaffa, Ashdod, Beersheba), and the communities genuinely co-exist.
In Palestine (Gaza and West Bank), there are NO multi-cultural cities in which the communities co-exist.
"Setting up a system of perpetual domination of one people over another can only lead to endless conflict. The missiles hitting Sderot in southern Israel from the besieged captives of Gaza is one example of this.
I tell them if they're interested in Jewish safety, then they need to be working for a just solution to the conflict in Israel/Palestine because that is what will end the violence. If they are concerned about Jewish safety then they need to be concerned about Palestinian safety. Jews will feel safe in Israel/Palestine once everyone feels safe, but not before."
Please read your comments with the prospect of a single-state, in which the prevailing parties that would constitute a government are nationalist parties (as is the current division). If the either party accomplishes a majority, and imposes radical shifts in law (if not in constitution), you are talking about oppressing 48% of the population, not the moderate suppression of Palestinians (within Israel) currently.
The single-state solution is at best 50 years off, and more likely to result after a peaceful two-state co-existence than a forced marriage.
I personally don't care if Hamas uses the term "Jewish state". I do care that they use the term Israel, and respect its law as its law.
Your logic sounds good to your own Western dissenting ears. It ends up with the same degree of internal contradictions and then lifelong tension as what you criticize.
There is NO disagreement on my part that Palestine should be sovereign and viable. We obviously disagree on the conditions that make that possible, or desirable.
"Moderate suppression…"
Richard, what makes you think that every single distinct group, organisation and union that thrived under Jewish championism would all of a sudden be removed once Palestinians outnumber the Israelis (or those who identify themselves as Israelis) by two more percent? Last I looked, a healthy minority is a MAJOR blocking party in other binationalist countries (I live in Canada, so that really rings true to me, as well as living in Australia.) and are more than capable of blocking anything that they do not agree with (This does not sound like a plausible assessment for the single state, does it?).
Also, Bedioun and Druze and even Israeli Arabs vote for Jewish parties, and even join the army. There are definitely many mixed messages that one can go by here. They all do not fall within the pre-existing party lines here.
But I will agree with you: this single-state is years off. And even if/when it does come true, it won't be a utopia. It will resemble other warring divisions, perhaps even more militant than the ones we see today in Northern Ireland, South Africa, Belgium, Canada, etc.
"In Palestine (Gaza and West Bank), there are NO multi-cultural cities in which the communities co-exist."
So I take it you mean that the creation of Israel had absolutely NO bearing on this situation in the occupied territories at all.
Most excellent answers, Adam.
There will be no single state. When the palestinians weary of their unfulfillable genocidal dreams, the conditions will be ripe for them to have their own state or to join their disputed territories to Jordan and Egypt.
When they learn it is better to leave Israel alone in peace, then, and only then, will they prosper.
Joshua,
Your "confidence" only applies if a dominant civilist orientation prevails over the current nationalist orientations among BOTH communities.
Otherwise the single state solution is a forced marriage. Some arranged marriages work. Forced marriages AGAINST the will of each party, rarely.
Consent of the governed is the PRIMARY theme of democratic governance. So get there.
Anyone who desires may google the pogroms going on against whites in S Africa since the whites volunteered (under international pressure) to give up their hold on mostly exclusive power–even though Americans never hear about it in our MSM; guess why. Anyeay, the whites were also much more of a minority compared to jews in the former mandate area after the land thefts of
47, 67, and those going on via expanding existing settlements and new settlements right up to the present
post Hillary visit era. I also agree the single state solution is years off, if ever, though that is what was forced in S Africa. How about Palestinians being offered a political refugee status here as well as jews?
And those who stay, deal with living under the state they choose to say in, regardless how configured
and its balance of demography?
Not a single false note. Lucid and dispassionate. Very well stated, Adam.
I particularly liked:
Setting up a system of perpetual domination of one people over another can only lead to endless conflict.
And:
Jews will feel safe in Israel/Palestine once everyone feels safe, but not before.
Sorry Richard, I don't know if you meant to quote "confidence" but my comment didn't even include that word in it. I take it you missed this:
"But I will agree with you: this single-state is years off. And even if/when it does come true, it won't be a utopia. It will resemble other warring divisions, perhaps even more militant than the ones we see today in Northern Ireland, South Africa, Belgium, Canada, etc."
While we're at it though, it seems this "consent" over the "forced" can only lead to more chances for blockading what could potentially be the only path to building trust towards the two parties. You did point out that "some arranged marriages work". This may not "work" but it definitely is an "arranged" situation which pitted Zionists in a Palestinian land (thanks Balfour Declaration). The track record for the consensus has led to this, and how much longer can we wait out this unstable ground before "someone clunks both their heads together and tell them that this is how it is and you may not like each other but you're going to have to live with each other in this tiny piece of land." (That's not an endorsement for a single state, that's an endorsement to at least end the fighting and be serious about this conflict resolution.)
I'm sorry to say that even the two-state solution that you advocate will be a forced marriage. Neither side wanted the other here but it's the "dowry" that they inherited with this land that is so disputed.
I advocate for a two-state solution only because the populations think in terms of their own community as their nation.
FEW that I've read genuinely think of the integrated single-state as their nation.
Consider Abunimeh's advocacy of a single state. He comes to it, and references the idea as a form of Palestinian assertion, resistance.
Its different than Zionism thinking of the land as only ours, in the sequence of who was here when. Its not particularly different in the effective result.
Co-existing requires a different assertive voice.
Hey, perk up! Obama's wife had to see him take the oath of the Prez of the USA before she considered the USA her nation.
Citizen, you make a very good point about South Africa.
If I thought Palestinians were racially or culturally similar to black South Africans I would consider a single-state solution suicidal for Israeli Jews.
However, Palestinians have much cultural and religious common ground with Israelis, and they have proven themselves capable of self-government and organized resistance despite massive oppression and the assassination and imprisonment of their leaders.
The Palestinians impress me. I think they are capable of coexisting with Israelis within a modern state.
ROFL. David, even before the current war, the Palestinians chose terrorists, whose stated goal is the extermination of the Jews, as their democratically elected leaders. They have over 80% support for suicide bombings. Their entire national identity is based on the common goal of killing or expelling all the Jews in Israel.
No, they are not capable of coexisting with Israelis in a modern state, or any other kind of state. The best that can be hoped for is that they will eventually decide that a state of their own beats being on the permanent losing end of an eternal war.
Adam has one thing right. The violence between Palestinians and Jews in Israel would end if a one state solution came to pass. It would end because shortly afterward the Palestinians would exterminate and/or expel all the Jews and there would be no Jews in Israel to fight the Palestinians. Of course, the Palestinian on Palestinian violence would continue.
"All the world hates the Jews."–Mamet, jewish playwright.
The entire national identity & history of Israel is based on the common goal of taking ever more Palestinian land. They did it in biblical times, as recorded by their Torah, and they are doing it now. This is not a progressive people in the most fundamental sense.
wow. this website is the only place I have found these conclusions other than in my own mind..
"ROFL. David, even before the current war, the Palestinians chose terrorists, whose stated goal is the extermination of the Jews, as their democratically elected leaders. They have over 80% support for suicide bombings. Their entire national identity is based on the common goal of killing or expelling all the Jews in Israel."
WRONG. Their stated goal is to get their land back and to dissolve the STATE of Israel. not extermination. there is a big difference.
Good job. Now please, bring up your very important ideas and facts to J Street so they may start seriously running with this position.
J-Street and the rest must come from this position.
AIPAC and the Israel Lobby will continue to be blind to the facts, and come from the other "INDEFENSIBLE" position which is pretending Palestine gets land returned to them while taking more and more in the other hand and blaming Hamas.
How can such a ludicrous position ever lead to peace indeed. Knock the Israel Lobby to the side so that your voice is louder!!!
"Palestinians want to be terrorists."
Your voice is the one we DON'T need to hear more of, what we need is the other side. Your one sided statement has had an echo chamber for far too long!!!
Palestinians and Israelis are capable of living together without Zionism, by dismantling the settlements like Olmert wanted and treating everyone as equal citizens with equal right to trial.
Strange but if the buying of the land for legitimacy was done in the first place there would be no "occupation".
Which is possible for sake of reparations..just as jews and family of survivors from the holocaust recieve.
as far as the temple and dome of the rock make it a big flat empty parking lot, with all the truths of what was believed back then when the stories of religous icons walked as mere political realm of standards for what beliefs should be fair and which should never be committed made into one simple statement as world belief forever and foreveryone. " DO ON TO OTHERS..AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO TO YOU" no churches, sinogouges, mosques or cable evangelicas ripping off what little people have left to live on.
Please 101 study on terrorist and the definition of what is should be looked at before writing and saying Palestinians choose terroism …that is funny. I and others have compiled over ten years of straight out lies and double standards which our government and media are hand in hand in with the aipac and others. If you are going to condemm people condem all the administrations that have let you down and lied to you and then commit genocide in your name or so they say it is. The process there is over for peace, and the end of a lot of innocent people will still be to come it is the inevitible result of the masiah to come..but what they forgot was they can not reset the living standards for people long enough to keep any real civilization sustainable afterwards the only hope is for whomever seeded this planet (if they did) to pick up where they left off and maybe next time do not put so much GULIBLENESS in the mix for the next world. A testing of n korea and or pakistan in the wrong pretense could be very unsettling
We (the Administration) are fixed on getting Israel and Palestine to come to an agreement in order that we may recognize Palestine as a sovereign state. Wrong! We don't need Israel's approval to exchange diplomats with Palestine. We should reverse the Benjamin Button roadmap and put the beginning where it belongs, not at the end. I seem to be the only one calling for immediate recognition of Palestine. If we are in support of "the two-state solution" why not implement it now? All it takes is to name an ambassador to Ramallah.
The two-state solution is the ONLY safe, sane and sensible solution to this decades-old conflict. Israel should pull its troops and settlers out of West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem….now, and allow the Palestinians to create their own independent, sovereign nation-state alongside Israel.
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i have just finished reading the book 'i saw ramallah' by palestinian poet, mourid barghouti (foreward by edward said, trans. by ahdaf soueif). more than any film i've seen, or thoughtful, balanced journalism on the subject of the displaced and disenfranchised palestinian people that i've read, this book has helped me to understand the reality of not only the palestinian people, but all political refugees in similar situations. which is why i very much appreciate the viewpoint of mr. horowitz, emphasizing the principles of equality and self-determination that must be at the foundation of any truly effective and lasting'solution.' when i found this blog (just now), at first i thought it was a neo-nazi website, because of the name (i.e., mondoweiss = worldwhite or white world). i find this very ironic. is it meant to be, wonder?
Much as I respect your reasons for not taking a position on one or two states, it just won't wash anymore. When the Israeli state is supported by the Jewish Diaspora, either overtly or through non-involvement, then neutrality shouldn't be the default position of liberals. When young Jews ask why what is being done to Palestinians doesn't constitute genocide, or how Israel isn't to be considered an apartheid state, then we need to debate that honestly, and ask how their 'elders' ( I refer to the hippie activists of yore:) could oppose the Vietnam War but not Gaza, and apartheid South Africa but not Israel. And, given the essential inequality in strengths I don't think we need to let the issue be resolved by the two parties alone, but a solution must be imposed by the organisation that created the problem in the first place, the UN, and, given the corruption of political and social dialogue by the Zionist experiment, I for one have no problem with calling Zionism for what it is, blatant European volk racism, and that it should be treated and addressed accordingly.
In the whole Arab world the predominant percentage of Arab women waste away in the kitchen with no education or jobs. In Israel they serve in the government, hospitals, private sector etc. In the US there is one black senator. In Israel, Arabs make up ten percent of the government. Where is the outcry against Saudi Arabia where they cut peoples throats open if they commit adultry? Or Iran where there are religious police? No one speaks of this because if he doesnt involve Jews, then it doesnt sell. No one cares to enlighten on the fact that gay Palestinians come to Israel to be gay and free because in 'Palestine' they would be killed. No that doesnt sell either. There are 56 Muslim States. No one questions their legitimacy. How many articles here deal with the Egyptian abuse of the Coptics? Or Iran who ethnically cleanses the Bahai? That also doesnt sell. What else doesnt sell? Some of Israel's biggest Zionists and patriots: the Arab Druze. Who have flourished and expanded under Israel's Jewish democracy. Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Christianity is on the rise. That doesnt sell. What sells? Israel genociding the Palestinians.They went from 1 million in 1948 to 5 million in 2009. Geez. Not so far behind the Israelis. Israel is made to be the evil of the world. But despite some of the evils of the occupation, Israel is an amazing flourishing country that incorporates traditional values and democracy. If anything Israel is a model for the Middle East not the USA or anything else. Israel has shown a country where Jews, Muslims, and Christians live together in peace. We have all three religions and multiple ethnicities in the government and public sector. So please. Spare us the arm chair superiority judgements.
Well telegraphed talking point. However there was a sizeable "Queers for Palestine", and "Nice Jewish Boys against Israeli Apartheid" contingent at the Toronto Pride Parade, and the parade grandmaster was a gay Arab. Yes there's prejudice against gays in EVERY society, but gays, bless their queer hearts, see this as an issue of defending the human rights of ALL groups.
I, like most Jewish people, support the two state solution. Let the Arabs have the land they were allotted, even though they have stubbornly dragged their feet – refused the land every time it is offered to them in a serious gesture – and tried 3 times to ethnically cleanse the Jews out of their homeland (Israel) since 1947. The Palestinian Arabs, from what I can tell, generally do NOT support a two state solution. They can't accept the fact that theis is a tiny fragment of the Middle East (1/642nd) that isn't under Muslim rule – because it is the home of the Jewish people, recognized as their home by the UN. And many of them will accept nothing less than a complete ethnic cleansing of the Jewish people and Arab rule over the entire area.