"If I Were a Palestinian"--Akiva Elder tells Palestinians to call for one democratic state between the river and the sea for all citizens, abolish the P.A., end the sham peace process (and give up the right of return):
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed his Czech counterpart, Mirek Topolanek, that "if Israelis can't build homes in the West Bank, then Palestinians shouldn't be allowed to either." According to the principle of reciprocity, which has always been dear to Netanyahu, all Palestinians, like all Jews, are welcome to build their homes from now on anywhere between the sea and the Jordan River...
Were I a Palestinian, I would adopt the call of the Israeli Declaration of Independence to "the Arab people, residents of the State of Israel, to keep the peace and take part in building the country on the basis of full and equal citizenship and on the basis of appropriate representation in all its institutions, the temporary and permanent ones."
These principles seem so commonplace in the west. That is the beauty of writing like this, it shocks a westerner who has accepted Jim Crow as the norm there. And in fairness: it took the U.S. 300 years to begin to recognize minority rights. Israel has to fast-track that process. But it won't until pieces like this begin to appear in the American press. (Why is the American press retrograde and the Israeli press a little open? Because of the Israel lobby.)
(Thanks to Ori Folger)
slavery works for some people… controlling the media is a helpful tool..
The one-state calls must be combined with a conscious policy of deprivileging the jewish colonists in both Israel and the West Bank, including many of them departing for the US or Europe etc.
There's no one-state but everything else remaining the same.
Sex slavery is rampant in the blight unto the Nations. So is racial discrimination and bigotry towards Arabs and Muslims. Oh and then there's the Occupation.
Zionists have had to steal everything in Historic Palestine. There is no Israel.
Or, as Akiva Eldar suggests, improving the quality of democracy in both Israel and the Arab world.
I think that the two-state solution is far more practical, but if Netanyahu continues incremental annexation without offering any hope for actual sovereignty for Palestine, the point of no return will be reached shortly.
It will be internal tensions that break the back though, not external boycott and certainly not Palestinian violence. That is the one thing that will keep Netanyahu's approach relevant to anyone.
I see the Governor-General of Bishkek has decided what to do about the Jews. Perhaps the inhabitants of the Bukharan Quarter of Jerusalem would beg to differ with SOAS's plans for them.
There were indigenous left-socialist political organizations that might have made one-state work, like the Palestine Railway Union, the Israeli Black Panthers, MAKI, and some of the woolier elements of the PFLP. Unfortunately, they were done to death by Nasserism much more than Zionism, with the IBP in particular getting shoved into Zionism by the 1973 October War.
Slow coercion has never really worked to improve the attitude of Israeli Jews, and while there ARE forces for co-existence (Balad, Hadash, Ra'am-Ta'al, and even the Islamic Movement) they need to be cultivated. Telling a million poor Mizrahi Jews that they need to starve until the State of Israel starts treating Palestinians better is a non-starter.
It would be quaint indeed if you turned Tel Aviv's poor urban Yemenite-descended Jews into stateless exiles, as the Algerian government did to indigenous Mozabite Jews in the name of Algerian-ism and Muslim Brotherhood. They were too Sahrawi and too Jewish, you see, to be "real" Algerians, so they got deported as French colonizers.
There are those who know this history, and they deserve a better alternative than anything YOU have on offer.
what explains it's adoption by israel?
@ Witty
"It will be internal tensions that break the back though, not external boycott " thanks to me and my ilk. I know I'm right as I always supported USA Civil Rights & the boycott against apartheid S. Africa.
How would "Tel Aviv's poor urban Yemenite-descended Jews" be turned "into stateless exiles" if full and equal citizenship were accorded all inhabitants, Eurosabra?