The other day I wrote that now that non-Zionists are finally gaining a voice in the discourse on Israel/Palestine, we have to bring our bat and ball– positive ideas about how to solve things in the Middle East, not just a litany of Palestinian suffering. I'm planning to have a rolling roundtable on this question. Especially as Obama and Netanyahu conduct a smoldering conflict over an issue– a settlements freeze– that for all its appeal on the American lib-left does little to alter the lineaments of Israeli colonization. Here is Antony Loewenstein's response to my challenge:
Proposing 'positive' ideas is essential to move the debate forward. It's not surprising, however, that all of us in various ways want to document the daily abuses that occur in Israel proper and the territories. They are numerous and largely unreported by the mainstream media. The blogosphere is therefore a necessary reckoning and chronicler of life in or around a 'Jewish state'.
In my own work, in Australia and beyond, I'm often asked to say what I think should happen now and into the future and it's something I've extensively discussed in a forthcoming edition of my book (My Israel Question), namely the many reasons a one-state solution is the most just outcome. It's vital not to preach to either side, however, but provide space for varying narratives to be heard. Yet not all sides are equal (witness the LA Times on the weekend publishing a piece in defence of the West Bank settlements: ).
Most of us (I think I can presume this?) question the viability and morality of the two-state equation. Reaching one-state is currently highly unlikely but I believe an important conversation. So, how about proponents of this being given air-time and counter positions published, too? A conversation is the only way to tease out the future. Not preaching, engagement.
Journalists don't have to provide answers; I've always thought this. We can suggest, cajole and encourage, but reporting and activism is a strange beast, something I constantly struggle how to manage. I can't sit on the sidelines and not complain about what goes on in the mid-east. One has a moral responsibility to provide possible solutions. And be willing to have those ideas pulled apart.
We could issue occasional statements with ideals, gathering signatures. We could more forcefully challenge the J Street line about 'preserving a Jewish state.' Criticism of the status-quo isn't illegitimate, it's essential. We have to know what we're against before we know what we're for. And frankly, we don't have to all agree. How terribly boring if we do. Justice for all sides and peace with justice for historical wrongs.
We can be a sounding-board for ideas, some positive, some not. There doesn't need to be a party line, and I would urge us to avoid it. My experience tells me that those who still strongly back a two-state solution remain uncomfortable with being too close to Arab life and culture. An unspoken racism, perhaps? Naivete about co-existence?
One of the more important things we could do is challenge the supposed necessity of maintaining a Jewish state. Being opposed to religious states – including in, say, Iran, where many young Iranians I met there in 2007, during research for my book, the Blogging Revolution, urged a more secular future – is a humanitarian position. It's not just against Zionism, it's a far wider ideology…
Related posts:
- Now that people mourn the 2-state solution, what are progressives to do?
- Forget about the 2-state solution — get ready for the ’side by side’ solution
- Barring 2-State Solution, Israel Becomes South Africa–Without South Africa’s ‘Solution’, Israeli Minister Warns
- Antony Loewenstein, on Racism and ‘Jewish-Born’ Critics of Zionism
- Bookstore Owner Reinvites One-State Solution Author, But Doesn’t Explain Her Change of Heart, Nor Apologize
{ 79 comments }
Who is being naive about coexistence, Loewenstein? There are plenty of Arab Muslims living amongst Israelis with no fear whatsoever. Can the same be said of Jews living in Gaza amongst the terrorists in control there?
Funny thing. You reminded me of something from a Heinlein novel, best I can remember "I am not in danger from my neighbors, and you are not in danger from yours. The problem is that I am in danger from your neighbors and you are in danger from mine". When an Arab mob comes to kill the Jews in this one-state Muslim theocracy that would result from merging the Palestinians and the Israelis into one country, the fact that some of the people in the mob get along with some of the victims of the mob is irrelevant to whether the mob as a whole is going to kill those Jews. The Palestinians can't even keep from murdering each other. Hamas murders Fatah members, Fatah murders Hamas members. You want the Israelis to put their lives and the lives of their families in the hands of the Palestinians in the hope that their new Palestinian overlords will be more merciful to them than to each other?
If you don't like your neighbours, you should have thought twice about stealing their homes and their land.
As a Palestinian from Gaza, I wholeheartedly agree. I believe strongly in a multiethnic Palestine/Israel. Israel today is already multiethnic with a 20% Palestinian population. The rest of us have to be enfranchised.
Reaching one-state is currently highly unlikely but I believe an important conversation. ONE STATE IS ALREADY HERE!!! What's currently highly unlikely is getting anyone to acknowledge it and start making it equitable.
Arabs and Jews got along fine in Palestine until the European and Russian immigrants started arriving and carrying our terrorist attacks on the Arabs. In the West Bank, it is the settlers who are the mobs and who are attacking the Arabs. Hamas murdered Fatah members because Fatah staged a coup (with Israeli and Us backing) to overthrow Hamas after Hamas' electoral victory in 2006.
Israelis ain't going to negotiate the one-state solution. They will continue to reject it, and almost equally reject the two-state, and will continue settling. The one-state state solution is inevitable, but it will emerge rather than be negotiated. After the fact of apartheid becomes known, and with the help of civil society pressure and the boycott campaign, Zionists will have no other option. If one is morally committed, he or she should join the BDS campaign.
One state with equal protection under the law, and with investment in equality of civil rights for all inhabitants of the region (please note, not citizens, as such.) These are not simple concepts to understand and enact in law – as the ongoing discussion in the US, historically some years on in it's own engagement with them, demonstrate. Yet they are the true legacy of "Never Forget."
Most people don't try to kill their new neighbors, who bought their land fair and square.
Nor do they try to kill their old neighbors just because they're Jewish: "In 1929, the Jewish Sephardic/Mizrachi community had been living in Hebron continuously for over 800 years under various imperial powers, and the Jewish Ashkenazi community had roots there that went back at least a century." "The Hebron massacre refers to the mass murder of sixty-seven Jews on 23 and 24 August 1929 in Hebron, then part of the British Mandate of Palestine, by Arabs" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre
So Anthony Lowenstein joins your staff's chorus of "complain, don't propose". "We're journalists, you know". I makes me suspect that they are scared that the emperor (them) is wearing no clothes, and that they will then be forced to validate some of the concerns (if not the choices) that they criticize. But, the question of actually forming goals (goals can change) and working towards them practically, and just complaining, is the difference between adulthood and adolescence.
And, the consequences for society, is the difference between an idealistic gamble and a prospective actual transformation. Most gambles result in great loss to the general public, and as the loss is experienced mostly by people very far away, it can only be said to be an exercise in extreme reckless vanity, to only address complaints and agitation. I saw the cartoon of "Chicago 10" last night, of the Chicago 8 trial following the Chicago 68 oddity. Of course, it presented Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin as innocent artists. Abbie was hysterical. In the movie, he did standup political comedy really. The police rioted. The dissenters agitated. It was sad to see dedicated non-violent activists caught in the middle of the yippie madness. I volunteered for David Dellinger's magazine "Seven Days", in the early 70's. LSD and politics. So wierd. Maturity is important. It gets more done.
Read some history Shingo.
I take issue with the statement "Most of us (I think I can presume this?) question the viability and morality of the two-state equation. " I don't see that there is any other option that results in Palestinian dignity in any meaningful term. The populations are too equal, and the conflicts are too deep and non-compromising to be any single state in the foreseeable future. If you wish to work for gradual social integration and development of CIVIL oriented political parties (civil, rather than nationalist, religious, or ideological), wonderful. The BDS, South Africa model, is impossible in this context, and should be abandoned frankly.
I seriously don't understand how you go from a bi-national secular state to an authoritarian Muslim theocracy. You have to make leaps and leaps of assumptions to get to that outcome. Do you even know how a bi-national state would work?
You're saying than anti-Jewish pogroms were common in the Palestine area before the 19th century? Because you know that would be a lie.
Most people don'y move into a new neighbourhood and then try to steal their neighbour's land.
With two competing states side-by-side, the nationalists and the extremist religious parties WILL ALWAYS win. Just look at India/Pakistan – it's been 60 years and they still despise each other. A two-state solution is certainly possible and much more favoured on the Israeli side – but you're trying to make it much simpler than it really is.
How? http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=9503250... Two States, Still One Exit Is the two-state solution an obsolete strategy? Gershom Gorenberg | July 2, 2009 | web only Let's face it: When Barack Obama said in Cairo that "the only resolution" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is two separate states, he was courageously insisting — well, on what's become conventional wisdom. But not the unanimous wisdom. The hardliners on each side aren't alone in questioning the two-state idea. On the street in Jerusalem, I've run into old friends, veterans of Israeli peace and human-rights activism who say we've passed the tipping point: There are too many settlements; Israeli withdrawal is impossible; negotiations on two states have repeatedly failed; the only solution is a single, shared Jewish-Palestinian state. I've heard Palestinian intellectuals, former supporters of a two-state solution, who say the same. Among writers outside the conflict zone, British Jewish historian Tony Judt may be best known for suggesting — back in 2003 — that as a nation-state, Israel is "an anachronism" and should be replaced by a binational state. Ironically, Obama himself may have given this idea a bit more traction among American progressives — his election proving, perhaps, that multiculturalism within one polity can work, perhaps not just in America but elsewhere. So is he pursuing an obsolete strategy?
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=two_s...
I think your concern is well-founded. The effort is TO support the civilists (and I don't mean anti-religious, but anti-fanatic moreso). It actually means rejecting the Palestinian nationalist approach to a single-state, if you actually think that there is any prospect of achieving it. (The BDS, Israel is apartheid/singlestate already/ready to fall thesis) That approach WON'T result in a consent of the majority of Israelis. The vast majority of Israelis fear (rationally, to my mind) that opportunists among Arab, Muslim, Palestinian communities will continue prior efforts to "drive the Jews out". Even if front of the left doesn't advocate for that, they leave room for it, and even apologize for it. I heard it in the Chicago 10 movie, lots of real life footage, in which Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Renny Davis adopt the "by any means necessary" language, and rejected the discipline of non-violent civil disobedience that David Dellinger embodied. One reason that there was a conservative backlash following the sixties, was the idiocy of the left's "leadership" at the time. I'm sorry that I bought into the Abbie Hoffman approach to any extent that I did. (I was swayed by a romantic personal connection to the Hoffman family. My mother "baby-sat" for him when she was a teenager, and we would periodically meet the Hoffman family – not Abbie. He was like a cool, older teenager to me.)
I have read plenty fo history Witty, Mr Hasbara, which is why I am able to clean your clock every time.
Gorenberg is clearly full of shit. hamas leader, Meeshal, has supported a 2 state solution for years now. The only hardlines that stand in the way of a 2 state solution are the extremoists running Israel.
Not with that stupidity. The status of dhimmi was NOT a peer status nor secure for Jews in really any part of the middle east. There were long periods of acceptance of Jews (as a powerless minority) in many locales, but also MANY instances of suppression usually during periods when there were power struggles and scapegoats were "needed". Even suggesting to turn back the clock to the 19th century says too damn much about your definition of "democracy".
A brilliant critique.
Another relevant question to ask for "dissenters". If, the long-dreamed of two-state solution is so close to possibility (Arab League proposal, Geneva Accords), why would you abandon and subvert it now by utopian and dangerous speculation?
I don't think that's what he/she is suggesting. What Shingo is saying, is that it's not impossible for Jews and Arabs to live together
That's why the 750,000 refugees and Benny Morris' s documentation of the massacres that lead to the formation of the state of Israel.
Discussion of the two state solution is a distraction to avoid meaningfully wrestling with the issues. The one state solution is the intellectually honest one. The pigeon is delighted to see more discussion in this direction. It is a chance for extremists to make peace. When I read the justifications of the West Bank settlers they list the Palestinian villages that were destroyed to make the well known cities and parks of pre-'67 Israel and wonder why they should be singled out for having established their communities nineteen years later. In fact though the settlers tend to be more fanatic, and for all their faults, and for all the private property they have confiscated, they actually displaced less people from their homes than the residents of pre-67 Israel who have managed to acquire an unwarranted legitimacy for their actions. The settler advocates make an excellent point and here is common ground to begin a dialogue with Palestinians who wish to return to the areas they lost in '48. The '67 borders are not a sound way to discuss which settlements are legitimate and which are not. There is a spectrum of modalities involved in the establishment of settlements wherever they are between the river and the sea, ranging from using empty state land, to purchasing land, to blatant theft of land and displacement of indigenous inhabitants. This is what must be examined. I once met with the late Faisal Husseini who said that Rabbi Froman of the settlement Efrat came to him and said, "I have an idea, how about if both peoples share all the land as equal partners and have one state?" Husseini said that that's what had been the Palestinian position but they had abandoned it in favor of the two state solution as an effort towards compromise and moderation. The dear Rabbi got himself in deep trouble with his fellow settlers for suggesting this, but it was indeed a spark of light. Are there forty righteous West Bank settlers with whom we can begin this dialogue?
The Muslims were the only group to ever protect Jews from persecution, taking them from Spain to Turkey and giving them protection. Must is made of the so called dhimmi status, but since when has any religion that has tolerated another, not regaded it's own identity as superior? Isn't the state of Israel a Jewish an expression of dhimmi staus over Arabs? And don't wate my time with your moralizing abotu democracy. Israel is an apartheid theocracy. Any notion of democracy is purely cosmetic.
You're rigth Shafiq, In fact, the moronic Zionists so opposed to a 2 state settlement, don't even realise that their beligerendce will lead to a single Jewish/Arab state regaedless and that the Jews will innvitable become a minority.
Does anyone still read witty's idiocies? If so, let me know what you get out of them. Give me a cliff notes version. Alert me if there is ANYTHING there worth pondering, and i promise to ponder it. Otherwise, I'll happily scroll past. The guy is plainly demented. At this point, I think the prospects for ONE and TWO state solutions have passed. The "settlements" like Maale Adumim are already gargantuan cities. They are not going anywhere and everyone knows that. Nor will the israelis ever consent to share the land as equals, particularly as they will in short order become a minority. One state and two state remedies are both dead. What is left? A) The slow destruction of the Palestinians. Or B) the expulsion of the Palestinians (a movement gaining momentum and now considered part of mainstream discourse in Israel). Or C) some kind of perfect storm in the region which will destroy the state of Israel permanently. I think A or B are the likely outcome. Obviously, everyone with a shred of conscience hopes for C.
I see Mister Witty is projecting yet again. AND, as for maturity, Witty by his own definition, is the eternal child. Child, how exactly are you working as a practical matter towards exactly what goals?
I was there for those events at that time, every day. The Chicago 10 thought they knew everything, were naive, and had a very slanted view of what they took as whole history. The activist students were even more naive, had a more slanted view of history, and were nearly always very sheltered and privileged youths riddled with class bias. The cops had their class bias. Both sides were matched in overall ignorance. Both sides were often out of control. I still have Yippie handouts from those days. Very infantile. It was upsetting. I was going to a downtown university during the day at the time, studying among other things Doiestoevski's The Devils (The Possessed)–it was as if Fyodor D's characters had come to life before my eyes; at night I worked in a south side steel mill. I felt like The Underground Man.
I can't see Israel giving up the right of return as they have it now; and how could Palestinians live in a state where that's left intact unless Palestinians living anywhere in the world are given that same equal right? Would be interesting to hear from a Palestinian on that issue towards a single state solution.
If you notice Obama always splits the baby as it were, carefully balancing apparently reasonable concerns of each side of any issue in his generalizations, but those broad-brush opposing generalizations often are tipped at end with a fine thin brush, brushing away reality in terms of the negative practical effect on the ground for those he must know on the ground are the real losers in his "progress" plan, e.g., on the bailout, affirmative action, medical plan, and his total public speech on the I-P peace plan. My vote for Obama was only a vote against the Bush years and a continuation especially in foreign policy by McCain.
Richard Witty's posts are always very reasonable, as long as you operate under a few presuppositions that reveal themselves throughout his writing. Here's one: "The vast majority of Israelis fear (rationally, to my mind) that opportunists among Arab, Muslim, Palestinian communities will continue prior efforts to "drive the Jews out". Even if front of the left doesn't advocate for that, they leave room for it, and even apologize for it." Presupposition #1: Jewish fears of Arab Muslim Palestinian mobs are rational. Unstated sub-presupposition #1: Palestinian fears that any two-state solution will just be an excuse for Israel to continue exercising geopolitical control over the entirety of 'both states' are not rational. They are nationalistic and "uncivil" Unstated presupposition #2: Because Palestinian fears are irrational, Only Positive Ideas matter, not analysis or reporting of the situation on the ground in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or the Gaza Strip. The fact that throughout the Oslo process–the most immediate encounter that most Palestinians have with the two-state solution–settlements continued to expand on Palestinian land doesn't matter. The fact that farmers can't get to their field doesn't matter. The fact that Israel controls all the borders, water resources, airspace, and shows no real sign of ever wanting to give that up as long as they have $3billion a year in U.S. military aid and a guaranteed veto of any Security Council action against them, doesn't matter. No, all that matters is Positive Solutions, which are to be proposed in a vacuum of anything other that the first two presuppositions: Israeli Jewish fears are rational. Palestinian fears are not. Myself, I'm agnostic on one-state/two-state. I think it's colonialist to assume that white Americans are more equipped to what the Wonderful Solution should be. Human rights and international law should be the cornerstones. U.S. one-sided policy contributes to the conflict and must change. Let's focus advocacy efforts on that, and stop self-righteously pretending that we've got the One Positive Solution all figured out.
Its not impossible IF they accept each other. Show me that in Israel/Palestine, to a high level of confidence.
It must have been surreal.
Maybe the issue is, is the two-state solution really less utopian or simply a way to kick the can endlessly down the road–as it has been for many years? Or not.
Great comment, pigeon! Thanks for flying down. What you discuss is what I was trying to drive at. Who knows what a choice referendum vote by all Israelis and Palestinians would reveal? The US could handle the vote counting and vote machines…
I find that the fear that Zionists will dominate a single state to be more important to Palestinian national and individual aspirations. That is that with open right to purchase land free from discrimmination from river to sea, the Zionists will acquire 95% of it (without any reserved land for Palestinian community). Fears are information, to be addressed, to be solved in the design of rational solution. If you are saying, "Its not of others' business what goes in the Israel/Palestine", then why are you here?
"If you are saying, "Its not of others' business what goes in the Israel/Palestine", then why are you here? " Not what I said at all. What I said is that I'm skeptical of the narrative that says that only Americans can come up with the solution, as if we are somehow neutral arbitrators in this conflict rather than primary funders and supporters of it. I think that our funding and support of conflict has to change in order for us to play any sort of arbitration role that will be fair both to Palestinians and Israelis, and if you don't see a $3 billion stake in one side of the conflict as a problem, I question your rationality. If folks want to debate solutions, that's fine. But when it comes down to it, the advocacy work that needs to happen as U.S. citizens (I'm assuming most people who are commenting on these posts are U.S. citizens, which could be an incorrect assumption, if so my apologies) is to work to make our U.S. policy responsive to norms of human rights and international laws. What those who've been doing this for a long time have discovered–and I'm relatively new to this game, only the past 6 years or so, with the last 6 months in DC and the year and a half before that living in occupied East Jerusalem–is that the U.S. government is very, very resistant to this sort of work. And so folks develop other ways for civil society actors who believe in peace and justice–who know, for example, the fallacy of statements that there is no nonviolent resistance to occupation–to act for change, through nonviolent accompaniment, the Free Gaza initiative, direct action, divestment, boycotts, popular education, etc. Your point about Zionists dominating a single state is certainly well made, one reason why I remain agnostic on the issue. You don't have to remain agnostic, and neither does anyone else, but I would argue that anyone who is serious about justice and peace in Palestine and Israel should look at human rights and int'l law as the cornerstone of any "solution," not the other way around, and engage in a serious critique of U.S. gov't and corporate policy as it relates to conflict in the region. Not exactly "Its not of others' business what goes in the Israel/Palestine", is it?
I should add that I don't at all blame you for the presuppositions I pointed out. These are the presuppositions, along with things such as "there is no Palestinian nonviolence" and the assumption that Israeli government violence is official ergo legal ergo acceptable whereas Palestinian violence is substate/religiously based ergo terrorism ergo unacceptable, are the standard framework of the debate here in the U.S. Anyone who is inside that framework can be reasonable . Anyone critiquing U.S. policy is not balanced; anyone supporting Palestinian resistance, even in its nonviolent form (and boycotts and other economic avenues are very much part of nonviolent resistance, as Martin Luther King–who started his movement leadership during the Montgomery bus boycott–or Gandhi–who proposed boycotts of British cotton and salt–or any anti-apartheid activist would tell you) is probably unbalanced; anyone who mentions int'l law and human rights, probably not balanced. This is the way that the debate has been framed. Within that framework, you are very reasonable and cogent, and kudos to you. But that framework has to pass away for there to be a peace that Palestinians will be able to accept (another presupposition, btw–it is up to Israelis to declare what is acceptable, and Palestinians have to accept whatever that is).
It's been said elsewhere on this site, but the status of "dhimmi" was a thing of the past long before Zionism existed (which is not to say that non-Muslims enjoyed fully equal status in the 19th-century Ottoman empire.) Historically, the Dhimma and its predecessors were actually a progressive feature compared to Christian proselytism. Christianity, as soon as it had acquired enough political throw weight, basically gave conquered people the choice to convert or die. The ability to continue living as Jews, Christians or Hindus, although with a reduction in what we would today call "citizen's rights", was very lenient and tolerant by the standards of the time.
There are two groups that have rejected Oslo and the implied two-state solution: 1. Expansionist Zionists 2. Rejectionist Arabs/Muslims If the can got kicked, it was those two groups that distracted any effort at justice. (The adjectives are qualifiers not epithets).
Your descriptions of "presuppositions" were innaccurate. The problem with your mention of "international human rights" or "international law" is that they are stated vaguely, stated as propaganda, NOT as analysis, or any standard that you submit to. My primary "presupposition" is that consent of the governed is the appropriate basis of sovereignty, and that that is not being afforded to the majority in the West Bank. By that math, I conclude that unless a large minority in both Israel and in Palestine prefer civil parties to either national or religious, that majority rule in Israel/Palestine would result in 49% feeling that they are governed by an external power. In contrast, with partition, in which there are 20% minorities in each state, that at least 80% will feel that they are self-governed, and CONSENT. I do not prescribe to a tyrrany of the majority approach by any measure. Things are moving forward as a result of Obama's policies towards a two-state solution, that is so far superior to the current status as to make the utopian "advocacy" that would inevitably be LONG delayed, actually grosteque in application. It is the epitome of butting in, of externally playing God from 7000 miles away, vainly with what others actually feel is important to them. The observation of injustices is obvious. The observation that many in Israel are stubborn, crass, indifferent is obvious. I would hope that the observation that there is good reason for that is also obvious. If you just came to awareness of the issue during Bush years, then you entirely missed CRITICAL events that rationally formed Israeli understanding. That Phil does not acknowledge his humility at that limited focus on the issue, I regard as a great tragedy, a tragedy in the making in some respects. That happens generationally. Those of use (Phil and I) that grew up during the radicalization period of Vietnam, missed our parents experiences of WW2, the liberatory JOY of Zionism, the disovery of Staliinist horrors, the discovery of suppressions in Hungary, Czeckoslavakia, the actual cold war. "But that framework has to pass away for there to be a peace that Palestinians will be able to accept (another presupposition, btw–it is up to Israelis to declare what is acceptable, and Palestinians have to accept whatever that is)." Revolutiionary justice usually isn't. Peace and justice is the transition from contested questions to consented. By war, and in this case of 80 years of warring, it won't occur. By persuasion, by willing consent based on reasonable principles applied for mutual betterment, it will. That is the result of war anyway.
International law is more specific, NOT just a phrase to be evoked.
Actually much more Expressionistic than Surreal.
I agree.
Under International law, israel is illegal. That is quite easy to see. One aspect of international law about which scholars unanimously agree is that the Palestinians have an absolutely inalienable right to return to the lands and homes from which they were ethnically cleansed. We also know that most Palestinian refugees have the desire to return. Therefore, the only possible means of perpetuating the Jewish state is through the denial of international law. If international law is honored, Israel instantly ceases to exist. This is one of many reasons that israel is described as an outlaw state.
I think expulsion would face massive protest Israel and its sponsor USA could not afford to ignore. So Israel will continue with the slow destruction option unless Obama pulls a rabbit out of his a… and stops settlements; more likely Obama will quibble back to the Israeli quibbling, going on as I type; this seems most likely–it would take some major gross incident heard around the world instantly to stop option A going on even after two Obama terms of office. That would lead to option C, the perfect storm, bringing in all major outside players, USA, Russia, China, EU for example. By itself Israel cannot pull off its Samson option; who wants to guess the results of WW3? Much would depend in my opinion on quickly and with what force the USA would act and ditto any counter-reaction by other outside players. That combine clash of the Biggies would determine if Israel will be destroyed. Israel holds the match, but will not control the world fire.
What's the basis of your contention that my understanding of international law and universal principles of human rights is just propaganda? We can have a discussion of specific principles of human rights, and specific elements of int'l law, in regards to Israel/Palestine, if you'd like. My impression though is that's not really a conversation you want to have. Too negative. "Things are moving forward as a result of Obama's policies towards a two-state solution, that is so far superior to the current status as to make the utopian "advocacy" that would inevitably be LONG delayed, actually grosteque in application." Says who? Under whose analysis are they moving forward? I don't mean rhetorically–I'm interested in hearing. I think that the discourse has changed under Obama, certainly, but I see very little that has concretely moved forward. That's fine–hasn't been very long–but I still think this is a statement that needs backing up. "The observation of injustices is obvious. " No it's not. Not at all. Every presentation I give, I have to go back to the basics of this observation, because it has not been at all obvious to people here in the U.S. that there was any sort of injustice being committed against the Palestinians. What has been "obvious" is the narrative of "Palestinian terror" against "the Jewish state," "Arab autocracy" contrasted to "the only democracy in the region." "f you just came to awareness of the issue during Bush years, then you entirely missed CRITICAL events that rationally formed Israeli understanding." Oh. Well, never mind. Forget all of that–I respectfully submit to my elders, then, seeing as they've done such a smashing job with this so far.
Absolutely. No disagreement here. But you would agree it's a term with a definition, right? I don't have to list every int'l law I'm referring to every time I mention it? Do you need each article in the Geneva Convention or is a mention of the whole document good enough? I, by the way, agree that war isn't the way to get to peace. But I don't agree that accepting the basic principles of an unjust situation–accepting the basic principles of segregation in the South, apartheid in S. Africa, colonialism in India–is the way to get a just situation.
"In contrast, with partition, in which there are 20% minorities in each state, that at least 80% will feel that they are self-governed, and CONSENT. " This seems superficially fair in that it is symmetrical. But doesn't it ignore how Palestinians were pushed out of what is now Israel proper, so that they were diminished to their present 20% status? And isn't the 20% Jewish figure in the land leftover (OCT) ignoring that Palestinians were pushed further off their land via settlements? Aren't you saying let's all consent to that and be happy? Wouldn't Palestinian consent to this make them the ones being taken advantage of in anybody's rational eyes–an Israeli 11th Commandment violation but good enough for the Palestinians? Even more so if Israel retained possession of air, sea, and border and the new Pal state would have no military defense forces and limited treaty rights? "If you just came to awareness of the issue during Bush years, then you entirely missed CRITICAL events that rationally formed Israeli understanding." Isn't your symmetrical mutual consent formula conversely missing CRITICAL events that rationally formed Palestinian understanding? What about getting a vote referendum from all Israelis and all Palestinians, the vote overseen by some third party group?
Please apply that more specific international law to the settlements issue. See anything?
"There are two groups that have rejected Oslo and the implied two-state solution" Talk to any Palestinian in the West Bank–including Christians. Ask them what they think of Oslo. The majority will likely tell you exactly what they've seen happen since Oslo–settlements expand. Area C become permanently controlled by Israel. Areas A and B subject to regular, in some areas daily or nightly, incursion. Loss of water rights. Loss of land rights. The Wall grabbing land and water. House demolitions. These things, which you dismiss so easily as the complaints of jaded leftists, are–for most Palestinians–the rational basis for their understanding of Oslo and the two-state solution. Most might still be behind it in principle–if you asked, would you be happy with a two-state solution on pre-67 borders with Jerusalem as a shared capital and a just resolution for the refugee crisis, they would say yes. Less and less of them would answer yes to the question, "Is this likely." I'm not saying that means we abandon it, but it is something that needs to be taken into consideration.
wake up to the fact that there is a growing jewish majority in israel and yehuda and shomron. one state for all!
not according to the arabs who loive in israel and have ten members of the knesset. those MK's are tolerated even though they do not abide by the law of the country. israel is the jewish national home. read the mandate for palestine, approved unanimously by the league of nations in 1922
so why do you send rockets and mortars into your neighbors backyard. why did you destroy the abandoned jewish villages in gaza?
there will be one state. only a matter of time http://www.onestateplan.com
wake up. http://www.onestateplan.com
why not learn international law and the legal status of Israel. http://www.mythsandfacts.org
The Mandate was based on the Balfour Declaration, which calls for a Jewish homeland, NOT a Jewish state. This distinction was made by various British diplomats in the 1920s and 1930s.
The only one-state solution the world would accept would be a bi-national one -NOT an Arab one and NOT a Jewish one – only a joint Jewish-Arab one. You're attempt at recreating Eretz Israel is doomed to fail.
Shafiq, Indeed the Balfour declaration has been violated by Israel on every level and called for the"establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use its best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." As with all lawws and treaty's, Israel has demonstrated comtempt for this declaration too.
Israel violated the terms of the Oslo agreement from day 1.
Its not news or forgotten to me in this dialog. I would welcome your specific discussion of international law. MUCH has changed even from Netanyahu. Roadblocks have been lifted. Settlement construction has slowed due to the public scrutiny on it. Gaza is a subject of discussion among Congress. There is an invitation by Assad for Obama to visit Syria. It is only Iran that is falling apart. Israel is being skillfully cajoled towards abandoning the "greater Israel" thesis. That is GREAT PROGRESS.
Historical Palestinian terror is a FACT. You'd better get used to it. The ONLY path is from the present forward. ALL past references reach points of inhumane wrongs that stop any past-oriented "obvious" myth from being true. You can't state that the nakba justifies removing Zionists, even settlers. You can say that the nakba justifies Palestinians having their day in court and personal acknowledgement of suffering occurring, sometimes opportunistically. But, if you are an advocate for democracy, then you will seek to optimize the degree of self-governance that occurs.
Citizen, On symmetry. You can only speak to one point at a time. The term "mutual" means "mutual".
Israel's charter was ratified by a super-majority of the UN general assembly, and the security council. It is VALID per international law. You don't have a clue.
Yes Israel was ratified by the UN, but not a Jewish state. Israel still stands in violation of over 90 UN Resolutions, and several counts of violation of International Law as adjudged by the International Court of Justice.
The two state solution is not worthy of being exalted. it is practical and practicality is not worthy of praise. yet it is usually worthy of action. the one state solution is worthy of praise, but it is not practical and thus it should be studied but not implemented. true advocacy of peace and reconciliation would foresee the necessity of passing through a phase of two states if the dream of one state is ever to be achieved. the current examples of coexistence elsewhere in the world are not encouraging and the one arab state with a significantly diverse population – lebanon is hardly worthy of emulation or envy. so by all means study how to go from two states to one state and act and interact, but do not toss practicality on the ash heap just because your idealism scorns it as not being worthy of praise.
Any solution that leaves the criminal Jewish power elite intact in the USA is simply a non-starter: Pattern of Boston Jewish Power. Because they have done so much damage to the US political, legal, and economic system,. they must be caged and all their assets must be seized as relief. Supporters of Zionist terrorism must go to jail if only because they have put so much effort into ruining the lives of good and decent patriotic Muslim and Arab Americans. The State of the Israel is the linchpin or keystone in the corrupt Jewish Zionist imperial system and must be abolished: Why Not Remove Zionist Interlopers?
The ONLY path is from the present forward. So let's not ever again hear about the Shoah. Cut off all US taxpayer funds dedicated to memory of such. Ban all US government spokesmen ever mentioning the Shoah or "Holocaust."
NO. You can only speak to one point at a time, the one that isolates the past as if it didn't exist. Yet you wish us all to always remember the Shoah, and to support in extreme a claim of right for Israel going back thousands of years. Good for goose, good for gander.
You mean the same UN that Israel ignores constantly? The Gaza boat people were told by Israeli officials that Israel "doesn't recognize the UN."
Yes, because said elite controls the only super-power, and hence any dog & pony show.
Can we say John Brown? Where I live he is a hero. By American precedent and history, terror against state sponsored violent racism is heroic and legitimate. By Nuremberg Law, Palestinians have the right to blow up an Zionist interloper anywhere in Stolen or Occupied Palestine while the USA is under the International Genocide convention obligated to aid Palestinians. Witty as a Goebbelsian propagandist on behalf of Zionism (ethnic Ashkenazi Nazism) should spend at least 7 years in prison (the punishment received by Otto Dietrich), but because the allies would have hung Josef Goebbels and did hang Julius Streicher, certainly Witty may be eligible for worse punishments than a few years in prison.
Comments on this entry are closed.