Earlier today Dan Fleshler of Realistic Dove alerted us to an article by Hussein Ibish in the Daily Star (Lebanon). Ibish takes on Palestinian advocates for the one-state solution and poses a list of six questions that he claims they have not answered or considered. Fleshler thought it was a "devastating critique." I was a bit bored with it myself. I think Ibish’s questions are fine, although they’ve certainly been asked before. Also Ibish ignores that many of them have been addressed by one state advocates in creative and interesting ways.
And then serendipitously one of our favorite commenters Seham sent this along:
Hussein Ibish are you here? Are you reading this?
The Palestinians neither want nor need you as a spokesman for our cause, please dismiss yourself immediately. Also, please don’t delude yourself into thinking that the deep dislike most activists have for you is isolated around the Angry Arab someone who you seem to be fixated on. It goes much deeper, Ibish, even those friends and family who aren’t politically inclined scream: "CHANGE THE CHANNEL" when they see you pontificating your anti-Palestinian views under the rubric of being a champion of our cause.
Go far away, I am sure Saad Hariri can pay you to do something.
Excellent piece by Helena Cobban on Ibish here. Thank you Helena for this much needed piece!
Ibish is a Lebanese-American who gained serious credentials as a Palestinian-rights activist through the good work he did with Electronic Intifada. But for quite some time now he’s been working with the (Very) American Task Force on Palestine, an organization that just– by a hair– manages not to be a complete sock puppet for the US State Department. For example, both Ibish and VATFP president Ziad Asali, who spoke in the comments section at today’s event, stressed that there needs to be a complete freeze on Israeli settlement building if the plan to establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel is to succeed.
And that differs from the State Department position, how? Um, actually, I’m not entirely sure… because of course, the folks in the State Department do also say the same thing from time to time. But they don’t want to take the next step of imposing actual costs on Israel for its continued defiance of this request…
And no, neither do Ibish and the VATFP, it seems. Well anyway, Ibish was openly derisive this morning about the growing worldwide movement to impose some combination of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) on Israel.
Cobban’s piece is a great compliment to the Ibish article. Read them together. There is an important conversation to be had here. The status quo is a disaster for Palestinians and many Israelis, as well the US whose international reputation is increasingly tied to Israeli expansionism. Given the importance of the issue, you’d think there would be a serious discussion of any and every solution? Unfortunately not.
Readers of this site may know that I am agnostic on the question of one state or two states. That being said, I think it is crucial to have a rigorous discussion about any idea that can end this conflict. Too often the one state possibility is dismissed out of hand as unrealistic, while the two state solution is assumed to be possible even though things on the ground have only gotten worse after nearly 20 years of pushing for two states – is it not time to start considering other ideas? Cobban’s post on Ibish was part of reporting on an event held today at the Woodrow Wilson Center called "The One-State Solution is a Fantasy….But What About Two?." It’s time for a more meaningful conversation.
