The breakdown of the two-state solution– evidenced by Netanyahu’s announcement that some greet as progress but that continues the solidification of Jerusalem as a Jewish settlement– is producing important discussions at the periphery, including efforts by leftish Jewish outlets to imagine a binational future in Israel/Palestine. Importantly, here is Peter Marmorek in Tikkun’s daily blog arguing for the one-state solution, based on his experience in Quebec (not utterly convincing, that), but rooted in the reality of Middle East geography/politics:
Almost 10% of Israeli Jews now live in the Territories or in East Jerusalem. It would be impossible for any Israeli government to make a peace offer to Palestinians that would give up those homes and settlements: in Israeli politics, their coalition would instantly disappear. (And it’s unlikely they could do it militarily: the BBC reports that , “An increasing number of Israeli soldiers are publicly objecting, on religious and political grounds, to their role in the evacuation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.”) Similarly, it would not be possible for any Palestinian leader to accept the kind of offer any Israeli leader might realistically make: his support would also disappear. The handful of bantustans offered as a Palestinian country at Oslo might have been the closest to a joint solution ever reached. And if a two-state solution is impossible,as seems increasingly clear, then the only alternative, however improbable, is a one-state solution.
A one state solution means a country open to both Jews and Muslims. This is also called a binational solution, and its supporters “advocate a single state in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with citizenship and equal rights in the combined entity for all inhabitants of all three territories, without regard to ethnicity or religion.” Edward Said called for this, saying “the question is not how to devise means for persisting in trying to separate,” Israelis and Palestinians, “but to see whether it is possible for them to live together as fairly and peacefully as possible. But while this once sounded like an impossible dream, it is increasingly being seen on both sides as inevitable.
Stephen Walt’s recent piece A New Era in the Middle East? Uh-Oh nails it:
Be careful what you wish for. Israel is going to get what it has long sought: permanent control of the West Bank (along with de facto control over Gaza). The Palestinian Authority is increasingly irrelevant and may soon collapse, General Keith Dayton’s mission to train reliable and professional Palestinian security forces will end, and Israel will once again have full responsibility for some 5.2 million Palestinian Arabs under its control. And the issue will gradually shift from the creation of a viable Palestinian state — which was the central idea behind the Oslo process and the subsequent “Road Map” — to a struggle for civil and political rights within an Israel that controls all of mandate Palestine.
Jimmy Carter sees it coming too…
The two-state solution remains the only possible one.
The diminishment of “legitimacy” that Ali Abunimeh and Philip describes is not accurate.
Israel perceives that it can continue with the incremental annexation strategy, and marginalization of isolated Palestinian enclaves, as morally and legally wrong as it is.
And, there are NO major powers, US or European, that suggest anything close to otherwise, in any speculation.
There is no external movement that can organize sufficiently, or sufficiently humanely, to change the status, except if very careful (full of care and respect) to influence Israeli public opinion to realize a two-state solution that is consented.
“Must” isn’t sufficient. Many things that “must” be done, aren’t, and are very very sadly accepted nevertheless, all for traceable if not good reasons.
“The two-state solution remains the only possible one.”
Witty Declaratory sentence # 1. Where’s the analysis and support?
“The diminishment of “legitimacy” that Ali Abunimeh and Philip describes is not accurate.”
Witty Declaratory sentence #2. Where’s the analysis and support?
“Israel perceives that it can continue with the incremental annexation strategy, and marginalization of isolated Palestinian enclaves, as morally and legally wrong as it is.”
Yea, this is Witty stating the obvious. Israel’s perception is honed from every POTUS declaring the settlements illegal and against USA & international policy, but doing nothing to stop it. Every attempt to link the world-wide consensus on the settlements to USA pouring funds into Israel has been to no avail.
“And, there are NO major powers, US or European, that suggest anything close to otherwise, in any speculation.”
Again, nobody is willing to actually stop funding Israel so it can do what it wants.
“There is no external movement that can organize sufficiently, or sufficiently humanely, to change the status, except if very careful (full of care and respect) to influence Israeli public opinion to realize a two-state solution that is consented.”
This Witty comment states the obvious, that the US congress is a whore to AIPAC et al, and the world knows it. What’s missing is that the USA masses do not know the details, except in way they do not draw the dots, that is, Iraq War, next Iran, even Afganistan, and Georgia. This is because of the collusion of the Fourth Estate.
““Must” isn’t sufficient. Many things that “must” be done, aren’t, and are very very sadly accepted nevertheless, all for traceable if not good reasons”
Yes. The traceable reason is AIPAC et al.
Ah, fatuous dogmatism! Squat on a position like a toad and keep croaking the same old line.
RW asserts, dogmatically, that a binational solution isn’t possible (by which is meant that he doesn’t want it). The Tikkun article suggests that the two-state solution is no longer possible, for reasons which are compelling.
I will point out that these are not exclusive options. Other possibilities exist. And the most important truth is this – that if one solution is impossible, it does not imply that the other is possible. Logic informs us that both may be impossible, which I tend to believe, given the corruption of the US Congress, which will move to block any resolution the Palestinians could possibly accept.
More to the point, it is impossible to discuss the question at all without first determining what the terms “two-state solution” and “one-state solution” actually mean. But it is pretty clear what it means to BYahoo and WittYahoo – a group of “Palestinian reservations” in the territory now designated Area A, which comprises only 17% of the West Bank, over which Palestine will have no soverignty, only control over purely local matters, much like the Indian reservation cops in the US. However, unlike the reservations in the US, the Palestinians will not be free to enter and leave as they wish, as Israel will control the borders.
The rather desperate insistence of the Yahoos to get a complaisant Palestinian leader to the “negotiating” table is intended to result in an official Palestinian surrender document that Israel will designate as “peace” and wave in the air whenever anyone questions their occupation of the rest of the territory. The Yahoo plan is for the Palestinians to lock themselves into their own ghetto and hand Israel the key. The Yahoo plan is to create another Gaza in the West Bank, a slightly larger open-air prison. Only this one will also be a work camp, if the Arabs behave themselves. Otherwise, you have only to look at the conditions in Gaza to know what this “two-state solution” will become.
This is the Yahoo plan, and RWYahoo endorses it.
la la la I can’t here you…
One aspect of Richards post here (if I am reading him correctly) is actually worth considering – if doing what is “right” is only going to cause more division and bloodshed, it might actually be worth considering swallowing your outrage and seeking other alternatives.
But Richard, you lose me beyond that because YOU are so obviously a part of the problem being faced by anyone who tries to confront the I/P problem.
Gee, the only problem was, is, remains, Palestine was really not a land without people, for a people without land. Can I get a hand for the Roma?
Phil,
Have you conducted any research into the number of articles you’ve posted that advocate for a single state?
In a post a couple weeks back you stated that you weren’t sure one what position you took. I don’t recall if you’ve taken a position on BDS.
You have criticized the editorial selection of NY Times articles as indicating a journalistic bias. Is the same standard applicable to you?
Right, Witty, Phil has an equal readership to the NY Times (and all the other big print
MSM). You treat Phil’s blog as equal to the MSM & our government’s policy, just as you treat the Israelis and the Palestinians as equal in power. Your POV would posit that a trailer park protestor is to be equated with a Scarsdale protester. You are in that sense from Scarsdale, while Phil is living in that trailer somewhere in the boonies outside Scarsdale. You remind me of a German who complains about the unfairness
and hate of the Jews locked in the Warsaw Ghetto. If only those Jews would recognize the existence of the Third Reich than everything would be honkey-dorey. Those ghetto Jews should refrain from violence; don’t you know every German soldier is at risk, and what about the poor innocent German civilians?
Phil’s readership extends beyond the posse here.
The reason that journalistic standards are important is that they allow a path for readers to rely, to trust, the veracity and weight of the commentary.
The standards of journalistic integrity are the same, to actually present information rather than propaganda, by the criteria that one is aware.
Right, Witty, and we all know that the high journalistic standards are so important that they have prevailed in the USA since 1967 regarding the Middle East, and specifically Israeli activities. So, ergo, why does Phil persist in his blog? And why does anyone flock to it? You have evaded what I said by repeating boilerplate
journalistic principles while totally ignoring what their factual implementation has been for scores of years. Gee, what a surprise. You never learn.
Witty, your constant wagging finger at Phil about journalistic standards and integrity makes no sense. You confuse opinion, editorial bias, and topic subjects, then conflate them with journalistic standards and integrity.
It is not a journalistic standard to create a “path for readers to rely, to trust, the veracity and weight of the commentary.” Why? Because in your definition, the reader is the arbiter of the journalist’s standards, which therefore makes a standard reliant upon a reader’s point-of-view.
A journalistic standard exists with or without the reader, or the reader’s opinion. The standard is for the journalist.
What you are constantly bitching about here is Phil’s opinion (it’s his blog) or that he doesn’t confirm yours.
He’s jealous because people pay attention to Phil and he thinks they should listen to his own blathering instead.
Richard, you have got to be kidding. Phil’s standard of journalism would put the NYT’s to shame, if those hacks had any capacity for shame. FFS, they employed that staggeringly incompetent and/or treasonous war whore Judith Miller, with essentially zero editorial oversight, to spew the most baseless and outrageous lies for how many years? If you are going to cast insinuations on Phil’s journalistic acumen and would like not to be a laughingstock from the get-go, find a better counter-example than the NYT.
While talking about the MSM it is probably best to listen to someone who has a handle on what it is all about. To imply that it has any standards worthy of emulation is a standing joke, to try to invoke a “standard” is to degrade this site which holds a much higher standard than any availablr in today’s murky world of professional journalism -
NORMALIZING THE UNTHINKABLE
THE PRESS
This one sentence captures the dilemma:
And if a two-state solution is impossible,as seems increasingly clear, then the only alternative, however improbable, is a one-state solution.
It is quite irrelevant whether or not one “advocates” for a one-state solution — the facts on the ground are determining the outcome. I will happily support the two-state solution if J Street and like minded leaders pull that off. But if they have set an impossible task then any progressive person must support the alternative — namely one-state with equal rights for all of its citizens. Quite frankly, I don’t how see that is possible either, but if that is the only choice, we will have no choice but to back it.
But there are no possible facts on the ground that can make a two-state impossible.
Even if Israel annexed all of the West Bank, there are still population pluralities that could define a rational boundary, or the 67 borders with modifications.
Its a choice based on reasoning.
Small scale population pluralities do not make for a rational boundary.
How do you divide things like water?
How do you get anywhere when every time you change neighborhoods you change countries?
“a rational boundary” = more concentration camps for Palestinians
Yes there are: the settlement and colonization process.
You mean like – Israel hasn’t left them any land?
“But if they have set an impossible task then any progressive person must support the alternative — namely one-state with equal rights for all of its citizens.
If only because the world is getting tired of this Spartan Israeli shit. 60 years and the so-called great IQs of Israel can’t figure out how to be a nation? Can’t read history and figure out how it was done by some of the best of them? I love it when some of the rabid Israeli apologists on this board start invoking the Native American meme to justify the current I/P situation, as if returning to a Middle Ages they never bothered to study makes any sense, and assuming their ignorance is going to sway an American who knows his own country’s real history.
There are no “rabid Israeli apologists” that post here currently.
You should get out more.
Was that a joke?
Like the one who called Witty a Jew-hater.
the strangler wore velvet gloves and murmured gently to his victims as his grip tightened
— from a book somebody should write
Aside from the formulaic talking points of BDS, there are good reasons for Jews/Israelis to imagine co-existing with Palestinians, as if you imagine something, you have a path to realize it.
There are therefore also good reasons for Palestinians to imagine co-existing with Jews/Israelis, especially those that advocate for a single-state solution, compelling close participation.
I’ve wondered for a long time, why there hasn’t been a civilist political party (non-nationalist) in either Israel or in Palestine, outside of Marxist parties.
Such a party could conceivably be part of a coalition in Israeli political sphere (so long as it is not anti-Zionist, but pro-civilist).
And yet you have managed to answer yourself.
emphasis mine.
Yasa massa – I’s knows my place. Ise stay in the shack by the side of the field and not covet ma massa’s house. My house is in the way? Don’t you fret none massa! Isa tear it down for you right away!!
You are looking for a contradiction.
Hmm, I think a non anti-Zionist pro-civilist is an oxymoron.
Zionism, being a form of nationalism, could not sit comfortably beside a non-nationalist position.
Ael, he does not care how contradictory and dumb it sounds, he is a dummy for Zionism. He and others have become the fulfillment of Einsteins prediction about embracing this murderous ideology –
“It is connected with many difficulties and narrow-mindedness.”
Take a look at this quote:
Take a look at this quote:
‘A one state solution means a country open to both Jews and Muslims.’
What is so obviously wrong with it? Or should be Obvious to Tikkun?
Where are the Christians (and other religions) mentioned?
Ask Zionists. They’re the ones that framed this as Muslims versus everybody else and left Middle Eastern Christians out of the American mediascape.
where do you come up w/ this shit?
You mean where do the Zionists come up with this stuff.
no James, thats not what i said, its not what i meant.
Well Yonira that is what it seems to the rest of us. Tell us where do the native Christian Palestinians come out of this. They are as much victims of Israeali aggression as are their Muslim neighbors. When we talk about civil rights and rights of independence for the Palestinians we do exclude other religions though we recognize that Muslims are a majority. I am quite confident that their Christians brethen will be part of their state.
My gosh, this is one of the inexplecible things about Israel suppression of the Palestinians — Why do Americans support Israeli oppression of the native Christians in the Holy Land. Don’t they realize that Jerusalum has maintained a Christian community since the days Jesus walked that land but yet are now supporting the expulsion of these people from this land.
No, the Palestinian Christians are not only the wrong color, they are the wrong kind of Christian, not real Christians at all. Remember that the Crusaders slaughtered the Christians in Jerusalem when they conquered it, and slaughtered the Christians in Constantinople on the way there.
Essentially Israel is purging Palestinian Christians, the Zionists lie that it is the Muslims that are driving Christians out.
“Of course, that is not Israel’s official story. Its leaders have been quick to blame the exodus of Christians on the wider Palestinian society from which they are drawn, arguing that a growing Islamic extremism, and the election of Hamas to lead the Palestinian Authority, have put Christians under physical threat. This explanation neatly avoids mentioning that the proportion of Christians has been falling for decades.
According to Israel’s argument, the decision by many Christians to leave the land where generations of their ancestors have been rooted is simply a reflection of the “clash of civilizations”, in which a fanatical Islam is facing down the Judeo-Christian West. Palestinian Christians, like Jews, have found themselves caught on the wrong side of the Middle East’s confrontation lines.
Here is how the Jerusalem Post, for example, characterised the fate of the Holy Land’s non-Muslims in a Christmas editorial: “Muslim intolerance toward Christians and Jews is cut from exactly the same cloth. It is the same jihad.” The Post concluded by arguing that only by confronting the jihadis would “the plight of persecuted Christians — and of the persecuted Jewish state — be ameliorated.”
Similar sentiments were recently aired in an article by Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily republished on Ynet, Israel’s most popular website, that preposterously characterised a procession of families through Nazareth on Eid al-Adha, the most important Muslim festival, as a show of strength by militant Islam designed to intimidate local Christians.
Islam’s green flags were “brandished”, according to Klein, whose reporting transformed a local troupe of Scouts and their marching band into “Young Muslim men in battle gear” “beating drums”. Nazareth’s youngsters, meanwhile, were apparently the next generation of Qassam rocket engineers: “Muslim children launched firecrackers into the sky, occasionally misfiring, with the small explosives landing dangerously close to the crowds…
In fact, the idea of a clash of civilisations grew out of a worldview that was shaped by Israel’s own interpretation of its experiences in the Middle East. An alliance between the neocons and Israeli leaders was cemented in the mid-1990s with the publication of a document called “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”. It offered a US foreign policy tailor-made to suit Israel’s interests, including plans for an invasion of Iraq, authored by leading necons and approved by the Israeli prime minister of the day, Binyamin Netanyahu.
There is only one problem in selling this image to the West: the minority of Christian Palestinians who have happily lived under Muslim rule in the Holy Land for centuries. Today, in a way quite infuriating to Israel, these Christians confuse the picture by continuing to take a leading role in defining Palestinian nationalism and resistance to Israel’s occupation. They prefer to side with the Muslim “fanatics” than with Israel, the Middle East’s only outpost of Judeo-Christian “civilisation”.
The presence of Palestinian Christians reminds us that the supposed “clash of civilisations” in the Holy Land is not really a war of religions but a clash of nationalism’s, between the natives and European colonial settlers.
Inside Israel, for example, Christians have been the backbone of the Communist party, the only non-Zionist party Israel allowed for several decades. Many of the Palestinian artists and intellectuals who are most critical of Israel are Christians, including the late novelist Emile Habibi; the writer Anton Shammas and film-makers Elia Suleiman and Hany Abu Assad (all now living in exile); and the journalist Antoine Shalhat (who, for reasons unknown, has been placed under a loose house arrest, unable to leave Israel)…[Edward Said, George Habash, etc.]…This intimate involvement of Palestinian Christians in the Palestinian national struggle is one of the reasons why Israel has been so keen to find ways to encourage their departure — and then blame it on intimidation by, and violence from, Muslims….
But a second factor is equally, if not more, important. Israel has established an oppressive rule for Palestinians both inside Israel and in the occupied territories that has been designed to encourage the most privileged Palestinians, which has meant disproportionately Christians, to leave.”
ISRAEL’S PURGING OF PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS
THE DOMINANT CHRISTIAN PALESTINIAN VIEW OF ISRAEL
Some truths about Palestinian Christians:
link to jpost.com
Oh yes, that is the pigs trough we want to go to for information yonira…lol (JP)
It’s written in fire across the sky, fool
The Israelis are not giving up the incredible state they have built to live as dhimmis in an Islamic State. That’s the crux of the problem.
Israelis won’t have to. That “incredible state” you’re talking about is going to fall apart from within, sooner or later. And probably not long after the foreign aid welfare check from the US stops — right after the Chinese decide the investment’s not worth it anymore.
It’s incredible that a state as dysfunctional as Israel still hasn’t fallen apart from within, true.
But the binational state would be officially tolerant of all religions. The return of the Christian Palestinians from exile would ensure it remains this way, as no religion would be a majority.
I love it when Zionuts refer to medieval Ottoman law to explain why they are unwilling to live as equals with Muslims and Christians.
Dhimmi? Really? Like seriously? Even when the Zionists came to Palestine a hundred years ago, Dhimmi laws had already been abolished.
Seriously learn some history.
Seriously learn some history.
God almighty, I agree with you, James Bradley!
Israel better take the one-state deal before it’s too late. That’s the crux of the solution.
Witty says ‘The diminishment of “legitimacy” that Ali Abunimeh and Philip describes is not accurate.’
I’m not sure of Witty’s age, but I sense that those who may remember 1967, might think of the occupation as a state of abnormality, which must be unclenched to restore to an Israel that is more accepted, with maybe a few more settlements than they started with. I was born in 1973, and have no recollection of a more “tame” Israel that didn’t occupy and dispossess Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or Gaza. Therefore, I have no sentimentality for its legitimacy… and feel that any it may have had has been forfeited by decades of zionist oppression, and failure to meet obligations to the UN, its expended friend.
andrewfelluss,
Therefore, I have no sentimentality for its legitimacy… and feel that any it may have had has been forfeited by decades of zionist oppression. Thank god for your generation. You’re right.
Maybe it is time to reconsider Israel, in a more inclusive light, as a one state solution, renamed Abraham. This would respect the rights of all 3 montheistic faiths.
It should be an open state to all Christians, Jews and Muslims run by a special UN charter.
What about secular people? What about atheists? Why give religion any privileged position?
A two state solution is possible: In the aftermath of the Clinton proposal of December 2000, known as the Clinton Parameters, negotiations proceeded between the Israeli and Palestinian teams at Taba. Those negotiations were cut off a few weeks before the election of Ariel Sharon in February of 2001. The negotiators asserted that they had been close to a deal and therefore Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo, in order to prove how close a deal had been, continued the negotiations in an unofficial capacity and arrived at a “deal” that became known as the Geneva “accord”.
It is clear that the Netanyahu government is not willing to offer the same deal that resulted in the Geneva “accord” and it is unclear whether Palestinian leaders would be willing to offer the same deal that resulted in that “accord”. But to assert the impossibility of an accord due to all the settlers since 1967 , rather than all the settlers since 2003, or to assert the impossibility of a deal because all Israel has ever offered were Bantustans is to ignore the “accord” and since it is the only time that such an accord was negotiated by high level negotiators from both sides, ignoring the “accord” reveals a bias against the possibility of a two state solution.
Olmert offered more than Geneva and Taba. It was turned down for the reason all offers are rejected by the Palestinians, because they can’t accept Israel.
No actually, it was turned down because all through the negotiations, settlement activity accellerated. The Israeli government has proven it cannot be trusted at its word.
The Olmert and Taba proposals were turned down because they did not provide for a contiguous West Bank even, but a very broken maze.
The issues of right of return could have been resolved by offering right of return only for living individuals with demonstrably valid title claims. (That would likely not include those that held land by usufruct or leasehold.)
Issues of Jerusalem could have been resolved at the green line (with the exception of the old Jewish quarter and Kotel), jointly administered by Palestinian and Israeli police, compelling their cooperation (a good outcome).
All of those issues are still resolvable, permanently so.
The ONLY condition that renders a two-state solution impossible is if the population proportions in both the West Bank and Israel go from the current 90-10 or 80-20 to near parity in each jurisdiction. At that point the logic of partition no longer applies.
The issues of right of return could have been resolved by offering right of return only for living individuals with demonstrably valid title claims.
If that sauce were used on Israel’s gander, damn near the whole population would have to leave.
Yep, and I can’t wait for Dick Witty’s response. Dick?
Are you kidding? what are you talking about Chaos? Do you just make this stuff up as you go? Or did one of your lefty buddies tell you this @ the Student Union?
Ooh, isn’t it cute? The little Zionist is nipping at my heels! I suppose at least you’re picking a target your own size, instead of Palestinian children.
The right of return does not distinguish title holders from usufruct or leasehold because the names of the families are joint title, we are not talking about “western” concepts of land title. Along with this there is payment in kind which the Israelis have never recognized. You cannot offer something by re-writing the entire structure of legal ownership (by the way, which is also relied upon by Israelis when they want to “redeem” property), nor by ignoring the entire process of compensation as the alternative. However, such is the defective thinking of Zionists, while throwing in the completely illegal Zionist provision of the “majority,” which appears nowhere except in the will to power of the Zionists.
It is a difficulty in cultural assumptions. The Turks broke the prior cultural assumption, with land recording requirement. The British changed it again incrementally. The Zionists changed it again internally (who also applied leasehold as a norm, but registered). And, then the 1947 civil war and the 1948 external war (TO ETHNIC CLEANSE), changed it again.
I believe that definitive proof of usufructory rights over some specific property (not the collective, “I’m a Palestinian” “right”), should create some degree of right, but mostly to suggest some compensation.
Even among Turkish law, the right of usufruct did not supercede overt title, just created another legal layer, similar to waiting out a lease period.
“The majority of the lands in Palestine were the properties of the Palestinian rural population, the fellahin. The concept of the peasant did exist in the culture of the fellahin and the term applied to it is qatruz. Although the concept of the peasant (qatruz) existed in Palestinian society, it was not widespread due to the communal nature of the culture of the fellahin.
To understand the land ownership system in the society of the fellahin, one needs to understand the concept of the feddan. Villages owned their land collectively by the village residents or by the Hamoula family. As an example, villages owned their land collectively by the village residents or by the Hamoula family.
In 1858 the Ottoman Authority introduced the law of tabu to fix rights of ownershp of the land. Land owners were instructed to have their property inscribed in the land register. The tabu was resisted by the fellahin. They saw a threat to their community in registering their land for two main reasons: 1) the cultivated fields were classified as ardh ameriyeh (the land of the Emarit) and were taxed. Owners of registered fertile land were forced to pay tax on it; 2) data from the land register were used by the Turkish Army for the purpose of the draft. Owners of registered lands were often drafted to fight with the Turkish Army in Russia.
Under the British system, the Land Settlement Ordinance was introduced in 1928. Rights of ownership were confirmed only after the land survey was completed. The registration of land was to be in the names of specific individuals and not in the name of the village, the family, or the tribe (Falah, 1983). This was an attempt to break village or tribe solidarity and an effort to promote the capitalist system of private ownership and individualism. The British Land Settlement Ordinance was resisted by the fellahin society mainly because it did not allow for their tradition of collective ownership. This individual ownership posed a threat to the power structure in the village social order. The village Mukhtar and wujuh el-’alih (the notables of the family) and the Bedouin tribes sheikhs took their power from this system of collective ownership of the land.
In addition to the practical reason mentioned above, the fellahin saw the land register as an insult to tradition. This system has been working for generations as an efficient and fair use and distribution of the land. The fellahin were also too proud to involve the government in the protection of their land. It has been said that when the land register arrived at the village of al-sileh al-harthiyeh, west of Jenin, to register their land, the reply by the Mukhtar of the Jaradat family was “lesh insajilha, hay il-ardh u hay el-asayel fiha, khalli izalameh yiqareb alayha” (Why register it, this is the land and here are the Arabian horses on it. Let he who dares come near it). The Arabian horses are a symbol of power. The Jaradat family still cultivates their land today and does not have any form of deed or title to it.
At the time of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and its success in taking control of the majority of Palestine, most of the lands in the rural areas were owned by the villages collectively and there was little individual land ownership in the countryside or for the members of the Bedouin tribes. This traditional system of ownership that existed for generations on the land was not recognized by Israel.
The process of land acquisition by the Jewish agencies and the Israeli government in Palestine is rather a complex intertwined process. An effort is made here to shed light on these processes as briefly as possible. Most of the information presented hear is compiled from Sabri Jiriyes work on the subject which is based on Israeli government records. After its adoption of the idea of establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine, the Zionist movement approved buying land in Palestine at its sixth convention in 1903. They were successful in buying the first land in 1905 and in 1907 the Jewish National Fund (Kayron Kayem) was officially registered in Britain. Its goals were declared to buy lands in Palestine. This was the Zionist central arm for land acquisition in Palestine (Jiryis, 1973).
After 42 years of organized well-funded efforts on the part of the Zionist organization, the total Jewish ownership of land in Palestine in 1947 was 1,734,000 dunums or 1,734 square kilometers which is 6.6% of the total land. The Jewish National Fund owned 933,000 dunums out of the total Jewish-owned land of Palestine (Jiryis, 1973). Some of these lands were sold to the Zionist Agency by individuals who were not the rightful owners of the land, but used their positions in previous governments to register large portions of lands to their names.
The Palestinian land confiscation for Jewish settlement started well before the establishment of the state Israel. The British Authority in Palestine was preparing the country for the creation of the Jewish national homeland. The mandatory authority introduced the Woods and Forest Ordinance in 1920, which was designed to confiscate lands that were largely utilized as grazing grounds by the Bedouin community and the rural population. These lands were then classified as state forest owned by the state. Table 1 shows the acceleration of this confiscation process. The forest reserves were defined by the British Authority as “provincial reservation of scrub areas which are being protected so far as possible pending land settlement” (Falah, 1983, p. 29). ”
My recommendation to you Witty is to further study land ownership issues, the proclamation of a rule by an occupying power, in light of total rejection of international law and common law by Israel, they have a right to zero. The only cliam they hold is that might makes right, that’s it. Your constant harangue is nothing but trying to pull something out of nothing, purely for the benefit of Israel.
For further information here is the link to the quote, I chose it because of its compact nature, there is much more information regarding this subject available but this is not the venue to unfold it.
LAND OWNERSHIP IN PALESTINE
How did my comments conflict with that article, to your understanding?
Read it again (the article cited), if you still have difficulties understanding it after that it must be a medical condition, and I am not qualified to address it (it is similar to Zionist dyscalculia).
Maybe you should read my comments again.
Yeah, unless you have access to an “Edit” button we don’t have — better yet, a “Search & Replace” that automatically strips all that hypocrisy that usually shows up in your posts, after the fact — I don’t think reading what you wrote is going to be any different, is it?
Witty, read this NYT article by Steven Erlanger about Arab and Palestinian land. You are making things up.
Israeli Map Says West Bank Posts Sit on Arab Land
link to z.pe
Unfortunately MRW individuals that hold to illegal activity in the name of Israel try to reduce to the smallest of details that do not reflect the facts or the reality of the situation. It is a constant swing, to the overly general pontifications to relying on the fact of ignorance regarding a subject to try to claim some form of “right.”
It is just like the above argument regarding the Christians which seem to be “disappearing,” falling back on the false premise of the “bad bad Muslims” and some defunct “clash of civilizations” while ignoring the very deliberate process of Israel to dispossess them. They will pick out an isolated incidence to proclaim a trend, or they will claim a trend according to a well oiled stream of propaganda – both bereft of facts. None of Witty’s mentors would come up with these ridiculous positions in a public debate with a competent adversary (they will not even debate, period), only the ignorant chose to go where their mentors pass.
The article did not distinguish questions of jurisdiction from questions of title.
The conflicts between unregistered collective ownership and registered individual ownership are conflicts between modernity and ancient.
The WORLD is different now. The Turkish registration requirement was an outgrowth of the observation that the world is crowded, and that vague assertion of collective rights results in opportunistic and illegal assertions as well.
In the crowded world, it is possible for a collectivity to register the land as a corporate entity in some form, thereby retaining its collective character.
There was collective ownership of some land, and there was usufructory accepted residence of some land.
There is a path for clarification of each. The assertion that laws that change are by definition “unjust” is itself “unjust”.
No, Palestine is CROWDED now Witty, with illegal colonial settlers, which INSIST on turning the clock back to the 19th century. You as a Zionist have NO claim to modernity period. The chutzpah you display by trying to cliam it is just icing on your half baked cake. Just because some colonial try to change the collective nature of a culture does not make it sacrosanct, I do not care how much capitalist theft goes on in the “progress.” The entire act of colonization in morally reprehensible, unjust, not reflective of the 21st century, and the might makes right priciple is not admissible in a court of law.
I will go further, the primacy of “property” over people is a bankrupt principle – to claim even in this current era that corporations have the organic rights of biological individuals is horse shit. I do not care how many “findings” are displayed from the twisting of law – I do not even recognize the deference to a”rule of law” in the Zionist nightmare. To try to claim the living nature of law in a setting whose very foundation is a mixture of myth and barbarism just strains the bonds of credulity beyond all limit. That you would attempt this process in the current scenario is just par for the course and totally disingenuous.
RW: effing bizarre response, with no cites, and even less logic.
Law (even about property) is a reconciliation among people in changing conditions. BOTH Israel and Palestine and really all of the Middle East are far far more crowded now than 150 years ago.
I think the population of Israel/Palestine is what 8 times what it was 100 years ago. That is a lot more crowded.
Are you suggesting that land registration, identification of who has what rights to land and recorded in a public record, is a bad thing?
Again, there are ways to record leasehold, permission, and collective rights to land within that.
I’m not sure what you’re point is, except anger.
Justice, maybe, Witty? Or how about ending the apartheid system you support whereby Jews get privileges no one else in your world view enjoys, regarding the capacity to commit war crimes, or possess nuclear capacity or enjoy a right of “return” while denying it to actual natives?
RE: “The article did not distinguish questions of jurisdiction from questions of title.”
The article snippets posted here related questions of title to the various original, and later subsequent and competing jurisdictional powers. A title is only as good
as the right of the jurisdictional power to enforce it. This boils down to might makes right, even as to recognition of the validity of claimed title.
Modern versus ancient title is a red herring; in both, might makes right.
There are many modern forms of title holders in addition to corporations.
Zionism bases title to its chosen land on biblical passages; how modern is that?
I’m not sure what you’re point is
Blind-folded justice.
From that Erlanger article, which says in a simple and clearer way what Witty was discussing in his usufruct post, and what VR is saying.
It is clear that Israel used every trick in the book to declare as much of the OT as possible “state land”. The truly dirty methods employed, detailed in Eldar and Zertal’s Lords of the Land, were little more than theft. This was common knowledge among Israeli experts on property law, at the time (again, see Eldar and Zertal).
The injustice however, goes beyond that, because it is based on the premise that public or state land need not be used for the benefit of the public as a whole (especially those who live in the areas in question), but can be allocated exclusively to one particular, non-local group (defined by religion), to the actual detriment of local residents.
Therefore, any attempt to justify Israeli settlements on the basis of the state vs. private land argument (a sham in and of itself) is an attempt to justify the illegal, the immoral and the inexcusable. It is simply dishonesty and bad faith. Even ignorance won’t work here, because it would have to be willful ignorance that ignores the basic humanity of Palestinians.
I haven’t read Eldar and Zertal’s book, Shmuel, and probably wont unless I find it in a cottage on a holiday wekend. I have no doubt, given your comments on this board, that you are describing them accurately to a fault.
It’s my understanding that Israel used ‘every trick in the book’ to declare 93.3% of the OT as ‘state land’. Do you know if that’s accurate?
The mechanism by which Israel expropriates land for “military purposes”, then establishes permanent civilian settlement, then leasing to private civilian use, is very corrupt, and very questionably legal within a genuinely color-blind court system.
I elsewhere refer to it as legalistic, more than legal. The washing of the transactions by passing through asserted legal governmental transfers, allows civilians to think of their title as perfected, when it is contested in fact (by any reasonable man test).
Witty? That is Zionism. That is what Zionism has been for the past sixty-odd years. It’s all well and good for you to look at at and wring your hands (and FINALLY acknowledge it) but unless you acknowledge that this is what Israel has become, this is the policy they’ve been operation under ever since the country was founded, then your criticisms of Hamas in particular and Palestinians in general are going to continue coming across as hypocrisy.
The “military purposes” trick is only one of many – used for actual expropriation. The most common method (invented and refined by Att. Plia Albeck of the State Attorney’s Office) was simply to declare any non-cultivated land (which she identified from a military helicopter, put at her disposal by Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur) “state land”, leaving it up to Palestinians to prove otherwise. Once it was “state land”, it was considered free for civilian Jewish settlement.
MRW,
The “state land” method has been the central mechanism for the seizure of Palestinian land, but all of the methods put together have placed “only” about 50% of the WB (excluding East Jerusalem) in Israeli hands (B’Tselem, “Land Grab: Israel’s Settlement Policy in the West Bank,” May 2002).
Lords of the Land is a really great book, and essential reading if you want to understand the history of Israeli settlement policy, since ’67. If I had to sum it up in a few words, I’d say: Dehumanisation of Palestinians, web of lies, bad faith.
Here’s a short review of Lords of the Land:
link to revcom.us
Here’s a short review of Lords of the Land:
Mine’s shorter ;-)
Yeah, it is; you’re the man, Shmuel!
Shmuel,
OK. OK. I just ordered it: Lords of the Land. :-)
Re: Palestinian support for one state:
link to odsg.org
Briefly, colonial instruments of confiscation that show a thin veneer of legitimacy. As an example, see series of worthless “treaties” formed with indigenous populations in North America.
OK, let’s really boil it down: “White man speaks with forked tongue.”
OTH, I’m not sure what the world or world’s niche standard being applied is; are you?
I know its not supposed to be this -
CIVILIZED
Maybe it is better addressed in a documentary, where people can see all of the parallels of what takes place in settler states –
THE MOVIE
The whole process of colonization is to take something which is not yours for nothing and to sell it to someone else. Systemic theft
Than trying to ennoble it by giving it another name and supposed purpose
It’s 905 AM EST. J-Street leader is discussing the I-P conflict on CSPAN’s Washington Journal–Ben-Ami; you can call in now and talk to him until 930 AM.