I’m agnostic on the one-state solution. I think those people over there hate each other so much it might be good to keep them apart. The Balkans. India/Pakistan. But I sure do want to hear people talk about one state, and therefore I appreciate the LA Times piece explaining why Israel should begin to treat its minority with respect, because it’s one state right now.
Compare that to this Politico piece on Shamai Leibowitz, the former FBI translator who has pled guilty to leaking documents to an unidentified blogger:
The radicalism of some of his positions have put him on the fringe of the left-leaning Mideast peace camp.
Last year, Leibowitz wrote a letter to the Washington Post advocating a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most Jews, even those on the left, recoil at that idea.
That’s true. Most Jews do recoil at that idea. Also: most American Jews have never been there. Most American Jews have a fantasy on top of a delusion (Tony Kushner’s words) about what is happening there. Also: Most Jews would not want to live in a place where state officials say that minorities should not be able to buy land in certain areas.
I wrote once before that the greatest gift that American Jews can make to Israelis is to open our hearts to them and tell them, What kind of nation we like to live in. What kind of freedoms we expect for minorities. How we would feel about separate roadways on a largely-religious basis. Would we recoil?
“I think those people over there hate each other so much it might be good to keep them apart. The Balkans. India/Pakistan.”
While there is no doubt hatred, I think the possibility of reconciliation between the Israelis and the Palestinians in one state is far greater than in the states you refer to. If for no other reason, my limited knowledge of history suggests that the hatred between Israelis and Palestinians is of far shorter duration historically than the others.
I would also add that your agnosticism on one state appears to me to be premised on the possibility of two states, and reality would suggest that is an impossibility.
Well, the two-state solution is an “impossibility” only because Israel insists on making it so, and digging itself in deeper in this regard every year.
What Israel (not all Israelis, but many, and particularly those in power) seems to want is one Jewish state incorporating all of Palestine, with all those pesky Arabs dead or departed. What I suspect they will get in the long run is one secular, non-Jewish state shared by Jews and Arabs. They are, in effect, working towards a one-state solution, but the one state they will end up with is not the one they want. In their own pig-headed blindness, they are working to destroy the Jewish state.
In a way, this is the best possible solution, because a two-state solution would give the Israelis the excuse to continue practicing apartheid within their own boundaries, which they won’t be able to do with one state.
But that makes me wonder Craig… are the Israelis really so dumb as to believe that what they are doing will allow them to keep their state “Jewish.”
I mean ok, yeah, seeing Hasbara trolls make retarded comments talking about how the whole world is against them etc could make one believe that maybe just maybe they are actually that stupid.
But in my humble opinion I just don’t believe that the top leadership of Israel and real Zionist intellectuals believe its possible to maintain a Jewish state while simultaneously destroying any chance of a real 2 state solution.
Even if the Israelis do succeed in coercing Abbashole to sign a document that legalized the Israeli occupation, it would only be a matter of time before the world gets more fed up with Israel, the Palestinians get even more fed up, and then the status quo is smashed.
I think it is clear that current Israeli policies of Apartheid, Ethnic cleansing, land theft etc will lead Israel into a binational state in which Palestinian s will eventually obtain equal rights….
Which makes me think that Zionist leaders must have some sort of massive ethnic cleansing based solution on the ready to prevent that…
If not… well then these guys are on full retard at the moment.
Perhaps Phil simply recoils at the notion and/or reality that any particular group have some
birthright, or religious right, or ideological right, to suppress those left out of any of those
parameters?
Not to be contentious, but if you are not for a one state, and a two state has been totally quashed – what are you for? There is only one other alternative, endless occupation (which all know cannot continue) till total ethnic cleansing or annihilation. Unfortunately this is not like religious agnosticism which has no consequence.
I think Phil is just open to hearing the last vestiges of the 2 state solution.
There is still the possibility of the Israelis handing over the Galilee (on top of the West Bank and Gaza) and a few other choice areas to the Palestinian state.
Of course… this is highly improbable… But these ideas can still be debated.
But we all know the only reality at this point is the ONE state solution =P
Most Afrikaners, even those on the left, recoil at that idea.
“separate roadways on a largely-religious basis”
Don’t perpetuate the myth that this is a religious conflict. There is deeply-rooted and institutionalized racism in Israel against non-whites and non-Europeans, even against Jews. Watch the movie “Ringworm Children” or look at the discrimination against the Mizrahi Jew, Ezra Nawi. If this were just a religious conflict where would the Palestinian Christians fit in?
Israel wants us to believe this is a religious conflict and that it has been raging for centuries. We can all ignore it and say “oh they’re fighting again,” and continue watching the football game, since no one can solve a religious conflict. It is a conflict about land, resources, and human rights, and let’s keep it on that level.
Wikipedia tells me that “The documented dosages given to the Israeli children were similar to (if not less than) that administered to children treated for ringworm at New York University Hospital between 1940 and 1959.[7] ”
What do you know that the Zionist upholders of truth don’t want in their article?
Let us not blame the modern Israelis. They, since ancient times more than 3000 years back, were ordained to establish a nation of ‘religious purity’. That is written in their ancient scriptures, and that is the belief they were living with also. In context, this is not racial because they too were allowed to welcome strangers (migrants) to integrate into their society (citizenship) provided these migrants accept and embrace their cultures and values (which are rooted in their faith). In fact as I suspect, this is the same concept that gave rise to the principle of sponsored immigration, because to become an Jewish citizen in ancient times, your sponsorship can only be made by one of the twelve tribes. Other than that migrants (non-citizens) could remain and enjoy the same economic privileges and opportunities through kindness of the community as ‘officially approved’ strangers.
Yes, let’s blame the modern Israelis.
It is the Israelis who are the strangers in the land, the migrants. Their scriptures describe one prolonged campaign of genocide aganst the inhabitants of the land, and they have come back to repeat the evil deed.
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Yes, I also agree with -A one-state solution in the area as viewed By Jonathan Kuttab. This is totally workable, however I do not agree on some of his arguments on the basis:
Sharing of power by rotating leadership would eventually result to political confusion and conflict of interests between two opposing cultures;
Political and cultural tug-of-war between two nations co-existing in one state must be avoided, for it will eventually divide the nation and return back to zero, of which the state of Israel could forever disappear;
The threat of ‘demographic imbalance’ is real;
Putting the Israelites in a cultural hodge-podge would make them increasingly aggressive, creating a fuse for a potential middle-east regional conflict, for they have been pushed with their backs to the wall for so long;
The permanent existence of a distinct Jewish nation complete with its unique tradition and culture is the ultimate goal. This is not negotiable;
I agree on having the constitution, bicameral legislation (but this may eventually be replaced by Council of Elders under the traditional Jewish Legal system);
In fact the non-Jew minorities (equivalent to ‘stangers’) and the vulnerable sectors (the poor, widows, and orphans) would remain treated in kindness and equally enjoy the conventional privileges, benefits, and all other workings of the future Jewish government (educational, health, social, housing, employment, career development, etc.) as provided by the Torah Law (Isaiah 56:3, Exodus 22:21-22). Thus it would appear, inasmuch as there were territorial compromises made by Israelis in the past, Israel should remain a separate Jewish Nation, and the Palestinians could establish a separate state.
And donot forget, the ancient Israeli form of national government though subdivided into twelve political districts or regions this was distinctively ‘participatory’ in nature.