I was pleasantly surprised to read Ben Zakkai’s one-state formula for Palestine/Israel. Our thinking on the issue is closer to one another than I thought it would be. There are some big things I disagree with, but the fact that an Israeli (Jewish-Israeli?) has undertaken to grapple with the one-state solution is a net positive.
Before launching into criticisms of Zakkai’s outline, it’s worth taking stock of the fact that Ali Abunimah’s one-state book was published only four short years ago. It’s impossible to know how long it will take to implement, but the movement as a whole is undoubtedly maturing into a coherent political program.
Zakkai writes that most Palestinians and Israelis don’t want a one-state solution. Frankly, I’m skeptical about the claim that most Palestinians don’t want a one-state. I suspect that Palestinian nationalism is not the racial-purist brand that dominates some Western European countries. It has less to do with purebloods than a culture of resistance and embracing struggle as a value. That’s how George Galloway ends up with a Palestinian passport.
Furthermore, the Diaspora experience has colored Palestinian nationalism to yield a more diffuse and fluid national identity than you might find elsewhere. Palestinian nationalism is very much informed by Palestine – the geographical space and the communitarian memories associated with it – and less by skin color or heredity. So ask Palestinians, “How would you like to live in all of Palestine – to picnic in Tiberius, swim in the sea at Jaffa, pray in the Holy places in Jerusalem, or enjoy Gaza oranges?” I think many of them will answer in the affirmative. I could be wrong, but I haven’t seen a poll that asks the question in the right way (I’m aware of the irony of this statement).
I am inclined to agree, however, that most Israelis probably don’t want a one-state solution. At present, Jewish people in Israel are the beneficiaries of system predicated upon the idea of racial privilege. A one-state solution means the end of that system; it means a meritocratic and competitive society that doesn’t distort access to labor, education and healthcare in favor of Jewish people.
But to the Israelis I say: Palestinian freedom is not your prerogative. Your society has engineered our mutual dependence and intertwined existence. I regret to say it in this way, but you don’t have a choice.
Or rather, they don’t have any good choices. The call for a one-state is distinct from the two-state in many ways, not least in the way it empowers the Palestinians as equals; the one-state solution is not a ‘negotiated’ settlement. The colonial power dynamic is upended by the call for enfranchisement, equality and mutual responsibility. When the Palestinians demand their equal rights they can’t but do so from a position of power. That’s because Palestinian power flows directly from the continued Zionist resistance to a massively popular idea – that all people are equal irrespective of race. The Israeli choice thus becomes 1) deeper apartheid/more ethnic cleansing/genocide (there’s no point in making distinctions) 2) equal rights. I’m genuinely curious about how ghettoized Israeli Jews are willing to become before they succumb to the superior force of our morality. My implicit assumption here is that there will never be a Palestinian state.
It’s naïve and probably counterproductive to encourage Palestinians and Jewish Israelis to integrate their neighborhoods and lives right away. I can say from firsthand experience that Beirut is still undergoing a gradual de-rifting – and the civil war ended twenty years ago. That’s one of the reasons I proposed a non-racial federal model for the one-state, which I believe is the best way to allow the communities to be as close or as distant from one another as they can bear to be initially.
I’m also not convinced Uri Avnery’s claim that socio-economic disparities are an effective barrier to the one-state. It’s true that Palestine/Israel will likely suffer from the same tremendous socio-economic gaps that many other countries do. But Averny’s mistake is that he assumes that the failures of neoliberal economic policies are change-resistant systemic realities. There are good ways to address social inequality if the political will to make that change exists. Zakkai himself addresses the socioeconomic gap issue by invoking Keynesian development schemes. Furthermore, a Danish-style tax and social services system will go a long way towards increasing standards of living. We may sacrifice a few billionaires in the process, but it’s doable.
The Belgian, or Quebecois experience is invoked by opponents of the one-state solution to suggest that multiethnic states have a tendency to want to fly apart. That’s probably true, but we have one thing going for us in Palestine/Israel that neither Belgium nor Canada do: mutually revanchist populations. Many Israelis claim a biblical right to what they call Judea and Samaria, and many Palestinians claim a natural historical right (me included) to what some call Palestine 1948. I also pointed out in my initial essay on a federal one-state that three of the four proposed federal units are home to a mix of Palestinians and Jewish people, which should help to prevent the growth of separatist movements.
As to the final issue Zakkai talks about – that somehow Jews and Arabs are too tribal to build a liberal democracy – well, I reject the racially or culturally deterministic view of people that he seems to espouse. Reasonable people can disagree, I guess.
I did find myself in broad agreement with most of the Articles Zakkai envisioned. There were two big issues on which I disagree strongly, however. Both the Golan and Palestinian refugees are way off the mark.
The Golan ought to be returned to Syria even before the one-state becomes a reality. If it hasn’t been, that’s the first thing the leaders of the new state should do (and return the Shebaa farms to Lebanon). For the state to succeed, it will need the full support of neighboring states. Why prejudice those relationships before they’ve even been formally established? Zakkai may say that they ought to be swapped for a formal peace deal, but I can’t foresee a scenario where that peace deal wouldn’t be forthcoming.
The second issue, the Palestinian refugees, is the really big one. Under no circumstances is the right of Palestinian refugees to return home going to be repealed. The human and moral right of the refugees to return is inviolable. For any political solution to take root in Palestine/Israel, it must address the right of return in a way that most Palestinian refugees regard as equitable. Personally, I don’t think many refugees will choose to return (with the possible exception of those in Lebanon), but those that would like to must have the ability to exercise that right. Insisting upon this point may delay the one-state for a while. But by not doing so, we risk creating a politically illegitimate and unstable state. Expediency can’t come before justice.
There is one other issue that may complicate the quest for justice in Palestine/Israel through a one-state; that’s the prospect of Israel becoming a failed state. The recent clashes between the secular courts and rabbinical authority over Ashkenazi racism in Emmanuel demonstrates that the state is increasingly incapable of exercising the rule of law. I always conceived of a one-state growing out of the strong (albeit racist) institutions of the Israeli state. No one benefits when those institutions are eroded. Who is supposed to abdicate the Basic Laws of the state if the state can’t even desegregate schools?
On the whole, I’m encouraged by Zakkai’s essay. It’s impossible to know how many Israelis actually support the one-state; Zakkai himself (herself?) uses a pseudonym. But I believe support is growing among segments of both the Palestinian and Israeli populations. Hopefully, with more good will and creative thinking, we’ll get there.
