I keep wanting to do a big post on how the Palestinians have won and Partition is over. I need to collect my string first, I might be wrong. Hillary Clinton would say that the Palestinians are big losers if Partition is over, Tom Friedman also says that the Palestinians need Partition; but who is he to speak for the Palestinians, a man who was lecturing his classmates in high school on the greatness of the Israeli victory of '67? But if you look at this issue with historical sweep, the Palestinians did not want Zionism, didn't want immigration, didn't want a Jewish state, didn't want the armistice line, and have been resisting these facts forever, etc. People in the west call this attitude rejectionist, but really would we have done any differently? Would anyone?
I am also about to do a post on Herzl's colonialism; it was his go-to word in his Diaries to describe his project. Who in the third world is down with colonialism? And my point about Partition being over is that everyone in Washington now seems to glimpse the death of the two state solution, and they're panicking, for different reasons (Realists fear bloodshed, there's an international consensus for 2 states, and there are plenty of Zionists in DC); but at some level I have to believe that Palestinians are happy about this development. The burden now shifts to a struggle for equal rights in historical Palestine.
Also, what was Partition? A 63-year shell game. It was never Partition, it just meant occupation for them, and plenty of bloodshed, even as Kosovo and Pakistan and Tajikistan walked in and got their states at the Horn and Hardart. I do think Zionists will look back on the last ten years and understand that the biggest missed opportunity of all was the Arab peace initiative, realpolitik from a group of authoritarian states, to cut the deal. But Israel didn't want to cut it (because they don't believe in Partition), and the lobby gave them the power to walk away. National suicide, as Ehud Olmert and John Mearsheimer put it.
Anyway, here is some evidence for my belief that the Palestinians are going to win. Chris Keeler at Notes from a Medinah says what I have always believed, that Palestinians had an important role in rejecting Clinton's parameters of 2000. The talking points on the pro-Palestinian side always blame the Israelis for the bad deal. OK, it was a bad deal, Clinton was hashing things together to save his legacy, Barak could not move on Jerusalem. But I have to believe that some important part of Palestinian life didn't want any deal because they don't want to memorialize an Israel cleansed of Palestinians and give up the right of return. If you have met Palestinians, you know that they are all for the right of return; and you would be too. People say I'm living in fairyland or I'm a nihilist, but I think this is the ultimate realism: You can't make a final deal here without dealing openly and fairly with that basic right. Even if you want Israel to exist, you have to deal with that right...
I took the picture above in Bil'in, at Dr. Rateb Aborahma's house, the head of the popular committee in the village. The key says 62 for 62 years. I.e., the Bil'in struggle is not just about the occupation, about land stolen after 67.
Here is Keeler, saying that the right of return is central, and Arafat had to reject Camp David on that basis. He begins with this idea that is in the news, other states recognizing a Palestinian state on the '67 lines.
Yet what does international recognition actually symbolize for the Palestinians? Sure it means that the West Bank and Gaza would constitute a Palestinian state, but more importantly, it revitalizes the Israeli denial of the Nakbah of 1948. Any two state solution will have one major Israeli precondition: no right of return for Palestinian refugees of 1948. Furthermore, the two state solution is completely premised on the assumption that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict finds its roots in 1967. To recognize Palestine along 1967 borders is to play an active role in the erasure of the catastrophe, in which 531 Palestinian localities and villages were ethnically cleansed, destroyed and buried under the guise of heroic Israeli nationalism.
Unfortunately, international observers do not seem to understand the emotional resonance that 1948 holds for all Palestinians. In 2001, when Arafat rejected a substantial two state peace plan because it did not include the right of return, he was castigated in the US and Israel for not wanting peace. He wanted peace, but he also wanted justice for the over 7 million dispossessed refugees that are scattered across the Middle East. The Right of Return for Palestinians is sacred. It is not something that can be negotiated away nor can it be denied. It is a right that is enshrined in the UN, under Resolution 194:
"(The General Assembly) Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible."
It is clear that Israel will continue to postpone this legal right of Palestinians, a right that could be indefinitely postponed should a two state solution be forged. International recognition of 1967 borders certainly symbolizes the illegality and brutality of the Israeli occupation (as well as the American failure to remain neutral), but it uses the Israeli line as a foundation for peace. If Brazil and Argentina truly support the rights of Palestinians, there would be a greater push to recognize the Palestinians’ Right to Return, rather than burying this right under 1967 recognition.
The Jews owned 7% of the land when Israel declared itself a state. Today Israel is engaged in a war on Palestinian children, yet hoping the world will allow it to grab the remaining 22% of the land. It’s hope relies on the Lobby & its fellow travelers across the sea, in the USA. Hence only US politicians waving the flag and their blind sheep, their “talking animals,” still think the US is a model for good conduct in the world. And that’s only for starters of what the US has lost due to its neocon and neoliberal bent in all things involving Israel. What the Jews have lost by worshiping Israel is equal to what the US has lost in this matter. link to counterpunch.org
“The burden now shifts to a struggle for equal rights in historical Palestine.” And a “just and lasting peace” demands (or suggests) justice.
What we have today is a one-state arrangement but with a lop-sided “right of return”. what Palestinians want from a one-state arrangement “peace” is an end to apartheid (citizenship with equal rights for all, Palestinians and Israelis) and also a full right of return for the Palestinian 4.7 million refugees.
And this is not to ignore Gaza.
How can Israel be expected 9or even be forced) sign on to such a proposition?
This is why I believe the occupation (and the settlements, etc.) will continue for a long time — and why I believe that REQUIRING the removal ALL the settlers and the demolition of ALL the settlements is a necessary pre-condition to peace: Israel must see the game is over (or that it WILL BE OVER) before it will agree to anything which in its eyes is as bad as the game being over.
Exactly! Alas, the West can pretend to be interested in a peace accord, so confident is it that the public, preoccupied with the struggle just to stay afloat, hasn’t the time nor inclination to delve into the whys and wherefores of the I/P conflict. Besides, even if the public were interested, MSM refuses to enlighten the masses. Still, AIPAC and the rest of the Israel lobby remain vulnerable to the accusation that they’re Israel-firsters. No matter, though, if only those of us who support justice for Palestine keep hammering away at the issue of the Israel-firsters dual loyalties -”Hey, hey, Israel-firsters, how many U.S. soldiers have you killed today?”*
*by their unconditional support for the settler state Israel’s intransigence vis-a-vis a peace accord with Palestinians, support that endangers U.S. troops in Afghanistan (as per recent statements by General David Petreaus and Vice President Joe Biden, among others)
Phil,
Thank you for your honest post.
Off the bat let me say that it shows one thing very clearly, that settlements are not the obstacle to peace, the right of return is.
When you say the Palestinians are going to win by rejecting partition, you do not explain why. You say that Palestinian insistence on the right of return is evidence that they are going to win. But why is that evidence for anything except what Palestinian goals are? Palestinians have rejected partition for decades with catastrophic results for their society. Why will things be different moving forward?
Currently Palestinian society is a mess. Malley and Agha provide a good summary of the current situation:
link to nytimes.com
If you want to be responsible in my opinion you should articulate a concrete strategy for the Palestinians to follow and explain the potential costs and risks of that strategy. Otherwise, the charge of nihilism is correct.
Every settlement requires a Palestinian right of return. The right of return and the settlements are not two separate things. All theft requires return of the goods and/or compensation for their loss.
Do illegal theft of property is not an obstacle for peace but people getting there legal rights is. god your despicable. I know the word gets thrown around alot to the point it has lost almost all meaning but with this statement I dare say it your evil. this complete lack of humanity and regard for the law is evil no other word accurate describes it
Phil,
You also write:
The burden now shifts to a struggle for equal rights in historical Palestine.
But which elements with any support in the Palestinian public are defining their goals in this way? Seriously, who? Obviously not Fatah or Hamas. Which Palestinian leader is working towards this goal and what support does he/she have?
eee, Israel considers any Palestinian who advocates for equal rights guilty of incitement and/or treason. If they didn’t exist they wouldn’t get rounded up at night and sent to prison.
Light,
What you are saying is just false. Plenty of Palestinians advocate for “equal rights” and even run for the Knesset on such platforms. And even if what you say is true, then there would be leaders in Israeli jails.
So, who are the leaders of this movement either free or in jail? How much support do they have?
eee, there are thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails.
N o eee, what you;re saying is false.
Israel is routinely imprisoning Palestinians for participating peaceful non-violent protests.
Who are the leaders of the Palestinian “equal rights” movement?
Why can’t you answer the question?
It is clear who the leaders of Hamas and Fatah are, in jail or out of jail. If as you say the Palestinians are moving to an “equal rights” campaign, it must have leaders? Well who are they, in jail or free?
Every stone thrown by a Palestinian kid registers a claim for equal rights.
You can find information about the staff and executive boards of the Mossawa Centre, Adalah, and Al Haq on their websites. Each organization also makes available publications about the impact of the application of Israeli domestic legislation on either side of the Green Line. The legal system consists of a two-tiered civil status under Israel’s domestic legal regime based on a “Jewish nationality,” which entitles “persons of Jewish race or descendency” to superior rights and privileges, particularly in land use, housing, development, immigration and access to natural resources, as affirmed in key legislation.
dude they are routinely maiming and killing palestinians for participating in nonviolent protests
Strenger & Eldar are scared of RoR, but insist the Palestinians are “no longer victims of history, but free agents who will have to make choices”. They also obviously haven’t heard that the Palestinians have accepted Israel, since they complain about that.
link to guardian.co.uk
Their piece is in response to one by Erekat a couple of days ago. Many of the early comments take them to task. I’m irked by their focus on “narratives” and giving them equal weight.
“The Palestinians have won and partition is over”? Wow Phil, the tone of this post strikes me as just a bit glib, and easy for you to say from where you sit. I think the story here is more about the blowback (and potential blowback) from Israel’s actions and how Israel has painted itself into a corner, more so than any real victories on the Palestinian side. We should not assume that the occupation is not sustainable, that apartheid is not sustainable. There are many in Israel that will fight tooth and nail to maintain and worsen the status quo for years to come. Occupation and apartheid will only end if people make it happen (nonviolently, I believe, is the only path), and we should not make any assumptions about this outcome.
We will know when the Palestinians (and Israelis who favor Equality!) have won. We aren’t there yet, or even close, I believe.
One problem is simply that the status quo that “many in Israel will fight tooth and nail to maintain” is not a status quo at all. It is the continuation of creeping colonialism. Sure, it is tough to say that apartheid is not sustainable, because it is. At least for a short while. As long as settlements keep taking Palestinians land, more Palestinians and (perhaps ironically important) more of the international community will see that two states will only result in a Palestinian entity that is not viable. Far removed from the question of RoR, there is the simple fact that soon an independent Palestinian state will be impossible.
I completely agree – your headline for this is way off the mark. The Palestinians have not created this situation nor driven it. They have been driven into it. They would have happily settled for a genuine two-state solution at any time. They were not consciously driving toward this end. Israel is the party that has consciously driven the peace process off the tracks in the hopes that it can consolidate and maintain its “Jewish state” and keep the “wild hordes” contained and out of sight. Israel has achieved its every goal. The only problem is, in the long term this is not going to be in Israel’s ultimate interests. But Israel, drunk on power, does not realize this yet. Or at least its leadership does not.
So long term the Palestinians may be the ultimate beneficiaries if this forces the train to move over onto the “equality for all” track, but that is in the very long term, and with a lot, a lot of human cost in the meantime.
To imply that the fractured, gasping, coopted pathetic Palestinian leadership has somehow “engineered” this impasse and is now quietly celebrating in their tiny city state of Ramallah is to competely misrepresent the facts. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Oh dear, I meant to close the ital tag after “may” above – please fix if possible.
If the Palestinians were free to make choices, then why doesn’t Israel allow them the freedom to exercise their choice to return to their homeland?
Free Free Palestine! All of it! For Everyone!
Hear, hear!
Meanwhile, the idea that the Palestinians ‘have won’ once the 2ss is abandoned has been around for a while I think, the argument being that the system would then so plainly resemble apartheid that it would be obviously doomed. Ho hum. People do not see these things plainly, they are deceived and they deceive themselves. Perhaps truth must dawn eventually on the members of a rational species but the way ahead is still very long and hard.
After reading this website for several months and contributing for several months, the above paragraph comes across as a shift in the website’s credibility and honesty, or more accurately, lack thereof.
I can only conclude that the website owners have recently received their donations from a questionable source, a Zionist organization.
What exactly is the following sentence supposed to imply? “Chris Keeler at Notes from a Medinah says what I have always believed, that Palestinians had an important role in rejecting Clinton’s parameters of 2000.”
What you have always believed? You, have always KNOWN from Israeli press reports that Barak went into the 2000 summit intent on having them fail because a second Intifadah would have been good for Ehud’s election campaign. You’re written an article about it on this very website. So, why the spin and obfuscation?
And that was followed by, “The talking points on the pro-Palestinian side always blame the Israelis for the bad deal.” Is this supposed to mean that the “pro-Palestinian” side spreads propaganda with prepared “talking points” ready to unleash Palestinian Hasbara at listeners?
“But I have to believe that some important part of Palestinian life didn’t want any deal because they don’t want to memorialize an Israel cleansed of Palestinians and give up the right of return.”
Why the use of Bronneresque language like “I have to believe that some….” followed by “didn’t want any deal….”?
Surely, if Barak had made an honest offer, a just offer, the Palestinians would have accepted it. That just and honest offer, one which should have been based on international law, would have included the right of return for Palestinians. Had that been the case, the Palestinians would have accepted it. So, why the use of bullshit language and spin?
Yeah, Phil could have worded his article better. Perhaps he was trying to suggest the difference between sitting at the negotiating table with your two snuggled enemies involves some feints but when you get down to it the ROR is so deep in every Palestinian heart, so that only a just and honest offer based on international law, and including therefore the ROR, would have worked?
The way the article is written, it has the framing of yellow journalism.
Avi- You wrote “Barak went into the 2000 summit intent on having them fail because a second Intifadah would have been good for Ehud’s election campaign.”
Barak may have gone into the 2000 summit intent on having it fail, but it certainly was not an election campaign strategy as proven by the fact that Barak was kicked out of office by the electorate half a year later.
“not an election campaign strategy”
^
effective
That only proves it wasn’t a successful campaign strategy. Politics is littered with unsuccessful campaign strategies.
Barak had won election in 1999, it was less than 18 months into his term of office. The offers he made at Camp David endangered his coalition in the Knesset. There was no need for an election campaign, except for the fact that Barak wished to press the issue of the possibility of peace while Clinton was still in office. (After all Clinton had sent Carville to Israel to help him win that office against Netanyahu.) The idea that the Camp David summit was designed to win an election is preposterous and silly.
Seeing as Hamas and Fatah have not signed onto the one state solution, I would think that the Palestinians need some advocate for a one state solution who has name recognition above the single digits.
Exactly.
And perhaps some following to go with the name recognition?
Or is the equal rights campaign just orientalism?
The matter of whether Hamas and Fatah endorse a one state solution is entirely irrelevant. The 2 state solution is dead, which means the one state solution is guaranteed, whether Hamas and Fatah endorse it or not.
So not only do you not care what the majority of Israelis want, you do not care what the majority of Palestinians want.
We already know what the majority of Israelis want. They’ve demonstrated it by electing Yahoo and backing the settlements.
The Palestinians want justice, a concept that scares you supremacists.
I must say, it’s amusing how the Zionist die hards are suddenly finding religion and placing such importance on what the Palestinians want with regard to a single state.
It not like you gave a damn what they wanted when they endorsed 2 states.
I would think that the Palestinians need some advocate for a one state solution who has name recognition above the single digits.
That might be possible if the IDF ever reduces its killing spree of Palestinians to a single digits.
Phil- This post belies your claim that you have America’s best interest at heart. How is it in America’s best interest to advocate a solution that promises bloodshed galore before it will be feasible? I suppose advocating “justice” rather than America’s best interest is not dual loyalty in the same way that advocating Israel’s interests before America’s interests, but still your interests and America’s interests are not the same any more.
wj
Are you implying that the removal of a significant number of Jews from their settlements, even if not all, would not lead to bloodshed in a 2ss? I don’t see it. Those settlers will exact a blood price not only from the Palestinians, but from those of the IDF prepared to try to remove them. They’ve said as much! By that measure, in the short term at least, the status quo is the least bloody option. Why is it so unacceptable to the Jewish population to comtemplate equal rights for all in the land? Aah, those past “misdeeds” would have to be dealt with, and that would cost the Israeli taxpayer, and/or change the precious demographics towards the “other”! A more egalitarian state would also necessitate taking the horrible haredi off the public tit – probably defunding their schools too…or the state might have to provide madrassahs and public support for Moslems…
Meanwhile, could someone explain why it’s so “complicated” to remove or prevent illegal settlements but so easy to bulldoze Palestinian homes? It would surely be simple for a state like Israel to put up roadblocks to prevent building materials from being delivered to the West bank for Settler use? Or is the only complexity that it’s actually undeclared state policy to settle the land and steal it from Palestinians?
easy to Israel and its supports Israeli jews are humans with rights the palestinians aren’t. those that support Israel can whine about how that isn’t true but actions speak louder than words.
How is it in America’s interests to spend decades promoting injustice and bloodshed? But WJ is only interested when some of the blood shed might belong to Jews.
No one as yet has described a scenario of how we get to a one state solution. You guys are pretending that the leader(s) of Israel are going to wake up one morning and think like you. It’s not going to happen that way. (I am opposed to a one state solution because I don’t believe that the result will be equality. There is nothing in the experience of all the Arab countries over the last 65 years, that makes me think that it would be an equitable situation. Please if you will, point to the Arab country that exemplifies how it will work. You can’t. But my opinion is besides the point. In your scenario you would have to deal with not me, someone who is to the left of 85- 96% of the ruling ethnic group of the country, but an actual leader of Israel.) That leader of Israel, someone who leads one of the major parties, will be opposed to relinquishing Jewish sovereignty, not only based upon the present tense (like me) but based upon the generations of exile and statelessness, based upon the legacy of sovereignty handed to him by the last 100 years of Zionist steadfastness and struggle. So explain to me the scenario. Simply put you can’t write such a scenario without casualties that would dwarf by 10 to 1 (at least) all the casualties of all the wars of the last 100 years between Israel and the Arabs.
We don’t need one. Israel has already provided it and we are on course for it. All we have to do is sit back and wait.
Not right away, but it will happen. Bradley Burston explains it very simlpy.
link to haaretz.com