The glad tidings from New York are that the Palestinian statehood initiative is taking center stage at the U.N. and even in the American press. No matter what you think of it, this drama casts the Palestinians as the chief actors in their international narrative at long last. And that is a glorious thing for anyone who honors a people’s right of self-determination.
Israelis are not controlling the flow of events, and American influence is at last ebbing.
At Haaretz, you can see Israelis turning on one another over whose fault this debacle is. While at +972, Yossi Gurvitz has done a courageous thing, he is telling his fellow Israelis that it is impossible to evacuate the settlements or separate the ball of string that Jerusalem has become, and so Israel must turn away from apartheid and grant everyone between the river and the sea citizenship.
Gurvitz is undertaking the hard mental labor that Jews all over the United States must soon embark on– if only our media would inform them of the realities. He is accepting the preferable-ness of democracy to ethnocracy. The most tortured battlefield here is between American Jews’ ears. It is time for us, who live in a liberal democracy, to abandon the paradigm of Zionism. Gurvitz:
This makes the Palestinian move in the UN, which will make it clear to Israel that the current situation cannot go on, a good first move, which ought to be supported by all Israeli patriots. But, given that the Netanyahu government will remain obdurate [saying that the Palestinian statehood initiative postpones peace another 60 years], and will not allow the creation of a feasible Palestinian state, the second act of the Palestinians should be clear cut: They ought to demand that Israel will recognize anyone living in the de-facto country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River as an equal citizen. Because the other solution, the existence of an apartheid state while waiting for Netanyahu’s 60 years to pass is morally unacceptable.
And no, it won’t be easy. And yes, this will have a cost in blood, treasure and abandoned paradigms, foremost among them Zionism. And yes, terrorists from both sides, supported by elements of their side’s armed forces, will try to prevent such a solution. And it’s not at all clear that Jews and Muslims – and in the Middle East, of all places – can recognize others as equals. But, 44 years after the occupation, we have exhausted all other possible solutions. Time to make a decision
