Nathan Jeffay of the Forward has written a fabulous piece describing a tour of Jaffa given to American Jews by a Palestinian and an Israeli that proffers the one-state solution as an ideal and that seeks to conquer Jewish fears of democracy. Some excerpts:
one-state advocates Yuval Tamari, a Jewish schoolteacher, and Wasim Bearumi, an Arab psychologist,…. tell a story of the past that feeds their vision of the future.
“The two-state solution is said to be a practical solution, but it’s division,” Tamari told a recent tour group. “I want to be able to visit Nablus and other places from my history. And Arabs have a lot of history here in Jaffa.”…
On a recent summer day, a group of 30 tourists from the Temple Israel Center, a Conservative synagogue in White Plains, N.Y., heard the message of the tour, which was that Jaffa should actually be seen as a model for coexistence. The Daniel Centers for Progressive Judaism, a large complex of Reform cultural and community centers in Jaffa, has been running the “Coexistence Tour” for four years, giving a platform for the activists to share their political vision with almost 500 Diaspora Jews yearly, mostly as part of communal Israel trips.
Meir Azari, senior rabbi and executive director of the Daniel Centers, said of the guides’ one-state ideology: “Don’t take it as our platform.” His center runs the tours, however, because they “highlight the possibility of living together although we have disputes.” Azari said the two guides’ tour also restored a balance missing from most Jewish tours. “You can go on Birthright or Masa without meeting an Arab educator,” he said, referring to two popular Zionist-oriented Israel tour programs.
The tour, which took place August 31, included a visit to Jaffa’s shopping district, where the guides showed the group a gated community with luxury apartments marketed exclusively to Jews. This self-separation of Jews from Arabs represents division between the two cultures at its worst, the guides said — a far cry from Jews in the 19th century who “saw themselves as part of what was happening here, not segregating themselves,” according to Bearumi….
Again, there is an assumption that one state is automatically binationalism. That’s naive, and I don’t think that idea has the support of any real constituency on the ground. Binationality assumes power-sharing and mutually recognized nationality in a way that most Arabs have never been willing to countenance. And it has not worked well in practice around the world. Binationalism is not simply the existence of two peoples in the same land. It’s about mutual respect and the recognition of the self-determination rights of both peoples. Most here speak self-servingly of a secular democratic state that would negate Jewish self-determination rights at the expense of Palestinian self-determination rights. And that is not the same thing as binationalism. And given the lack of democracy and mistreatment of minority groups in the Arab world, and the potential for militant groups to use the democratic process to establish and consolidate power rather than perpetuate rule by the people, there is every reason for responsible people to reject any such idea (binationalism or secular democracy) as simply a convenient talking point for leftist Western ears, not as a possible reality in which Palestinians and Israelis are willing and able to live.
despite quarrels and grumbling, binationalism/secular democracy works in canada. it’ll work in palestine too, once the settler entity israel is delegitamized – BDS, BDS, BDS!
RE: “Feel the earth move” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: I don’t mind if I do!
YET ANOTHER EARLY AUTUMN EVENING’S MUSICAL INTERLUDE ~ Proudly brought to you courtesy of the makers of new Ziocaine Xtreme®: It’s guaranteed to knock you senseless!™
CAROLE KING (Live): I Feel The Earth Move (VIDEO, 03:23) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoHuxpa4h48
P.S. Carole King also wrote “The Loco-Motion”, which became a big hit for her domestic employee (maid) who billed herself as “Little Eva” of the group named “The Chiffons”. “You gotta swing your hips now!”
Little Eva: “The Loco-Motion” (VIDEO, 01:17) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt9cnNRCdsk
I’ll try this again. The Mods didn’t like it last time, so they might not like it this time, but I live in hope.
It seems to me that a single state is inevitable in the long run (200 years) and probably in the short run (50 years).
So surely the sensible thing to do would be to work out what sort of a state that should be, and a plan for achieving it.
A truth and reconciliation process will be needed.
And the planners will have to face the fact that it is not Sweden. Both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are burdened with nasty traditional cultures and evil religions. There are large numbers of particularly rebarbative nutters in the territory.
But sensible, reasonable people should be able to work out a way to organize things so that they can have a fairly just state which gives a fairly decent life to everyone.
“Instead of putting all this energy into brutally separating people from each other and from land they hold dear, why not work on finding ways to live together based on rights and mutual respect? Fairness is a much more stable basis for political order than sameness.”
robin September 19, 2011 at 10:26 pm