Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is in the press again for suggesting that Palestinian citizens of Israel should be stripped of Israeli citizenship under a two-state agreement. He says in an AP report, “Any other arrangement is simply collective suicide. This has to be clear and I think it is time to say these things out loud.”
The Haaretz coverage of the Lieberman proposal includes Haneen Zoabi’s cutting response. She lays out the choice precisely — it’s either a Jewish state or democracy:
Israeli Arab politicians responded furiously Sunday to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s suggestion suggesting that “disloyal” members of that sector should take Palestinian citizenship.
The question of Israel’s citizens needs to be one of the central issues on the negotiating table, in light of the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” Lieberman said ahead of Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
Recognizing Israel as uniquely Jewish is one of the key demands by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the latest peace talks with the Palestinians, which began earlier this month.
“We can’t continue to ignore issues like that of Hanin Zuabi, who identifies completely with the other side,” Lieberman said, , referring to an Israeli Arab member of Knesset was stripped of her parliamentary privileges after sailing aboard a pro-Palestinian aid convoy attacked by Israel en route to the Gaza Strip.
“It’s as if someone sells you a flat and then demands that his mother-in-law continues living there,” he said. “Any Israeli you takes pride in his citizenship should be able to serve in any post, but people like Hanin Zuabi should in my opinion be Palestinian citizens elected under Hamas in Gaza.”
In response to Lieberman’s remarks, Zuabi declared: “We [Israeli Arabs] represent the only possible democratic option, while Lieberman represents apartheid and ethnic cleansing.”
“Lieberman bases his claims on a doctrine of racism, while I base mine on the principle of full equality among citizens – but both of us agree that there needs to be a discussion on the question of Palestinians in Israel and how to classify the state in any negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians,” she added.
While I agree that Lieberman’s proposal is racist and anti-democratic, I am less clear on how this is much different from liberal advocates for the two-state solution who warn of a similar “collective suicide” by invoking the “demographic threat” Palestinians represent. Here’s J Street’s Jeremy Ben Ami from his recent book A New Voice for Israel: Fighting for the Survival of the Jewish Nation (pps 88-89):
The third factor that makes the lack of a two-state solution a more serious threat to Israel over time is demography. . .
In other words, roughly half of the people living in the area under Israel’s political control are not Jewish. Given demographic trends, at some point soon the number of non-Jews in the area will exceed the number of Jews, who as a minority will then be exercising political control over a majority that is denied equal political rights on the basis of their ethnic background.
Given these threats — the improved technology, the deepening extremist ideology and the inexorable march of demography — Israel finds itself at a critical fork in the road, facing a choice of existential proportion: Either end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict now through a two-state solution or cling to an untenable status quo that leads to the decline of its Jewish character, its democratic values and its international standing.
Sounds like “collective suicide” to me. While I imagine Ben Ami would never support Lieberman’s proposal, how would he feel in a two-state future when the Palestinian population of Israel is approaching 51%? It’s also interesting that he seems to openly acknowledge that Palestinian citizens of Israel are currently “denied equal political rights on the basis of their ethnic background,” but he seems okay with it because the numbers are still in the Jewish Israelis favor.
The Jewish nation — if there is such a thing — has survived without a “Jewish State” for thousands of years and can survive Israel as well, whatever Israel “is” or “becomes” (in these terms). Last time I looked, there were enough Jews living in NYC to supply anyone’s needs for a Jewish nation.
There is enough room inside Palestine for a small Jewish State (the smaller the better) [the difficulty has all sprung from the Israeli greediness for a large Jewish State.]. If the demographics make this difficult (you know, the high orthodox birthrate and all), they can console themselves, there inside that small Jewish state, with the thought that if the state had been a bit bigger (say 10 or 25 times as large, as Palestine is), it would have taken only a few more years before it would have seemed too small, and it cannot keep growing bigger forever. (Or can it? Mr. Lieberman?)
Suppose all the Jews in the world had arrived in Palestine in 1930 and Israel had been formed as it was, chasing out all the Palestinian Arabs. And then the orthodox had multiplied and subdued the earth, as they do now, and that Israel had run out of water (as it sort of is doing now). Would this israel had had the right (and could it have) conquered all its neighbors just to get some more water? And should it?
On the other hand, if it can make desalinization plants sufficient for its water needs, as it now seems it can, does it still need all of Palestine to sit on — just to spite the Palestinian Arabs?
Adam Horowitz wrote:
“While I agree that Lieberman’s proposal is racist and anti-democratic, I am less clear on how this is much different from liberal advocates for the two-state solution who warn of a similar “collective suicide” by invoking the ‘demographic threat’ Palestinians represent.”
Well, the difference is that Lieberman is simply saying directly what lots of those “liberal advocates” are saying indirectly.
And the importance of this—in terms of revealing exactly what Israel’s game is here—can’t be understated.
That game, played by many of those masquerading as “liberal advocates” (such as, say, Dennis Ross), is to pretend to only talk about *non*-Israeli citizen arabs. And thus when talking about the need for a “Two-state solution” it indeed sounds as if they just mean … Palestinians living beyond the ’67 borders of Israel who have never been granted Israeli citizenship.
And when they mention the “demographic threat,” it likewise sounds as if they just mean that “threat” that would ensue under a One-State solution, granting citizenship to all those arabs.
But if you’ve listened with a critical ear, you’ve heard exactly what Lieberman has now said out loud and directly: They too know that even if Israel retreated tomorrow behind those ’67 lines and granted all the occupied land to a Palestinian state, that their “demographic threat” would still be there, albeit further into the future. And they don’t for a moment believe in just living with it. It would be, after all, the death of what they are fighting so hard for now: To maintain Israel as jewish as possible and certainly jewish dominated no matter what.
They aren’t, after all, fighting for a Two-State solution simply to see the Israel they save now to crumble later. Else they wouldn’t be fighting.
So all Lieberman has done is made plain that the “long-term” is indeed the goal here. That the Israelis and their partisans—by definition excluding One-Staters—are not just looking to solve their “Palestinian” problem. They are looking to solve their “arab” problem, be those arabs citizens of Israel or not.
That’s the big hidden magilla here: The Two-State “liberal advocates” just want somewhere that the arab citizens can be “encouraged” to leave to without it so blatantly being ethnically cleansing. The No-State guys like Lieberman are different in that they just don’t care how it looks and don’t care where they go: Just keep expelling the non-citizen arabs in the occupied territories bit by bit elsewhere, and then start stripping the arabs who *are* citizens of that citizenship and shove them out elsewhere too.
This essentially has been hidden not only by euphemisms and etc. but also by perspective. To us, of course we tend to see all this conflict business in the shorter run: I.e., the conflict between Israel and those arabs in the occupied territories. After all it *seems* to us to *be* the problem, right?
But if you’re an Israeli, or a big partisan thereof, you know you got bigger problems than that. And that’s the bigger game you’re playing at no matter what euphemisms or misdirection or strategic silence you need to employ right now.
>> While I imagine Ben Ami would never support Lieberman’s proposal, how would he feel in a two-state future when the Palestinian population of Israel is approaching 51%?
He would probably hold his nose and support RW’s proposal:
>> RW: I personally don’t see a conflict with intentionally adjusting boundaries if the demographics change considerably to create a smaller Israel that is Jewish majority.
Simple, isn’t it? If a demographic of non-Jewish Israelis threatens the majority status of Jewish Israelis, democratically redraw the border, excise (bureaucratically cleanse) those non-Jewish Israelis right out of their own country (make them non-Israelis) and – voilà! – the religion-supremacist “Jewish state” is saved!
Palestinians should revoke Jewish citizenship in that case. They, after all, are the original inhabitants, it was their property, their land and resources which the immigrants helped themselves to at gunpoint. That new arrivals without any family or other connection to this land grant themselves the right to strip the inhabitants of their rights is fascist nonsense. If you want to stay, Leiberman, then it is your responsibility to find a way to live the people whose land it is, and get along with them. After what your peers have done, it is the very least a humane, fair-minded person could do – make reparations, have a Truth Commission and understand the only way to survive is to share what is not rightfully yours anyway. You and your like have the option to go to other countries, Palestinians don’t. If you don’t like it, leave it.
Mr. Lieberman, I propose that all Israelis be stripped of their American citizenship. Any other arrangement is simply collective suicide. This has to be clear and I think it is time to say these things out loud.