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Gorenberg on why one state is a non-starter: Jews would have to pay higher taxes or receive fewer services

It seems the Harvard One State conference really has Israel’s supporters – both liberal and conservative – running for cover. Jeffrey Goldberg does his part today in his column for Bloomberg:

This group argues for the “one-state solution,” the merging of the Palestinian and Jewish populations between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea into a single political entity. It is an entirely unworkable and offensive idea, but because it is couched in the language of equality and human rights, rather than murder and anti-Semitism, it has gained currency in certain not-entirely-marginal circles . . .

The one-staters posit that they differ from the Shukairy approach or from the ideology of Hamas. They don’t seek the expulsion of Jews from Palestine, they say, but instead the creation of a unified parliament that would represent all Arabs and Jews between the river and the sea. Instead of two ethnic- based states, they say, there would be one harmonious, pluralistic democracy.

Terrifying idea, isn’t it? Goldberg goes to Gershom Gorenberg to paint the horror that one democratic state could produce in Israel/Palestine:

Gershom Gorenberg, in his new book, “The Unmaking of Israel,” a jeremiad directed at the Jewish settlement movement, writes at length about the absurdity at the heart of the proposal.

“Palestinians will demand the return of property lost in 1948 and perhaps the rebuilding of destroyed villages. Except for the drawing of borders, virtually every question that bedevils Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations will become a domestic problem setting the new political entity aflame.”

Gorenberg predicts that Israelis of means would flee this new state, leaving it economically crippled. “Financing development in majority-Palestinian areas and bringing Palestinians into Israel’s social welfare network would require Jews to pay higher taxes or receive fewer services. But the engine of the Israeli economy is high-tech, an entirely portable industry. Both individuals and companies will leave.”

In the best case, this new dystopia by the sea would be paralyzed by endless argument: “Two nationalities who have desperately sought a political frame for cultural and social independence would wrestle over control of language, art, street names, and schools.” In the worst case, Gorenberg writes, political tensions “would ignite as violence.”

So even Gorenberg acknowledges that the worst case scenario is violence, and most likely the new country would be tied up in fights over “language, art, street names, and schools” – which is to say it would be about as functional as almost any other democracy. Is the threat of Jews paying higher taxes really the best argument liberal Zionists can muster these days?

What goes unsaid in the piece, and what Goldberg really finds “unworkable and offensive” about the idea of democracy in Israel/Palestine, is that Israeli Jews would have to give up the special and exclusive rights they enjoy now as Jews in an ethnocratic state. Equality would seem to be Israel’s greatest existential threat.

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Does it ever dawn on american jews like goldberg that when they claim “two peoples living together” in israel/palestine is “offensive” that other americans, myself for example, take their stance to mean they believe in “separation” generally?

And does it dawn on them how offensive this view is? And does it dawn on them that this leads people, myself for example, to not like people like goldberg?

And does it dawn on them that when other americans, myself for example, begin to detest people like goldberg, they will no longer be interested in hearing “moral” arguments from them?

In short, why should “we” care?

There is something else which is overlooked but equally important.
Goldberg is mentioning Belgium, an extreme outlier. But what about the U.S? Canada? And so on.

Notice what Goldberg is doing here. He is demagoguing against multiculturalism itself.
He is, in short, a nativist of the ugliest kind.

Do you think his liberal creed would allow him to accept, even passively, conservatives to argue for a ‘white America’ because ‘look at what happened with Yugoslavia’.

This is yet another sign of the tremendous privilege that Zionists inside the U.S. have. They can make the ugliest, most reactionary and racist nativist arguments that would never fly in the nations, like America, that they live in. And what’s more, the hypocrisy. Goldberg would call out the white supremacists and nativists, and as well as he should, if they made similar arguments for a ‘white America’ and then scaremongering of the blood, race war etc that would flow.

Finally, his argument is that this is middle east and it can’t work. But the two nations are now almost completely merged already. His point is moot. The Palestinians already live in a single state, under control by Jews. The only thing the ‘one state’ paradigm would change is give them dignity.

Why is Goldberg so afraid of that?

The mask of the ‘liberal’ Zionist is ripped off.

The thesis seems to be: “the denial of human rights must be accepted, otherwise the privileged class would be inconvenienced.” One wonders whether these people would hold that it is okay to strip human rights from one ethnic group because such a situation would benefit some other ethnicity if it were not their own ethnicity which is the top dog?

“Jews would have to pay higher taxes”.. .

They are currently subsidised by the Palestinians they have driven into perpetual penury. Israel’s government expenses are far higher than the capacity of Jewish taxpayers to support them .

Take away the free land and the water and the raw materials the occupation provides them, take away the captive Palestinian markets for crap Israeli products they can’t sell anywhere else and Israel enjoys a standard of living that has no bearing to its actual productive output.

because it is couched in the language of equality and human rights, rather than murder and anti-Semitism, it has gained currency

ouch! an indication goldberg is aware they are loosing the message.

i was reviewing the hasbara handbook last night and one of the very first things they emphasize, from my notes:

pg 6. people tend to believe something if they “hear it first and hear it often”…. “once people believe something it is hard to convince them they were wrong in the first place.””

re “murder and anti-Semitism”, those seem to be the mainstay of israeli hasbara, ‘they really want to kill us all’ etc. it’s embedded in so much of their propaganda. check this out
http://www.jewishexponent.com/article/25269/Opinion_Lessons_Learned_From_the/

Across the political spectrum, this distinction must be understood. On the right, there needs to be a clearer understanding of the difference between Jewish BDS supporters, who widely delegitimize Israel as a “racist” state and espouse the return of Palestinian refugees, and those who criticize particular Israeli policies. One group — the BDSers — wouldn’t blink an eye if Israel disappeared tomorrow or became submerged in one state, thereby losing its Jewish majority and character.

notice how they connote one state as israel “disappearing”. and loosing jewish majority is hardly loosing jewish character. we’ve got plenty of jewish character right here in the US, with only 2%. it doesn’t require any kind of majority for jewish character.