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Palestinians under occupation should demand voting rights (Goldberg’s latest variation)

A year ago Peter Beinart, the liberal Zionist, all but called for Israeli citizenship for Palestinians living under endless military occupation in the West Bank because people have a right to consent to the government that rules their lives. Now Jeffrey Goldberg at Bloomberg says pretty much the same thing, before he kind of pulls it back:

When Abbas goes before the UN, he shouldn’t ask for recognition of an independent state. Instead, he should say the following: “Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza 45 years ago, and shows no interest in letting go of the West Bank, in particular. We, the Palestinian people, recognize two things: The first is that we are not strong enough to push the Israelis out. Armed resistance is a path to nowhere. The second is that the occupation is permanent. The Israelis are here to stay. So we are giving up our demand for independence. Instead, we are simply asking for the vote. Israel rules our lives. We should be allowed to help pick Israel’s rulers.”

Reaction would be seismic and instantaneous. The demand for voting rights would resonate with people around the world, in particular with American Jews, who pride themselves on support for both Israel and for civil rights at home. Such a demand would also force Israel into an untenable position; if it accedes to such a demand, it would very quickly cease to be the world’s only Jewish-majority state, and instead become the world’s 23rd Arab-majority state. If it were to refuse this demand, Israel would very quickly be painted by former friends as an apartheid state.

Israel’s response, then, can be reasonably predicted: Israeli leaders eager to prevent their country from becoming a pariah would move to negotiate the independence, with security caveats, of a Palestinian state on the West Bank, and later in Gaza, as well. Israel would simply have no choice.

This won’t happen, of course.

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I had a feeling Goldberg would end up blaming the Palestinians (again) for their own oppression. If only the Palestinians were to stop demanding independence, Israel would rush to give it to them. How can they be so blind?! If Goldberg were president (of the PNA), he’d negotiate the pants off Netanyahu in two seconds flat — show these silly Arabs how it’s done. But alas he’s not, and so, the Palestinians are doomed to an eternity of Israeli domination. Oh, the futility of it all.

Mr. Goldberg, Israel is not at all interested in avoiding being labeled a “pariah”. They rather like it, in fact. It helps with their “fortress mentality”, their idea of being surrounded by enemies, an idea they really don’t want to give up — for example, by making any sort of peace acceptable to Palestinians. Calling Israel a “pariah” is, frankly, like “throwing Israel in the briar patch” (to use the Br’er Rabbit trope). Israel LIVES in the briar patch for goodness sake!

So being called an “apartheid state” holds no terrors for them. It’s already happening. Big deal, they seem to say.

What they do fear is not being able to treat the West Bank and East Jerusalem as their own private property. They really do not want to have to wait for a peace treaty before they build (retain) settlements, universities, seats of government, etc., on Palestinian land. THAT is what they fear.

So the PA is ill-advised MERELY to demand the vote, although (for the duration of the by-now-apparently-permanent-in-intent occupation, Palestinians living under occupation [IMO:and also the exiles of 1948] certainly deserve the vote. No, what they should demand is that the member states of the UN apply pressure (I call that sort of pressure “nation-state BDS”) upon Israel with a view to removing the settlers and settlements and wall FOR THE DURATION of the occupation. Yes, not forever, just for the duration.

Israel fears being required to comply with humanitarian law, and such a compulsion by members of the UNGA is absolutely not the same as “throwing Israel in the briar patch”.

No choice? Here is a more likely Israel response:

“Israel guarantees the right to vote to each and every citizen of the State of Israel. The Palestinians have also elected their own leaders in free and fair elections.”

Anyone who is truly interested in the voting rights of the Palestinians might want to question why Abbas is still in office despite his long expired term of office.

>> Such a demand would also force Israel into an untenable position; if it accedes to such a demand, it would very quickly cease to be the world’s only Jewish-majority state, and instead become the world’s 23rd Arab-majority state.

“Jewish-majority state” suggests that Israel is an egalitarian state in which Jews just happen to be the majority group. But Israel is not a “Jewish-majority state” – it is a Jewish-supremacist state, a state with laws that favour Jews over non-Jews.

Do both. Use potential prosecutions at the ICC as leverage to negotiate/secure political equality in a one state outcome, if that’s the Palestinian choice. Israel’s leaders and supporters are scared to death of the former. Moreso, it seems, than the latter.

Taken as an either/or proposition, Goldberg’s new found love of a one state outcome is a deliberate attempt to maneuver around the near-term and dire consequences of a successful UN bid, in favor of something Israel can “limp-leg” out to their own advantage for another 100 years.