Editor: Ian Lustick is the man of the hour. The author of the seminal 9/15 piece in the NY Times called the Two State Illusion, which says the partition paradigm is over, is on Capitol Hill right now, debating the two state solution with Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street, and Yousef Munayyer on Lustick’s side. Watch the livestream here. I’m sure they’ll have a video up later. In eight days Lustick will be talking with Max Blumenthal at the University of Pennsylvania. Meantime, Jerome Slater has published a lengthy piece on his blog, deconstructing Ian Lustick’s two-state illusion argument. Here is the first third of that piece.
On September 15, the New York Times published published Ian Lustick’s long analysis of the stalemated Israeli-Palestinian two-state peace process, entitled “Two-State Illusion.” In bringing to the attention of the general public the diminishing prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian two-state peace settlement, there is no doubt that Lustick—and the Times—have performed a very important public service.
Even so, there are three important problems in Lustick’s analysis. The first is that he is dismissive and condescending to supporters of a two-state settlement; indeed, some of his tone and language essentially questions their intelligence and even their motives. Second, some of his arguments are internally inconsistent. And most importantly, Lustick does not make a persuasive case for his central argument: that there might be an attainable and superior alternative to an Israeli-Palestinian two-state agreement if only the negotiations for such settlement were abandoned.
I will proceed by reprinting the Lustick piece, interspersing it with my own comments, italicized.
“Two-State Illusion,” by Ian S. Lustick
THE last three decades are littered with the carcasses of failed negotiating projects billed as the last chance for peace in Israel. All sides have been wedded to the notion that there must be two states, one Palestinian and one Israeli. For more than 30 years, experts and politicians have warned of a “point of no return.” Secretary of State John Kerry is merely the latest in a long line of well-meaning American diplomats wedded to an idea whose time is now past.
True believers in the two-state solution see absolutely no hope elsewhere. With no alternative in mind, and unwilling or unable to rethink their basic assumptions, they are forced to defend a notion whose success they can no longer sincerely portray as plausible or even possible.
It’s like 1975 all over again, when the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco fell into a coma. The news media began a long death watch, announcing each night that Generalissimo Franco was still not dead. This desperate allegiance to the departed echoes in every speech, policy brief and op-ed about the two-state solution today.
Here Lustick is attacking a straw man: Just who are these two-state advocates who hold to a “desperate allegiance” to“an idea whose time is past,” and who have “no alternative in mind and [are] unwilling or unable to rethink basic assumptions?” That doesn’t accurately describe any serious two-state advocate with whom I am familiar—all of whom fully recognize that currently such a settlement is no longer realistically attainable. At the same time they—perhaps I should say we–consider that the only alternative to a two-state agreement (other, that is, than the continuation of the Israeli occupation and repression of the Palestinians)would be the creation of some kind of binational democratic single state. The problem, however, is that such a state has even less chance of being accepted by the Israelis than a two-state settlement, and it is far more likely to end in bloody communal conflict than in a just and democratic peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Continuing with Lustick’s essay:
True, some comas miraculously end. Great surprises sometimes happen. The problem is that the changes required to achieve the vision of robust Israeli and Palestinian states living side by side are now considerably less likely than other less familiar but more plausible outcomes that demand high-level attention but aren’t receiving it.
Strong Islamist trends make a fundamentalist Palestine more likely than a small state under a secular government. The disappearance of Israel as a Zionist project, through war, cultural exhaustion or demographic momentum, is at least as plausible as the evacuation of enough of the half-million Israelis living across the 1967 border, or Green Line, to allow a real Palestinian state to exist. While the vision of thriving Israeli and Palestinian states has slipped from the plausible to the barely possible, one mixed state emerging from prolonged and violent struggles over democratic rights is no longer inconceivable. Yet the fantasy that there is a two-state solution keeps everyone from taking action toward something that might work.
But what is Lustick’s argument here? He begins by saying that it is more likely that Palestine will become a fundamentalist Islamic state and that Israel will somehow “disappear as a Zionist project” than that there will be a two-state settlement between a largely Jewish and Zionist Israel alongside a non-fundamentalist Palestinian state. The prediction about Palestine is offered with no evidence and no supporting argument; the prediction about the death of Zionism in Israel is quite unpersuasive, regardless of “war, cultural exhaustion or demographic momentum,” for the overwhelming majority of Israelis—including most Israeli liberals who deplore the occupation—have no intention of giving up Zionism.
Then, Lustick’s next sentence (“While the vision” etc.) strongly implies that in a “mixed state”–usually referred to as the one-state solution– “prolonged and violent struggles for democratic rights” between the Jews and the Palestinians would be more likely than smooth and peaceful transition to a true binational democracy.
Possibly so, but then Lustick’s next sentence seems to contradict this assessment, for he asserts that the two-state “fantasy” is what “keeps everyone from taking action toward something that might work.” But what is this “something?” Apparently that it would be better to abandon fruitless negotiations so that a binational democracy state can emerge after prolonged communal warfare. No wonder he doesn’t want to clearly spell this out–it would surely not hold much appeal to most Palestinians or Israelis.
The main inconsistency in Lustick’s article is that he seems to be saying ‘Why hold onto this unrealistic prospect, when you can embrace a whole new one?’
But is Slater’s position that different? He says that “currently such a [two-state] settlement is no longer realistically attainable”, yet ” such a [single] state has even less chance of being accepted by the Israelis than a two-state settlement”. What makes a two-state solution only “currently” unattainable, but a 1ss a virtual impossibility? Where does one draw the line, and to what extent can circumstances be expected to change? In other words, what makes the one unrealistic scenario any more likely than the other?
In reality, a viable 2ss (i.e. one that affords Palestinians sufficient dignity and self-determination) is as novel an idea as a 1ss — and about as likely to be achieved (currently). The “2ss” pursued thus far can hardly be considered a viable option, nor was it ever one, as its rationale has always been ‘will Israelis accept it?’, with little or no concern for its acceptability to Palestinians, expected merely to be grateful for “generous offers” (and punished for rejecting them).
The inevitable outcome is that Jewish colonists will either exterminate the Palestinians or ‘warehouse’ them in bantustans.
Jordan and Egypt will not take them. Israel wants the land and not the uppity indigenous population.
So we’ll see more of the same: whining about antisemitism, Iran, occasional sensationalist headlines about Palestinian violence (Jew stubs his toe on Palestinian’s face whilst knocking the latter’s teeth in), etc.
This is – btw – why I am for banning all the Zionist trolls on this blog. We already have to put up with Jewish supremacists pushing the Palestinians around in Palestine. Why let them do it here?
It’s like that saying re: Holocaust denial – ‘its like they killed them all over again’ (or something to that effect; the memory of the dead).
There is only one solution: end the Jewish State.
The key to any type of solution is the USA. The USA has never given even lip support to any solution other than the 2ss one. Has it? The one-state solution takes advantage of the practical control matter, that is, all the Palestinians under Israeli control and administration, both inside and outside the green line, are subject to Israel’s state government. This in itself is an argument for the 1ss. Imagine if the US suddenly came out in support of equal rights for Palestinians in all the areas controlled as a practical matter by Israel as it stands now. US foreign aid to Israel could be a huge lever towards 1ss, just as it is now a huge lever towards the status quo. And such a solution would actually be in accord with America’s equal civil rights value, rather than the current US hypocrisy which enables a double standard in fact and funding and diplomatic cover.
The Lustick idea that the Palestinian State would be Islamist is probably based on the idea, far from absurd, but by him UNSPOKEN, [1] that the long-term suffering of the Palestinian people will be exacerbated by a VERY unfair 2SS and that suffering and unfairness (the long-time previous suffering and the prospective suffering from the unfair 2SS, which is all that Israel has ever suggested) and [2] that Muslims tend toward Islamic societal forms rather than toward democracies when they’ve suffered too much.
MY IDEA is to remind Lustick and everyone else that surrounding circumstances (environment) matter: if you have a negotiation between a paper match and the striking-strip on the side of the match-folder, that is, if you strike the match on the striking-strip on the match-folder, you get an immediate chemical reaction (immediate short-term combustion) but you DO NOT GET SUSTAINED COMBUSTION UNLESS YOU DO THIS IN AIR. The air is the “surrounding circumstance” for the desired long-term combustion.
And the “surrounding circumstances” for today’s apartheid 1SS (and all futures, both possible and impossible, likely and unlikely, etc.) is the influence of the nations, of the international community, and especially of the USA.
The “combustion” which is the occupation is possible only because the nations encourage it and do not encourage any alternative.
When you live in the neighborhood of a dragon, you should take the dragon into consideration. (Tolkein?). Here, the international action — or inactivity — is the “surrounding circumstances” which in fact govern the long-term combustion of the I/P situation.
I don’t see that Lustick pays enough attention to it. If he believes that there can be “combustion” (a 1SS) in a vacuum, then he’s wrong.