Everyone always asks, If there’s not going to be a Palestinian state, what does Israel plan to do with all those Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem under its control? Here’s a visionary answer from an up-and-coming member of the Knesset from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, Miki Zohar, speaking on Israeli television Sunday.
Here's what Likud MK Miki Zohar told me today about the 1-state solution and voting rights for #palestinians on #TheSpinRoom on @i24NEWS_EN pic.twitter.com/vXMRvYS4JV
— (((Ami Kaufman))) (@AmiKaufman) March 5, 2017
That’s right, this is Zohar’s vision, on the English language program The Spin Room.
The two state solution is dead. What is left is a one state solution with the Arabs here as, not as full citizenship. Because full citizenship can let them to vote to the Knesset. They will get all of the rights like every citizen except voting for the Knesset.
Journalist Ami Kaufman: Is that a democracy?
Yes it is a democracy because they will get full rights and all the needs to get to prospect and to succeed here in this country. But they won’t be able to vote to the Knesset. But my idea is that we can let them to vote to the Knesset with only three things that they need to do like every other citizen. One, to go the army or to go serve the country, like everyone else here in Israel is obligated to do.
Journalist Tami Molad: You want 2.5 million Palestinians serving in the Israeli army?
I promise you, they won’t serve in the army, they will let go the option to vote. They won’t vote to the Knesset. They would prefer not voting and not donating to this country, believe me.
It’s astonishing to think that Miki Zohar, a lawyer and religious Jew of 36, thinks he has come up with a brilliant solution, when his answer is just as old as Jim Crow and apartheid and white supremacy. The good thing about his comments is that he is expressing openly what Israel has gotten away with for decades now, governing a people who are not granted the right to vote for their government. And yet our leaders call Israel the only democracy in the Middle East.
Zohar’s comments are a lot like settler Yishai Fleisher’s view of Israel’s future, published without rejoinder by the New York Times two weeks ago, in which Fleisher also dispensed with the idea of a Palestinian state– and treated Palestinians as so much human matter to be moved around by Israeli shovels. These guys are helping to create Israel’s new global image.
One thing good thing Trump has brought to the Israel/Palestinian problem has been to concentrate the minds of Israeli lawmakers in the event that a one state solution is forced on the Palestinians. These interviews by Miki Zohar [a lawyer] and Yishai Fleisher, international spokesperson for the illegal settler community in Hebron. are so instructive, [thank you President Trump]. First thing is Zohar contradicts himself “Yes it is a democracy because they will get full rights and all the needs to get to prospect and to succeed here in this country. But they won’t be able to vote to the Knesset. But my idea is that we can let them to vote to the Knesset with only three things that they need to do like every other citizen. One, to go the army or to go serve the country, like everyone else here in Israel is obligated to do”. That’s only one thing, what are the other two requirements? If joining the army is a condition in order to vote, then that is indirect racial discrimination [imposing a condition on Palestinians which is not applicable to others in the community]. Scott Roth and Phil Weiss are correct when they say Zohars views are “just as old as Jim Crow and apartheid and white supremacy”. Fleisers views are more inflammatory one of which “Jordan is Palestine.” Palestinians in the West Bank would be given Jordanian citizenship, with democratic rights there, “but live as expats with civil rights in Israel.” “encourage emigration” and “offer compensation to emigrate voluntarily”. Ah! the transfer solution. Those that can’t be encouraged to leave will live in Bantustans and “administer” themselves, Gazan’s will live in another Bantustan but called an “emirate”, Naftali Bennett gave similar Bantustan solutions a few weeks ago. You just could not make this up. Give them credit though, they have been honest, and people should thank them for setting out their Zionist vision, which incidentally will horrify the rest of the world.
It may not horrify British residents of Northern Ireland [NI] who were put into a British Bantustan when the Northern Irish electorate were forced into governing Northern Ireland with administrative devolution in the 1920’s [they wanted to be governed as any other part of the UK from Westminster, realizing that this inappropriate constitutional arrangement meant in practice Protestants governing Catholics, with all its explosive potential, which did eventually do just that in the late nineteen sixties]. It is only recently that residents in NI have had the chance to join and vote for the parties that actually govern them, Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats. Recently the Labour Party have formed the Province wide “Labour Party forum” in NI which for the first time enables British citizens resident in NI the opportunity to join the party as full members and consider standing as candidates against the sectarian Catholic and Protestant parties, enabling them to transcend those tribal politics foisted on the electorate in the 1920’s. Think about that situation, because you could not vote for one of the major parties governing you, and had no alternative other than to vote for one of the local provincial parties, you effectively had no vote. Of course NI did send 12 MP’s [now 18] usually 10 or 11 Ulster Unionists and 1 or 2 Irish Nationalists to Westminster but they could only influence the major parties in the event of a hung parliament, which in turn placed those parties in the unenviable position of having to do deals with those sectarian parties which their predecessors insisted should govern NI to the exclusion of their rights and constituents rights at Westminster. The moral of the story is, the Palestinians will be offered many novel constitutional arrangements, like the NI electorate, they must insist, 1/ If they cannot have a two state solution based on full Palestinian sovereignty based on the 67 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, then a one state solution with full civil rights including the right to vote in the Knesset will be the only alternative.
Here is an analogy to my Northern Ireland constitutional monstrosity. Imagine the state of California although an integral part of the USA, but anyone resident there was not allowed to vote for either Republican or Democratic candidates, instead they could only vote for candidates peculiar to California and with the added strain of those parties views conflicting as to whether California should become part of Mexico [Mexican Nationalist or American Unionist] or remain in the USA. That situation would be a recipe for trouble. Imagine [as in NI] Republican or Democratic residents of California who would normally vote along party lines, could not do so, therefore they would be mainly excluded from the decision making process in Washington conducted by those two major parties elected in the rest of the USA. I don’t doubt there are better analogies, but I hope the Palestinians don’t fall for anything like that or the Northern Irish second class citizen situation.
Zohar should be congratulated for being honest about these things, other Zionists in Israel seem to think as Wilkins Micawber in David Copperfield did that “Something will turn up”.
It will, but not to anyones liking.
A Zionist believes that Israel should continue to exist as a religion-supremacist “Jewish State”. What a surprise.
Yes it’s reprehensible, but a very good sign at the same time – for the reasons you mention – it shows some acceptance and progress. However the key here is to embed free speech and religion into the constitution without exceptions. Otherwise there will be endless triggers for violence. E.g. the comedian who was fined for insulting the memory of Bibi’s brother. I mean come on.
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