I'm charged that Adam is in Boston for the One State conference, but wanted to throw him a fastball while he's there. I was reading this last night on the couch: the latest New Voices, which contains a fine interview (by Josh Nathan-Kazis) of Dov Khenin, a member of Knesset in Israel from the Hadash Party, an Israeli Palestinian party. A Jew who ran for mayor of Tel Aviv recently, Khenin supports two states. His objection to the one-state solution has a class component:
NV: What is Hadash’s position with regard to an endgame for the conflict?
DK: Hadash was the movement to coin the slogan “Israel and Palestine: Two States for the Two Peoples.” This is our slogan and this is something we believe in. The creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel is the only feasible way to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the very same time, we believe that both states, Israel and Palestine, should be democratic ones. In Israel the Arabic minority should have full equality, and if there is a Jewish minority within the Palestinian state it should also have its equal status.
NV: Some on the left argue for a single bi-national state. Why doesn’t Hadash support such a proposal?
DK: People speaking about one bi-national state are only proving that they are totally separated from reality. Uniting within a single state a very modern society from the first world and a very poor society living in conditions of the third world is a sure recipe for an explosion of the situation in this country. At the very same time abandoning the idea of a Palestinian state is surrendering to Israel’s extremist right wing who all the time try to establish the idea of Eretz Yisrael Shlema [Greater Israel]. You can see that the extreme Arab nationalistic idea is also at the very same idea an extreme Jewish nationalistic idea. This is proof why this idea is not something more than a very imaginary illusion.
NV: Do you consider yourself a Zionist?
DK: No.
DK: Hadash was the movement to coin the slogan “Israel and Palestine: Two States for the Two Peoples.” This is our slogan and this is something we believe in. The creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel is the only feasible way to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the very same time, we believe that both states, Israel and Palestine, should be democratic ones. In Israel the Arabic minority should have full equality, and if there is a Jewish minority within the Palestinian state it should also have its equal status.
NV: Some on the left argue for a single bi-national state. Why doesn’t Hadash support such a proposal?
DK: People speaking about one bi-national state are only proving that they are totally separated from reality. Uniting within a single state a very modern society from the first world and a very poor society living in conditions of the third world is a sure recipe for an explosion of the situation in this country. At the very same time abandoning the idea of a Palestinian state is surrendering to Israel’s extremist right wing who all the time try to establish the idea of Eretz Yisrael Shlema [Greater Israel]. You can see that the extreme Arab nationalistic idea is also at the very same idea an extreme Jewish nationalistic idea. This is proof why this idea is not something more than a very imaginary illusion.
NV: Do you consider yourself a Zionist?
DK: No.
