Lately we’ve been conducting an informal roundtable on the challenge, Offer readers a forward-looking solution in Israel/Palestine. The following is a response from David Zellnik, a leading young playwright, and non-Zionist Jew.
Actions are more important than words, as in Joseph Dana’s eloquent reply to you; his entry about how the group Ta’ayush skipped potentially-frustrating wordsmithing in favor of direct engagement strikes me as the right approach.
That said, I’ll try to answer you, because direct action is not always an option… And also because one desired result of direct action is to create a situation where the kinds of conversations you are having become unavoidable.
When a Zionist asks me if I believe in a Jewish state I say, I believe in a state that treats all its citizens equally. I try and counter a positive with a positive.
Usually the person is Jewish, and usually I continue: Look, a lot of Jews now live in Israel, there is a vibrant exciting Hebrew culture that didn’t exist 100 years ago. I’m all for that. Whatever solution is needed – and there are people dying daily for lack of a solution – we can agree the solution needs to include and preserve that. Also there are religious Jews – I’m not one – but there are those who believe god gave us the land. Great. Plenty of Mormons in the US have a charged belief about certain places in America/Utah but here’s what’s different: they don’t get to be privileged citizens because of what their holy book tells them. The reality is Jews are living in a land that has a strong indigenous Arab population and Israel is not allowed to discriminate against them simply because there’s anti-Semitism in the world or our holy book tells us the land is ours.
Ask them what a Jewish state MEANS to them. Does it mean a place where Jews have a strong connection to the land/history, a place where holidays are Jewish? None of that has to change. Does it mean a place where non-Jews are discriminated against in jobs, housing, education, with both de facto and de jure discrimination in the name of the Jewish state? That’s what the Jewish State means right now. Talk about the Present absentees, the unrecognized villages, etc., make them see that the words “the Jewish State” don’t just mean self esteem/affirmative action for Jews, they mean on the ground awfulness that no Jew would put up with as a minority in the West or anywhere.
As you can see, I have avoided the Occupation in this.
The Occupation is so clearly wrong that not much logic is needed to explain it, esp. to the kind of people you are talking to. It’s is discussing the manifestly unjust status of Arab citizens of Israel/residents of Jerusalem where I find Zionist resolve flags, “Jewish State” logic can dissipate; once they understand that if the price of having a Jewish state is telling non-Jews they can’t live, or work, or serve as equals, many can be nudged into a Post-Zionist place even if they don’t admit it.
My Solution (Written with anxiety and humility as better women and men than I have wrestled with this, and my thinking draws shamelessly on theirs)
Zionists tend to get very scared when concrete plans are on the table (see, the Arab Initiative 2002-present). Most simply do not trust Arabs. When I ask them what their endgame is, they have none. I liken it to the dilemma of the slaveholder: “We know we need to free the slaves but if we do, what if they kill us?” This is tactically unsustainable and morally grotesque.
The challenge of any solution is you have to untease several strands of Zionism from each other in order to explain to Israelis that Hebrew culture need not vanish, Jews need not leave Israel.
It is a presumptuous act to propose a solution, both because the reality of history unfolding undoes the best laid plans… and more importantly, I don’t live there.
That said, we have a right as Americans to propose the kind of country we wish Israel to be. If we end our billions of dollars of aid and cease giving them diplomatic cover in the UN, we lose many of our rights to dictate a solution – not our responsibility as humans to fight for justice, but some of our rights as Americans. (We as Jews must also work to not allow Israel to speak for the “world’s Jews” but that is a different issue.)
Personally, I’m for a one-state solution, it seems the most just, most reflects my value system. However, I confess I have on-the-ground fears: it took fewer extremists to tear Yugoslavia apart and that had been a functioning multicultural country for 40 years. The crazies on both sides are not going anywhere and what happens when the first Arab is raped, the first Jew lynched by a member of the other community?
Therefore, and especially in conversations like you are having, I would propose a 2 state solution. 22% of mandatory Palestine is already a huge compromise and besides, the barest minimum of what Palestinians are entitled to by int’l law; more importantly, a secure Israel within the ‘67 lines would allow Israel the demographic self-confidence (terrible phrase but there you are) to face the contradictions in Zionism – democracy vs. ethnic nationalism – and hopefully choose the former, becoming a vibrant Hebrew Republic, by which I mean a secular state where all citizens are equal but is so overwhelmingly Jewish that its Jewish citizens can still feel like a core concern of Zionism has been satisfied.
Within the new, internationally-recognized borders, coexistence with Arab citizens (20% of this new Israel) must be forged, as it is in any country with a national minority. Also I think Jews should study Arabic in elementary schools to balance Arabs learning Hebrew – small thing but hey, you’re asking me, that’s my proposal. Arabs of course must be allowed to live anywhere in Israel (the JNF disbanded), the army must be made a welcoming place for them, their schools must be equally funded, their political parties must never be banned, etc. Arab belief in a Jewish state cannot be the price of equality. Arabs deserve equality because those are human rights and every other settler state – Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada, has made peace with its indigenous people and offered them full equality. This cannot be negotiable.
In what will be Palestine (now the West Bank and Gaza), can any Jewish settlers stay? Well on one hand, ideally, every Jew who wishes to stay in Palestine should be able to – as a “Palestinian citizen of Jewish descent.” The reality is the colonial legacy of the settlements mean that for instance, water use is deeply unfair, and in many cases, Palestinian private property was stolen. I imagine most Jews would not wish to stay as citizens of Palestine but I think, somehow, the offer should be made. (Though I’d remind them, you cannot compare the Palestinian citizens of Israel with these future possible citizens of Palestine. One was an indigenous people who watched Jews arrive and remake a country where Arabs became second-class citizens, the other group- post ’67 settler Jews – are people who violated international law and stole land.)
Israel must apologize for the Nakba – an apology could have amazing power. I truly believe this. A truth and reconciliation committee should also happen to tell the awful stories of what has happened in the occupation on both sides (though naturally, I’m more horrified by the side that wielded state power, especially since it’s been done in my name).
Israel should offer restitution for the Palestinians ethnically cleansed in ‘48 and to their descendants but – and I cringe as I type this but I fear I must say it: the right of return for Palestinian refugees within Israel must be mostly symbolic, though families must be reunited. I realize it’s not my place to compromise other people’s rights and my Palestinian friends and my non-Zionist allies have a right to be angry with me for writing this. It’s just I see no way to get from the bloody present to anywhere good unless the Right of Return is compromised on. That said, I would remind the people you are talking to that this is a huge concession: Jews still sue Germany, France, Poland, etc. for stolen property in WW2 and we usually win. (And on a personal note, ½ my family has tried to get citizenship in Austria to some degree of success, so why shouldn’t Palestinians have the same right to the homes they were kicked out of in 48 and after?)
It is tremendously unfair what happened in ‘48, what continues to happen, the refugee camps, all of it. But generous restitution, a full apology, a limited resettling are as far as I can imagine Israel going and from what I understand, could satisfy many Palestinians’ actual desires of where to live. I do not write this easily. Why am I more concerned about offending Palestinian sensibilities? Because here I am asking them to compromise on what they are justly owed; with Israelis I am only asking them to compromise what they want.
Just to dig myself in deeper, I think Israel’s Jewish Law of Return should stay on the books. I don’t think it’s much of an issue in reality – in fact Israel is liable to lose Jews, rather than be flooded with immigrants. It addresses a core concern of Zionism, that Jews in peril always have a place to go, though Jews not currently in peril should perhaps have a more standard process for immigration, and lose the state-sponsored goody packages they are offered on arrival in Israel. Again this is not a moral argument; this is a political argument that I think on the ground could work.
And Jerusalem? Always seemed rather the easiest part: divide what is easily divided, evacuate the Jewish ring settlements (of course) and internationalize the old city. Maybe put the UN there. It’s centrally located and we wouldn’t have to deal with diplomats parking in NYC anymore.
Now, what do I really hope? I hope one day, these two countries will federate, or unify, and there will be one state. An Israel that has freed itself from Jewish ethnic privilege might well not be as scared of a one-state solution as it is now.
Anyway, for now, what we can work towards is 2 states, a secular Hebrew republic that honors its Jewish heritage (in holidays taken, many symbols), respects fully its minorities, has a constitution that guarantees equal rights and shows how co-existence can be forward-looking and exciting, rather than a brick in the gut compromise. And a Palestine that respects its people and its own diversity, and one that – unlike what most Israelis mean when they say 2 states – has full control of its borders, its air rights, its water, an army, etc.
Lastly, remind them this mess was all predictable and predicted. Through the past 100 years of Zionist settlement there have been people like us warning that endless war, a coarsening of our moral traditions, would be the likely outcome of creating a Jewish State. It’s like Iraq – we all have a duty to try and make sure American withdrawal doesn’t make things worse – but when the neocons say: how could we know what would happen? how could we know he had no weapons? It is useful to remind them many of us said those very things in 2003. And so they don’t get to run the conversation anymore.
If the people you are talking to cannot agree in principle with the above proposal, then I believe they are probably lost to us and will never support a Palestinian state or a one state solution under any circumstances ever ever.
