Citing an important statement by a former Palestinian two-stater, Sufian Abu Zaida, that all he wants now is one state, Noam Sheizaf at Promised Land says that Israel has entered the period that Olmert predicted was upon us, in a word, apartheid, and Palestinians must struggle for civil rights within that one state. Some have called for such a declaration in order to force the Israelis to disgorge the West Bank, and thereby resurrect the 2SS. Sheizaf:
I believe that a clear Palestinian demand for civil rights within the state of Israel is the way out of the current political deadlock.
Instead of playing games around the settlements issue – it seems that Mrs. Clinton has just managed to kill the little hope there was for the renewal of meaningful negotiations – the Palestinians should simply focus on getting equal rights from the Israeli government. This is one fight Israel will have a really hard time winning – in Europe for sure, but even in the US. Are we going to explain that we need to keep the Arabs as second rate citizens so we can have a Jewish majority? How is that going to sound to the Jews who took part in the civil rights movement, or to a nation which just elected a black president?
