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One-State Solution

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Jill Jacobs

Liberal Zionist Rabbi Jill Jacobs says that American Jews who give up on the two-state solution have abdicated a “moral and spiritual imperative.” The journey to the two-state solution is like the journey from Egypt to the promised land in the bible, with lots of setbacks and no shortcuts. “Instead of sinking into despair let’s reconnect with the moral and spiritual imperative before us.”

A Palestinian woman flashes a victory sign as she shouts at Israeli forces following a protest against the expropriation of Palestinian land on July 19, 2013 in the village of Kfar Qaddum, near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus. (Photo: Nedal Eshtayah/ APA Images)

The experience of other colonized and oppressed people shows us that Palestinian women are most able to imagine a more just vision of our future, with a single democratic state for all its citizens in historical Palestine as its goal.

Israel watchers are predicting a government openly committed to one “Jewish” state between river and sea, with no interest in allowing even a shadow of Palestinian sovereignty in the occupied territories. Indeed, the Israeli “center” and “left” are shattered, and the possibility exists that the Labor party that founded the state will disappear from the parliament in the next election.

The two state solution has been killed by Israeli expansion, and Jonathan Kuttab argues for the development of a program for one hybrid state that would be a truly unified democracy by allowing both Jews and Palestinians to “validate the essential elements of both Zionism and Palestinian Nationalism,” while rejecting those elements in each “which degrade or deny the Other.”