In advocating for one state in Israel and Palestine, Peter Beinart has been dry or vague about the right of return for Palestinian refugees forced out of their homeland. But he has also conceded the moral validity of that right, and opened up a discussion liberal Zionists don’t want to have, as they enjoy the fruits of that ethnic cleansing.
Peter Beinart is so important in Jewish culture because he insists on humanizing Palestinians, and refuses to use the Holocaust lens of perpetual victimhood when considering Palestinian resistance. Palestinians are not driven by Jew hatred, as so many pro-Israel leaders argue, but by a natural response to dispossession and occupation.
Dershowitz says Peter Beinart seeks a “Final Solution” for the destruction of the Jewish state, “from the river to the see,” and that typo is just the beginning of a torrent of foolish mistakes by the Israel apologist.
Peter Beinart’s embrace of the struggle for equal rights for Palestinians in one state puts huge pressure on liberal Zionist organizations to drop the beastly talk about “separation” and demographics and take concrete steps for Palestinian rights. And how long before the Jewish youth group IfNotNow endorses BDS?
Trump’s acceptance of the legality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank actually hastens the end of Zionism’s discriminatory ideology. What had always been the reality will be on full display for the world to see: Israel is an apartheid state. And the call for simply equality will be Israel’s ultimate defeat.
The two-state solution is dead, but what comes next? Jeff Halper outlines the process for transforming the current colonial apartheid regime to a state of equal rights for all its citizens.
What if the Palestinians were to exploit the opportunity provided by Kushner’s plan to build Palestinian society as an important step on the way to developing the strength to secure political rights and freedom in one secular state? James Zogby writes. History shows that when people live in economic despair, they are less inclined to demand political rights.
Democrat candidate for president Mike Gravel writes that the two-state solution is dead, the US killed it, and “The most obvious and humane path forward is the creation of a secular, democratic, binational state with equal rights for all.”
Do all Palestinians have the right to citizenship in whatever state rules historic Palestine? The right of return of Palestinians to their places of origin now in Israel is both well-researched and uncontested in ethics and international law, for instance in many conventions and UN Resolutions.
Israeli historian Benny Morris tells Gideon Levy that one state means a future of genocide and ethnic cleansing for Israeli Jews, thereby dehumanizing Palestinians as murderous, wild animals, when history tells us Palestinians are angry over ethnic cleansing and discrimination and when those conditions end, we can struggle toward one state with equality.