What Palestinians actually mean by “one democratic state,” and what liberation can look like when the settler society refuses to leave.
The left’s view of Palestine’s future often reduces to vague terms like “one-state solution” or “equal rights for all” but few address the tough questions they raise, especially: how can Palestinians live with those who carried out the Gaza genocide?
A new article in the establishment journal “Foreign Affairs” bursts the illusions underlying the two-state solution and the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Israel.
Recent proposals for an Israeli-Palestinian confederation are a makeover of the two-state solution, allowing Israel to continue to legitimize its settler-colonial project.
New Pew survey shows growing support for Palestinians among Democrats. More Democrats hold favorable views of Palestinians than of Israelis by 64 to 60 percent. Compare to Republicans: 78 to 37 favorability ratings for Israelis over Palestinians. And while most people don’t know what BDS is, 7 percent of Democrats support BDS while 2 percent oppose it, and the ratio is 8 percent to 4 percent among those under 30.
Palestinians are on the receiving end of a racist Western onslaught, but we cannot compromise on the right to self-determination and liberation.
Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton acknowledges the contradiction between democracy and a Jewish state: “If you actually had a true one state where Palestinians and Israelis had equal rights– a democracy, right?– then demographically the Palestinians are probably going to take over the Israelis in relatively short order, they would outvote them, and that means you would really lose the concept of a Jewish state. For everybody who advocates for a Jewish state and the right for the Jewish people to have a Jewish state in the world, it’s hard to see how that works under a truly democratic single state as one would be necessarily constructed here. And that’s something that people don’t like to talk about frankly.”
Nancy Pelosi leads a Disneyland tour of Israel with congressional Democrats, embraces the rightwing prime minister, and gets a tour of apartheid Jerusalem from an Israeli not from the Palestinians who are being thrown out of their homes there. But of course they all call for a two-state solution when anyone visiting the land sees that there’s just one state. The Dems are carrying on a lie as big as Trump’s big lie — there will never be a two state solution and everyone knows it, but the Democrats have to keep the Israel lobby happy.
Emma Watson This week the British actress Emma Watson shared an Instagram story that showed…
The only sustainable way forward is to engage in the “decolonization” of Greater Israel. What comes next remains an open question.