ISRAEL: The one-state solution? You vote

A story online today details how Palestinians are losing hope that negotiations will ever produce a fair deal for an independent state beside Israel.

In response, sentiment is growing among Palestinians to stop fighting for territory and begin struggling for equal rights and voting privileges in a land where Arabs will soon be the majority.

We'll put it to the readers:

Comments

[ralph]

Arafat once said that Jordan is Palestine.
In fact it was part of the British Mandate on Palestine
until Great Brittain decided to give Transjordan ,the actual
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to the Emir ,later King Abdallah of Jordan as thanks for the Arab help in the
battle against the Ottoman Empire.
It should not be forgotten that about 60% of the inhabitants of Jordan are Palestinians.
The fact is that Jordan will never accept to become a
future Palestinian State and that many Palestinians want
a Palestinian State which would be located in the pre
'67 borders including East Jerusalem and also claim
the "Right to Return" for the refugees of 1948 and
theii DESCENDANTS into the actual State of Israel.
Given such claims about Jerusalem as the Capital of a future Palestinian State and the "Right to Return" I don't
see any possible solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

Ralph

[Richard]

There is one simple reason why the one-state solution will never happen: Israel is overwhelmingly powerful and will never agree to it, period.

[David Collins]

Israel is a nation founded on terrorism. About 60 yrs ago, a Jewish terrorist gang, led by David Ben-Gurion, blew up the King David Hotel, in Jerusalem, and another hotel in Cairo, killing about 100 British Diplomats and Army Officers. That was the thanks the British got, for proclaiming that "His Majesty's government views with favour the establishment of a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine, provided that the political and religious rights of the present Semitic inhabitants of the region are given due respect."Israelis calling Hamas (the democratically elected government of Gaza) terrorists, is a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black.

[Nutan Thakur]

So much has been written about the Arab-Israel conflicts. It is almost universally accepted that this small piece of the Land on the meeting point of the two continents of Asia and Africa is the greatest flash-point in the world- the most violent, volatile and dangerous one. While at the basic level, it is a dispute between Israel and Palestinians, on a broader level it can be extended and linked to the so-called “Clash of the Civilizations” as enunciated by Huntington.
The current ongoing violence is only one more example in this long and uninterrupted series of violence, death and destruction. While it is very difficult for any definite and final stating of facts in any matter related with the Palestine-Israel conflicts because of the distortion of facts, figures and the accompanied truth in the process, what is generally accepted is that this time it was Israel which attacked the Gaza strip which has been given to the Palestinian population as a result of the Oslo agreements. It is also being believed that the Israeli army and Air force have made many brutal and damaging attacks on the Palestinian civilian population in this region in which many innocent people including even hapless women and children have lost their lives or have been severely injured. Israel, on the other hand, blames the Palestinians, particularly the Hamas for propagating incessant violence and openly proclaims that whatever Israel is doing is only in its self-defence.
As far as the world reaction is concerned, there is a extreme polarization between the two groups. There is no doubt that both Israel and Palestine have their own traditional friends and foes. Then there are others who are seen shifting their positions as per the context and circumstances. USA is the staunchest Israeli ally and the Arab world is generally pro-Palestine. As far as their condemning or protecting either of these two sides is concerned, it generally depends on the siding with two parties.
If one talks to a Palestinian, one will come to believe that there is no one worse than an Israeli in this world. He will present himself as the epitome of all the virtues and pious intentions and will call Israelis with all sorts of names. To them, the entire burden of the conflict will shift on Israel for having committed all sorts of atrocities on Palestine and its people, including taking away their land and displacing them from their beloved homeland. If, at all, Palestine is resorting to any violence, it is only as a last resort- simply to save itself. An Israeli’s opinion will be exactly the same. For him, a Palestinian will be a cheater, a thief, a mercenary, a hateful creature, a most unscrupulous person, a thug, a rogue and a spiteful chap. Again, he will present himself as a gentle, sublime, decent, ethical, aesthetic, simple and law-abiding person who has been condemned, persecuted, prosecuted and harmed for centuries.
So, which of these two groups is true- the Israeli or the Palestinians? To me it seems that the truth, like so many such cases, lies somewhere in between. In fact a general overview of the situation would let people understand that the real guilt lies in the extraneous situations and the circumstances and not with these two affected parties. While this does not mean that both these parties are holier-than-thou or have nothing to do with the hateful violence but it can be easily said that much more than their fault, it is the fault of the third parties, the external ones which has today resulted in such an anomalous and difficult situation having crept in where there is one baby with two fathers. The only practical and feasible solution is a two-nation solution, as and when it gets mutually accepted and practically implemented. It might be in the form of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for Palestinians and the rest to Israel or in any other suitable form.
But why the conflict? The conflict arises from competing Jewish and Arab national aspirations for the same region which one of them calls and believes to be Palestine (a the land they had been living for the last thousand years or so) and the other as Israel (the mythical promised homeland of the world-wide Jews). And the real culprit are the powerful and self-seeking European Nations, Britain being in lead, who left behind so many artificial and non-ending disputes all over the places they ruled and where they created so many irregular, unwarranted and illogical barriers and boundaries that suited them. In this particular case, the British played simultaneously with these two Nationalities making conflicting promises to both in the forms of the Hussein-McMahon correspondence and the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which supported the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It was only because of this two-mouthed British policy that tensions between Arab and Jewish groups in the region erupted into physical violence resulting in so many riots. And when the British thought that the heat being generated out of this was too much for it to handle, it left the place one fine morning leaving the place to simmer and burn with intermittent volcanic eruptions since then.
In 1947, the U.N. did approve the partition of the land but the Arabs of that time underestimated Israelis resulting in the ill-fated Arab-Israel war of 1948.
Without going into any further history, I would end this Article by saying that the Arab-Israel conflict is an extremely sad, ill fated and misfortunate saga of blood and gory. Thousands of innocent people on both the sides have died, giving rise to so many heroes and villains on both sides of border.
But who is the real enemy- once it was Britain and today, it is both of them who are still behaving like the illegitimate fratricidal children of Britain. And what is the way out? The only way out is peaceful, mutual coexistence, without going into the detailed analysis of who did what and who is responsible for what putrid acts. Because getting down to that is like opening a Pandora’s box where there would be no ending to accusations and counter-accusations. So, peace would reign in this region, as and when it finally does, only when they both realize that they don’t have the capacity to exterminate the other and will go on to exist in each-other’s neighbourhood. So why not say enough is enough and accept the other side, even with complete distaste.

Dr Nutan Thakur,
Editor,
Nutan Satta Pravah,
Lucknow
India

[David]

Israel will inevitably meet the same fate as all previous settler colonialist states dependent on the support and largesse of another country thousands of miles away.
The day is rapidly approaching when the US will be forced to set Israel adrift. As predicted by experts on the region during the Truman administration, the zionist enterprise in historic Palesine has become America's number one geopolitical liability. On the bright side, as history attests, when the day of reckoning arrives Israeli Jews will be thankful that their enemies have been Arabs and not Europeans.

[Dan]

US presidential candidates neck-and-neck for job of Israel stooge-in-chief

By Stuart Littlewood*

2 May 2008

Stuart Littlewood shows how the three main candidates in the US presidential race “are singing off the same hymn-sheet and running neck-and-neck for the job of stooge-in-chief” of the racist, Jews-only state of Israel.

I don’t know about you, but Hillary Rodham Clinton scares the pants off me.

"I want the Iranians to know that, if I am president, we will attack Iran,” she ranted when asked what she’d do if Iran launched a nuclear attack on Israel. Not only that, she’ll "totally obliterate them" – 70 million people.

Jeepers! What kind of lunatic would drag us all into World War III to defend a lawless, racist regime like Israel?

I see the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) helps keep tabs on the stooge-for-Israel inclinations of each presidential candidate, so how’s Hillary doing? “Clinton co-sponsored the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006,” says the CFR. “She also sponsored a Senate resolution in 2007 calling for the immediate and unconditional release of soldiers of Israel held captive by Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Was she concerned about the 9,000 Palestinians, including women and children, abducted from their homes and held in Israeli jails? Apparently not.

Since taking office in 2000, Clinton has regularly supported military and financial aid packages to Israel. In a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), she spouted the now-compulsory mantra: Hamas should not be recognized “until it renounces violence and terror and recognizes Israel’s right to exist”.

She supports Israel’s “security wall” and its declared purpose of preventing terrorist attacks. Does she support the wall’s undeclared purpose – which has nothing to do with security – and the way it bites deep into Palestinian territory?

Barack Obama has said the United States must isolate Hamas. He also co-sponsored the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 and called on the Palestinian leadership to “recognize Israel, to renounce violence, and to get serious about negotiating peace and security for the region”. OK, why don’t America and Israel get serious about implementing the dozens of UN resolutions on the subject? He doesn’t say.

He called Carter's meeting with Hamas leaders “a bad idea”, so what’s his pledge to talk to US adversaries without preconditions worth? If elected, Obama will insist on fully funding military assistance to Israel. Does this mean paying them even more billions of US tax dollars so that they can fire even more high-tech munitions at Gaza, vaporize more women and kids and knock out more infrastructure that Britain and the EU paid for?

John Sidney McCain III says he’s “proudly pro-Israel” and argues that there can be no peace process “until the Palestinians recognize Israel, forswear forever the use of violence, recognize their previous agreements...” Has he asked Israel to do the same? No.

He criticizes Carter's meeting with Hamas, calling it “a grave and dangerous mistake for an American leader”. And he wants the United States to continue providing Israel with whatever military equipment and technology it needs. If elected, McCain would “work to further isolate the enemies of Israel”. Surely his time would be better spent worrying about why half the world hates the US.

McCain even thinks Israel’s military action in Lebanon in 2006 was justified. He's willing to use military force against Iran if it acquires a nuclear weapon and poses a “real threat” to Israel. Well, we know from past experience what “real threats” boil down to. And guess what: he too co-sponsored the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006.

What is this Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act they all so desperately wanted? It doesn’t make nice reading. The idea is to heap misery on any Palestinian government in which Hamas has a hand, ignoring the fact that the resistance movement is democratically elected and shows no sign of running away. The Act demands everything from the Palestinians and nothing from Israel, which can do no wrong in Washington’s eyes but, as everyone outside America knows, is the biggest terror organization and law-breaker in the region.

Palestinians are perfectly entitled to put up armed resistance against illegal military occupation. Nevertheless, the US requires them to end their struggle, get on their knees and publicly kiss their tormentors’ ass. They must re-commit to the Road Map and the two-state solution, even though the “irreversible facts on the ground” Israel is hurrying to establish and the impoverished, fragmented leftovers of land the Palestinians will be left with (less than 20 per cent of what was originally theirs) are not a recipe for peace.

The plan is plainly to support Israel’s lust for prime land and strategic resources and end all hope of Palestinian viability and self-determination.

So the three main presidential candidates are singing off the same hymn-sheet and running neck-and-neck for the job of stooge-in-chief. Whichever finally makes it into the White House can count on us Britons being equally well prepped, thanks to the Israel lobby’s energetic string-pulling on this side of the Atlantic too.

Israel's Prime Minister Olmert says AIPAC is "the greatest supporter and friend that we have in the whole world". It is certainly busy, claiming that, "through more than 2,000 meetings with members of Congress ... AIPAC activists help pass more than 100 pro-Israel legislative initiatives a year ... procuring nearly 3 billion US dollars in aid critical to Israel's security”. Lobbyists meet every member of Congress and cover every hearing on Capitol Hill that touches on the US-Israel relationship.

Little wonder that Ariel Sharon was able to brag: "We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." Had he been available for comment today, he’d probably be saying the same about the UK where AIPAC’s little brother, Friends of Israel, has succeeded in embedding itself deep inside British politics and at the heart of government. Its stated aim is to promote Israel's interests in Parliament and sway policy.

Conservative Friends of Israel, for example, claims 80 per cent of Conservative MPs and provides a programme of weekly briefings, events with speakers and delegations to Israel. It also operates a “fast track” for parliamentary candidates fighting target marginals at the next election.

According to senior Conservatives, Israel is

a force for good in the world... In the battle for the values that we stand for, for democracy against theocracy, for democratic liberal values against repression – Israel's enemies are our enemies and this is a battle in which we all stand together.

Are they mad? We’re talking here about a ruthless ethnocracy with racist policies, an apartheid agenda, advanced skills in state terrorism and contempt for the UN Charter and international law.

Nevertheless, MPs of all parties, and ministers, are basking in Israel’s hospitality, absorbing the propaganda and allowing themselves to be persuaded to push the interest of this foreign military power, sometimes at the expense of our own. Such conduct is at odds with the second of the Seven Principles of Public Life, namely Integrity, which states that “Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organizations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.”

Efforts are being made to have the influence of the Israel lobby investigated, but the people's watchdog – the Committee on Standards in Public Life – is itself infiltrated and refuses to act.

This week former Serb officers went on trial at The Hague for ethnic cleansing. They face life sentences for murder, persecution, forced deportations and inhuman acts during the 1991-95 Balkan wars. Many people feel it’s time Israelis faced charges for similar crimes during the 60 years of occupation and catastrophe they have inflicted on the Holy Land. The list includes:

* torture
* collective punishment
* targeted assassinations
* house demolitions
* wholesale slaughter
* use of indiscriminate and prohibited weapons against civilians
* land theft
* engineering humanitarian disasters
* creating medical and public health crises
* the wanton destruction of key infrastructure and public and private property
* restrictions on movement and trade
* illegal detention
* suppression of education
* denial of basic human rights
* denial of the right of refugees to return
* illegal settlements
* violation of every convention and code of conduct.

Speaking of the Holy Land, are the three stooges aware that Christian communities under Israeli occupation are being oppressed and crushed along with their Muslim neighbours?

It was heartening to read in the Guardian this week a letter signed by more than 100 prominent Jews saying they cannot celebrate the 60th birthday of a state “founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land ... and that even now engages in ethnic cleansing.” They’ll celebrate when Arab and Jew live as equals in a peaceful Middle East.

So there you have it. Hillary/Barack/John III, you would do well to steer a different course in the Arab-Israel conflict. Quit stooging, kick AIPAC into touch, back off and rethink US foreign policy.

How much support do you think you’d get for annihilating 70 million Iranians?

http://www.redress.cc/americas/slittlewood20080502

[Nunu]

You know, Ghadafi has been calling for a one-state solution for years-called Israteen. He may seem crazy but I think he is the only world leader who is really honest and sees the situation as it really is. Two states is not going to work. And if the US really believed in spreading its own kind of democracy around the world only a one-state solution would be viable, because right now a two-state solution does not guarantee equality for all like the US constitution does.

[Sarie]

Recommended Books:

John Rose, The Myths of Zionism
Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Hajo Meyer, The End of Judaism: An Ethical Tradition Betrayed
Jimmy Carter, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid
John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Sharing the Land of Canaan
Edward Said, The Question of Palestine
Naeim Giladi, Ben Gurion’s Scandals
Tom Segev, The Seventh Million
Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry
Joel Kovel, Overcoming Zionism

Recommended Websites:

RighteousJews.org
FreePalestineAlliance.org
Al-Awda.org (The Palestine Right to Return Coalition)
ODSPI.org (One Democratic State in Palestine/Israel)

[Karen Helen Szatkowski]

The One State Solution (my caps), seems to me an idea that could not overcome the "tribal" frictions, however lovely it sounds. How could it possibly be more likely to succeed than the Two State Solution?

[julie]

Phil B, it's not the South African model that is relevant - it is Lebanon. Just look at today's news of Hezbollah strongarming the nation. A one state solution gives Hamas license to wage civil war, and it seems obvious that that is just what they will do. Two states forces non-aggression. As I wrote elsewhere, the rest of the Arab world from Morocco to Iraq has managed to become nation states. The only posssible reason it hasn't happened in Ir=srael and the territories is resistance to a Jewish state.

For all the cryin "naqba" the fact is one cannot turn back the Balfour Declaration without an equal catastrophe. If anyone is to blame, it is the British for setting up a situation where a state was promised to the Jews with no realistic plan for land acquisition. The Palestinian indifference to actually doing some nation building on their own needs to be examined, too. This is not to say that Israel is blameless. As long as they remain an occupying power they imply need to do a better job. Firm defensible borders and dismantling settlements is required of and for the Israelis.

[Greta B]

The Israelis have been busy stealing the land of Palestine since 1947. It's high time they stopped their land and water theft and lived in peace with the Palestinians rather than taking the land in pieces!! If South Africa can do it, so can the Jews.

[Mary Hughes-Thompson]

Palestinians have been patient for sixty years, hoping Israel would live up to its moral and legal obligations. Meanwhile the US has allowed Israel to continue stealing Palestinian land and water, and building more illegal Jewish settlements and roads for Jews only on confiscated Palestinian land, while occupation forces make life a living hell for the indigenous Palestinians.

There is nothing left with which to form a Palestinian state; only a series of small bantustans controlled by Israel.

The only solution is a single state for all the people, which for a while will be an apartheid state, as Israel already is. But eventually the world will stand up and demand human rights for the non-Jewish citizens, as it did for the non-white population of South Africa.

Israel's celebration is a time of mourning for Palestinians massacred or driven from their homes to make way for the zionist onslaught in 1948.

[Robert Laughing]

Like having ALL our ILLEGALS being given free citizenship.
Neither the Pals, nor the Isrs, would EVER go for this 'plan.'

[Muhammad]

There party line on either side has always been that "they" will never accept "us." I will be looking closely at the reactions to this idea to see who is really willing to accept whom.

[James]

It is clear that the separation barrier going up will be the new border between Israel and Palestine-West Bank, just as the already existing barrier on the north and east sides of Gaza is the border between Israel and the Hamas-ruled statelet there. If the Palestinians in the West Bank are flexible on borders and refugees, there will be modifications to the route of the separation barrier in their favor; if they persist in demanding all the West Bank (as if they had won the 1967 war), there won't be any modifications. Israel has shown that it can withstand the perpetual war forced on it without too many problems, while the much weaker Palestinian society has barely survived (even with massive, mostly Western, aid) its decision to go for perpetual war against Israel.

The interesting thing is that in 2000, the Israeli occupation was inexorably leading to a single state (which, because of their higher fertility rate, Palestinians would have soon dominated), with many Palestinians quietly moving into Israel (I recall the number being 110,000 by the year 2000). The Arafat Intifada put an end to that, and now Israel will have a Jewish majority for at the very least a generation or two (unless the Israeli Supreme Court takes the suicidal decision to insist that enemy nationals must be admitted to Israel if they marry an Israeli). Ensuring the Jewish nature of Israel was certainly an unintended consequence of the Arafat Intifada!

[Phil Benson]

Separation never worked in South Africa. It won't work in Israel/Palestine. One state with equal rights for all with a vigorous reconciliation process worked in South Africa and has an even better chance of working in Israel/Palestine given the historical, cultural, economic and familial connections between the Palestinians and the Jews.

[Erik]

The sad and harsh reality is if the Palestinians becomes one with Israel, they will still try to eradicate the Israelis. This "one state" idea will never work.

[Mark Mandell]

Definitely the most practical solution as demonstrated with the end of Apartheid in South Africa.

[Gene Venable]

Great idea, but Israelis will never agree to a state in which they could be outvoted. As bad as the current status is, it is the best hope for an eventual solution.