The Moral Case for the One-State Solution
Guest post by: Eli Ungar-Sargon
For the past three years, my wife/producer Pennie and I have been working on a film about the moral and practical failings of the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We believe that not only is the one-state solution inevitable at this point, but that it has the potential to yield a much more just and moral resolution to the conflict than the two-state solution. Objections to our vision usually come in two flavors: The theoretical and the practical. On the theoretical side, people argue that the one-state solution would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. They argue that demographic realities make it inevitable that very shortly after the creation of a single state, Jews would find themselves in the minority. The phrases that often pop up alongside these observations are: “Israel has a right to exist” and “Jews have a right to self-determination.”On the practical side, people usually argue that there is too much hatred for these peoples to coexist peacefully in a single state. The corollary to this argument is that a single state would quickly devolve into civil war, as was seen in Lebanon, or in the best case scenario end up as a failed state like Belgium.
It is true that the one-state solution would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish-majority state. Indeed, when the Zionists came to Palestine they were a minority and the only way that they were able to achieve their coveted majority status was by ethnically cleansing the land of most of its inhabitants. But the new state could still be a homeland for the Jews. Ali Abunimah famously argued in his book “One Country” for the maintenance of the Law of Return, which grants Jews automatic citizenship, alongside the implementation of the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. Whether or not this concept is actualized in the new state, any one-state solution would obviously have to guarantee the rights of its sizable Jewish minority. But the key here is that Jews would be equals, not privileged ethnocratic masters. Israel doesn’t have a “right to exist as a Jewish state.” States are political constructions and as such they don’t have rights. Individuals, however, do have rights and when a state infringes on those rights, its legitimacy is correctly brought into question. Moreover, even if we accept that Jews have the right to self-determination as a nation (a somewhat controversial claim), this right does not entitle them to deny the self-determination of another people group.
As in any ethnic conflict, an enormous amount of animosity has built up between the two sides and suspicions run deep. On the Palestinian side, 64 years of dispossession and oppression, along with two decades of insincere peace negotiations, have led to a total mistrust of Israeli intentions. On the Israeli side, a culture of Siege Mentality co-opts the history of Jewish suffering to perpetuate an unjust and immoral ethnocracy. But were we to look at Apartheid South Africa in the late 1980’s, we would also see deep mistrust and hatred between Blacks and Whites. Moreover, Germany in the 1940’s didn’t exactly look like a good place for Jews to live but today, it is one of the best countries in the world for Jews. Political realities change. And sometimes, when people of good will get together and work at it, political realities can change for the better.
We need to move away from the discourse of partition and ethno-nationalism and towards a discourse of integration and human rights. The two-state solution is immoral, because it denies millions of Palestinians their right of return and it legitimizes the second-class citizenship of Palestinian-Israelis. Now it is possible to conceive of a two-state solution that respects the right of return and transforms Israel from an ethnocracy into a full democracy, but such a solution is not on anyone’s agenda. Indeed, an examination of the motivations behind the two-state solution reveals why such a conception was never in the cards. On the Israeli side, the motivation for partition comes from the will to maintain a Jewish-majority state in as much of historic Palestine as possible. On the Palestinian side, partition was only accepted by those who live in the West Bank and Gaza under the boot of the IDF, because they were so desperate to end the Occupation. And in their desperation, the Palestinian leadership came close to negotiating away the right of return which is and always has been the central issue of concern for a majority of Palestinians.
The only way to really solve the conflict is to respect all of the human beings involved as equals. The one-state solution, therefore, is the most logical and practical way to achieve a just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Much work still needs to be done on what the precise contours of the new state will look like. But in the meantime, we are trying to articulate and facilitate a paradigm shift that will help set the groundwork for a peaceful political transformation of Israel/Palestine.
Eli Ungar-Sargon is an independent filmmaker. He and his wife Pennie are currently raising funds to finish their second feature-length documentary “A People Without a Land”. All contributions are tax-deductible and entitle the contributor to awesome perks: www.indiegogo.com/withoutaland
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I guess I’d suggest reading the Fatah charter and then meditating on the fact that Fatah is considered the moderate party on the Palestinian side. You can find that here:
http://www.mideastweb.org/fateh.htm
Reading the Fatah constitution- to say nothing of the ideology of Hamas- puts this article and its claims about human rights in a somewhat different light.
I’m no fan of Likud or the settlements, but as somebody once said, the tragedy of the settlements is that they obscure the deeper problem, which is Arab rejectionism of Jewish rights in the land of Israel.
The claim of ethnic cleansing on the part of the Zionists is blatant historical revisionism. It is well documented that most of the refugees left on their own accord either to make it easier for the Arab armies to clear out the Jews or because they imagined a reprisal for previous arab massacres. In fact, many Jewish leaders, for example the mayor of Haifa, encouraged the Arab population to stay and become citizens in the new state.
It should also be noted that of all the refugees in the world, only the Palestinians have their own UN organization, only the Palestinians have thier refugee status passed on to all their descendents. This has been an absolute tragedy for these people and their children and is the cause of much persecution at the hands of countries like Kuwait, Lebanon, and Syria too name a few.
Be honest, like Norman Finkelstein was recently, and admit that the one-state solution is the complete destruction of Israel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iggdO7C70P8
On the one hand Indeed, when the Zionists came to Palestine they were a minority and the only way that they were able to achieve their coveted majority status was by ethnically cleansing the land of most of its inhabitants.
Ignores the fact that the borders discussed in the 1947 Partition Plan (accepted by the Zionists and rejected by the Arabs) would have created an Israel with a Jewish majority–and that’s before any Jewish immigration to Israel and/or Arab emigration from Israel to to the new Arab state called for in the Partition Plan.
Jewish ethnic cleansing of Arabs began after the Arab rejection of that Plan and the civil war that began in December 1947. The ethnic cleansing picked up steam after the full-blown invasion of Israel in May 1948 by five standing armies.
And let’s not forget the Arab ethnic cleansing of Jews, which began in Hebron in 1929.
These are just inconvenient facts which stand in the way of certain historical framing.
On the other hand, what does it matter anymore? We believe that not only is the one-state solution inevitable at this point, but that it has the potential to yield a much more just and moral resolution to the conflict than the two-state solution.
This is the reality. Sign me up on that petition.
“Indeed, when the Zionists came to Palestine they were a minority and the only way that they were able to achieve their coveted majority status was by ethnically cleansing the land of most of its inhabitants. ”
I am uncomfortable with the use of “ethnic cleansing” here. Why? There are areas of the world today where the term clearly connotes murdering virtually all residents of a particular ethnicity in the towns and villages of the state. While there were killings of residents by Jews in Palestine, it is clear that most of the villages which were wiped off the map led to refugees rather than mass murder on an ongoing daily basis as government policy.
But far more relevant is the claim that it was only by ethnic cleansing that a Jewish majority was achieved. It seems clear that Between December 1947 and March 1948, somewhere around 100,000 Palestinian Arabs fled what is today Israel. Many of these people came from the higher and more educated strata (sound like Iraq just a few years back) – indeed with the expectation of return (Yes, sometimes there may actually be some truth in the classic Israeli narrative). What came next is an open controversy. How many fled and how many were expelled is far from sufficiently clear to allow such a sweeping statement to be made regarding ethnic cleansing in order to achieve a majority. There were massacres that led to flight. The Hagana certainly expelled many Arabs. But AFTER the war ended, between 1948 and 1950, the IDF expelled somewhere around 30,000 to 40,000 Arabs from the border areas of the new state.
So, at best one may assert that it was the circumstances of war, expulsion and flight, that led to so many fewer Arabs. Let us also keep in mind that hundreds of thousands of Jews who would have been part of the Jewish population in Palestine were barred from entering by the British.
I am not trying to minimize the Israeli role with regard to the refugees. I do object to bold condemning statements that are either flawed or do not look to context.
Did I just see Zionists accused of ethnic cleansing of palestinians on this website? It is obvious to all reasonable people that what happened to palestinian refugees is not accurately portrayed as “ethnic cleansing” with all the baggage the term contains, the use of such strong and accusatory language is inappropriate and even more to the point, a turn off to those people who may be willing to listen to a reasonable case for a one-state solution. So what then is the objective of the author? What can we expect next on this website? Perhaps accusations of Zionists being Nazis?
Please do not allow this website to be taken over by extreme language. Thank you.
Saying that individual rights trump collective rights, or that collective rights don’t exist, is a position that isn’t neither grounded in international law nor conflict resolution studies. Eli posits:
Israel doesn’t have a “right to exist as a Jewish state.” States are political constructions and as such they don’t have rights. Individuals, however, do have rights and when a state infringes on those rights, its legitimacy is correctly brought into question. Moreover, even if we accept that Jews have the right to self-determination as a nation (a somewhat controversial claim), this right does not entitle them to deny the self-determination of another people group.
Self-determination, while weird to those of us from individualist societies and/or who privilege the life and dignity of an individual, is not at all a controversial claim to religious, ethnic, national and cultural societies around the globe.
As I mused not too long ago, there is indeed a tension between collective rights and individual rights, one that frustrates anybody who cares about justice for individuals. (Such as myself.) But successfully solving ethnic conflict usually requires “class action” solutions where often millions of competing individual claims are resolved en masse, albeit imperfectly. For example, many survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants never reclaimed their personal property from European governments, but Germany and European nations paid massive reparations to the State of Israel and Jewish global communities. Likewise, many Palestinians will not receive back their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, Jerusalem and some 200+ villages across Israel, but will receive other compensation. (Same with Jews expelled from Arab nations.) That is the inevitable compromise between these two negotiating bodies.
If one believes in collective rights, then one must stand behind the decision of the UN to partition two states for two peoples. One must also recognize that the State of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization were established as the collective bargaining entities of the two parties — Jews and Palestinians. And while one can organize to support a fair, stable deal between these two unequal parties, there is no way around that basic formulation.
“Ethnic cleansing, the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups. Ethnic cleansing sometimes involves the removal of all physical vestiges of the targeted group through the destruction of monuments, cemeteries, and houses of worship.”-Encyclopedia Britannica
This definition does a pretty good job of describing what the Zionists did in 1948. But this obsession with why the Palestinian refugees left is peculiar to Israelis and Zionists. It doesn’t really matter why they left. As anyone of conscience understands, even if they all decided to go and have tea in another country until the war was over (far from what actually happened), they are entitled to return to their homes. The decision to destroy their villages and prevent them from returning after the war ended was itself a form of ethnic cleansing. It was a political decision and one of the first that the newly formed Israeli government made in July of 1948. It is true that according to the UN partition plan (in which the Jews who were a mere 1/3 of the population were assigned 54% of the territory) the Jews would have had a majority in their allotted area. But this majority was so slight that it would probably have been unsustainable for more than a decade. In any event, the Zionists found the entire philosophy of the UN partition plan of creating two binational states unacceptable and they used the Arab attacks as a pretext to change the geography and demography of the region by force of arms.
@Eli,
I do think that a one-state paradigm is the best way to go, but it’s coming across–at least to me–that your argument is essentially that it’s all the Zionists’ fault. Fine, I just don’t see it that way.
It is true that according to the UN partition plan (in which the Jews who were a mere 1/3 of the population were assigned 54% of the territory) the Jews would have had a majority in their allotted area.
And we can all agree that had the Plan assigned to the Jews a mere 33% of the territory than the Arab side would have accepted the Plan, saving us all from the 1947-1949 War.
But this majority was so slight that it would probably have been unsustainable for more than a decade.
It difficult for any of us to debate history that did not actually happen. So, I can’t say for sure. That Jewish majority might indeed had been unsustainable for more than a decade.
On the other hand, even without that first Arab-Israeli war, might 700,000 Jews been expelled from the countries in the Middle East and northern Africa, and ended up as Israeli immigrants? (As in fact did happen after that first war.)
We’ll never know for sure.
Had Arab-Palestine been formed in 1948, might many of the Arabs moved from Israel to Palestine during the ensuing decade?
We’ll never know for sure.
In any event, the Zionists found the entire philosophy of the UN partition plan of creating two binational states unacceptablev
By accepting that very Plan (which the Arabs rejected) in 1947?
and they used the Arab attacks as a pretext to change the geography and demography of the region by force of arms.
They most certainly did–but it was a pretty good pretext–an existential war thrust upon the Jewish community, during which 1% of the entire Jewish population was killed in less than a year of fighting.
@Eli
You did bring ethnic cleansing into this piece, so are you not as interested in the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Hebron, Gush Etzion, and areas of Jerusalem, including the Old City?
Wow, this is too far. Why is the right of Jewish self-determination “somewhat controversial”? I think there is a commonsense middle ground between disliking Israeli policies and supporting the right of a people to self-determination. A much more nuances piece I read recently was: http://jewneric.com/2012/03/a-republican-jew-on-progressive-jews-israel-and-the-american-jewish-community/
“Saying that individual rights trump collective rights, or that collective rights don’t exist, is a position that isn’t neither grounded in international law nor conflict resolution studies.”
It’s grounded in Ethics-hence the title of the piece. But the burden of proof is on the person who would suggest that in the name of collective Jewish rights, it’s okay to dispossess the Palestinians. I have yet to hear an argument to this effect that is even remotely convincing.
“For example, many survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants never reclaimed their personal property from European governments, but Germany and European nations paid massive reparations to the State of Israel and Jewish global communities. Likewise, many Palestinians will not receive back their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, Jerusalem and some 200+ villages across Israel, but will receive other compensation. (Same with Jews expelled from Arab nations.) That is the inevitable compromise between these two negotiating bodies.”
So let me get this straight. If my grandfather who fled from the Nazis in Austria decided that he wanted to go back and live in his native city of Vienna, it would be okay for the Austrian government to prevent him from returning? The fact that many refugees may choose not to return is unimportant. That their right to return be recognized and honored is paramount.
“If one believes in collective rights, then one must stand behind the decision of the UN to partition two states for two peoples. One must also recognize that the State of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization were established as the collective bargaining entities of the two parties — Jews and Palestinians. And while one can organize to support a fair, stable deal between these two unequal parties, there is no way around that basic formulation.”
The two-state solution does not follow from a belief in collective rights. In what universe were the collective rights of the Palestinians represented in the UN decision? The Palestinians as a collective rejected the partition plan. If you familiarize yourself with the history of partition solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one of the things that becomes rapidly apparent is that none of them come out of negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. They are always something that the world powers, or the international community propose as a take-it-or-leave-it solution to the conflict. Well the Palestinians have collectively decided to leave it, because it actually infringes on their rights. A majority of the Palestinian people in the world today are refugees. Therefore, any solution that doesn’t respect the right of return is in actuality making a mockery of collective Palestinian rights.
Jonathan1-I agree that “what if” questions in history are unknowable. But understanding the motivations behind political actors on the historical stage is not impossible. The fact that the Zionists accepted the UN partition plan is not so surprising. They accepted the Peel Commission recommendations which would have assigned them far less territory. The strategy was always to accept a Jewish state (on the size of a tablecloth if need be) and expand its territory later. From the Palestinian perspective, all of these solutions were foisted upon them by foreigners without their consent and against their wishes. On the two other points that you bring up, I will just briefly say the following: First, I don’t accept the hasbara line that argues for a moral equivalence between what happened to the Arab Jews and what happened to the Palestinian refugees. I think these situations are morally distinguishable in important ways. Having said that, in situations where Jews were actually expelled, or forced to flee, they should be able to return to their countries of origin by the same principle that Palestinian refugees ought to be able to return. Second, while there were massacres of Jews by Palestinians, I don’t believe that the term Ethnic Cleansing accurately describes them. There was no systematic attempt to rid the land of Jews. There was an effort to frustrate partition, but that’s a separate matter as are the isolated massacres that you mentioned. On the Hebron massacre in particular, it is often forgotten that the 2/3 of Jews of Hebron, were protected by local Palestinian families during the massacre, some of whom were injured protecting them. While we’re on a kumbaya note, I should mention Ben Dunkelman, the Canadian commander in the Hagannah, who refused the order to ethnically cleanse Nazareth in the wake of Operation Dekel. Let’s hope that the examples set by these morally courageous individuals will be the basis of a shared future in Israel/Palestine.
The fact that the Zionists accepted the UN partition plan is not so surprising. They accepted the Peel Commission recommendations which would have assigned them far less territory. The strategy was always to accept a Jewish state (on the size of a tablecloth if need be) and expand its territory later. From the Palestinian perspective, all of these solutions were foisted upon them by foreigners without their consent and against their wishes.
We need to take a big step backward.
In your piece you wrote:
“Indeed, when the Zionists came to Palestine they were a minority and the only way that they were able to achieve their coveted majority status was by ethnically cleansing the land of most of its inhabitants.”
To which I replied that had the Arabs accepted the 1947 Plan then the 53% Zionist state still would have had a Jewish majority.
(Whatever their reasons the Jews accepted that Plan and the Arabs rejected it.)
To which you replied that the demographic nature of that 53% Zionist state would have led to the inevitable ethnic cleansing of Arabs from therein.
To which I pointed out that this demographic projection ignores the 700,000 Jews who immigrated to Israel from northern Africa and the Middle East. (Of course, we can never know for sure if they would have been expelled by the Arab governments had there not been a 1948 War, which occurred after the Arabs rejected the 1947 Plan.)
I also pointed out that this demographic projection ignores the possibility that Israeli Arabs might have emigrated to Arab Palestine, had it been created in 1947. (Of course, we can’t know for sure because the Arabs rejected the Plan.)
What’s more, we should remember that the Mapam movement (which advocated for a bi-national state at that point) was still very strong within the Zionist body-politic, at least until the 1948 War, which occurred after the Arabs rejected the Partition Plan that the Jews had accepted. Had there not been a war, the bi-national movement might have gained increased strength within the 53% Israel. (Of course, we can’t know for sure because the Arabs rejected the Plan.)
To these points your reply is:
I don’t accept the hasbara line that argues for a moral equivalence between what happened to the Arab Jews and what happened to the Palestinian refugees. I think these situations are morally distinguishable in important ways. Having said that, in situations where Jews were actually expelled, or forced to flee, they should be able to return to their countries of origin by the same principle that Palestinian refugees ought to be able to return.
I’m not sure when any of this has to do with the reality that 700,000 Jews moved to the nascent Israel in the early 1950’s, and had they moved to Israel even without the 1948 War, then it would have thrown a monkey-wrench into your theory that the Zionist were bound to have committed ethnic cleansing for demographic reasons, regardless of whether or not the Arabs would have accepted the Partition Plan. But ok.
Second, while there were massacres of Jews by Palestinians, I don’t believe that the term Ethnic Cleansing accurately describes them. There was no systematic attempt to rid the land of Jews.
So, it’s important to your argument/movie to point out the ethnic cleansing of Arabs because it resulted from a systematic attempt.
But, the ethnic cleansing of Jews is less relevant because it did not occur as part of some larger plan.
You have the right to your opinion, and to make this film as you see fit, but I’m not sure how much success you are going to have convincing Zionists that the one-state solution is the most moral option . . . because everything is the fault of the Zionists?
Jonathan1-My point about the Zionists is very simple. Their acceptance of the UN partition plan is not evidence that they accepted a bi-national state. During the 30’s already, they were talking about transferring the Arabs out of whatever would be assigned to them. In other words, we have a great deal of evidence to suggest that the Zionists were prepared to engage in ethnic cleansing in order to obtain what they considered to be a sustainable Jewish majority. And this evidence predates the Palestinian rejection of the partition plan by a decade. I should add here that your point about Zionist bi-nationalists is a gross overstatement. They were always marginal and the Biltmore conference of 1942 formalized their total irrelevance to the movement well before the start of the war. It’s important to my argument/film to talk about the ethnic cleansing of Arabs, because that is the genesis of the refugee issue which is the most important issue in the conflict. There was no ethnic cleansing of Jews by Palestinians. The isolated massacres that did occur do not constitute ethnic cleansing. You know, three days after the UN announcement, the riots subsided and ordinary Palestinians (granted-not their leaders) started to come to terms with the new reality. But this didn’t matter, because the Zionists had other plans. As I said, it is possible to make statements about motivations and actions. And the record couldn’t be clearer on both counts when it comes to Ben Gurion and company. They wanted maximum territory and minimum Arabs (we have BG’s diary) and they achieved this through active expulsions and retroactive prevention of return. This history is a part of the story that most people have never heard. It’s absolutely vital to understanding the roots of the conflict. But beyond the importance of getting the history right, when we’re talking about the future of Israel/Palestine, it’s important that whatever the political solution, the new state not be based on the Zionist (or any other) model of ethnic/nationalistic privilege.
Eli, I understand that doing away with collective rights entirely is one model of ethics, but certainly one that most people on earth would argue robs them of important rights and privileges. (Individual rights get critiqued as a Western, Enlightenment ideal often enough.) And I’m sure you’re not totally against collective bargaining either, since affirmative action, Native American tribes/First Nations self-governance, and UN covenants on women’s, racial and minority rights are all based on privileges awarded to groups based on their religion, sex, ethnicity, culture and race.
Certainly I do not say that Jewish rights to self-determination permits or justifies the dispossession of Palestinians, although plenty of people do. (I think they’re wrong.) I can at best say that it happened and we need a resolution satisfactory to all sides. Collective bargaining is how Jews and Palestinians organized themselves to assert and compromise between their equally-valid and mutually-exclusive rights.
Towards that end, you’re correct that most of the Palestinians of 1948 rejected it. (Although using your argument against you, some did accept it and whose rights prevail then?) The Palestinians of 1988 accepted it when their elected representative, Yassir Arafat through the PLO, accepted two-party negotiations towards two states as the adjudication method for all claims between them. The PLO accepted that the agreement would be the final word for all refugee claims. The Palestinians of 1992 accepted it again, then again under the Road Map and so on. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are the largest sectors who resist it today, but even the former is playing a game of “when” not “if.”
Today, the legislative bodies of the PA and the PLO are the primary forums where such a rejection could be made. And the PLO is intended to give every Palestinian across the world a vote — and where Hamas has said it would submit any peace proposal as a referendum. But even ignoring the imperfect and sometimes corrupt representation of those two bodies, there is no polling evidence that even a substantial minority of Palestinians have abandoned nationalism or self-determination.
Your perspective is internally valid, Eli, which I respect and it’s a critique of international law and present-day conflict resolution practice. I too hold little affection for nationalism and think self-determination as a “right” is a bit dubious. But from both pragmatically and philosophically, we cannot just do away with an inconvenient pillar of global society as if this were an intellectual exercise. Whether we like it or not, it’s a foundation of global society that ethnic groups have rights — rights to preserve their culture, rule themselves, etc.
Maybe we should indeed do away with collective rights. But there’s no way that Jews and Palestinians will agree to do so.
@Eli
Their acceptance of the UN partition plan is not evidence that they accepted a bi-national state.
Did I even write anything close to that above?
I wrote that had the Arabs accepted the 1947 Partition Plan then there is no way to know for sure if the Jews would have ethnically cleansed the Arabs from that 53% state. I’m not sure why you keep ignoring the possibilities that there still would have been a huge immigration of Jews from Arab countries, or the possibility that Israeli Arabs would have emigrated to Arab Palestine.
(And the Zionists still might have carried out ethnic cleansing had the Arabs accepted the ’47 Plan. I can’t say for sure either what might have happened. None of us own a time machine.)
I should add here that your point about Zionist bi-nationalists is a gross overstatement. They were always marginal and the Biltmore conference of 1942 formalized their total irrelevance to the movement well before the start of the war.
Ok, but who knows what might have happened if that ’48 war had not occurred? It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that bi-nationalism would have eventually prevailed in Israel, had the “Siege Mentality,” (borne by plenty of siege) not gathered steam.
t’s important to my argument/film to talk about the ethnic cleansing of Arabs, because that is the genesis of the refugee issue which is the most important issue in the conflict.
Ok, I see. I would argue that the most important issue in the conflict is that there simply isn’t enough room/natural resources for two states, so we need to create one, bi-national state. But of course it is your right to view things differently.
They wanted maximum territory and minimum Arabs (we have BG’s diary) and they achieved this through active expulsions and retroactive prevention of return. This history is a part of the story that most people have never heard. It’s absolutely vital to understanding the roots of the conflict.
I would say the roots of the conflict begin with the Arab world’s (including Palestine’s Arabs’) rejection of the legitimacy of one relatively tiny nation-state for the Jews.
But, again, you obviously aren’t alone in your argument.
Since most people haven’t heard the full story, I think it’s fair to point out that, despite the inevitability of Zionism leading to ethnic cleansing . . . .
(1) There were still hundreds of thousands of Arabs inside of Israel’s borders after 1949–and more became Israeli after the annexation of the Little Triangle.
(2) In 1967, when the entire Western world was completely behind Israel (that’s only a slight exaggeration), and with the Jordanian army shattered, Israel made the decision not to ethnically cleanse (by your definition) the Arabs from the West Bank and Jerusalem, as Time Magazine suggested at the time–I just can’t find that article.
I realize that this comment is not going to be popular, but you continuously refer to the Palestinians when discussing the events of 1948 and earlier. Wouldn’t it be more accurate to refer to them as the local Arab population, as no self respecting Arab at the time would identify as a Palestinian until around 1964?
What I find fascinating in Eli’s imaginative portrayal of a one-state solution based on individual rights, rather than collective rights, is the complete absence of Arab political bodies (as far as I know) saying that’s what they want.
Who, exactly, would negotiate this single state? Fatah? Hamas? The PLO?
How does it work, Eli, from their side?
@Eli,
It sounds like you don’t think Israel, in its own self definition in founding documents, has a right to exist. In my broad definition of what it means to be a lover and supporter of Israel I draw the line at questioning Israel’s very legitimacy to exist at all.
You seem to be a creative enough guy but your proposal feels decidedly uncreative. In other words could you imagine a Jewish majority state that would satisfy your moral issues?
For those of us that want Israel to maintain some aspect of Jewish-state-ness the one state solution does ring the death nell to that idea with no necessary need to engage in moral apologetics in defense of that which some may find indefensible.
I’ll happily argue the merits of 1 vs. 2 states. But above all, I want the bastards like Ali Abunimah promoting anti-Israel extremism to lose, and if that requires a 2 state solution, so be it. Or at least, let them die first and their names forgotten, and then have your fanciful one state.
Uri Allen-You are correct. I don’t believe that Israel has a “right to exist” in its current form. I think I was pretty clear about that in this post. I believe that there are good political ideas and bad political ideas. Checks and balances, an independent judiciary, and separation of Church and State are all examples of good political ideas. Ethnonationalism, segregation, and state control of religion are all examples of bad political ideas. Israel was founded, for the most part, on bad political ideas and so I think it ought to undergo a fundamental transformation. You cannot have an ethnic state that is also fully Democratic. It is simply impossible. Built into the ethno-nationalist framework (see Sri Lanka, Estonia, etc.) is the privileging of one ethnicity over another which makes discrimination and worse all but inevitable. And of course, Israeli history is a perfect case study in why Ethno-nationalism is a bad political idea. I’m not sure what being a “creative enough guy” entails, but I’m working to clearly articulate a vision that would improve the situation for the 10 million people who live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. A freilichen Purim to all!
I’m always curious about this idea of “right to exist.” By what virtue does any nation have a “right” to exist? If it’s by virtue of other nations existing, then any nation should have that right, I suppose. But the question still needs to be posed, from where does any nation derive its right to exist?
Justin, I’ve always wondered the same. Wikipedia offers some sources on comparative use:
Ethnic leaders in Abkhazia, the Basque, Chechnya, Ireland, Israel, Kurdistan and the Palestians have all invoked it at some point.
that’s fascinating. so what happens when the government/leadership of the state which has a right to exist by virtue of individuals’ willingness to sacrifice their own interests is actually working AGAINST the interests of the people… it would seem to me that this would be the case for both Israel and Palestine.
Never a dull moment. I have three things to add:
1) JG, you’re still my hero!
2) KFJ latched on to the main problem with Eli’s one state argument that I would have made – the denial of collective rights, which are the basis of nationalism.
In his last al Jazeera piece, from whence I think Eli drew inspiration, Abunimah has really fine-tuned his arguments about the intrinsic in-group exclusivity (i.e. built-in injustice) necessary to assert the principle of self-determination, and the need for post-identity national groupings.
However sound his logic, what we’re seeing in the world is a radical departure from his purported ideal. Nationalism along racial, religious, ethnic and other “in-group” criteria has surged, and continues to surge. East Timor, Kosovo, South Sudan, Tibet, Kurdistan… perhaps north and south Nigeria, possibly even an Alawite state carved out of Syria… Even the European Project, that great beacon of post-national hope, is foundering. Economic integration was not controversial, but political integration has been stalled for a decade, and with the fiscal crisis authority has only two places to go – back to individual member states or to German control.
The tendency of people all over the world is not post-identity, but hyper-identity. People want to create national groupings that represent their preferred community and maximize their (*gulp, dirty word coming) privilege, not those that subsume their collective individuality like the Borg. Bi, tri or tetra-national states – like Belgium, Iraq, Pakistan – are in a condition of delicate equilibrium or outright collapse and de-facto fragmentation.
It is highly relevant to note that not only does the principle of self-determination have universal support – KFJ called it a “pillar of global society”, and it is – but that outside of select academia and… well, the ruling elite of Europe, it has more support than ever before. The last few decades have witnessed an explosion of nationalism and state-formation out of precisely the kind of super-national groupings Eli recommends, and given the multiplying number of separatist groups around the world, more states and autonomous zones are likely to come.
Of course, enlightened self-determination is predicated on an in-group which can maintain its rule on the basis of prevalent standards of legitimacy – demographic superiority, minority rights, etc. But self-determination (i.e. the realization of collective rights in a sovereign state) is the name of the game, period.
Abunimah’s basic argument, if we are to ascribe it no ill intent and only address it on the merits, is an attack not on Jewish self-determination, but on the rights to self-determination of EVERY community of people, everywhere. If he wants to tell the Kosovars to go back to Serbia, or the South Sudanese to rejoin Sudan, or the Tibetans to stop praying for independence, I say we let him.
3) Good Shabbos!
@Justin: The Israeli government is freely elected by the citizenry of the country. Are the Israeli people intentionally working against their own interests…..by freely electing a government to work against their interests?
elected governments often work against the interests of their own people.
@Eli – Indeed you were quite clear. In my own drawing of boundaries I would not be able to count you as inside the bounds of what I would consider “pro-Israel”, whatever that means. And I have a very broad view of what I consider that phrase to include (I think).
“Right to exist” – a very interesting phrase. In some ways it doesn’t matter seeing as how Israel does exist and at least in the short term will continue to do so (may it be in the long term as well!). But I think one thing that is underneath that phrase is the right to exist in self defining ways so long as that self definition doesn’t lead to serious abuses of various kinds. Clearly Israel is struggling to figure out how to balance the various components of its own self definition sometimes successfully and unfortunately increasingly not.
Another thing that is implied when the right to exist argument is used, is a notion among opponents of Israel, that because the conditions that led to the creation of the state were illegal/highly questionable/immoral/fill in the blank, an ethos of eliminating Israel from the map can be legitimized. Its one thing to question the legitimacy of settlement occupation but quite another when the same logic is used to say that Tel-Aviv is also occupied. I’m not talking about empirical fact here. I’m talking about reasonable interpretations of the facts that can lead to effective thinking about ending the conflict.
As far as what a country’s best interests are, that also seems to be open to interpretation. The problem in my mind is not with specific policies but that people don’t see in those they disagree with the same devotion and passion that they do. In other words if we all were able to say “I disagree but I believe that you think you have Israel’s best interests in mind”, the discourse would be very different. Having said that, I think there are some clear red lines to be drawn even when one is able to say that.