The Danger of a Bi-National State Solution

[Shaktimaan]

Bi-National State is Not a Solution
Uri Avnery

-----

The one-state idea is not a solution, but an anti-solution. It is a recipe for an ongoing bloody conflict. Not a dream, but a nightmare. There is no chance at all that the Jewish public will agree, in this generation or the next, to live as a minority in a state dominated by an Arab majority. 99.99 percent of the Jewish population will fight against this tooth and nail. The demography will not stop haunting them, but on the contrary, it will push them to do things which are unthinkable today. Ethnic cleansing will become a practical agenda. Even moderate Israelis will be driven into the arms of the fascist right-wing. All means of oppression will become acceptable when the Jewish majority adopts the aim of causing the Arabs to leave the country before they have a chance of becoming the majority.

The real choice is, therefore: The “two-state solution” or the “ethnic cleansing solution”.



http://files.tikkun.org/current/article.php?story=20080828071956743

[Blue Meany]

1. The problem is, Israeli policies have made a two-state

solution entirely impractical. With the walls, boundaries, and settlements, there is no geographic space for a viable Palestinian state--and does Israel want a failed state on its borders in pepetuity? What leaders of Israel have enacted from the beginning of the state has been sporadic and slow-motion ethnic cleansing, partly through brute force and partly through economic pressure and legal maneuvering.
I question whether such policies have majority support in Israel, particularly when the details of them are known. And even if they do now, I don't believe they will continue to have such support into the future, as the holocaust recedes further into the past and the reality of the opression of Palistinians becomes more visible.

Acts of terror by Palestinians, of coruse, are reprehensible in their own right and are extremely ineffective as political acts, since they tend engender support for the very Israeli policies to which they are responses. If Palestinians were to renounce violence and launch a Gandhian, MLK-style civil rights movement, demanding full citizenship in the lands of their birth, I think they would eventually prevail.

I agree that a one-state solution would be an extremely difficult transition, and that people on all sides will say it is impossible. But desegregation took place in the American south and in South Africa, so there are model to suggest that over a generation a great deal of change could occur.

On a broader issue, I don't really think that any religious or ethnic group has a right to their own state in the modern world. There will always be minorities in those states and such notions will always lead to second-class citizenship and discrimination, at best, and ethnic cleansing and genocide, at worst.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Except that these conditions can be changed

'With the walls, boundaries, and settlements, there is no geographic space for a viable Palestinian state'

Walls, boundaries and settlements can be removed. And should be. It will be difficult, but not as difficult as forcing a binational solution at this state.

'I don't really think that any religious or ethnic group has a right to their own state in the modern world.'

Well, that gets rid of almost all states. The Chinese would then have no right to their own state - which given the size of the existing state, would create quite a problem! Ditto for most other countries, which tend to be composed predominantly of particular ethnic groups, whether this is defined by race, language, religion, or long-term geographical origin - or often all of these. All Islamic states would need to be disbanded as well! Personally, I quite like John Lennon's vision of 'no countries .... and no religion too'; but I realize this is not something that is likely to happen for a long long time if ever, and one has to operate within the boundaries of what is currently feasible, if one doesn't want to cause a major disaster.

[Boojatta]

4. "Well, that gets rid of almost all states."

That a group doesn't have the right to something doesn't mean that it's essential to immediately deprive them of it. However, one might work to deprive some groups of that right in order to focus attention on the issue and try to persuade the international community that there's no such right. For example, one could start small and try to get the international community to agree that Italy has the right to absorb the territory that is currently considered to be a separate Vatican City State jurisdiction.

[Boojatta]

3. "What leaders of Israel have enacted from the beginning of the state..."

Can you provide information that you have relied upon to arrive at that conclusion?

The first question is how you identify the day/moment when the state of Israel began.

The second question is how you confirm that the leaders of Israel neither "enacted" those actions/outcomes before the beginning nor "enacted" those actions/outcomes starting from a time later than the beginning.

[Blue Meany]

5. Israeli Expansion - Displacement of Palestinians

>Can you provide information that you have relied upon to arrive at that conclusion?

The forced displacement of and massacres of Arabs, and the destruction of Arab villages, by Zionists during the 1948 conflict has been well-documented by a new generation of Israeli historians with access to relevant Israeli archives. See, for example, Ilan Pappé, The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947–1951.

The diaries of Moshe Sharett provide extensive documentation that Israeli leaders were looking for a war in order to expand their territories, at the expense of their Arab populations. For example, his diary records the remarks of Moshe Dayyan at a 1955 meeting as follows:

" must see the sword as the main, if not the only, instrument with which to keep its morale high and to retain its moral tension. Toward this end it may, no - it must - invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of provocation-and-revenge...And above all - let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries, so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space." He reported that that at the same meeting that Ben Gurion "said that it would be worth while to pay an Arab a million pounds to start a war."

In 1967 Israel attacked Egypt and siezed the Sinai, publicly claiming that this was a pre-emptive attack on Egyptian forces mobilized to attack Israel. But Yitzhak Rabin later conceded that this was not the case: He said: "I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai would not have sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it." Menachem Begin also later acknowledged this: "The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him"

With regard to the Golan Heights, Moshe Dayan recalled that Israeli policy from 1949 to 1967 has been one of slicing off bits of Syrian territory and holding onto it until they gave up on it. He explained: "It would happen like this: We would send a tractor to plow someplace of no value, in the demilitarized zone, knowing ahead of time that the Syrians would begin to shoot. If they did not start shooting, we would tell the tractor to keep going forward, until the Syrians in the end would get nervous and start shooting. And then we would start firing artillery, and later also the airforce, and this was the way it was." He acknowledged that 80% of the border incidents with Syria were begun by Israel in this manner; this is the type of thing I was referring to when I mentioned Israel goading others into attacking. Dayan explained that the real motive for taking the Golan Heights was gaining the farm land: "As defense minister I should have stopped it because the Syrians were not threatening us at the time … the delegation that came to convince Eshkol to attack the Heights did not think about these things . It thought about the land on the Heights. Listen, I am also a farmer. I'm from Nahalal, not from Tel-Aviv, and I recognize this. I saw them, and I talked to them. They did not even try to hide their greed for that soil. That's what guided them."

The creation of difficult living conditions in the occupied territories, through settlements, police and military harrassment of the population, economic isolation, expropriation of properties on various pretexts, has created an environment that has prompted a significant percentage of Palestinians to flee to other countries.

If you look at the pattern of Israeli policy over time, it is reasonable to suspect that the policies are intended to push Palestinians gradually out. There have been extremist organizations that called for purging all Arabs from Palestine and forcing them into neighboring countries. As in many countries, however, I do not think that what the leaders did was something that the majority of Israelis supported or even knew about.

[shira]

6. If Ilan Pappe is your source.....

...it's no wonder you believe in make-believe Israeli atrocities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilan_Papp%C3%A9

Pappe still supports the Tantura massacre hoax, invented by one of his prize pupils Teddy Katz.

See also:
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=38&x_article=1299

Note how Benny Morris has disputed Pappe's alleged 'facts'. In no way can Pappe be described as a reputable historian.

[Boojatta]

7. How do you get "sporadic and slow-motion ethnic cleansing" out of Israel taking land from Syria?

Throughout history, many countries have expanded and contracted. How do you determine whether or not an expanding country was engaged in ethnic cleansing?

Pakistan was established on land that was part of India. Did Pakistan engage in ethnic cleansing or should we think of all people who lived in India before Pakistan was established as being members of a single, indivisible ethnicity? If you claim that people who were killed or forced out of terrority claimed by Pakistan weren't "ethnically cleansed", then how great a relief should it be for them to know that you don't think they were victims of "ethnic cleansing"?

Hasn't Israel accepted a number of refugees that is large relative to Israel's population? Refugees don't bring land with them, so it isn't surprising that a country that accepts a relatively large number of refugees would find some way to expand its territory. I would think that the onus would be on the various countries that failed to protect their own citizens, and gave those citizens no alternative but to become refugees, to provide land to compensate the countries that lost land.

With regard to the Golan Heights, Moshe Dayan recalled that Israeli policy from 1949 to 1967 has been one of slicing off bits of Syrian territory and holding onto it until they gave up on it. He explained: "It would happen like this: We would send a tractor to plow someplace of no value, in the demilitarized zone, knowing ahead of time that the Syrians would begin to shoot. If they did not start shooting, we would tell the tractor to keep going forward, until the Syrians in the end would get nervous and start shooting. And then we would start firing artillery, and later also the airforce, and this was the way it was." He acknowledged that 80% of the border incidents with Syria were begun by Israel in this manner; this is the type of thing I was referring to when I mentioned Israel goading others into attacking. Dayan explained that the real motive for taking the Golan Heights was gaining the farm land: "As defense minister I should have stopped it because the Syrians were not threatening us at the time … the delegation that came to convince Eshkol to attack the Heights did not think about these things . It thought about the land on the Heights. Listen, I am also a farmer. I'm from Nahalal, not from Tel-Aviv, and I recognize this. I saw them, and I talked to them. They did not even try to hide their greed for that soil. That's what guided them."

[Blue Meany]

9. Are you saying that people in other countries have engaged

in opprresion of Jews, its ok from Israel to grab the land of other people and force the inhabitants to flee or to live in refugee camps? Are you saying that it is the obligation of countries like Germany, Austria, Russia, Algeria, and Iran to find homes for the Palestinians that Israel has made refugees? I just want to be sure if I am understanding your intention in the paragraph below:

Hasn't Israel accepted a number of refugees that is large relative to Israel's population? Refugees don't bring land with them, so it isn't surprising that a country that accepts a relatively large number of refugees would find some way to expand its territory. I would think that the onus would be on the various countries that failed to protect their own citizens, and gave those citizens no alternative but to become refugees, to provide land to compensate the countries that lost land.

[Blue Meany]

10. So we should expect Europeans to compensate Native

Americans, since it was refugees from Europe who drove Indians off their lands and put them in reservations, right?

[Boojatta]

12. Perhaps you could explain your reasoning step by step.

I don't see how you arrive at the conclusion "we should expect Europeans to compensate Native Americans."

[Boojatta]

11. No, I'm not saying that.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think that there's a difference between a person who was displaced within Syria, but who didn't lose Syrian citizenship, and a Palestinian refugee who did lose citizenship.

If Syria lost land, then it seems reasonable that it could be compensated by receiving land.

Imagine that Mexico thirty years ago grabbed some US land and that Mexico is still controlling that land. Suppose Canada had forced many Canadian citizens to become refugees. Mexico had accepted some or all of those refugees. There could be a deal involving Mexico, America, and Canada. Mexico could keep the land that it took from America. Canada could give some land to America, paying in land for creating refugees who were accepted by Mexico, and compensating America for land lost to Mexico.

I don't know what countries are obligated to accept Palestinian refugees.

[Shaktimaan]

20. There's something I don't understand here.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think that there's a difference between a person who was displaced within Syria, but who didn't lose Syrian citizenship, and a Palestinian refugee who did lose citizenship.

What Palestinian refugees lost citizenship? I assume you're talking about Israel, correct? Most of the Palestinian refugees who were forced out of Israel during the war of independence follow the example you just gave of Syria. That is to say, they were not Israeli citizens, they were merely inhabitants of Palestine prior to Palestine's partition into Israel and the Territories. The refugees left Palestine (that became Israel) and resettled in Palestine (the west bank or gaza.)

I have a question for you.

Let's say that Israel decided to compensate Palestine (as a new state) for land it retains where the settlements are by giving Palestine other land that now belongs to Israel-proper. This is the basic idea that's already been agreed on anyway. But what if Israel decided to give away land that's inhabited by Israeli-Arabs... thus getting rid of it's "demographic problem" while gaining Jewish-inhabited settlement land in trade. What would Israel's responsibility be, legally, to the Israeli-Arabs who live on that land?

Could Israel just deny them entry into Israel, taking away their Israeli citizenship and foisting them off onto Palestine? Or would Israel have an obligation to retain these people as citizens, regardless of whether it left them on their land or not? What would Israel's responsibility be?

I ask this question because of the obvious parallel with Jordan, when it evicted it's Palestinian citizens who lived west of the river. It stripped them of their citizenship but also relinquished its claim on the west bank. (Which it had a very dubious right to claim for itself anyway.) Did Jordan really have a right to accept all of those refugees as citizens only to then evict them from Jordan several decades later?

Also, when Jordan first gained control of the west bank and east jerusalem it evicted all of the jews who were living there. Some communities were hundreds or even thousands of years old. After Jordan then relinquished its claim to this land, ceding it to the Palestinians, should Israel have any right to claim the bits that were originally Jewish prior to Jordan ethnically cleansing them?

[Boojatta]

21. "Did Jordan really have a right to accept all of those refugees as citizens only to then evict ...

them from Jordan several decades later?"

That's a good question. Maybe the conflict between Israel and Palestinians is less about the history of government policies and more about identity politics. The same action might be disappointing or enraging depending on whether the people who belong to the institution that performs the action are classified by Palestinians as being people similar to Palestinians or as being quite different from Palestinians.

[Boojatta]

13. One of your questions is very thought-provoking.

You wrote:

Are you saying that it is the obligation of countries like Germany, Austria, Russia, Algeria, and Iran to find homes for the Palestinians that Israel has made refugees?

Iran is in your list and I cannot guess why. Your list would be more interesting if you had included Kuwait.

Unless I'm mistaken, Palestinians were forced to flee from Kuwait en masse. Therefore, one could argue that the government of Kuwait has been at least negligent if not actively guilty of unfairly withdrawing Kuwaiti residence status and/or Kuwaiti citizenship from Palestinians.

However, I don't conclude that Kuwait is obligated to accept Palestinian refugees. Certainly one should hope for some form of compensation from the government of Kuwait. However, if Kuwait has in recent history acted in bad faith with respect to Palestinians residing in Kuwait, then every country in the world other than Kuwait is potentially a better prospect if one is looking for a country that will treat Palestinians well.

[eyl]

16. At least three of your quotes are shaky

But Yitzhak Rabin later conceded that this was not the case: He said: "I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai would not have sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it."

Except that this referred to the situation a month before the war started. By the time it began, there were at least six Egyptian divisions (not counting smaller units) in the Sinai.

"The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him"

Excpt that in the next paragraph of the speech in question, he says:

This was a war of self-defence in the noblest sense of the term

As for the Dayan quote

With regard to the Golan Heights, Moshe Dayan recalled that Israeli policy from 1949 to 1967 has been one of slicing off bits of Syrian territory and holding onto it until they gave up on it. He explained: "It would happen like this: We would send a tractor to plow someplace of no value, in the demilitarized zone, knowing ahead of time that the Syrians would begin to shoot. If they did not start shooting, we would tell the tractor to keep going forward, until the Syrians in the end would get nervous and start shooting. And then we would start firing artillery, and later also the airforce, and this was the way it was." He acknowledged that 80% of the border incidents with Syria were begun by Israel in this manner; this is the type of thing I was referring to when I mentioned Israel goading others into attacking. Dayan explained that the real motive for taking the Golan Heights was gaining the farm land: "As defense minister I should have stopped it because the Syrians were not threatening us at the time … the delegation that came to convince Eshkol to attack the Heights did not think about these things . It thought about the land on the Heights. Listen, I am also a farmer. I'm from Nahalal, not from Tel-Aviv, and I recognize this. I saw them, and I talked to them. They did not even try to hide their greed for that soil. That's what guided them."

His version does not account for the many Syrian attacks on the kibbutzim themselves, or that many (most, AFAIK) of the Israeli casualties were civilians (again, often killed inside the kibbutz). Furthermore, you may find it interesting that even Avi Shlaim (see "The Iron Wall") - hardly a champion of the "Zionist narrative" - considers Dayan's account to be uncredible.

I didn't check the Sharett quote, but you see the trend here.

[Vegasaurus]

8. Uri Avnery is a non-biased source

Pro-Palestinian posters also use his commentary to support their points.

We should listen to him, because he is right.

Recipe for an ongoing bloody conflict, not a dream but a nightmare.

[pelsar]

14. Lebanon anyone?

a simple look to the north of israel shows a very real scenario when multiple foreign govts have direct interest in the control of the land and political leadership of an area.....the Lebanese civil war, the waring factions in tripoli and n. lebanon today, hizballas occupation of the south, and parts of beruit are all fruits of the one state solution.....

besides, according to the polls israeli citizens, jew, muslim, druze, etc non of them want integration with the Palestinians within one country....should the will of the people be taken into account?..or are they just to dumb to know whats good for them?

_______________
anybody notice how quiet gaza is?...imagine that, hamas and friends, like syria, like jordan, like egypt decided to stop trying to kill israelis (at least in the meantime)..and they now live without israeli attacks...hmm they're might just be a pattern here (and some from al aksa brigades in jenin noticed that pattern as well-might be something to it)

[LeftishBrit]

15. Good point. Lebanon is an example of an unsuccessful attempt at a 'one state solution' for

warring factions; and it's certainly not a model to emulate.

[Malikshah]

17. There is, however, the potential for false equivalency with Lebanon

Lebanon's history does not parallel that of Israel.

The Mithaq al-Watani of 1943, based upon a 1932 census that was, by many accounts, outdated created a political system that was anything but representative of the demographic realities of Lebanon. Politics by religious confession (President: Maronite Christian; PM Sunni Muslim, 6:5 ration Christian:Muslim in assembly) was and is a shaky foundation upon which to build a viable state in this or any age. That Lebanon remained intact for 30+ years is testament to the unwavering strength of those afforded the most political and economic power in the state (e.g., the Maronite Christians)and the glacial pace that opposition takes on.

Israel's history, from the foundation of the mandate communities, on through the post-May 1948 period does not follow Lebanon's. What is more, is that Israel's population differs greatly from that of Lebanon; we should be careful not to ignore that difference. Cultural and historical processes in the two countries do not match.

[pelsar]

18. i always find some claims rather funny...

That Lebanon remained intact for 30+ years is testament to the unwavering strength of those afforded the most political and economic power in the state

and after that there was a 6 year civil war that killed over 100,000 and destroyed the fabric of the country..........so I would say that the 30+ years was nothing more than a powder keg that was to blow up....as it did.

Yes israel is different from Lebanon....the Palestinians however seem to have quite an interesting culture....their history in jordan, their history in Lebanon, their present cultural norms in gaza do not lend themselves to the democratic process....but correct me if i am wrong with some actual history.

[Malikshah]

19. On the surface it appears we agree. Lebanon was built on a house of cards

No matter how strong each individual card, the foundation was flimsy.

The foundation was built upon shifting ground and the connections were tenuous at best.

If the foundation of the country is faulty, the long term prospects tend to be dire.

Example: Organic Law of 1925 establishing the constitutional monarchy in Iraq. Sounded good. Was a "success" by standards of the day during Faysal's day. Although shaky, still lasted to a degree until 1958. Iraq was, in fact, stable enough in the minds of outsiders, that it was viewed as one of the last bastions of Western strength among the Arab countries. (Baghdad Pact of 1955, etc.)

As to your history-- the Palestinians do have an interesting history, stretching far back before the mandatory period, as do the Israelis--again with a fascinating vibrant history stretching far back before the mandatory period. As for the present both Israelis and Palestinians bring their diverse histories to the table. Sociocultural forces abound--pushing and pulling from within the communities and between the communities.

[shaayecanaan]

22. Lebanon was fine...

until it became the dumping ground and punching bag for the region's problems. Remember Beirut being "the Paris of the Middle East"?