Toward a True Democratic State in the Middle East

[idontwantaname]

Toward a True Democratic State in the Middle East
The Emerging Case for a Single-State Solution
By TODD MAY

http://www.counterpunch.org/may09092004.html


Recently, the debate about Israel and Palestine has taken an odd turn. The
idea of a single democratic state in historic Palestine, once thought dead,
has re- emerged as an option worthy of consideration. For some, the idea of
a single state is a matter of realism. Tony Judt, for example, argues in The
New York Review of Books that the integration of the West Bank may already
be irreversible, and suggests that a single binational state may be the only
alternative to ethnic cleansing. More recently, Noah Cohen has criticized
Noam Chomsky's endorsement of a two-state solution. In Cohen's view, we
ought to think of Palestine on the model of South Africa, and follow its
solution of endorsing a democratic state for all who live in it.

<snip>

The struggle for a single state will certainly be a long one. But the
struggle for two states has been a long one as well, and its results so far
have not been promising. My suggestion here is that the reason for such
meager results has more than a little to do with the framework within which
many of us have thought about the issue. I do not want to deny that there
are, in politics, times in which moral compromise is necessary for the sake
of preventing a far worse fate. It has become increasingly evident that this
is not one of those times. The politics of Palestine require that we remove
our moral blinders, not in order to attain a greater moral purity in
approaching a just solution to the "problem of Palestine," but in order to
see our way to a solution at all.

[Jim Sagle]

1. Fugheddddddddaboudit!

[idontwantaname]

4. and they say theres no peace partner... n/t.

[Jim Sagle]

5. "Peace" does not mean "merge."

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[idontwantaname]

7. BUSTED!

so Jim i would be very interested in hearing you educated and thorough argument against the single state solution if youd be willing to post it.

[sushi]

8. He prefers oneliners!

:)

[geek tragedy]

2. The problem with the single democratic state solution is that

(virtually) no one in Israel or Palestine actually believes in it.

[idontwantaname]

3. "The politics of Palestine require that we remove our moral blinders..."

"... not in order to attain a greater moral purity in approaching a just solution to the "problem of Palestine," but in order to see our way to a solution at all."


being from the USA im not in a position to choose if its one or two state or something between...

[Violet_Crumble]

Isn't the two-state solution heading in the same direction?

That's the one with two viable and independent states, not the versions where the extremist types go: "I'm all for a two-state solution - Israel and Jordan!!' etc....

The single democratic state solution would have been vastly preferable to partition, and could possibly have worked, but it's time is gone. The two-state solution really seems to be going the same way, imo....

Violet...

[sushi]

9. This has been discussed here

The Israeli Jews will reject a single state because they would soon be outnumbered by non-Jewish citizens, and that would be the end of the Jewish state.

Moral compromise? You must be joking! What matters is interests! The Palestinians want their own state but a Palestinian state that is acceptable to the Palestinians, not one on Israel's terms, is not in the interest of the Israelis.

[The Crystal Method]

10. Very interesting. See post:

BI-NATIONAL REALITIES VERSUS
NATIONAL MYTHOLOGIES:
THE DEATH OF THE TWO-STATES SOLUTION
Ilan Pappe



Policy Paper No. 71, from the book
ISRAEL AND A PALESTINIAN STATE: ZERO SUM GAME 2001

Executive Summary

This article examines the options for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the post-Oslo reality. It assumes that the chances for such a state to survive and indeed come into a meaningful being should be examined on two different levels.

One is that of balance of power. There is little hope for genuine Palestinian sovereignty and control over a future state. The balance of power in which the Israelis are the stronger party, is a sacrosanct precondition both to the Labor and Likud parties; hence its maintenance is a precondition for any settlement agreed upon by either the Right or the Left in Israel. This article describes what constitutes for the Israeli Jewish "Center", the maximum boundaries and level of independence of a future Palestinian state. It concludes that these concessions do not amount to a political entity that can be defined as a state in any reasonable and acceptable meaning.

The second level on which the likelihood of a state is examined is that of collective cohesiveness as a precondition for the establishment of two viable political entities, such as states, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. The article claims that the obfuscation of collective identities both in the Israeli and Palestinian cases is going to be highly increased in the very near future.

Neither the Jews nor the Palestinians in Israel satisfy, in the post-Oslo reality, any reasonable definition of a collective. There is no territorial integrity of either society in the new reality and the enormity of the task of making it into two coherent territorial entities, could very well tear both societies apart.

Read the rest at the Ariel Center for Research

[The Crystal Method]

11. See also:

This thread by Uri Davis

[Matilda]

12. For some reason, the link isn't working.

I tried it myself on Google, and also got a broken link.

[Matilda]

13. It is such a reasonable and balanced idea -

but emotions get in the way of such an idea being implemented.

It may have worked prior to 1948 - with hindsight, the formation
of the state of Israel was probably one of the biggest mistakes
the UN ever made - but there can be no going back now. The levels
of hatred have risen to such a height on both sides, mutual
accommodation is just a pipe dream. Emotion, not reason, drives
the majority on both sides.

With the world generally in ignorance or denial of the obvious
aims of Sharon's policy of encirclement in the West Bank, the
formation of a viable Palestinian state seems to be increasingly
unlikely. The Palestinians will be lucky to possess a strip of
dirt in Gaza - and they probably won't even control that.

[forgethell]

14. You can't really

expect the Israelis to voluntarily subject themselves to Muslim or Arabic rule until the Arab countries can show that they are capable of having a democratic state where all religions are equal and where they feel safe in their persons and property. Maybe not even then. But it is the responsibility of the Palestinians to show that they can live in peace with the Israelis if they want to change their current situation, because it has been proven over and over again that they cannot militarily win, and that the intifada isn't winning either.