Reply #15: Very interesting article, in a strage sort of way [View All]

One might think that by setting up the specter of ethnic cleansing, or, if one prefers the Israeli euphemism, transfer, the author is merely setting up a straw man to be knocked down. Anyone who proposes such a solution is a racist, whether its the still-wet-behind-the-ears wannabe journalist quoted in this piece or a member of General Sharon's cabinet.

However, the fact is that Uri Douri, also quoted in this piece, is right:

Either we give the Palestinians equal rights, in which case Israel ceases to be Jewish, or we don't, in which case Israel ceases to be democratic. The only way for Israel to remain both Jewish and democratic is for it to pull out of the territories.

A binational state means the end of Jewish democracy, regardless of how it is brought about and regardless of what status the Palestinians have in that binational state. If the Palestinians remain in this Greater Israel without equal rights, then the system will be akin to South African Apartheid; expulsion of the Palestinians would be a crime on the order of Milosevic; and, of course, a democratic state where the majority of the people are not Jewish cannot be a Jewish state. The last solution, the only democratic one of the three, is the most palatable, but will a state that is not Jewish continue to be a place where Jews can come to escape persecution? The two others can only come about if Israeli Jews give up their own freedom in order to take away the human rights of Arabs. In a racist state, those in the favored class who dare to speak out against injustice must be punished along with those in the dispossessed class who resist.

This is precisely why I do not believe that Israel will follow through with a racist solution. The Israelis will quit the territories, give the Palestinian nation her state and continue to enjoy democratic freedoms in their part of the Levant. In that way and only in that way will Israel continue to be a beacon of freedom for Jews seeking refuge from persecution. The only solution that will allow the Zionist dream to flourish is a two-state solution.