The One State Solution (The Nation)

This article is long but well worth reading and discussing:

This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031103&s=lazare


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The One-State Solution
by DANIEL LAZARE

Is Zionism a failed ideology? This question will strike many people as absurd on its face. Israel, after all, is a nation with an advanced standard of living, a high-tech economy and one of the most formidable militaries on earth. In a little over half a century, it has taken in millions of people from far-flung corners of the globe, taught them a new language and incorporated them into a political culture that is nothing if not vigorous. If this is failure, there are a lot of countries wishing for their share of it.

But consider the things Israel has not accomplished. In his 1896 manifesto The Jewish State, Zionism's founding document, the Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl predicted that such a country would be at peace with its neighbors and would require no more than a small professional army. In fact, Zionist settlers have clashed repeatedly with the Arabs from nearly the moment they began arriving in significant numbers in the early twentieth century, a Hundred Years' War that grows more dangerous by the month. Herzl envisioned a normal state no different from France or Germany. Yet with its peculiar ethno-religious policies elevating one group above all others, Israel is increasingly abnormal at a time when almost all other political democracies have been putting such distinctions behind them. Herzl envisioned a state that would draw Jews like a magnet, yet more than half a century after Israel's birth, most Jews continue to vote with their feet to remain in the Diaspora, and an increasing number of Israelis prefer to live abroad. Israel was supposed to serve as a safe haven, yet it is in fact one of the more dangerous places on earth in which to be Jewish.

Israel was also supposed to have been the final answer to "the Jewish question," an issue that is as old as--and has virtually defined--modernity itself. Herzl emphasized again and again that hatred and competition would melt away once Jews removed themselves from their increasingly reluctant host countries, returned to their ancient homeland and took their place as separate but equal members of the international community. Yet anti-Semitism is mushrooming in the Muslim world and, based on anecdotal evidence, may be undergoing a resurgence in Europe and the United States. Is this because the world is intrinsically anti-Semitic and is therefore always looking for an excuse to bash the Jews? Or does Zionism bear responsibility in any way for the upsurge?

There is no doubt that the approach to such questions, especially in the United States, has reached a turning point. The collapse of Bush's farcical "road map," the Berlin wall that Israel is building deep inside Palestinian territory, the threats to exile or even assassinate Yasir Arafat and now the extension of hostilities to Syria--the old consensus is crumbling under the impact of such developments, and it is now possible to say things that would have been verboten only a few months ago. In Israel, Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Knesset, recently warned that if Israel wishes to preserve what little democracy it still has, it must either withdraw to its pre-1967 boundaries or grant full citizenship to the approximately 3.5 million Palestinians in the occupied territories, a step that would spell the virtual end of the Jewish state. Meron Benvenisti, the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, has pronounced the two-state approach "inapplicable" to the problem of Israel and Palestine and is calling for a single binational state based on Arab-Jewish equality. In the United States the historian Tony Judt, declaring the Middle East peace process a dead letter in The New York Review of Books, says that the very idea of a Jewish state has become an "anachronism" in a multicultural world in which citizenship is increasingly separated from race, religion and ethnicity. "In today's 'clash of cultures' between open, pluralist democracies and belligerently intolerant, faith-driven ethno-states," he adds, "Israel actually risks falling into the wrong camp."

A longstanding taboo has finally begun to fall. The more the United States sinks into a morass in Iraq, the more the Bush Administration leaps to do Sharon's bidding, the more fierce and wide-ranging the debate is likely to grow. How it will end, nobody knows. But where before it was all but impossible to have an honest conversation about Zionism, it is now becoming impossible not to. Of course, this taboo is largely an American invention. In other countries, the field has been much more open--including, irony of ironies, in Israel. As Tom Segev describes it in his lively ideological survey, Elvis in Jerusalem, Zionism has been under ideological and political assault in the Jewish state virtually from the beginning. Nearly everyone has had reason to find fault with it. In its early days Orthodox rabbis complained (in so many words) that it was an attempt to do an end run around God by returning from exile without divine permission. In the 1950s, a young journalist named Uri Avnery argued that Zionism was indelibly stained by the Diaspora it supposedly opposed and called for a more authentic Hebrew nationalism instead. Sephardic Jews from North Africa and the Middle East saw Zionism as a tool of the European-Ashkenazic elite, while post-Zionists like the historian Ilan Pappé have argued that it is fundamentally undemocratic and will have to fall by the wayside if Israel is ever to evolve into a normal pluralist state.

Much more at the link provided above.

I think it's impractical and I think that Israel serves its purpose well as a Jewish state, but I don't think it is "nuthin' but shit."

Please read the article before you declare it "shit."

Thank you!

n/t

I know you didn't call it shit. Sorry if I implied that. I think this is a very interesting essay, and I'm interested in your thoughts.

and I think that many of the points made are legitimate. However, one important thing blocks any eventual one-state solution; it is impractical. The Israelis won't agree to it, and neither will the Palestinians.

Both sides have legitimate reasons not to.

The Palestinians have been occupied and oppressed and abused and used as poltiical tools by the Israelis and the Arabs and basically everyone else they came across. They want to be able to control their own fate; they want to be free of all their oppressors. And the only way for them to do that is a Palestinian state.

The Israeli Jews know the history of their people. They know about the campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide that have been inflicted against them again and again and again. They don't want it to happen again. In order to secure that, they believe that a Jewish state is neccesary as a place for refugees can flock to when need be.

Both of these desires can be fulfilled. True peace will lead to an end to the appeal Arab anti-semitism mentioned in the article. True peace can provide two real and secure states.

Once these two states are created, I see nothing wrong with slowly working to make those two states more united; sort of like a mini EU.

When a mind has been closed off to ideas or information that conflict with its accepted notion, there remains no hope. You're not going to change anyone's opinion here.

You are not going to change people's minds THERE.

The Jewish people have seen what happens when they don't have a nation. They've had 2,000 years of that. Get back to them after 2,000 years of having one before you try to take it away.

"Get back to them after 2,000 years of having one before you try to take it away."

Such a fine little sentiment you carry within you.

It's meaningless, but I know you are sincere, sort of, whatever you think you mean.

The Jewish people know what it means. They know what happens when they have nowhere to run, when they have no nation. They are not giving such protection up.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are just very prone to platitude.


Or, when you are feeling less sentimental (and therefore capable of considering realities like human rights), perhaps you can explain why it is that Israel cannot be a multicultural nation, like every other modern country on earth.


Have a nice night.

It is NOT all Jewish, only about 80% or so. What you now want to establish immigration criteria? Why not start with some of the nations that attack Israel first?

You say that Israel is a multicultural nation. This is true.

But earlier you said this:

"The Jewish people have seen what happens when they don't have a nation. They've had 2,000 years of that. Get back to them after 2,000 years of having one before you try to take it away."

I assumed that you meant that the "single-state solution" would mean the destruction of Isreal ("taking their country away").

I really don't know what you mean, but if you'd care to explain, I'd be pleased to read what you have to say.

Even though Israel is a very diverse nation, it remains the homeland for the Jewish people. Incorporating it with any other nation would destroy that reality.

"Incorporating it with any other nation would destroy that reality."

Explain how it is that the one-state solution ("One person, one vote") involves "incorporating Israel with any other nation."

Once again, I find your post incomprehensible.

Israel already has that principle. That's why there are Arab members of the Knesset.

But Israel IS the homeland for the Jewish people. To incoroporate it with another nation would destroy that character and leave the Jewish people, once again, as a minority group subject to the treatment they have received for 2,000 years or, more recently, in the Arab world.

I find your lack of comprehension incomprehensible.

"To incoroporate it with another nation would destroy that character and leave the Jewish people, once again, as a minority group subject to the treatment they have received for 2,000 years or, more recently, in the Arab world."

You are saying that there can be one-state solution because jews would be a minority in that single state. In other words, to the extent that the single state would be a democracy, it would be the destruction of Israel. In other words, "Israel" and "democracy" are necessarily inconsistent.

But wait!

The Wall (along with the settlements)may have already destroyed the concept of two states -- many wise people say this.

We know that Israel will not give up the territories (at least until there is a radical change), and we also know that something must be done about the arabs who live there.

If they cannot be Israeli citizens with the right to vote (you ruled that out by saying that this would destroy Israel), the only remaining alternatives are these:

1. "transfer" them to other places, which is genocide; or

2. continue indefinitely to occupy the territories, making their lives so horrible that they will voluntarily leave, amidst great bloodshed for generations.

I think that about sums it up, Muddle!

Israel already is a democracy. Why should it seek to change the character of that democracy?

The wall hasn't changed anything permanently. It is a wall. The last time I checked, such things go up and then they come down. In the meantime, it is there.

According to you, Israel will not give up the territories until there is a "radical change." Well, assuming by a radical change you mean "peace," you are right.

The territories are that -- territories. The stuff on the other side of the wall is pretty obviously NOT being incorporated into Israel, so why do you insist it is?

1) I have said I am against a transfer and I don't see the need.

2) Israel will occupy the land until there is a peaceful transition. That length of time is not dependent on Israel. It is up to the Palestinian leadership.

It isn't like its safe there. It may get nuked eventually.

Hell, we may all get nuked one day. In the meantime, Jewish people know there is one nation where there won't be pogroms and persecution because they are Jewish.

?

nt

?

Yes they are, as they would be anywhere. But Israel has an army (the IDF) whose job it is to defend the citizens. The Jews in AIsrael are free to practice their religion, celebrate the holodays as they were intended, as they are allowed in no other country of the world. If Jews are forced to live in a mixed community, it would be not only a danger to their lives, but the cultural conflict which would result would astound many.

Although there have been more than 20,000 deaths of Israelis due to the conflicts with the Moslem nations which surround it, there is no onther nation in the world where the Jewish culture can thrive.

To them, abolition was a "fantasy." It certainly rang true because it was the "right" thing to do.

So is the One State solution. It's just the right thing to do.

The right thing to do in this case was to allow the Jewish people a homeland after 2,000 years of murder and persecution. Like it or not, that homeland now exists. Sooner or later the Arab world will have to come to terms with that reality. So, it appears, will many here.

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

But history is imperfect. Did many Palestinians flee the war brought on by their Arab "brothers?" Yes. Should Israel let them back in when 75% of Palestinians support a restaurant terror bombing? No, never. That's suicide.

That means something needs to be worked out, but the Palestinian leadership is not working in the best interests of its own people to do so. They claim the right of return will actually result in return. It won't. That means they have boxed themselves and Israel into a corner. Israel is needed to make a Palestinian state happen, but the Palestinians don't acknowledge that and won't do the things Israel needs to help make it happen.

I know you probably believe in these things, which is why you're such a stubborn supporter of everything Israel.

Israel is not needed to make a Palestinian State - what they are needed for is to get out of land that isn't theirs.

On one hand you say Israel isn't needed, but Israeli action is?

"The right thing to do in this case was to allow the Jewish people a homeland after 2,000 years of murder and persecution."

This is a morally and politically shallow abstraction.

The moral value of creating a Jewish homeland cannot be considered or determined without considering the rights of the people who are displaced by that act. A moral proposition asserted in a vacuum, without reference to human reality is mere sentiment.

All of this is very basic moral reasoning. (The moral value of any action is determined not merely by its intended purpose but also by its real consequences.)

The irony, of course, is that the moral value of creating a jewish homeland because of "2000 years of murder and persecution" is destroyed to the extent that creation of the jewish homeland (in "Greater Isreal") involves the murder and persecution of another people.

Wherever the Jewish people have gone in those 2,000 years, they have encountered varying degrees of horror. Even in the U.S. where they have been welcomes, there has been anti-Semitism, Klan and Nazis, et al.

So the world deciding to fix the problem. It did, but the Arab world did not agree and THAT action set into motion the last 55 years. The Arab attacks displaced the Palestinians. the Arab world has forced this war to continue. They have inflamed it and nurtured it for their own purposes.

Once again -- by failing to acknowledge that the creation of Israel (no matter how wonderful the idea), and currently it's expansion, has historically involved the displacement and persecution of people.

Until you are able to address this fact, your remarks remain mere sentiment and are not worthy of serious discussion.

your post is completely on target

So now it's the Arabs fault that they were displaced by Europeans of Jewish heritage?

LOL....


Are you a comedian by any chance? Where can I get tickets to your show?

And of course the Arab nations have kept it going for 55 years as well.

Ok...first and foremost, Israel up and declared a state on someone else's land. After scores of European Jewry arrived and drove off the original inhabitants since circa 1890. When Israel declared statehood, which could be regarded (and should) as an act of war, only then did the various Arab armies invade. Of course, some would try and argue otherwise, however, the truth has been let out of the bag. Sorry to burst your bubble.

If you can explain Operation Coastal Clearing and how it pre-dates Israeli independence let's talk.

Only 45 per cent of the current population is of European or American Jews. The largest cultural group is Moroccan, the next largest Iraqi. Your assumptions are bsed on propaganda alone.

I said ran off the original inhabitants - which were both Arab and Jew.

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

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

I wouldn't have posted my post with that believing in it.

I actually had something to say rather than "it ain't nuttin but shit."

So don't tell me what I know or do not know. I know that you aren't able to refute it. Tell ya that much Sage man.

is WRONG. And it won't happen, not without a global war.

And EVERYBODY goddamn well knows it.

I know that I would be - fighting for an end to it. A global war is not neccesary for the defense of a Jewish state.

If the Arab world or their proxies in the UN ever seriously try to destroy Israel, Israel has enough firepower to make it a major regional conflict. That, in the oil producing part of the world, would draw in the major powers.

that the UN is made up of Arab "proxies."

He comments how Muslims control not only a huge amount of world oil but 50 nations. Israel has one vote in the UN. They have, by his count 50. And then there are all the nations that want cheap oil.

It doesn't make for a fair process.

no Arab nation sits on the veto part of the security council.

The Security Council is the only institution in the UN that really matters.

The US also has bullying powers.

And you can rest assured that no Arab nation will follow Mahatir's advice - for a variety of reasons.

read it and disguss it instead of using the s word all the time.