One state, two state, three state, four

BY Michael Omer-Man, a journalist based in Jaffa, Israel, focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a particular interest in grassroots initiatives on both sides. He has an academic background in conflict resolution.
http://www.facebook.com/omerman


This is a very interesting and comprehensive article exploring alternatives to the two-state solution.
However it is unclear on the distinction between federation and confederation. This results in confusions between internal state borders and mere limits of national districts, for example.

Omer-Man discusses too the parallel states model, although it seems unrealistic:  what happens to the sovereignty of two overlapping states having the same territory?
The interesting point in this model is the decoupling of  sovereignty  from territory, which nullify the demographic threat.

At the light of those descriptions, my model can be defined as a mix of federation, one-state and " parallel states ": it decouples the nation-states from territory, as the whole territory is under exclusive federal sovereignty; the nation-states rule on their respective citizens, and geographic demography gives their autonomy a territorial basis: regionally in administrative districts where the population is nationally homogeneous, locally in interspersed areas.
There are three level of administration with different competences: local, national and federal. Laws are the same for all at the local and federal levels; they keep a different national or religious coloration at the national level.

Emphasis is mine

One state, two state, three state, four – Part I

More than two decades since the start of the peace process, the two-state solution has become the only acceptable path for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in contemporary discourse. But while the two-state solution may be the only one currently sitting on the table, many others continue to linger around it, waiting for someone to pick them up. The most recent such attempt was the One State Conference held at Harvard University earlier this month, promoting the idea of one liberal state for both Israelis and Palestinians.

The conference was derided by all colors of Israelis and American Zionists as “delegitimizing” Israel. Discussing a one-state solution, some said, “is a euphemism for ending the existence of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.”

The likes of World Jewish Congress Secretary-General Dan Diker, along with various Israeli and world Jewish leaders, dismissed the conference as "anti-Semitic theater." Jerusalem Post columnist Martin Sherman, though decrying the two-state principle as "the source of [Israel’s] de-legitimization," wrote that allowing others - presumably non-Israelis - to lead the discussion about a one-state solution would "invite a new Pearl Harbor."

But while the international mainstream discourse discounts the legitimacy of anything other than the two-state solution, many within Israeli society are pushing back against that notion and openly discussing alternatives. Almost two years before the conference at Harvard, a member of Knesset from the Israeli government’s ruling party lamented: "The taboo that forbids talk about any option other than the two-state solution is almost anti-democratic. It's like brain-gagging."

Accusing both the Right and Left of disillusionment, or at best of having disconnected views of the land they live in, Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely told Haaretz that unlike others, she "do[es] not ignore the fact that there are Palestinians here. Both the Left and the Right choose to shut their eyes to the fact that there are human beings here."

However, Hotovely and a small but growing number of right-wing Israelis who advocate a one-state solution do not share the same vision of the future as those who gathered in Cambridge this month. Unlike the Israeli far-right, the one-state solution advocated by left-leaning Palestinians, Israelis and others is a vision based on the liberal concept of a state of all its citizens.

Hotovely and others, including former Yesha Council head and Netanyahu bureau chief Uri Elitzur, do recognize a moral and political imperative to grant full inclusion in the Jewish state to (most) Palestinians currently residing west of the Jordan River. The main difference between them and views aired at the Harvard conference is that they stop short of giving Palestinians any ownership in that state.

"I want it to be clear that I do not recognize national rights of Palestinians in the Land of Israel. I recognize their human rights and their individual rights, and also their individual political rights - but between the sea and the Jordan there is room for one state, a Jewish state," Hotovely told Haaretz.

While the left-wing, liberal one-state camp may actually stand closer to the more mainstream two-state camp in its recognition of Palestinian national-political rights, right-wingers like Hotovely, Elitzur and even Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin all have a vision that is closer functionally to that expressed by hundreds at the Harvard conference - one state for both Jews and Palestinians.

But those differences are large enough to keep the two discussions separate for the time being.

Although Israeli politicians like Hotovely and Rivlin would not likely be welcomed at the Harvard conference, perhaps it is time Israelis start listening to them -- if for no other reason than to begin openly discussing alternatives to the long-stalled two-state solution. If no fresh and creative thinking is introduced into the long-stalled peace process, the conflict risks true intractability or a solution imposed by one side that secures its goals and needs while abandoning the other’s.

One state, two state, three state, four – Part II

Many supporters of the two-state solution are apprehensive that its failure would eventually lead to one state, bringing to an end its Jewish character. However, there are several well-articulated alternatives that should be examined.

The two-state solution has faced a number of problems that appear to be becoming more and more insurmountable. The question of territory and geographic boundaries lies at the heart of many of those concerns. Israel’s continued settlement enterprise eats away at the territory slated for a future Palestinian state. Furthermore, much of mainstream Israeli thought says that withdrawing to the 1949 Armistice Lines (the Green Line) would leave Israel with “indefensible borders.”

Equally important is the question of whether an independent Palestinian state within the Green Line would actually be viable. The lack of territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is highly problematic. While the most commonly accepted solution to territorial contiguity is an under- or above-ground safe passage between the two territories, that too is far from ideal and in many ways falls short of truly linking the two regions of a future Palestinian state.

For these and a number of other reasons, no matter what the territorial arrangements reached in negotiations resulting in a two-state solution, the borders will likely result in a situation where one party sacrifices far more than the other. In the modern nation-state model (based on Westphalian sovereignty), those boundaries define what a government controls, and are therefore of great importance.

One of the options being discussed as an alternative to the one-state and two-state solutions is confederation.

A federal model can mitigate much of the win-lose nature of sacrificing territory in order to reach the end goal of a resolution to the conflict, or as Israelis refer to it, the land-for-peace model.

In his paper on a federal option, Daniel J. Elazar writes:
“Although borders would be expected to remain open under a federal arrangement, they still must be agreed upon. In drawing the borders, someone wins and someone loses. Yet under a federal arrangement rights beyond the borders are designed to compensate for actual territorial loss.”

Most models for federation between Israel and Palestine acknowledge the intimate and geographically small nature of the land, while addressing the desire or need for national self-determination or self-rule for the different communities and ethnic groups.

Most viable models envision a number of administrative regions – cantons or larger units ranging in number from 3 to 12 – which are given a large measure of local rule while but are subordinate to a federal government whose jurisprudence is limited in scope to those areas of shared concern. The sovereign concept of territorial control is maintained, while removing the limitations of two separate states. Furthermore, the federal model addresses the interspersed Palestinian and Israeli populations and would obviate the need for further transfers or one becoming a demographic threat to the other.

Some examples of various types of federations are the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom.

The federal model also offers an interesting solution to the question of Jerusalem. Just as Washington DC is the seat of the American federal government and essentially an administrative district beyond state control of any of the states, so Jerusalem could serve such a function. If the holy city is put under the control of a joint Israeli-Palestinian federal government, it would inclusively satisfy both nations’ demands that it be their capital.

In the model propagated by the 1947 UN Partition plan and rehashed ever since, Jerusalem was slated to fall under the control of a third party. In the federal model, it would be jointly controlled by Palestinians and Israelis.

The federal model has many problems, perhaps the largest of which is that mutual consent and trust must precede its implementation. Another issue is the great disparity in economic might between Israeli and Palestinian populations as they are constituted today. A third question is who controls the military, its role and what restrictions are placed on it.

But while these unanswered questions can be used to discredit the viability of a federal solution to the conflict, it is important to note that any model, including the two-state solution, is burdened with hurdles that must be overcome.

One state, two state, three state, four – Part III

his is the third and final part of a three-part series exploring alternatives to the two-state solution in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Part one examined attitudes and approaches to the one-state solution. Part two looked at the option of an Israeli-Palestinian federation.

Prospects for a two-state resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have dimmed in recent months and years. Over 60 percent of both Palestinians and Israelis think it is unlikely a Palestinian state will be created in the coming years, according to a recent poll. An equally large majority on both sides opposes accepting the other’s conditions for returning to negotiations toward that goal. Frustrated that interim stages have become a permanent status quo and lamenting the lack of any process, Oslo peace process architects Yossi Beilin and Ahmed Qurei, have both recently called for the dismantling of their design.

Meanwhile, the one-state solution is cast as the only alternative, one that negates both current Zionist political thought and the goals of the Palestinian national movement. Other alternatives are rarely discussed, even as the conflict appears increasingly intractable.

Alternatives to the two-state solution, like the Oslo process itself and any other model for conflict resolution, need not be accepted as absolute prescriptions. Although not necessarily viable, the model outlined below, “parallel states,” offers new ideas for resolving the conflict that can be mined and applied in other ways to advance the all-but-dead peace process. Its radical and creative approach can be valuable in helping to reimagine certain fundamentaly flawed approaches of the two-state solution that have contributed to and perpetuated its failure.

Parallel states

The parallel states model is actually easier conceptualized as overlapping or superimposed states. Its basic idea is that two states, Israel and Palestine, can exist not side-by-side with territorial and demographic boundaries between them, but rather in the same land.

As described by the Parallel States Project:
Can one imagine a scenario with a two state solution, one Israeli state and one Palestinian state in parallel, each for the whole area and with civil rights to all, Israelis and Palestinians, built upon existing political, economic and physical structures? Such a scenario would mean a decoupling of the exclusive link between state and territory, and the notion of two state structures parallel with each other, or “superimposed” upon each other. Both state structures would cover the whole area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.

The people in the whole area would be able to choose freely which state to belong to and at the same time have the right – at least in principle – to settle in the whole territory. Citizenship would be the result of the individual’s free choice and thus follow the citizen, not the territory.
The concept addresses some of the deepest pitfalls of the Oslo-conceptualization of a two-state solution: Both Israelis and Palestinians claim and want more territory than can be divided in such a small land, and; both demand the right to live in territories that would fall on the other side of the border in a two-state solution.

By removing the traditional territorial boundaries encompassed in the modern concept of state sovereignty, those issues become much smaller, all the while satisfying both Israelis’ and Palestinians’ deeply invested desire in the quest for national self-determination, albeit in an alternative and less exclusive manifestation.

Citizens can choose to be citizens in the state they feel most associated with and represented by, which would carry separate national symbols and identities. Reality on the ground would be much closer to a one-state solution.

Palestinians could live in Israel proper and Jews would be allowed to live in the West Bank. As citizenship is decoupled from territory, the idea of demographics threats to a state whose character is defined by the religion and ethnicity of the majority of its population can be cast aside: The increasingly difficult prospect in Israel of balancing “Jewish and democratic” would become irrelevant.

Some areas of governance not necessarily linked to geographic control could be placed under the separate jurisdictions of respective Palestinian and Israeli states, including overseas diplomatic representation and some areas of civil and family law. Other areas of governance, such as security, infrastructure, policing and taxation would be conducted jointly.

Admittedly, the idea is far fetched and has more problems than can be touched upon in such a topical examination. But by reimagining the model for post-conflict coexistence, new ideas for resolving the conflict can be gleaned.

After nearly 20 years of failed attempts at finding and implementing various models for a two-state solution, there can be no harm in examining other, new and even admittedly unviable alternatives. Although its advocates will continue pushing to advance the two-state solution with hopeful stubbornness, one must also recall a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results."

Follow Michael Omer-Man on Twitter: @ConflictedLand

Toward confederation

Interesting article by a Professor of Political Science.

In his confederation, Palestine is supposedly sovereign but have no army.
No solution for borders and sharing of Jerusalem...
He does not explain either why "A federation called The United States of Israel and Palestine is not much better" than a unitary state.
A confederal treaty not mentioning Jerusalem, borders and refugees could be a first step, but it will have to evolve into a true supranational federation: like Europe, made too of different nation-states.

Emphasis is mine.

Toward confederation
By RONALD TIERSKY
08/05/2012

Palestinians know approximately what they will have to accept. Finding the least bad solution consonant with defeat is their unenviable task.

Israel’s strategic problem in historical terms is, ultimately, how to win a war well. The Palestinian problem is to avoid losing this war in the most drawn-out, worst possible way.

Palestinians (including any realistic Hamas leaders), know approximately what they will have to accept. Finding the least bad solution consonant with defeat is their unenviable task. Yet neither is Israel completely free, because victory can be dangerous. Israel needs a strategy that isn’t in the end self-defeating.

Realistically, the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma is this: In what circumstances could the strong safely show magnanimity and the weak believe they are getting an acceptable result? Intractable conflicts can sometimes be unblocked by enlarging the problem, by increasing the number of players, stakes and potential rewards.

All the “one-state” solutions – whether bi-national or a federation – are non-starters because Israeli Jews rightly refuse to sacrifice their own interest in a grand gesture of philanthropy.

Majorities in Israeli and Palestinian public opinion would doubtless accept a simple two-state solution if leaders agreed on it. Israel’s current government, however, seems not really interested whatever lip-service it is given from time to time. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s “economic peace” formula in effect replaces the creation of a Palestinian state with Israeli-sponsored economic development in the West Bank combined with an oppressive, volatile political status quo.

A way forward is to find a larger formula that increases the rewards and reduces costs for Israelis and Palestinians, and involves outside states as guarantors. Complexity and flexibility in this case are advantages. What is necessary is an institutional structure that limits to a minimum the binding links for Israel and at the same time provides time and space for Palestinian self-government and proof of competence to evolve, including stopping the violence on both sides.

A minimal, complex and flexible Israeli-Palestinian confederation, here meaning a two-state solution within the confines of a larger confederation, is a promising alternative.

Two sovereign states wrapped in a semi-state, a less-than-a-state.

Confederation – political and economic – could provide what Israelis and Palestinians, and outside powers, want most: guaranteed mutual security of the two states, reliable peace in the region, diminished capacity for Islamist terrorist groups to use the conflict as a pretext, and economic and social progress.

What is a confederation, how does it differ from a one-state solution, and what would be its international legal basis? A confederation differs from a binational single state and also from a federation of two states.

Some states are unitary, ruled entirely from the national capital (France). Others are federations in which power is shared in some balance between a national government and the states that compose it (the US, Germany). A few are confederations (Switzerland is a modern example).

Unique in world political development, the European Union is extremely complex: a hybrid combination of historical nation-states and national capitals with European-level institutions located in Brussels and elsewhere.

EU institutions are in part confederal (EU summit meetings in various cities), part federal (the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, the European Central Bank in Frankfurt) and part strict national sovereignty (major foreign policy decisions, above all decisions for war or peace in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya).

In the EU, complexity is often a curse but it does provide benefits as well, for example deflecting conflict into ambiguity and permitting the whole to survive even as one part falls into crisis (cf. the current Eurozone debt mess).

The EU is of particular relevance here because, although not wellknown, in international legal terms the entire EU is still a treaty organization (Maastricht) because a proposed constitution for it didn’t achieve ratification in 2005.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because it is also unique, requires a particularly imaginative legal and institutional structure.

Why not one state or two states? In the Holy Land a unitary state called Israel-Palestine makes no historical or political sense. A federation called The United States of Israel and Palestine is not much better.

What of a confederation? Normally a confederation means a constitution, weak but nonetheless more than a treaty. Sovereignty rests with the composing states.

(The American Articles of Confederation before 1789 are an example.) But if a Holy Land confederation is based on a treaty rather than a constitution, Israel’s national constitution and sovereignty are always superior (as would be true also for a Palestinian state). A treaty in this case would be more durable than a constitution.

A treaty is usually made for a specified period of years and renewed (NATO is an example). A constitution, however, is implicitly permanent.

If the situation on the ground goes sufficiently bad, a treaty can perfectly well be renounced (cf. current concerns about Egyptian repudiation of the peace treaty with Israel.) What would happen in practice as politics in the confederation? For example, there would be no common elections or governments.

Israeli and Palestinian parliaments might meet jointly once or twice a year for a few days, to get to know each other and create common culture more than to legislate. Existing Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation could be given formal legal status in the treaty. Once or twice yearly summit meetings of top national leaders could be mandated along with more frequent councils of ministers in a particular policy area, say agriculture (as in the EU).

In short, a treaty-based confederation sidesteps the entire zero-sum one-state two-state drama.

For Israel, in particular, confederation deals with intractable issues of Palestinian political sovereignty.

Creating a Palestinian state within a confederation would not increase but actually diminish threats to Israel’s security. Having their own state, Palestinian obsession with Israel, the ideological passion about sovereignty, borders and revenge, would shift to ambitions for more prosperous lives with individual dignity. Gaza, now such a special case, could join the Palestinian state immediately combined with the West Bank. If, however, Palestinian unity were impossible, Gaza could evolve over time one way or another.

For Palestinians, entrepreneurial energy and private sector business development would stimulate the growth of a more complex civil society connected to the wider world. A Palestinian state that issues internationally recognized passports permitting its citizens to freely visit the world would change the mind-set of young and old generations alike.

Speculating even further ahead, the confederation could encompass not just Israel and Palestine but, sooner or later, Jordan as well. Stimulating Jordanian economic and social development is a good in itself. Security across the entire confederation could be guaranteed by a combination of sovereign Israeli military and police forces, a Palestinian internal police force, a Jordanian participation, and overlapping security guarantees in the form of international boots on the ground: the US, UN and NATO (including Turkey). Jordanian domestic political reform would be de-dramatized.

A more cosmopolitan Israel can afford to deal differently with the Palestinians, who have by now suffered and been punished enough for disastrous policies of the past.

Israel would win its war well if a Palestinian state were created not against Israel’s will but sponsored and even mentored by Israel.

Inevitably, new international esteem would follow. The high cards are in Israeli hands.

The writer is the Eastman Professor of Political Science at Amherst College.

A federated state for Israelis and Palestinians

Source: A federated state for Israelis and Palestinians
By JAY BUSHINSKY
03/05/2012

Emphasis is mine.
Source:
[...] If Netanyahu manages to forge a new coalition that would have the middle-of-the-road Kadima party as a major component and leaves the Jewish religious and nationalist extremists on the parliamentary sidelines, he may escape the pressure constantly bearing down on him from the West Bank settlers who constantly seek territorial acquisitions.

Theoretically, he could then launch a process that would require the dismantling of a substantial number of settlements and the removal of unauthorized outposts further to the east.

A proposed exchange of territory that might enable many of the settlements to remain intact already has public support from Kadima. Its newly elected leader, Shaul Mofaz, is on the record as favoring a deal of this kind. But the transfer of thousands of hard-line settlers from the West Bank to ante bellum Israel would be a daunting if not politically impossible task.

This apparent fact of life bears out the contention that the permission given by the incumbent government and several of its predecessors for 350,000 to 500,000 Jewish settlers to move into the West Bank was a major mistake.

The financial cost of relocating them would be prohibitive, not to mention the fury of the inevitable social backlash in ante bellum Israel that would be a by-product.

All of these considerations suggest that it would be wise for Netanyahu, his party and the electorate as a whole to consider seriously whether there indeed are alternatives to the seemingly inoperable two-state solution.

One of them may be the hitherto unthinkable one-state solution: Annexation of the West Bank and extension of Israeli citizenship to its Palestinian inhabitants on the basis of total equality and political freedom.

This notion has been resisted in the past by Orthodox religious politicians who fear that it would set the stage for intermarriages between Jews and Arabs. But where and when did such an esoteric issue like intermarriage form the basis of any country’s political program? That has not been the case in Ireland, Ceylon or Nigeria where rival ethnic or religious groups also are required to live under one political roof.

In the local case, the one-state solution would take the form of a federation made up of two entities – one primarily Jewish and the other primarily Arab (in demographic terms).

Each entity could have its own parliament and governmental administration.


The state as a whole could have a federal government which would be responsible primarily for national security (for the entire territory of the federated state) – foreign policy and economic affairs including a common currency for both entities (as already exists in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip). The federal government’s personnel and leadership would be drawn from the two entitities.

Ironically, annexation was originally proposed by the late Chaim Herzog when he served as the first military governor of the West Bank immediately after the Six Day War.

He was opposed then by the National Religious Party which was destined to spawn the ideological core of Gush Emunim and other Jewish settlement movements.


Its rationale then too was that annexation would foster intermarriage.

It all boils down to the likelihood that the prospective election will give Netanyahu a chance to implement domestic reforms, especially in the economic and social spheres.

These should include a more equitable distribution of private income so as to reduce or (preferably) eliminate the phenomenon of so-called “tycoons” lording it over the rest of the economy, and reduction of the cost of new or suitable housing so that young couples will be able to afford it and the deterioration of overcrowded neighborhoods can be stopped.

The winner (presumably Netanyahu) also might be in a better position to rehabilitate the tens of thousands of Africans who entered Israel illegally in the past five years, by integrating as many of them as possible and facilitating the emigration or deportation of those who cannot adjust to Israeli society to alternative destinations elsewhere in the world. These steps certainly are preferable to letting them converge on neglected urban areas, especially south Tel Aviv, and turning them into crime-infested slums.

The writer is a veteran foreign correspondent.

בקיץ שעבר נפגשנו כמאל נוואש ואני עם חבר הכנסת איברהים צרצור. הרעיון עשה כנראה את דרכו...

אני הדגשתי.

בניגוד לחוק יסוד: א-סנע יציע מדינה דו לאומית

http://news.walla.co.il/?w=%2F9%2F2516727

מאת: פנחס וולף, מערכת וואלה! חדשות

יום רביעי, 14 במרץ 2012, 17:16

יו"ר מד"ע, אחת מהמפלגות המרכיבות את רע"ם-תע"ל, יבקש גם לבטל את חוק השבות והחלפתו בזכות השיבה לכל. "הפתרון היחיד הוא מדינה שתממש זכות ההגדרה העצמית לשני העמים"

תגיות: טאלב א-סנע,מד"ע,רע"ם-תע"ל

"לא תהיה מדינת ישראל, לא תהיה מדינה פלסטינית. לכל אזרח תהינה זכות הצבעה וזכות שיבה". א-סנע (צילום ארכיון: עומר מירון)

לראשונה בישראל: מפלגה ערבית קיימת תבקש לרוץ לכנסת על בסיס מצע של מדינה דו לאומית, ביטול חוק השבות והחלפתו ב"זכות שיבה" לכל. לוואלה! חדשות נודע כי יושב ראש מפלגת מד"ע (המפלגה הדמוקרטית הערבית), ח"כ טאלב א-סנע, צפוי להביא את הנושא לאישור ועידת מפלגתו בשבת הקרובה. סיעת רע"מ-תע"ל מורכבת משלוש מפלגות: רע"מ (רשימה ערבית מאוחדת), מד"ע (מפלגה דמוקרטית ערבית) ותע"ל (תנועה ערבית להתחדשות). נציגי רע"מ ברשימה הם איברהים צרצור ומסעוד גנאים, נציג תע"ל הוא אחמד טיבי וא-סנע הוא נציג מד"ע. אם וועידת מד"ע תאשר את הצעתו, היא תבטל בכך את עמדתה הרשמית בעד שתי מדינות לשני עמים.

אישור ההצעה צפוי לעורר זעם רב במסדרונות הפוליטיים, עד כדי ניסיון לפסול את הרשימה, בשל העובדה שההצעה נוגדת את סעיף 7א בחוק יסוד: הכנסת, הקבוע כי רשימה לא תוכל להתמודד לכנסת, בין היתר אם היא שוללת את קיומה של מדינת ישראל כמדינה יהודית ודמוקרטית. "בג"ץ לא יכול להתערב ברעיון מוסרי", טען היום (רביעי) א-סנע בשיחה עם וואלה! חדשות.

לדבריו, על פי ההצעה שלו, "לא תהיה מדינת ישראל, לא תהיה מדינה פלסטינית. לכל אזרח תהינה זכות הצבעה וזכות שיבה. נבטל את חוק השבות. במציאות שנוצרה אין סיכוי בעולם שתקום מדינה פלסטינית שיש לה אפשרויות להתקיים ולקיים את אזרחיה. המציאות של התנחלויות בפועל יצרו מציאות בשטח, והפתרון היחיד הוא מדינה אחת לשני העמים שתהווה מימוש לזכות ההגדרה העצמית לשני העמים".

במענה לשאלה האם הוא לא חושש מפסילת רשימתו, השיב א-סנע כי, "זה הפתרון שייתן גם ביטחון וגם שלום. אנחנו צריכים להיות מציאותיים. האפשרות האחרת היא מדינת אפרטהייד, כאשר ליהודים תהיה זכות הצבעה ולידם פלסטיניים שחיים במחנות פליטים ובערים, או מציאות של כיבוש. שתי האפשרויות לא חוקיות מבחינה פוליטית. הפתרון שלנו גם לא מאמץ רעיון של פירוק התנחלויות. ומצד שני נותן הגדרה לפלסטיניים כולל זכות שיבה". א-סנע הוסיף כי "אנו מפלגה דמוקרטית וזה חלק מהדיון הדמוקרטי. אי אפשר להתעלם מהדיונים המתרחשים, אולם בסופו של דבר הרוב במוסדות המפלגה הוא שיכריע".

The Federal Idea Lives On

The Federal Idea Lives On

     by Joel Pollak

Book Review

From Binational Society to Jewish State:Federal Concepts in Zionist Political Thought, 1920-1990by Yosef Gorny.

Emphasis is mine.

Yosef Gorny introduces his concise yet complex description of the history of Zionist federalism by describing his “disillusionment” about the prospects of confederation between Israel and its neighbors. Indeed, one of the most puzzling features about this otherwise informative and enjoyable book — hinting, perhaps, at a kind of agnostic post-Zionism — is its conclusion, in which Gorny claims that Zionism “is beginning its second historical journey” — back to Europe, where “a third-largest Jewish center [after the U.S. and Israel] … may well come into being.”

     Gorny, a historian who now heads the institute for the research of Jewish press and media at Tel Aviv University, is not, like former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg, giving up on Zionism and celebrating the diaspora. Rather, he is expressing a deep concern about the fate of the Jewish people if there is no resolution to the Middle East conflict.

     At the outset, Gorny defines different versions of the “federal” idea. A “federation” is “a sovereign state composed of autonomous political units that derive their power from one political center”; a “confederation” is “a regional alliance of sovereign states that maintain joint institutions in various domains.” Power devolves down in the former, and up in the latter.

     He goes on to demonstrate how different versions of the federal idea have been proposed by various Zionist leaders as a way of bridging the gap between utopian national visions and the practical obstacles to establishing and maintaining a state. Often, federation and confederation were proposed to provide an answer to the fact or potential of a Jewish minority in Palestine and to Israel’s isolation among Arab nations.

     Gorny excludes versions of the federal idea, such as certain forms of bi-nationalism, that did not uphold the general Zionist principle of a Jewish majority in the part of Palestine where Jewish self-determination would be exercised. He explores the ideas of mainstream Zionist leaders on both the left and the right, and shows how the federal idea was inspired by various precedents, including federal arrangements in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the United States. Zionist leaders who proposed federal ideas often changed their models as circumstances changed. Thus David Ben-Gurion first proposed (separate) autonomy for Jews and Arabs in Palestine in 1922; a joint federation of Jewish and Arab nations in the mid-1920s; a complex federal arrangement between Jews and Arabs in 1931; and a confederation of a Jewish state within a larger Arab formation in the mid-1930s.

     One of the most interesting subjects Gorny addresses is the federal idealism of Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky, who is considered a right-wing and militant thinker. Gorny points out that Jabotinsky was in some ways a political liberal, and that despite his view that Jews would have to resort to the use of force, he continued to believe in a federal solution that would recognize the rights of both Jews and Arabs.

     Gorny demonstrates that in their deliberations, the Zionist leaders were capable of considering a wide range of different ideas. The idea of “transfer” — which was considered impractical but not “morally illegitimate” in the 1920s, having recently been implemented in Turkey and Greece — coexisted with utopian ideas of shared states and confederations.

     Demography played a role in the formulation of the various models, just as it does today. After the Six Day War, Israeli Labor politicians Aryeh Eliav and Shimon Peres proposed different federal models as a way of resolving the moral and demographic challenges of occupation. Today, the “demographic threat” is in doubt, given the Gaza disengagement and questions about the accuracy of Palestinian population projections.

     The geopolitical environment has also changed, with Arab states now prepared — at least in theory — to accept peace with (if not the legitimacy of) Israel, in accordance with the Arab Peace Initiative.

     These two factors, perhaps unforeseen by Gorny at the time of writing, have pushed the federal idea even further to the margins of Israeli discourse. However, it has not disappeared, because the fundamental conflict between Jews and Arabs remains to be resolved.

     If the next few years should indeed see some form of Palestinian state emerge, there will also be a need for institutional arrangements between the two states to govern affairs that must be dealt with in common, such as water. The economic success of the Palestinian state will also depend on its ties to the Israeli economy, which will require continued political cooperation. Therefore, Gorny’s pessimism may be premature: For practical reasons, if not for idealistic ones, the federal idea still lives.

THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN UNION: THE “1–2–7 STATES” VISION OF THE FUTURE

THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN UNION: THE “1–2–7 STATES” VISION OF THE FUTURE


Israeli scholar Lev Grinberg starts from a critique of the one- and two-state solutions to suggest an alternative vision including elements of both. The proposed formula is an Israeli-Palestinian Union with different layers of state institutions: a shared administration based on parity representation located in the unified capital of Jerusalem, two separate democratic nation-states, and seven provinces (or federal states) belonging to one of the two nation-states. The author sees this “1–2–7 states” vision of the future as a way of containing the conflict in the absence of an ideal solution.


The Israeli-Palestinian Union: The "1-2-7 States" Vision of the Future, by Lev Grinberg

Thinking outside the box: Alternatives to the one- and two-state solutions

LEV GRINBERG

Emphasis is mine.

IMAGINATION IS A NECESSARY but insufficient precondition for political change. Equally crucial are the political capacity to negotiate and compromise, a relatively even balance of power, and the authority (and popular support) to implement agreements. In addition to a lack of any shared vision, all these elements were absent in the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” of 1993–2000. Two charismatic leaders allegedly committed to the two-state solution, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat, failed to agree on borders, postponed negotiations, and neglected to take steps to start decolonization. Their failure, compounded by subsequent developments on the ground, critically jeopardized the two-state solution’s future chances of success. The one-state scenario on the other hand has not even reached the table. In light of the obstacles in the way of these two most commonly mentioned solutions, this essay suggests an alternative vision of how to contain the conflict in the absence of reaching a “solution.”

DEMOCRATIZATION, DECOLONIZATION, AND INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN

Democratic political institutions are not designed to solve conflicts but to contain them through negotiations and legitimize the compromises made by the elites representing dominant and dominated groups. In the absence of agreed political institutions, violence becomes the basic expression of the conflict and a means to achieve goals. Dominant groups use state institutions to rule unilaterally, including by stepping up military repression, and dominated groups react by using violence aimed at achieving recognition of their leadership and claims.

Democracy is a specific set of institutions that developed in Europe in the nineteenth century as a result of increasing class conflict and the formation of nation-states. The two structural preconditions of democratization were a balance of power between dominant and dominated classes and a clear demarcation of borders (physical and symbolic) defining the potential citizenry. Without these preconditions, it is difficult to establish democratic institutions capable of containing conflicts, and without such institutions conflicts easily deteriorate into violence: civil wars, authoritarian regimes, or both. But while European states tended toward internal democracy, their expansion was at the same time based on disproportionate economic and military power relative to other regions of the world, and they used this power to impose nondemocratic institutions on these regions to rule them unilaterally. The struggle of the peoples dominated by Europe to gain recognition and inclusion in the polity could not be contained by these state institutions because they were imposed unilaterally by external colonial and imperial power.

With regard to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the basic factors preventing its success were the power imbalance between the two parties and the inability to determine borders between the mutually influenced and penetrated Israeli and Palestinian political arenas. With regard to the latter, Israel’s own contradiction between democracy and colonialism—which it attempted to mask by way of a “dual democratic-military regime”—stands as a major obstacle. This dual regime, comprising a formal democracy within the 1949–67 borders and a military regime in the West Bank and Gaza,  involves two separate struggles: a democratic struggle for equal rights within the sovereign and recognized borders of Israel and a struggle to end the occupation in the Palestinian territories.

In addition to the Israeli and Palestinian political arenas, there is also a third arena of interrelations—an Israeli-Palestinian political arena—that includes individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions of both communities. Indeed, the peace process itself was really an attempt to coordinate and synchronize the opening of these three political spaces.  A key impediment to achieving this goal was the agreement under Oslo to start democratization (via Palestinian elections) combined with the decision to postpone the decolonization of the occupied territories (i.e., dismantle Jewish settlements, grant economic sovereignty to the Palestinians, and end military rule). A broader reason for the failure to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, then, was the complex interaction among the three political arenas, and this complexity will continue to be a crucial factor in the future. Two conclusions flow from this: Israeli power needs to be balanced by international intervention, and political institutions should be put in place that are able to contain conflicts by opening space for representation and mediation in these three political arenas.

To design the institutions necessary to contain the conflicts in the Israeli-Palestinian matrix, it is necessary to understand the specific tensions involved. This is a matter of institutional design requiring a new vision of the future. Whether or not the agreed institutions can be installed and consolidated depends on the political will of the elites and the popular support they can mobilize. It is true that the one- and two-state solutions are also visions of the future, but they do not sufficiently address the complexities of history and the Israeli/Palestinian societies’ present situation, nor do they account for the need to contain conflicts through facilitating institutions. In other words, neither provides for institutions that can work as containers of expected social conflicts.

THE TWO-STATE AND ONE-STATE SOLUTIONS

    Until October 2000, the most popular vision for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was two separate nation-states. Since then, however, the one-state solution, understood as the promotion of one binational state, has been gaining popularity among Palestinian intellectuals due to the failure of the Oslo process.  Neither of these solutions, in my view, is viable in the present reality, necessitating a search for a new formula, possibly one that combines elements of both.

The two-state solution is based on the European model of nation-states, whereas the one-state solution is based on the European model of liberal democracy. But as mentioned above, neither model reflects the current economic, political, cultural, and military realities in Israel/Palestine or offers any plausible transition from the current dual military-democratic regime. Moving toward either scenario from the present reality would at best create tensions while being incapable of containing the tensions and conflicts inevitable after their implementation.

The two-state model involves a return to the pre-1967 borders (with minimal agreed territorial exchanges) and the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza connected by a passage that traverses Israeli territory. This solution assumes both a recognized border separating both states and military forces capable of controlling these borders and protecting their respective citizens. But the demarcation of borders and their effective defense seem almost impossible given the mutual penetration of populations in this relatively small piece of land, not to mention other particularly intractable issues such as sovereignty over Jerusalem and the holy sites.


Democracy and security represent two additional major obstacles to the two-state model. With regard to the former, this solution assumes that Israel is the state of the Jews,  yet some 18 percent of Israel’s citizens are Palestinians unwilling to accept their inferior status whatever agreements the PLO might sign. This means that the two-state solution maintains the national conflict within the borders of the Jewish state, which will be unable to contain it by the democratic means of equal representation. Security, meanwhile, is the primordial problem in Israeli discourse. The idea of an eternal and ahistorical insecurity, while rooted in the traumatic past of the Jews in Europe and the Holocaust, as well as in ancient religious texts, has been the national myth since 2000. Even before, a clear Israeli precondition in all negotiations has always been disarmament of the Palestinian state so as to rule out the possibility of any Palestinian military force capable of confronting the Israeli military. Moreover, given the unlikelihood that a Palestinian state could ever be allowed to attain real independence and sovereignty or autonomy, the Palestinian opposition would have good reason to continue violence against its powerful neighbor. In such a situation, it is not unreasonable to assume that after withdrawal from the occupied territories a revisionist Israeli political movement could win elections on a platform calling for the military reoccupation of the Palestinian state.

The one-state solution is ideologically opposed by most Israelis and, more importantly, by the Jewish state, which can easily obstruct it. Moreover, both national communities still prefer to remain autonomous, independent, and undetermined by the other, their lingering attachment to the two-state solution being based on the illusion that it will allow each to be rid of the other. Indeed, Palestinian advocates of the one-state solution sometimes seem to press the issue mainly to emphasize the antidemocratic nature of the Israeli military occupation and the Jewish state rather than with the aim of designing political institutions able to contain the conflict in the future.

The idea of one democratic liberal state can be very attractive in principle, but without conditions of deep mutual recognition between the two communities, formal democratic institutions cannot guarantee political stability. Instead of opening political space to new agendas in civil society common to Jews and Palestinians, the one-state solution, if implemented, could institutionalize their national mobilization against each other and neutralize potential space for shared interests. Indeed, in the charged mutual hostility characterizing Israeli-Palestinian relations, democracy itself could be a source of conflict, exacerbating the demographic race, strengthening mutual fears, and encouraging disputes over migration (the Palestinian right of return and the Jewish Law of Return). A democratic state without additional political institutions could only enhance the politicization of religion and the polarization of extremist ethno-national trends.

THE “1–2–7 STATES” ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN UNION VISION

Looking beyond the present impasse, a major effort of institutional design is required to invent political frameworks capable of containing inevitable conflicts by agreed-upon rules that produce representation and dialogue. These institutions must embody the positive aspects of both the one- and two-state solutions and overcome their obstacles. It is not my intention to enter into details about the specific institutions, which need to be worked out by research institutions and think tanks before being negotiated and implemented, but it would seem obvious that a system responding to the above criteria would involve some creative combination of consociation, confederation, and federative institutions.

The solution I propose is an Israeli-Palestinian Union (IPU), which would include one shared administration based on parity representation located in the unified capital of Jerusalem, two separate democratic nation-states, and a minimum of seven provinces (or federal states) that would be part of either nation-state and would enjoy relative autonomy.  The vision of the “1–2–7” IPU is mainly based on my interpretation of the Israeli-Palestinian triple matrix of relations,  but it is also informed by models of the European Union (EU) and German federal institutions.

The separate governments of the two national states would administer everything that can be separated: land, education, health, police, local government, tourism, culture, religion, sports, and so on. The IPU government would administer everything that is indivisible: infrastructure, communications, water, energy, transportation, ecology, the sacred places, and Jerusalem. In contrast to the national states, where demographic changes would be democratically represented, the IPU institutions would be founded on the principles of parity and mutual veto. One of the main tasks of the IPU shared administration would be to erase the demographic fears fanned by democracy—namely, Jewish fears of the Palestinian right of return and Palestinian fears of Jewish immigration, territorial expansion, and displacement. During the early years, the IPU government would probably require the participation of an international body to mediate disagreements and foster compromise.

Two more complex issues are security and the economy: while violence would be the most likely factor to sabotage any political agreement, the second would probably be the economic gap between Israelis and Palestinians. These two areas would require the most creative efforts, supported by international institutions. With regard to security, it is highly improbable that a peaceful solution could survive without the total disarmament of all civilians, Jews and Palestinians, and the backing of a major international peace force, which would need to have a clearly defined mission, to protect Palestinians from Israeli military forces.

If the economic institutions are improperly designed and implemented, they could easily undermine political support for the agreements and ultimately derail the process. A major Israeli and Palestinian motivation in the initial peace negotiations was economic: Israelis wanted to participate in the globalized economy and Palestinians wanted stable jobs, investments, and growth.  Ultimately, Israelis achieved their goals, but the Palestinians did not.  Learning from earlier mistakes, all economic agreements would have to aim at closing the economic gap through state intervention and counterbalancing the power of Israeli technology, financial institutions, and industry. The dominant economic position of Israeli elites helps them benefit from “free markets,” whether these are “free trade zones” or “custom unions.”  The economic arrangements of the IPU must therefore consciously work against a direct link between identity and material welfare, or an explosive situation could arise.

The economic policy must be designed to counterbalance economic gaps, mainly between Israel and Palestine, but also within each national community. This is one of the main goals of the IPU administration and the seven regional states, which would be designed according to salient economic gaps between areas of the IPU. The central administration would collect taxes and allocate them within an equalizing logic. The model I have in mind is the German federal financial system. The principle is that the IPU administration would collect progressive taxes according to the wealth of distinct areas and would later redistribute them according to the number of citizens in each state and their needs. The social security system would follow the same logic in relation to individuals and families. All these systems would have to be very well planned at the technical, professional, and administrative levels and would need the advice of international institutions.

The division of each nation-state into three or more regional states would have not only an economic equalizing goal but also a pluralistic and representative democratic logic. The various regional states could have very different cultural and religious preferences and complex community relations. The differences between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Gaza and Ramallah, are examples of these internal national differences. The IPU’s division into regional states, the establishment of local parliaments, democratic deliberations in each state, and even local legislation, could be expected to open space to multicultural and multireligious communities, which might be ignored, repressed, or misrecognized within the two dominant identities.

INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION

    Throughout past Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Israel has been consistently determined to avoid any third-party intervention (except that of the United States), believing that such involvement would support Palestinian claims.  From this, I conclude that in order to reach an agreement, third-party mediation is precisely what should be done: without international intervention consciously aimed at balancing Israel’s power and reducing U.S. and EU military, economic, and political support, no fair and durable agreement can be achieved. In direct negotiations, no substantial Israeli compromise can be expected, and if Palestinian negotiators accept Israel’s conditions out of weakness and dependency, the implementation of the agreement will fail because other Palestinian actors will reject or sabotage it.

From 1992 to 2008 various U.S. administrations have supported the position of the Israeli moderates in the best case (Bill Clinton) or even converged with the most extremist Israeli government (George W. Bush).  The only times when international intervention played a positive role in Israeli peace negotiations (notably by balancing Israel’s powerful position) were related not to Palestine but to the Arab states. The first time was in the 1978 Camp David negotiations between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat under Jimmy Carter; the second was when George H.W. Bush forced the Israeli government to participate in the 1991 Madrid Conference. In both cases, the interventions directly influenced internal Israeli politics, empowering actors supporting peace and compromise. In the Israeli-Palestinian arena, the need for intervention is even greater and obviously depends on the international context, not only local developments.

Since Barack Obama was elected president of the United States in late 2008, expectations of U.S. pressure on the Israeli government to negotiate a peaceful agreement with the PLO have mounted. International pressure on Israel is indeed a necessary precondition to balance its power vis-à-vis the Palestinians. However, if the pressure is to implement the two-state solution, it will almost certainly fail and might even enhance the Israeli tendency to impose unacceptable conditions on the Palestinians and later blame them for any failure. This has been Israel’s strategy since 1947, refined during the Oslo negotiations for the two-state solution, and most dramatically following the Camp David summit in 2000.

The general goal of negotiations must not be to establish two states or one, but to abolish Jewish supremacy over all the land and build political institutions capable of containing expected tensions in the future in the three separate political arenas of Israel, Palestine, and Israel/Palestine. Obviously, such a major step cannot be made in the present violent situation of Israeli military domination, economic strangulation, and nonrecognition of the elected government in Gaza. An interim hudna (truce) must be reached to change this situation and facilitate creative and constructive negotiations. The fundamental elements of a hudna could serve as the point of entry into the occupied territories for an international peace force, which would allow freedom of movement and economic development for Palestinians and start the dismantlement of Jewish settlements. Only after a truce is signed and the Palestinians and Israelis begin to feel some relief and trust in the possibility of reconstruction can a new future be imagined. Only then can we start thinking about how to build our shared future in Israel/Palestine.

NOTES

1. For an expanded theoretical background of my interpretation of political institutions, conflict, and violence, see Lev L. Grinberg, Politics and Violence in Israel/Palestine: Democracy versus Military Rule (London: Routledge, 2009).

2. Lev L. Grinberg, “Israel’s Dual Regime Since 1967,” MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies 3 (Spring 2008), pp. 59–80.

3.Dual regime is the basic concept; however, there are several specific forms of military domination in different areas. For example, conditions in East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip are very different from those in the West Bank. Each area is dominated differently.

4. For an interpretation of the Israeli-Palestinian triple matrix of relations, see Lev L. Grinberg, “A Theoretical Framework for the Analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” International Review of Sociology 1 (1994), pp. 68–89.

5. Jamil Hilal, Where Now for Palestine? The Demise of the Two-State Solution (London: Zed Books, 2007).

6. For a discussion of the reasons for the failure of the peace talks, see Grinberg, Politics and Violence.

7.Israel’s recognition as a Jewish state has already been raised in the negotiations, see Ian Lustick, “Abandoning the Iron Wall: Israel and ‘The Middle Eastern Muck’,” Middle East Policy 15, no. 3 (Fall 2008), pp. 30–56.

8.This is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main argument against Palestinian independence: we already withdrew from Gaza and the Palestinians reacted with Qassams. This is obviously a propaganda manipulation, but it is expected to work as a mobilizing nationalist argument in the future, including against Netanyahu if he signs a withdrawal agreement as a result of international pressure.

9. The number of federal states would depend on political negotiations and the criteria used by the negotiators to determine their borders. The seven I refer to are Jerusalem, Beersheba, al-Khalil/Hebron, Gaza, Haifa, Ramallah, and Yaffa-Tel Aviv, the capitals of the federal states I envisage. There could be up to fifteen federal states if the areas were further divided according to economic gaps, demographic composition, and geographic obstacles.

10. See Grinberg, Politics and Violence.

11. See Amira Hass, Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land under Siege (London: H. Hamilton, 1999); Uri Savir, The Process: 1,100 Days that Changed the Middle East (New York: Vintage, 1999); Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

12. See Sara Roy, “Decline and Disfigurement: The Palestinian Economy after Oslo” in Roane Carey, ed., The New Intifada: Resisting Israel’s Apartheid (London: Verso, 2001); and Leila Farsakh, Palestinian Labour Migration to Israel: Labour, Land and Occupation (London and New York: Routledge, 2005).

13. See Lev L. Grinberg, “Economic Strangulation Ring: Three Turning Points in Forty Years of Economic-Military Control” [in Hebrew], Theory and Criticism 30 (2008).

14.Savir, The Process.

15. Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004).

16. Yoram Meital, Peace in Tatters: Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East (Boulder: Lynne Reiner Publishers, 2005).

Could the Nakba and Palestinian dispersion have been prevented in 1948?

Why the UN Partition Plan Wasn't Implemented

Could the Nakba and Palestinian dispersion have been prevented in 1948?

The conclusion of this article is:

"the acceptance of the 1947 partition resolution by the Palestinian Arab leadership could possibly have prevented the armed conflict and its tragic consequences."

I advise - in order to get a good view of the historical context to read:

1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine

Haj Amin al-Husseini

Emphasis is mine.

Why the UN Partition Plan Wasn't Implemented

An examination of whether or not the Palestinians and Arabs actually rejected the partition plan.

     by Moshe Ma’oz

The UN plan to divide Palestine into independent Arab and Jewish states and a Special International Regime for Jerusalem (November, 1947) had been preceded by a somewhat similar design in July 1937. At that time, the British Peel Commission recommended that Mandate Palestine be partitioned into a small Jewish state, comprising the Galilee, the Jezreal Valley and the coastal plain, and a large Arab state - the rest of Palestine united with Transjordan. Jerusalem, Bethlehem and a few other areas would remain a British Mandate zone.1
The major cause for the 1937 partition proposal, namely that Arab and Jewish interests could not be reconciled, was aggravated in 1947, after both parties rejected the 1946 recommendation by an Anglo-American committee to establish a bi-national state in Palestine under UN trusteeship. While the Jewish community accepted the 1937 and 1947 partition plans, the Palestinian Arab leadership, dominated by the Husseini family, rejected both plans categorically. Indeed, most Palestinians turned down the 1937 design, even though it designated only 20 percent of Palestine to the proposed Jewish state. Furthermore, the Palestinian leadership even rejected the 1939 British White Paper, which had promised them an independent state within ten years while limiting Jewish immigration and turning the Jews into a minority in an Arab Palestinian state.2
Why, then, did the Palestinian Arabs reject these schemes, in particular the 1947 UN partition plan? Undoubtedly, some moderate or pragmatic Palestinians were prepared to accept a small Jewish state in part of Palestine.3 But the Husseinis’ leadership - not democratically elected but backed by the Arab League - continued to intimidate its moderate brethren and to maintain its uncompromising position against the Jews. Even according to moderate Palestinian intellectuals, this leadership adopted an extreme policy vis-à-vis the idea of two states, thus grossly ignoring the will of the UN and the Great Powers, and leading the Palestinians into war and tragedy.4
Indeed, this militant syndrome of the Palestinian leadership significantly contributed to preventing a political solution to the Arab-Jewish dispute over Palestine in 1947, as in 1937. This syndrome was inspired by an intense Islamic and nationalist ideology, dominated by the Husseini family and in particular, Hajj Amin al Husseini, the charismatic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Head of the Supreme Muslim Council. Denying the right of the Jewish-Zionist community to national self-determination even in part of Palestine, the Husseinis periodically used violence and terror against Jews, as well as against the moderate Palestinian Nashashibi faction that for many years cooperated with the Jewish community and acknowledged its national aspirations. But this moderate faction, although supported by many families and notables throughout the country, was not as organized, armed, motivated or influential among the younger generation as the Husseinis. Consequently, the moderate/pragmatic Palestinians were unable to neutralize the powerful militant Palestinian nationalist leadership or induce it to accept a political settlement.

Abdallah’s Annexation Plan 

The Nashashibis were politically supported by King Abdallah of Transjordan and also, for a period, by his patron - the British government in Palestine. But neither the British government nor King Abdallah helped the Palestinian moderates; in 1947, both objected to the UN partition resolution, while Abdallah also sought to annex Arab Palestine to his kingdom. As for the leaders of the other neighboring Arab nations, they shared, indeed molded and reinforced, the militant-negative Palestinian attitude to the 1947 resolution, as well as to the Jewish-Zionist national movement and political aspirations.
The uncompromising Palestinian-Arab and all-Arab positions toward Zionist aspirations and the partition of Palestine predominantly derived from fundamental Arab nationalist and Islamic religious concepts, namely, rejection of a Jewish national/political presence in Islamic and Arab Palestine. Muslim Arabs were ready to acknowledge a small apolitical Jewish religious community in Palestine, “a small community gently serving the Arabs and getting along with them beautifully,”5 but not a motivated, vigorous, fast-growing, European-oriented nationalist-Zionist community. Indeed, by purchasing large tracts of land, building villages and towns, and establishing autonomous and effective institutions, this community posed an increasing threat to Arab control over the character of Palestine. Numbering, in November, 1917 (the time of the Balfour Declaration) only about 10 percent of the total population (60,000 out of 650,000), the Jewish community in Palestine increased to almost one-third by November, 1947 (i.e., 600,000 out of about two million). Nevertheless, it was granted more than 50 percent of Palestine (a large part of that included the Negev desert).

Emerging Nationalist Aspirations

From the Jewish-Zionist viewpoint, it was vital to create a “national homeland” (initially with British help) and subsequently a state in part of Palestine, letting the Palestinian Arabs possess its other part. Driven by newly emerging nationalist aspirations to return to biblical Zion, on the one hand, and by European anti-Semitism on the other, Zionist Jews had emigrated from Europe to Palestine since the early 1880s, either ignoring the Arab presence or trusting that there was room for both of them in Eretz Israel. As Nazism ascended in Europe and the terrible Holocaust occurred, hundreds of thousands more Jews found refuge in Palestine, integrating into the Zionist yishuv, and determined to be masters of their own destiny. Already in May, 1942 the Zionist movement issued the Biltmore Program, which, inter alia, mentioned the Balfour Declaration’s (1917) reference to the, “historical connection of the Jewish people to Palestine,” and demanded, “that Palestine be established as a Jewish commonwealth,” which would absorb Jewish survivors of, “the ghettos and concentration camps of Hitler-dominated Europe.” The program also expressed, “the readiness and the desire of the Jewish people for full cooperation with their Arab neighbors.”6
Yet, unlike the Biltmore suggestion and contrary to the uncompromising Palestinian Arab position (and that of Jewish revisionists), the Jewish yishuv, led by David Ben Gurion, agreed in 1947 to create a Jewish state in part of Palestine. This pragmatic position, coupled with international sympathy for the Jewish plight and the backing of the two new superpowers - the US and the USSR - procured the historic UN resolution to establish a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine.
Even though the Jewish community in Palestine, not just its right-wing faction, aspired to obtain a larger share of the country, if not the whole of it, it realistically considered partition as a minimal or tolerable solution. Because of the demographic advantage of the Arabs vis-à-vis Jewish national aspirations, the yishuv mainstream rejected the bi-national solution. Given these factors, Palestinian and inter-Arab hostility on the one hand, and the plight of Jewish refugees on the other, partition was the only option, particularly since the international community, through the UN, approved it. The Jewish yishuv had been fairly prepared to establish a state in part of Palestine, having created a solid infrastructure of political, social, economic and educational institutions, as well as a well-trained paramilitary organization - the Haganah. Although the Palestinian Arab community was not as well organized as the Jewish-Zionist yishuv, it would have been capable of creating its own state in part of Palestine, in coexistence with a Jewish state.

British Self-Interest

But, as already indicated, not only did the Palestinian leadership reject the partition plan, the Arab states and Great Britain also objected to it, although they were certainly capable of inducing the Palestinian Arabs to accept the scheme. Britain not only objected to the UN partition resolution, it also refused to help implement it or even to permit UN observers to prepare the ground for the partition - rejecting official UN requests.7 This British refusal was largely motivated by self-interest - to avoid damaging its relations with the Arab states that had overwhelmingly rejected the 1947 partition. Furthermore, the Arab states - and the Arab League - had, in early 1947, already started military preparations to prevent the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. In late 1947, a pan-Arab “Liberation Army,” comprising volunteers from several Arab nations and commanded by regular Arab military officers, invaded Palestine in order “to nullify the UN partition resolution, to eliminate any remains of Zionism.... and to secure the Arabness of Palestine.”8 Simultaneously, irregular Palestinian Arab militiamen waged armed attacks on Jewish towns, villages and inter-city traffic. The Jewish Haganah and the “Irgun” retaliated. A civil war broke out in Palestine, which turned into an Arab-Israeli war on May 14, 1948, when the creation of the State of Israel was proclaimed and several Arab armies invaded Palestine. Initially, the survival of the newly born Jewish state was in jeopardy but eventually Israel defeated the Arab armies and the Palestinian militias and occupied more land than had been allocated to it by the 1947 UN resolution. For the Palestinian Arab community, this constituted a grave disaster (Nakba). About half of this community fled or was driven out by Israeli troops and became refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere.

Conclusions

Could the Nakba and Palestinian dispersion have been prevented in 1948? As we may gather from the above account, the acceptance of the 1947 partition resolution by the Palestinian Arab leadership could possibly have prevented the armed conflict and its tragic consequences. But this would only have been possible if the leadership had been more pragmatic than ideological, as well as democratically elected, attuned to the political and economic interests of the Palestinian community, and not subject to the militant dictates of the Arab League.
The British government could have induced the Arab League and the Palestinian leadership to accept the UN partition resolution and helped both Palestinians and Israelis to implement it, as requested by the UN. Instead, they backed the alternative drawn up by King Abdallah and the Jewish-Zionist leadership in early 1947, namely that Abdallah would annex the populated Arab areas of Palestine, designated by the UN to become an independent Arab state, in return for his tacit recognition of the Jewish state.9 If implemented, such a strategy could possibly have prevented the 1948 War, but King Abdallah, concerned about alienating his government and people, as well as other Arab nations, withdrew from this tacit understanding to play a major role in the 1948 War. Ironically, only after the war, once the Palestinians had been vanquished, did Abdallah implement his previous plan by annexing the West Bank to his kingdom.
Finally, another plan that, if implemented, could have prevented the 1948 War was the UN proposal to create a federal state in Palestine, which was presented to the UN General Assembly as a “minority proposal” (versus the majority proposal, i.e., partition). This put forward the idea that an “independent federal state would comprise an Arab state and a Jewish state. Jerusalem would be its capital... Full authority would be vested in the federal government with regard to national defense, foreign relations, immigration... The Arab and Jewish states would enjoy full powers of local self-government and would have authority over education, taxation..., police..., social institutions.... The organs of government would include a head of state, an executive body, a representative federal legislative body composed of two chambers ... Election to one chamber of the federal legislative body would be on the basis of proportional representation of the population as a whole, and to the other, on the basis of equal representation of the Arab and Jewish citizens of Palestine...”10. However, as we know, this proposal was not even accepted by the UN, let alone by the Israelis or the Palestinians.
The two sides have been engaged since then (and even before) in a bitter and bloody conflict (except for several years of relative calm, following the 1993 Oslo Accords). This bloody conflict intensified significantly after September, 2000, following the collapse of the Camp David negotiations (July, 2000).
Mutual acts of violence involving great loss of life are likely to continue unless a political settlement is achieved between these parties. If the two sides wish to reach a political settlement, they should draw lessons from the pre- and post-1947 period, namely:
1) Militant positions, derived from extreme religious and/or nationalist ideologies, undermine mutual coexistence and peace settlements between Arabs and Jews.
2) It is essential to enlist the support of Arab nations, particularly Egypt, for an Arab-Jewish settlement in Palestine.
3) The international community, the UN and the Great Powers should intervene at crucial junctures, to suggest peace plans and give legitimacy to political settlements.
4) The principles of the UN partition resolution, or the UN “Federal State” solution (both passed in 1947) should be the basis of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement that takes into account the new realities, namely: either a two-state solution, as suggested by US President Bill Clinton on December 23, 2000, or a confederation between Israel and Palestine, with Jerusalem as capital of the confederation, as well as of the two states.

1 For the Peel Commission and the UN partition plans see Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin. The Israel-Arab Reader (New York, Penguin Books, 1995), pp.48, 97ff (respectively).
2 Ibid. pp.54-64.
3 Cf. M.E. Yapp. The Near East Since the First World War (Hebrew edition, Jerusalem, The Bialik Institute, 1996), p.109; Eliahu Elyashar. To Live with Palestinians (in Hebrew, Jerusalem, 1975), p.1210.
4 Muhammad Abu-Shilbaya. No Peace Without an Independent Palestinian State (in Arabic, Jerusalem, 1971), pp.12-15.
5 Shukri al-Quwwatli, a Syrian leader, to Elias Sasson, a Jewish official, quoted to Moshe
Ma’oz, Syria and Israel: From War to Peacemaking (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995), p.35.
6 See Laqueur and Rubin, op. cit., pp.66-67.
7 Yapp, op. cit., pp. 114-115; cf. Laqueur, op. cit., pp. 97-98.
8 Quoted in Ma’oz, op. cit., p.18.
9 Cf. Ilan Pappe. The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (London, Tauris, 1992),
p.119.
10 Laqueur and Rubin, op. cit., pp.94-95.

Einstein support us!

I am sure that Einstein would have been our supporter!
Have a look to this interesting essay:

 ALBERT EINSTEIN: SECULAR HUMANISTIC JEW

Here is a quote, emphasis is mine.

"Einstein’s Zionism would be barely recognizable today, because it did not include support for a Jewish state. He favored the creation of a “national home” that would welcome Jewish immigrants and foster Jewish cultural development within the framework of a bi-national state guaranteeing equal rights to Arabs. His model may have been Switzerland, which is divided into regions (“cantons”) where various nationalities enjoy autonomy. In 1938, for example, he asserted that he would “much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state,”2 claiming that statehood was inimical to the “essential nature of Judaism.”
Einstein continued to oppose a Jewish state after World War Two. In testifying before an Anglo-American Committee on the future of Palestine in 1946, he called for an international trusteeship, free immigration of Jewish refugees and eventual independence under conditions of Arab-Jewish equality. However, by 1947, he accepted the necessity of partition and like nearly all Jews and progressive forces in the world, Einstein greeted the establishment of Israel in 1948. After Weizmann’s death in 1952, Einstein declined an offer to run for election for the honorary position of President of Israel.
He remained a supporter of Israel for the rest of his life, but continued to express misgivings about its failure to reach a settlement with its Arab neighbors and cautioned it against over-reliance on military force. At a time when no attention at all was paid to the plight of Arab citizens in Israel, who remained under military rule until 1966, Einstein warned “The attitude we adopt toward the Arab minority will provide the real test of our moral standards as a people.” "

Hannah Arendt “Non-nationalist” Nationalism

Gershom Scholem, Hannah Arendt and the Paradox of “Non-nationalist” Nationalism

Raluca Munteanu

Eddon Department of Political Science Yale University
Prepared for delivery at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 28 - August 31, 2003.
Copyright by the American Political Science Association
Authors: Munteanu, Raluca.

The opposition to the idea of Jewish sovereignty, which defined Scholem’s involvement in the Brit Shalom in the late 1920s and early 1930s, was a cause Arendt passionately embraced a decade later. The grounds for Arendt’s opposition can be easily gleaned from the historical analysis of the “Jewish Question” she puts forth in The Origins of Totalitarianism.

The solution this group envisioned to their paradoxical condition consisted in an attempt to redefine nationalism so as to eliminate what they considered its morally reprehensible aspects, notably the idea of sovereignty, and thus presumably deprive it of the potential to become an oppressive ideology.

The result was a “non-nationalist” conception of nationalism.

Arendt considered it ill-advised and nearly absurd for the Jews to want to create a nation state of their own, as this would recreate the very structure that, she thought, had failed, and had failed them, so dismally under the political pressures of the 20th century.

The “non-nationalist” nationalism of the Brit Shalom

The one group of German Zionists whose convictions throughout the 1920s and early 1930s mirrored Arendt’s, and for reasons very similar to hers, in 1925 formed an association known as the Brit Shalom, or Covenant for Peace. The goal of the Brit Shalom was to steer the Zionist Organization away from the imperialist interests Arendt so bitterly denounced and to foster Jewish-Arab cooperation and institution-building as an alternative.
Hannah Arendt, “Zionism Reconsidered” in JP, 153. 40 See Kedar, “Brit Shalom.”