Let me state for the record that I am neither a two-stater nor a one-stater nor a no-stater.
The only long-term resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that I favor is that both peoples – Israelis and Palestinians – ultimately live in the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River in peace, and with full democratic rights. I don’t much care how that is achieved so long as it is through negotiations and not violence.
However, in the real world and right now, I think the two-state solution is the only possible one and that it is the one that needs to be pursued.
I don’t believe that it is likely that it will be, with any seriousness anyway. And that is because the Israeli government, backed by the United States, won’t even consider (1) dismantling the settlements, (2) withdrawing from the West Bank, (3) ending the blockade of Gaza, and (4) sharing Jerusalem — and those are the prerequisites for a Palestinian state.
Given all that, even if Hamas which is, along with Netanyahu’s government the other obstacle to two states, announced tomorrow that it fully supports Israel’s right to security within the pre-’67 lines, nothing would happen.
So, while I support the two-state solution, I don’t believe it can be implemented unless and until the United States conditions our support for Israel – both aid and diplomatic support such as we provide both at the United Nations and on such matters as Iran — on Israel agreeing to negotiate toward fully ending the occupation.
So why don’t I favor pursuing the one-state option instead?
That is an easy one. Given that the Netanyahu government refuses to even consider withdrawing from the West Bank (or even freezing settlements there) in order to achieve the two-state solution, it is ridiculous to even contemplate that it would consider allowing all of Israel itself to be folded into one Israeli/Palestinian state.
The logic of those who say that Israel has destroyed the two-state option and that now only one state makes sense is analogous to this: a child asks his parents for a cookie before dinner. They say “no.” He responds: “Then how about three cookies.”
It makes no sense.
Some one-state supporters argue that one-state could be established if Palestinians simply sought Israeli citizenship rather than an end to the occupation. Soon there would be a Palestinian majority that would use its democratic rights to change the nature of Israel from a Jewish state to a state for all the people who live there. The United Nations would guarantee those rights.
Except it would never happen.
Israel might agree to annex all the territories but it would never agree to grant Palestinian citizens full rights. The Palestinians of Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin would simply revert to the position they were in before the Palestinian Authority was created in 1993.
They would be living under occupation without democratic rights. And, of course, the United Nations would not be able to do anything because the United States would use its veto. I already can hear the argument from the United States ambassador to the United Nation: “The United States has to veto the resolution granting Palestinians democratic rights inside Israel because ‘one size fits all’ democracy does not apply to Israel which is surrounded by enemies….” Etc. Etc.
In short, talking about one state is simply a formula for maintaining the status quo.
The only hope for now is working to achieve the two-state solution. The process would need to start with the United States demanding an Israeli settlement freeze and not backing down as in the past. Once the freeze is in effect, the Palestinians would return to negotiations. Hamas would have the option of joining once an agreement is reached.
Yes, it sounds far-fetched. But negotiations along these lines have actually made progress in the past, most recently under the Israeli government of Ehud Olmert.
The only progress toward one state (if that is what anyone wants to call it) is when Israel expands settlements which will lead inevitably to one state called Israel with stateless and rights-less Palestinians living inside it.
The United States should insist on negotiations toward a two-state solution now and that means applying pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to start talking. Once two states are achieved, and they actually have been living side by side in peace for a decade or two, one-state might look like a serious option. For now, it barely qualifies as a dream.
Dear Mr Rosenberg,
I have been following your insightful comments for sometime. It is very illuminating to contrast your conclusions with those of the equally respected Jeff Halper, who has stood in front of the Istratine bulldozers for decades to try allow the two state solution to develop. His conclusion is that is the two state solution is now code for warehousing and explusion. Worse, that it is the pretense that such a solution is possible that provides cover to accelerate warehousing. see:
http://www.ameu.org/Current-Issue/Current-Issue/2012—Volume-45/Is-the-Two-State-Solution-Dead-.aspx
Every word in this review is confirmed by available Israeli documents and the public announcements of its leaders. Some time ago, I even had the Allon plan translated by a friend to confirm the longstanding planning. What is happening now is deliberate, and will not be changed by any current Istratine party.
You are unquestionably correct that a democratic state will never emerge; Jeff is correct that that viable Palestinian state is not and never has been acceptable to Istratine. The only solution that I see is to treat this rogue state in the same way as say we manage North Korea, or as the Zionists treat everybody who disagree with them: complete boycott.
It seems, whenever links are included, the comments are put to moderation! I had three links in my comment!
I try it again with my original comment:
Dear Mr. Rosenberg, your argument is quite sound and can only be read with respect, but it appears that governments of Israel (present and the one to come) are not to be seen as sound, but driven from hardcore Zionist phantasies: http://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/israel-and-the-two-state-solution/
You are clearly right by stating that only the US can force Israel to accept the Palestinian right to a state. For good reasons one can think that Israel might overscrew its influence and overrate its importance for the US: http://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/wag-the-dog-but-what-if-the-dog-is-a-lizard/
But the connection between the Power Elite of Israel and one fraction (those connected to Neocon Idiology) of the US Power Elite (not being more than 100 people, predominantly “WASPs”) might be so tight, that we have a real “war” between the former and that fraction close to “Softpower Idiology” (which is also far from “soft”), so to speak: US Power Elite at war among themselves! The key to understand this phenomenon might lie in “Nine Eleven”: http://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/us-power-elite-at-war-among-themselves/ !
I fear that the dominating political forces in Israel are so self sure that they´ll try to set the region in flames as to be able “selling” to Western public the final ethnic cleansing of the Westbank as the “necessary condition to save Israel”.
I hope I´d be wrong!
Sincerly
Andreas Schlüter
Sociologist
Berlin, Germany
Quite strange, my comment is still annouced “awaiting moderation”!
Andreas Schlüter
2nd Copy of Comment
Dear Mr. Rosenberg, your argument is quite sound and can only be read with respect, but it appears that governments of Israel (present and the one to come) are not to be seen as sound, but driven from hardcore Zionist phantasies: http://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/israel-and-the-two-state-solution/
You are clearly right by stating that only the US can force Israel to accept the Palestinian right to a state. For good reasons one can think that Israel might overscrew its influence and overrate its importance for the US: http://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/wag-the-dog-but-what-if-the-dog-is-a-lizard/
But the connection between the Power Elite of Israel and one fraction (those connected to Neocon Idiology) of the US Power Elite (not being more than 100 people, predominantly “WASPs”) might be so tight, that we have a real “war” between the former and that fraction close to “Softpower Idiology” (which is also far from “soft”), so to speak: US Power Elite at war among themselves! The key to understand this phenomenon might lie in “Nine Eleven”: http://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/us-power-elite-at-war-among-themselves/ !
I fear that the dominating political forces in Israel are so self sure that they´ll try to set the region in flames as to be able “selling” to Western public the final ethnic cleansing of the Westbank as the “necessary condition to save Israel”.
I hope I´d be wrong!
Sincerly
Andreas Schlüter
Sociologist
Berlin, Germany
“Israel might agree to annex all the territories but it would never agree to grant Palestinian citizens full rights.” ~ MJ Rosenberg
I hear echoes…
[South Africa] might agree to [desegregation] but it would never agree to grant [black people] full rights.
[South Africa] might agree to [separate parliaments] but it would never agree to grant [black people] full rights.
Without doubt, the prevailing wisdom at the time was that a regional superpower like South Africa would never agree to grant its indigenous people full rights.
Taking a trip down memory lane, now ask yourself — at what point did you allow yourself to believe that South Africa would agree to grant its indigenous people full rights? Was it before or after 2 February 1990? Was it before or after President FW de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and announced he would free Nelson Mandela?
Now back to the present, ask youself — what’s more important, the structure of a resolution (two-state or one-state or confederation, etc), or the outcome of a resolution? Shouldn’t the desired outcome be full/equal rights for the oppressed people with no rights, the Palestinians?
If the indigenous South Africans deserve full rights, why not the Palestinians?
You promote an I/P solution “through negotiations and not violence.” (You also ignore the present — once and future — one-state, the current apartheid regime.) Let’s amplify that.
Let me ask you to broaden your palate so that by recommending “negotiations and not violence” you ALSO explicitly recommend actual pressure (i.e., more than mere words) by players other than I/P/USA. The most obvious reason/justification for pressure applied to Israel is to enforce international law and agreements by forcing/encouraging Israel to remove all settlers and the wall and dismantle all settlements (per ICJ 465/1980 and ICJ July 9, 2004). You may call such force/encouragement “negotiation” because, most likely, if it occur, it will be non-violent.
Don’t tell me this “ain’t gonna happen”, because the same can be said of a democratic 1SS or any 2SS. All it would take would be some genuine anger in EU or elsewhere and a let-up on USA’s pressure (including UNSC veto) on nations not to intervene.
Were enough nations to get on a roll, applying sanctions against Israel seeking (not peace but) merely a lawful occupation, and if Israel began to suffer those sanctions and found it preferable to begin to remove the settlers/settlements/wall, then — I suggest and predict — Israel would shortly thereafter begin to negotiate in good earnest with PLO with the hope to get to peace BEFORE the major settlements were all removed.
This is pie-in-the-sky today, because no nation will face down the USA to begin even the public discussion of such sanctions, but it seems to me a more hopeful path to a “just and lasting peace” than any other proposed elsewhere.
Didn’t your former boss Bill Clinton try to impose a solution with his famous “Clinton Parameters” at the end of his second term? Those terms were agreed to by the Israelis per Ehud Barak, but rejected by Yasser Arafat. It is easy to forget, but the world was pretty much outraged at Arafat for missing this opportunity. Dennis Ross discusses all this in great detail in his book THE MISSING PEACE (2005).
The Clinton Parameters covered everything. Settlements. Land swaps. Jerusalem. Right of return. Security.
Response? Israel yes. PLO no.
I think the PLO needs to revisit those parameters. If they’d accepted the American president’s plan circa 2000, we’d be celebrating 13 years of Palestinian independence today.
Menachem Klein, Israel’s legal advisor during the negotiations:
“Israel presented a map to Yasir Abd Rabbo and then presented this orally in Stockholm and at Camp David. It was leaked to Yediot Aharanot. It shows Israel controlling a Greater Jerusalem that goes to the Dead Sea and connects with the Jordan Valley where Israel would have sovereignty over a strip of land west of the River, and thereby keep control over the external borders of the Palestinian state.”
No Palestinian with half a brain could accept this. Furthermore, Michael Newman observed:
“The Israeli proposal had other serious defects. It left the Palestinians with a territory riddled with settlements and Israelicontrolled access roads, with supervised ports, immigration, and airspace, with something that could not effectively function as a state. But the border restrictions represent the starkest, clearest denial of Palestinian sovereignty. They are all by themselves, without regard for the other state-destroying features of the offer, enough to support the conclusion that the Palestinians, far from being offered 80 or 90 or 95 or 98 percent of the Occupied Territories, were offered nothing at all. A territory is not yours unless you control it, and you do not control it unless you have sovereignty over it. You do not have sovereignty over it if you do not have a state, and you do not have a state if you do not control its external borders. To be offered territory you do not control is to be offered nothing.”
As far as “Israel’s lawyer” Dennis Ross is concerned: Norman Finkelstein discusses all this in great detail in his book “Dennis Ross and the Peace Process: Subordinating Palestinian Rights to Israeli ‘Needs’”.
I think this is a good piece but I disagree with your conclusion. Any dream of a one-state solution pretty much rests on Israel annexing the remaining territory and then the Palestinians fighting for diplomatic rights from there. The road to that won’t be easy and it won’t be pretty but it seems a much more likely outcome from where I’m standing than a PA led Palestinian state. It is hard to imagine a world in which even the United States would be able to support the denial of civil rights to (what will soon be) over 5 million people indefinitely in a state of Greater Israel.
The point ultimately is that by maintaining the status quo for long enough it seems Israel is hell-bent on achieving full blown apartheid and leaving the one state solution the only option available on the table. Does Naftali Bennett really think that his plan will work forever? It seems to me that annexation without eventual equal rights is the bigger fantasy.
I don’t really see it as a dream either, more a catastrophic series of US sponsored events and preventable massacres that will unfold over the next century.
Well said!