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Only One
Democratic State is Possible in Palestine and Israel
By
Ramzy Baroud
January 12,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- Long before December 28, when Secretary of State, John
Kerry took the podium at the Dean Acheson Auditorium
in Washington DC to pontificate on the uncertain future
of the two-state solution and the need to save Israel
from itself, the subject of a Palestinian state has been
paramount.
In fact, unlike
common belief, the push to establish a Palestinian and a
Jewish state side-by-side goes back years before the
passing of United Nations Resolution 181 in November
1947. That infamous resolution had called for the
partitioning of Palestine into three entities: a Jewish
state, a Palestinian state and an international regime
to govern Jerusalem.
A more thorough
reading of history can pinpoint multiple references to
the Palestinian (or Arab state) between the Jordan River
and the Mediterranean Sea.
The idea of two
states is western par excellence. No Palestinian party
or leader had ever thought that partitioning the holy
land was ever an option. Then, such an idea seemed
preposterous, partly because, as Ilan Pappe’s
‘Ethnic Cleaning of Palestine‘ shows, “almost all of
the cultivated land in Palestine was held by the
indigenous population (while) only 5.8% percent was in
Jewish ownership in 1947.”
An earlier, but
equally important reference to a Palestinian state was
made in the Peel Commission, a British commission of
inquiry, led by Lord Peel that was sent to Palestine to
investigate the reasons behind the popular strike,
uprising and later armed rebellion that began in 1936
and lasted for nearly three years.
The “underlying
causes of the disturbances” were two,
resolved the commission: Palestinian desire for
independence, and the “hatred and fear of the
establishment of the Jewish national home.” The latter
was promised by the British government to the Zionist
Federation of Great Britain and Ireland in 1917 which
became known as the ‘Balfour Declaration.’
The Peel
Commission recommended the partition of Palestine into a
Jewish state and a Palestinian state, which would be
incorporated into Transjordan, with enclaves reserved
for the British Mandate government.
In the time
between that recommendation eighty years ago, and
Kerry’s warning that the two-state solution is “in
serious jeopardy,” little has been done in terms of
practical steps to establish a Palestinian state. Worse,
the US has used its veto power in the UN repeatedly to
impede the establishment of a Palestinian state, as well
as utilizing its political and economic might to
intimidate others from recognizing (although
symbolically) a Palestinian state. It has further played
a key role in funding illegal Jewish settlements in the
West Bank and Jerusalem – all of which rendered the
existence of a Palestinian state virtually impossible.
The issue now
is: why does the West continue to use the two-state
solution as
their political parameter for a resolution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while, at the same time
ensuring that their own prescription for conflict
resolution is never to become a reality?
The answer,
partly, lies in the fact the two-state solution was
never devised for implementation to begin with. Like the
‘peace process’ and other pretenses, it aimed to promote
among Palestinians and Arabs the idea that there is a
goal worth striving for, despite being unattainable.
But even that
goal was itself conditioned on a set of demands that
were unrealistic to begin with. Historically,
Palestinians had to renounce violence (their armed
resistance to Israel’s military occupation), consent to
various UN resolutions (even if Israel still reject
those resolutions), accept Israel’s ‘right’ to exist as
a Jewish state, and so on. That yet-to-be-established
Palestinian state was also meant to be demilitarized,
divided between the West Bank and Gaza, and excluding
most of Occupied East Jerusalem.
Many new
‘creative’ solutions were also offered to alleviate any
Israeli fears that the nonexistent Palestinian state, in
case of its establishment, never pose a threat to
Israel. At times, discussions were afoot about a
confederation between Palestine and Jordan, and other
times, as in the
most recent proposal by the head of Jewish Home Party,
Israeli Minister Naftali Bennett, making Gaza a state of
its own and annexing to Israel 60 percent of the West
Bank.
And when
Israel’s allies, frustrated by the rise of the rightwing
in Israel and the
obstinacy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
insist that time is running out for a two-state
solution, they express their worries in the form of
tough love. Israel’s settlement activity is
“increasingly cementing an irreversible one-state
reality,” said Kerry in his major policy speech last
month.
Such a reality
would force Israel to either compromise on the Jewish
identity of the state (as if having religious/ethnic
identities of a modern democratic state is a common
precondition) or having to contend with being an
Apartheid state (as if such reality doesn’t exist
anyway.)
Kerry warned
Israel that it will eventually be left with the option
of placing Palestinians “under a permanent military
occupation that deprives them of the most basic
freedoms,” thus paving the ground for a “separate and
unequal” scenario.
Yet while
warnings that a two-state solution possibility is
disintegrating, few bothered to try to understand the
reality from a Palestinian perspective.
For
Palestinians, the debate on Israel having to choose
between being democratic and Jewish is ludicrous. For
them, Israel’s democracy applies fully to its Jewish
citizens and no one else, while Palestinians have
subsisted for decades behind walls, fences, prisons and
besieged enclaves, like the Gaza Strip.
And with two
separate laws, rules and realities applying to two
separate groups in the same land, Kerry’s ‘separate but
unequal’
Apartheid scenario had taken place the moment Israel
was established in 1948.
Fed up by the
illusions of their own failed leadership,
according to a recent poll, two thirds of
Palestinians now agree that a two-state solution is not
possible. And that margin keeps on growing as fast as
the massive illegal settlement enterprise dotting the
Occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.
This is not an
argument against the two-state solution; for the latter
merely existed as a ruse to pacify Palestinians, buy
time and demarcate the conflict with a mirage-like
political horizon. If the US was indeed keen on a
two-state solution, it would have fought vehemently to
make it a reality, decades ago.
To say that
the two-state solution is now dead is to subscribe
to the illusion that it was once alive and possible.
That said, it
behooves everyone to understand that co-existence in a
one democratic state is not a dark scenario that spells
doom for the region.
It is time to
abandon unattainable illusions and focus all energies to
foster co-existence, based on equality and justice for
all.
Indeed, there
can be one state between the river and the sea, and that
is a democratic state for all of its people, regardless
of their ethnicity or religious beliefs.
Dr.
Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for
over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated
columnist, a media consultant, an author of several
books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His
books include “Searching Jenin”, “The Second Palestinian
Intifada” and his latest “My Father Was a Freedom
Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story”. His website is
www.ramzybaroud.net.
The views
expressed in this article are the author's own and do
not necessarily reflect Information Clearing House
editorial policy.
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