Saeb Erekat, chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization Steering Committee, said Wednesday that Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas should be frank with the Palestinian people and admit to them that there is no possibility of a two-state solution given continued Israeli colonization of the West Bank.
It is morally and ethically unconscionable to leave millions of Palestinians in a condition of statelessness, in which they have no rights (Warren Burger defined citizenship as the ‘right to have rights’ as my colleague Margaret “Peggy” Sommers pointed out in her new book). Therefore, if there isn’t going to be a 2-state solution, there will have to be a one-state solution, in which Israel gives citizenship to the Palestinians. (As it is, 20% of Israelis are Palestinian Arabs and that proportion will grow to 33% by 2030 if they are not expelled by sometime Moldavian night club bouncer and now foreign minister of Israel, Avigdor Lieberman.)
Aljazeera English has a video interview with Saree Makdisi on Erekat’s statement:
The Israeli colonies in the West Bank are actively encouraged by the Israeli government. Haaretz reported last winter on a hitherto secret database on the settlements kept by the Israeli government:
‘ An analysis of the data reveals that, in the vast majority of the settlements – about 75 percent – construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued. The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police
stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents. . .the settlements in which massive construction has taken place on private Palestinian lands. Entire neighborhoods built without permits or on private lands are inseparable parts of the settlements. The sense of dissonance only intensifies when you find that municipal offices, police and fire stations were also built upon and currently operate on lands that belong to Palestinians. ‘
The USG Open Source Center translated some of what Erekat said in an interview with Al-Hayat published on Sunday:
‘ Erekat: Difficult MeetingIn his turn, Erekat has stressed to Al-Hayah that the meeting with Clinton was “frank and difficult.” Erekat added that Abbas insisted that if the US Administration wanted to resume the peace process, then it would have to compel Israel to halt the settlements, including the natural growth, and to start the negotiations from where they stopped in 2008. Erekat added: “It is very clear that the US side has only achieved from Israel stances that reject its commitment to halt the settlements, and hence the US Administration, as chairman of the International Quartet, has to reveal the side that refuses and hinders the launch of the peace process, namely Israel.”
Erekat continued: “If the US Administration cannot compel Israel to halt the construction of settlements, who will believe that it will be able to compel Israel to withdraw to the borders of 4 June 1967, to withdraw from Eastern Jerusalem, and to resolve the issue of the refugees according to the UN resolutions, with Resolution No. 194 at their forefront?”
Erekat stressed that Abbas, in his meeting with Clinton, reiterated his rejection of “the Palestinian state with interim borders,” and also rejected Netanyahu’s proposals of constructing 3,000 housing units in the settlements, and excluding Jerusalem from any agreement on the settlements; he said “this is rejected chapter and verse.”
Erekat attributed the difficulty in yesterday’s meeting between Abbas and Clinton to the Israeli stances rejecting the implementation of its commitments stipulated by the “Road Map.” Erekat stressed that the US Administration would have to reveal the side that hinders the resumption of the negotiations.
In reply to a question by Al-Hayah about whether Clinton exerted yesterday any pressure on Abbas, Erekat said: The issue has nothing to do with pressure, but with interests. He pointed out that President Obama, in his meeting with Abbas in May 2009, described the establishment of an independent Palestinian State within 24 months as “US higher interest.”
Erekat added: “The United States has 230,000 soldiers in the region. If it thinks that it can solve the problems through the use of Marines and through wars, then it is completely mistaken.” Erekat stressed: This region needs to drain the quagmire of the Israeli occupation as an introduction to security and stability. He continued: “Here, we are talking about a system of interests. We have shown all possible preparations to fulfill all our commitments, but the Israeli side has not yet recognized its commitments.” ‘
I think the whole thing is over with. I can’t see a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank as it is now configured, and I can’t imagine the Netanyahu government halting settlements.
End/ (Not Continued)
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Dear Professor Cole
I have said for some time that a state that does not have control of its infrastucture is not a viable state. The Palestinian state would not control its electricity, gas, telephony, transport, ports and most all water.
What is most worrying at the moment is the intransigence of the Israeli government about the inclusion of Al Quds in the settlement freeze.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Jerusalem by means of duplicitous measures regarding planning permission is going to lead to tragedy.
Even the Jerusalem Post agrees that the people who advocate rebuilding a Third Temple in place of Dome of the Rock and al Aksa Mosque are a danger to us all.
The End of the World
This however will be the consequence of allowing the settlements to encroach on access between East Jerusalem and the West Bank thus turning the city into a Jewish City.
Sadly I have to agree with Sbigniew Brzezinski that we will need to deploy a large well armed force in the Jordan Valley to undo the disastrous result of the US laisser faire attitude towards Israel over the last 20 years.
The guys in Israel don't look like they can do it for themselves.
The one-state solution is largely a recognition of the existing reality. There IS only one state – one viable functioning government. Neither in the West Bank or in Gaza is it possible for the Palestinians to exercise the responsibilities of a state. The two state 'solution' has simply been an excuse by which the existing government of the area was able to wash its hands of responsibility for the wellbeing of a very large proportion of the people living there.
This being the case the Palestinians have every interest in turning the struggle for separate national rights (which has been shown to be hopeless) into a struggle for democratic rights within the existing single state that stretches from the river to the sea. As you rightly point out their present status is of stateless persons, meaning people without rights.
To quote Thomas Friedman: 'If you think it's hard for Israelis, or American Jews to defend Israel on college campuses today, wait till they have to argue against one man, one vote.'
Paradoxical though it may seem there is also a pro-Jewish, even a pro-Zionist argument for a democratic one state solution. If Zionism is understood simply as the perfectly understandable desire of Jews to live at peace in the Holy Land which is so obviously central to them as a religion and as a people, the one state solution gives them free access to the whole of the Holy Land including the religiously vital central Judaea-Samaria areas, which they can't get at the moment without a repetition of the ethnic cleansing of 1948. And they will enjoy a much greater measure of security throughout the whole area, based, not on the possession of nuclear weapons but on relations of friendship with their neighbours .
I think he's right, two-state is no longer possible. Isreal will end up as a binational state. I made a similar argument a month ago.
http://www.watchinghistory.com/2009/10/israel.html
One way that a one-state solution could be achieved is if the Palestinians simply surrendered to Israeli, ceding all rights to an independent state. Then they could appeal for citizenship. Would this work? — Jim
"Erekat added: 'It is very clear that the US side has only achieved from Israel stances that reject its commitment to halt the settlements, and hence the US Administration, as chairman of the International Quartet, has to reveal the side that refuses and hinders the launch of the peace process, namely Israel.' "
Israel has expressed a willingness to negotiate despite continuing terrorism, e.g., rockets launched from Gaza at Israeli towns. If the Palestinians refuse to negotiate despite continued building of settlements, the blame for "failure to launch" is at least equally shared. But realistically, starting negotiations would have little prospect of reaching a successful conclusion.
"Erekat continued: 'If the US Administration cannot compel Israel to halt the construction of settlements, who will believe that it will be able to compel Israel to withdraw to the borders of 4 June 1967, to withdraw from Eastern Jerusalem, and to resolve the issue of the refugees according to the UN resolutions, with Resolution No. 194 at their forefront?' "
So the Palestinians have set conditions for negotiation that are as unacceptable to Israel as the settlements are to the Palestinians.
It has always been my belief that the ultimate goal of the Israelis is to push the Palestinians out of the West Bank entirely. In other words, to force their exile.
"The Peace Process" is a fraud and a smokescreen. Seems to me the fundamental problem is that the players think, even believe, it is a zero-sum game when it's inarguably a negative-sum game. While business interests that profit from The Way Things Are just keep on stoking the fires. Note the relationships of the parties in this tale of woe.
Per the Greeks, from the Pandora myth, the last and worst plague on humanity to escape from that unfortunate chest was "Hope."
How come the Israelis don't understand that no Palestinian state leaves them with only two optiops, to expel or incorporate all Palestinians. Very soon we will be at the point of no return where no Palestinain state will ever be viable
Finally gotten around to reading Virginia Tilley's ONE STATE SOLUTION (2005), eh ??? (Seems like she was a UM PhD at that! ;)
Only "progress" that has ever been made against the underlying Israeli need for Lebensraum has been force, and only raw in some form will keep them honest. I'm thinking how Camp David One would NEVER have happened without the scare Yom Kippur gave Israel (never mind how they used it so well as cover for a variety of agressions that unfolded in short order, in addition to proceeding with the settlements and shaking-down the US for a ton of money!)
It will indeed be…interesting…to see how they side-step the one-man one-vote thing. I wouldn't be so sanquine about what would actually happen, given the Likudniks; Things might then get REALLY ugly. Got to remember who you're dealing with.
Very thought provoking. Kind of leaves you thinking that all this blather about "Middle East Peace" is nothing more than a collection of infomercials.
Obviously Israel's vision for a Palestinian state resembles swiss cheese, with the Palestinians living in the holes. And our Establishment vision is essentially endless one sided negotiations and speech-making about hole size and location.
The Single State solution is so intellectually liberating because, as the Saree Makdisi pointed, its logic is based on ethical notions of freedom and justice. I think his South Africa analogy fits.
Ideologically we're a super tanker trapped in a canal lock. Obama can't utter the the "O..e" word, (but maybe George Mitchell can). On the other hand how much humiliation can he absorb from the Israelis before losing his temper and blurting out something that makes sense?
And as Makdisi pointed out, the One State solution will not be the result of a negotiation. It will result from the increasing unpleasantness of the status quo.
In Palestine nothing happens overnight (except Israeli cross border invasions), or over-decade, but it looks like the Two State won't happen over-millennium. One State might grow some legs and, over time, make something good happen.
I agree that only a one-state solution is viable at this point. I can't see Israel giving up settlements and expelling Zionists from them. However, the current 20% Arab population inside Israel proper does not have equal rights. It's hard to imagine how Palestinians would be able to achieve parity with Jews in a single state. A democratic state for Arabs and Jews is anathema to Israel which was founded as a nation for Jews.
Nayla Rathle
Yes, but in the case of a one-state solution, Israel is not going to give Palestinians equal, or probably any, citzenship. They are just going to legally steal the land, and move the Palestinians out, slowly. Uri Avnery is right on this.
There is no way that Israel, as presently configured, is going to accept such a large number of extra Palestinian citizens. They are already having nightmares about demographic developments. How would they react to having to take the Gazan and West Bankers? It is unimaginable.
The irony that is "The One-State Solution" is that ‘ISRAEL’ was conceived as a national homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine. The modern conflict distills to the irreconcilable distinction of Theocracies (pl.) -vs- A Democracy, n'est-ce pas? : “Theorists who grapple with these issues focus on the future of the State of Israel and realize that although the sovereign political state has been established, there is still much work to be done in relation to the identity of the state itself. Linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky makes a distinction between the concept of "a Jewish ethnic homeland in Palestine" and "a Jewish state"…
"I have always supported ‘a Jewish ethnic homeland in Palestine’. That is different from ‘a Jewish state’. There's a strong case to be made for an ethnic homeland, but as to whether there should be a Jewish state, or a Muslim state, or a Christian state, or a white state — that's entirely another matter."
…Some Jewish nationalists base the legitimacy of Israel as ‘a Jewish state’ on the Balfour Declaration and ancient historical ties to the land, asserting that both play particular roles as evidence under international law, as well as a fear that a hostile Arab world might be disrespectful of a Jewish minority — alleging a variety of possible harms up to and including genocide — were ‘Israel’ to become a post-national ‘state for all its citizens’.” imho, Were it not for their (and the West's apparent) notion of nation being "possession is nine-tenths of the law," our conversation ref: The One-State Solution would be how to incorporate the state-less Jews of Biblical Israel into sovereign Palestine, rather than the other way around. I often wonder if it is this guilt that gnaws at the psyche of, not the Jewish people, but the self-proclaimed "citizens of Israel the Jewish state because we are Jewish" people — that causes them to behave and become, themselves not unlike their relentless tormentors?
"One way that a one-state solution could be achieved is if the Palestinians simply surrendered to Israeli, ceding all rights to an independent state. Then they could appeal for citizenship. Would this work? — Jim"
That's an intriguing proposition – had never thought of it before. What I am certain about is that the Palestinian 'leaders' have chosen to be in a situation which gives them the worst of both worlds: They have all the responsibilities of a state, but none of the rights and privileges. So they can be held accountable for 'not doing enough' to stop 'terrorism' yet are helpless to act when the Israelis bomb their towns and villages.
The whole 'negotiation' 'peace process' framework is a complete farce and needs to be shown as such. You cannot negotiate productively with someone in a far stronger position than you. The PA shold be dissolved and the Palestinians should say that, as an occupied people, their immediate goal is not peace but justice. When that is obtained, peace will naturally follow. But not before then.
Israel is engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing through it's settlement activity in violation of all international laws and norms.
One state solution if not bomb Israel to the ground.
So Professor Cole — on what date does your Inc. grade on Obama's Israel policy turn into an automatic F if nothing is accomplished? :-)
The Israeli/Palestinian problem was never and will never be resolved peacefully.
I am very angry that my country should be party to such a blatant exercise in inhumanity.
davr
It is encouraging to see how discussion of the one-state solution has accelerated in the past year or two, as well-informed responses like that from Peter, Christina, and others here show.
Christina: absolutely correct, negotiations are based on power; to say that a solution must be based on negotiation is logically to sanction violence or the threat of violence on the part of whichever side one favours, as a way of improving their negotiating position. Conversely, one can advocate peace only by premising a solution on justice, law, and the recognition of human rights. One may negotiate only about the manner in which those rights are implemented.
Virginia Tilley's book, mentioned above (reviewed here), is excellent and should be read by any skeptic on this topic.