The Political Unification of Palestine
There appears to be a shift of sorts going on with respect to how the Israeli occupation is finally going to play itself out. The success of the settlement enterprise - that is how this project has succeeded in eliminating the possibility of a viable state for Palestinians - this success, far from rendering the Palestinians forever stateless, may actually require that all the people of Palestine (including what is now called “Israel”) unify into one state.
The two-state solution appears to have been largely a talking point meant to create the illusion of a process and a goal. Meanwhile what was required to make a two-state solution work has been steadily destroyed. Others have suggested as much and I touched on some of those views about five months back. Perhaps it is time to take that suggestion seriously.
At any rate, it is a current to follow:
1. UN special envoy Alvaro de Soto wrote:
“the combination of [Palestinian Authority] institutional decline and Israeli settlement expansion is creating a growing conviction among Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, as well as some Jews on the far left in Israel that the two State solution’s best days are behind it.”
and “The steps taken by the international community with the presumed purpose of bringing about a Palestinian entity that will live in peace with its neighbour, Israel, have had precisely the opposite effect,”
and “Given that a Palestinian state requires both a territory and a government, and the basis for both is being systematically undermined,” an increasing number of Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and some Israeli Jews “believe the only long-term way to end the conflict will be to abandon the idea of dividing the land and instead, simply insist on respect for the civil, political and national rights of the two peoples, Jews and Arabs, who populate the land, in one State.”
and “Should the PA pass into irrelevance or non-existence, and the settlements keep expanding, the one State solution will come out of the shadows and begin to enter the mainstream.”
2. Omar Barghouti (A Secular-Democratic State Solution: The Light at the End of the Gaza-Ramallah Tunnel),
discusses the current infighting between Fatah and Hamas and of the generally defunct condition of the Palestinian authority and of its need to rebuild itself from the bottom up in a progressive manner that will generate the necessary public support to achieving what to date has been eroded to the point of extinction - a two state solution.
Barghouti also discusses how Israel, for its part, has acted precisely in the ways certain to undermine such a solution. For example the various campaigns for “boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel” in response to Israeli’s “wanton destruction of Palestinian infrastructure, willful killing of civilians, particularly children, apartheid wall, Jews-only colonies and roads, incessant confiscation of land and water resources, and horrific denial of freedom of movement to millions under occupation”. In this, “Israel has shown the international community its total disregard to international law and fundamental human rights.”
The consequence? A new recognition, new understanding is emerging. “Palestinians are now seriously questioning the wisdom of the two-state mantra and considering to repose their plight as one for equal humanity and full emancipation, within the framework of a unitary, democratic state solution in historic Palestine.”
Barghouti concludes:
A secular, democratic state solution is increasingly being perceived by Palestinians and people of conscience around the world as the moral alternative to Israeli apartheid and colonial rule. Such a solution, which promises unequivocal equality in citizenship, as well as individual and communal rights, both to Palestinians (refugees included) and to Israeli Jews, is the most appropriate for ethically reconciling the ostensibly irreconcilable: the inalienable, UN-sanctioned rights of the indigenous people of Palestine to self-determination, repatriation, and equality in accordance with international law and the acquired and internationally recognized rights of Israeli Jews to coexist in the land of Palestine — as equals, not colonial masters.
posted by willtotruth @ 2:33 PM
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