Why a one-state solution is the only viable answer

It's hard to recognize that much of what you were told growing up wasn't true.

I was raised in a good, Jewish home. So I went to Hebrew school on Saturdays and religious school on Sundays. I even remember going to a Zionist day camp in the summer. We learned a lot, of course about Israel. We were told about the roots of Zionism, and about 'Tzedakah,' those little blue boxes people had put money into to buy land in Israel (of course when I went to school the state of Israel had been establshed for twenty or thirty years, so the money went to plant trees, but we were told about how during the Depression era people had put their spare change in the boxes to buy land in Palestine.) They gave us the impression that most of the land had been a barren, sparsely populated desert until the Zionists came and planted it and made it bloom, and that the few people who had lived there prior to the settlement by Jewish settlers were mostly nomads. There was even a slogan that went along with that, "The land without people for the people without a land."

We were told lots of other things about the Arabs too, little of it good. We were told that they were mostly terrorists, or supporters of terrorists. We were shown a map of the middle east in which Israel was a small piece and there were over 20 countries where 'arabs' lived. The implication was that those arabs (all residing outside of Israel) who wanted to take it over were fanatics and greedy for every bit of land ('why not a small piece for the Jewish people?' was a rejoinder I heard when the map was rolled out.) We were told that Palestinians living in the West Bank or Gaza (at the time they were still considered occupied parts of Jordan or Egypt) were 'squatters' and that they could go to any of those countries, from Iraq all the way to Morocco. We were told that not only were there some arabs living peacefully in Israel, but that those who had left did so voluntarily, either because they wanted to go someplace where they could take up arms and fight against the peaceful Israelis, or because they 'believed the stories' others were telling them that if they stayed then later when the Zionists were defeated they would be executed as 'collaborators.'

Even until a few years ago, I was, if not a Zionist, much more ready to give Israel the benefit of the doubt. But what I've observed though, is the intransigence of the Israeli government, and it has convinced me that there is no way that one can reasonably support such a government or support a peace process that depends on the cooperation of such a government.

It was a useful fiction. But unfortunately, as I later learned, it was a fiction. Like most fiction, there are small pieces of it that may be true but are used to misrepresent the whole. Yes, there were boxes where people put spare change to buy land. But by 1948, the fund set up to purchase land, using money that had been sent from abroad, had only purchased 2 million of the approximately 26 million dunams of land in Palestine (a dunam is a unit of area equal to 1000 square meters, or about a quarter of an acre.)

They also did not buy the land that they did buy from nomads. In fact, they bought it from farmers and other landowners. Palestinian farmers. But those Palestinians who sold their land were only a small minority. Most Palestinians lived on land, or at least in a land that their ancestors had lived in for thousands of years and had no desire to sell it or to live anywhere else. The whole idea of a 'land without people' is false. In 1947, on the eve of the beginning of all out war and after decades of Jewish inmigration, the estimated population was 1,970,000 (see table on page 5) in which Palestinians (who are both Muslim and Christian) outnumbered Jews by 2-1. Keep in mind that this was nearly 2,000,000 people packed into an area the size of Vermont; had it been in the United States it would have been the most densely packed state (there is a reason why land was measured in quarter-acres.) The Palestinians had ancestors who had lived there since antiquity. They had their own culture, and were not merely 'arabs' any more than, for example, Hungarians are merely 'Europeans.' Imagine, for example, if the Hungarians were told that Hungary had now been assigned to the Chinese, but since the Hungarians were 'Europeans' they could all just move to Spain. Ridiculous? Yes. But no more so than reasoning that the Palestinians are 'arabs' so if they are forced to leave Palestine then they can move to Morocco. Another fiction, but one which betrays a bigoted and simplistic viewpoint on the part of those who brought us the map to look at.

The British attempted to divide up the land into two separate states, one for Israelis and the other for Palestinians. This was at the same time they were doing the same thing in India and Pakistan, and we know how poorly that worked. It worked no better in Palestine. Here is where the fiction really got hard to separate from the fact, but it must be separated. We all have heard the saying, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." This is true. The Israelis won the war, so we must also keep in mind another adage, "History is written by the winners." Certainly that is true in the Zionist school and summer camp. We were certainly told of every instance of Palestinians killing any Israeli (and during the 1970's there were frequent P.L.O. attacks, including at the Olympics, so it was very easy to tell this narrative,) but it was not until I was in high school that I learned that then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin had been the leader of the Irgun, and the Irgun had committed many massacres and killings. Of course these were all explained away as 'necessary' massacres (not sure how a massacre can be 'necessary' but there it was told to us.) The Palestinians who fled were not fleeing because of some perceived threat of being shot as 'collaborators,' when some other arabs returned! They were fleeing because the Irgun and other armed Zionist groups killed many of them, and theatened to kill the rest if they remained. It is true that some arabs were allowed to remain behind. In some cases these people actually were the collaborators (!) but in other cases they were allowed because the new masters of the land (including new masters of the homes of those they forced to flee) needed a supply of low-wage, low skill laborers to do menial tasks. But the number of arabs who were allowed to stay was carefully limited to be far fewer than the Jewish population. The Palestinians who fled mostly went to refugee camps in southern Lebanon or other neighboring countries, or to camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, areas that had remained nominally under Palestinian control but were taken over by Jordan and Egypt, respectively.

There is a term for this process of driving an entire ethnic group or population out of their homes and forcing them to leave an area. It is 'ethnic cleansing.' But that term only came into vogue in the 1990's. It happened to the Palestinians much sooner than that. To argue that this was justified because there were also some arabs who killed Jews (which is also true) misses the point. Ethnic cleansing is always wrong, no matter who is doing it, and to whom.

It also explains why Americans are so much more willing than people in other countries to accept at face value the Israeli narrative on ethnic cleansing. We have it in our own history. The 'five civilized tribes,' the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw and Seminole, had all signed treaties with the United States and adopted American cultural and governmental designs. However, when southern planters wanted their land, President Andrew Jackson and his successors chose to ignore the treaties and forcibly sign new ones, and removed them to Oklahoma along the 'Trail of Tears.' In other words, the tie between native people and their land meant nothing-- they could be arbitrarily 'assigned' to land a thousand miles away and then forced to abandon their homes and walk there. This model repeated itself throughout the history of American westward expansion; the Nez Perce were rudely driven out of the Wallowa Valley in Oregon despite a treaty they had signed with representatives of Thomas Jefferson years earlier promising them the valley in perpetuity, the Sioux who were promised the Black Hills (sacred to them) but were forced out when gold was discovered there, and locally, the Navajo and Hopi tribes (historically blood enemies) who were assigned land together at Bosque Redondo-- after both being forced to walk hundreds of miles to get there they almost killed each other off in a tribal war while American officers couldn't understand why the 'indians' were fighting each other. Luckily, things turned out better for the Navajo and Hopi than for the five civilized tribes, the Nez Perce or the Sioux; after the army decided that the land they had been driven away from was 'worthless' they were allowed to return home. But an understanding of American history helps explain why we have been so willing to accept that the Palestinian people can be removed from their land (ironically in the name of 'returning' the Jewish people to the same land.) We have removed nations of people that were smaller and weaker than we were to some arbitrarily selected piece of land, so at a visceral level we are less willing to call it a crime when others do it because then the finger can be pointed back at us. Well, it can. Deal with it. It was wrong in the 1800's and it was wrong in the 1900's and it's still wrong.

Several wars later, the world came to realize that this conflict if it continued was intractable, so for a while the answer was the so-called 'two state solution.' This idea reached its zenith in 1994 with the Oslo accords, signed by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The basic idea was straightforward enough: that Israel would be recognized by the Palestinians on territory it controlled prior to the 1967 war and a Palestinian state would be established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Like many others, I bought into it at the time, and in fact did so until fairly recently. In fact, the 'two state solution' is still the official position that the U.S. government and at least officially, both sides are operating under. The reason I said 'its zenith' occured in 1994 when the accords were signed, is that it has pretty much gone downhill since then. After signing the accord, Rabin was assassinated by a fanatical Israeli settler. Then in 2000, an accord was nearly reached between Arafat and Ehud Barak, a member of Rabin's Labor party who succeeded him as prime minister. However, the final agreement proved just too elusive and talks failed. Shortly thereafter things broke down completely and Israeli voters booted the Labor Party from power and have elected a succession of right wing governments who may claim to want peace but have shown no interest at all in peace talks. Only one of the right wing leaders even hinted that he might be interested in moving forward on the peace process, Ariel Sharon, but after he said he might do that, he had a stroke and remains in a vegetative state to this day. On the Palestinian side, after Arafat died the Palestinians elected a new leader, Mahmoud Abbas (and let's be clear here-- Arafat himself only had the support of the Palestinian people because he was the leader according to the west, and the west provided funds, much of which Arafat kept for himself; a Palestinian friend of mine once explained to me, "Arafat has the authority to say 'yes,' " or in other words as long as he was willing to condone whatever the people were doing anyway then they would call him a 'leader,' but the resistance fight had long since moved on past Arafat.) But Abbas has been unable to make any progress towards negotiations, and in fact suffered what could be considered the equivalent of a civil war when Hamas, a rival group that unlike the Palestinian Authority has never recognized Israel and continues to fight took control of the Gaza strip in 2007.

In order to unify the Palestinians, Abbas formed a government with Hamas, which also gives Israel a way to avoid serious negotiations. A big reason why there are no negotiations right now also has to do with Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank. Unlike limited settlements like those in the Gaza strip (which settlements Israel abandoned and physically removed settlers from in 2005) in the West Bank, fully 10% of the population of Israeli Jews is now living there, not in the pre-1967 borders. This means that a right wing government can't negotiate peace because these settlers are a strong part of their base. In theory a Labor government could (since the settlers will certainly not vote for Labor anyway) but with more and more votes being cast by settlers the entire complexion of the government has shifted to the right so it is unlikely that Israel will elect another Labor government anytime soon, if ever again. At the same time, the complicated patchwork of Palestinian areas, legal settlements, illegal settlements (a crass distinction, because what is 'legal' is what Israeli law makes it, in fact according to international law the settlements are ALL 'illegal') and segregation walls makes it almost impossible to come to envision where one might put any kind of a border if the settlements remain, and as just discussed they are too big for Israel to likely be able to root out politically. In other words, Israeli intransigence is likely to remain because the tail has now taken over the dog. The settlers don't want any peace negotiations and they are now politically powerful enough that their opposition guarantees that there will in fact be no peace negotiations.

So where to now, then? Well, despite my upbringing and even my support for a two state solution until a couple of years ago (for an example of my evolution on the subject, consider that in a post I wrote seven years ago, I was still open to both a two-state solution and to bogus arguments about Israel needing extra land for 'security': Abraham Had Two Sons,) I believe it is time to suggest seriously a one-state solution. A single, secular state that allows everyone, Jews, Christians and Muslims equal rights, including equal religious rights. I know. Doesn't that put me in agreement with Hamas? It does, to a point. Hamas, of course is on record favoring the deportation of almost all Israeli Jews. I don't favor that. The overwhelming majority of Jews in Israel were born in Israel. So where would they go? Instead, what if the international community got behind a plan to create a single state, including everyone who lives there now. If someone lost a piece of property because it was seized from them, and they can prove legal ownership then give it back or compensate them (for example if an apartment house is now where there used to be a farm, it may not be possible to restore the farm, but then shouldn't the owners of the farm (or their descendants) if they were forced to flee, get compensation for the farm? Why not bring back the "Tzedakah boxes?" Bring them back, and let people put their spare change in them to compensate Palestinians for the land they had stolen. Yes, in a one state solution with guaranteed freedom of religion for everyone, we are going to have some major issues of trust (especially after decades of violence.) But wouldn't an effort abroad to compensate those who deserve it, be a worthwhile effort and a start towards building trust?

Obama's first foreign interview sets new priorities.

The Obama administration is rapidly making it clear that the 'coalition of the willing,' or'for us or against us' view of the Bush administration is the foreign policy of the past.

Today, President Obama gave his first interview to a foreign source. And his choice-- el-Arabiyah, could not have been a better one. He discussed a range of issues-- including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran, terrorism, mutual respect and the international political situation.

While what he said was important, the simple fact that he chose an Arabic news outlet for his first interview speaks volumes. It's hardly a secret that the majority of the foreign policy challenges facing the United States right now involve the muslim world, nor is it a secret that both because of longstanding history and the relatively recent actions taken by the Bush administration, relations between America and the muslim world are at historically low levels. So in granting the interview, President Obama has made it clear that he wants to change that, and develop a long term relationship in which the United States respects and works towards a peaceful future involving the muslim world.

Let's start with the Israeli-Palestinian situation since that is a constant irritant that underlies every other facet of relations between America and muslim countries. Long time readers of this blog know that I've always been a supporter of Israel and of the right of Israel to exist. However, the one-sided policy of the Bush administration, which failed to challenge Israel in anything they did while only blaming the Palestinians for anything that happened, and which further didn't bother to even try to achieve a peace deal until Bush was vainly searching for any kind of a legacy during his last year in office, did not do Israel any favors. It created an endless cycle of war, and one which Israel will continue to be mired in until there is a lasting peace that involves the creation of a Palestinian state. President Obama pretty much said as much in his interview today.

Let me repeat that-- if Israel wants peace there is only one way to achieve it, and that is to create a Palestinian state without any Israeli settlements on its territory. And the recent Israeli actions in Gaza, while their cause can be justified (to end Hamas rocket attacks) have resulted in huge numbers of civilian deaths and more and more reports that Israeli troops committed some truly disturbing actions (like the report on NPR this morning of soldiers shooting a homeowner with no ties to Hamas in the face in front of his children, and later an ambulance driver being pulled out of his ambulance and forced to lie face down with a gun stuck in his neck, and then being told to leave the area despite having been called to a home with wounded children inside.) Israel is a democracy, and in a democracy you have to be willing to air some rotten garbage, and there is some here that will need to be aired. And then investigated and corrective action taken. As a supporter of Israel, I am willing to say it is time for Israel to take that action.

Further, an unnoticed story of the recent war (as well as the one two years ago between Israel and Hezbollah) is one which went unnoticed precisely because nothing happened-- which is the story itself. During both the Israeli-Hezbollah and Israeli-Hamas conflicts there was little or no violence (beyond a few demonstrations) in the West Bank. Israel was often able to claim they could not create a Palestinian state under Yassir Arafat because he was either unable or unwilling to call off his own militants. And in fact history seems to suggest they had a point, since even during negotiations there were often attacks on settlers and soldiers in the West Bank as well as terrorist attacks inside Israel. But this time there were practically none (despite calls by Hamas for a third intifada in the West Bank), so clearly Mahmoud Abbas is able and willing to police his own territory. Which means that Israel has no good excuse now for not working with him to create an independent Palestine with open borders and no Israeli settlements. The trip by George Mitchell to the middle east, and statements by both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama indicate that they will push negotiations designed to hasten the creation of a Palestinian state (as well as create a lasting cease-fire in Gaza.)

President Obama also said that if our enemies in the region (and he specifically mentioned Iran) are willing to unclench their fist, they will find our hand extended in friendship. I believe that this is also long overdue. Ever since the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis of thirty years ago, relations between the U.S. and Iran have been frosted. Further, if Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, can one blame them after George Bush named them a member of the 'axis of evil,' and then invaded one of the other 'members?' Like a diplomat from North Korea (the third member) famously said after referring to President Bush's threats, "Of course we have a nuclear program." Only a Bush would have needed to be reminded of a basic fact-- if you threaten someone they will assume you may not be bluffing (as if Iraq didn't prove that in Bush's case) and will work to arm themselves accordingly. In a word: DUH! Maybe with the new approach President Obama can make some progress on getting Iran to quit working towards nuclear weapons. Maybe he can't. But given that they are already to the point where it would be all but impossible to take out their decentralized, deeply buried program, we are at least better off if we have a dialogue with Iran (after all, history shows that we can survive a nuclear-armed opponent, like the Soviet Union.)

Beyond that, Obama has shown that he will be a President whose foreign policy won't be focused on Europe first. That in itself is a huge change, and represents the fact that the world has changed. Europe is a fine place but it is at the end of the day only a peninsula on the end of the Asian continent. By speaking first to people from the part of the world where we have the biggest challenges right now, President Obama is making it clear from the outset that he will be engaged with the world, not just those who think like us.

Could the opportunity for peace come out of a war?

Once again, it seems like there are no winners but some real losers in the Palestinian civil war that has ripped the not-yet-born state into two pieces.

Mahmoud Abbas, who was elected President of the Palestinian authority, and Hamas, which by the same voters was elected to lead the government, have in the end not been able to work together. Not just with Israel, but not even with each other. Hamas has seized complete control of the Gaza strip while Fatah has done the same in the West Bank. Because the two pieces of Palestine are separated by Israel, it seems unlikely that there will be any other resolution to this than a 'two state solution,' but not the 'two state solution' that most had evisioned.

I had written a post following Hamas' surprising victory last year, Interpreting the Hamas victory and where from here, in which I had written that there might be cause for optimism because unlike the corruption plagued and weak structure of Fatah, Hamas could, if they could be induced to sign an agreement, back it up.

Ah, but that is the sticking point. I was far too optimistic, because while there is no question that Hamas has the authority that they could enforce an agreement, they have no inclination to make one. They still have one and pretty much only one goal-- to destroy Israel. And no price-- even the partitioning of the Palestinian state itself, is too high for them to pay in order to get rid of Israel. Like the medieval crusaders, Hamas risks simply becoming a cause without a plan, other than simply to push the cause forward-- and like the crusaders it is playing a very dangerous game, likely to end up in a bloodbath of Biblical portions, including both Israeli and Palestinian blood.

Fatah is probably a bit stronger and less corrupt than it was under Arafat (mainly because of the hard realities of the situation, as well as the fact that it would be hard to match Arafat for corruption, a man who stole billions in western donations while his people starved) but I can't say that I share the optimism that western leaders have that Mahmoud Abbas will be any more effective than Arafat at preventing individuals and organizations from carrying out attacks on Israel. To be honest, Hamas was able to make their one year cease fire with Israel that they observed up until last summer hold because they have a reputation for ruthlessness that Fatah lacks. Nevertheless recent events have clarified the situation and made it clear that Abbas and Fatah will be Israel's negotiating partner.

Israel is in the most interesting position. Of course if Israel does nothing it benefits (and has been benefitting) in the short term while the two Palestinian factions do their best to destroy each other. However, in the long term Israel faces some hard choices. Presumably now that Abbas has formed a government that does not include Hamas (in other words, a government which other than himself was never elected by the people) Israel is free to negotiate (since they had refused to negotiate with a government including Hamas because of Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel).

To begin with the Palestinian authority and Israel, which recognized each other after the Oslo accords, are willing to reiterate that agreement, but what next? Israel has built settlements in the past and is willing to dismantle them as they did in Gaza-- but what happened in Gaza, which has provided a base for rocket and mortar attacks and resulted in Israel re-invading certain areas in brief forays (as well as a protracted incursion last summer) suggests that simply dismantling the settlements as good-will gestures is as likely as not to simply turn them into launching pads for rockets aimed at Israeli population centers. Israel may indeed dismantle settlements, but the price is likely to be steep-- likely including acceptance of the Israeli border wall (which I oppose incidentally-- for the same reasons I oppose a border wall on the Mexican border-- but realistically, the Israelis are unlikely to tear it down given its record of stopping suicide bombers) and possibly some concessions in other areas-- more on that later. However, it is clearly to Israel's advantage to have a secure border along the West Bank area, just as Israel presently has secure borders along two borders which were once battle zones: Israel's borders with Jordan and Egypt. So Israel does have a motivation to reach an agreement that will allow a Fatah led state to come together and develop economically and politically. However, even if an accord is reached, there is still the thorny issue of what to do about east Jerusalem. Both sides claim it as their capitol, and the one thing that Jews, Muslims and Christians agree on is that the temple mount (now adorned with the mosque of Omar, the third holiest site in Islam) is holy ground. The holiest site in Judaism is the western wall of the temple of Herod, the same temple where Jesus preached and which was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. I suspect that in the absence of other considerations, Israel would retain control over the holy sites only because of the fact of the matter, that Israel controls them now and won't give them up, and this would be part of the price Abbas would have to agree to in exchange for the dismantling of settlements elsewhere. However, the Israelis could offer to put portions under joint control, IF they had a real reason why they needed to gain goodwill, especially from West Bank Palestinians. And there is a reason they will.

The reason is quite plain. Israel will certainly be fighting a two front war in the very near future. In the past, Israel's reputation for military effectiveness saved it from actually having to fight any real wars since the end of the Lebanon invasion in 1982. But last summer, Hezbollah fought Israel to a draw. In the politics of the Middle East, that equals a victory for Hezbollah and a defeat for Israel. Hezbollah, which fired thousands of rockets all over northern and north-central Israel in last year's war has re-armed themselves and will sooner or later (with 'sooner' being more likely) go to war again with Israel. Not surprisingly, as we've seen recently, al-Qaeda also quickly has gotten into the scene, with Lebanese army units fighting to dislodge them from bases in southern Lebanon-- a place where until a few months ago al-Qaeda had no interest in.

However, with Hamas now firmly in control of the Gaza strip, we can anticipate that such a war will be a two front war. Hamas remains committed absolutely to the destruction of Israel so it is a certainty that at some point, they will use the complete control of the area which they now have to organize and conduct a concerted attack on Israel. It is hard to imagine that whether Hezbollah or Hamas attacks first, the other won't quickly join in. Or perhaps Israel, knowing this will happen, will attack both Hamas and Hezbollah directly-- hoping to gain enough militarily from a first strike to offset the political price they would pay for it.

And that is where Fatah and Abbas' opportunity comes in. They could of course mount an attack as well on Israel, but unlike Hamas and Hezbollah, Fatah's roots as a guerilla organization are long since past, and they would be quickly crushed by the Israeli army if they were so foolish. However, they could extract a high price from Israel in exchange for remaining neutral (since the last thing that Israel would want while fighting a two-front war would be for it to become a three-front war-- with the everpresent concern that Syria could also open a fourth front). In particular, that might be the card that Fatah would need to get rid of all the settlements, and possibly gain a joint control agreement over east Jerusalem. At the same time, a Palestinian authority which remained neutral (including reigning in its military arm, the al-Aqsa martyr's brigade) while Israel was fighting another major war would go a long way towards convincing Israel that the time was right for full Palestinian statehood.

It has been said of the Palestinians in the past that 'they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.' Of course that was when Yassir Arafat was leading them from disappointment to disappointment to disappointment. The next few months will tell whether Abbas will be able to seize the opportunity and create a peaceful and stable state in the West Bank or go the way of Arafat before him.