The
One-State Reality
By Ben White
17 November, 2007
The
Electronic Intifada
A
few weeks ago, the Oxford University Union held a debate on the "one-state
solution" in Palestine/Israel. Before the speakers had even taken
to the floor, however, the event was the focus of an intense controversy,
over allegations that the Union organizers had buckled under pressure
to cancel Norman Finkelstein's appearance. Ghada Karmi, Ilan Pappe,
and Avi Shlaim -- all scheduled to speak on the opposite side of the
floor to Finkelstein -- pulled out in solidarity. [1]
Though concerning, the hullabaloo
risked overshadowing what was at the core of the tabled motion -- a
much-needed discussion about the best way forward for Palestine/Israel.
While private initiatives offering "creative" solutions come
and go, from all ends of the political spectrum, their "innovation"
is typically restricted to how elaborately they can sugarcoat Israeli
land theft or how best to dress up a refusal to implement core Palestinian
rights. [2]
The real paradigmatic shift
is not to be found in talking about the "two-state versus one-state"
solution or anything else in between, because this debate misses the
point. It's not a question of proposing a "one-state solution,"
but of recognizing the "one-state reality." This has been
brought about by Israel's integration of East Jerusalem and the West
Bank into the infrastructure and legal fabric of the Jewish state since
1967, to the extent that there is de facto, if not de jure, annexation.
This is plainly observable
on the ground when, for example, one drives from Tel Aviv to the Gush
Etzion settlement bloc with no discernible shift in territorial sovereignty.
The road networks intersecting the West Bank are just one part of the
territorial homogeneity from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.
The same aquifers provide water for both Palestinians and Israelis,
albeit currently on a discriminatory basis enforced by Israel. From
border "security buffer zones" to settlements, the occupied
territories have been carved up and colonized, absorbed physically and
bureaucratically.
Even more tellingly, in the
areas of confiscated Palestinian land in the West Bank -- what Israeli
architect Eyal Weizman has called "a non-contiguous archipelago
of thousands of separate 'islands'" -- it is Israeli law that is
applied. [3] These "state lands" are created so that the settlers
living in the colonies can enjoy the normal rights afforded to (Jewish)
Israeli citizens.
Strangely, although cruder
Israeli propaganda has always claimed that there is in fact no occupation
but merely "administration," the language and context of occupation
has in some ways assisted Israeli colonization of "the territories."
Occupation, by implying a temporary state of affairs, has been used
to lend an air of legitimacy to certain "security" measures
(even settlement construction) despite their intended permanency.
The two most common critiques
of a one-state solution are that it is a recipe for massive bloodshed
and that it is impossible to implement. Either or both positions are
taken not just by frothing Zionist apologists like Alan Dershowitz but
also by well-intentioned observers. Announcing the "death"
of the Oxford Union, Dershowitz claimed that the "so-called one-state
solution is simply a way of achieving by demography what the Arab world
has failed to achieve by military attacks." [4] "Demography"
is the polite word for "people." With rhetoric that any self-respecting
racial supremacist would be proud of, the Palestinians are individually
and collectively categorised as a threat.
Moreover, it is grossly disingenuous
to apocalyptically predict a future one-state solution as guaranteeing
a bloodbath or "anti-Jew genocide." There already is "one
state" and the remaining question, and real debate, is over its
character. Will different laws and rights continue to be afforded to
people on the basis of their ethnicity? Will it be an exclusivist, apartheid
state -- or a democracy where Jews are no more privileged than Palestinians?
Far from being an idealistic
fantasy, the practicalities for a single state are continuously detailed
and debated by specialists in their fields. This weekend (17-18 November)
SOAS will host a conference in London organized by the One State Group
called Challenging the Boundaries. Panels of academics and activists
will "attempt to unpack" concepts like bi-nationalism, federalism,
multiculturalism in order to "contribute to the long process of
engineering a new political landscape that would not rely on imposed
exclusivism of any type." [5]
Those scheduled to appear
at the conference include professors of history, geography, development
and political science. Many, such as Ilan Pappe, Joseph Massad, Nur
Masalha, Tikva Honig-Parnass, Ali Abunimah and Ghada Karmi, have already
written on the ethical imperative and the practical feasibility of the
one-state model. Other widely available books include Joel Kovel's Overcoming
Zionism, Jamil Hilal’s Where Now for Palestine? and Virginia Tilley’s
The One-State Solution.
To say that the "one-state
solution" is impractical or equals the "destruction"
of Israel is poorly concealed code for defending the indefensible and
a recipe for continual conflict in a land it is impossible to partition.
It is to maintain, against the odds, the Zionist fiction that Palestine
was a land without a people for a people without a land. It is to entertain
the fantasy that the occupied territories so comprehensively colonized
by Israel can become a "Palestinian state" which isn’t
apartheid in name only.
Ben White
is a freelance journalist specializing in Palestine/Israel. His website
is at www.benwhite.org.uk and he can be contacted directly at [email protected].
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