One-state solution requires a shared state of mind

Palm Beach Gardens

In the future Israelis and Palestinians may find it natural to live together in a single, integrated and democratic state. However, planning for a one-state solution unilaterally is bound to be risky, if not deadly.

But as hope for reaching a two-state solution erodes, the one-state solution emerges as an attractive alternative. The problem is that each side of the conflict has its own version of the one-state solution. While the Israeli version aims at canceling a viable Palestinian state, the Palestinian version aims at canceling Israel, as a Jewish state.

Consider the covert Israeli version first. In an Israeli one-state solution, Arabs would be forced to leave Israel through war or increased socioeconomic pressure. The continuation of the Israeli occupation is bound to lead to the natural termination of the Palestinian state. Increased annexation of Palestinian territory would leave no room for the creation of a separate and viable Palestinian state.

But wiping out nations is not so simple. Palestinians are not leaving their land. For many Palestinians, the opposite of what Israel intends to take place is happening.

In a parallel version of the Israeli one-state solution, Palestinians would populate the area, which is currently under Israeli rule, to the point of demographically dominating the Jewish population, and subsequently achieve power transfer.

On the tenth of February Israelis may have advanced the popularity of a one-state solution by voting massively for Avigdor Leiberman, the head of Ysrael Beiteinu party. Beiteinu won 15 parliamentary seats, thus becoming the third most popular party. In addition to the secular Beiteinu, there are some extreme religious groups that support the one-state idea.

For Lieberman and his followers, Israel’s survival requires the departure of disgruntled Arabs from the Holy Land. This far-right constituency feels threatened by the presence of over one million Arab (Palestinian) Israeli citizens and by four million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. Israeli ultranationalists believe that Arab Israeli citizens who oppose Israel’s policy should loose their citizenship and be pressured to leave the country. Moreover, such exclusivist groups believe Palestinians who resist the occupation “deserve” to be displaced to Jordan or to Egypt.

But Palestinians are resilient. They retaliate with a mirror- image ideology. The Palestinian version of the one-state solution is well represented by the rejection politics of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement. Hamas denies the right for Israel to exist and aims to establish a Palestinian state as a substitute for Israel.

Both sides are creating political facts that reinforce the process of exclusion of the other. But it is not fair to equate Israel’s near annexation, or control, of the Palestinian territories with the impact of a resistance movement seeking the liberation of its homeland.

However, the rapid natural growth of the Palestinian population, their resilience in coping with the occupation and the growing popularity of Hamas offers a mirage to some Palestinians in aiming at recapturing the entire land of “historic Palestine”.

A more popular and explicit form of the Palestinian one-state idea, shared by a tiny minority of Israelis, is secular in nature. In this second form, a one-state scenario would be a product of uniting “Israel proper” and “Palestine” in a single, bi-national state, voluntarily, a la post-apartheid South African model.

Whereas, Hamas plans to reach the future Palestinian state through force, advocates of the secular version call for an egalitarian one-state solution through a negotiated peace process. This integrative solution demands forgiveness and reconciliation from both sides.

In fact, all groups who call for a one-state solution dress up their aspiration-scenarios with diplomatic and moral language. The Israeli one-state scenario defends the idea of exclusion of Arabs from Israel as a measure for protecting the Jewish character of Israel. Hamas defends the idea of creating a Palestinian state in which Muslims, Christians and Jews would live as equal citizens in an “Islamic” state. The Palestinian secular one-state offers a reconciliatory, albeit theoretical, solution through political integration of the two peoples in one country.

Regardless of the rationale for the one-state solution, its key for success is missing: agreement on the solution, and on steps to reach it, by both sides of the conflict. Has the point been made against the feasibility of the one-state solution?

The two-state solution is not yet dead. Palestinians and Israelis have a record of convergence on many aspects of the two-state solution. What is needed to make the two-state solution a reality is the elimination of the fear factor of the other. Currently the confidence in any solution is low. The international community should intervene to push the two-state solution before land annexation becomes irreversible. Continued conflict allows the forced, one-sided, one-state solution to emerge as the settlement of choice.

The one-state solution must never become a dream for one side and a nightmare for the other. A one-state solution requires a shared state of mind.

Israeli elections reveal a shift to the right

Pam Beach Gardens: Florida

Israelis voted with an obsession, the occupation. The results were mixed, but the overall picture is a shift to the right: use of force, not reason. Right wing parties which oppose withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem won the majority of parliamentary seats.

It was not that simple. Despite the larger victory of the right, Kadima, the centrist party which supports a two-state solution, won a narrow numerical victory over the right-wing Likud. In a parliament of 120 contested seats, Kadima won 28 parliamentary seats and hard-line Likud won 27. The impressive scores of Kadima reveal the resilience of the peace camp and cautions peace makers not to resort to valium, in desperation.

The far-right party, Ysrael Beiteinu, won an impressive 15 seats. Traditionally, the Labor party has been active in the peace process. This left-of-center party scored only 13 seats, a fourth place.

Since results are close, it is not yet clear which party will be asked to form the next government. It is up to the president of the state to choose the party which appears likely to succeed in forming a cabinet.

If called to action, the Likud leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, would be able to create a right-wing cabinet with 66 seats. But if Tzipi Livni, the leader of Kadima, is asked to put together a cabinet coalition, she will have to include one or two opposition parties. With 15 seats, Lieberman, the leader of Beiteinu, may play the role of king maker in the formation of the next coalition government.

Should Israel form a Likud-led government, the new regime will have no trouble in slowing down the peace process. These elections are taking place when Palestinians are divided, America is in a crisis, the Arab League is split and Iran is in transition to a new government. Nonetheless, in a position of power and under international pressure, Likud’s Netanyahu, may soften and negotiate peace defensively.

Netanyahu - known as Bibi- sees the Middle East through Iran. Bibi threatens to militarily confront Tehran and decimate its ally, Hamas. His image in the Arab world is negative. Bibi suits a national mood of distrust and fear. His wide political constituency will serve him.

Tzipi Livni represents a new face. She appeals to the young, to women and to many Israelis who yearn for change. She has made an impression on some Arab leaders. As she campaigned on a peace platform, she is Washington’s favorite.

The next cabinet may be formed through a painful process of compromise: a co-habitation of Likud and Kadima. The new government may assume the challenge of pursuing peace while taking a tough stance on territorial concessions.

The role of Palestinians in changing Israeli politics remains crucial. To achieve their goals, Palestinians should review their priorities, placing national unity first (reconciliation of Hamas with Fatah), conducting new elections, forming a new government and probing public opinion on peace terms through a national referendum.

The idea of a national referendum was floated by a popular Palestinian who is now in jail. Washington’s new envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, is looking for a way to generate momentum for the stalled peace process. He might find an opportunity in an unlikely place: an Israeli prison, where a popular Palestinian leader, with a potential to be the Mandela of Palestine, is sequestered. His name is Marwan Barghouti.

Mitchell could facilitate the ongoing back-channel negotiations for the release of Barghouti, in return for the release of the Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit from Hamas. Progress on this front would stabilize Gaza and unify Palestinians.

Back to the elections. When Israelis are asked why they voted against peace they reveal a growing desire to vote hawks into power. Palestinians voted for Hamas in 2006 with the same idea in mind.

Ironically Hamas leaders last week declared that they are more likely to strike a deal with Israel if the post-election government is Kadima led rather than Likud led. The preference of Hamas to make a deal with Kadima deserves reflection.

Many parallel stories on the subject of missed opportunity can be cited on the Israeli as well as on the Palestine side. This “opportunity” story goes back in time several decades. In the 1970s, when the Palestinian Liberation Organization was struggling to establish a secular Palestinian state, Israel helped create Hamas to weaken the PLO. Now, in contrast to the past, the secular side of Palestinians is what Israel is supporting and the Islamic side is what Israel is committed to fight viscerally to the bitter end.

Arabs and Israelis have the same knack for repeated missing of opportunity, for redundant blame of the adversary and for failing to acknowledge the sinkhole in one’s backyard.

To achieve their political goals, Palestinians do not have to dream of change in the occupier’s behavior. They have the key in their hands: civil resistance. Similarly the Israelis can achieve the security they desperately seek in simply withdrawing from the occupied Arab territories.

Obama may soon have to deal with Netanyahu

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

On February 10 the national legislative Israeli elections are expected to return Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party to power. A Likud-led government is bent on dictating the terms of peace to the Arab states. By electing a hard line regime, the Israelis reflect a position of unusual comfort with a tense political status quo. Israel prefers to maintain the occupation than to make a complete withdrawal from Arab land.

In 2002, twenty two Arab states offered a reasonable peace deal to Israel: withdrawal from 1967 occupied territories in return for peace with the Arab world and normalization of relations. The Bush Administration and Tel Aviv ignored this historic Arab concession.

Now the Obama Administration is considering the 2002 Saudi-initiated plan as a framework for reinvigorating the peace process. On peace, Israel is moving in the opposite direction from the American Administration, but not from the Israel-centric American public sentiment. Most Americans regard Israel as a victim and Arabs as the aggressor. Every Palestinian suicidal act and every Hamas rocket reinforces this American public perception.

The Likud and its partners, on the extreme right, face sobering Palestinian realities: population growth, hardening resistance and the growing popularity of the so called “one-state solution” (more on that solution later).

Palestinian demography

Currently 5.4 million Jews and 5.2 million Palestinians live under Israeli authority or control. In the global Diasporas of the two people, there are 7.7 million Jews and 5.2 million Palestinians. Many in the Diaspora believe they have the right to live in the land of their ancestry, “Israel” or “Palestine”, as the case maybe.

Fast forward five years, the 5.2 million Palestinians, currently under Israeli rule or control, through population growth, will outnumber the Israeli Jews. Fast forward ten years, Palestinians will be a strong majority.

Changing demography raises questions about the shift of political power. How will Israelis react to the natural growth of Palestinians? How will Palestinians use their growing demographic power?

Many friends of Israel urge Tel Aviv to cut a bargain peace deal now: 22% of the land (West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem) would go to Palestine and 78 % would go to Israel, by withdrawing to the 1967 borders.

Resistance

Palestinians are glued to their homeland despite an expanding occupation, disunity in their leadership, isolation of Gaza from the West Bank, unbearable living conditions, collective punishment, assassination of their leaders, a separation wall and a high rate of imprisonment and unemployment.

Palestinian resilience does not seem to impress the likely future prime minister of Israel. Netanyahu and his party rely on the myth that Israel will ultimately break down Palestinian will for self determination. Not many realize that Palestinian grassroots have greatly matured politically over sixty years of struggle and suffering. When Palestinians are given opportunity to hold elections they do it freely and democratically. Their election of Hamas in 2006 was not a preference of fundamentalism over secular authority; it was rather a choice of a solid resistance movement to deal with a harsh and unrelenting occupation. With the same protective instinct, Israelis are about to elect extreme politicians to deal with a perceived Palestinian threat to Jewish survival.

But many friends of both Palestine and Israel believe that neither Hamas nor an extreme Israeli regime will be able to advance peace.

For the first time in history Palestinians face Israel with equal political strength. The growing empowerment of Palestinians, their growing numbers and the growing support they receive from their immediate neighbors in Lebanon and Syria, as well as from Iran and the Arab street, make them today a formidable challenge to Israel.

But the curve of political learning for Palestinians is not steady. Today, two psycho-social factors handicap Palestinian power: lack of confidence in political strength and lack of experience with civic resistance. If Palestinians unite on a civic struggle platform they will gain the political edge over Israel within two to three years. Regrettably, some Palestinians continue to confuse organized civic political mobilization with passive resistance.

One state solution

Balance of power has generated new ideas about new and controversial solutions. The impatience with land-for-peace solutions has excited both Palestinian and Israeli imagination. Each side is pondering novel alternatives to the most pragmatic scenario, the two-state solution.

Over the last three years many Palestinians have overtly advocated a political solution through integration of Palestine and Israel into one country. Palestinians argue powerfully: Israel has managed to fragment the West Bank irreversibly through massive settlements, a wall and limitless checkpoints. There is no way to reverse the occupation and create a contiguous and viable Palestinian state. Forget about borders and give us our human rights as equal citizens with Israelis.

On the other hand, a growing number of Israelis covertly entertain their own one-state solution through integration of Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza into Jordan and Egypt, respectively. Israelis argue with passion: There is plenty of Arab land outside Israel; Palestinians would fit better in the Arab world. When Palestinians separate from Israel, the Jewish state, will achieve security.

The two contrasting “solutions” are attractive but they are unrealistic. Real peace is achieved when both sides are ready to support a plan of common ground. Israelis’ one- state solution is perceived by Palestinians as a “zero-state” solution for their side. Correspondingly, Palestinians’ one-state solution is perceived by Israelis as a “zero-state” solution for their side.

Ironically, the one-state solution is also sending messages of moderation to the other side. The Israeli one-state solution alerts Palestinians that if they unite they would make it impossible for Israel to force them to leave or to unite with Jordan. Similarly, the Palestinian one-state solution alerts Israelis to stop foot-dragging on withdrawal from the territories.

The Obama Administration and the anticipated Netanyahu regime would not be on the same wave length politically. But the extent of political difference between Washington and Tel Aviv remains minimal. If the Palestinians manage to unite on a peace platform, the Obama Administration will be strengthened dramatically in pressuring Israel to accept the Arab peace plan. If Palestinians could find a way to cooperate with Washington, the Netanyahu conservative coalition will either cooperate with a US proposed peace plan or eventually loose power to a more accommodating Israeli government.