After Israeli Election, We Need to Think Beyond Two-State Solution
Benjamin Netanyahu raises a hand as sparks fly behind him
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets his supporters before
delivering a speech following the announcement of the exit polls of the
Israeli parliamentary elections on April 10, 2019, in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Oliver Weiken / picture alliance via Getty Images
By Mike Merryman-Lotze, TruthoutPublished April 15, 2019
It may be time for radical new thinking when it comes to Israel and
Palestine, including consideration of options foreclosed by the two-state
international consensus that has limited discourse for the last three
decades.
For at least 20 years, experts on Israel and Palestine have warned that the
window of time during which a two-state solution can be realized is closing
as a result of changes made on the ground by Israel. Yet this warning is
almost always framed within the context of calls for a return to two-state
negotiations. What happens if the window of opportunity for two states is
closed, however, is never discussed. But after decades of warning, it is
time to push that discussion forward.
In a reality where establishing two states is increasingly unlikely, where
non-Jews are dehumanized by the Israeli state and those in power, where the
Jewish population of Israel is (or will soon be) a demographic minority in
the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and where the
Israeli state has a monopoly on power, the insistence that only two states
can protect the rights of Jewish Israelis is an open door to violence
against Palestinians.
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This isnt an academic debate. The major parties in the coalition that
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has crafted over the last decade,
including his own Likud Party, officially oppose the establishment of a
Palestinian state. This opposition to two states has been matched by moves
to secure Israels hold on the occupied Palestinian territory through land
grabs and settlement growth.
Earlier this year, the goal of formally abandoning two states, establishing
new settlements and moving up to 2 million new settlers into the West Bank
was again publicly embraced by key members of the last government, including
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein and ministers Gilad Erdan, Miri Regev and
Yisrael Katz of the right-wing Likud Party, as well as Ayelet Shaked and
Naftali Bennett of New Right Party, among others, when they all recently
signed a petitionmaking these demands. In the lead up to the recent
elections, Netanyahu also stated his goal of annexing the West Bank. While
several of these politicians did not make it into the newly elected Knesset,
overall, there was a significant shift rightward in these elections and this
goal remains key to many members of the incoming government.
This isnt only a problem of the political right in Israel. While both the
center left Israeli Labor Party which is the social democratic and Zionist
party that ruled in Israel for decades and the center-right Kachol Lavan
party which formed before these elections to offer an alternative to
Netanyahu call for an end to building in settlements outside of defined
blocks, their plans do not stop settlement growth or the movement of
settlers into the West Bank. The history of settlement growth under both
left-wing and right-wing Israeli governments should have tempered
expectations that the situation would change with a change in government.
The insistence that only two states can protect the rights of Jewish
Israelis is an open door to violence against Palestinians.
Overall, the key call from the mainstream Israeli center is not for
agreement and peace, but instead for separation. Both Labor and Kachol Lavan
have stated this explicitly, while also stating that they do not see any
possibility of a final peace agreement in the foreseeable future. Labor,
Kachol Lavan and others support a continuation of the status quo that
involves a de facto one-state reality, where Palestinians face systematic
discrimination and oppression.
The Trump administration is exacerbating this situation. The recent U.S.
moveto recognize Israeli control over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights has
emboldened the Israeli right, who have taken this a clear sign that their
annexationist goals in the West Bank will not be rejected. Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo intensified this situation when he recently refused to
confirmU.S. support for two states.
At the same time, any call by Palestinians for a one-state solution is met
with the accusation that those making such calls seek the destruction of
Israel and thereby deny the rights of Jewish Israelis to a state of their
own. This reaction refuses to engage with the content of the one-state calls
made by Palestinians like activists Omar Barghouti, Ahmed Abu Artemaand Ali
Abunimah. Their calls are not for the establishment of an ethno-nationalist
state that denies the rights of Jewish Israelis. Rather, they all call for
the establishment of one democratic state in which all peoples rights are
equally protected and respected.
This needs to be directly contrasted with reality as it exists in Israel
today. Last year, Israel passed its Nation State Law, which officially
declared the state to be the nation-state of the Jewish people alone,
downgraded the status of Palestinian citizens of Israel and otherwise opened
the door to discrimination against non-Jewish citizens.
The history of settlement growth under both left-wing and right-wing
governments should have tempered expectations that the situation would
change with a change in government.
In recent days, Netanyahu has also repeatedly stated that Israel is not a
state of all of its citizens, but rather the state of the Jewish people
alone. This matches with the Knesset refusal last year to consider a bill
submitted by Palestinian parties in Israel asking that Israel be declared a
state of all its citizens.
In a further move away from equality, the Knesset ruled that the Jewish
Power Party could run in last weeks elections, and they appear to have won
at least five seats in the Knesset. Jewish Power is a party that openly
supports ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. It is a direct descendant of the
banned Kach Party, which was declared a terrorist organization by the U.S.
Jewish Power politician Itamar Ben-Gvir keeps a poster of Baruch Goldstein
the perpetrator of a massacreat the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron that
killed 29 Palestinian and injured 125 more on his wall.
On the same day as the Jewish Power decision, the joint slate of Palestinian
candidates from the Balad-United Arab List and left-wing Jewish-Israeli
candidate Ofer Cassif (all of whom support equal rights for all people in
Israel) were banned from running in the elections. This was later reversed
by the Israeli high court and one Kach-affiliated candidate was banned from
the elections. Still, the whole process is a sign of the increasing
rightward shift in Israeli politics. In the end, Palestinian parties in
Israel, Hadash-Tal and Balad won a combined 10 seats in the new Knesset.
If one looks to other situations where ethnic violence and ethnic cleansing
have occurred, the parallels between those locations and in Israel today are
clear.
With no desire for a two-state solution or Palestinian self-determination on
the Israeli political right, and no plan for change on the Israeli political
left, what remains is a de facto one-state reality defined by apartheid-like
inequality.
In this context, the limited international focus on securing a two-state
solution for the purpose of ensuring the maintenance of ethno-nationalist
states with emphasis on the importance of maintaining a Jewish state with
a Jewish demographic majority is dangerous.
If one looks to other situations where ethnic violence and ethnic cleansing
have occurred, the former Yugoslavia being one example, the parallels
between the institutionalization of hate in political systems and the
normalization of violent rhetoric in those locations and in Israel today are
clear.
With this in mind, there should be intense international concern regarding
the political isolation of Palestinians, the passage of discriminatory laws,
and Israeli politicians and media portrayals of Palestinians as an
existential threat to the state and the rights of Jewish Israelis. It is not
an overstatement to say that the grounds for significant violence against
Palestinians have been laid.
There is more political opposition to Palestinian calls for one democratic
state than there is toward the oppressive one-state reality that exists.
There will be those who say that concerns over potential increases in
Israeli violence are overblown. Some will also say that this is dangerously
naïve, that the problem is not Israeli discrimination but Hamas and other
Palestinian political factions. In this view, Israel must maintain its
control for fear of Palestinian violence if the occupation ends.
This is fear that we must counter. It accepts the reality of present
inequality, oppression and violence based on the assumption that in the
future, the tables might be turned, that the situation faced by Palestinians
today might be faced by Jewish Israelis tomorrow. But the reality of the
present must concern us more than one possible future based on fear of
Palestinians.
Unfortunately, at present in the U.S. and Europe, there is more political
opposition to Palestinian calls for one democratic state than there is
toward the oppressive one-state reality that exists. The apartheid-like,
one-state reality is allowed to continue without consequence, but calls for
one state based on equality for all are apparently a step too far, and are
roundly condemned by political leaders and in the media.
Even if we dont agree that one state is the best solution, it should be
clear that the future state envisioned by many Palestinians, where
Palestinians and Jewish Israelis live side by side in equality, is
preferable to either the ongoing status quo or the apartheid future
envisioned by the current Israeli government.
So, what do we fear and what do we oppose? Do we fear Palestinians call for
a future in which all people live together in equality and refuse to listen
to their ideas because they dont fit into a comfortable two-state paradigm,
or do we fear continued apartheid? Do we reflexively oppose thinking that is
outside the current two-state consensus, or do we work to end the inequality
of occupation and apartheid that Palestinians live under as second-class
citizens, with openness to a future based in equality?
This shouldnt be a difficult choice.