Forget the two-state solution

Thu, 2008-05-15 13:27

N.Beltov

I call bullshit on Jeff House.

quote:

jeff house: "Pass laws" are laws which require an individual to reside in a reserve, and to obtain permission to work outside of the reserve.
Canada has never had "pass laws." It has always been legally possible for native people to reside anywhere in Canada, and work there, too.

Even though they were illegal, Canada had a [b]pass system[/b] in the areas covered by Treaties 4, 6, and 7, from 1886 until the 1930's - as documented and demonstrated by many authors including Donald Purich in [i]Our Land: Native Rights in Canada.[/i] This pass system followed the rebellion in Batoche and served, among other purposes, to prevent Indians from participating in further uprisings.

Thu, 2008-05-15 15:21

#53

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

quote:

FM I may be wrong but didn't BenGurion announce the formation after the partition vote of the UN?

I'm telling you what Bush just said in Israel.

Perhaps you could define for us what is Eretz Yisrael and then explain the implications of Eretz Yisrael for the *ahem* two state solution?

Thu, 2008-05-15 19:49

#54

al-Qa'bong

Since every state in the whole world agrees that there should be a two-state solution, why aren't there two states by now?

Fri, 2008-05-16 03:29

#55

Caissa

Well Al-Q., we know what happened in 1948 with the first attempt. It's gone downhill ever since.

Fri, 2008-05-16 05:17

#56

Cueball

There was no "attempt" to negotiate a two state solution in 1948. There was not even a mechanism established to poll Arab feeling. Sorry. Ridiculous.

Fri, 2008-05-16 06:05

#57

Caissa

UNSCOP put forth a two state solution in 1947. The UN General Assembly adopted it. It was universally rejected by Arab countries. I think one could argue the that acceptance of it would have lead to less misery in the area than rejection has.

Fri, 2008-05-16 06:12

#58

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Arguably black South Africans would have experienced less misery if they just accepted Bantus and stopped resisting. Arguably Irish Catholics would have suffered less misery if they just abandoned their faith and culture and accepted their place as an inferior people. Arguably Jews would have suffered less misery if they just accepted their fate as slaves to the Egyptian Pharoahs.

The misery of struggling against dispossession, oppression, and injustice would appear to be part of human nature.

Fri, 2008-05-16 06:18

#59

Caissa

I don't see any of your three examples comparable to the situation in the area in the late 1940s.

Fri, 2008-05-16 06:18

#60

Cueball

quote:

Originally posted by Caissa:
[b]UNSCOP put forth a two state solution in 1947. The UN General Assembly adopted it. It was universally rejected by Arab countries. I think one could argue the that acceptance of it would have lead to less misery in the area than rejection has.[/b]

Yes it was rejected. Not that the "Arab countries" had any say in the matter of what happened to people who were not living in their country. But if anything the reaction of Arabs not living in Palestine, should have been a good indicator of the feeling of those actually to be later deported.

But again, a proccess that has no mandate from the people who are actually to be affected by the decision is fundamentally bankrupt and illigitimate, and undemocratic, regardless of whatever presumed authority the powerful decide to invest in themselves simply because they are powerful.

Fri, 2008-05-16 06:20

#61

Cueball

There was no attempt to negotiate a two state solution. Arab feeling as expressed by the Arabs present was negative. They were overridden, and the actualy Arabs to be deported ignored entirely. Treated as rightless trash historically speaking.

Fri, 2008-05-16 06:21

#62

Boom Boom

quote:

Originally posted by Zaklamont:
The one state solution is a dream in technicolour.
Such a solution is possible only when two sides are prepared for it.
Is Israel prepared for it. No, because it wants a Jewish State.

And has the support of the world's only superpower behind it.

Fri, 2008-05-16 06:32

#63

Cueball

Yes, all the major European powers involved in the war showed they were committed to making Europe Judenfrei in one way or another. What is amazing of course it that such a bitter defeat can be pawned of as some kind of moral victory.

Fri, 2008-05-16 09:51

#64

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

quote:

I don't see any of your three examples comparable to the situation in the area in the late 1940s.

I'm sure you don't.

Fri, 2008-05-16 15:23

#65

Cueball

The fact is, despite protestations to the contrary, the UN and its predecessor the League of Nations, has often been a mid-wife to the most horrendous ethnic cleansings, and the practice of "population transfer" as a means of dealing unwanted demographics has no moral foundation, regardless of the presumed "authority" of its authors.

Mon, 2008-05-19 08:49

#66

al-Qa'bong

quote:

Originally posted by Caissa:
[b]Well Al-Q., we know what happened in 1948 with the first attempt. It's gone downhill ever since.[/b]

That's a rather ahistorical "analysis," and it avoids my question altogether .

Perhaps this explains your response. It certainly accounts for much of the discussion on the subject found on babble:

quote:

And then comes the hardest question of all: If it was we who eliminated a viable two-state solution – the creation of a truncated Palestinian prison-state on 15% of historic Palestine a la South Africa’s Bantustans will not solve the conflict – then how will we end our century-old conflict? How will we deal with the bi-national entity that is Israel/Palestine, largely our own creation?
In order to avoid these questions, we have developed a number of mechanisms, delaying forever a political solution being only one of them. [b]It is enough for us to merely assert our support for a two-state solution in order that we be considered peace-minded and reasonable.[/b]
Two-state supporters require only the notion of a Palestinian state, a never-ending process towards it, to escape confronting the reality we created. As long as a Palestinian state can be held out as a possibility, the pressure’s off.

quote:

No longer can we blame the Palestinians for our dilemmas; they accepted the two-state solution way back in 1988. No, it is us, the triumphant, those who believed (and still believe) that military power combined with Jewish victimhood can defeat a people’s will to freedom, who carry the burden of responsibility for this most anti-Zionist, yet wholly predicable, situation.

[url=http://www.counterpunch.org/halper05152008.html]The Palestinian Poltergeist [/url]

Thu, 2008-05-29 14:34

#67

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

quote:

The West, and the United States in particular, have always acknowledged a strategic interest, as well as moral obligation, to defend a Jewish Israel. However the strategic interest now is absent, and as Power says, there may soon no longer be a Jewish Israel.
Israel’s systematic colonization and annexation of the Palestinian territories over the last forty years, and equally systematic opposition to the creation of an independent Palestinian state – no longer a serious prospect, as was evident during President’s Bush’s recent visit to Israel -- have turned Israel into an Arab-Jewish state under Jewish control.
...
Israel now finds itself a single amalgamated political entity with a huge Palestinian minority for which it is legally responsible, which before long will become a majority, living in quasi-apartheid conditions. The defense of such a state can scarcely be described as a western strategic interest. Defend it against what? No Arab government has any interest in attacking it. The only threat to it is the hypothetical one of Iran’s as yet hypothetical nuclear weapon. But why should Iran attack it, as Israel undoes itself as a Jewish state?
...
The Zionist movement, by insisting on keeping possession of Palestine, and the Palestinian population conquered in 1967, has destroyed the Jewish state it was its dream to create. This only now is being recognized.

[url=http://www.williampfaff.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=317]Willaim Pfaff[/url]

Fri, 2008-10-24 12:01

#68

M. Spector M. Spector's picture

quote:

The majority of people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are against the creation of a Palestinian state neighbouring Israel, according to a poll by An-Najah National University. 54.3 per cent of respondents oppose the so-called two-state solution, while 42.5 per cent support it. - [url=http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/31970/most_palestinians_reject_two_... Reid[/url]

The question:

Do you support or reject the creation of two states on the historic land of Palestine (a Palestinian state and Israel)?

Sept. 2008
Support-42.5% Reject-54.3% No opinion-3.2%

May 2008
Support-39.5% Reject-57.6% No Opinion-2.9%

[ 24 October 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

Fri, 2008-10-24 12:15

#69

Cueball

The real question should be a three part question with two options, one which includes the possibility of integration into Israel, with the Arab population being awarded the full rights of Israeli citizens, and another which is about the foundation of a new binational state Arab/Israeli state.

The answer to that question would be really interesting. Basically this question tells us nothing about how Arabs in the West Bank feel about becoming part of a bi-national state.

It also leaves the door open to the manipulation of the statistic to be used to example Palestinian "rejectionism". For all we know most people in the West Bank would be fine living in a bi-national state, and even one called Israel.

Fri, 2009-01-16 00:08

#70

Doug

It seems that discussing one or two states is premature. The issues have to be sorted out regardless of what sort of governing organization or organizations the region gets. Just the land issue is a nightmare. Land was taken at various times to make the present state of Israel and its settlements. How much of that land and where remains with its current owners and how much returns to its previous owners or their descendants? Is compensation acceptable in lieu of returning land? When land is returned do the new(original) owners owe anything to the old owners for buildings or other improvements? Why worry about the government when the more fundamental issues are the most difficult to solve?

Fri, 2009-01-16 09:20

#71

thirusuj

Frustrated Mess wrote:

quote:

Olmert himself warned recently, more Palestinians are shifting their struggle from one for an independent state to a South African-style struggle that demands equal rights for all citizens, irrespective of religion, in a single state. "That is, of course," he noted, "a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle -- and ultimately a much more powerful one."

[url=http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/suncommentary/la-op-makdisi11-2...

Seems like the Olmert the idiot wants to make this violence eternal. He must he out of his mind, after all this mistrust between these two distinct group of nation he would have the courage to even suggest this idea. It's like he is suggesting a recipe for a bigger disaster.

Fri, 2009-01-16 14:44

#72

Sven

If the two-state solution is unacceptable, then what is the best way to convince the Israelis of that? Usually in a negotiation, there's give-and-take. I would think that tubing the two-state solution would be viewed as a complete loss to most Israelis. So, why would they agree to it?

_______________________________________

[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]

Fri, 2009-01-16 14:49

#73

M. Spector M. Spector's picture

"If apartheid is unacceptable, then what is the best way to convince the white South Africans of that? Usually in a negotiation there's give-and-take. I would think that tubing (sic) the abolition of apartheid would be viewed as a complete loss to most Afrikaners. So, why would they agree to it?"

- Sven, circa 1989??

Fri, 2009-01-16 15:16

#74

Caissa

Is this any different than the aparthheid comments made above for which individuals were rightly chastised ny Michelle on May 14, 2008.

Fri, 2009-01-16 15:18

#75

Sven

M. Spector, in contrast to South African apartheid, there a significant numbers of powerful people outside of Israel who support Israel's right to exist (principally, but certainly not solely, in the USA). So, unlike South Africa, you have to either (A) convince the Israelis of the error of their ways or (B) convince its biggest ally(ies) to foresake Israel (whereupon outside forces could then put pressure on an unprotected Israel just as was down with South Africa).

_______________________________________

[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]

Fri, 2009-01-16 15:29

#76

M. Spector M. Spector's picture

I didn't call Sven a supporter of apartheid, asshole. Nor did I imply it.

Sven understood that. Why can't you?

Fri, 2009-01-16 16:25

#77

Hoodeet

<>Can't you spare us all the offensive language and rein in the bad moods instead of throwing around the personal insults, acting all macho-aggressive...?<> (I'm ok.-- my blood pressure is abnormally low. I just feel for the readers who aren't quite as lucky.) <>

Fri, 2009-01-16 16:40

#78

Hoodeet

One concern I would echo is that a one-state solution
would be a harder sell to Israelis. The 1967-border solution is a
first step, unsatisfactory because it fragments the Palestinian
territories, but it's a beginning, not the end objective.
Jerusalem under international supervision.

Concentrate on
dividing the Israeli population --even if leads to a nasty civil war,
given that the right-wing settlers are so well armed and positioned--
and apply pressure and incentives to the pragmatists and the
peace-seekers within, to extract the illegal settlements. With UN
support and intervention.

<> First things first, though: weaken international backing
for Israel, a sine qua non, since it feels it can continue to ignore
the UN and world opinion indefinitely. (This change could come
about only if the US makes a 180º turn or collapses.)

Once those pipe dreams are fulfilled, we can figure out whether one- or two-state is the more feasible solution.

<>

Until
the basic conditions are met for any real negotiations or any prospects
for a real relocation of all Jewish settlements, we're just spinning
our wheels.

<>If Hamas and the Islamists favour a
single-state solution, the scarier subtext is clear (get the Jews the
hell out). The P.A. 2-state solution can't be trusted because
the P.A. can't be trusted after being battered and in some cases
co-opted by Israel and the west. Could a UN-supervised plebiscite be
held, of all Palestinians (including those in the Diaspora)?

Fri, 2009-01-16 17:38

#79

M. Spector M. Spector's picture

[url=http://www.inminds.co.uk/article.php?id=10155][color=mediumblue][u]One State or Two States - Pappe vs Avnery debate[/u][/color][/url]

Sat, 2009-01-17 00:33

#80

Fidel

Palestinians have offshore rights to significant natural gas deposits. I think we know who wants to "share" it with them under one state.

Sat, 2009-01-17 00:34

#81

Cueball

Why don't you talk about stuff you know something about.

Sat, 2009-01-17 00:53

#82

Fidel

Cueball wrote:

Why don't you talk about stuff you know something about.

This is Canadian economics professor Michel Chossudovsky's opinion - that the currently onrushing collapse of capitalism and economic conquest of energy reserves around the world are linked. Do you have anything more than your usual snide remarks to offer, or has brain grown to planet size, and you're now declaring yourself an authority on everything?

Sat, 2009-01-17 00:59

#83

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

There will never be a Palestinian state along side the state of Israel. The two state solution is a political fiction to mask the political reality of the colonial project that is Israel.

Israel is not the Jewish State. Israel is a European settler state in the long process of dispossessing, marginalizing, and eventually disappearing it's indigenous population.

It uses the world Jewish community, with legitimate aspirations for security, to conceal and carry out the colonial project.

There is nothing new under the sun. From Israel:

Quote:
A new program will offer Jews from Western countries tax breaks and other accommodations, as incentives to immigrate to Israel.

The
program, proposed by the Jewish Agency and the Absorption and Interior
ministries, will offer new Jewish immigrants temporary residency
status, and would exempt them from most taxes and national service for
several years. Immigrants who continue to run businesses abroad also
will receive tax exemptions.

The
proposal is part of the Jewish Agency's attempt to compete with private
aliyah organizations such as Nefesh B'Nefesh, which assists North
American and British Jews with housing and job hunting.

http://israeljewishnews.blogspot.com/2008/06/jewish-agency-offers-new-in...

An earlier period of conquest:

Quote:

The emigration patterns changed
after the 1870's, with the authorized government agencies making trips
to Germany, offering generous land packages and incentives for the Germans
to settle Canada's West. The Canadian Government was anxious to attract
the Germans, who they found to be independent, loyal and anxious at a
chance to own their own land. These were just the characteristics that
the Canadian Government were looking for. The Germans had proven their
loyalty to the British Crown as United Empire Loyalists and through the
links between the British and German Royal houses.

http://www.whitepinepictures.com/seeds/iii/30/history2.html

If colonialism is ever to be halted, it must be defeated.

Sat, 2009-01-17 08:36

#84

Sven

Lemme get this straight, FM: Are you arguing that Europe wanted to settle and occupy this speck of geography now called Isarael...and the Europeans were just using the Jews as a Trojan Horse to take control of the land?

If so, what, pray tell, would be the motivation?
_______________________________________
[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]

Sat, 2009-01-17 09:43

#85

Cueball

Contolling the world resources, in particular the vital supply of oil that allows you to live in blissful ignorance, drive to work everyday, undisturbed by any real material need or want, and lecture others in self-statisfied tones about how your superior culture and values levitate you to a superior moral and material circumstance.

Sat, 2009-01-17 10:02

#86

Cueball

Fidel wrote:
Cueball wrote:

Why don't you talk about stuff you know something about.

This is Canadian economics professor Michel Chossudovsky's opinion - that the currently onrushing collapse of capitalism and economic conquest of energy reserves around the world are linked. Do you have anything more than your usual snide remarks to offer, or has brain grown to planet size, and you're now declaring yourself an authority on everything?

As I said talk about something you know about. Promoting a two state solution has proved an efficient means of preventing the Palestinians in having any control over their natural resources at all, let alone sharing them.

Sat, 2009-01-17 10:35

#87

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Sven wrote:
Lemme get this straight, FM: Are you arguing that Europe wanted to settle and occupy this speck of geography now called Isarael...and the Europeans were just using the Jews as a Trojan Horse to take control of the land?
If so, what, pray tell, would be the motivation?

The colonization and dispossession of tens of millions of people in the Americas began with one man name Cristopher Columbus. And the motivation is what you Americans, the world leaders in conspicuous waste, call "energy security" because we know the American (and Canadian) way of waste is not open to negotiation.

It is also important to recall that the Israeli colonial project began in the aftermath of WWII when the so-called Great Powers just finished a major war that included battles for control of mid-east oil and came just a few decades after another war which also included battles over the same resources.

In some respects, the Israeli colonial project is a hold out of the great wars - like a Japanese soldier being discovered in the jungle. It is time it came to an end.

Sat, 2009-01-17 14:28

#88

blairz

I respect Michelle's efforts to keep the discussion collegial and on point, however the situation suffered by the Palastinians since the Clinton administration has become more and more analogous to Apartheid. Since Nelson Mandela's release from prison Apartheid is almost universally recognised as an odious example of collective punishment. However we must'nt allow ourselves to believe that it was always so.

Sven asserts

"...in contrast to South African apartheid, there a
significant numbers of powerful people outside of Israel who support
Israel's right to exist (principally, but certainly not solely, in the
USA). So, unlike South Africa, you have to either (A) convince the
Israelis of the error of their ways or (B) convince its biggest
ally(ies) to foresake Israel (whereupon outside forces could then put
pressure on an unprotected Israel just as was down with South Africa)."

The very same forces that now support Israel did indeed support the South African state for decades before public awareness of Apartheid made such support politically untenable. It is not a mere coincidence that South Africa's last three allies in the UN were the US, Israel and Turkey. Israel, Turkey and South Africa were important coldwar clients and all three suffered a similar problem of a native population that if fully franchised would destabilise the nation's elites. Indeed these nations did treat with each other in an alliance both political and militarily based solely on the point of their increasing allienation in the UN. Now that the White Supremist regime is fading into oblivion, Apartheid has become a dirty word, a fighting word that one should not weild in debate, but there really isn't a preferable euphonism. Ghetto anyone? Seperate but Equal?

The two state solution does not work because Israel can no more afford the risk of a truly autonomous self-sufficient neighbor lead by Hamas, than it can afford to enfranchise a growing Palestinian poulation within it's own system. So the "two state solution" is really a fraud that was revealed when the Palastinians elected a party unacceptable to Israel and it's patron.

Sat, 2009-01-17 15:31

#89

al-Qa'bong

Sven wrote:

M. Spector, in contrast to South African apartheid, there a significant numbers of powerful people outside of Israel who support Israel's right to exist ...

This is a misleading argument. As was the case with those who opposed Apartheid in South Africa, supporters of boycotts or sanctions against Israel aren't calling for the destruction of a state, but rather for that state to give up its racist ethos and become truly democratic.

Meanwhile the colonial project continues, which is what Zionists want, as they believe they can eventually expell the indigenous population of Palestine and make the one-state/two-state question moot.

Sven wrote:

If so, what, pray tell, would be the motivation?

To which Cueball replied:

"Contolling the world resources, in particular the vital supply of oil that allows you to live in blissful ignorance, drive to work everyday, undisturbed by any real material need or want, and lecture others in self-statisfied tones about how your superior culture and values levitate you to a superior moral and material circumstance."

Originally the British wanted Palestine because of its strategic location. If another imperial power were to control the area, Britain's link to India would have been threatened. Near the end of the Great War, however, the importance of Persian and Mesopotamian oil was realized, which made Palestine doubly important in the Empire's eyes.

Sat, 2009-01-17 15:56

#90

Fidel

Cueball wrote:
The real question should be a three part question with two options, one which includes the possibility of integration into Israel, with the Arab population being awarded the full rights of Israeli citizens, and another which is about the foundation of a new binational state Arab/Israeli state.

The answer to that question would be really interesting. Basically this question tells us nothing about how Arabs in the West Bank feel about becoming part of a bi-national state.

Perhaps Israelis will put out feelers with a referendum - a real democratic like process just as soon as all this destroying of public infrastructure and murdering of civilians comes to full stop.

Sat, 2009-01-17 16:13

#91

M. Spector M. Spector's picture

Todd May, in Counterpunch, wrote:
Like many, I long favored a two-state solution. It seemed to me the best of a set of bad solutions to the problem of two peoples living side by side on a small parcel of land. I believe now that I was wrong. The two-state solution is neither moral nor realistic. The only politically and ethically viable approach to the problem of Israel and Palestine is to support a [b]single democratic secular state[/b] that provides equal rights for all of its citizens. Furthermore, the failure to recognize this has, I believe, helped underwrite some of the most egregious of Israel's policies. The most important reason for this has not, to my knowledge, yet been sufficiently addressed. I would like to do so here....

[url=http://www.counterpunch.org/may09092004.html][color=mediumblue][u]September 9, 2004[/u][/color][/url]

Sat, 2009-01-17 18:26

#92

Cueball

I don't ever remember the RAF bombing Dublin during the IRA revolt, no matter how many bombs went off in London or Northern Ireland.

Sat, 2009-01-17 18:27

#93

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Quote:
It is not a mere coincidence that South Africa's last three allies in the UN were the US, Israel and Turkey.

And Thatcher's Britain which isn't surprising, given the British model of colonization, brutally perfected in Ireland, was exported across the world to the Americas, Australia, Africa, Asia, and the mid-east.

Sat, 2009-01-17 18:44

#94

Fidel

The British had their death squads in Northern Island, for sure. It was all part of sword play. Poor Leggy Mountbatten. If only he hadnt been such a loud mouthed hawk.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v697/rabblerabble/gladio.jpg[/IMG]

Mon, 2009-01-19 09:29

#95

Caissa

You call me "asshole" again M. Spector and I might have to rip you a new one.

Mon, 2009-01-19 10:57

#96

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

I didn't say they did. But that doesn't discount that a) Britain was an ally of Aparthied era South Africa; B) Britain's 500 year occupation of Ireland was brutal; C) In those 500 years, Britain carried out atrocities, not just in Ireland but around the world, that would easily match or cast a shadow upon the scale of the atrocities carried out by Israel today.

Mon, 2009-01-19 13:55

#97

Sven

M. Spector wrote:
[url=http://www.inminds.co.uk/article.php?id=10155][color=mediumblue][u]One State or Two States - Pappe vs Avnery debate[/u][/color][/url]

That is an interesting debate. Well worth reading.

Thanks for the link.

_______________________________________

[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]

Mon, 2009-01-19 14:26

#98

Cueball

Fidel wrote:

The British had their death squads in Northern Island, for sure. It was all part of sword play. Poor Leggy Mountbatten. If only he hadnt been such a loud mouthed hawk.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v697/rabblerabble/gladio.jpg[/IMG]

Death squads, as immoral as they are, are far more subtle than round the clock bombing campaigns in urban areas.

Mon, 2009-01-19 19:53

#99

al-Qa'bong

M. Spector wrote:
[url=http://www.inminds.co.uk/article.php?id=10155][color=mediumblue][u]One State or Two States - Pappe vs Avnery debate[/u][/color][/url]

My workplace blocked this link. Apparently it's from a terrorist site. I found the debate on Gush Shalom's site, though. Pappe nails the fatal contradiction in the soul of Zionism here:

Quote:
Therefore, as a colonial project, a project of settling and displacing another people, it was was not a success story. But the problem - and the source of the Palestinian tragedy - was that the leaders of Zionism did not want only to create a colonial project, they also wanted to create a democratic state.

And why was it a Palestinian tragedy that Zionism at its early career wanted to be democratic? Because it still wants to be democratic. Because if you put together Zionist colonialism, Zionist nationalism and the impulse for democracy, you get a need which still dictates political positions in Israel up to the present - from Meretz in the Zionist Left to the National Union party on the Extreme Right. It is the need to have an overlapping between the democratic majority and the Jewish majority.

Every means is fair to ensure that there will be a Jewish majority, because without a Jewish majority we will not be a democracy. It is even permissible to expel Arabs in order to make us a democracy. Because the most important is to have here a majority of Jews. Because otherwise the project will not be a democratic project.

Why Israel won't survive
by Ali Abunimah

Quote:

Israel was founded as a "Jewish state" through the ethnic cleansing of Palestine's non-Jewish majority Arab population. It has been maintained in existence only through Western support and constant use of violence to prevent the surviving indigenous population from exercising political rights within the country, or returning from forced exile.

Despite this, today, 50 percent of the people living under Israeli rule in historic Palestine (Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip) are Palestinians, not Jews. And their numbers are growing rapidly. Like Nationalists in Northern Ireland or non-whites in South Africa, Palestinians will never recognize the "right" of a settler-colonial society to maintain an ethnocractic state at their expense through violence, repression and racism.

For years, the goal of the so-called peace process was to normalize Israel as a "Jewish state" and gain Palestinians' blessing for their own dispossession and subjugation. When this failed, Israel tried "disengagement" in Gaza -- essentially a ruse to convince the rest of the world that the 1.5 million Palestinians caged in there should no longer be counted as part of the population. They were in Israel's definition a "hostile entity."

In his notorious May 2004 interview with The Jerusalem Post, Arnon Soffer, an architect of the 2005 disengagement explained that the approach "doesn't guarantee 'peace,' it guarantees a Jewish- Zionist state with an overwhelming majority of Jews." Soffer predicted that in the future "when 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it's going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful."

He was unambiguous about what Israel would have to do to maintain this status quo: "If we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day." Soffer hoped that eventually, Palestinians would give up and leave Gaza altogether.

Mon, 2009-01-19 20:15

#100

Frustrated Mess Frustrated Mess's picture

Quote:
... we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.

That deserves being repeated. I suspect the Israeli strategy for Gaza will now be to keep them caged and starving in their concentration camp until they fall from every illness without the strength to fight even the common cold. And eventually they will wither and die and fly away with the dust.

Mon, 2009-01-19 20:48

#101

saga

Frustrated Mess wrote:

Quote:
... we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.

That deserves being repeated. I suspect the Israeli strategy for Gaza will now be to keep them caged and starving in their concentration camp until they fall from every illness without the strength to fight even the common cold. And eventually they will wither and die and fly away with the dust.

I think a one-state solution will only come from peace. I don't think it can be imposed.

However, the peace may first need to be enforced by international troops, imo.

Forget the two-state solution

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