Forget the two-state solution, part 2

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There is a lot of political pressure (in Europe, among many Palistinians, and within Israel itself, for example) for a two-state solution.  As near as I can tell, there is very little support for a one-state solution (other than among a very, very few Israelis and among Hamas extremists). 

If you think support for one state is limited to Hamas "extemists", you haven't been paying attention.

And again, if there has been so much pressure to create two states, why hasn't this happened yet? They've had over 40 years to get around to it.

al-Qa'bong wrote:

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There is a lot of political pressure (in Europe, among many Palistinians, and within Israel itself, for example) for a two-state solution.  As near as I can tell, there is very little support for a one-state solution (other than among a very, very few Israelis and among Hamas extremists). 

If you think support for one state is limited to Hamas "extemists", you haven't been paying attention.

And again, if there has been so much pressure to create two states, why hasn't this happened yet? They've had over 40 years to get around to it.

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Cueball wrote:

al-Qa'bong wrote:

Quote:

There is a lot of political pressure (in Europe, among many Palistinians, and within Israel itself, for example) for a two-state solution.  As near as I can tell, there is very little support for a one-state solution (other than among a very, very few Israelis and among Hamas extremists). 

If you think support for one state is limited to Hamas "extemists", you haven't been paying attention.

And again, if there has been so much pressure to create two states, why hasn't this happened yet? They've had over 40 years to get around to it.

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Hey, I was being generous.

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Binyamin  Neyanyahu, who still has at least an even chance of becoming prime minister after the Feb. 9th election, has actually revived Begin's discredited "autonomy" idea, and honestly seems to think he can occupy, bomb and humiliate Palestinians into accepting it.

Bibi has already said he'll never allow a "terrorist state" to border Israel.

"That said, a two-state solution where Israel remains as a exclusionary Jewish state, is only a partial solution."

 Isreal would never be an exclusively Jewish state since in any scenario, at least 20% of the population of Israel will be made up of Arabs, who vote in Israeli elections and have more rights than they do in just about any Arab country (almost all of which are brutal dictatorships). You can be sure that in contrast Palestine in any two-state solution will be 100% Arab and that there will never be a single solitary Jewish Israeli living there.

What consitutes a "legal claim" is whatever the various parties agree to. If the peace plan of 2000 had succeeded - that would ipso-facto have become the "legal claim". Whether you like it or not "facts on the ground" are facts on the ground. The Jewish population of Israel is now over 6 million and totally dominates the post-1948 boundaries. You might as well try to claim that all of the UK should be given back to Celts and that Anglo-Saxons should go back to where they came from in what is now Germany.

 You can't force people who clearly hate each other to live together any more than you can abolish divorce and demand that a couple stay together who keep beating each other up - it just won't happen. We have already seen in places like Bosnia or Kosovo where people with far less history of violence and conflict than Israelis and Palestinians proved that they could not live in the same country and so those countries were divided along ethnic lines.

Yeah, why should Palestinians be allowed to live on Israeli territory, just because it's "morally correct"?

After all, the Jews and the Arabs "hate each other", so it's wrong to have them living in the same country - unless, of course, the Jews are the overwhelming majority and are firmly in control, while the Arabs enjoy second-class status.

The rhetoric of apartheid lives on!

Well, other than the historic way Quebec FN's have been treated(and that was as much the responsibility of the anglos from Ottawa as it was of any francophones)no non-francophone group was ever treated by francophones in the way the Israeli government has treated Palestinians under the Occupation and the Siege. 

It's not like anybody deprived Westmount of potable water or stole any anglophone fruit orchards.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly

Sven and Stockpile-it-on aren't arguing here so much as creating diversions.

Nobody is going into First Nations land, bulldozing homes and bombing women and children. If anyone even tried that where I live, they'd be bombing their non-First Nations neighbours as well.

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Do you consider everyone who supports sovereignty for Quebec to support "apartheid" since they want a country where francophones are the majority and can dominate every other group?

I suppose there are no rules against reducing arguments to absurdity on babble.

I like the way that people always like to trot out Canada's FN's people everytime they want to support some fascist friends of theirs elsewhere in the world.

Of course if the Israelis do it, we can do it too, this is the real meassage.

They have already reduced the Arab population of the area we call Israel today, by and estimated 60 % in only 60 years. It took hundreds of years to wipe out the indiginous peoples of North America.

Give your friends a break, they only just started.

Creating conditions of starvation, and detroying the basis of diesease prevention by blowing up hospitals, cutting off basic medical supplies and destroying the water supply of large populations of people, were simply beyond the means of our ancestors. So was trapping people in tightly packed open air urban prisons, where they could be "spot massacred" from a safe distance using heavy artillery and aircraft delivered 500 lb bombs. That is why it took so long back then.

Diseased blankets, sabers and muskets just don't cut it today Stockholm.

Think of how far we have advanced. Back in the olden days white people had to actually take risks in order to massacre brown people. Now you can practically do it from the comfort of your living room. Sharon actually got to watch the assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and whoever was nearby, on closed circuit TV from Jerusalem. Even got to give the final order!

What a thrill, eh?

Funny thing I learned the other day, Stockybaba. Did you know that the phrase "Land without a people" was the name of a program originally instituted in Eastern Poland to boot out the Poles and replace them with Germans under Willehelm II, in 1915? 

Ken Burch wrote:

... no non-francophone group was ever treated by francophones in the way the Israeli government has treated Palestinians under the Occupation and the Siege. 

It's not like anybody deprived Westmount of potable water or stole any anglophone fruit orchards ...

While we're on the topic, don't you love how all of anglo Quebec can be reduced to Westmount and the Eastern Townships? In other words, to the bucolic and the over-privileged, logic notwithstanding?

The rhetoric of apartheid, indeed.

Frustrated Mess] <p>[quote wrote:

If you weren't an insincere boor, this might be a valuable observation.

 

 

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What is he was a SINCERE boor?

________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly

It's the rhetoric of off-topic, and irrelevant. You are talking about a matter that is pretty much a civil dispute, debated and adjudicated within the processes of law, and its interpretation, wherein for example, all persons are enfranchised and may vote, and otherwise have "civil rights."

The situation in Palestine is one where one population is denying enfranchisement of another through the use of direct military force and removing their civil rights. 

[url=http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/01/cbs-on-israel-palestine.html][col... surprisingly sympathetic report on the Palestinians in the West Bank from CBS's "60 Minutes" that demolishes the "two-state" solution.[/u][/color][/url]

Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi:
"While my heart still wants to believe that the two-state solution is possible, my brain keeps telling me the opposite because of ...the building of settlements...."

[url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/23/60minutes/main4749723.shtml][u... of the video[/u][/url]

[url=http://imeu.net/news/article007179.shtml][b]The One-state Declaration[/b][/url]

For decades, efforts to bring about a two-state solution in historic Palestine have failed to provide justice and peace for the Palestinian and Israeli Jewish peoples, or to offer a genuine process leading towards them.

The two-state solution ignores the physical and political realities on the ground, and presumes a false parity in power and moral claims between a colonized and occupied people on the one hand and a colonizing state and military occupier on the other. It is predicated on the unjust premise that peace can be achieved by granting limited national rights to Palestinians living in the areas occupied in 1967, while denying the rights of Palestinians inside the 1948 borders and in the Diaspora. Thus, the two-state solution condemns Palestinian citizens of Israel to permanent second-class status within their homeland, in a racist state that denies their rights by enacting laws that privilege Jews constitutionally, legally, politically, socially and culturally. Moreover, the two-state solution denies Palestinian refugees their internationally recognized right of return.

The two-state solution entrenches and formalizes a policy of unequal separation on a land that has become ever more integrated territorially and economically. All the international efforts to implement a two-state solution cannot conceal the fact that a Palestinian state is not viable, and that Palestinian and Israeli Jewish independence in separate states cannot resolve fundamental injustices, the acknowledgment and redress of which are at the core of any just solution.

In light of these stark realities, we affirm our commitment to a democratic solution that will offer a just, and thus enduring, peace in a single state based on the following principles:

• The historic land of Palestine belongs to all who live in it and to those who were expelled or exiled from it since 1948, regardless of religion, ethnicity, national origin or current citizenship status;

• Any system of government must be founded on the principle of equality in civil, political, social and cultural rights for all citizens. Power must be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all people in the diversity of their identities;

• There must be just redress for the devastating effects of decades of Zionist colonization in the pre- and post-state period, including the abrogation of all laws, and ending all policies, practices and systems of military and civil control that oppress and discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, religion or national origin;

• The recognition of the diverse character of the society, encompassing distinct religious, linguistic and cultural traditions, and national experiences;

• The creation of a non-sectarian state that does not privilege the rights of one ethnic or religious group over another and that respects the separation of state from all organized religion;

• The implementation of the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees in accordance with UN Resolution 194 is a fundamental requirement for justice, and a benchmark of the respect for equality;

• The creation of a transparent and nondiscriminatory immigration policy;

• The recognition of the historic connections between the diverse communities inside the new, democratic state and their respective fellow communities outside;

• In articulating the specific contours of such a solution, those who have been historically excluded from decision-making -- especially the Palestinian Diaspora and its refugees, and Palestinians inside Israel -- must play a central role;

• The establishment of legal and institutional frameworks for justice and reconciliation.

The struggle for justice and liberation must be accompanied by a clear, compelling and moral vision of the destination - a solution in which all people who share a belief in equality can see a future for themselves and others. We call for the widest possible discussion, research and action to advance a unitary, democratic solution and bring it to fruition.

Madrid and London, 2007

Signed:
Ali Abunimah
Naseer Aruri
Omar Barghouti
Oren Ben-Dor
George Bisharat
Haim Bresheeth
Jonathan Cook
Ghazi Falah
Leila Farsakh
Islah Jad
Joseph Massad
Ilan Pappe
Carlos Prieto del Campo
Nadim Rouhana
The London One State Group

You're right that it's off-topic in that the Quebec question is not one of international news.  But it is highly relevant to the two-state solution debate.

The question of Quebec's "right to self-determination" was referred to a panel of distinguished international law experts.  They concluded that since francophone Quebecers have their civil rights under the rule of law, and since Quebec is not under occupation, they are not disenfranchised to that extent.  No to colonialism, and no to secession.

One federated state should cover the territory.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

And let me clarify here that what the pseudo-Christians want isn't actually what most ISRAELIS really want. 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly

Why don't you tell us? It seems you know the answer.

Is that what you support? If so, state it.

Why don't you justify it? How about this, if I stole your wallet with $1,500 cash inside it (you were on your way to buy a new big screen LCD TV because you wanted your cable news more in your face), how much should I get to keep for my trouble or to properly reflect the facts, as they are, on the ground?

Now you go ahead and justify why I should have to give any of it back to you as now it is mine.

Is that your position? My position is that Israelis and Palestinians of goodwill should reach an understanding and agreement through a negotiation between equals. That is the only position I have. We can do the same with your wallet.

Frustrated Mess wrote:

My position is that Israelis and Palestinians of goodwill should reach an understanding and agreement through a negotiation between equals. That is the only position I have.

Really?

To return to your analogy: If I stole $1,500 from your wallet, you would advocate that we should, as people of goodwill, "negotiate" for how much I have to give back to you?

It seems to me that if your objective is justice, then requiring a victim to "negotiate" with the victim's oppressor to get [i]only part[/i] of what was originally taken from the victim does not seem to satisfy that objective.

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

Negotiation comes into play in all sorts of situations that are "cut and dried" on paper. For example, under criminal law an accused person is either guilty or not guilty. Yet plea bargains are negotiated all the time.

In the case of resolution 194, the question of financial compensation could certainly be the subject of negotiation.

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To return to your analogy: If I stole $1,500 from your wallet, you would advocate that we should, as people of goodwill, "negotiate" for how much I have to give back to you?

No, I would say you are a thief and call a cop. In the real world simple analogies don't work. You live on stolen land. What steps have you taken to return it to or compensate its owners?

The difficulty presented by colonization is that the current holders of the land may not have stolen it but acquired it quite innocently. Nevertheless, it was still stolen and the former owners, through negotiation, are certainly entitled to be compensated if not able to return to the former family home.

Sven wrote:

Although negotiation would not be part of the resolution if all refugees elected to return to their land.

What if they return to their land and find that a nuclear power plant has been built on it? Or their farmland has been paved over? There would be many issues of compensation to be resolved through negotiation.

Imagine if the United States agreed to a "right of return" for its Native peoples. Do you imagine there would be no issues to negotiate?