I was at an event yesterday in which a Jewish-American who had lived for many years in Israel was discussing the Trump "Vision for Peace." He presented it as the "best deal" the Palestinian leadership or people are likely to get. That may well be true at this point, but doesn't make the plan anything more than naked political theater.
After the presentation was over I went up and asked the speaker how many new Arab-Israeli citizens the plan would create. He wasn't sure, but he agreed that, looking at the map, the number would have to fall somewhere between 500,000-1,000,000. So one must ask, if the plan was carried out, would Bibi ever get re-elected again? No. But it is easy to make promises that you know you will never have to keep, just like it is easy for Jared Kushner to shake his head about how much money the Palestinian leaders are forgoing when you will never have to pony up.
After asking my shifting demographics question I said to the speaker, "You know, there is a very easy one state solution." "Yes" he said, "but you know what that would mean for Israel." "I know it," I replied, "and Mahmoud Abbas knows it- that is why this 'best deal' is DOA- and Bibi and Trump knew that from the start."
The easy, fair thing to do would be to make everyone from the Jordan River to the sea (including those in Gaza) an Israeli citizen. That would immediately make Israel a 49% Jewish/51% Palestinian nation. Thus, the creation of a separate Palestinian state is a non-negotiable necessity if Israel wants to persist as a democratic Jewish state along the lines envisioned by Theodore Herzl and David Ben-Gurion.
Bibi and Trump are in no position to tell the Palestinians what counts as a "best deal," because the Palestinians don't require that their nation contain a majority of any particular religion or even ethnicity- they just want the rights of citizens of a sovereign nation on the land they call home. Since what they are bargaining for is radically simpler, their latitude to make demands has always been much higher. This "Vision for Peace" was never meant as a serious proposal- Bibi and Trump deliberately played politics with an issue that is vitally important to Israelis, Palestinians, and Jews throughout the world. In order to please some religious voters in Israel and evangelical voters in the US they have mortgaged the credibility of the US as a fair broker and that of the Israeli government as a good-faith negotiator. In the long term, they have ensured that a peaceful "one-state solution" is almost certainly the best outcome for which anyone can hope.
You write: :"they just want the rights of citizens of a sovereign nation on the land they call home." If only that were so.
ReplyDeleteIn that the leadership of the Palestinian Arabs has, when faced with proposals that would grant them a sovereign nation on land they call home (e.g., 1947, 2000 and 2008) but rejected or ignored such offers, I think you misread this matter pretty dramatically. Yes, those proposals were not perfect from the Arab point of view. But, they would have granted the very thing you claim the Arab side wants. So, I don't think you have thought through very clearly what the Arab side wants but, instead, have repeated what Western academicians want.
In fact, the most likely understanding of the Palestinian Arab position suggests they oppose any resolution to the dispute. Why? Because, as shown pretty clearly by Benny Morris in One State, Two States, the Arab side cannot accept Jewish sovereignty as legitimate because they don't think Jews are a nationality and, further, the Arab side believes that time is on its side so that accepting half a loaf is not necessary. Hence, they won't settle at this point.
The big problem for the Arab perspective of holding out long enough so that Israel either implodes or can be defeated on the battlefield is that the world has changed in ways that make such an outcome far less likely than it once was. The most obvious reason is intelligent technology which give the Israelis a dramatic advantage, as Israel is able to create wealthy without large numbers of people or vast resources and, with that technology, the Israelis can control the Palestinian Arab population better. It also provides Israel with dramatic advantages on the battlefield.
What the Palestinian Arab side would actually need to do at this point if it really wanted the state you think they want is for them to propose an actual settlement plan and make clear to Israelis that moving towards that plan will not lead to a double-cross skin to the December 2000 proposal from President Clinton (as acknowledged by the then Saudi Ambassador in a long article that used to appear on the US Saudi website), and that will, in fact, grant both sides something - i.e. a compromise - that they could abide. That, however, won't happen because the Arab side has to play to its base, which simply does accept Israel because it does not accept Jewish sovereignty.
I am always amused at how little academics pay attention to what Arabs actually think and actually want. That means coming to terms on the plethora of evidence of what Arabs say - except when speaking to Westerners.
There is, in any event, no peaceful one state solution. And, that is not what the bulk of either side wants.
Niles, You have completely missed my point and (seemingly deliberately and quite disingenuously) taken my words out of context. Nothing in what I wrote denies or ignores Arab hostility to Israel. When I say that Palestinians "JUST want the rights of citizens in a sovereign nation," that "JUST" pointed specifically to the contrast between Palestinian and Israeli requirements of sovereignty. The Palestinians are free to incorporate any admixture of Jews, Christians, Muslims and Druze into their prospective state, because NONE of the requirements of Palestinian sovereignty hinge on the religious identity of any portion of its citizenry. In the abstract, the needs of Palestinian sovereignty would be very simply served- make everyone from Gaza to Golan, the Jordan to the sea, citizens of one nation and voila! it is done. By contrast, the Herzlian vision pursued by the Israelis (to which I myself as a Zionist subscribe) requires the maintenance of a Jewish majority, thus it CREATES the need to draw complex lines on maps and partition the land in demographically deliberate patterns. The needs of Palestinian sovereignty are simpler- that is ALL THAT I IMPLIED. Do I know that many Arabs are lethally antisemitic? Yes, just as I know that there are many ultra-religious Israelis who would gladly practice ethnic cleansing and even mass murder to achieve their theological goals. Niether of those conditions changes the fact that the requirements of Zionism are more complicated- this is a fact that cannot be argued. You want to engage me in an argument about the relative justification for Israeli versus Palestinian statehood, but that was never the point of my post and I am simply not interested. I, like you, want a two-state solution. If we disagree, it is about the means of arriving at it. Meanwhile, you have managed to be patronizing and insulting to me coming right out of the gate, and I have no patience for your tone. Unless you can be constructive (meaning that you engage my ACTUAL POINT) and respectful in your reply, please expect your next comment to go unposted.
ReplyDeleteI apologize for not correctly understanding your position. While I thought that I had actually engaged your comment, I take your statement above seriously when you indicate that I did not.
ReplyDeleteAddressing your above comment, the requirements for a single state are, as I see them, not any less difficult than the requirements for two states. In that regard, I note your comment above that "t]he Palestinians are free to incorporate any admixture of Jews, Christians, Muslims and Druze into their prospective state, because NONE of the requirements of Palestinian sovereignty hinge on the religious identity of any portion of its citizenry." As I understand the situation , your quoted statement is either a truism (i.e., any state gets to choose who is part and who is not part of that state) or it simply overlooks that who is a part of that state is THE issue for Palestinian Arabs. As such, I do not subscribe to your subsequent comment(i.e., "In the abstract, the needs of Palestinian sovereignty would be very simply served- make everyone from Gaza to Golan, the Jordan to the sea, citizens of one nation and voila! it is done") is problematic. I think that who would be part of the Palestinian Arab state on whatever land the Palestinian Arabs would govern has always been the issue on their side. That, after all, is why the idea of partition was originally proposed by the UK. And, that is one of the reasons why partition continues to be the dominant idea.
Trump's plan is appropriately criticized for being too generous to the Israelis. On the other hand, the plans that preceded it have not often received the criticism they are due. All of those plans gave incentives to the Palestinian Arabs to avoid ending the dispute. While the current plan is too kind up front to the Israelis, it at least has the virtue of creating an incentive, in the form of a stick (as opposed to a carrot), to the Palestinian Arabs to decide whether they want to end the dispute or lose more and more land over time.
Niles, With respect (and I mean that sincerely), you have got it fundamentally wrong on all counts.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, it is not a "truism" that "any state gets to choose who is part of that state." International law recognizes a "right to nationality"- states cannot deprive birthright citizenship to people born within their borders. This is why Israel has never formally "annexed" East Jerusalem, why they are unlikely to carry through on the "Vision for Peace", and why the parameters of a two-state solution are such a sensitive matter ON THE ISRAELI side of the negotiation- promiscuous changes to the formal boundaries of Israel which force it to give citizenship to more non-Jewish residents threaten the demographic balance that is the basic requirement of Herzlian Zionism.
Secondly, it is not true that "who is a part of that state is THE issue for Palestinian Arabs." The PLO charter does insist that Arabs have proprietary rights over Palestine, but it formally acknowledges that Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze can all be Arabs. The charter leaves open the question of whether residents of European ancestry would be asked to leave Palestine in the wake of "liberation," but that is a bargaining position, not a necessary demand. By contrast, Zionism REQUIRES the maintenance of a Jewish majority, thus...
Thirdly, you are completely wrong about the original reasons for partition. It was not undertaken to meet the demands of Palestinians, but those of Zionists. The partition was designed to facilitate the creation of a Jewish majority state- Palestinian Arabs had little invested in where the line was drawn, because they were sure to be the majority in greater Israel/Palestine regardless. There were Palestinian leaders at the time who wanted to expel European emigres no matter what, but there were also Palestinian leaders that were ready to join a common state in which European emigres became naturalized citizens, as long as Palestinians could retain the majority. Now 72 years later the idea that the Palestinians wouldn't be willing to join a single state with non-Arab Israelis (the 2 million Arab-Israeli citizens already have) only has credence because the position has never been floated as a serious proposal on the Israeli side. Sure, the Palestinians would ask for concessions in return for such an accommodation (that is the nature of human politics), but to imagine that that would not be easier to negotiate than a two-state solution is simply ludicrous.