Our Zoom call this week, for paid subscribers, will be at its regular time, Friday at Noon ET. Our guest will be Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, host of Carnegie Connects, and an adviser to both Republican and Democratic secretaries of state on US policy on Arab-Israeli negotiations. Aaron knows the Biden foreign policy team well, and I want to ask him to analyze Biden’s policy toward Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and the protest movement against it. I’m also curious about his views on
I did not, Peter! Thanks for calling my attention to that!
"Miller writes that many ethnic groups, such as the Irish and the Cubans, are deeply involved in American foreign relations; however, no group in America can compete with the clout of the Jewish community with its influence on centers of power."
"[Miller writes] "But those of us advising the secretary of state and the president were very sensitive to what the pro-Israel community was thinking and, when it came to considering ideas Israel didn't like, too often engaged in a kind of preemptive self-censorship.""
"Miller, who had been closely involved in the Israeli-Arab peace process over the past two decades, confessed: "Far too often the small group with whom I had worked in the Clinton administration, myself included, had acted as a lawyer for only one side, Israel." (p. 75) The title, "Israel's Lawyer," turned the former Jewish-American official into a celebrity in the Arab world. Two professors, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, were quick to add his confession to their harsh indictment of the impact of the American Jewish lobby on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East."
Nice Gallup poll, check out this one: "22% [of Palestinians] say that they are in favor of such one state solution...27% supported abandoning the two-state solution in favor of a one-state solution." https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/938
So we have a situation where we have two groups of people, the vast majority of whom on both sides strongly want self-determination and statehood for themselves and are willing to kill and die for those things. As Peter would call them, "ethnonationalist" (or at least he would call the Jewish side that, I don't think he's ever called any Palestinian government ethnonationalist even though they certainly are by his criteria).
I don't know how any intellectually honest and moral person can look at this situation and say "yes, the obvious solution to this conflict is to destroy both states and force both of these groups together." It seems far far more likely to result in an all out bloody civil war akin to 1948 than the kind of utopian kumbaya fantasy Peter is spinning. Peter wrote an article about the Huwara riot the other day, can anyone see the settlers who committed that attack and Palestinians like the Lion's Den living together happily in a one-state? But Peter doesn't acknowledge the possibility of the first scenario, let alone address it. Most likely because any person with two brain cells to rub together knows that the first scenario, the civil war, is about a thousand times more likely to happen under a so-called 'one state'.
I used to think that Peter and the rest of the one-state supporters were ivory tower intellectuals who misguidedly but genuinely wanted the best thing for Israelis and Palestinians. No longer. No intellectually honest person can look at Israel-Palestine and genuinely believe that shoving these two nations together into a box will result in less violence, less hatred, and less warfare than we have now, any more than shoving together Russians and Ukrainians. It's absurd.
TBH, one of the appeals of the one-state solution from a Western liberal outsider perspective is that a two-state solution puts the onus on western powers and their leadership to intermediate in the conflict, spend political capital, run interference and give diplomatic cover to parties when violence breaks out, spend taxpayer resources on sweeteners, take the proverbial political bullets for domestically, and basically pound their heads thanklessly into a wall to get the two immoveable parties closer to an agreement.
The one-state solution—to demand equal rights from the River to the Sea in exchange for international recognition--puts all the onus on the Israelis, and by extension the Palestinians, both of whom have resisted western peace-processing for decades and are generally contemptuous of it, to go figure it out on their own.
I cannot understate the appeal that has to western observers a full generation removed from the disappointments of Camp David and why I think its the position they will evolve to post-2SS. Maybe call it "One-State-Resignationism"?
You have it exactly backwards. The western powers only have the "onus" for the two-state solution insofar as they insist on getting involved in peacemaking. In fact I would argue the tendency of the West on poking their nose into the conflict is a primary reason why it has dragged on as long as it has. Because the Palestinian leadership keeps trying to get more sweeteners (as you put it) out of the Israelis and the Western powers while refusing to actually concede much of anything.
In other words, if the world had told the Palestinians, "we're not going to prop you up any more. If you don't want to be occupied, go make peace with Israel, but you're doing it on your own," then it's likely the Palestinians would have done so. Probably on extremely bad terms for them, but they are so much weaker than the Israelis that's probably going to happen regardless.
As for which solution is more appearing to the west, I think you greatly overestimate the extent to which people in the west think and care about this issue.
Yes, your position strikes me as a fairly standard Israeli POV. And the standard response is that the “meddling” and dispensing of sweeteners by the US/Europe in the conflict historically goes both ways. In fact, the Israeli position has been supported and fortified orders of magnitude more by that “meddling” than for the that of the average Palestinian.
Financial subsidies and diplomatic cover to place nice with Israel provided to illiberal autocratic regimes and corrupt international bureaucracies, like Egypt, Jordan, and the PA—-with the UAE, KSA, Sudan, and others in the handout queue—are in effect just more security subsidies for Israel itself.
The contempt and indignation from the Israeli side comes when there’s the slightest pretense that strings may come attached with such meddling, not with policy of meddling in the conflict itself.
I agree with your last point completely—but for an American observer, for instance, to not care or think that much about the issue just means that they adopt wholesale one of the two convenient narratives provided to them without exerting much thought or critical analysis. As the “2SS” narrative on the left gives way to the simpler and George Floyd-era -resonant “equal rights from the River to the Sea” one, that can still have a strong effect in aggregate on US (or European) policy.
Your irritation that Arab regimes (nice of you to finally notice they are illiberal and autocratic by the way, some of us knew that from the beginning) are making peace with Israel and not trying to destroy it is not the issue here. Do you contest that the Palestinian leadership are being incentivized to perpetuate the conflict by Western meddling or not?
There’s not going to be an “equal rights from the river to the sea” push, because that’s not what the actual Palestinians want, as polls have consistently shown. And as Norman Finkelstein pointed out, third world countries greatly value their sovereignty and won’t line up to deprive the Israelis of theirs, so there isn’t going to be groundswell of international support for the idea either. The only people who will continue to push it will be people who write on the Internet for a living like Peter Beinart and the author in Foreign Affairs. The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.
I think Palestinian leadership has a disparate assortment of patrons and constituencies that incentivize them to act in contradictory directions to maintain legitimacy and continue to function.
You have the Israelis, the western international community, Palestinian diaspora / refugees, Arab state leaders, Arab populations, Islamic hardliners, etc. Then of course you have the various factions among the Palestinians themselves in Gaza and the West Bank.
The leadership are critically dependent on the support of each of them in different ways.
You’ll have to find me an example of when someone with my Substack user name and avatar ever denied the culpability of Arab states in propagating the conflict for their own internal reasons or ever denied the autocratic nature of those regimes.
So long as Palestinians reject Israel, teach their children to hate Jews with language comparable to the Nazis, treat their murdering terrorists as heros and pay pensions to their families as an incentive to others to become murderers, etc., and have Hamas in charge of Gaza and rising in popularity in the West Bank and have as their stated charter the destrution of Israel -- the idea of one-state for all is absurd to even consider.
That said, neither side is acting like they want one-state. The Palestinians for 75 years have used their made-up definition of "refugee" as including descendants of 1948 refugees, as their reason for not agreeing to peace. This is a red-herring, of course, knowing that this is unacceptable to Israel and will never occur -- but serves to keep the corrupt Palestinian leaders in power. Arafat could have had peace at Camp David, but couldnt' stand the thought of losing his position.
Israel has shifted right politically following the Intifada murder campaigns and seeing that they don't have a partner in peace. And with their settlements and far right politicians, they are making the chances of two states at this point less likely.
So where does this leave things? The Palestinians need to explicitly state that: 1) they accept Israel's right to exist in peace; 2) accept their own country next to Israel with borders they honor; 3) acknowledge that the only "right of return" is to their new state of Palestine. If they do that, Israel must and will respond affirmatively.
Richard, you sound like a broken record singing out Israeli Hasbara. I’ve previously replied to you with links refuting your claims, by reputable writers, many of them Jewish, so I’m not going to repeat them here.
I think Jeff Halper’s reframing of Israel’s security framing is spot on
1. The Land of Israel belongs exclusively to the Jewish people; There is no other people that has legitimate rights or claims.
Two people's reside in Israel /Palestine and each has rights of self-determination.
2. Israel is fighting for its existence. The Arabs don't want peace; the Palestinians are our permanent enemies.
The Palestinians recognize Israeli sovereignty over 78% of the country; the Arab world has offered Israel regional integration.
3. Israel’s policies are based solely on concerns for security; There is no Occupation.
Israel pursues a pro-active policy of expansion into the occupied Territories based on settlement and control.
4. The underlying problem is Arab terrorism.
The Problem Is Israel’s Occupation; Palestinian violence is a symptom of oppression. In human rights language, all attacks on civilians are prohibited, whether from non-state or state actors.
5. The conflict is a win-lose proposition; either we "win" or "they" do.
Only a solution based on human rights and international law ensures a win-win solution.
6. Since it is the victim, it is exemp from accountability for its actions.
Israel is a major regional superpower that must be held accountable for its actions.
7. Any solution must leave Israel in control of the entire country. If Israel allows a Palestinian state to emerge, it will necessarily be truncated, non-viable and semi-sovereign.
Either a viable and truly sovereign Palestinian state must emerge, or another option which is mutually agreed upon according to the principle of self determination.
8. The answer to antisemitism is a militarily strong Israel aligned with the United States.
Anti-Semitism is a form of racism; only respect for human rights will effectively address anti-Semitism and Israel’s security concerns.
So where does this leave things? The Palestinians need to explicitly state that: 1) they accept Israel's right to exist in peace; 2) accept their own country next to Israel with borders they honor; 3) acknowledge that the only "right of return" is to their new state of Palestine. If they do that, Israel must and will respond affirmatively.
Stolen? The West Bank is disputed territory with the status ultimately resolved through negotiation. The Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply to the West Bank, because Jordan was not a sovereign state when it controlled the territory. Israel has said that it is willing to withdraw from most of the West Bank, but maintain control over security in the territory until it is confident of its neighbor being non-violent.
One condition after another, now "until it confident of .....". Israel has nuclear weapons, what has Palestine? Very lopsided.
Why should Israel even have a say while it sits on stolen land? Yes stolen. Stolen from the some of the poorest to make way for people with homes in US, Europe while they remain refugees in their own country.
When Palestinian maniacal murderers blow up buses, cafés, and nightclubs, stab people walking on the street, and ram their cars into pedestrians, and in 2005 after vacating Gaza was thanked with thousands of missiles being launched at civilians, they are not going to be stupid and not protect themselves. Iran has already spread their hegemony into Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and the last thing Israel (or the Palestinians) need is them in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, I’ve already posted a brief background of the area and it’s formation from the British to the UN, etc., to another uninformed reader on this post. Go educate yourself.
Oh another one state "solution" thread? Then I'm going to do another Ukraine analogy, which I will continue to do until Beinart gives an actually intellectually honest answer about why Ukrainians have rights but Jews don't.
You wrote a few weeks ago about how the US should pull out all the stops to protect the sovereign rights of the Ukrainian people: to self-determination, to "genuine independence" and so on. In fact the Ukrainians are fighting a just war, you said, and that Russia's actions are in violation of international law (nice of you to notice!) And yet here you are trying to strip the Jews of those exact same rights! This is why people think you're an anti-Semite. Because you are taking a sovereign state with a sovereign people and trying to impose your will on them by force no matter how many innocent people get killed in the process.
The only differences I can see between you and Vladimir Putin is that Putin is willing to make actual sacrifices to attain his evil illegal goals and you are not. Also that Putin doesn't call his intended victims "racist" or "ethnosupremacist" for refusing to give up their rights.
The two situations are not exactly the same, but the hypocrisy still applies: People have rights, and contrary to the views of people whom Beinart chooses to rub shoulders with, Jews are people and they are a people. Trying to strip people of their rights (specifically their rights of self-determination and statehood) is illegal and evil, whether it's done with tanks and guns like Russia or with a smile and a Substack like Peter Beinart.
PS: does anyone endorsing the one state solution referenced in this piece actually live in Israel or Palestine? Since we know Peter Beinart doesn't, and therefore will not suffer any consequences should a potentially suicidal political experiment like this one fail.
Your comment makes a case for Palestine. It cements what Peter wrote, what he has been saying for years, what human rights activists have been clamoring for decades; justice for a people, Palestinians, whose land was stolen.
A disfranchised people, Jews, were resettled in a land that had occupants, Palestinians. Palestinians had occupied this land for thousands of years. The westerners resettled the Jews out of Europe because they hatred the them. They were intent on ridding Europe of Jews because they were (are) antisemitic. This is history. Look it up.
And for more reading, read the Bible [the word of the Christian god) and see how it drips with antisemitism. Western Christians are to blame for the conflict in Israel, not Palestinians.
Through no fault of their own, two disfranchised people now occupied [occupy] the same land. As an even handed arbiter, worse land does it belong to?
For those calling me and others antisemites, I ask that you read the Bible see what it says. It's Christianity that's to be blame for the holocaust, antisemitism and the current conflict.[ I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN, IM ATHEIST]
What are you jabbering about? My comment doesn't make a case for Palestine. Fuck Palestine and it’s legion of hypocrite apologists.
I have no interest in discussing Israel-Palestinian Conflict 101 with you. If you think Jews should be stripped of their land and their statehood, against human rights and international law, just say so. Nice to see you’ve expanded your bigotry from Jews to Christians. We should start calling you Archie Bunker.
Bigotry to Christians? Christianity is not antisemitic? How would you feel if I called you, "child of Satan", you killed Jesus, call yourself a Jew while you're not, your religion is fake because it was nullified by Jesus.......praying for the perdifious Jew..i could go on because essentially Christianity counters almost everything in Torah. For more on this, read the Bible and works of Rosemary Ruether and others.
I think you are one of those messianic Jews who have teamed with evangelicals to deny the truth. I recommend the works of Rabbi Tovia Singer to see how you've lost your path as a Jew.
So human rights activists are the real antisemites while antisemitism remains intact in the Bible and cathecisms?
Or maybe you can start by thinking on why Jews left Europe in the first place.
The situation in Ukraine should goad the Palestinians to keep at it.
If people are coming together for Ukrainians, happened within couple of days, why not for Palestinians who have been denied rights for almost a century?
At the same time, this should revigorate the human rights activists, not dampen the struggle for rights in ME.
Looks like Beinart is doing just that. I think that namecalling will not dampen his compassion for the Palestinians. We've seen him make his case in the media. Love to see him on TV convincing his fellow Jews to do the right thing.
The fact that it’s been 75 years and people aren’t coming together for Palestine should tell you something: Palestine sucks. The world isn’t just going to look away when Palestine murders two unarmed women and then throws a party over it, and they definitely aren’t going to take you seriously when you start whining about “human rights” When Palestine starts respecting the human rights of non-Arabs, then come talk to me.
"Barely anyone in Washington supports a 2-state solution". I was not aware that Israel is run out of Washington.
Professor Beinart. You don’t think it’s a wee bit chutzpedic to be comfortably ensconced, in the frankly totally segregated, Upper West Side and advising Israelis to from a union with a people who have shown absolutely zero love for them?
Why not put your money where your mouth is, go to Israel and move to a mixed Arab Israeli town like Acre, and see how its working out. Write from experience not from “aspiration”.
That is what Rabbi Riskin of LSS (a well-known Upper West Side Synagogue) did. Many years ago, he announced to the congregation, I was there, I heard him, that he was tired of saying “next year in Jerusalem” at the conclusion of every Jewish holiday. He picked himself up and moved his family there.
Its truly obnoxious for you to offer advice to Israelis who are daily living through random stabbings. To suggest that all the violence would stop if only it became Israel-Palestine, as you and some others advise, without any evidence of positive outcome, it is insulting to the intelligence.
Right now, the West Bank has millions of Palestinians the only thing that stops them from becoming a state is their insistence that in addition to a state they all need to move back to Israel. How bizarre give me a state and by the way can I come over to yours too? And we already have a sample of Palestinian rule in Gaza. Really what nonsense.
Please, don’t tell me that a few hundred thousand Jews in the West Bank stops the millions of Arabs from having state. After all, there are several million Arabs in Israel and that hasn’t stopped Israel from thriving.
The narrative is upside down. The only people stopping the Palestinians from having a state are the Palestinians themselves, by insisting their state must be free of Jews and further they also have to move to Israel which is full of Jews. And you don’t think this is an odd request?
Yes, now that Israel has stolen so much Palestinian territory, so as to make a viable Palestinian state impossible, then one state is the only solution, with equal rights for all, as promised by Israel's Declaration of State 1948.
You sweet summer child. There is no "only solution," never has been. Look back into history: every time the Palestinians have tried to shirk their obligation to make peace and recognize the human rights of Jews it has failed. And most of the time it not only fails, but it blows up spectacularly in their faces.
If the two state solution truly becomes nonviable, then it won't be the Israelis who get screwed I assure you. Israel is a regional superpower, a nuclear power, with a world-class economy and a space program. The Palestinians have nothing except world sympathy which is diminishing quickly.
Something like the Jordanian option or a disenfranchisement (or even expulsion) of the Palestinians is far more likely to result from the death of the two state solution than the Israelis willingly surrendering to the Palestinians with nothing more than a "just me bro." If you put Israel in a corner, you're not going to like what happens next.
"there is a kind of a global struggle between these two visions, between the idea that states should be owned by all of the people who live inside of them, irrespective of their religion, ethnicity, race, gender, and the idea that states should be essentially the province of one dominant tribe."
This claim defies all international norms and conventions. There is no such thing as a culturally neutral state. Even multinational federations are made of federated entities that are not culturally neutral (only the federal government stays neutral). Americans like to think of their country as a culturally neutral state but most scholars of nationalism no longer believe that this is true. Most American states have declared English as their sole official language in the 1980s and 90s. That was no coincidence. It was a response the demographic growth of the Hispanic population. In other words, the US sees Latinos who do not anglicize as a demographic threat.
I dare you to name me more than ten states that have chosen real cultural neutrality. Even Canada, which claims to be a multinational postnational state (to quote Justin Trudeau) has only one single bilingual province: New Brunswick. Quebec rejects Canadian multiculturalism as a cover to water down its identity by equating its French specificity with that of other cultures (Chinese, Indian, Italian, Ukrainian, Haitian, and so on). Quebec is officially a French state despite the fact English speakers make up 10% of its population. English-speakers even have to take a language proficiency test if they want to work in the civil service. Every time the proportion of French-speakers shrinks, especially in Montreal, the government and the media panic. They have no qualms about referring to "the threat of English", and immigrants have the legal obligation to join the French-speaking sector (even if many of them fail to do so). Singapore comes to mind as a genuinely neutral state, but I can’t think of many others.
You obviously conflate and confuse individual with collective equality. International conventions (UNCERD + the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission) both claim that a states must give equal individual rights, ie civil and political rights to all their citizens. However, they do not call for cultural neutrality and they mention explicitly that privileging the immigration of a specific ethnic group is not discriminatory (unless you broaden the definition of discrimination to group rights).
What anti-Zionists want is not to put an end to the nation-state model. They want Israel alone to cease to exist as a nation-state. Even if Meretz with its "thin binational" program (within the Green line) were to to come to power, you guys would still deem the existence of a Jewish nation-state illegitimate.
The comparison with the Spanish Civil War is not totally baseless, as many of those who opposed Franco were horrified to see the far-left endorsing Stalinist excesses among Republican ranks. Perhaps, the current wave of anti-Zionism has more in common with the radical politics of the 1970s with Maos, the Trots, and those who chanted "Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh". Demanding that Jews be the only good Christians is not an ethical way of solving the Israel-Palestine conflict.
As for the occupation, I ceased to believe that the PA subscribed to the Clinton parameters ever since Amir Tibon of Haaretz revealed in 2017 that Abbas said no to Kerry and Obama in 2014 (I refused to believe it until he confirmed it to me in late 2018). Strangely enough, Netanyahu’s response to their peace plans was more forthcoming. Yet, Kerry blamed Israel alone. Even Tzipi Livni accused him of being one-sided against Israel!
What happened in 2014 proves two things: 1) It would be easy for the US to impose a peace plan on both parties, as Netanyahu did not dare to oppose Kerry’s initiative during Obama’s last term (according to Ben Caspit, Yitzhak Molcho, Netanyshu’s former chief of staff, did not even oppose the second draft of this peace plan which clearly mentioned the partition of Jerusalem).
2) The US does Not always have a pro-Israel bias.
Finally, as I said earlier, there are ways to reconcile the competing claims of both Israelis and Palestinians: a confederation. Dismantling forcefully the state of Israel, just like Israeli expansionism, is illegal. Accusing Israel of violating international law and calling for its dismantling in the same breath is disingenuous.
Israel was established as a state for the Jewish people. That is its founding principal and a totally valid concept. It is a state where Jews are not second class citizens living under the changing whims of the ruling class. It is an imperfect state but is only 75 years in existence. The USA is an imperfect state as well, and I don’t see you attempting to destroy its rational for existing.
"It is a state where Jews are not second class citizens....." yes, this is certainly true, but in so doing, it has made another people second-class citizens.
In every country every people who are not the majority are second-class citizens. Palestine is no exception: just ask the Christians, the women, the gays...
Minorities in Israel are equal citizens in every respect, but they still get described as "second class citizens". Maybe you and Ampmymous can get together and square this circle.
Who had the right to" ... establish Israel as a state for the Jewish people?" There was no land available for such a state; only to allow Jews to assimilate into the land of another ethnic group. To have a "Jewish" state, it is necessary to steal someone else's land, and then attempt to get rid of the inhabitants. This is not a democracy, but a fascist ethnocracy. The only solution now is for equal rights for all, as promised by Israel's Declaration of State 1948.
....are you fucking serious? Palestinians murder entire families and dance on their graves, and you come to me whining about skyscrapers? Is this a joke?
Who??? Have you bothered to read the history of the region?
The British played a significant role in the partition of land for Jews and Arabs in Palestine, a region that was under British administration after World War I. In 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, which pledged support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.
In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate to administer Palestine, which included modern-day Israel, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Jordan. During the mandate period, Britain implemented various policies that aimed to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine. For example, the British facilitated Jewish immigration to Palestine and encouraged Jewish settlement in the region.
In 1947, the British government decided to end its mandate over Palestine and asked the United Nations to decide the future of the territory. The UN proposed a plan to partition Palestine into two states: one for Jews and one for Arabs.
Under the UN plan, the Jewish state was to be located in roughly 55% of the land, and the Arab state would occupy the remaining 45%. The plan was accepted by Jewish leaders, but Arab leaders rejected it, arguing that it was unfair and violated their rights to self-determination.
Despite Arab objections, the UN General Assembly voted in favor of the partition plan, and Israel declared independence in 1948. The declaration of Israel led to a war between the new state and its Arab neighbors, which resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the establishment of Israel as a predominantly Jewish state.
Established on a land that was occupied by others, for years. The Western Christians who are to blame for the holocaust and should have relocated the Jews some place in the west, say Oklahoma, Idaho? Why Palestine?
The world does not work that way; that some few will make demands at the expense of others.
Typical American perspective. You are aware that Oklahoma and Idaho were "land that was occupied by others for years", correct? Or maybe it's different when you're the one doing the stealing.
The same reason the US shut its doors to Jews during the Holocaust. The US in the 1940s didn't like Jews that much either, certainly not enough to give territory to them.
Are you saying you'd prefer it if Jews were given Native American land instead of their own indigenous homeland? Why is that exactly? Do you like Arabs more than Native Americans?
I'm not American. I'm from a very shithole country. I know pain. Pains me to see another suffer.
History says different. Zionists were intent on seeing Jews occupy Israel and worked to see that they did not gain asylum in US and other countries, even rebuffing offers when given. This is not propaganda. [See Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism]
What do you mean by indigeous homeland? Because Torah says so? This is not history.
That Foreign Affairs article is a stupid article, that rehashes a few well-known, poorly-thought-out talking points.
1. Even if you could argue there's a "one-state reality" between Israel and the West Bank, there's no rational, honest argument that there's a "one-state reality" between Israel and Gaza. The one they try to make (that a blockade by Israel and Egypt means it's part of Israel), is very stupid, and I feel even the authors realize it.
2. Recognizing a "one-state reality" would fly in the face of nearly 60 years of efforts by the international community to prevent exactly that. There are multiple resolutions the UN makes every year, about how territories Israel formally annexed, are still not part of Israel. There's an ICJ ruling that cemented the idea it's not part of Israel, as a matter of international law. Palestine is recognized as a country by 138 of the 193 members. The ICC investigation into Israel can only exist, because they decided the State of Palestine exists, and controls the very territories the article argues are part of Israel.
The US policy change of recognizing Jerusalem and the Golan Height as Israeli, clearly hasn't changed the international community's opinions, or the position of international law. The article doesn't even address this issue. It assumes that the "denial of the one-state reality" is some sinister US phenomenon. It assumes that the US declaring all of the West Bank and Gaza are a legitimate part of Israel, would be enough to change the entire world's opinion on this.
3. The article mentions Ukraine, and the US's position on the Russian invasion there, as if it helps their case. Anyone with half a brain, would realize that it's actually a devastating repudiation of their argument. Russia wants nothing more than the world recognizing a "one-state reality" in the Donbass, Crimea - hopefully all of Ukraine. To support a "democratic one-state solution" to Ukraine and Russia. The US policy, that the world nearly unanimously supports, is completely opposing it. No part of Ukraine is Russia, and will never be Russia, no matter how much time passes, no matter how much control Russia exerts over it, no matter how formally it annexes it.
Obviously, recognizing a "one-state reality", and legitimizing Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza would be directly opposed to that concept. It would mortally wound the legitimacy of the West's position in Ukraine. That reason alone is enough for it to never happen. The article doesn't seem to realize that, and indeed, seems to assumes the opposite.
4. The article, like many Westerner Anti-Zionists, assumes that the Israeli far-right is the enemy that they'll need to fight, and bend their arms to agree to that one-state solution. When in fact, it's literally the only ally in the world. It's the only relevant collection of people that share their idiotic opinions, and have any sway over Israeli policy. The only people who'd be cheering in the streets if the world recognizes "the one-state reality" and forces Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza, are Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and the other far-right bogeymen the article is so afraid of. These are the people they need to elevate and ally with, not demonize.
5. The non-far-right Israeli mainstream wouldn't agree to a democratic one-state solution with a Palestinian majority, because that would mean they would be literally ruled by their mortal enemies. They believe they would be massacred, expelled or enslaved. The Palestinians did nothing to assuage those fears. They make a serious, and pretty successful effort to confirm them.
The article doesn't understand that, and instead dismisses it as a mere illegitimate desire for "supremacy", that would disappear even under minor pressure, like the US stopping its military aid. I don't think it takes an expert on Israeli society, to understand that this isn't the case. No, Israelis would not choose to be ruled by their mortal enemies, and allow themselves to be slaughtered, under any level of economic or diplomatic sanctions. Ignoring that fact just leads you, and the authors, to reach deeply stupid conclusions.
6. The reality is that the vast majority of Palestinians oppose the "democratic one-state solution" as well. They realize that recognizing this "solution", and the civil war that it will lead to, would hurt them, first and foremost. They want "Arab domination" in an Arab Palestine, at least as much as the Jews want "domination" (i.e. national self-determination) within their own state. The article doesn't seem to realize that, at all. It doesn't propose any solutions to overcoming the overwhelming Palestinian opposition to that solution, because it doesn't recognize it exists. There's an implicit assumption that the Palestinians share those goals, and the Israelis are the only holdouts. Again, a level of stupidity that makes it impossible to take the article, and anyone who supports it seriously.
Ultimately the article seems to operate within the level of knowledge and insight of the low-information leftist Twitter user, who've never opened a book on Israel or Palestine, doesn't speak either Hebrew or Arabic, and only heard about the conflict from like-minded leftist publications. Considering that the authors are academics, with real jobs in real universities, I find it extremely hard to believe, that they simply never thought of the points I've brought up. It doesn't take a professor of Middle Eastern studies to realize those things. These are very, very basic issues, that anyone who claims to know anything about Israel or Palestine, should know about.
Instead, I feel that the goal of the article ultimately has the same goals of the BDS, the Amnesty/HRW reports, and similar anti-Zionist Western dreck, as well as the OG antisemitic anti-Zionists in the Soviet bloc. Not to offer a solution that resolves anything, but the polar opposite. To make impossible and downright illegal demands, to create a state of unresolvable forever-war between parts of Western society and Israel. With the main tangible effect being not on Israel per-se, but on US (and other Western) Jews, who would be increasingly marginalized and discriminated against, just like the Jews of the USSR and Poland. With classic antisemitism being increasingly legitimized and whitewashed. The ZOG / Elders of Zion narrative of a Jewish-controlled US being moved from purely Neo-Nazi spaces, to more legitimate parts of the Western political discourse.
If Israel's given a pass on this, to become a theocracy, it's going to set a bad precedent. What will happen if other religions [or race, what's a Jew, race or religion? Debatable] demand the same? Why should some seclude from others? The tired excuse of security is no longer valid as Israel now has nuclear weapons.
The one state where all are treated equally is the way to go. No one is more special than the other.
Don't worry, it's extremely unlikely Peter spends any time exposing himself to different points of view or the opinions of those who disagree with him. Ideologues rarely do.
"Since the two-state concept is a nonstarter, therefore, there is only one real solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That is a unitary state that is integrative, secular, democratic, and fundamentally equitable in relations to all its citizens – in the sense nor merely of genuine equality of opportunity (requiring massive investment in education, healthcare, transportation, and housing for all) but also in terms of full compensation for previous wrongs committed and redistribution of wealth. This state needs to be independent of the political, financial, and other shenanigans of Western and Arab powers. It will not be easy, but it is possible, with hard work, and infinitely more possible than an artificial arrangement that presages ever more racist hostility, violence and destruction, international opprobrium, inequality of wealth and opportunity, the nihilist seduction of nuclear weapons."
I read with interest that Hartman piece from 1982 and I find it unbelievably depressing. I am not religious but spent time studying in Jerusalem with some people with similar perspectives i.e. that Israel represents the chance for Torah to be lived out in its fullness. Such a vision has been totally crushed in Israel and overwhelmed by the bullying racism of Ben Gvir etc. Nowadays I see people like Hartman and the inspiring teachers I had as sad, lonely voices in the wilderness, largely irrelevant to Israeli discourse.
hey winters, did you notice who are guest is on Friday?
I did not, Peter! Thanks for calling my attention to that!
"Miller writes that many ethnic groups, such as the Irish and the Cubans, are deeply involved in American foreign relations; however, no group in America can compete with the clout of the Jewish community with its influence on centers of power."
"[Miller writes] "But those of us advising the secretary of state and the president were very sensitive to what the pro-Israel community was thinking and, when it came to considering ideas Israel didn't like, too often engaged in a kind of preemptive self-censorship.""
"Miller, who had been closely involved in the Israeli-Arab peace process over the past two decades, confessed: "Far too often the small group with whom I had worked in the Clinton administration, myself included, had acted as a lawyer for only one side, Israel." (p. 75) The title, "Israel's Lawyer," turned the former Jewish-American official into a celebrity in the Arab world. Two professors, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, were quick to add his confession to their harsh indictment of the impact of the American Jewish lobby on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East."
https://www.haaretz.com/2008-04-21/ty-article/dear-diplomat-whose-side-are-you-really-on/0000017f-db42-df9c-a17f-ff5a39930000
I have a feeling you guys are going to get along just fine.
Nice Gallup poll, check out this one: "22% [of Palestinians] say that they are in favor of such one state solution...27% supported abandoning the two-state solution in favor of a one-state solution." https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/938
So we have a situation where we have two groups of people, the vast majority of whom on both sides strongly want self-determination and statehood for themselves and are willing to kill and die for those things. As Peter would call them, "ethnonationalist" (or at least he would call the Jewish side that, I don't think he's ever called any Palestinian government ethnonationalist even though they certainly are by his criteria).
I don't know how any intellectually honest and moral person can look at this situation and say "yes, the obvious solution to this conflict is to destroy both states and force both of these groups together." It seems far far more likely to result in an all out bloody civil war akin to 1948 than the kind of utopian kumbaya fantasy Peter is spinning. Peter wrote an article about the Huwara riot the other day, can anyone see the settlers who committed that attack and Palestinians like the Lion's Den living together happily in a one-state? But Peter doesn't acknowledge the possibility of the first scenario, let alone address it. Most likely because any person with two brain cells to rub together knows that the first scenario, the civil war, is about a thousand times more likely to happen under a so-called 'one state'.
I used to think that Peter and the rest of the one-state supporters were ivory tower intellectuals who misguidedly but genuinely wanted the best thing for Israelis and Palestinians. No longer. No intellectually honest person can look at Israel-Palestine and genuinely believe that shoving these two nations together into a box will result in less violence, less hatred, and less warfare than we have now, any more than shoving together Russians and Ukrainians. It's absurd.
TBH, one of the appeals of the one-state solution from a Western liberal outsider perspective is that a two-state solution puts the onus on western powers and their leadership to intermediate in the conflict, spend political capital, run interference and give diplomatic cover to parties when violence breaks out, spend taxpayer resources on sweeteners, take the proverbial political bullets for domestically, and basically pound their heads thanklessly into a wall to get the two immoveable parties closer to an agreement.
The one-state solution—to demand equal rights from the River to the Sea in exchange for international recognition--puts all the onus on the Israelis, and by extension the Palestinians, both of whom have resisted western peace-processing for decades and are generally contemptuous of it, to go figure it out on their own.
I cannot understate the appeal that has to western observers a full generation removed from the disappointments of Camp David and why I think its the position they will evolve to post-2SS. Maybe call it "One-State-Resignationism"?
You have it exactly backwards. The western powers only have the "onus" for the two-state solution insofar as they insist on getting involved in peacemaking. In fact I would argue the tendency of the West on poking their nose into the conflict is a primary reason why it has dragged on as long as it has. Because the Palestinian leadership keeps trying to get more sweeteners (as you put it) out of the Israelis and the Western powers while refusing to actually concede much of anything.
In other words, if the world had told the Palestinians, "we're not going to prop you up any more. If you don't want to be occupied, go make peace with Israel, but you're doing it on your own," then it's likely the Palestinians would have done so. Probably on extremely bad terms for them, but they are so much weaker than the Israelis that's probably going to happen regardless.
As for which solution is more appearing to the west, I think you greatly overestimate the extent to which people in the west think and care about this issue.
Yes, your position strikes me as a fairly standard Israeli POV. And the standard response is that the “meddling” and dispensing of sweeteners by the US/Europe in the conflict historically goes both ways. In fact, the Israeli position has been supported and fortified orders of magnitude more by that “meddling” than for the that of the average Palestinian.
Financial subsidies and diplomatic cover to place nice with Israel provided to illiberal autocratic regimes and corrupt international bureaucracies, like Egypt, Jordan, and the PA—-with the UAE, KSA, Sudan, and others in the handout queue—are in effect just more security subsidies for Israel itself.
The contempt and indignation from the Israeli side comes when there’s the slightest pretense that strings may come attached with such meddling, not with policy of meddling in the conflict itself.
I agree with your last point completely—but for an American observer, for instance, to not care or think that much about the issue just means that they adopt wholesale one of the two convenient narratives provided to them without exerting much thought or critical analysis. As the “2SS” narrative on the left gives way to the simpler and George Floyd-era -resonant “equal rights from the River to the Sea” one, that can still have a strong effect in aggregate on US (or European) policy.
Your irritation that Arab regimes (nice of you to finally notice they are illiberal and autocratic by the way, some of us knew that from the beginning) are making peace with Israel and not trying to destroy it is not the issue here. Do you contest that the Palestinian leadership are being incentivized to perpetuate the conflict by Western meddling or not?
There’s not going to be an “equal rights from the river to the sea” push, because that’s not what the actual Palestinians want, as polls have consistently shown. And as Norman Finkelstein pointed out, third world countries greatly value their sovereignty and won’t line up to deprive the Israelis of theirs, so there isn’t going to be groundswell of international support for the idea either. The only people who will continue to push it will be people who write on the Internet for a living like Peter Beinart and the author in Foreign Affairs. The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.
I think Palestinian leadership has a disparate assortment of patrons and constituencies that incentivize them to act in contradictory directions to maintain legitimacy and continue to function.
You have the Israelis, the western international community, Palestinian diaspora / refugees, Arab state leaders, Arab populations, Islamic hardliners, etc. Then of course you have the various factions among the Palestinians themselves in Gaza and the West Bank.
The leadership are critically dependent on the support of each of them in different ways.
You’ll have to find me an example of when someone with my Substack user name and avatar ever denied the culpability of Arab states in propagating the conflict for their own internal reasons or ever denied the autocratic nature of those regimes.
So long as Palestinians reject Israel, teach their children to hate Jews with language comparable to the Nazis, treat their murdering terrorists as heros and pay pensions to their families as an incentive to others to become murderers, etc., and have Hamas in charge of Gaza and rising in popularity in the West Bank and have as their stated charter the destrution of Israel -- the idea of one-state for all is absurd to even consider.
That said, neither side is acting like they want one-state. The Palestinians for 75 years have used their made-up definition of "refugee" as including descendants of 1948 refugees, as their reason for not agreeing to peace. This is a red-herring, of course, knowing that this is unacceptable to Israel and will never occur -- but serves to keep the corrupt Palestinian leaders in power. Arafat could have had peace at Camp David, but couldnt' stand the thought of losing his position.
Israel has shifted right politically following the Intifada murder campaigns and seeing that they don't have a partner in peace. And with their settlements and far right politicians, they are making the chances of two states at this point less likely.
So where does this leave things? The Palestinians need to explicitly state that: 1) they accept Israel's right to exist in peace; 2) accept their own country next to Israel with borders they honor; 3) acknowledge that the only "right of return" is to their new state of Palestine. If they do that, Israel must and will respond affirmatively.
Richard, you sound like a broken record singing out Israeli Hasbara. I’ve previously replied to you with links refuting your claims, by reputable writers, many of them Jewish, so I’m not going to repeat them here.
I think Jeff Halper’s reframing of Israel’s security framing is spot on
1. The Land of Israel belongs exclusively to the Jewish people; There is no other people that has legitimate rights or claims.
Two people's reside in Israel /Palestine and each has rights of self-determination.
2. Israel is fighting for its existence. The Arabs don't want peace; the Palestinians are our permanent enemies.
The Palestinians recognize Israeli sovereignty over 78% of the country; the Arab world has offered Israel regional integration.
3. Israel’s policies are based solely on concerns for security; There is no Occupation.
Israel pursues a pro-active policy of expansion into the occupied Territories based on settlement and control.
4. The underlying problem is Arab terrorism.
The Problem Is Israel’s Occupation; Palestinian violence is a symptom of oppression. In human rights language, all attacks on civilians are prohibited, whether from non-state or state actors.
5. The conflict is a win-lose proposition; either we "win" or "they" do.
Only a solution based on human rights and international law ensures a win-win solution.
6. Since it is the victim, it is exemp from accountability for its actions.
Israel is a major regional superpower that must be held accountable for its actions.
7. Any solution must leave Israel in control of the entire country. If Israel allows a Palestinian state to emerge, it will necessarily be truncated, non-viable and semi-sovereign.
Either a viable and truly sovereign Palestinian state must emerge, or another option which is mutually agreed upon according to the principle of self determination.
8. The answer to antisemitism is a militarily strong Israel aligned with the United States.
Anti-Semitism is a form of racism; only respect for human rights will effectively address anti-Semitism and Israel’s security concerns.
So where does this leave things? The Palestinians need to explicitly state that: 1) they accept Israel's right to exist in peace; 2) accept their own country next to Israel with borders they honor; 3) acknowledge that the only "right of return" is to their new state of Palestine. If they do that, Israel must and will respond affirmatively.
The victims' are then given conditions after their land is stolen?
Were it not for the support of the Christian nation called US, [never mind Christianity's antisemitism, ] this would never happen.
I don't know how people sleep knowing that by their stand on this issue, a poor child is suffering while they live in luxury.
Richard may be living in Brooklyn, or South Africa, Argentina etc, and maybe has a home in Tel Aviv. Sad world we live in.
Stolen? The West Bank is disputed territory with the status ultimately resolved through negotiation. The Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply to the West Bank, because Jordan was not a sovereign state when it controlled the territory. Israel has said that it is willing to withdraw from most of the West Bank, but maintain control over security in the territory until it is confident of its neighbor being non-violent.
One condition after another, now "until it confident of .....". Israel has nuclear weapons, what has Palestine? Very lopsided.
Why should Israel even have a say while it sits on stolen land? Yes stolen. Stolen from the some of the poorest to make way for people with homes in US, Europe while they remain refugees in their own country.
When Palestinian maniacal murderers blow up buses, cafés, and nightclubs, stab people walking on the street, and ram their cars into pedestrians, and in 2005 after vacating Gaza was thanked with thousands of missiles being launched at civilians, they are not going to be stupid and not protect themselves. Iran has already spread their hegemony into Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and the last thing Israel (or the Palestinians) need is them in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, I’ve already posted a brief background of the area and it’s formation from the British to the UN, etc., to another uninformed reader on this post. Go educate yourself.
Oh another one state "solution" thread? Then I'm going to do another Ukraine analogy, which I will continue to do until Beinart gives an actually intellectually honest answer about why Ukrainians have rights but Jews don't.
You wrote a few weeks ago about how the US should pull out all the stops to protect the sovereign rights of the Ukrainian people: to self-determination, to "genuine independence" and so on. In fact the Ukrainians are fighting a just war, you said, and that Russia's actions are in violation of international law (nice of you to notice!) And yet here you are trying to strip the Jews of those exact same rights! This is why people think you're an anti-Semite. Because you are taking a sovereign state with a sovereign people and trying to impose your will on them by force no matter how many innocent people get killed in the process.
The only differences I can see between you and Vladimir Putin is that Putin is willing to make actual sacrifices to attain his evil illegal goals and you are not. Also that Putin doesn't call his intended victims "racist" or "ethnosupremacist" for refusing to give up their rights.
The two situations are not exactly the same, but the hypocrisy still applies: People have rights, and contrary to the views of people whom Beinart chooses to rub shoulders with, Jews are people and they are a people. Trying to strip people of their rights (specifically their rights of self-determination and statehood) is illegal and evil, whether it's done with tanks and guns like Russia or with a smile and a Substack like Peter Beinart.
PS: does anyone endorsing the one state solution referenced in this piece actually live in Israel or Palestine? Since we know Peter Beinart doesn't, and therefore will not suffer any consequences should a potentially suicidal political experiment like this one fail.
What are you talking about?
Your comment makes a case for Palestine. It cements what Peter wrote, what he has been saying for years, what human rights activists have been clamoring for decades; justice for a people, Palestinians, whose land was stolen.
A disfranchised people, Jews, were resettled in a land that had occupants, Palestinians. Palestinians had occupied this land for thousands of years. The westerners resettled the Jews out of Europe because they hatred the them. They were intent on ridding Europe of Jews because they were (are) antisemitic. This is history. Look it up.
And for more reading, read the Bible [the word of the Christian god) and see how it drips with antisemitism. Western Christians are to blame for the conflict in Israel, not Palestinians.
Through no fault of their own, two disfranchised people now occupied [occupy] the same land. As an even handed arbiter, worse land does it belong to?
For those calling me and others antisemites, I ask that you read the Bible see what it says. It's Christianity that's to be blame for the holocaust, antisemitism and the current conflict.[ I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN, IM ATHEIST]
What are you jabbering about? My comment doesn't make a case for Palestine. Fuck Palestine and it’s legion of hypocrite apologists.
I have no interest in discussing Israel-Palestinian Conflict 101 with you. If you think Jews should be stripped of their land and their statehood, against human rights and international law, just say so. Nice to see you’ve expanded your bigotry from Jews to Christians. We should start calling you Archie Bunker.
Bigotry to Christians? Christianity is not antisemitic? How would you feel if I called you, "child of Satan", you killed Jesus, call yourself a Jew while you're not, your religion is fake because it was nullified by Jesus.......praying for the perdifious Jew..i could go on because essentially Christianity counters almost everything in Torah. For more on this, read the Bible and works of Rosemary Ruether and others.
I think you are one of those messianic Jews who have teamed with evangelicals to deny the truth. I recommend the works of Rabbi Tovia Singer to see how you've lost your path as a Jew.
So human rights activists are the real antisemites while antisemitism remains intact in the Bible and cathecisms?
Or maybe you can start by thinking on why Jews left Europe in the first place.
“I think.”
If only you would.
The situation in Ukraine should goad the Palestinians to keep at it.
If people are coming together for Ukrainians, happened within couple of days, why not for Palestinians who have been denied rights for almost a century?
At the same time, this should revigorate the human rights activists, not dampen the struggle for rights in ME.
Looks like Beinart is doing just that. I think that namecalling will not dampen his compassion for the Palestinians. We've seen him make his case in the media. Love to see him on TV convincing his fellow Jews to do the right thing.
The fact that it’s been 75 years and people aren’t coming together for Palestine should tell you something: Palestine sucks. The world isn’t just going to look away when Palestine murders two unarmed women and then throws a party over it, and they definitely aren’t going to take you seriously when you start whining about “human rights” When Palestine starts respecting the human rights of non-Arabs, then come talk to me.
"Barely anyone in Washington supports a 2-state solution". I was not aware that Israel is run out of Washington.
Professor Beinart. You don’t think it’s a wee bit chutzpedic to be comfortably ensconced, in the frankly totally segregated, Upper West Side and advising Israelis to from a union with a people who have shown absolutely zero love for them?
Why not put your money where your mouth is, go to Israel and move to a mixed Arab Israeli town like Acre, and see how its working out. Write from experience not from “aspiration”.
That is what Rabbi Riskin of LSS (a well-known Upper West Side Synagogue) did. Many years ago, he announced to the congregation, I was there, I heard him, that he was tired of saying “next year in Jerusalem” at the conclusion of every Jewish holiday. He picked himself up and moved his family there.
Its truly obnoxious for you to offer advice to Israelis who are daily living through random stabbings. To suggest that all the violence would stop if only it became Israel-Palestine, as you and some others advise, without any evidence of positive outcome, it is insulting to the intelligence.
Right now, the West Bank has millions of Palestinians the only thing that stops them from becoming a state is their insistence that in addition to a state they all need to move back to Israel. How bizarre give me a state and by the way can I come over to yours too? And we already have a sample of Palestinian rule in Gaza. Really what nonsense.
Please, don’t tell me that a few hundred thousand Jews in the West Bank stops the millions of Arabs from having state. After all, there are several million Arabs in Israel and that hasn’t stopped Israel from thriving.
The narrative is upside down. The only people stopping the Palestinians from having a state are the Palestinians themselves, by insisting their state must be free of Jews and further they also have to move to Israel which is full of Jews. And you don’t think this is an odd request?
Fantastic comment.
Yes, now that Israel has stolen so much Palestinian territory, so as to make a viable Palestinian state impossible, then one state is the only solution, with equal rights for all, as promised by Israel's Declaration of State 1948.
You sweet summer child. There is no "only solution," never has been. Look back into history: every time the Palestinians have tried to shirk their obligation to make peace and recognize the human rights of Jews it has failed. And most of the time it not only fails, but it blows up spectacularly in their faces.
If the two state solution truly becomes nonviable, then it won't be the Israelis who get screwed I assure you. Israel is a regional superpower, a nuclear power, with a world-class economy and a space program. The Palestinians have nothing except world sympathy which is diminishing quickly.
Something like the Jordanian option or a disenfranchisement (or even expulsion) of the Palestinians is far more likely to result from the death of the two state solution than the Israelis willingly surrendering to the Palestinians with nothing more than a "just me bro." If you put Israel in a corner, you're not going to like what happens next.
"there is a kind of a global struggle between these two visions, between the idea that states should be owned by all of the people who live inside of them, irrespective of their religion, ethnicity, race, gender, and the idea that states should be essentially the province of one dominant tribe."
This claim defies all international norms and conventions. There is no such thing as a culturally neutral state. Even multinational federations are made of federated entities that are not culturally neutral (only the federal government stays neutral). Americans like to think of their country as a culturally neutral state but most scholars of nationalism no longer believe that this is true. Most American states have declared English as their sole official language in the 1980s and 90s. That was no coincidence. It was a response the demographic growth of the Hispanic population. In other words, the US sees Latinos who do not anglicize as a demographic threat.
I dare you to name me more than ten states that have chosen real cultural neutrality. Even Canada, which claims to be a multinational postnational state (to quote Justin Trudeau) has only one single bilingual province: New Brunswick. Quebec rejects Canadian multiculturalism as a cover to water down its identity by equating its French specificity with that of other cultures (Chinese, Indian, Italian, Ukrainian, Haitian, and so on). Quebec is officially a French state despite the fact English speakers make up 10% of its population. English-speakers even have to take a language proficiency test if they want to work in the civil service. Every time the proportion of French-speakers shrinks, especially in Montreal, the government and the media panic. They have no qualms about referring to "the threat of English", and immigrants have the legal obligation to join the French-speaking sector (even if many of them fail to do so). Singapore comes to mind as a genuinely neutral state, but I can’t think of many others.
You obviously conflate and confuse individual with collective equality. International conventions (UNCERD + the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission) both claim that a states must give equal individual rights, ie civil and political rights to all their citizens. However, they do not call for cultural neutrality and they mention explicitly that privileging the immigration of a specific ethnic group is not discriminatory (unless you broaden the definition of discrimination to group rights).
What anti-Zionists want is not to put an end to the nation-state model. They want Israel alone to cease to exist as a nation-state. Even if Meretz with its "thin binational" program (within the Green line) were to to come to power, you guys would still deem the existence of a Jewish nation-state illegitimate.
The comparison with the Spanish Civil War is not totally baseless, as many of those who opposed Franco were horrified to see the far-left endorsing Stalinist excesses among Republican ranks. Perhaps, the current wave of anti-Zionism has more in common with the radical politics of the 1970s with Maos, the Trots, and those who chanted "Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh". Demanding that Jews be the only good Christians is not an ethical way of solving the Israel-Palestine conflict.
As for the occupation, I ceased to believe that the PA subscribed to the Clinton parameters ever since Amir Tibon of Haaretz revealed in 2017 that Abbas said no to Kerry and Obama in 2014 (I refused to believe it until he confirmed it to me in late 2018). Strangely enough, Netanyahu’s response to their peace plans was more forthcoming. Yet, Kerry blamed Israel alone. Even Tzipi Livni accused him of being one-sided against Israel!
What happened in 2014 proves two things: 1) It would be easy for the US to impose a peace plan on both parties, as Netanyahu did not dare to oppose Kerry’s initiative during Obama’s last term (according to Ben Caspit, Yitzhak Molcho, Netanyshu’s former chief of staff, did not even oppose the second draft of this peace plan which clearly mentioned the partition of Jerusalem).
2) The US does Not always have a pro-Israel bias.
Finally, as I said earlier, there are ways to reconcile the competing claims of both Israelis and Palestinians: a confederation. Dismantling forcefully the state of Israel, just like Israeli expansionism, is illegal. Accusing Israel of violating international law and calling for its dismantling in the same breath is disingenuous.
Israel was established as a state for the Jewish people. That is its founding principal and a totally valid concept. It is a state where Jews are not second class citizens living under the changing whims of the ruling class. It is an imperfect state but is only 75 years in existence. The USA is an imperfect state as well, and I don’t see you attempting to destroy its rational for existing.
"It is a state where Jews are not second class citizens....." yes, this is certainly true, but in so doing, it has made another people second-class citizens.
In every country every people who are not the majority are second-class citizens. Palestine is no exception: just ask the Christians, the women, the gays...
This is not true. To be a minority is not in itself to be a second class citizen. Members of minorities can be equal citizens in every respect.
Minorities in Israel are equal citizens in every respect, but they still get described as "second class citizens". Maybe you and Ampmymous can get together and square this circle.
Who had the right to" ... establish Israel as a state for the Jewish people?" There was no land available for such a state; only to allow Jews to assimilate into the land of another ethnic group. To have a "Jewish" state, it is necessary to steal someone else's land, and then attempt to get rid of the inhabitants. This is not a democracy, but a fascist ethnocracy. The only solution now is for equal rights for all, as promised by Israel's Declaration of State 1948.
So it's about property, not human rights?
It's about human rights. Palestinians' rights.
Then why was the Amphybous guy talking about land? There’s no human right to land.
Because Palestinians need their land, their livelihood.
They're not interested in the Western skyscrapers that dot their ancestral land.
They pine for the old simple days when they used to grow their olives.
....are you fucking serious? Palestinians murder entire families and dance on their graves, and you come to me whining about skyscrapers? Is this a joke?
Who??? Have you bothered to read the history of the region?
The British played a significant role in the partition of land for Jews and Arabs in Palestine, a region that was under British administration after World War I. In 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, which pledged support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.
In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate to administer Palestine, which included modern-day Israel, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Jordan. During the mandate period, Britain implemented various policies that aimed to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine. For example, the British facilitated Jewish immigration to Palestine and encouraged Jewish settlement in the region.
In 1947, the British government decided to end its mandate over Palestine and asked the United Nations to decide the future of the territory. The UN proposed a plan to partition Palestine into two states: one for Jews and one for Arabs.
Under the UN plan, the Jewish state was to be located in roughly 55% of the land, and the Arab state would occupy the remaining 45%. The plan was accepted by Jewish leaders, but Arab leaders rejected it, arguing that it was unfair and violated their rights to self-determination.
Despite Arab objections, the UN General Assembly voted in favor of the partition plan, and Israel declared independence in 1948. The declaration of Israel led to a war between the new state and its Arab neighbors, which resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the establishment of Israel as a predominantly Jewish state.
Established on a land that was occupied by others, for years. The Western Christians who are to blame for the holocaust and should have relocated the Jews some place in the west, say Oklahoma, Idaho? Why Palestine?
The world does not work that way; that some few will make demands at the expense of others.
Typical American perspective. You are aware that Oklahoma and Idaho were "land that was occupied by others for years", correct? Or maybe it's different when you're the one doing the stealing.
What makes you think I'm American?
Americans were (are) key players in the founding of Israel. What I meant is why did not Americans not give Jews one of their many states?
Everything about you. Are you saying you're not?
The same reason the US shut its doors to Jews during the Holocaust. The US in the 1940s didn't like Jews that much either, certainly not enough to give territory to them.
Are you saying you'd prefer it if Jews were given Native American land instead of their own indigenous homeland? Why is that exactly? Do you like Arabs more than Native Americans?
I'm not American. I'm from a very shithole country. I know pain. Pains me to see another suffer.
History says different. Zionists were intent on seeing Jews occupy Israel and worked to see that they did not gain asylum in US and other countries, even rebuffing offers when given. This is not propaganda. [See Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism]
What do you mean by indigeous homeland? Because Torah says so? This is not history.
You're blaming "Zionists" for the US not accepting Jewish refugees? Seriously?
Answer my question. Why are you demanding Jews be given stolen Native American land? Do you care more about Arabs than Native Americans?
I mean indigenous homeland because Jews originated there, according to historians and archeologists. Would you like to dispute that?
That Foreign Affairs article is a stupid article, that rehashes a few well-known, poorly-thought-out talking points.
1. Even if you could argue there's a "one-state reality" between Israel and the West Bank, there's no rational, honest argument that there's a "one-state reality" between Israel and Gaza. The one they try to make (that a blockade by Israel and Egypt means it's part of Israel), is very stupid, and I feel even the authors realize it.
2. Recognizing a "one-state reality" would fly in the face of nearly 60 years of efforts by the international community to prevent exactly that. There are multiple resolutions the UN makes every year, about how territories Israel formally annexed, are still not part of Israel. There's an ICJ ruling that cemented the idea it's not part of Israel, as a matter of international law. Palestine is recognized as a country by 138 of the 193 members. The ICC investigation into Israel can only exist, because they decided the State of Palestine exists, and controls the very territories the article argues are part of Israel.
The US policy change of recognizing Jerusalem and the Golan Height as Israeli, clearly hasn't changed the international community's opinions, or the position of international law. The article doesn't even address this issue. It assumes that the "denial of the one-state reality" is some sinister US phenomenon. It assumes that the US declaring all of the West Bank and Gaza are a legitimate part of Israel, would be enough to change the entire world's opinion on this.
3. The article mentions Ukraine, and the US's position on the Russian invasion there, as if it helps their case. Anyone with half a brain, would realize that it's actually a devastating repudiation of their argument. Russia wants nothing more than the world recognizing a "one-state reality" in the Donbass, Crimea - hopefully all of Ukraine. To support a "democratic one-state solution" to Ukraine and Russia. The US policy, that the world nearly unanimously supports, is completely opposing it. No part of Ukraine is Russia, and will never be Russia, no matter how much time passes, no matter how much control Russia exerts over it, no matter how formally it annexes it.
Obviously, recognizing a "one-state reality", and legitimizing Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza would be directly opposed to that concept. It would mortally wound the legitimacy of the West's position in Ukraine. That reason alone is enough for it to never happen. The article doesn't seem to realize that, and indeed, seems to assumes the opposite.
4. The article, like many Westerner Anti-Zionists, assumes that the Israeli far-right is the enemy that they'll need to fight, and bend their arms to agree to that one-state solution. When in fact, it's literally the only ally in the world. It's the only relevant collection of people that share their idiotic opinions, and have any sway over Israeli policy. The only people who'd be cheering in the streets if the world recognizes "the one-state reality" and forces Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza, are Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and the other far-right bogeymen the article is so afraid of. These are the people they need to elevate and ally with, not demonize.
5. The non-far-right Israeli mainstream wouldn't agree to a democratic one-state solution with a Palestinian majority, because that would mean they would be literally ruled by their mortal enemies. They believe they would be massacred, expelled or enslaved. The Palestinians did nothing to assuage those fears. They make a serious, and pretty successful effort to confirm them.
The article doesn't understand that, and instead dismisses it as a mere illegitimate desire for "supremacy", that would disappear even under minor pressure, like the US stopping its military aid. I don't think it takes an expert on Israeli society, to understand that this isn't the case. No, Israelis would not choose to be ruled by their mortal enemies, and allow themselves to be slaughtered, under any level of economic or diplomatic sanctions. Ignoring that fact just leads you, and the authors, to reach deeply stupid conclusions.
6. The reality is that the vast majority of Palestinians oppose the "democratic one-state solution" as well. They realize that recognizing this "solution", and the civil war that it will lead to, would hurt them, first and foremost. They want "Arab domination" in an Arab Palestine, at least as much as the Jews want "domination" (i.e. national self-determination) within their own state. The article doesn't seem to realize that, at all. It doesn't propose any solutions to overcoming the overwhelming Palestinian opposition to that solution, because it doesn't recognize it exists. There's an implicit assumption that the Palestinians share those goals, and the Israelis are the only holdouts. Again, a level of stupidity that makes it impossible to take the article, and anyone who supports it seriously.
Ultimately the article seems to operate within the level of knowledge and insight of the low-information leftist Twitter user, who've never opened a book on Israel or Palestine, doesn't speak either Hebrew or Arabic, and only heard about the conflict from like-minded leftist publications. Considering that the authors are academics, with real jobs in real universities, I find it extremely hard to believe, that they simply never thought of the points I've brought up. It doesn't take a professor of Middle Eastern studies to realize those things. These are very, very basic issues, that anyone who claims to know anything about Israel or Palestine, should know about.
Instead, I feel that the goal of the article ultimately has the same goals of the BDS, the Amnesty/HRW reports, and similar anti-Zionist Western dreck, as well as the OG antisemitic anti-Zionists in the Soviet bloc. Not to offer a solution that resolves anything, but the polar opposite. To make impossible and downright illegal demands, to create a state of unresolvable forever-war between parts of Western society and Israel. With the main tangible effect being not on Israel per-se, but on US (and other Western) Jews, who would be increasingly marginalized and discriminated against, just like the Jews of the USSR and Poland. With classic antisemitism being increasingly legitimized and whitewashed. The ZOG / Elders of Zion narrative of a Jewish-controlled US being moved from purely Neo-Nazi spaces, to more legitimate parts of the Western political discourse.
One of the main reasons I respect Peter so much is that he refuses to make nasty personal comments, unlike many who disagree with him.
That's true, he's a very polite enabler of anti-Semitism and terrorism.
Good job Peter and now your son Ezra!
If Israel's given a pass on this, to become a theocracy, it's going to set a bad precedent. What will happen if other religions [or race, what's a Jew, race or religion? Debatable] demand the same? Why should some seclude from others? The tired excuse of security is no longer valid as Israel now has nuclear weapons.
The one state where all are treated equally is the way to go. No one is more special than the other.
The fact that the local anti Semite thinks this is good idea should tell you everything you need to know, Beinart.
Peter, I hope you don't waste your time reading any of these comments. You are brilliant and have better things to do.
Don't worry, it's extremely unlikely Peter spends any time exposing himself to different points of view or the opinions of those who disagree with him. Ideologues rarely do.
Two-state concept by OBB.
"Since the two-state concept is a nonstarter, therefore, there is only one real solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That is a unitary state that is integrative, secular, democratic, and fundamentally equitable in relations to all its citizens – in the sense nor merely of genuine equality of opportunity (requiring massive investment in education, healthcare, transportation, and housing for all) but also in terms of full compensation for previous wrongs committed and redistribution of wealth. This state needs to be independent of the political, financial, and other shenanigans of Western and Arab powers. It will not be easy, but it is possible, with hard work, and infinitely more possible than an artificial arrangement that presages ever more racist hostility, violence and destruction, international opprobrium, inequality of wealth and opportunity, the nihilist seduction of nuclear weapons."
I read with interest that Hartman piece from 1982 and I find it unbelievably depressing. I am not religious but spent time studying in Jerusalem with some people with similar perspectives i.e. that Israel represents the chance for Torah to be lived out in its fullness. Such a vision has been totally crushed in Israel and overwhelmed by the bullying racism of Ben Gvir etc. Nowadays I see people like Hartman and the inspiring teachers I had as sad, lonely voices in the wilderness, largely irrelevant to Israeli discourse.
A wonderfully clarifying statement, Peter. Exactly right for this moment. Thanks so much. Ros
You are completely ignoring the historical context.