Amid the current horror and propaganda, the pogroms, kidnapping and bombings, and the (at best reckless) violence against civilian populations it is important not to lose sight of what a justish solution might be in Israel/Palestine and it seems to me that this is actually a rather simple matter at least as soon as we set aside outcomes that require the total erasure by displacement or murder of either Jewish Israelis or Palestinian Arabs or the unjust domination of one group by the other. Some “just” solutions are better than others, but in the non-ideal world we have to accept some compromise with geopolitical force majeure and the fact that some people just hate other kinds of people.
Just-ish solutions
1A: A single state in which everyone living long-term within its borders has citizenship on equal terms, irrespective of national, ethnic or religious background.
1B: A single state with some kind of consociational system for power-sharing and, therefore, some explicit recognition of individual national, ethnic, or religious affiliation.
2: A two-state solution involving demarcated territory for each national group, based on some fair territorial settlement between them.
1A is preferable to 1B is preferable to 2, from an abstract liberal and democratic perspective. But given that we live under non-ideal circumstances and peace is also important, then 2 strikes me as acceptable.
Seriously unjust non-solutions
3A. The defeat of Israel by Palestinian and Arab forces and the destruction or displacement out of the area of the Jewish residents of Israel.
3B. The defeat of Palestinian forces by Israel and the destruction or displacement out of the area of the Arab residents of historic Palestine.
4A. The defeat of Israel and the subjugation of a rump Jewish population by the Arab population.
4B. The defeat of the Palestinian Arabs and the subjugation of a rump Arab population by an Israeli Jewish population.
Notice that nothing in my categorisation of 1A, 1B, 2, 3A, 3B, 4A and 4B requires us to take a stance on history, who started it, who sabotaged this, who committed this atrocity, or any other question of historical injustice. Which is just as well, since while there may be true answers to those questions, I take it that achieving consensus on them is impossible in practice.
It is necessary to say something, though, about very recent history (since Oslo) as it bears on the choice between 1A, 1B and 2, namely that successive Israeli governments in collusion with settlers have worked to make 2 unviable without massive displacements of population. Since these are the only three justish solutions, making two-states unviable means a de facto choice in favour of 1A or 1B, both of which may be less acceptable to most ordinary Israelis than 2 would be. What you don’t get to do is to sabotage 2 and then use that as an alibi for pursuing 3B or 4B. Needless to, insofar as actions by Palestinian Arabs also make justish solutions unviable, they are also disbarred from appealing to an unviability that is the result of their own actions as an alibi for 3A or 4A, although it is worth noting that Palestinian capacity to function as a unified actor is pretty low, partly as the result of actions by the Israel state (which then complains about the absence of a “partner for peace”).
The other area where historic claims matter somewhat concerns immigration and the right of Jewish people and the descendants of displaced Palestinians to relocate to the area. Both claims are compatible with 2, although not in some version where people have an automatic right to go back to the village their ancestor came from or have their property restored. But then, compensation for peace is one way of addressing that. If Jewish Israelis fear the consequences of uneven immigration and return in solutions 1A and 1B, as I think they would, then they have to make 2 work. This is the point that liberal Zionist Michael Walzer made in his discussion of “White Australia” and the trading of land to secure ethnic/racial homogeneity in Spheres of Justice. I strongly dislike Walzer’s approach in the “White Australia” case, but it is less unjust than domination or forced displacement. Peoples can live together or apart but if we care even for imperfect justice they can’t dominate, subjugate, displace, or destroy one another. Since I am, by conviction, hostile to nationalisms and would, ideally, want a more cosmopolitan world, none of the just-ish solutions corresponds to my ideals.
(Rather obviously, the path to any of the justish solutions looks all but impossible right now given the total absence of trust and the depth of hurt and people rightly feel. But since there aren’t any other morally acceptable endpoints then sooner or later they will have to start working towards them. Stopping the killing and cease-fire would be a good start.)
{ 81 comments }
otto 10.25.23 at 3:22 pm
“A two-state solution involving demarcated territory for each national group, based on some fair territorial settlement between them.”
Yes, but not 1. further expulsions of non-Jews from Israel and also 2. the requirement of “de-privileging” of Jews within Israel too – ending what might be called “jewish supremacy” both legally and de facto within current Israeli society, despite a limited version of minimum rights offered to arabs living in Israel. NB “De-privileging” is not “subjugation”, needless to say.
nastywoman 10.25.23 at 4:10 pm
Since I am, by conviction, hostile to nationalisms and would, ideally, want a world without borders none of the solutions corresponds to my ideals.
Sashas 10.25.23 at 4:23 pm
Out of curiosity, does anyone know whether there is appetite among Palestinians for a single Palestinian state vs two? I’ve been reminded recently that the West Bank government is distinct from that of Gaza. A “three state solution” would I think be functionally similar to option (2), but I wonder if there’s room to leave Hamas out of the negotiations initially and secure a Palestinian state in the West Bank.
Arguably the current government of Israel has done even more to undermine peace in the region than Hamas, and this option (2a) would require a reversal of Israeli settlement in the West Bank… I guess I’m just wondering if this an option worth thinking further about.
engels 10.25.23 at 4:55 pm
The “non-solutions” should probably include 5. an escalating regional/global war in which huge numbers of non-parties to the original conflict end up dead.
J. W. Mason 10.25.23 at 5:17 pm
I am a little puzzled how 2 is a distinct outcome, rather than simply an alternative description of one of the others.
Apart from Gaza, every part of Israel-Palestine is currently inhabited by both Arabs and Jews. In a hypothetical two-state solution, what happens to people on the wrong side of the line? Are they forcibly moved to the other side? That would be 3. Are they allowed to remain but given citizenship in “their” state? This, as we know from South Africa, is a form of 4. Or do they get full equality within the state they currently live in? In which case, we are back at 1.
Saying “two states” does not change the reality of two people throughly intermixed with each other. And of course this is also true with all kinds of regulatory, security, environmental etc. questions, on which a notionally independent Palestinian state would remain effectively subject to Israel.
engels 10.25.23 at 5:21 pm
I also doubt the strategy of ignoring historical injustices is sustainable, and it’s certainly out of step with the conversation about empire, racism, etc in the West.
Guano 10.25.23 at 6:11 pm
I have always said that our political parties should not permit people or organisations to campaign or lobby for either Israel or Palestine within the parties. They should create a forum for seeking solutions (something like Friends of the Oslo Process) with professional moderators and advised by international legal experts. Many people objected that this was an attack on freedom of speech though some of the same people are now trying to outlaw other people’s freedom of speech on this very subject. Some of the people involved have been talking to others in their bubble for a long time and no longer recognise that they have become meaningless slogans.
As you say “successive Israeli governments in collusion with settlers have worked to make 2 unviable without massive displacements of population”. So some version of solution 1 is the only one that meets modern criteria of human rights. That would, for some people, mean the destruction of Israel, in that Israel would no longer be a Jewish state. By this logic there is no solution.
charbovari 10.25.23 at 6:27 pm
“nothing in my categorisation of 1A, 1B, 2, 3A, 3B, 4A and 4B requires us to take a stance on history, who started it, who sabotaged this, who committed this atrocity, or any other question of historical injustice…”
Not true. Those would be very important considerations for establishing fair boundaries under solution 2.
“What you don’t get to do is to sabotage 2 and then use that as an alibi for pursuing 3B or 4B.”
Well that’s what Israel is in fact doing (as you imply). We might better start by acknowledging that, and figuring out ways to stop it.
politicalfootball 10.25.23 at 6:47 pm
What you don’t get to do is to sabotage 2 and then use that as an alibi for pursuing 3B or 4B.
I realize you are saying that you don’t get to sabotage 2 and then claim justice is served by 3B or 4B. But this is the clear plan and over the long term, I can’t see anything stopping it from working.
Similarly, all the available evidence argues against engels here:
I also doubt the strategy of ignoring historical injustices is sustainable
vasi 10.25.23 at 7:18 pm
JW Mason, those are good questions! But I really don’t think Solution 2, with people on the wrong side of the border having “full equality within the state they currently live in” is the same as Solution 1. Each nation would still have self-determination of its goals and priorities, and would likely make different choices (within the set of parameters permitted by human rights law). Those who live on the wrong side have to accept that those choices are highly unlikely to be their prefered options.
It’s similar to a person of Japanese ancestry living as a citizen in France. They’re full equals, no law should treat them differently due to their ethnicity. But for most purposes they’d have to speak the French language; the national holidays would be things like Christmas, Bastille Day, Victory in WW2 Day; their taxes may subsidize vineyards or andouillette; everyone would sing an anthem about defending the country from the Austrians. The person in question may not prefer these goals, and if people like them ever became a majority they could vote for Esperanto to be the new national language. But for now, they’d have to accept being in the minority.
Obviously there are good reasons not to prefer this outcome. It would be ideal if Jews could freely move to Hebron and Arabs to Haifa, and for that matter Hamburg, Hyderabad and Houston too. I’d love if one day the concepts of “sovereign nations” and “national identity” became less closely-joined than they are now, across the world.
But it’s also easy to imagine a single state in Palestine/Israel having serious internal conflict over such topics as national symbols, language, holidays, immigration, land reform, religious law & accomodations, holy sites, subsidies, foreign policy, and so forth. Possibly even conflict that could turn violent! Debates on how to commemorate Yom Haatzma’ut/Dhikra al-Nakhba in a single state could mirror Orangemen’s Day in Northern Ireland.
So the one-state vs. two-state question is to me about which is harder to resolve: Intra-state concerns such as the above, or inter-state concerns such as borders? It’s honestly hard to decide. But as Chris points out, either choice is just-ish, and I too would support either one as clearly superior to the current state of conflict, violence and oppression
Raven Onthill 10.25.23 at 7:21 pm
This is not confined to Palestine. A successful ethnic cleansing of Gaza is likely to be followed by a global outburst of antisemitism. Likewise the successful destruction of Israel by Islamic forces is likely to be followed by a widespread conflict between Western Christian powers and Islamic powers, and Jews will be ground between those millstones.
It is important, therefore, to work for your just-ish solutions.
Ray V. 10.25.23 at 7:24 pm
A problem is not only the sharing of political power but also the sharing of wealth and resources.
Someone might worry that in a single state, whomever has a majority would redistribute wealth and resources in an unjust way.
Others might worry that in two states, you would somehow have to avoid one state having all the best land, and somehow everyone must share the water.
1A. Seems will obviously be the one most in accord with universalist liberal democratic values. What probably matters, according to those values is not so much particular attachments to specific homes or areas but whether people can live freely, decently, with hope for the future, etc. People could be compensated for their losses of property they believed they had a specific right to.
It’s very hard to tell but I get the sense these aren’t values that the people in question have embraced because embracing certain kinds of particular rights for the group as a whole has always felt much more politically weighty. These are not very weighty on the universalistic picture, which is individualist. Most of the claims made to dispute the rights of the other group are not individualist.
So that leads to 1b. —and then you would have to wonder how particular 1b is, because people have very specific property-type claims, I think So would people be compensated as individuals or as a group?
2 evades these problems. Was 2 only thing on the table because 2 probably seemed like the only thing that people would agree to? Or was it that 2 made everything more terrible because there’s an easy way to forestall or mess up 2 in all the ways that we saw?
This is an oversimplification but perhaps a problem was Palestinians are a lot weaker in power but don’t see themselves as having a weaker moral claim. People kept expecting them to take less because of their weaker power but because they see their moral claim as exceedingly strong, they want any version of 2 to reflect in some way the strength of their moral claim as they see it.
Would all that have to be set aside for fairness to work? It seems like it would be easier if one thought of both groups as individuals, and the solution as one where each individual’s share would be roughly equal. Then you would not have to worry about who has the more weighty backwards-looking claim but only how things looked for people’s prospects in a forward-looking way. Even if you looked at the group primarily, each individual in each group would have enough for a decent life in the future.
Maybe liberal universalism doesn’t work at all here, because it depends on seeing people as individuals. But ultimately, it seems it would be ‘more fair’ and also easier to do. But it would be a non-starter because nobody ever frames the situation as concern for individuals, and the individuals in question are not conceiving of themselves that way—even though they sometimes are when it comes to their particular conceptions of what they are owed in compensation.
Jake Gibson 10.25.23 at 8:10 pm
I don’t think there is even a plurality for any of those, even 1B, in Israel. I suspect there is a plurality for expelling all Palestinians from Gaza and th e West Bank. Absolutely among the far right.
I have a suspicion that Palestinians would prefer a two state solution with some guarantee of security.
nastywoman 10.25.23 at 8:27 pm
@
‘I also doubt the strategy of ignoring historical injustices is sustainable’
But where do you start –
in the Archaeology of Hate?
Do you really start with some ‘historical injustices’ on May 14 in 1948
or do you start with…
Moses?
Jonshine 10.25.23 at 9:21 pm
There’s a just(-ish) version of 3A/B where the displaced population volunteers to leave, presumably as the result of some compensation offer.
Israel’s seems to require a 2/3rds vote of the Knesset (which is luckily a proportional legislature) to change their basic law (which would presumably be required for 3A), so we can reasonably mirror that into 3B and require a two-thirds majority plebiscite of Palestinians to accept such a displacement.
Presumably, the offer would primarily be money, but would have to include a citizenship offer from a third country or group of such, or territory to found a new state – implausible now, but possible not in the future (and maybe a problem we have to solve anyway as climate change starts to drown whole nations).
Tim Dymond 10.25.23 at 10:29 pm
There’s talk of a ‘three state solution’: Israel + Palestine (West Bank) + Palestine (Gaza). But given the severe divisions in Israeli society (not just the recent anti-Netanyahu demonstrations, but divisions between secular and religious) why not a ‘four state solution’? Two Palestines + two Israels? If we’re going to arbitrarily divide nations, we should at least do that equally.
otto 10.25.23 at 11:16 pm
I think I may be okay with financial offers to leave as long as have to be accepted on an individual basis; and also that the similar offers would made to both ethnicities with similar targets for removals i.e. not just a ‘compensated’ ethnic cleansing of the palestinians only, but as a means of reducing jewish numbers in Israel/ Palestine as well, again on a voluntary / individual acceptance basis only.
The larger priority is of course a much more equal relationship between jews and arabs among those (likely almost all) who will remain.
LFC 10.25.23 at 11:31 pm
Of the “just-ish” solutions outlined in the OP, I think the most realistic — which doesn’t of course mean it’s within reach right now — is solution no. 2, the two-state solution. The presence of roughly 700,000 Israeli settlers on the West Bank makes this v. difficult, politically and logistically, to implement, but through territorial compromise, land swaps, and, if need be, forced removal of some of the settlers, they’re going to have to do it.
A two-state solution has almost been achieved on at least a couple of occasions, e.g. in 2000, only to collapse at the last minute. It’s more difficult now, but still do-able. More pressure than in the past will likely have to be brought on both parties (Israel and PA) by various outside actors, including (but not limited to) the U.S. With Netanyahu’s likely departure from the scene sooner rather than later, it’s do-able, and new leaders are going to have to sit down, make the compromises, and do it.
Bob 10.26.23 at 1:45 am
Chris, this is a very sane and sober assessment of the situtation. In particular, I agree strongly with your point that “nothing in my categorisation of 1A, 1B, 2, 3A, 3B, 4A and 4B requires us to take a stance on history, who started it, who sabotaged this, who committed this atrocity, or any other question of historical injustice.”
Guano 10.26.23 at 6:31 am
Solution 2 is, in theory, what all the parties are committed to. That is what was agreed 30 years ago at Oslo. It is difficult to ignore the history because we have to face up the question of why solution 2 was not implemented 30 years ago.
I have been told that implementing it would have led to Israel descending into chaos, because there are strong political forces who consider creating a Greater Israel as part of Israel’s destiny. They see Israel’s tight to exist as coming from the existence of a state of Israel more than twenty centuries ago, not from the decision of international bodies in 1947. They would forcibly object to any of the just solutions listed above because they consider the Palestinians as interlopers.
MFB 10.26.23 at 8:06 am
This is an intelligent set of observations.
3B and 4B, combined, are what has actually been happening, with increasing energy and with the explicit endorsement of most of the world, including the NATO countries and Russia and India. Thus most of the powerful countries in the world, especially those most engaged with the region, are committed to “unjust non-solutions”, considering them solutions, and either believing that they are just, or not caring.
The “unjust non-solutions” in the post are all, unlike the “justish solutions” based upon military victory. Since Israel is the only party in the region capable of military victory, in practice the solutions in which the Israelis are defeated and thereafter expelled or subjugated seems not very plausible. In addition, while the Israelis are clearly largely committed to expulsion or subjugation, it’s much less clear that the Palestinians are, and therefore the implicit message of this part of the post, that the Palestinians are potentially as bad as the Zionists, seems questionable.
Realistically, the only way a positive outcome could be attained would be through external intervention by a force powerful enough to keep NATO from protecting Israel and also powerful enough to impose a solution which the Zionists don’t want. I don’t believe that such a force exists at the moment and therefore, unfortunately, these sensible proposals are chimeras.
Maria 10.26.23 at 8:07 am
Thank you, Chris, for this clear-eyed analysis.
With the addition of what engels said @4, which has kept me, and I’m sure many others, awake at night for weeks.
Craig Burley 10.26.23 at 11:04 am
Simple economic questions and the structure of Israel’s apartheid society make any attempt to disambiguate these populations a farce. Israel could not operate as an economy or as a society, not in anything close to the way it does now, without a captive population of Palestinians (“Arab Israelis” perhaps to be hoped for although obviously much less than full Israelis in economic terms in keeping with apartheid norms).
Societies don’t wean themselves off apartheid particularly well. Israel/Palestine is a massive, and globally-important, pyramid of rank exploitation. What makes this difficult is not that two nations or cultures or societies hate each other—that is common— it’s the structure of the state that is presumed to be the one state or one of the two who must by (apparent) definition continue to exist, in close enough to its current form to be preferable to its existing citizens and their patrons to the other options.
I am a big fan and lifelong adherent of there being a Jewish state as a cultural and political homeland for Jews that is safe for them as people and as a people. The modern (for it has all happened in my lifetime) thirst for that also to be an apartheid state and indeed apartheid society makes just-ish solutions impossible because in such a society there must be a population of human cattle for the settler society to violently exploit. The internal borders are a lot more inviolable than the external borders!
Craig Burley 10.26.23 at 11:29 am
Tim @16 raises an interesting question: I think the answer lies in there “really” being two states. Israelis have superficial quite large differences politically and especially socially; but those factors pale in comparison to economic ones, in which an extractive population uses a violently enforced economic system to extract “quality of life” (resources and labor) from a legally immiserated underclass.
The development of a particular class of society within ‘ Israeli society who intend to not work at all (or learn or support society in other non-labouring ways), and be supported by the suckers around them, is historically predictable and will be an interesting coming battle. Israel is able to lavishly fund and support them because of apartheid based extraction and obviously its own internal self-contradictions make moral arguments about such nakedly extractive and contemptuous conduct unviable.
LFC 10.26.23 at 12:12 pm
MFB @21
Given the efforts and willingness of past Israeli leaders such as Rabin, E. Barak, and Olmert to negotiate and make compromises in pursuit of a 2 state solution, your assertion that Israelis are “largely” committed to “subjugation or expulsion” is very dubious. There are deep divisions of opinion within Israel and the Right has gained in political strength in recent years, but there remains a constituency for a peaceful and reasonable resolution that would result in two states.
Trader Joe 10.26.23 at 12:29 pm
I agree with your ranking of ‘just-ish’ solutions.
However – they presuppose that Israelis and Palestinians actually want solutions of any kind. There are powerful and not exactly invisible forces on both sides that seem quite satisfied with the status quo even if that means from time to time there is a round of bloodletting in order to fuel the hatreds that support these respective power bases.
Its primarily the Rest of the World that wants a solution which is only natural since the Rest of the World played no small part in putting these two cats in a bag hoping they’d become friends rather than fight.
Bob 10.26.23 at 1:00 pm
Some people have objected to Chris’s point that none of his solutions require a stance on the history, who committed what atrocity when, etc. In reply, and in support of Chris, I would argue that a major obstacle to peace is that people on both sides KNOW TOO MUCH, and it is not helpful. All you really need to know is three things: (i) the Palestinians are not all going to wake up one morning and decide to leave; (ii) the Israelis are not all going to wake up one morning and decide to leave; (iii) the 1967 borders (literally, or as a base-line to determine land swaps) is the closest thing we will ever have to a fair, independent, widely-recognized point at which to divide the baby.
JW Mason 10.26.23 at 2:33 pm
But it’s also easy to imagine a single state in Palestine/Israel having serious internal conflict over such topics as national symbols, language, holidays, immigration, land reform, religious law & accomodations, holy sites, subsidies, foreign policy, and so forth. Possibly even conflict that could turn violent! Debates on how to commemorate Yom Haatzma’ut/Dhikra al-Nakhba in a single state could mirror Orangemen’s Day in Northern Ireland.
I think this comparison supports my point rather than challenges it. Ireland is a clear case where the notional adoption of solution 2 meant in practice some mix of 1 and 3. The existence of the Irish Republic did not in any way remove the pressure for equal citizenship for Catholics in the North (or non-Catholics in the Republic).
JW Mason 10.26.23 at 2:38 pm
I don’t think there is even a plurality for any of those, even 1B, in Israel. I suspect there is a plurality for expelling all Palestinians from Gaza and th e West Bank.
As people periodically point out, the Civil Rights movement in the US never enjoyed anything like majority support among white Americans. There’s a weird ahistorical notion lurking in the back of some comments that to the extent the US and Western Europe enjoy something like equal rights for all residents, that’s just a permanent feature of these places — something people have always supported. But in fact they had to be fought for against fierce residence.
Suzanne 10.26.23 at 4:00 pm
@25:
Those efforts should be acknowledged, while also acknowledging that one of the primary sources of conflict and obstacles to a two-state solution, the building of settlements, has never entirely ceased for the past five decades no matter who was in charge of Israel’s government. Even Rabin’s “freeze” was not entirely frozen.
M Caswell 10.26.23 at 4:31 pm
“A Gallup poll in October 1964 reported that the public approved of the new law by nearly two-to-one (58 percent to 31 percent). And in April 1965, Gallup found a whopping 76 percent in favor of a then-proposed equal rights voting law.”
Given the black population was only 10%, and that at least some (both black and white) opposed the law because it didn’t go far enough to secure civil rights, doesn’t majority white support follow– at least from these polls?
Moz in Oz 10.27.23 at 4:49 am
M Caswell@31: the question is “how was allowed to vote”. IIRC right now the US is still working up towards 50% of the population voting for their president, so those presidents who receive a majority of votes cast are sitting on about 25% support from the population at large.
Whiole it’s likely that a majority of non-blacks supported equal rights, there’s a lot of room to move in the gap between “legally regarded as black” and “legally regarded as white”. The South Africans called that “coloured”, in the UK it’s “minority ethnic” but I’m not sure what the equivalent term is in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections
On that note, it’s worth remembering that there’s more than just Palestinians and Jews in Israel and Palestine, and I’m not even sure that all Jews living in Israel are Israeli citizens. I assume most of the Jews living in Palestine are Israelis.
One of the minor problems with buying people out of those countries is that Israel would need to change their “Law of Return” such that Jews copuldn’t renounce said right. Otherwise either no Jew would be eligible to be bought out, or any Jew who took the money could immediately return to Israel. I suspect changing that law would be almost as contentious as recognising a Palestinian state. We need not even mention the difficulty of a Palestinian right of return…
Moz in Oz 10.27.23 at 4:54 am
There is some precedent for the idea of using Christians to rule contested areas and let the Jews and Muslims have supervised access. This is done with some multiply-religious buildings as I understand it.
So perhaps instead we should be actively looking for a neutral party who would be willing to occupy the contested territories and administer things in a fair and balanced way. A country that has no real interest in the territory, but also both a capable military and a tradition of jurisprudence. I speak, obviously, of China.
What could we offer them for such a service? Other than Taiwan, perhaps.
J-D 10.27.23 at 8:55 am
I don’t know whether you know anything about the history of the ‘one-drop rule’. If not, there’s a Wikipedia article on the subject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule
I think your recollection may be at fault. Again, there is a relevant Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_Quo_(Jerusalem_and_Bethlehem)
Unsurprisingly, there is a Chinese legal tradition, but anybody who’s going to rely on it should know at least as much about it as is reflected in, again, Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_law#Chinese_legal_tradition
It diverges in nature considerably from the notion of ‘jurisprudence’ in other traditions.
MFB 10.27.23 at 9:06 am
LFC, I would like to believe that your claim is true, but unfortunately the history of Israel over the last quarter-century, to go no further back, refutes everything you say. The current behaviour of Israel has not aroused any opposition worth mentioning, which suggests overwhelming support for mass murder, and the widespread calls for genocide and massive population transfer have not been met with any serious criticism outside the liberal fringe.
So, either you are extraordinarily ill-informed about Israeli politics (meaning even less well-informed than I am, and I can’t claim to be an expert) or you are not being wholly honest about your motives in making this claim.
Peter T 10.27.23 at 9:41 am
Many decades ago a former professor of mine remarked that agreement that gave up the West Bank would immediately spark an Israeli civil war. If it was true then (and Rabin’s murder suggests it was), it is even more true now. Is Israel prepared to pay the price that Michael Collins did?
nastywoman 10.27.23 at 10:23 am
@
I don’t know whether you know anything about the history of the ‘one-drop rule’.
YES – as in ‘the Archaeology of Hate’ this rule plays an utmost important role as
‘it asserted hat any person with even one ancestor of black ancestry (“one drop” of “black blood”)[1][2] is considered black (Negro or colored in historical terms). And it could be used as ‘a example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status, regardless of proportion of ancestry in different groups’
BUT in the case of Palestina-Israel it would be very difficult to establish this rule again as Palestinians and Israelis are essentially from
‘the same tribe’!
MisterMr 10.27.23 at 11:43 am
I think that the least impossible solution is 1A.
The reason is that there are a lot of people in Israel and Palestine who actually think that 3A or 3B is a good solution, and not only a good solution but the only ethically just one.
So any attempt to find a peaceful solution will have to struggle with the fact that there will always be people who try to sabotage the peaceful solution, by using violence in such a way that it pushes the other side to also use violence, so that the two extremisms feed on each other.
Solution 1A is the only one that could be imposed by only one party (Israel) if it was fcocused on it (that is, a government that is willing to discipline a part of its own population to enforce the one state solution).
Even this could only work if a majority of israelis agreed with it, it is not something that external governments can really impose on Israel, so the situation is dire, since even before this violence started the standing israely government was quite right leaning and anti-palestinian; I hope that this reverses in the future but it is not something “the west” really has control on.
Moz in Oz 10.27.23 at 11:51 am
JD, I was thinking more of Native Americans, the many types of Asians, Irish, Italians and other non-whites who are also non-black.
Part of the benefit of using traditional (or modern) Chinese judges or the entire legal system is that it’s not influenced much by Abrahamic traditions so to some extent stands outside the various local and colonial systems currently used in the area. And China is in a better position to negotiate with the US than anyone else – the US being very “how many divisions has the pope” in approach.
Right now I think it’s useful to look for any possible avenue of not-slaughtering-each-other, so while the China suggestion isn’t entirely serious it’s at least more politically acceptable/practical than Chris’s list of ideas that’ve failed comprehensively for the last 50-odd years.
Peter T: I assume you mean the Irish independence activist rather than the US astronaut?
Suzanne 10.27.23 at 5:33 pm
@ 37:
The United States and the West following can exert a great deal of pressure on Israel, certainly more than they have chosen to do so far. It seems to me this bloodshed is on Western hands in an exceptionally direct way and as an American I wish I could say the opposite and would like to be wrong.
You are right about the extremists on both sides. I don’t know if there is a political solution anymore, yet short of 3B, which may yet happen, the solution can only be political.
engels 10.27.23 at 8:41 pm
It took him a few days, but Jonathan Freedland has penned the most mealy-mouthed and passive-aggressive defence of mass murder you’re every likely read. And the Guardian published it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/27/tragedy-israel-palestine-conflict-horror
engels 10.27.23 at 8:45 pm
On the “historical injustices” point, Edward Said, as recounted here by Tony Judt, made the point well:
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/rootless-cosmopolitan/
Gar Lipow 10.28.23 at 2:48 am
I think the choice between 1a, 1b, and 2 has to be negotiated between the contending parties. But to get to that point we need some sort of truce that is more stable than “Israel will murder and displace Palestinians more slowly, and Hamas and other armed groups will murder Israelis less often and in smaller numbers. I’ve heard some of the Palestinian and Israeli peace activists think out loud along these line. A truce that includes much more equality under the law, an end to collective punishment, the siege of Gaza, an end to various types of pogroms, fast murder and slow murder, and full freedom of movement for all Palestinians, plus work permits also for all Palestininians. ‘A suspension of both physical and economic violence both parties, with a time limit to encourage negotiations that lead to something more stable. A truce that benefits both Israelis and Palestinians, that protects both. During that truce, there must be serious negotiations that lead to 1a, 1b or 2.
LFC 10.28.23 at 1:50 pm
engels @41:
I don’t agree with everything in the Freedland column you linked, but his paragraph on ‘settler colonialism’ is to the point.
Ebenezer Scrooge 10.28.23 at 2:08 pm
I have two points:
1. The China solution is cute, but it wouldn’t work. China might be culturally neutral (although the Uyghers might not agree), but it is not neutral with respect to power projection. A Chinese neutral zone would likely evolve into a Chinese co-prosperity sphere. There’s always good old Switzerland, I suppose.
2. Law has little to do with justice, and politics even less. On the Palestinian issue, I’m a consequentialist: the least misery for the smallest number of people. I’m not sure what that entails, however. But almost certainly not justice.
engels 10.28.23 at 3:00 pm
Oh.
Lowkey @Lowkey0nline 6h
“I think he did a very professional job…” Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland reveals that he is a longtime friend of Netanyahu senior adviser and former IDF spokesman Mark Regev.
https://nitter.net/Lowkey0nline/status/1718187842856182241#m
OM 10.28.23 at 5:15 pm
It is easy to make demands of others, much harder to make demands of oneself. I believe the question every peace- and justice-seeking Western citizen who cares at all about the fate of Palestinians and/or Israelis must ask themselves is: To what extent am I willing to exert pressure on my government to take active steps that would foster a peaceful and just-ish agreement – including dramatic Marshall Plan-style economic incentives aimed at one side or both, as well as whatever military guarantees may be needed to assure the security of both sides. Short of pressure for such steps, and the willingness to support (fund, staff) them as needed, most Western calls for a peaceful and just(-ish) solution are empty moralism.
Suzanne 10.28.23 at 7:10 pm
@41: Here is Dennis Ross’ not at all mealymouthed defense in a New York Times op-ed:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/opinion/hamas-war-gaza-israel.html
“Israel is not alone in believing it must defeat Hamas. Over the past two weeks, when I talked to Arab officials throughout the region whom I have long known, every single one told me that Hamas must be destroyed in Gaza. They made clear that if Hamas is perceived as winning, it will validate the group’s ideology of rejection, give leverage and momentum to Iran and its collaborators and put their own governments on the defensive.”
This is worth reading in its entirety. I assume Ross’ s views are shared by the Biden Administration. Hamas must be “destrouyed” whatever the cost in Palestinian lives, in part to prevent Israel’s “retaliation” – Ross’s word – in future. Plans for the Israeli takeover of Gaza following the destruction are also outlined.
Suzanne 10.28.23 at 7:13 pm
My previous post about the Ross opinion piece should have read “reoccupation” and not “takeover” to be precise. The US has been clear that they don’t want Israel to reoccupy Gaza permanently. Since Israel doesn’t want to reoccupy Gaza, at least not with any Gazans there, these strictures would appear to be superfluous., but who knows.
LFC 10.29.23 at 1:17 am
From the Ross piece linked above:
PatinIowa 10.29.23 at 1:38 am
From the Ross piece:
“But they said this in private. Their public postures have been quite different.”
One of the things that irritates me about American diplomats when they say things like this is that the unnamed Arab leaders he talks about are presumed to be lying in public and telling the truth in private. Why?
Never mind the fact that a large number of Arab leaders are talking to a very powerful and very rich country’s representatives hoping to gain, among other things, security cooperation in suppressing democratic [or worse] impulses in their population, economic and military aid, and opportunities to park their money in a safe place. I expect that “We want to get rid of Hamas too,” was followed by, “Give us [this or that] to help us help you.”
I have no idea what (for example) Saudi Arabia’s leaders really want. I have less idea how to solve this horror.
I do know that Americans speaking as if they are sure about the real attitudes of countries other than theirs have a very long history of leading us toward disaster. Remember the flowers that would greet US troops in Baghdad?
Hell, most of the time we don’t know what we really want.
Seekonk 10.29.23 at 4:26 am
The crimes of Hamas are qualitatively more atrocious, but Israel is matching them quantitatively with its genocidal tactic of bombing the haystack to destroy the needle.
The identities of many of the architects of these crimes are known and they are above ground. The priority should be to stop the killing and bring these criminals to justice. The worst perp at the moment is Uncle Sam who is vetoing attempts to stop the carnage.
engels 10.29.23 at 9:13 am
his paragraph on ‘settler colonialism’ is to the point
Is it? He thinks Israel can’t be a settler colony (or presumably implicated in ethnic cleansing) because the original settlers were fleeing persecution, didn’t come from a single metropole and were justified by biblical truth. By that logic the US isn’t a settler colony. Good news for the Native Americans!
engels 10.29.23 at 11:08 am
A succinct explanation by Ilan Pappe:
From Balfour to the Nakba: The settler-colonial experience of Palestine
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/balfour-nakba-settler-colonial-experience-palestine
LFC 10.29.23 at 4:47 pm
@engels
I knew I shd have quoted the orig passage. He didn’t say “Biblical truth.” He referred to ancient ties, which afaik are a matter of historical record.
As for the U.S., the large majority (if not all) of the original white settlers did come from a single metropole.
LFC 10.29.23 at 4:56 pm
P.s. The question of labels here (settler colonial or not) does not really affect moral or political judgments about current behavior that much. It’s more a question of how one reads history and which models one thinks are applicable.
Cora Diamond 10.29.23 at 5:00 pm
engels, at 54, refers us to the work of Ilan Pappe. I’m not a historian and cannot evaluate his work, but it has been subject to criticism by other historians as negligent and full of mistakes and inaccuracies. See the Wikipedia piece, with references to multiple sources.
J-D 10.29.23 at 10:12 pm
I read a comment like this and in my mind it forms questions like ‘How much power does the government of my country have to take steps of the kind suggested?’ ‘How could I exert pressure on the government of my country?’ and ‘To what extent is the writer [OM] willing to act in this way and, indeed, what is the writer actually doing along these lines?’
Is it unusual that my mind works this way, or do lots of other people’s minds also work this way? Is it common for people to read (or to write) this sort of thing without questions of this kind occurring to them?
For what it’s worth, my individual response to questions of this kind are that as far as I can tell the capacity of my country to influence this situation is negligible and my own capacity to pressure the government little if any greater, so that the question of the extent to which I am willing to act is is moot. It feels to me as if the comment is telling me that there’s something I could do, if only I were willing to make the effort, but also that I have no idea what kind of action it is that I am being urged to take.
RobinM 10.29.23 at 11:40 pm
Cora, I looked, as you recommended, at the wikipedia entry on Pappe and note two things. One, respecting the thesis of his student, Katz, he was, it seems, vindicated. Two, respecting criticism of his work by some historians, it was also praised by other historians. No one is likely to receive universal approval on such a contentious matter.
Lastly, I find the attempt to marginalise Pappe rather reminiscent of what was done a long time ago to David Abraham.
engels 10.31.23 at 6:19 pm
Continuing the carnival of grotesques:
Labour calling for a ceasefire would achieve nothing. So why should it tear itself apart over this?—Polly Toynbee
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/31/labour-ceasefire-gaza-israel-tear-apart
White House Press Secretary calls progressives calling for ceasefire ‘disgraceful’ and ‘repugnant’
https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/the-shift-white-house-press-secretary-calls-progressives-calling-for-ceasefire-disgraceful-and-repugnant/
engels 11.01.23 at 3:46 pm
I’d refer LFC to the work of Shlomo Sand but that would probably draw a similar response to Pappe. I’m also not qualified to evaluate Pappe’s work but my long-standing impression is that Wikipedia pages often don’t provide the fairest views of politically engaged scholars.
Daweed 11.01.23 at 9:26 pm
I don’t see 1A or 1B as working out.
1A: One group grows its population faster than the other and historic problems return.
1B: I don’t think this worked so well in the Lebanon.
2B: May be the best hope of the three.
I recall a proposal of a confederacy between Jordan, Israel and Palestine where citizenship could be in any of the three, but people could live in any of them with the administration of the population being shared by the states depending on where an individual lived. Pie in the sky, maybe.
engels 11.01.23 at 10:26 pm
Israel-Palestine war: Likud MP calls for Gaza to be ‘erased from the face of the earth’
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-likud-mp-calls-gaza-erased-face-earth
engels 11.02.23 at 10:06 am
Expel all Palestinians from Gaza, recommends Israeli gov’t ministry
https://www.972mag.com/intelligence-ministry-gaza-population-transfer/
Suzanne 11.02.23 at 11:29 pm
If reports are true and the IDF is on the verge of cutting off the north of Gaza from the south, we may see a situation where gradually the north of Gaza is emptied of civilians by one means or another, in which case I doubt any Palestinian will set foot there again except as a laborer or prisoner.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, the settlers are taking advantage of the situation to increase the existing campaign of terror, torture, and murder, aided and abetted by the IDF, with the Palestinian Authority, ahem, unable and/or unwilling to do anything. The risk in any meaningful resistance, I’m guessing, is that Israel would exploit the opening to bring more force to bear and the ethnic cleansing campaign will be nearly accomplished, under the protection of American aircraft carriers and the implied consent of the American government. The refugees will end up in the Sinai or the Negev. A few weeks ago I’d have said this was crazy. I hope it is.
LFC 11.03.23 at 1:13 am
engels @61
I did not say a word directly about Pappe (whom I’ve not read). The comment about Pappe @57 was made by Cora Diamond.
LFC 11.03.23 at 12:12 pm
@ engels
Re settler colonialism: someone elsewhere linked to a piece from a few months ago by S. Fleischaker that on a quick look seemed to be a careful assessment. I’ll come back with the link later.
Tom 11.03.23 at 12:38 pm
Indeed, Suzanne @65, and with the implied consent of the “decent” Left.
engels 11.03.23 at 3:05 pm
Sorry if I wasn’t clear; here’s an intro to Sand:
https://mondediplo.com/2008/09/07israel
Robert 11.03.23 at 10:00 pm
Taking these in reverse order,
has always floundered not just as regards the settlers but because Zionism has never been able to even seriously contemplate a true, independent, sovereign Palestinian state on even 22% of historic Palestine. Such a state would need an independent military and the capacity to conclude agreements with other nations. It would need control of its borders, water, airspace.
Zionism would also have to overcome the mostly-unspoken-but-very-powerful fear of the people it has tormented, slaughtered, slandered and gaslighted having a state of their own. This is Zionism’s “riding the tiger” problem. They are afraid of the hatred that might be be directed at them because they’ve been acting hatefully for a hundred years, and on some level they know that.
There is also, I think a “Mr Ripley’s in the ICU but he’s going to pull through” problem. The whole thesis of Zionism is that Jews are the true natives of Palestine. Palestinians are not only a practical problem for Zionism, they are a theoretical problem, a conceptual problem. You can’t acknowledge people who are the people you’re pretending to be.
Another problem we don’t talk about with two states is the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Two states would likely accelerate their efforts to win equal citizenship while the existence of a Palestinian state next door and the return of rabidly racist settlers, as well as the need of Zionism for another settlement project, would lead the Jewish public to reinforce segregation and discrimination, oppose equality and try and pressure Palestinian citizens of Israel to move. Essentially you’d be leaving 1.8m Palestinians to oppose the full ferocity of unchecked Zionism.
Not to say two states is impossible, but leaving a Zionist state in existence has a lot of the same problems that leaving Hamas in power does. To wit, it’s an inherently combative and exclusionary ideology organized around settlement and occupation, and it will remain a deadly danger to Palestinians both outside the borders and within them.
B — Could work! But I’d say it’d have to look a lot like 1A. These arrangements tend to work better when it’s a gentle thumb on the scales that’s not too anti-democratic. Maybe something that gives small states overrepresentation and makes it easier to block laws than to pass them. But for every USA, there are many Lebanons.
1A — Ultimately the most just as well as the most workable solution. Lay down the burden of Zionism like it was any other ideology a state was founded upon but outgrew. Utah is home to many non-Mormons. Rhode Island is no longer a refuge from religious persecution. States change.
J-D 11.03.23 at 11:59 pm
Rereading that, as a result of seeing it endorsed in comments, it occurred to me to wonder ‘What is meant by “citizenship on equal terms”?’
There are many countries in the world where everybody (or perhaps almost everybody) living long-term within its borders has the legal status of a citizen on nominally equal terms, but is there any one of those countries without a significant minority group many of whom feel that their status as citizens is in substance second-class, even if this is not officially legally so? Not to pick on anybody else, consider my own country (Australia): many Aboriginal Australians, Torres Strait Islanders, and Australian South Sea Islanders feel that in at least some significant respects their citizenship is not ‘on equal terms’. For the purposes of this discussion, would a country like Australia count as one where everybody living long-term within its borders has citizenship ‘on equal terms’, in the sense relevant to the proposal?
If not, which countries would illustrate the sense of ‘citizenship on equal terms’ relevant to the proposal?
For that matter, does Israel as it is now, considered exclusive of the territories, count as a country where everybody living long-term within its borders (again, excluding the territories) count as a country where everybody living long-term within its borders has citizenship ‘on equal terms’ in the relevant sense? There are many Palestinian Arabs who hold an Israeli citizenship which is not in a different legal category from the citizenship held by other Israeli citizens; they are discriminated against, but, again, if discrimination against a minority group disqualified a country from the category of ‘citizenship on equal terms’, who’s left? Again, not mine (there are more groups than the ones I mentioned earlier who are discriminated against here, I just mentioned the most obvious cases); not Chris Bertram’s, either, I hope he doesn’t mind my saying.
If Israel annexed the West Bank and Gaza, extended Israeli citizenship to their Arab population, and possibly made some changes to Israeli law (a subject on which I do not claim special expertise), you’d have a country where everybody living long-term within its borders had citizenship which was, in at least some nominal sense of that expression, ‘on equal terms’: there’s no practical chance of this happening, but even in theory I don’t think it’s what Chris Bertram had in mind.
LFC 11.04.23 at 1:39 pm
Link to Fleischaker (haven’t read it closely yet):
https://thirdnarrative.org/does-zionismsettler-colonialism/
engels 11.04.23 at 5:12 pm
J-D, this might be a good place to start:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/
engels 11.04.23 at 7:33 pm
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/30/wall-street-morgan-stanley-td-bank-ukraine-israel-hamas-war
LFC 11.05.23 at 1:27 pm
@ engels
I put in the Fleischaker link but the comment apparently ended up in CT’s spam filter, because it hasn’t appeared.
engels 11.05.23 at 7:42 pm
Fleischaker’s view is much closer to Pappe’s than Freedland’s afaics. He wants to qualify the label, not reject it. (Btw Freedman’s idea that calling Israel a settler colony means wanting Israelis to “go home” is a ridiculous straw man.)
J-D 11.05.23 at 11:11 pm
I can see it.
Guano 11.06.23 at 5:16 pm
Peter T #36
“Many decades ago a former professor of mine remarked that agreement that gave up the West Bank would immediately spark an Israeli civil war. If it was true then (and Rabin’s murder suggests it was), it is even more true now. Is Israel prepared to pay the price that Michael Collins did?”
Indeed. This is the issue that people like Jonathan Freedland try to avoid, namely that the most powerful political forces in Israel see Israel as a successor state to one defeated by the Roman Empire in 63 BC, not as a state created by decisions of international institutions in 1947. Thus “Israel’s right to exist” is a vague formulation: does it mean Israel’s right to exist within its internationally-agreed borders or does it mean that that Israel has the right to recreate a state that existed more than 2 millenia ago?
I presume that western government’s failure to sanction Israel for its colonisation of land outside its internationally-agreed borders is partly due to its fear that Israel might descend into chaos if it did.
engels 11.06.23 at 8:43 pm
LFC, afaics on the issue of whether Israel is a settler colony Fleschaker’s position is closer to Pappe’s than Freedland’s: he wants to qualify the label, not reject it.
engels 11.07.23 at 4:23 pm
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/05/world/middleeast/israel-egypt-gaza.html
hix 11.08.23 at 2:41 am
Just got an add from German social democrats to join a demonstration to “free Gaza from Hamas” and “be solidary with Israel”. Sounds like a great plan… to kill a couple of ten to hundred thousands people. So partly out of spite, I’d suggest solution 5: Grant German citizenship and a free plane ticket to all Palestine. Suppose would also be some historical justice in that. Reality is closer to the opposite: Muslim refugees are not welcome any more, if they ever were.
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