A one-state solution in the Mideast

[Karmadillo]

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~157~2104504,00.html

The settling of America was in many ways a model for European Jewish settlement, beginning in the late 1800s, of historic Palestine. In both cases, immigrants were looking for opportunities and a refuge from religious persecution and discrimination in Europe.

As in America, Jewish settlers coming to historic Palestine discovered an indigenous population not entirely thrilled with the idea of foreigners settling on their land.

I believe America today can serve as a model for what Israel can become and, hopefully, put an end to one of the most intractable conflicts in modern history.

While recent Middle East peace efforts have focused on how to get Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza in order to create a "two-state solution" - one Jewish state and one Palestinian Christian-Muslim state - why not do as it was done in America and have one state with guaranteed rights and liberties for all citizens regardless of religion, ethnicity or gender?

more...

[Name removed]

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[Djinn]

4. it's also easy

to patronise other people's views...what about the people IN Palestine and Israel who advocate the same thing Muddle? would you tell them they are also taking the "easy" and "silly" option

[Muddleoftheroad]

11. Yep

It is a bizarre fantasy that would destroy Israel. There is no possible way Israel would embrace a one-state solution. So all the energy the Palestinians waste on this fantasy hurts them in the long run.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

16. Why is that?

Because you realize any Democratic one-state Israel would be run by the people who have always lived there? That it would be taken over by the Arabs?? Can't let that happen, can we?

[Muddleoftheroad]

17. The people who have always lived there

Are Jews. More than 2,000 years of living there.

As for the rest, Israel is Democratic. Vastly more so in fact than its neighbors.

Yes, if Israel threw open its borders and let any and all Palestinians in, there is little doubt Jews would eventually become a minority. Of course, there is also little doubt the area would soon resemble pre Civil War Kansas for bloodshed.

No sane state would embrace that self destruction.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

18. We went over that yesterday.

The Jews have NOT lived there for 2000 years. The last time the Jews had control over this area before 1948 was 64 BCE, after which most of the Jews were expelled. For those of you scoring at home, that's 2,012 years of NOT living there. By such a comparison, today's Romans should be able to go into just about any part of Europe and claim they have the right to that land because it was theirs under the Roman Empire. By the same notion, they have a legitimate claim to the land!

[Muddleoftheroad]

19. Yes they have

Having control of an area doesn't mean you don't live there. Otherwise, there are no Palestinians living the West Bank and Gaza right now, since they don't have control of that area.

But of course, this argument is useless because, though you clearly don't like it, Israel IS there now. The Palestinians have the same perspective problem, they just can't accept that reality and it limits their chances at a future.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

20. Israel being there isn't the problem

I do not accept what they do to the Palestinians whose home they have taken. There's a big difference.

And, as always, you clearly missed the key words "after which they were expelled". There were exceptionally few Jews living in the land that is now Israel between 64 BCE and 1948 CE.

[Muddleoftheroad]

21. Your facts are in error

There were Jews living in the area the whole time. Then there were a lot more living there from the late 1800s -- long before your claim.

[Name removed]

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[silverpatronus]

144. muddle muddle muddle...

would you 'accept the reality' of a communist state plunked down in the middle of america by an external body, that is constantly attempting to expand its borders by intimidation and bloodshed, and being told to 'deal with it'? i fail to see why you can't grasp the parallel. i also fail to see why you cannot accept that israel is also at fault, as well as palestine. having been oppressed does not give you the right to oppress others.

[sushi]

148. That's right

..having been oppressed does not give you the right to oppress others.

That is what Israel is doing, only they call it self-defense.

I wonder how Muddle will answer your question.

[sushi]

159. Muddle, Muddle, Muddle

Care to answer Silverpatronus' question in post #144?

I do think it's wrong that the Arabs begrudge Israel a small area of land, only half the size of Switzerland, but Israel does exist (and nobody can wipe it off the map without destroying themselves), and Palestine doesn't. I think it's wrong for Israel to begrudge the Palestinians a proper state. You keep talking about the Palestinians having to offer peace. How about Israel offering the Palestinians a proper state, and not bantustans.

[Jack Rabbit]

163. I guess you didn't get the news, Ms. Sushi

Muddle will not be making a reply.

Please click here.

[silverpatronus]

164. does that mean he's not here anymore? eom

[Classical_Liberal]

26. There is no way I will accept Israeli apartied

If the jewish state can only be maintained through bantustans, I reject it.

[Muddleoftheroad]

32. I am sure they care

[Classical_Liberal]

35. They'll care when the citizen boycotts of Israeli products start in the EU

and Asia. Now that America has shown conclusively that it has no will to create anything but Aparthied those campaigns will gain traction.

[Muddleoftheroad]

38. First off, it ain't apartheid

Apartheid was a system where a tiny minority ruled a large majority. Israel is and has been a democracy where the majority does indeed rule.

As for the boycott, the U.S. has rules about boycotting Israel.

[Classical_Liberal]

41. The West Bank is Aparthied and Israel created it.

.

The EU and Asia have no rules against boycotting Israel.

[Muddleoftheroad]

42. The more they try to harm Israel, the more we will help

[Classical_Liberal]

44. oK

.

[number6]

120. who's we ...

..

[Muddleoftheroad]

122. Americans

[sushi]

160. I'm not sure how to describe this answer

How would you describe it?

[Gimel]

61. Israel at 56

Today the Independence Day celebrations are countered by Israeli Arabs calling it a "catastrophe". Israel is not apartheid. Too bad, I think, that Israeli Arabs are opposed to the state they are citizens of. On the one hand they want total equality, on the other they view the state as a catastrophe. In any other country they would be run off.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/420090.html

[Violet_Crumble]

101. Bullshit...

In any other country they'd be run off? In yr dreams! Here, it's not only indigenous Australians that refer to Australia Day as Invasion Day. And the start of European settlement was a catastrophe for them, just like the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the creation of Israel was a catastrophe for Palestinians. For the people affected by events like those, it doesn't mean they're 'anti-(insert name of state here). It means that they and those with the empathy to think of someone other than themselves wouldn't mind a bit of recognition of their suffering and be allowed to mourn their losses. Until attitudes soften and there is a real desire for conciliation and an ability to have even the slightest shred of empathy for the suffering of others, and until states are capable of recognising and apologising for the wrongs of the past, there's no way the states involved can mature and have any sort of healthy and realistic self-image....

Violet...

[Muddleoftheroad]

102. The Australian solution

No, the way Australians handled their ethnic problem was vastly different than Israel. Australians hunted down the "Abos" and killed them en masse, as Jack would say. It wasn't war, it was just extermination.

And then for decades afterward, the few remaining natives were treated as 10th class citizens.

[Violet_Crumble]

105. That had zero to do with what I said...

I was talking about how indigenous Australians and quite a few others refer to Australia Day as Invasion Day, and how none of us are run off...

If you want to learn about the history of indigenous Australians since European settlement, I can point you to a few books. While there were massacres (just like what happened to the Palestinians) and in Tasmania, genocide, to claim that they were hunted down and killed en masse is completely incorrect.For the most part, their land was stolen from them by European settlers, who sometimes would shoot them when they dared to return to grab a few sheep, while many others were exploited by the same settlers who stole their land, 'employing' them to work the land while only giving them a pittance in food, while Europeans doing less work than them were paid in cash....


Violet...

[Muddleoftheroad]

107. It had to do with your "Invasion Day"

and how your nation treated the "Abos," which was vastly worse than anything the Palestinians have encountered.

As for how Australians treated them, there is this from The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes. He estimates that Tasmania, just one example here mind you, had a population of 3,000 to 4,000.

"But die they did -- shot like kangaroos and poisoned like dogs, ravaged by European diseases and addictions, hunted by laymen and pestered by missionaries, "brought in" from their ancestral territories to languish in camps. It took less than 75 years of white settlement to wipe out most of the people who had occupied Tasmania for some thirty thousand years; it was the only true genocide in English colonial history. By the standards of Pol Pot, let alone Josef Stalin or Adolph Hitler, this was a small slaughter. but not to the Tasmanian Aborigines."

[Name removed]

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[Violet_Crumble]

123. No it didn't...

Reread the subthread. Gimel made a ridiculous claim that anyone doing the equivalent of remembering Israel's Independence Day as the day for remembering the Nakba would be run out of any other country. I pointed out that here many people call Australia Day 'Invasion Day', yet no-one's even suggested running us out of the country. I for one don't give a toss whether you think the atrocities carried out in the past in some countries are worse than others, because that wasn't what was being discussed...

Hello? While this is a bit of a tangent here, I mentioned in my post that there was a genocide in Tasmania, so I've got no idea why yr arguing with me as if I said there wasn't. If you want to try disputing anything that I said about the treatment of indigenous Australians (and btw, the word 'abo' is a pretty offensive word), feel free to try to dispute what I actually said. If you'd read the Fatal Shore, you'd know that what I said was correct as it covers all that in there :)

Violet...

[Gimel]

130. Un-Thanksgiving Day

The Native Americans celebrate an Un-Thanksgiving Day. That would be about the equivalent of the "Invasion Day" yr talking about.

I'll bet it's as non-violent, as well. Do the native Australians have a large army positioned off-shore waiting to invade your cities and massacre civilians?

[Violet_Crumble]

138. They're both the equivalent of commemorating the Nakba...

And you were the one who made the claim that in any other country they'd be kicked out. You were wrong...

D'uh, last time I checked native Australians were citizens of the country they're indigenous to. See, they were never expelled like the Palestinians were. But thanks for letting me in on the news that the Palestinians have a large army positioned waiting to invade Israeli cities and massacre civilians. And all this time I've been thinking that it's the Israeli army that's doing it, not just waiting to do it ;)

Violet...

[Gimel]

143. Excuse me

for contradicting your treasured beliefs. The Arabs who were demonstrating are citizens of Israel. They were not chased out. They have freedom of expression, and right to the democratic process. They don't have to die in defense of the country, however.

Hamas and IJ are the "militants" that you keep talking about in reference to terrorist organizations, so yr the one that confirms the equation with an armed military group.

And of course, the other Arab nations like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria are somewhat militarized as well, in case you haven't noticed.

However, I was speaking in general terms to compare with a parallel hypothetical situation; what would have to be to compare Australia with Israel.

[Violet_Crumble]

158. Yr excused...

Yes, Gimel. I know the Arabs who were demonstrating are citizens of Israel. I didn't say they weren't. But all those Palestinians that were expelled from Israel aren't Israeli citizens because Israel refused to let them return to their homes. Did you realise that it's not just Arab citizens of Israel that commemorate the Nakba? Probably not in large numbers currently, but it's a start to a general acknowledgement throughout the Israeli population of what was done at the time. I was reading somewhere that it took over 100 years before Americans started to acknowledge what was done to their indigenous population, so maybe in another couple of decades the romanticised and highly inaccurate portrayals of what happened in 1948 will be a thing of the past...

Yr second paragraph makes zero sense, and I'm guessing it's because it's got nothing to do with what was being said...

D'uh. Where did I say other states weren't militarised? I didn't....

If you were trying to do a parallel hypothetical situation, perhaps you should have said something along the lines of: 'In any other country that was created in 1948 with the intent of one specific ethnic group being in the vast majority and obtaining that by ethnically cleansing a great number of the existing indigenous population, they would be run off.' Doesn't really matter, because while I have no doubts that in Israel there exists some folk who deny that any wrongdoing was done to the Palestinians at the time and who actually think that anyone daring to commemorate the Nakba should be run out of the country, they wouldn't be run out in any other country that had the same political structures etc as Israel...

Violet...

[Name removed]

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[NMDemDist2]

2. great idea except

tell me one situation where any group willing gave up power. if you can do that, I'll be on board

[Alex88]

9. Israel's fate is not independent of the will of others in the world

Israel is a politically independent country, but not an independent one. Beyond the several billion dollars in financial and military aid Israel recieves annually from the US, it needs access to US high military technology and intelligence to be able to survive as it has. Additionally, it sells the high technology it receives for much profit. It also needs the US to shield it from international rubuke and sanctions and keep the countries in the region supressed enough to be unable to seriously challenge it militarily. The Iraq war at least in part is to serve that purpose. The reason for this US support is significantly to serve as an imperial tool for the US, so they are both using each other.

The point is that the fate of Israel is not really in the hands of those in power in Israel.

Here's the latest resident population figures. The words BTW from here on are not mine.

"Israel itself has finally gotten around to releasing a solid number
regarding the Israelis that live abroad - 760,000 - now that the
Finance Ministry is considering cancelling their financial benefits.
760,000 Israelis have left the Promised Land
http://194.90.101.50/gsnlib_a/GSN2003/2003_11/20031119/226333.html


6,600,000 Approximate number of Israelis
- 1,200,000 Israeli Palestinians
--------------------------------------------------------
= 5,400,000
- 760,000 Israeli emigres
--------------------------------------------------------
= 4,640,000 Israeli "Jews" (incl. at least 500,000 Russian Xtians)

Compared to:

3,800,000 Palestinians in the OPTs (1996 census + natural growth)
+ 1,200,000 Israeli Palestinians
---------------------------------------------------------
= 5,000,000 Palestinian Arabs

Resident "Jews" (including all the Russian Christians) are already a
minority in Israel/Palestine. Apartheid is here and completely
undeniable."


And from a couple days ago.

"Fewer Come to Israel, And Many Are Leaving:
Conflict, Economic Woes Contribute to Decline in Immigration"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A34757-2004Apr22?

[Muddleoftheroad]

12. Care to bet

You left out the nukes in that equation. If the world insists on destroying Israel, then it still has the ability to fight back.

[Classical_Liberal]

28. Nobody wants to destroy Israel

We want two INDEPENDENT states. If we can't have that we will settle for one. We won't however accept an aparthied state, based on the denial of citizenship to permanent residents.

[Muddleoftheroad]

30. You must be joking

Maybe, just maybe only, nobody here wants that. Hamas and others still think quite differently.

Israel is NOT apartheid. Gaza and most of the West Bank are not Israel, so folks who live there are not Israelis.

[Classical_Liberal]

37. Israelis citizens who vote in Israel lord over Gaza and the WEst Bank

They are indeed Aparthied, or the British Raj.

[Muddleoftheroad]

40. For now only

The Palestinians could easily change that if they wish. Somehow, they don't.

[Classical_Liberal]

43. No they can't EASILY change it, because the settlers won't go.

.

[Muddleoftheroad]

45. Yes, they could declare peace and stop terror

[Classical_Liberal]

48. It wouldn't stop settlements though

They should declare a change to civil disobedient tactics and work for citizenship.

[Muddleoftheroad]

50. Civil disobedience would be wise

Working for citizenship is living in fantasyland.

[Classical_Liberal]

53. 27% of Israelis accept the idea wihout anyone having worked for it

We can push those numbers up, just as the ANC did to the Afrikanners.

[Muddleoftheroad]

56. Care to cite that stat?

It's gone down since the last time someone claimed it and yet they never verified it.

[Classical_Liberal]

58. I don't remember where I found it no.

. I did a big search.

[Muddleoftheroad]

60. LOL

[Darranar]

97. However...

when they do it, Israel uses violence against them, and you approve of it.

[Muddleoftheroad]

103. Depends on the circumstance

Civil disobedience can take many forms. Using it to stop necessary security actions (like building the Peace Fence) jeopardizes Israeli lives. Simply sitting down in the street and saying no does not.

[Violet_Crumble]

106. Protesting the apartheid barrier IS civil disobedience...

So much for the 'why can't they be like Gandhi' stuff. I'm sure the British would have claimed that some of the civil disobedience carried out in India stopped 'necessary security actions'. btw, the Apartheid Barrier obviously isn't a security action, as no-one has yet explained how something being constructed deep inside Palestinian territory would keep terrorists out of Israel, considering the large number of Palestinians caught on the Israeli side of the wall...

Violet...

[Muddleoftheroad]

114. Gandhi didn't also have suicide bombers hanging out nearby

Those suicide bombers are the cause for the Peace Fence.

[Violet_Crumble]

139. Do you even know what civil disobedience is??

It's not what you decide you want it to be depending on unwavering partisanship to whatever cause. Civil disobedience involves non-violent protest against an occupying power, and that involves protesting military installations...

Why do you keep on repeating the same line over and over about the 'Peace Fence' which is 'Peacefully' stealing land from the Palestinians, while those 'Peaceful' Israeli troops shoot those 'violent' protesters who have the nerve to want to protest their land being stolen from them? Until you explain how a fence being built deep inside Palestinian territory and leaving lots of Palestinians on the side that Israel is doing a defacto annexation of manages to keep all those suicide bombers out, I don't really think yr 'argument' is the slightest bit sound. Maybe you could explain how you know that the Palestinians caught on the wrong side of that fence aren't suicide bombers? Israel will take care of that problem with it's racist permit system where a military force gets to decide if people who've been on their land all their lives get to stay or be kicked out...

Violet...

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[Saeba]

99. And Americans could stop killing people too!

Yes I speak about Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
But presenting Palestinians as responsible of the situation is very convenient.
How can you blame all Palestinians for using violence against an occupant when your own country is currently invading Iraq? The “first” democracy of the world is unable to control is right wing but you expect than Palestinians, who live under occupation, could control terrorist?

And why wearing a uniform legitimize the killing of civilians?
Yes Palestinians kill Israeli civilians, as Israelis kill Palestinian civilians. There is no good guy against the evil one. Each party has criminals, and each party has victims. And the vast majority of the Palestinians and Israelis, who probably aspire only to live quietly, are the true victims.

[sushi]

157. I agree with you

Each party has criminals, and each party has victims.

And, as usual, innocent people suffer.:hi:

[sushi]

162. So you do admit

that there is apartheid in Israel now?

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

110. So if the USA stops paying for Israel's State Terrorism,

Israel will nuke the USA? That is the obvious implication of your post. Or perhaps you were replying to a different post?

Bush said "We will not permit terrorists to threaten this great country with Weapons of Mass Destruction". We'll see.

[Classical_Liberal]

27. The US doesn't have the political will to not support ILikud

Both parties are almost 100% dominated by pro-likudist primarily because of defense contracts. The EU and Asia buy most of Israel's nonmilitary products. There is political will for a boycott in those places.

[Alex88]

113. True

But with regard to US public opinion, I wasn't thinking of it in the short term.

[Alex88]

117. A comment

I've never forgotten over the last ten years a guest appearance Edward Said made on a cable program hosted by Phil Donahue and Vladimir Posner around January of 1994. Said was denouncing Arafat and the Oslo Accords and was very pessimistic about the future. He had been a friend and an advisor to Arafat.

What I remembered the most was him pointing out that more land had been confiscated in that just past month of December than had ever been done so in any previous month since 1967. That reality was completely at odds with what was being presented by the media, the US governement, and the respected parties to the Accords. The Oslo Accords and the media coverage related to it had provided a cover for what was really happening on the ground in the OPT's, and the lives of the Palestinians in the OPT's over the years kept getting worse, not better. The land confiscation and settlement building has never ceased since then and all the pessimism Said had then about the future has been born out. He of course came out publicly for a one-state solution in 1999.

[Jim Sagle]

3. Hey Ibrahim, blow it out yer Kazerooni!

[TheWraith]

5. This person seems to be forgetting...

...that we exterminated millions of native Americans in order to take their land.

THIS is supposed to be a model for Israel/Palestine? I mean, it's a fine idea, but I think the Likudniks would get the wrong ideas...

[bemildred]

6. Yeah, his analogy sucks.

We still don't do a particularly good job of treating the
first peoples well, although it's been decided that they
are really, really good for running casinos and stuff.

[Karmadillo]

8. To be fair, the author refers to "America today" as the source of his

proposed solution. I assume this is an effort to give his argument a persuasive boost by linking it to the America his readers would recognize as the Last Best Hope of Mankind, not the real America to which you and bemildred refer.

[melbrooks]

10. If Israel and the Palestinians become one state, then how is

Iran and Saudi Arabia gonna be able to finance Palestinian terrorism? Arafat will be out of a job. Hamas will now have to ride on busses instead of blowing them up.

[Classical_Liberal]

36. This is a bad thing?

?

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

111. It is a bad thing!

For Likudniks. Without terror they might not be allowed to express their sadism without fear of punishment.

[Muddleoftheroad]

115. Yeah, the sadism of protecting babies from bombers

The sadism of ensuring the survival of a democracy.

The sadism of stopping the Arab world from continuing its policy of ethnically cleansing Jews.

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

125. Protecting babies from bombers?

The Israeli occupation army and paramilitary Jewish settlers have killed 545 Palestinian children and minors since the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000.

Among these victims, 266 children were 14 or younger while the ages of the remaining 279 ranged from 15 to 18. Moreover, as many as 20,000 Palestinian children were injured, with nearly 1500 sustaining life-long disabilities.

Yeah, the Israelis care so much about children. As long as they are white.

Kill a man's kids, win hearts and minds. Fighting terror the Israeli way.

And "survival of a democracy" my ass. A country where nearly 50% of native-born residents can never vote or even gain citizenship is not a democracy.

[Muddleoftheroad]

140. As long as they are white?

Have you ever been to Israel?

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

152. More to the point,

have you ever been to Palestine?

[Classical_Liberal]

29. The point is we ultimately gave those native Americans citizenship

Something denied to the Palestinians.

[Cassandra]

118. We GAVE them citizenship??

I think American Indians would find that a patronizing view of it, particularly since white Europeans had no ancestral link to the land.
BTW, one thing wrong with the analogy is that America kept taking land of PEACEFUL people. There was no self-defense justification for us. But somehow, we can see the point of looking at the facts on the ground here but not in Israel.

[Classical_Liberal]

127. That is because Israel is creating facts on the ground now

in the 21 century, and now that we know bigotry is actually a bad thing. America did it's dirty deeds 100 yrs ago. I don't deny America stole the land from the indians.

Also there were several massacres against whites. Look at the Souix uprising in Minnesota and Iowa. So the indians didn't always passively accept people taking their land. Many lashed out at unarmed civilians.

[Cassandra]

129. The news this AM had a picture of the wall

along the Arizona border with Mexico. I don't see protestors along that wall, which is built on stolen land. Yes, all that happened a long time ago, but the descendents of those whose land was taken don't forget here either. The Jews, who have memories of an earlier state they could call their own, wanted to recreate it in a portion of where it once was. Why is it always easy for others with no cleaner hands to say that Jews must pick up and move?

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

155. There are 15 million Spanish-speakers

with citzenship and voting rights on the northern side of that wall.

:evilgrin:

And BushCo recently legalised "guest workers". I think the Mexicans have their justice.

The Jews, who have memories of an earlier state they could call their own, wanted to recreate it in a portion of where it once was

LOL. My mixed ancestry gives me claim to about half the world by that standard. Will the USA give me a few tens of billions to conquer it?

[newyorican]

161. I believe you may have overlooked...

the fact that the countries on either side of that border have made their peace. Or maybe you didn't overlook it, maybe it just invalidated your analogy.

[tinnypriv]

13. Yeah

This 'solution' might make the people who write about it feel better, but it will never be accepted, period. Especially by the Jewish population, which would (perhaps justifiably) add 'final' in front of it.

This sort of nonsense just provides ammo to the reactionary segments in the U.S. and Israel.

I'd be harder, but a lot more honest if the author would address some of the 'recent peace efforts', or at least name them. That of course would result in the unedifiying spectacle of having to mention that the U.S. is opposed to peace (in the literal sense). Interesting that this is beyond even a non-native U.S. citizen.

In any case, nobody who proposes this answers a few questions (showing they aren't actually serious) - what names are we going to use for towns and streets? The Jewish version (Yerushalayim)? Palestinian (Al-Quds)? Both? Who's going to be in physical control? What about the Tzahal? Will Arab policemen patrol downtown Tel-Aviv?

These are practicalities, not addressed, because the author is living in a dream world.

[Muddleoftheroad]

14. I thought I would shock you

And agree with much of what you wrote.

A lot of energy is wasted on the fantasy of the binational state. Energy that could be directed to actually finding peace.

[Vladimir]

15. Since we are at it

I might as well agree with both of you and thus hit the 'trifecta'...

The Palestinians realised, for better or for worse, that the one-state solution would never work in the late 80s. Those who wish to demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinians (like myself for example) should do so by campaining for the wishes of the majority of Palestinians and not by preaching at them from outside.

[tinnypriv]

23. Speaking of energy

The forums above seem to spend half their time involved in 9/11 conspiracies, rather than discussing appropriate responses to the attacks.

You are right though - a binational state (at least for the foreseeable future - i.e. 1 or 2 generations) is fantasy.

Which is why you'll find me spending appoximately zero time talking about it, beyond refutation - just as I think the constant focus on Rachel Corrie is a serious mistake, not meriting precious time and effort (some focus is of course appropriate).

[Classical_Liberal]

33. You hate two states. You won't go back to the green line.

.

[Muddleoftheroad]

46. I love two states

but even the Palestinians accept that the Green Line is the final formal border.

[Classical_Liberal]

49. They accepted a trade under Clinton

Bush has taken that off the table.

[Muddleoftheroad]

51. Even the Geneva Accords had more land changing hands

[Classical_Liberal]

54. This is the Sharon plan

not Geneva. Sharon took land off the table as a bargaining chip.

[Muddleoftheroad]

57. Geneve had Palestinians gaining yet more land

A whole corridor of land from Gaza to the West Bank. Israel gained a little bit of land around Jerusalem.

Seems like neither side considers the border finalized.

[Classical_Liberal]

62. If Sharon commits to Geneva, maybe you'll have a point.

.

[Muddleoftheroad]

65. I have a point either way

Clearly, the Palestinians were trying to negotiate yet more land. So the Green Line is just a ruse.

[Classical_Liberal]

70. Sharon won't negotiate settlements.

so there is no point. The Geneva plan did. The Clinton plan did. The Sharon plan doesn't.

[Muddleoftheroad]

71. Sharon won't always be in charge

A peaceful, anti-terrorist Palestinian leader would discover that Sharon is NOT his opposite number quite quickly.

That is, if that peaceful anti-terrorist Palestinian leader could survive his own people.

[Classical_Liberal]

74. Netenyahu is the next in line.

big whoop. We are talking about antiterrorist leaders. The PA should disband.

[Muddleoftheroad]

76. If genuine peace is offered

Israel will pick a more peaceful leader to make it.

If war is offered, Israel picks a war leader.

[Classical_Liberal]

78. I doubt it. Barak expanded the settlements more than anyone.

I am not concerned with anything the PA offers. I am concerned with citizenship.

[Muddleoftheroad]

79. Then you are concerned with wasting your time

And raising the false hopes of the Palestinian people.

Are you sure you are on their side?

[Classical_Liberal]

81. I know what a waste of time working of the two state solution is

and I know that the hopes of the Palestinians can't be anymore bleek than the present.

[Muddleoftheroad]

82. Two states has a future

If only the Palestinians would embrace it.

One state has no future.

[Classical_Liberal]

86. They embrased it. Stopped the terrorism for several years. Result

Settlement expansion. Anyway, I am talking about civil disobediance and civil rights.

[Muddleoftheroad]

88. Civil disobedience would be fine

As long as it is nonviolent. Gandhi knew a thing or two.

[Name removed]

146. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Karmadillo]

24. Based on 'recent peace efforts',

a binational state appears no less likely than the formation of two independent states. Living in a dream world is not necessarily a bad thing when the more likely alternatives are bantustans or outright transfer. I would guess those who raise the possibility of a binational state are simply trying to create pressure for a "fair" settlement through the creation of a real Palestinian state (as unfair, in terms of history, as even that would most likely turn out to be). If Israel remains opposed to the latter, it's hard for me to see anything wrong with those seeking peace raising the possibility of the former.

The author, by the way, does not seem to be as unaware as you imply. He is, after all, writing an opinion peace for a mainstream US newspaper (not a scholarly monograph or a Counterpunch submission) where, as in most mainstream US publications, it is unlikely suggestions the US and Israel are opposed to peace are particularly welcomed and would, in fact, provide ammo to the significant reactionary segments of populace you refer to. One does the best one can within the limits with which one is faced. The reasonable choices are laid out fairly well:

In that case, why is Israel so reluctant to relinquish its iron-fisted control over those non-Jews and their resources? Either make them full citizens and bring them into the fold or, as Moses said, "Let my people go."

At the moment, the US and Israel appear opposed to both, but a moderate reading the column might easily conclude why not one or the other? Why neither?

The difficulties you raise regarding the implementation of the article's proposed outcome are appreciated, but they don't seem insurmountable. While it's hard to imagine Arab policemen at work in downtown Tel Aviv, it was no doubt equally difficult at one time to imagine the descendants of a people brutally enslaved at work policing downtown Birmingham.

[Muddleoftheroad]

25. Israel has no motivation to change

It is not offered peace, only a war with different borders.

[Classical_Liberal]

34. They have no motivation for two states either

or they would go back to the green line.

[Muddleoftheroad]

39. Oversimplification

They have no motivation to move ahead and provide Arafat with what he wants since he has not done anything to earn it.

As for the border, not even the Palestinians see the Green Line as the final border, why should Israel?

[Classical_Liberal]

47. Israel had peace for a long time expanded the settlements

we are long past the phase where anyone should care about Arafat, or what he deserves. The PA should disband, since their is no partner. A movement for citizenship should be created.

[Muddleoftheroad]

52. Heck why one

Why not create 10 movements for citizenship.

Except of course they are doomed to fail and delay the Palestinian quest for a state.

[Classical_Liberal]

55. I think it will hasten 2 states actually

because as they inch up closer to one, the Israelis will get scared and give them a better deal on two. This is horse trading. You can't ask for exactly what you want you have to shoot the moon.

[Muddleoftheroad]

59. Or the opposite will occur

Israel will stop taking them seriously at all since there is no way in hell Israel will ever accept its own destruction.

[Classical_Liberal]

64. Israel has to answer to it's citizens.

who can change the minds. The effort can't work out worse than the current one.

[Muddleoftheroad]

66. Yes it can

It could blow up into open warfare as Israelis see the Palestinians trying to conquer from within.

[Classical_Liberal]

68. That is paranoia.

. The real objection is a fear of multiculturalism, not conquering or civil war. We already have that.

[Muddleoftheroad]

69. No, you said things can't get worse

But the reality is far different. Despite the low-grade warfare of the last few years, relatively small numbers have been killed or wounded on each side.

Now, an open war would kill tens of thousands and displace possibly hundreds of thousands.

[Classical_Liberal]

72. That was what the Afrikanner alarmist said.

.

[Muddleoftheroad]

73. And of course those situations are completely different

They had somewhere to go, Israelis do not. They have already been ethnically cleansed from the Arab world and Europe. They will stay and fight.

[Classical_Liberal]

75. Nobody ethnically cleansed the Afrikanners, so I doubt

anyone will ethnically cleans the Israelis. By persuing the present solution they make it very likely their will be a nuclear exchange in the future.

[Muddleoftheroad]

77. Nobody EVER cleansed the Afrikaaners

The world wouldn't have stood for it.

However, Jews have been ethnically cleansed countless times across Europe and the Mideast and no one really cared.

[Classical_Liberal]

80. The British did during the Boer War

even put them in concentration camps. The world changes.

[Muddleoftheroad]

83. They killed many, but still left them there

[Classical_Liberal]

84. There are still Jews in many middle eastern countries and Europe

.

[Muddleoftheroad]

85. There are some in Europe, though not many outside of France

And far fewer than there were in the 1930s.

The Arab world is a much different matter. Nearly all of the Jews are gone.

[Classical_Liberal]

87. There are communities in Yemen and Egypt

and Iraq, anyway the ethnic cleasning in the Arab world was a responce to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

[Muddleoftheroad]

89. World Jewry

Israel's Jewish population at the end of 1996 was 4,567,700, or 81 percent (802.9 per 1,000) of its total population. This represents an increase of 87,900 over the previous year (2 percent)--some 34,000 being the net gain from immigration, the balance resulting from natural increase. In contrast, the Diaspora Jewish population declined by 50,900, or .6 percent.

Over 95 percent of the world's Jews reside in 15 countries: United States, 5,700,000; Israel, 4,567,700; France, 524,000; Canada, 362,000; Russia, 340,000; United Kingdom, 291,000; Argentina, 205,000; Ukraine, 155,000; Brazil, 100,000; South Africa, 95,000; Australia, 94,000; Germany, 70,000; Hungary, 53,500; Mexico, 40,700; and Belgium, 31,700.

http://www.charitywire.com/charity11/00433.html

So you rationalize that which you deny?

[Classical_Liberal]

90. deny what?

?

[Muddleoftheroad]

91. Your response to my comment about ethnic cleansing

was to cite micro Jewish communities in Egypt and Yemen and then immediately turn around and say that the Arab world ethnically cleansed in response to Israel.

[Classical_Liberal]

92. You didn't prove that the Arab world didn't ethnically cleans in responce

to Israel. HOw many jews live in such and such a country doesn't nothing to disprove what I said.

[Muddleoftheroad]

93. I don't need to

The Arab world attacked Israel, ended the partition and ethnically cleansed the Jews from their own states.

Those facts speak for themselves.

[Classical_Liberal]

94. And what happened before that?

Why it was ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, to create a majority Jewish state, that's what.

[Muddleoftheroad]

95. Not at all

Blame any loss of a Palestinian state on those who attacked -- the Arabs -- not those who defended -- Israelis.

[Classical_Liberal]

96. So you are saying the Palestinians ethnically cleansed the Palestinians

? That is not true at all. The Israeli state was founded as a jewish state, and started ethnically cleansing Palestinians, and the counterattack of the Palestinians was completely understandable.

[Muddleoftheroad]

98. Nope

I am saying the Arabs -- Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians, et al -- caused the loss of the Palestinian state.

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

112. The Muslims 'caused' Israel to oppress and colonize?

Would you also say that American's 'caused' 9-11?

Why do you blame the victims when militant Zionists commit crimes?

And regarding ethnic cleansing, there are 8000 practicing Jews in Syria alone. This despite Israeli bribes of land and lump-sum cash payments for olim (imigrants). Syria has a long tradition of religious tolerance. Israel OTOH declares itself the "Jewish State", offending many Jews.

[Muddleoftheroad]

116. The Arabs ended partition

The Arabs attacked. Israel defended.

The Arabs ensured that there has been a 56 year war. The Arabs ensured that the Palestinian people were not resettled and instead were used as pawns in the struggle against Israel.

Wow, even assuming your 8,000 number is correct, do you have any idea of how pathetic that is? Check around the Arab world. Look at places like Saudi Arabia and see how Jews are treated.

Israel IS the Jewish state and that offends a lot more Arabs than Jews.

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

126. Partition.

Look at places like Saudi Arabia and see how Jews are treated.

Look at places like Israel and see how Muslims and Christians are treated.

Only about 15% of Muslim and Christian Palestinians have citizenship of Israel, the country that oppresses and rules them.

Israel IS the Jewish state and that offends a lot more Arabs than Jews.

Israel proclaims itself the "representative of world Jewry".

Proclaiming it doesn't make it true, and it is an insult to all countries that have loyal Jewish citizens. Australia is the representative of Jewish Australians thank you very much.

http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com has an excellent site on this.

And the Arabs ended partition? The partition was never accepted by the Zionists in the first place. That's why they felt the need to commit terrorist atrocities against the British government and Muslim Palestinians in the years leading up to 1948.

http://www.deiryassin.org

[Muddleoftheroad]

128. You say "Zionist" like it is a curse word

Actually, Christians and Muslims are treated pretty well in Israel. ISRAELI citizens of all backgrounds can run for and be elected to the Knesset. There are roughly a million or more non-Jewish Israeli citizens.

Your gripe seems to be that Israel will not annex the disputed territories. Since doing that would result in another Mideast war, I don't comprehend your goal here.

Of course Israel is representative of world Jewry. It remains the homeland for ALL Jewish people. Does that mean that every single one of them is happy with Israel at all times? Of course not. That would be impossible for any group of more than a few dozen.

Your posts are scary and use the word "Zionist" almost like a curse. I am freely willing to admit being a Zionist -- a supporter of the state of Israel.

Just in case you have forgotten, there was no partition until 1948 when the UN voted.

[Darranar]

132. Israel is representative of world Jewry?

I thought it was representative of its own population... or is it not a democracy after all?

[Muddleoftheroad]

133. It IS a democracy

But Israel has about 5 million Jews out of about 13 million in the world. So it automatically represents about 38%. Then if you take into account Jewish people in other nations who contribute to pro-Israel groups or charities, I think that number is likely over 50%.

[Darranar]

134. That doesn't mean that Israel represents them, only that they...

support it.

[Muddleoftheroad]

135. As a democracy, it automatically represents the 38% of world Jewry

The rest choose to support Israel, voting with their dollars and their time.

[Darranar]

136. 38% is not 100%...

supporting the existence of a state, and its welfare, is not equivalent to supporting its policies or leaders.

[sushi]

137. What are you saying?

Of course Israel is representative of world Jewry. It remains the homeland for ALL Jewish people.

Are you saying that it doesn't matter where Jewish people live and what countries they are citizens of, they are loyal to Israel?

[Muddleoftheroad]

141. No, but they can leave those places and go to Israel

And are automatically let in. In the meantime, Israel represents 38% of world Jewry and many more contribute to her health and well being.

[Classical_Liberal]

31. I don't agree. I believe that two states will be more likely to

happen if Palestinians work for one state actually. If they just accept the settlements as a permanant feature of the state the Israelis will start questioning them more.

[tinnypriv]

63. Perhaps

But if the Palestinians threaten one state as a ploy to get two states, that will only have the (likely) outcome of transfer.

If you present Israelis the choice of a) one state, b) two states or c) transfer, they'll pick the last one every time, because advocating the first negates any believability about the second, and destruction of someone else is better than destruction of yourself.

All this is kind of irrelevant in any event, because no tactic the Palestinians use will work unless the political spectrum in Israel changes from total rejectionism, which will only come about with pressure from the United States - not a likely prospect, given the love affair with Israel.

[Classical_Liberal]

67. Transfer would be very damaging to Israel

While American's would accept it, the world is not America. Anyway, offering on a) and c) actually makes transfer 50% more likely.

You simply have to give up on the United States. The Palestinians especially should give up this delusion. The Dems are just as behodlen to the Likudniks as the republicans.

[Karmadillo]

100. Ilan Pappe sees the two state solution as continuing the occupation

http://www.between-lines.org/archives/2002/oct/Ilan_Pappe.htm

<edit>

The second agenda is the immediate one, and that is ending the occupation. We should be very careful in adopting the American, the Israeli Peace Now, and I'm sorry to say, the Palestinian Authority discourse about a two-state solution. Because the two-state solution nowadays is not the end of the occupation but continuing it in a different way. It is meant to be the end of the conflict with no solution to the refugee problem and the complete abandonment of the Palestinian minority in Israel. Anybody who has not learned this after the Oslo Accords has a problem of understanding and interpreting reality. We have to make sure that the idea of peace is not hijacked by people who are seeking indirect ways of continuing the present situation in Palestine. This is not easy because the western media has already adopted within its main vocabulary that anyone who wants to present himself as a peacemaker or as a supporter of peace, must talk about a two-state solution.

Only after the occupation ends can we talk about what it entails. Then it is possible to discuss the political structure best needed to prevent a reoccupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But it should be clear that the political structure needed to end the conflict is a different one. It has to be one that enables us to end refugeehood and the apartheid policies against the Palestinians inside Israel. We have to be sure not to get caught in the same cul de sac that Yassir Arafat found himself in Camp David when he was asked to equate the end of occupation (when it wasn't even the end of occupation) with the end of the conflict.

Finally, and this is our third agenda, we have to keep on thinking about how to devise concrete plans for making the Right of Return feasible and for making possible the end of discrimination against Palestinians in Israel. These are the two pillars of a comprehensive settlement and they have to be specified. I think it is quite clear that we haven't done that job yet: we are still stuck with slogans of the 1960's, of a secular democratic state. These slogans have to be updated according to the reality of 2002. What was meant in the 1960's by a secular democratic state is a possible vision for the distant future. Our focus on the urgent and immediate agenda should not absolve us from long-term strategies. What people need to hear from us are concrete plans, even if they sound utopian given the situation on the ground. This is a delicate enterprise which entails not only creating a political culture and structure that would rectify past evils, and prevent another catastrophe, but also one which would not inflict another evil, or replace the past evil with a new one. We are not calling for the expulsion of the Jews. We do want the Right of Return. We do want equal rights for the Palestinian citizens.

I think many of us who think in such a long-term span would like to see one state or a political structure which has one state in it. But you cannot disseminate these ideas by just giving highlights, nuggets or slogans. There needs to be a very serious and detailed presentation of such a solution, to convince people of its feasibility.

more...

[Muddleoftheroad]

104. What racist crap

Basically, this says that the "occupation" is Israel.

Then it talks about, "the complete abandonment of the Palestinian minority in Israel." Those happen to Israeli citizens and aren't abandoned by anyone.

Then it proceeds to continue the infamous Right of Return fantasy. It isn't feasible. It isn't possible. And it isn't going to happen. If that is the ultimate condition for peace with the Palestinians, then let the war begin today.

[Karmadillo]

108. What racist crap?

1. Not quite sure what you mean when you write the occupation is Israel. The occupier is Israel, the land gained through ethnic cleansing is Israel, so it hardly seems racist for Pappe to advocate Palestinians should be allowed to join the occupiers in living on this land. He doesn't, contrary to the speed with which you label his suggestions racist, call for the expulsion of the Jews. He simply proposes a binational state. Hardly seems unreasonable when Israel is insisting the Palestinians shut up and accept a handful of bantustans.

2. I assume when Pappe refers to the abandonment of those Palestinians living in Israel, he's referring to the discrimination they currently suffer and would likely continue to suffer under a two state solution (assuming the solution doesn't include their transfer to parts elsewhere).

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9140486%5E1702,00.html

<edit>

The Supreme Court officially recognised in a July 2000 ruling that the community was the victim of state discrimination after a test case on school funding.

A recent report by Mossawa, an Israeli Arab advocacy group, argued that they were discriminated against in economic, social and political spheres.

Development budgets for Israeli Arab areas were lower than other communities, while nine Israeli Arab babies died for every 1000 births compared with four of every thousand for the others, Mossawa said.

Some 60 per cent of Israeli-Arab children and 44.7 per cent of Israeli Arab families live below the poverty line, it added.

Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also triggered outrage among Arabs back in December when he warned that the community threatened Israel's demographic balance.

lots more...

3. No right of return or Muddle declares war!?!? Quite the negotiating position. Makes Pappe seem even more reasonable in comparison. It's hardly racism to advocate that those ethnically cleansed be allowed to return to their homeland.

Strange how some ethnic cleansing is rightly excoriated and some ethnic cleansing dare not speak its name. Hard to imagine a Time article so forthrightly discussing the origins of the Palestinian refugees as the one below.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,27846,00.html

All Ethnically Cleansed and Nowhere to Go
Whether or not they helped the Serbs, Kosovo's Gypsies are being driven out — and that's nothing new for this continually tormented group

They’d lived in Kosovo for generations, but that meant nothing when angry men in uniform went from door to door through their neighborhoods, beating them at random, dragging them off to be tortured, giving them five minutes to leave and torching their houses.

But that was before NATO took control of Kosovo, right? Wrong. The ethnic cleansing of Kosovo’s estimated 100,000 Gypsies began only after the Serbs withdrew and the Kosovo Liberation Army moved in, and it has continued right under the noses of Western peacekeepers. And unlike Kosovo’s Serbs, the Gypsies have nowhere to go. Those who tried to leave with the Serbs were turned back at the border, leaving them to the face the wrath of the Kosovar Albanians. Although NATO's KFOR peacekeepers have vowed to protect them, the understaffed force isn’t geared up to deal with low-level ethnic cleansing. Instead, Gypsies have been forced to abandon their homes and flee to makeshift refugee camps in some of the major Kosovo towns, where the peacekeepers are able to protect them.

For a despised people living at the margins of society all across the Balkans and the wider European continent from Russia to Spain, their persecution at the hands of returning ethnic Albanians in Kosovo is simply another chapter in a long history of suffering. Originally from Northern India, the Gypsies — or Roma people — were nomadic tribesmen skilled in crafts and music who were scattered westward more than a thousand years ago by successive waves of war and occupation. Passing through the Persian, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, they settled throughout Asia Minor, the Arab world, the Balkans and Europe but maintained common threads of language, culture, music and religious belief throughout their diaspora. But rarely have their host countries made them feel welcome. They were legally able to be enslaved in Europe until the mid-19th century, and the hostility they suffered throughout the continent reached its zenith during World War II, when more than half a million died in Nazi concentration camps –- losses almost proportional to those suffered by Jews.

more...

[sushi]

119. I used to feel sorry

only for the Palestinians. Now I think Israel can do with some sympathy too. It cannot have all Palestinian land unless it becomes one state, which means the end of Israel being Jewish, and the state it is prepared to allow the Palestinians to have is not acceptable to the Palestinians. What a problem, but the present situation can't go on. The only solution to keep Israel Jewish and to put a stop to the suicide bombing is for Israel not to keep any settlements and to share Jerusalem. Why is that so hard?

[Muddleoftheroad]

121. Israel won't compromise on Jerusalem

It is their capital after all.

Of course, that wouldn't settle anything anyhow.

[sushi]

124. That's the problem

Compromise leads to peace. Tel Aviv is their capital. Jerusalem is a sacred city for people of different religions, and should, ideally, be an international, open city.

[Muddleoftheroad]

142. What peace? Hamas has vowed to push Israel into the sea

Compromise does NOT always lead to peace. Sometimes you can't compromise. And no, you are incorrect. Tel Aviv is NOT their capital.

Yes, Jerusalem is a sacred city for people of different religions, including my own. However, those religions are better protected with Israel at the helm than they ever have been with Arabs in charge.

[sushi]

149. So don't call it peace

but compromise will certainly improve the situation, and from that peace can come. I think that you can always compromise, but you must want to. There's no bad party here, only two sides fighting over land. I also think that Palestinians have a claim to part of Jerusalem.

[Name removed]

151. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Noon_Blue_Apples]

153. yes, yes...the evil arabs and their religion

"Yes, Jerusalem is a sacred city for people of different religions, including my own. However, those religions are better protected with Israel at the helm than they ever have been with Arabs in charge."

[LibInternationalist]

131. ... is never going to happen

grasping at straws here, folks