Neither a bi-national state nor a two state solution

By Ted Belman—November 8, 2009

Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed Hussein Ibish the author of “What’s Wrong With the One-State Agenda?” and titled his interview,  The Fantasy World of One-Staters. Ibish was one of the speakers at the J Street Convention.

Ibish thought that the J Street tent was too big to find a consensus and it would have to create some cohesion and a central message before it could be effective.

(Ibish) I mean people ranging from the sort of centrist-center left, all the way to post-Zionists, anti-Zionists, who were there, too. It’s not ultimately a group that’s going to form, I think, a functional coalition. Right now, they’re finding their feet. This is normal, it’s inevitable — but at a certain point, I think they have to clarify what they are, who their constituency is, what they stand for, who they are, who they’re not. They’ve been more successful in creating a space for themselves as a new voice that is compelling, but at other moments it’s looked like where they were simply positioning themselves as the alternative to AIPAC. And my sense of things is that, initially, that they would look too much to their rivals. But sooner rather than later, they’re going to have to just move on and start to define themselves in a much more coherent and pro-active way, not just in contrast to the traditional Jewish organizations but also to distinguish themselves from people in the Jewish community whose criticism of Israel makes them anathema to the mainstream of the community. They can’t go there and I think they’ve tried not to go there.

I think he is entirely wrong in this because he assumes that the goal of J Street is to attract a substantial number of Jews and thus speak for a major segment of the Jewish community.  But what they really want to do is undermine the Jewish state. They are not pro-Israel they are anti-Israel. They will never compromise their ideology to get more support.

But I was more interested in what he had to say about the fantasy of the one state solution that some are touting now. He thought it was a fantasy because hardly any Israelis would agree to it.

He totally rejected the belief “that through the application of what they (the one staters) call BDS – Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions – globally that they can crush the will of the Israelis and break the Zionist movement.”

Anyone who thinks that is plausible in the foreseeable future doesn’t understand the nature of the American relationship with Israel. The commitment of the U.S., not just the government but American society, is to the survival and security of the Israeli state.

1.  And then there’s another aspect, which is the extent to which Israeli institutions, organizations and corporations are interwoven at a very fundamental level with many of those in the U.S.

I’m talking about corporate, governmental, intelligence, military, industrial, scientific ties. The point is that you can only take talk of boycott and sanctions seriously if you really don’t understand any of this. And if you don’t understand any of this, then you’re living in a fantasy world.

Furthermore, he says,  the world has moved on.

1. These people are trapped in the language of the Fifties and Sixties. You’re talking about a worldview is anachronistic in the most fundamental sense. It doesn’t recognize any of the changes that have taken place since then. For example, the strategic situation that’s emerged in the Middle East, where the Arab states and the Arabs generally have a lot of other things to worry about other than Israel. This is a world in which a lot of Gulf states are extremely concerned about Iraq, and where there are Arab states — Jordan and Egypt — that have treaties with Israel, where Syria has a motive to be civil with Israel that is unpleasant but completely stable, and where it’s a very different environment than simply the Arabs and Israelis are enemies.

The other thing that they’ve missed completely, and this is sort of the amazing thing, is the total transformation in American official policy toward the Palestinians over the past 20 years. Twenty-one years ago, there was no contact ever between the U.S. and the PLO. No contact, zero, and no Palestinian statehood is the consensus American foreign policy and it is a national security priority under Obama. People in the House, key positions like the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman, chair of the Subcommittee on the Middle East, Gary Ackerman, Nita Lowey on Appropriations – all of them Jewish American members of Congress, stalwart supporters of Israel, and all of them committed to peace based on two states. And all of them, by the way, who were on the host committee of the American Task Force on Palestine gala last week.

It is easy to understand why these supporters of Israel and a two state solution would consider the expansion of settlements an obstacle to the two state solution.  That’s why they supported Obama’s demand for a freeze, in part, if not in whole. But what about Israel.  Israelis are in favour of building in Jerusalem but less supportive of building in the rest of Judea and Samaria. Those who support continued construction do not support a two state solution save for those who firmly believe that only through such construction can the Arabs be forced to make a deal. Time would not be on the side of the Arabs.  If construction were to stop entirely, the Arabs could wait another hundred years to destroy Israel. Our American friends should understand this.

Israel should too.  Israel can’t have it both ways.  She can’t favour a two state solution and at the same time expand the settlement endeavour. Perhaps the Netanyahu government has come to this conclusion and therefor has frozen all new construction in favour of renewed negotiations. But the opposition to such a freeze is very strong.  The opposition to withdrawing from Judea and Samaria is even stronger.

Netanyahu’s current policy is not aimed at the same end result as envisioned by Israel’s friends in the US, namely two states living in peace. He doesn’t believe it is possible. Netanyahu is aiming for limited sovereignty, only, for the Arabs, otherwise known as autonomy.

I would argue that the two staters are also pursuing a fantasy.  To believe that such a solution is possible is to ignore that neither party wants to make the necessary compromises.  It also ignores how intractable the problems are.

What is missing from the predominant view is a third possibility, namely, one where the one state is not a bi-national state but a Jewish state with a Jewish majority.

If Israel were to annex Judea and Samaria, the Jewish residents in the expanded Israel,  would outnumber the Arab residents, 2:1 for the foreseeable future.  (See AIDRG and One Jewish State .) Jewish citizens would exceed Arab citizens by even a greater majority. The Arabs would be granted citizenship over time according to western norms e.g. they must speak the language, swear loyalty, do national service and so on.

Basic Laws would be passed to ensure that Israel remain a Jewish state. This would not be unusual as many states affilliate with Christianity or Islam in their constitutions. The Arab citizens would simply have to accept that.

It is either that or autonomy only, over Area “A” only.  This is about 40% of Judea and Samaria.

Pursuing such alternate solutions would have the best chance of success if the US committed to it.