Friday, January 29, 2010

More on the Binationalism Debate

Haaretz's opinion section has two articles today that discuss the idea of binationalism. They both respond to an essay by Meron Benvenisti (here in Hebrew or English) who says that binationalism is a fact already today and that there is no other solution.

One article, by Elia Leibowitz (in Hebrew, not yet available in English), only slightly touches on Benvenisti's assertions, arguing that actions such as the recognition of Ariel College as a university, the concensus among Israelis about Ariel remaining part of Israel and the left-wing belief in binationalism - all these share a fatalistic view, that there are things that cannot be undone; that Israel can't do a thing to change the future. Leibowitz calls upon Israel to start building other kinds of facts on the ground, such as a massive highway that will connect Gaza to the West Bank.

The second article, by Alexander Yakobson (Hebrew and English), is entirely a rebuttal of Benvenisti. I agree with it completely.

A binational state? Here?
By Alexander Yakobson

Since the division of the land into two viable states is no longer possible, there is no choice - for anyone who believes in equality - but to support a democratic binational state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, claims Meron Benvenisti (Haaretz, January 22).

In my opinion, exactly the opposite is true: Since it is clear that the state Benvenisti recommends instead of Israel will not be a binational democracy, anyone who believes in equality (as opposed to someone who believes in the need to surrender to Arab nationalism) must adhere to the principle of two states for two peoples. This solution is definitely possible if both sides really want it. Yes, the Palestinian side too, whose contribution to the present situation Benvenisti is careful to not examine.



The "one state" under discussion would be a state with a solid Arab-Muslim majority (which would quickly be created by taking advantage of the right of return) in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world. To believe that this state would really be binational you have to assume that the Arab-Palestinian people would agree, over the long haul, to be the only Arab people whose state would not have a clearly Arab character and would not be officially defined as an Arab state or as part of the Arab world.

One has to assume that Fatah and Hamas would agree to this concession - which no Arab people has made for the benefit of the region's indigenous minorities - for the benefit of the Zionist "foreign implant," whose very presence in the region is considered a colonialist invasion.

To understand how absurd this scenario is, there isn't even any need to ask tough questions about democracy and the attitude toward minorities in the Arab world and Palestinian society. It's enough to listen to the discourse of all the significant groups in Arab and Palestinian public opinion: Even those who declare their adherence to democracy swear allegiance to Arabism.

For a binational state to exist, it's not enough for the Jews to give up a Jewish state; the Arabs have to give up an Arab state in the Palestine that would exist after the abolition of the Zionist state. A binational state is a very rare form of government in the democratic world and is nonexistent in the Middle East. There is no reason to assume that this innovation would be introduced here for the benefit of the Zionists, of all people. And nothing written in this state's constitution would be of any use in the face of the true balance of power that would be created in and around this state. We have already seen all kinds of constitutions.

Nobody has yet suggested a reasonable, egalitarian and non-chauvinistic answer to the question of why the Jewish people's desire for national independence is less legitimate than other nations' aspirations for independence. But regardless of the ideological debate on this matter, the alternative to a Jewish state, as suggested by Benvenisti, is simply non-existent. Even someone who has no interest in Jewish nationalism or in any nationalism has to be aware (if one is honest with oneself) that under the current conditions, the continued existence of the State of Israel - with all its numerous shortcomings and tremendous advantages - is the way to guarantee maximum freedom and equality and the maximum well-being for the maximum number of people. We are not referring only to the good of the state's Jewish citizens. In effect, Benvenisti is suggesting that we do to all the Arabs in Israel something that horrifies the residents of Umm al-Fahm when it is suggested in regard to them: imposing Palestinian rule on them.

The claim that the settlements have made the occupation irreversible and that there is no escaping a binational state is based entirely on the assumption that a Jewish minority cannot exist in a Palestinian Arab state. After all, the Palestinians have no demographic problem - they are assured a large Arab majority in their state, even if the settlers, or at least some of them, remain under its sovereignty.

Why doesn't Benvenisti suggest such a solution? Apparently he does not have much confidence in the chances of honorable coexistence between an Arab majority and a Jewish minority in one state, although in the name of this ideal he suggests abolishing the State of Israel.

And indeed, there is good reason for skepticism on this issue, in view of the sad regional experience. But if there is any chance for such coexistence, it is conditional on a Jewish state existing alongside the site where this experiment would take place. And this Jewish state must be willing to absorb any Jew whose life on the outside becomes impossible (as happened to Jews all over the Arab world).

The solution is therefore a division into two states, based on the principle that a Jewish minority can exist in the Palestinian state - a principle that will do away with the landmine of the irreversibility of the occupation, which the settlement enterprise wanted to plant before both peoples.

11 comments:

  1. I can see that this is going to be quite some debate, more a case of people talking right past each other:

    In my opinion, exactly the opposite is true: Since it is clear that the state Benvenisti recommends instead of Israel will not be a binational democracy, anyone who believes in equality (as opposed to someone who believes in the need to surrender to Arab nationalism) must adhere to the principle of two states for two peoples. This solution is definitely possible if both sides really want it. Yes, the Palestinian side too, whose contribution to the present situation Benvenisti is careful to not examine.

    Rather pot and kettle, since as the author has no problem 'surrendering to Jewish nationalism', currently at the enormous expense of an entire other people.

    'definitely possible if both sides really want it': apart from the huge problems in creating a Palestinian State on the remains of Palestine:

    • Evacuating nearly 500,000 settlers who enjoy very considerable support from right wing non-settlers. Re-housing them would be a challenge in its own right.

    • Creating a territorially contiguous space for the Palestinian State (connecting WB and Gaza).

    • The divided capital, so opposed by so many successive Israeli governments, not to mention the current Mayor of J'sem.

    • Impossibility to meet the RoR even very partially.

    • Massive power imbalance between 'partners' and complete absence of an honest 'peace broker' makes negotiating for Palestinians inevitably extremely risky.

    To name but a few.

    As it happens, I'm a bit pressed for time but scanning through the rest of his article there really is much to object to, so I'll come back to it later.

    Could you provide a link to the Benvenisti article?

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  2. There's a link to the Benvenisti article in the post, but here it is again.

    "Rather pot and kettle, since as the author has no problem 'surrendering to Jewish nationalism', currently at the enormous expense of an entire other people."

    First of all, I think he's talking about the Israeli perspective, so we're not surrendering to anything by believing we have a right to our own country. Second of all, the one-state solution would only be a solution for one of the national movements, whichever one has the majority. I believe that would be the Palestinians. The two-state solution would provide for both nations.

    "'definitely possible if both sides really want it': apart from the huge problems in creating a Palestinian State on the remains of Palestine:"

    The problems you list really are huge, but when there's a will there's a way. Besides, some of them also make it harder for a one state solution to be implemented.

    The following things can be solved: most of those hundreds of thousands of settlers are in settlement blocs right on the green line. With land swaps, and with Palestinians agreeing that the settlers who want to stay will stay and become Palestinian citizens, the number of settlers that have to be evacuated will be reduced significantly.

    Contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza isn't that much of a problem. This isn't Pakistan and Bangladesh having India between them. It's just a few kms. Building a bridge or a tunnel (a Palestinian specialty!) under Palestinian control wouldn't be very hard.

    In the case of Jerusalem, there are reports that Olmert and Abbas were quite close to a solution there. Netanyahu would never agree to it, but future non-Likud governments might.

    As for the last two points: If Israelis aren't willing to grant RoR as part of the two-state solution, why do you think they'd agree to the one state solution? And even if it is true that it's risky for Palestinians to negotiate with Israel, how does that make the one state solution more plausible? Both these issues would be even more of a problem for Palestinians if they insisted on the One State.

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  3. Continued from above:

    "To understand how absurd this scenario is, there isn't even any need to ask tough questions about democracy and the attitude toward minorities in the Arab world and Palestinian society. It's enough to listen to the discourse of all the significant groups in Arab and Palestinian public opinion: Even those who declare their adherence to democracy swear allegiance to Arabism."

    Oh, but let us ask 'tough questions' about democracy, by all means. Israel's closest ally in the region is Egypt: hardly a beacon of democracy. During the regime of the Shah, commonly denounced as one of the cruelest dictatorships in the region at that time, the role of 'closest ME ally' befell... Iran! When the Palestinians elected Hamas in free and uncontested elections, Israel and her allies (lackeys would be a better term) immediately punished them with blockade, one that Yakobson in all likelihood supports. Israel itself is a deeply flawed democracy: a 'democracy for Israeli Jews'. Arab Israelis have the right to vote but not the right to vote themselves into power.

    Israel's main ally and benefactor, the US, tries to influence the electoral outcome of a country like Lebanon, with a traditional stick and carrot approach.

    Anyone who believes 'democracy' is really of any importance in the current state of play in the ME is naive or deceptive.

    And what on Earth is 'Arabism'? Is he referring to past yearning for a 'United Arabia', the so-called 'pan-Arabism'?

    "For a binational state to exist, it's not enough for the Jews to give up a Jewish state; the Arabs have to give up an Arab state in the Palestine that would exist after the abolition of the Zionist state. A binational state is a very rare form of government in the democratic world and is nonexistent in the Middle East."

    There is nothing 'rare' about multinational states in the 'democratic world': Britain (trinational), Belgium (trinational), Switzerland (quadrinational) are but a few examples. Italy and France emerged unified from multinational beginnings.

    'Nonexistent in the Middle East': does Yakonov believe this absence is due to something in the air, the sand or the water? Something in the genes? Has he forgotten past Arab yearning for a pan-Arab (by definition multinational) entity, so skillfully scuppered by the British and French to serve their own interests?

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  4. "Nobody has yet suggested a reasonable, egalitarian and non-chauvinistic answer to the question of why the Jewish people's desire for national independence is less legitimate than other nations' aspirations for independence."

    Oh, but they have and plentifully too. Ernie Halfdram's 'How Many States?' is one of the many exercises in that area, not the first and certainly not the last either.

    "And indeed, there is good reason for skepticism on this issue, in view of the sad regional experience. But if there is any chance for such coexistence, it is conditional on a Jewish state existing alongside the site where this experiment would take place. And this Jewish state must be willing to absorb any Jew whose life on the outside becomes impossible (as happened to Jews all over the Arab world)."

    Anti-Semitism isn't fought by creating a Jewish ghetto in Palestine, no more than homophobia would be eradicated by giving homosexuals a state (safe haven) of their own. A state that allows, encourages even, the right of 'return' for non-Israeli Jews worldwide to Palestine in fact breeds resentment and anti-Semitism among those not privy to that privilege even though they are far more 'indigenous' to the area than Diaspora Jews are.

    With regards to Mizrahi misfortunes in the Arab world, I suggest Yakonov at least consult Yehouda Shenhav's scholarly treatment of the subject as a valid second opinion, here: Arab Jews, Palestinian Refugees and Israel's Folly Politics.

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  5. "Oh, but let us ask 'tough questions' about democracy, by all means. Israel's closest ally in the region is Egypt: hardly a beacon of democracy."

    Are you seriously saying that the fact that we have non-democratic allies means we don't care whether or not we live in a democracy? Egypt may be our ally, but we would never in hell want to live there or adopt its form of government.

    "Israel itself is a deeply flawed democracy: a 'democracy for Israeli Jews'. Arab Israelis have the right to vote but not the right to vote themselves into power."

    Yes, Israel is a deeply flawed democracy, but it still is a democracy, even for Arabs. I have no doubt it's more of a democracy that a binational state would ever be.

    There you go again with the "no right to vote themselves into power" thing. It just isn't true. An anti-Zionist Arab won't get elected PM, just like an anti-Zionist Jew won't, because the majority of the population is Zionist, not because of any legal bans.

    "And what on Earth is 'Arabism'? Is he referring to past yearning for a 'United Arabia', the so-called 'pan-Arabism'?"

    Pan-Arabism, perhaps, but not in the "one united Middle East" form. I think he's talking about a deep connection to other Arab countries that would be much deeper than the Palestinians' connection to their fellow countrymen, the Jews.

    "There is nothing 'rare' about multinational states in the 'democratic world'"

    Most of these countries emerged gradually. They weren't forced into a binational union. In the case of the UK, force was used and the English dominated over the others, which lead to the situation in Ireland.

    "Anti-Semitism isn't fought by creating a Jewish ghetto in Palestine"

    He didn't talk about fighting anti-Semitism. He was referring specifically to settlers who would stay in the new Palestinian state, and who would be able to move to Israel if the Palestinians don't treat them well.

    "With regards to Mizrahi misfortunes in the Arab world, I suggest Yakonov at least consult Yehouda Shenhav's scholarly treatment of the subject as a valid second opinion"

    Shenhav's article doesn't contradict what Yakobson said about Jews' lives becoming unbearable in many Arab countries. Shenhav himself says that some of the Jews "suffered from fear and oppression".

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  6. My point about Egypt/Iran (1953 - 1979) is that Israel/the West constantly uses the argument that 'Israel is the only Democracy in the ME', a point that, even if it were 100 % true is actually neither here nor there, but becomes extremely hypocritical considering that Israel and the West don't exactly choose their allies on the basis of the democratic nature of these countries. No, the rule is much simpler, states that support Israel are 'moderates' and those that don't are 'rogues'.

    You see no hypocrisy in claiming to be a democracy, yet all the while teaming up with a country that is increasingly degrading into a third world, shabby police state? One that's now also doing part of Israel's dirty work in suffocating Gaza with their American sponsored 'Wall of Shame'?

    The British Union is a pact, which provides equal treatment for all three main ethnic groups and the start of a new nationalism: British nationalism as exemplified in the hybrid national flag, the Union Jack. As I've said before, Britain isn't 'English dominated' politically speaking.

    As regards Ulster, that's a sad remnant of (back then) English colonialism in Ireland. A number of Protestant descendants or early English settlers (going back to very early 17th Century), out of sheer racism refuse to be part of the Republic of Ireland.

    Yakonov's position is really very BNPish. These too believe that 'Peoples' should live in neat little boxes because from all that 'mixing' nothing good can come.

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  7. I didn't know a country's democracy is measured by who its allies are. If you measure that way, there are no democracies in the world. There is no country that doesn't have at least a few dictatorships as allies.

    In any event, Yakobson's point here isn't who Israel's allies are. He asks whether most Israelis would have a better life and more freedoms under a single state. His (and my)answer is no, including for Arab citizens. As he says:

    "We are not referring only to the good of the state's Jewish citizens. In effect, Benvenisti is suggesting that we do to all the Arabs in Israel something that horrifies the residents of Umm al-Fahm when it is suggested in regard to them: imposing Palestinian rule on them."

    Egypt isn't doing Israel's bidding. It isn't worried about our security, but its own. It wants to keep Gazan terrorists and anti-Mubarak forces out of Egypt.

    If Yakobson (not Yakonov) is BNPish, then so am I and all Zionists, even the leftist ones. We want our own country, which we wouldn't have in a country with a Palestinian majority. That's not racist.

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  8. Emm:

    "Egypt isn't doing Israel's bidding. It isn't worried about our security, but its own. It wants to keep Gazan terrorists and anti-Mubarak forces out of Egypt."

    Even you don't really believe that. How does a deep penetration wall designed to stop anything from flowing from Egypt into Gaza protect Egypt from anything? You can't seriously believe that Gazan 'terrorists' and 'anti-Mubarak forces' would want to get into Egypt.

    Why do you think Egypt receives 2 Bln pa from the US? Why is the wall being built with US expertise?

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  9. "How does a deep penetration wall designed to stop anything from flowing from Egypt into Gaza protect Egypt from anything?"

    You know, it isn't a one-way wall. It stops things from flowing into Gaza, but also stops things (and people) from flowing out of Gaza without Egyptian permission.

    "You can't seriously believe that Gazan 'terrorists' and 'anti-Mubarak forces' would want to get into Egypt."

    Why not? Firs of all, Gaza is a hell hole anybody would want to run away from. Even ordinary Palestinian civilians who aren't terrorists may want to flee to Egypt, and they wouldn't be too fond of Mubarak for his policy up to now. Second of all, terrorists can get to Israelis in Sinai and the rest of Egypt. Just recently, a plot to bomb a gathering of Jews at the Egyptian gravesite of a 19th century rabbi was uncovered. In that case the plotters were Egyptian, but Palestinians also know that they can harm Israelis from Egypt much more easily than they can from Gaza. Suicide bombs are much more effective than Qassams, with a higher death toll.

    "Why do you think Egypt receives 2 Bln pa from the US? Why is the wall being built with US expertise?"

    Now you're saying that both the US and Egypt are doing Israel's bidding. Ain't it grand for Israel to be so strong?

    Egypt, as one of the strongest and most prominent Arab countries, is an important ally to the United States. That's why the US is giving them billions in aide. Stability through peace with Israel is just part of it.

    The US is helping Egypt build the wall for two reasons - yes, one is to end the flow of weapons into Gaza, but the second is to protect the stability of Mubarak's regime.

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  10. Maan News - 07/01/10):

    "Gaza – Ma'an – De facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Thursday called for Egypt to hold an urgent, direct meeting with the Hamas-led government to discuss bilateral relations and Cairo's policy toward Gaza's besieged people.

    "Gaza does not threaten Egypt's security. It is that which defends Arab, Islamic, and Egyptian security," he said, speaking a a ceremony organized by his government to receive the Viva Palestina convoy, which arrived on Wednesday.

    "Construction of the steel wall along the [Rafah] border, along with the developments accompanying Viva Palestina, necessitates holding a direct meeting with the Egyptians," the Gaza-based prime minister added. "The Egyptian people, even senior officials, support Palestine and lifting the siege imposed on Gaza.""


    But he would say that, wouldn't he?

    "Now you're saying that both the US and Egypt are doing Israel's bidding. Ain't it grand for Israel to be so strong?"

    C'mon Emm, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Never mind also almost blind support from EU members, at least up to recently...

    "The US is helping Egypt build the wall for two reasons - yes, one is to end the flow of weapons into Gaza, but the second is to protect the stability of Mubarak's regime."

    Which shows once more the US doesn't give a rat's arse about 'democracy' or 'freedom' in the ME because it supports a regime that's fast descending into a shabby, third-world police state with a president that's showing decidedly dynastic tendencies. And it supports that regime only because its an Israeli ally.

    'Why do they hate us?' the Americans once asked themselves not long ago. Yeah, why indeed...

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  11. I never said that the US is too concerned with democracy.

    "And it supports that regime only because its an Israeli ally."

    No, it supports Egypt because it's pro-American. If Mubarak's regime falls and the Muslim Brotherhood takes power, American interests in the Middle East will be in danger - the movement of US ships through the Suez Canal, political clout and more.

    America has its own foreign policy and Middle East policy. The United States' strongest Arab ally is Saudi Arabia, which isn't an ally of Israel and doesn't even have peace with it. What's important to the US government is that the kingdom is pro-American. The US recently sent a new ambassador to Syria after five years without one. They didn't ask permission from Netanyahu, who'd probably prefer the US would not be too friendly with Syria.

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