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Jonathan Freedland ('Britain should say yes to Palestinian statehood - and so should Israel' Guardian, September 14) presents the Israel-Palestine conflict as a territorial matter. 'The only way to resolve this most stubborn of conflicts' he writes, 'is for these two nations to divide the land between them into two states.'
Actually, the territorial question is only one half part of the solution; the Palestinian half, so to speak. The Israeli half concerns the existential question. Until Israel's security needs are met, and a realistic agreement is struck about the Palestinian refugees that doesn't threaten Israel as a Jewish state, then we do not have a conflict-ending agreement, only another stage in an ongoing campaign to end the Jewish state. That campaign began on the day in 1947 when the UN announced partition - two states for two peoples - and seven Arab armies invaded.
There is a brutally inconvenient fact about the two-state solution, and liberals in the West routinely bracket it. Peace requires an excruciatingly painful compromise on the part of the Palestinians: their acceptance that the refugees, or almost all the refugees, are not coming back. Pre-67 Israel, with land swaps, will remain the state of the Jewish people. The vast majority of Israelis have accepted two states for two peoples - the Jewish state must co-exist alongside a viable Palestinian state. The dangers of next week's debate at the UN is that the international community sponsorship will only delay that day when the Palestinians finally accept they cannot rewind the film of history and replay it, with 5 million refugees returning.
It is tempting to pin all the blame for the lack of progress in the peace process on an ogre. Jonathan Freedland argues that the health of the two-state solution has been deteriorating 'since Binyamin Netanyahu returned to the prime minister's office.' It's all going wrong because of 'the Israeli PM's stubbornness.' The main thing is not to 'boost Bibi.' And so on. There are two problems with this argument.
First, it is an oddly unhistorical version of the story, omitting some key facts. At Camp David in 2000, the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barack offered a Palestinian state. He hugged Arafat and began negotiations with an offer to withdraw from 100% of the Gaza Strip and over 90% of the West Bank. The negotiations ended without Arafat making a counter offer - and a bitter Bill Clinton concluded Arafat was never serious. Then came the second intifada - and a disillusioned Israeli public decided it had no partner. Some Israelis are indeed calling on Netanyahu to go, while some criticise him for not maintaining the momentum generated by Olmert, Livni and Abbas at Annapolis. But the two-state solution is 'ailing' for more reasons than Bibi.
Second, however much he may set the teeth of liberals on edge, Netanyahu stood before Congress and said 'I stood before my people, and I said... "I will accept a Palestinian state." It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say... "I will accept a Jewish state." Those six words will change history.'? Was he wrong?
There is one word Jonathan does not mention: Hamas. The terror group indulges eliminationist anti-Semitism but the PA is negotiating a reconciliation agreement with it? Who is the UN dealing with here? Many Western liberals find it easy to ignore the blood-curdling threats against all Jews in the Hamas Charter, but why should Israelis be so insouciant?
Jonathan also looks forward to the Palestinians gaining 'access to some of the major international institutions.' Was it Samuel Johnson who said "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"? 'Lawfare' carries the risk of embittering the parties, entrenching the maximalists on both sides, and pushing direct negotiations into the distance.
Even J-Street, liberals and two-state'ers to a man and woman, an organisation routinely excoriated by AIPAC, decided in the end to oppose the Palestinians bid for unilateral recognition at the UN because 'a Palestinian application for full UN membership this September does not stand to appreciably advance that goal or improve conditions on the ground.'
If it was just a matter of the UN making a symbolic endorsement of the principle of two states, and urging renewed direct negotiations on that basis, Jonathan would be right to urge the UK government to vote yes next week. But more is at stake, dangers abound, and much could go terribly wrong on Day 2.
Whatever our disagreements, friends of a two-state solution should urge the UK government to minimise the damage: no diversion of the peace process into the ICC, no back-door for Hamas, the continuation of the successful security cooperation between Israel and the PA, and of support for the PAs nation-building programme.
Perhaps we can yet make the debate in New York an ante-chamber to direct negotiations between Jerusalem and Ramallah on the basis of Obama's May speeches. For make no mistake, that's where the solution lies.
Its actually a false rationalization that unfairly works against legitimate Israeli interests.
It was invented as a diplomatic solution to an otherwise unexplainable paradox.
If UNSCR 242 calls for Israelis to withdraw to permanent national boundaries of pre-1967, what is there to negotiate? Why would the wording be used:
"secure and recognized"? Faced with this dilemma, certain diplomats have recently come up with the logically plausible (but incorrect) solution of "swaps".
The problem with a swap is that the Arabs will say that acres must be swapped at the discretion of the 1966 status, on a one-for-one basis. (In 1966, the Western Wall and 'Old City' were in the hands of Jordan).
Adopting this standard will not expedite an agreement.
There is a solution to this. The matter should be brought before legal mediation, where both sides agree on a forum, agree on a panel of judges and agree on the scope of the examination. Minimally, this would provide a refined set of issues to deal with, during any further negotiations. Right now, the problem is that both sides are convinced that their legal position is not only superior, but overwhelmingly superior. The world has aided and abetted such disparate conclusions through successive layers of conflicted international, law throughout the 20th Century.
WHAT A J.OKE OF AN ARTICLE!
Maybe israelis think they're special and Palestinians need the permission of their occupiers.
THAT IS WHY ISRAEL IS STOLEN PALESTINE!
All we ever hear about are "the rights of the Palestinians". It is worth remembering the legal context of the Israelis too, especially snce so many put "legality" above all else in conflict resolution. Especially those who are often being hypocritical and selective about it.
No, just lying. What he accepted was not a Palestinian state, but a nonsovereign semi-autonomous entity firmly under Israel's thumb.
That was incidentally the same thing Barak's oh-so-generous offer in Camp David meant.
As for the refugees, they are a giant red herring. The last comprehensive polls of Palestinian refugees are old, but their results are telling:
- Only 10% of the refugees actually want to move to Israel. Another 23% would want to move to land swapped from Israel to the Palestinian state, so in toto only one third of the Palestinian refugees want to move to land currently part of Israel. (If the swapped areas are too small to accomodate a lot of refugees, they will likely want to move to Israel instead.)
- Of those who do want to move to Israel, only about 20% want to become Israeli citizens, the others preferring to become Israeli residents with Palestinian citizenship.
So what we are looking are at most 300,000 new Arab citizens of Israel. Hardly shattering the demographic balance. At the lower end of the spectrum, there would be far fewer: Most of those who expressed interest in becoming Israeli citizens actually wanted dual citizenship and would likely opt for Palestinian nationality if they had to choose.
It's a solveable problem.
Israel gets all the land. Arabs get democracy. Case closed.