Common Sense on the Question of Palestine

[arisbe]

"The time has come to think the unthinkable. The two-state solution -- the core of the Oslo process and the present "road map" -- is probably already doomed. With every passing year we are postponing an inevitable, harder choice that only the far right and far left have so far acknowledged, each for its own reasons. The true alternative facing the Middle East in coming years will be between an ethnically cleansed Greater Israel and a single, integrated, binational state of Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians. That is indeed how the hard-liners in Sharon's cabinet see the choice; and that is why they anticipate the removal of the Arabs as the ineluctable condition for the survival of a Jewish state.

"But what if there were no place in the world today for a "Jewish state"? What if the binational solution were not just increasingly likely, but actually a desirable outcome? It is not such a very odd thought..."

from "Israel: The Alternative" by Tony Judt in the New York Review of Books, via Jude Wanniski

Comments

[kiaroskuro.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of the talk that the late Edward Said gave at Princeton a few years ago. He said that the only way the Israeli-Palestinian issue would ever be resolved is if Arabs and Israelis can live together in a multinational state that does not give preference to one faith or another, but treats all citizens as equal. It's not such a far-fetched idea, but for people who believe in a Jewish state, it can be unthinkable.

Thank you for posting such thought-provoking pieces.

Said dead too?

[arisbe.livejournal.com]

I really am out of the loop!

It is really a Zen-like paradox that Abouna Elias Chacour, whose family suffered the fate of other Palestinians, is a loyal citizen of Israel, and seems to have some hope that his Jewish neighbors will some day accept him, or at least his students, or their children, as such.

But how many more must die, not only Israelis and Palestinians, but Iraqis -- and Iranis and Syrians, whoever is next -- and Americans, like the two thousand two blocks from where I am typing?

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Somehow I can't helping thinking that there are people (some of them with oil money and other sources of power) who are considering the third alternative of an ethnically cleansed Arab Middle East.

Multi-culti

[keith418.livejournal.com]

It seems weird to me that the same folks who are the most insistent about the need for multiculturalism in America and in Europe are so resistant to it in Israel. This seems hypocritical at best. I think many of the people who support multiculturalism need to support it everywhere and not make exceptions. If no group is intrinsically superior, in any way, to any other group, then multiculturalism is the only solution. Anyone arguing for one group's superiority and right to an exception to the rules of multiculturalism could only be called bigots, racists, or worse. This is simple logic.

Re: Multi-culti

[arisbe.livejournal.com]

You mean ethnic Jews? They are well represented among the leaders of the antimulticults as well as the multis.

I think those who support Israel tend to be those who defend Western civilization. Or what they think of as Western civilization.

[aelius.livejournal.com]

Added you as a friend! :)

[arisbe.livejournal.com]

I added you too.