This argument is not exhaustive and does not answer every question that can and will arise. Rather, it is an effort to articulate in a thoughtful way why a single state is the only direction forward for a final end to Israeli, Palestinian hostilities.

The so-called two-state solution raises a number of other issues that in turn present obstacles, seemingly insurmountable, that must be overcome before any agreement can be finalized. They are final borders, the status of Jerusalem, the Palestinian "right of return", West Bank settlements, violence, and the degree of autonomy for an Palestinian state. I assert the single state solution resolves all those issues.

To start, why do I care? For that matter, why does anyone care? It is often argued by the supporters of Israel that the world is overly interested in the Israeli/Palestinian issue. That worse things are going on in other countries and yet it is Israel that gets all the attention. The issue is summarized by Alan Dershowitz who says, "when you do any kind of a moral comparison, you ask yourself, why has the Palestinian cause leapfrogged over all other causes?" Dershowitz claims the Palestinian issue is at the fore because of Palestinian violence. He positions Palestinian violence as being the germ that gave way to global terrorism: "You can't think about terrorism without thinking about Palestinian terrorism. Palestinians began international terrorism. "

Likewise, the Israeli lobby in the United States, and Israeli, have worked to position the Palestinian conflict as being the front line against terrorism. Naomi Klein recently wrote in the Nation that, "Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the 'global war on terror.'"

On one hand, Israel has positioned itself, militarily, economically, and in many ways culturally, as being on the front lines of the war on terror, and then coyly asks why the world's eyes are on the front lines. In that sense, the question is dishonest and disingenuous.

I care, have cared, because what Israel and her imperialist allies term a war on terror could easily ignite a wider, global war with implications for every living person and those not living yet. It is the front lines, in my opinion. Not the front lines in the war on terror, a ridiculous supposition that should insult the intelligence of every thinking person, but the front lines on a global war for domination of the world's remaining resources, including the unlikely mixture of oil and water, that just happen to be under the feet of teeming masses of muslims all of whom are radical, extremist, or fundamentalist, if they mistakenly believe their resources should benefit their lives.

Do I have a right to tell Palestinians how to wage their struggle? Providing an alternative opinion to decades of war is not the equivalent of compelling any action, or inaction, by force or any other means. It is just an opinion. And I believe I have a right to an opinion.

Why not a two state solution? A two state solution depends upon Palestinians recognizing the state of Israel and, even more so, Israel recognizing the Palestinian right to a state. And then any progress toward a state entails reconciling a host of seemingly irreconcilable differences.

While Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as a capital, Israel swallows East Jerusalem and vows the capital shall never be divided. While Palestinians claim the West Bank as their homeland, Israeli settlers seize the best land and usurp the waters. The West Bank is then further sliced and diced by Jewish only roads. While Israel demands security for itself and its settlers, it would never extend that same right of security to a Palestinian state that would be forever subject to armed Israeli incursions, checkpoints, and humiliations. What Israel has always referred to as "the facts on the ground" in terms of changing any expectations based on the 1948, or even the 1967 borders, has eliminated any really possibility of a viable Palestinian state.

Why a single state? A single state solution addresses all of those problems. First and foremost, it requires no negotiations at all. And as such there are no grounds for preconditions. Israel should not be expected to be at a table and her refusal to meet with legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people is inconsequential. Likewise, it matters not who leads the PA as the PA becomes redundant. More important is the emergence of a new political force that will represent the aspirations of Palestinians in a single state of Israel along the lines of the model set by the African National Congress. This can be Hamas, Fatah, a combination of both or neither.

Jerusalem: Jerusalem becomes the capital of a single state for both Palestinians and Israelis.

Settlements: The Israeli need for settlements to extend the borders of Israel are no longer necessary as Israel would include all of the West Bank and Gaza.

Security: Security would be a right of all Israelis including Palestinians.

Right of Return and citizenship: The right of return and citizenship could be extended to the entire diaspora of both peoples providing, still, a Jewish homeland without victimizing Palestinians.

Violence: A commitment to a single state solution requires -- must require, an end to Palestinian violence against civilians. It must because Palestinians cannot conduct warfare against a people they hope to live among as neighbours and equals.

For a single state solution to occur, Palestinians must give up the struggle for national liberation and declare 'I am home in Israel!" And then they must adapt their strategies and resources toward a civil rights movement. The movement must be disciplined as it must be expected that Israeli violence will not immediately cease.

It is not anymore the desire of the Israeli government to share a home with Arabs than it was a desire for the white South African government to share a home with blacks. Every effort will be made to discredit a civil rights movement and provoke it into violence. Palestinians must remain firm in a commitment to peaceful coexistence in a single state. The ANC model stands as a testament to a successful struggle that may be emulated.

Recognition of Israel: One of the great constructed obstacles to negotiation and peace is the Israeli insistence that Palestinians recognize the right of Israel to exist. This demand creates a permanent impasse that traps both parties.

For Palestinians, the demand requires them to acknowledge the legitimacy of their tragedy, the Nakba, or exodus. For Israel, no progress can be made until the recognition is given. In a sense, it is similar to two boys on a school playground where one is holding the other down, twisting his arm behind his back and demanding he say "uncle" before being released. As long as the child on the ground remains stubborn and refuses to utter the word, both boys are stuck where they are on the ground in a trap of their own making. The single state solution solves this by implicitly recognizing Israel.

The Palestinians cannot demand citizenship and equal rights within a state they don't recognize. The single state solution necessarily entails recognition of Israel. How then do Palestinians be persuaded to give up the cause for a state in favour of rights within Israel? The answer can be found, I think, within the Palestinian narrative.

The land that is now parceled as Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, has been known over the generations by more than one name. What has remained a constant has been the land itself and the Palestinian relationship to it. In other words, the rose remains a rose. It is the land that matters.

The remaining obstacle to the any solution will be Israelis and Palestinians who will resort to violence, lies, and mischief in attempts to thwart any progress on peace. There is a lot of money in blood, for some, and for others, on both sides, their religious zealotry is more satanic than pious.

There you have it. This will be my last comment on this topic or on the Israeli/Palestinian question. The well on this discussion is poisoned and I no longer think it matters anyway.

By the time the next generation reaches adulthood, the world will be a very different place. Humans have this amazing capacity to look down at our feet, planted on the soil, and claim a permanence greater than the earth itself. We have the capacity to look to the heavens and construct elaborate myths that countenance all our actions no matter how short sighted or visionary. And we seem completely oblivious to our place in a system without which all our proclamations and grand statements, our holy books, and holy cities, and holy lands, mean not a damn thing.

We have achieved overshoot with 6.6 billion humans massed on our fragile planet and we are witnessing the very early stages of collapse. It is the height of human arrogance and stupidity that a war is fought over a patch of desert when neither son of Abraham has much of a future in the region by the end of the current century or even sooner. It doesn't matter that Hamas or any other Palestinian does not recognize Israel. Nature does not recognize Israel. Nor Palestine. Nor America. And for as long as I am aware we have been fighting the war on nature. The final stage of the war is upon us and we are only now realizing, some anyway, that the war on nature has been a war on ourselves. We have won so decisively that we have irretrievably lost. Symbolically, we have felled the last tree, poisoned the last river, and eaten the last fish. Now we get to learn the true value of money.

We now have the spectacle of the democratically elected majority of the Palestinian Parliament, established under Oslo and therefore explicitly "recognizing" Israel's role in administering Gaza, the West Bank and occupied territories, undermined by the international community - above all by Israel and the US. However, Hamas has stopped the attempted coup d'etat by the men of the gold-plated bathroom fixtures (Fatah) and can therefore reasonably expect a merciless aerial bombardment by Israel as a reward. The corrupt men of the gold-plated bathroom fixtures will get their blood money and be content, however.

Only a person with a patch over both eyes can imagine that there is the least possibility of two states now. The democratic will of the Palestinians has been met by the cutting of funding and the starving of the population; it has been met with the arming of Palestinian quislings and still more support for the corrupt men of the gold-plated bathroom fixtures who, it turns out, were in the paid employ of US covert bodies like the CIA in any case. The leaders of other client states of the US in the middle east, states like Jordan and Egypt, who were once terrified by secular leaders like Nasser, now are terrified by religiously motivated liberations organizations like Hamas whose example threatens to undermine their own repressive regimes.

All is not well in the world of imperialism and client states. Gigantic efforts have been made to contract out the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians to other Palestinians without the proper degree of success. Therefore, the bombing of Gaza will proceed. It's simply a matter of timing and appropriate justifications. After all, the invasion of Lebanon was well planned. Why shouldn't the incineration of Gaza also be well planned?

In between the crocodile tears for the Palestinians one can, if you listen carefully, just hear the raucous grunts and cheering of the ghosts of brown shirted men. But no one seems to be listening.

[ 26 June 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

The politics of a single state would be as follows. One large party the jews for. One large party the palestinians vote for. And some minor parties, like in Northern Ireland. Only the violence and divisions in israel run much deeper than they did in northern ireland. The majority would impose its rule on the other.

The problem is that right now, palestinians hate israelis, and israelis hate palestinians. There was a change, for example, in the tone of the israeli media following the start of the second intafadeh, which resulted from Sharon visiting Judaism's holiest site. This will take a few generations to go away. You can't have a country based on two halves who hate each other.

Additionally, both sides have very different economics and different social norms. Israel is, to the best of my knowledge, more secular. It's also wealthier.

Any objective observer will note that what territory is left for the Palestinians - territory getting smaller all the time - consists of the Gaza prison, completely controlled by the occupying power, and the West Bank Bantustans, broken into jigsaw puzzle pieces that don't fit together and never will.

According to Chomsky, returning jews were both welcomed and integrated easily into the region prior to the imposed creation of the nation-state of Israel by Britain and the U.S.

[ 26 June 2007: Message edited by: Lard Tunderin' Jeezus ]

quote:

---

According to Chomsky, returning jews were both welcomed and integrated easily into the region prior to the imposed creation of the nation-state of Israel by Britain and the U.S.

---

That's actually not true at all. In the late 1930s, there was a major Arab uprising against the Jews of Palestine and several thousand were massacred.

1938 was a great time to be Jewish. if you lived in Germany you had Kristallnacht. If you lived in Russia you had Stalin massacring people for no apparent reason and if you lived in Palestine you had Arabs massacring Jews (led by the pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem).

[ 26 June 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lard Tunderin' Jeezus:
500 Apples: Your assumption of the inherent racism of "the others" is suspect, to say the least. I doubt you have any concrete evidence to support your claims (as per usual).

According to Chomsky, returning jews were both welcomed and integrated easily into the region prior to the imposed creation of the nation-state of Israel by Britain and the U.S.

[ 26 June 2007: Message edited by: Lard Tunderin' Jeezus ]

---

I doubt chomsky said anything so ridiculous.

When you say region you mean middle east or British Palestine?

Both sides of my family are arab jews. The morrocan side, has had as far as I know only good things to say about morocco and the people there. The other side though (Tunisia) said that antisemitism was a huge problem and was growing.

If you meant british palestine, there are many counterexamples. One such was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the time.

quote:

---

He acquired the reputation as a violent, fanatical anti-Zionist zealot and was jailed by the British for instigating a 1920 Arab attack against Jews who were praying at the Western Wall.

...

The appointment of the young al-Husseini as Mufti was a seminal event. Prior to his rise to power, there were active Arab factions supporting cooperative development of Palestine involving Arabs and Jews. But al-Husseini would have none of that; he was devoted to driving Jews out of Palestine, without compromise, even if it set back the Arabs 1000 years.

...

While in Baghdad, Syria al-Husseini aided the pro-Nazi revolt of 1941. He then spent the rest of World War II as Hitler's special guest in Berlin, advocating the extermination of Jews in radio broadcasts back to the Middle East and recruiting Balkan Muslims for infamous SS "mountain divisions" that tried to wipe out Jewish communities throughout the region.

---

[ 26 June 2007: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

quote:

---

Q: Shouldn’t Palestinians give up the fight for a State and concentrate on the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland ?

Ali: “Yes, that’s my opinion. I am for a single State-solution. I think the Israelis have made any other alternative impossible. So in my opinion, that is what the Palestinians in Palestine and their movements outside (of Palestine) should do: they should fight for a single State and they should transform the PLO and Hamas into a giant civil rights and liberation movement, on the model of many movements in history. They should say ‘these are the rights we will fight for and we appeal to you not to be violent with us, as we are prepared not to be violent; we are prepared to fight politically for our goals and we’ll see where our struggle takes us’. Anything else will fail. As long as the United States supports the Israelis, these solutions will be difficult. If the US wanted to, they could within five years push a solution through, but they don’t want to, they will not do it. I think, we will have to take the initiative and say: end all this farce of negotiations and this farce of Mahmoud Abbas going to the Israelis to talk like a servant, trying to force Hamas to do the same. It doesn’t serve anybody’s interest. It completely debases the Palestinian cause”.

Q: Do you endorse the right of return of the Palestinian refugees and displaced to their homes and properties ?

Ali: “Of course, these rights are there. But these rights will be guaranteed only if there’s a new entity. The Israelis will not accept them”.

---

Further,

quote:

---

Q: Do you think Israel is capable of transforming in such a way that it will become the Sate of all its citizens, with equal rights of all its citizens, independently of their religious or ethnic affiliations ?

Ali: “This is a difficult question. I think it would take possibly another 50 years. But it could happen by the end of the century. I don’t’ think that Israel, as it exists at the moment, is viable. I think the only viable solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a single state in which all Jews, Christians, Muslims, Druze and Druids and whatsoever have the same rights. It’s what we fought for in South Africa, And it’s what will have to be fought for in Israel. And people will jump up and scream: ‘no, we will never live with each other’. But living with each other is what has to be argued for. I think, it’s the only serious alternative. A Palestinian State is not possible. It would be a tiny little Bantustan run by a corrupt leadership, funded by the West and treated like an NGO. That is the PLO. That is the Palestinian Authority. It is not an authority, it is a joke. And the sooner it recognizes that it’s a joke and dissolves itself, the better. That’s what Hamas should do: they should not play this game, they should say ‘we dissolve the Palestinian Authority, it is not an authority, it is an outfit of the Israeli army. We dissolve all these bodies, we are now citizens of whatever entity there is in the region and deal with it. And then just live in their villages and towns, not trying to develop this fake apparatus of government, when that’s a joke, when they have no power at all and are treated like a joke. So all this is done to create a tiny, corrupt Palestinian elite. That’s why Hamas won the elections, because it is opposed to this. If it now capitulates to this, they will be finished”.

---

A little dated, from 2004 ...

From Occupied Palestine

quote:

---

Jeff Halper (2004): Sharon's implementation of Jabotinsky's doctrine of the "Iron Wall" establishing such massive "facts on the ground" that the Palestinians will despair of ever having a viable state of their own has reached its critical mass. The Israeli settlement blocs are so extensive, their incorporation into Israel proper by a massive system of highways and "by-pass roads" so complete and the Separation Wall physically confining the Palestinians to tiny cantons so advanced as to render any genuine two-state solution impossible and ridiculous. Given the unwillingness of the international community to force Israel's withdrawal from the Occupied Territories and in particular the American Congress's refusal to countenance any meaningful pressure on Israel, we may say that Israel is on the brink of emerging as the world's next apartheid state.

---

further,

quote:

---

We must shift the focus of our efforts from ending the Occupation (which, when the road map fails, we must all admit will never happen) to achieving a democratic state. The slogan "One Person, One Vote" should provide a common mobilizing call for an international movement that must reach the scope and effectiveness of the campaign against South African apartheid. Indeed, the emergence of a single state as an agreed-upon goal something we lack today will make organizing much easier. On the way we must continue, of course, to oppose the Occupation and all its manifestations, including the ongoing repression of the Palestinian people. We might even advocate certain intermediate steps, such as an international protectorate over the Palestinian areas, in order to freeze Israel's ongoing process of incorporation while protecting the civilian population. We must prepare ourselves nevertheless for the most likely upshot: a campaign against apartheid and for a single democratic state.

We should couch our campaign in the language and requirements of human rights and international law. A campaign for a democratic state is intended to secure the rights of all the country's inhabitants; it is not against the Israeli people or seeking in any way to delegitimize Israeli society or culture. ....

---