The Country of Palestine: A Zero State Solution

An-Nakbah

For over half a century the conflict between Israel and Palestine, the centre of the world's three Abrahamic monotheisms, has raged. Space is not sufficient here of course to detail the main events of this conflict, except in title alone: The British Mandate in Palestine and the Balfour Declaration, the Arab revolts of the 1930s, the declaration of the State of Israel (with scant regard of local opinion) and the subsequent war in the late 1940s, raids and counter-raids in the 1950s, the 1956 Suez Crisis, the 1967 Six Day War, the 1973 Yom Kipper War, the 1982 Lebanon War, the First and Second Intifada, the 2006 Lebanon War, and the Gaza War of 2008-2009. With over 100,000 casulties since 1945 and with economists estimating that the opportunity cost of the various conflicts representating trillions of dollars [1].

The dead are many, the costs are high and the divisions are deep. David Hacohen, a supposedly left-wing member of the Israeli Knesset for six terms once described Arabs as "... they are not human beings, they are not people". At the start of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the first secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, announced: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades" [2]. These are just illustrative examples of how deep the hatred has often reached; there are plenty of others and from equally senior positions.

Peace efforts have only had a modicum of success. The two United Nations Security Concil Resolutions, 242 and 338, have provided a temporary cessation of hostilities, but have not been unable to unravel the continuing damage, let alone implement, the original UN General Assembly Resolution 181 for the partition of Palestine. Resolution 242 called for Israel to give up the occupied territories and the resolution passed was passed 15 to 0. It has not, of course, ever been implemented. Indeed the opposite has been the case; there are now 0.5 million Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jersualem, turning the region into a "pastrimi" [3] of harshly discriminatory settlement policy, of restricted movements, of concrete and iron 'separation barriers' - of kibosh ha'adama - "conquest of the land". The 1993 Oslo Accords fared somewhat better - they allowed for the formation of the Palestinian National Authority, providing the 'right' for Palestinians to police their own imprisonment.

Born of desperation and hopelessness some Palestinians fight back against this systematic, grinding humiliation with the predictable tools of people in such a situation; the use of violence against non-combatants for political ends, better known as terrorism. A tragic shortlist can easily be rattled off - the 1972 Munich Olymipics massacre, the 1974 Ma'alot massacre, the 1978 Coastal Road massacre, the 1989 Tel Aviv-Jerusalem bus attack, the 1993 Mehola Junction bombing, the 2003 Maxim restaurant suicide bombing, the 2008 Mercaz HaRav massacre, along with thousands of Qassam and similar rockets being launched indiscriminately into civilian areas. All, it must be grimly accounted, with relatively few fatalities and absolutely no threat to the Israeli State. But of particular note as the conflict drags on, the desparation of the Palestinian people grows, along with their acceptance of the use of violence against civilian targets and support for less flexible religous doctrine [4]. Without freedom, there is nothing left to lose.

Ending Hafrada

Is it even possible under these circumstances to hypothesise, let alone work towards, a lasting peace and acceptance? What real possibility is there for a mainstream two-state solution, when half a million Israeli settlers are in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and any proposed Palestinian state is non-contigious? [5] What will Israel do within its own borders, even if such a state is established? How will it retain a Jewish majority, as so many of its hardliners desire, when a faced with changing demographics that strongly favour Arab Israelis? [6] What possibility is there for the right of return of Palestinian Arabs, many now the children and grand-children of the original refugees? What to do about the even more massive expulsion of Arab Jews - eight hundred thousand in all - from Arab Muslim countries with the establishment of Israel? Can there be any prospect of unity from the twin narratives of the Shoa and the Nakhba?

The former speaker of the Knesset, Avrum Burg, understood with exceptional clarity the challenge that the State of Israel faces [7]; Israel simply cannot be Jewish and democratic at the same time. Either Arabs (excluding Jewish Arabs of course) are expelled en masse or full democratic and citizen rights are provided to all. As Noam Chomsky notes: "The Zionist dream is to construct a state which is as Jewish as England is English and France is French. At the same time, this state is to be a democracy on the Western model. Evidently, these goals are incompatible. Citizens of France are French, but citizens of the Jewish state may be non-Jews, either by ethnic or religious origin or simply by choice ... To the extent that Israel is a Jewish State it cannot be a democratic state" [8]

Disingenous defenders of the status quo claim that Israel is a secular and democratic state, where Arabs can enjoy a citizenship of sorts, election to the Knesset and so forth. Comparisons are made between Israel and the multitude of despotic regimes in the region, including the Palestinian National Authority itself a government which is corrupt in the West Bank and authoritarian in Gaza [9]. But what is the purpose of such comparisons? How do they help the situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories itself? [10] Would the genuine introduction of democratic and human rights in Yemen, to give an example of a country that could do with some, bring stability to the Middle-East? The special attention granted to Israel by various human rights activists has nothing to do with the ethnic makeup of the country, but rather because it is a nuclear-armed colonial power that is disruptive to international peace.

Being attentive to Israel means offering support when it engages in activities which encourage universal rights, and condemning it when it seeks to engage into the policy of hafrada (or, in the language of the Afrikaans, apartheid), of which the separation walls on the West Bank and blockade of Gaza are most infamous. Israel has a long way to go in this regard, for the same rights of citizenship are not applied universally. Instead of treating all citizens equally, Israel has a multitude of varying rights depending on membership to one of over 130 "nationalities", some of which are based on religion, some of which are based on language, but none of which are based on being an Israeli. It is through discrimination on these nationalities that prejudicial rights are allocated [11]. It will only be through ending the discrimination within these policies that the Israeli state can end being divided among itself in terms of political rights.

Towards The Zero State Solution: A Beacon Unto Nations

But an equality of rights only provides an end to hafrada, of Israeli apartheid in Palestine. It does not mean that the people who live in the country of Palestine is free. A State can be equally oppressive to all and indeed, to the degree that a State enforces laws over and above the natural rights of the inhabitants of a country is the degree that the State can be distinguished from government, in the meaning of Claude Henri de Rouvroy's dictum. When various State-based solutions of the Israel/Palestine problem are versed, this most important question is overlooked. It is from this vantage point the various solutions can be examined.

The "Three State Solution" argues that Israel should give the West Bank to Jordon and Gaza to Egypt, changing boundaries back to the 1949 Armistace, some variation of the Allon Plan or, as an alternative, independent governments of Palestinian Gaza, Palestinian West Bank and Israel. The former has been advocated by Benny Morris[12] who argues that Muslims in particular are culturally inept in their ability to adopt to secularism. The position ignores that the people of the West Bank and Gaza do not want it, nor does Jordan, and nor do the half a million Israeli settlers are in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In contrast the mainstream "Two State Solution", also suffers the problem of practicality. This is the option with the greatest degree of plurality support according to opinion polls [13], and the official policy from the 1991 Madrid Conference to the 2007 Annapolis Conference. Yet it is plagued with impossibilities; there is next to no chance that the half million Israeli settlers are going to move from East Jerusalem or the West Bank. There is next to no chance that a Palestinian state without contiguous borders would ever be viable.

Thus enter the "One State Solution", which in many ways Israel and the Occupied Territories already are, in a de facto sense. One one hand this is an argument used by both religious fundamentalists who advocate either an Islamic state in Palestine, such as Hamas, or the total ethnic cleasing of Arabs from a Greater Israel, potentially from the Biblical "from the brook of the Nile to the Euphrates", as expressed by the Revisionist Zionists. The alternative however is the "One State Solution" of equal and advanced rights (e.g., the Isratin option [14], the historic Brit Shalom), which is in the direction of a "Zero State Solution". At least on this level there are those who argue that the number of States is of less significance than the political rights of those who have to live in them, a consideration that rulers often forget. Whilst in both contemporary Israel an Palestine it is not the first preference choice, it is gaining support and is increasingly the most viable - ex factis jus oritur.

In a "Zero-State" solution, governance would be secular and democratic. There would be no special benefits on the basis of nationalities, real or imagined, or religious affiliation that were separate from the rights of all citizens. Of course the region would remain a Jewish homeland just as other regions and cultures have their homeland too; but that is quite distinct from a Jewish (or Islamic, or other) state. Organisations like the Israel Land Administration would retain their role in holding natural resources as a public good, but without the horrendous prohibitions on leasing rights that currently exist (this is a particularly clear example of the difference between "the governance of people" and "the administration of things"). Finally, in a "zero-state solution", there are no standing armies only reserve militia and emergency services; the purpose is local defense and civil order, not invasive war. The path to peace will never exist without the abolition of the means to war.

A Practical Task

It is common for individuals and organisations to claim "we support position X". A legitimate rejoinder is "How?", which often goes without answer. For those advocating political rights without discrimination in the Levant and recognise its international importance direct involvement with local organisations and direct support with those organisations "on the ground" who support secular, democratic principles is imperative. This includes the request for Boycott, Disinvestment and Sacntions made by 171 Palestinian NGOs until Israel complies with international law and universal human rights (neatly summarised as "boycotts are commonly carried out by individuals, divestment by institutions and sanctions by governments." [15] It is a movement which has its roots in the international anti-apartheid campaign then, and can certainly repeat that success again against the new "bantustans" and the policy of hafrada. It is a movement which treats the primary issue as being the concrete rights of individuals, rather than abstract loyalties of ethnicity, religion or state.

Bibliography

[1] Barry Buzan, Regions and powers, Cambridge University Press, 2003 and Cost of Conflict in the Middle East, Strategic Foresight Group, 2010
[2] Hachohen remark in recorded in UK Hansard (Commons, 18th October 1973), Pasha remark reported in the New York Times, May 16, 1948
[3] Ariel Sharon was once asked how Israel should deal with the Palestinians. "We'll make a pastrami sandwich out of them," he replied. "We'll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in twenty-five years' time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart."
[4] Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), Palestinian Public Opinion Poll No (27), 2008
[5] Even a proposed land swap of the Arab majority region of Israel of Wadi Ara for the "Seam Zone" of barried colonisation areas in the West Bank would still result in a non-contigous, and therefore dysfunctional, state. See Aluf Benn "Trading Places", The Washington Post, August 14, 2005
[6] Ari Shavit Interview With Benny Morris, "Survival of the Fittest?", Haaretz, January 16, 2004
[7] Avrum Burg, Avrham Burg, A failed Israeli society is collapsing: The end of Zionism?, International Herald Tribune, September 6, 2003
[8] Noam Chomsky, The Arabs in Israel (fwd), Adalah, Legal Violations of Arab Minority Rights in Israel, 1998, p. 9
[9] Mel Frykberg, Fatah, Hamas rule increasingly authoritarian, The Electronic Intifada, 28 July 2009
[10] A distinction should be made between the significant differences in human rights in Israel proper as distinct from the Occupied Territories. For a summary see "Israel and the Occupied Territories", Israel and the occupied territories Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, 2006.
[11] See Dr. Israel Shahak, Israeli Discrimination Against Non-Jews Is Carefully Codified in State of Israel's Laws, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Jan/Feb 1998, pp88-89 and Jonathan Cook, Lawsuit challenges Israel's discriminatory citizenship definition, The Electronic Intifada, 6 April 2010
[12] Benny Morris, One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict, Yale University Press, 2009
[13] On Palestinian attitudes towards the Formation of the National Unity Government, Jerusalem Media & Communication Centre, Poll no. 61, Part One, 2007
[14] Muammar Qaddafi, "The One-State Solution", The New York Times, January 22, 2009
[15] Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss, The Boycott Divestment Sanctions Movement, The Nation, June 28, 2010. See also: The Global BDS Movement http://www.bdsmovement.net/