[Peace-discuss] What to do about The Land of Canaan

[Morton K. Brussel]

Another cogent article from Ali Abunimah, responding to his critics.

Democracy: An existential threat?
Ali Abunimah and Omar Barghouti, The Electronic Intifada, 30 December  
2007

A young boy carries a Palestinian flag near the wall in the town of  
Rafah on the Gaza/Egypt border, December 2007. (Wissam Nassar/ 
MaanImages). See http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9187.shtml

As two of the authors of a recent document advocating a one-state  
solution to the Arab-Israeli colonial conflict we emphatically  
intended to generate debate. Predictably, Zionists decried the  
proclamation as yet another proof of the unwavering devotion of  
Palestinian -- and some radical Israeli -- intellectuals to the  
"destruction of Israel." Some pro-Palestinian activists accused us of  
forsaking immediate and critical Palestinian rights in the quest of a  
"utopian" dream.

Inspired in part by the South African Freedom Charter [1] and the  
Belfast Agreement [2], the much humbler One State Declaration,  
authored by a group of Palestinian, Israeli and international  
academics and activists, affirms that "The historic land of Palestine  
belongs to all who live in it and to those who were expelled or  
exiled from it since 1948, regardless of religion, ethnicity,  
national origin or current citizenship status." It envisages a system  
of government founded on "the principle of equality in civil,  
political, social and cultural rights for all citizens."

It is precisely this basic insistence on equality that is perceived  
by Zionists as an existential threat to Israel, undermining its  
inherently discriminatory foundations which privilege its Jewish  
citizens over all others. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was  
refreshingly frank when he recently admitted that Israel was  
"finished" if it faced a struggle for equal rights by Palestinians. [3]

But whereas transforming a regime of institutionalized racism, or  
apartheid, into a democracy was viewed as a triumph for human rights  
and international law in South Africa and Northern Ireland, it is  
rejected out of hand in the Israeli case as a breach of what is  
essentially a sacred right to ethno-religious supremacy  
(euphemistically rendered as Israel's "right to be a Jewish state.")

Palestinians are urged by an endless parade of Western envoys and  
political hucksters -- the latest among them Tony Blair -- to make do  
with what the African National Congress rightly rejected when offered  
it by South Africa's apartheid regime: a patch-work Bantustan made up  
of isolated ghettoes that falls far below the minimum requirements of  
justice.

Sincere supporters of ending the Israeli occupation have also been  
severely critical of one-state advocacy on moral and pragmatic  
grounds. A moral proposition, some have argued, ought to focus on the  
likely effect it may have on people, and particularly those under  
occupation, deprived of their most fundamental needs, like food,  
shelter and basic services. The most urgent task, they conclude, is  
to call for an end to the occupation, not to promote one-state  
illusions. Other than its rather patronizing premise, that these  
supporters somehow know what Palestinians need more than we do, this  
argument is quite problematic in assuming that Palestinians, unlike  
humans everywhere, are willing to forfeit their long-term rights to  
freedom, equality and self-determination in return for some transient  
alleviation of their most immediate suffering.

The refusal of Palestinians in Gaza to surrender to Israel's demand  
that they recognize its "right" to discriminate against them, even in  
the face of its criminal starvation siege imposed with the backing of  
the United States and the European Union, is only the latest  
demonstration of the fallacy of such assumptions.

A more compelling argument, expressed most recently by Nadia Hijab  
and Victoria Brittain, states that under the current circumstances of  
oppression, when Israel is bombing and indiscriminately killing;  
imprisoning thousands under harsh conditions; building walls to  
separate Palestinians from each other and from their lands and water  
resources; incessantly stealing Palestinian land and expanding  
colonies; besieging millions of defenseless Palestinians in disparate  
and isolated enclaves; and gradually destroying the very fabric of  
Palestinian society, calling for a secular, democratic state is  
tantamount to letting Israel "off the hook." [4]

They worry about weakening an international solidarity movement that  
is "at its broadest behind a two-state solution." But even if one  
ignores the fact that the Palestinian "state" on offer now is no more  
than a broken-up immiserated Bantustan under continued Israeli  
domination, the real problem with this argument is that it assumes  
that decades of upholding a two-state solution have done anything  
concrete to stop or even assuage such horrific human rights abuses.

Since the Palestinian-Israeli Oslo agreements were signed in 1993,  
the colonization of the West Bank and all the other Israeli  
violations of international law have intensified incessantly and with  
utter impunity. We see this again after the recent Annapolis meeting:  
as Israel and functionaries of an unrepresentative and powerless  
Palestinian Authority go through the motions of "peace talks,"  
Israel's illegal colonies and apartheid wall continue to grow, and  
its atrocious collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians in  
Gaza is intensifying without the "international community" lifting a  
finger in response.

This "peace process," not peace or justice, has become an end in  
itself -- because as long as it continues Israel faces no pressure to  
actually change its behavior. The political fiction that a two-state  
solution lies always just around the corner but never within reach is  
essential to perpetuate the charade and preserve indefinitely the  
status quo of Israeli colonial hegemony.

To avoid the pitfalls of further division in the Palestinian rights  
movement, we concur with Hijab and Brittain in urging activists from  
across the political spectrum, irrespective of their opinions on the  
one state, two states debate, to unite behind the 2005 Palestinian  
civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions, or BDS, as  
the most politically and morally sound civil resistance strategy that  
can inspire and mobilize world public opinion in pursuing Palestinian  
rights.

The rights-based approach at the core of this widely endorsed appeal  
focuses on the need to redress the three basic injustices that  
together define the question of Palestine -- the denial of  
Palestinian refugee rights, primary among them their right to return  
to their homes, as stipulated in international law; the occupation  
and colonization of the 1967 territory, including East Jerusalem; and  
the system of discrimination against the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Sixty years of oppression and forty years of military occupation have  
taught Palestinians that, regardless what political solution we  
uphold, only through popular resistance coupled with sustained and  
effective international pressure can we have any chance of realizing  
a just peace.

Hand in hand with this struggle it is absolutely necessary to begin  
to lay out and debate visions for a post-conflict future. It is not  
coincidental that Palestinian citizens of Israel, refugees and those  
in the Diaspora, the groups long disenfranchised by the "peace  
process" and whose fundamental rights are violated by the two-state  
solution have played a key role in setting forward new ideas to  
escape the impasse.

Rather than seeing the emerging democratic, egalitarian vision as a  
threat, a disruption, or a sterile detour, it is high time to see it  
for what it is: the most promising alternative to an already dead two- 
state dogma.

Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of  
One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.  
Omar Barghouti is an independent analyst and a founding member of the  
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.  
This article was originally published by the Guardian: Comment is  
Free and is republished with the authors' permission.


Endnotes
[1] The Freedom Charter
[2] The Belfast Agreement
[3] "Israel risks apartheid-like struggle if two-state solution  
fails, says Olmert," The Guardian, 30 November 2007.
[4] Nadia Hijab and Victoria Brittain, "Struggle for equality" The  
Guardian, 17 December 2007.


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