Comment

Comment by Simon JM on September 14, 2010 at 9:36pm

I agree on Egypt with all the overpopulation, poverty and political corruption it is ripe to fall.

& water in the region is going to be a killer. I wouldn't be surprised if Iraq and Turkey go at it over this one.

Do you think Israel is foolish enough to bomb Iran?

Comment by Al-KADIM on September 14, 2010 at 9:25pm

Unfortunately, I agree with most of what you are saying here. I'd just add a couple of things.

1. Peak water will play as important a role as peak oil, particularly in that region.
2. There will be a power shift with more secular Arab states looking for help from Israel and eventually forming coalitions with it to combat fundamentalism. This is already happening in the West Bank and Jordan, and to some degree in other states in the region. Surprisingly, I think it will happen with Syria too (the Alawis are scared). Egypt is the lynch pin there, and the most worth watching.
3. I agree that America will be unable to help Israel like it has in the past. On the other hand, as a stable regime it will be a prize as an ally once peak oil hits. In other words, if the Chinese or Indians want to keep an eye on the region, they are better off doing it from Israel than from Saudi Arabia, which will eventually fall to fundamentalism.
4. I continue to think Gaza is the most severe problem because of the demographics, density, etc. Frankly, everyone in the region, including WB Palestinians and Egypt, think it is a powder keg, regardless of who is in charge there.

Comment by Simon JM on September 14, 2010 at 8:57pm

Gaza would be one problem among many in a one state solution, and not in itself any more intractable than the other problems.

The problem is the US because of internal politics cannot be an honest broker and with internal Israeli politics being what they are we are still a long way off where all sides are forced to try to be fair in negotiations. I like a quote by Livy that speaks about not being able to live with the problems they have, but also not being able to bare the solutions as well. My feeling is that things will go on the way they have been until Peak Oil, Climate Change or the final Global Financial Crisis hit.

The US will go bankrupt and will have enough on its hands to worry about what is going on in Israel, so effectively they will be on their own. I expect surrounding states to turn into Islamic extremist failed states and for Israel to end up facing guerrilla warfare on all its borders and internally as well. Nukes are useless in these circumstances.

BTW if they bomb Iran this will come about that much quicker.

IMO time will run out before any solution could have been applied and things will sort themselves out on the ground. Iraq on steroids.

Comment by Al-KADIM on September 14, 2010 at 7:40pm

@Simon. For the record, I am not opposed to a one-state solution. In fact, I think it is the preferred solution for the region, and I have advocated for it both here and in various other publications, media, etc. I do, however, think that there are major issues that have to be resolved first. The key one is economic disparity. You cannot have a viable one state solution where Jews are a wealthy class and Palestinians are a laboring class. That is potentially more dangerous than the current situation and it would certainly serve the Palestinians poorly.

In practical terms, think of the repercussions: 1.5 million Gazans working as day laborers in construction and 1.5 million Tel Avivis working in high tech and finance. That's not a democracy. That's neo-feudalism.

Now let's take your second question regarding demographic shifts into the equation. If Jews become the minority, as you assume (I question it for various reasons), then you have a situation where a minority controls all the wealth and a minority is kept as working class. That's even worse.

Like I said, I support a single state solution, but before simply embarking on it, let's put together a viable working model? Do you propose cantonization, as in Switzerland? Again, given the economic disparities, that simply creates Bantustans. Do you want a Belgian model? That's not working too well either. A Czechoslovakian model? I'm showing my age.

By all means a one-state solution, but work out the details first. And note that the state Bisharat is talking about excludes Gaza. So I repeat my earlier question. What is the solution for Gaza?

Comment by Simon JM on September 14, 2010 at 6:37pm

Al-Kadim I'm surprised that you aren't more informed on the demographic shifts as some Jews are already worrying about being outbreed and becoming the minority.

Comment by Simon JM on September 14, 2010 at 6:34pm

Israel and Palestine: A true one-state solution

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/02/AR2...

Comment by Al-KADIM on September 14, 2010 at 4:33pm

@ TNT. One state, one person, one vote? Okay? Do you have to live in the state to get a vote or are you excluding refugees? Jewish Israelis are a majority now, so you are saying that they would maintain control? What about economic disparity--I've spent time in Tel Aviv and Ramallah and Gaza. I remember seeing a teenage girl from Gaza walking for the first time in Tel Aviv. She had never seen grass before and didn't know what it was. All that you are essentially doing is providing a democratic veneer to justify continuing the occupation.

Comment by Al-KADIM on September 14, 2010 at 4:28pm

The points you make are all very valid. What is important, however, is to understand Zionism from the perspective of the 19th century Russian Jews who adopted it, and from the perspective of the Central European Jews who first formulated its ideology (and the two are very different).

In nineteenth century Russia, Jews were forced to live within a restricted territory (known as the Pale) with very limited access to the cities. The government was largely anti-Semitic, and there were frequent pogroms (usually around Easter). There was essentially no hope for them.

They responded in several ways. One group joined the communist party and became revolutionaries. In this they were somewhat successful. After the Revolution, the first Politburo consisted of Andrei Bubnov, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Vladimir Lenin, Grigory Sokolnikov, Joseph Stalin, and Leon Trotsky. Four out of the seven were Jews (Bubnov, Lenin, and Stalin were not), and by the next Soviet, their numbers increased. think of the ratio--four Jews, two Russians, and a Georgian.

On the other hand, a large segment of Jews decided to just get the hell out of Russia. Most of them decided to go to America, which had opened its borders at the time. Some of these ended up in strange places (a boat with Jews landed in Dublin, Ireland, and the Jews were told it was New York. They got off and the boat sailed away. Irish Jewish community is born).

Then there was a third group, which was largely socialist but wanted to maintain some sense of Jewish cultural identity and thought of attaining their own independence. This was influenced by the nationalist trends of the time, which eventually saw the independence of the Balkans, Romania, Poland, Czechs and Slovaks, and Hungarians. If all those groups could have states, they argued, why couldn't the Jews? The question was where? For most of them, the obvious answer was in their historic homeland, to which they still maintained ties.

It actually seemed quite reasonable. The country was under the Ottomans, and their empire was dying. Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece had all gained their independence from it. Why shouldn't they?

The problem was that they did not realize that there were already inhabitants there. To be fair, there weren't many, but they were there. Some were Jews, but most were Muslims and Christians.

A couple of things should be said about this. This paralleled the heyday of the colonial period, when Western European powers were carving up Africa and Asia between them. No one paid much though to dark skinned colonial subjects.

The area itself was a backwater of the Ottoman Empire and not even a distinct province. It, Jordan, and Lebanon, were all part of some amorphous Syria, with Jordan and Palestine being referred to as South Syria.

The territory was remarkably diverse. There were distinct communities of Shiites, Sunnis, Druze, Alawis, Greek Orthodox, Maronites, Catholics, Armenians, Cherkesses, Blacks (descended from Mamluk slaves), Gypsies, and Turks, along with an established Jewish population. They reasoned, what's one more minority?

They didn't understand the feudal land ownership structure. Now, they were familiar with feudalism from Russia, but in Russia, land owners generally lived on their properties surrounded by villages of serfs. In Palestine, land owners had very little to do with their properties apart from collecting taxes. Most of them lived in Beirut or Istanbul or Damascus. They may have bought land from land owners who had never even seen the land they sold and had no idea what was there.

By WWI, Jews began to realize that there was potential for conflict with the other ethnic groups there. Like you say, it was like North America. Some were willing to make treaties, but others were not.

For their part, the Jews, influenced by socialist ideals, saw their state in the making as transcending ethnic rivalries. Two Zionist thinkers, Berdichevsky and Borochov, spoke about an inverted period and a state of workers, Jewish and Arab, overthrowing colonial norms to create a socialist utopia. Even the far right took similar positions, with Revisionist Zionist leader Zeev Jabotinsky (Menachem Begin's mentor) writing about a Jewish President and an Arab Vice President enshrined in some future constitution. It was idealistic nonsense, because no one had actually bothered to ask the Arabs what they think.

Meanwhile, the Arabs were being spurred to rebel against the Ottomans by Lawrence (of Arabia). At this time, a sense of national identity began to emerge, though it was at first very tenuous.

The Hashemites, who were originally from Hejaz in modern Saudi Arabia, were promised rewards for supporting the British and the French. It was good timing, because although they were direct descendants of Muhammad through Fatimah, they were kicked out of there by the Najdi (from neighboring Najd) Ibn Saud (country named after him) in the early 20s.

To reward the Hashemite Sharif Hussein, one son Ali became king of Hejaz (later kicked out by Ibn Saud--he went to Iraq), one son Feisal became king of Syria, but they kicked him out so he became king of Iraq, and one son, Abdullah, became king of Trans-Jordan. Palestine was left out of the equation for several reasons. Its ethnic complexity was one, but it was also strategically important since it controlled access to the Suez Canal, and it had religious sites that Christians wanted to control.

Palestinians were pissed, to say the least, and for various reasons they blamed the Jews. Actually, it was pretty common at the time. By the late 1920s fascism was growing in Europe, and with no where to go (America had closed its borders) Jews tried to flee to Palestine. Of course, this only made the Palestinians even more angry. The Jews were getting desperate too. Where would they go to escape Hitler? Meanwhile the Palestinian leadership was flirting with Nazism to throw out the British and Jews. (The same thing was happening in Egypt btw, and there was a pro-Nazi regime in Iraq for two years under Rashid Ali al-Qaylani). Only the Saudis supported the Allies consistently.

So, imagine the tension in Palestine. Jewish refugees from Hitler v. pro-Hitler nationalists. It wasn't pretty. The thing is that until about 20 years ago, there were still key figures on the Israeli side who remembered it that way.

The rest is easy. World War II. Holocaust. Displaced Jews with nowhere to go. Guilt among the Allies. Partition plan. 48 War. 56 War. 67 War. 73 War. 82 War. Intifada I. Intifada II. Distrust. Atrocities by both sides. Both sides foster extremism (settlers, Hamas), who set the tone for the conflict.

I would suggest though that what is happening now is that on both sides there are also groups that hope to come to an amicable resolution of the conflict. Peace Now, for instance, in Israel, or the government of Salam Fayyed in the West Bank. Since neither group is about to disappear from the country, the real question should be how to create a viable, sustainable situation without the ethnic tension and economic disparity that currently plagues the region (as long as Palestinians are poorer than Israelis, nothing will work). That's the only real opportunity.

Comment by TNT666 on September 14, 2010 at 3:25pm

You asked for my idea of a solution, I'll reiterate my very first comment: 1 state, 1 person 1 vote. Internationally enforced, all military aid ceased.

Comment by Geraldo Cienmarcos on September 14, 2010 at 3:04pm

All,

I think the issue of Arab-Palestinians rejecting "the UN partition" is complicated. Not all Palestinians rejected it. Also the motives of Britain, France and others, were not entirely altruistic.

I tend to agree that a spiritual - Biblical idea of "Jerusalem" and "Israel" was co-opted by Jewish European settlers, with a chauvinistic sense of entitlement to land, that in recent history was not their land. Even some indigenous Jews of Palestine were given the shove to some extent. Somewhat parallel, some native Americans wanted to make peace treaties with European settlers, at some sacrifice to themselves, and some did not.

What I find profoundly disturbing is the double standard that Israel postures with regards to Human Rights and War Crimes. In Israel's political schema, it seems that Palestinians don't have any rights.

And yet Jews have a long modern history that they can be proud of with regards to advocacy for human rights and its codification in law. Not to mention a proud advocacy and support for the fine arts, science, civil rights and especially public education, in Europe and the Americas where I live (USA). Why is that historical cultural sensibility of Jews ignored when it comes to Palestinians?
-- Gary

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• …
• 13
• Next ›
• Page