
This is being posted on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day. Most of the following was in a piece rejected by Jewish Currents, for which I had been a frequent contributor until the new anti-Zionist editorial direction began last year. Please forgive some overlap with an earlier piece posted here, but also rejected by Jewish Currents:
Well thought out and nuanced, Ralph. We always seem to be coming back to the two-state solution. Yet, the stark opponents of one another, Hamas and Bibi, both seem intent at pushing the other into the sea. Perhaps if Bibi is found guilty of the corruption charges with which he is charged, there will arise a new Prime Minister who knows not ultimatums. Yesh tamid Tikva.
Thanks Jeff. I agree that it’s important to keep hope alive, even as things continue to look bleak.
The original two state solution Is not viable anymore. Neither Is a binational federación. The most desireable plan Is a confederation between Israel and Palestina, a new version of the two state as proposed by Dahlia Schiendlin. Checo out also the A Land for All site.
Thanks Mr. Greenstein. Although the “Two States, One Homeland” approach is imaginative and seems to resolve important issues, it’s not without problems and obstacles of its own. We discussed this matter in a TTN post this past February: https://thirdnarrative.org/israel-palestine-articles/two-states-one-homeland-is-about-two-states/. What also came across in the webinar we referenced is that Two States/One Homeland is meant to be an implementation of a two-state solution and not an alternative!
Radical anti-Zionists respond to Ralph Seliger’s arguments by saying that the state of Israel should have been created in Germany instead, as the Germans were so discredited after the Holocaust that it would have been easy to convince the Allies to carve out part of their country and give it to the Jews. I don’t know how many times I have heard this argument. Obviously, these people fail to understand that the Jews returned to Palestine before the Holocaust. There was already 500,000 Jews living in Palestine in 1939. In order to create a Jewish state in Germany, it would have been necessary to displace the entire Yishuv. It would have been both impracticable and immoral. The partition of Palestine may not be a perfect solution, but it was (and remains) “the line of the least injustice” to quote Chaim Weizmann.
Very well said! What most anti-Zionists also miss is that the UN’s original partition plan had bi-national elements: two states in an economic union, including a common currency, international control over a Jerusalem-Bethlehem district, and protections specified for the Arab and Jewish minorities within the other’s state. It was actually a kind of confederation. See this recent post: https://thirdnarrative.org/israel-palestine-articles/one-state-two-state-no-state-new-state/.
Interesting. A confederation might be the only way to save the two-state solution and to reconcile Israel’s right to exist with the right of return.
I would add to my initial comment that there is another moral argument invoked by the founding fathers of Israel to justify Zionism: the universal right to national self-determination. If all peoples are entitled to self-determination, it is legitimate for a homeless people, as were the Jews, to want to go back to a part of its ancient homeland. It is not an irredentist whim. However, the Palestinians didn’t see why they should be the only ones paying for the creation of Israel. They saw it as a real injustice.
Both sides are right. This is why this conflict is not a struggle between good and evil but rather a clash of rights, as in a Greek tragedy. Alas, the narrow-minded pro-Palestinian far-left and the stubborn pro-Israel far-right refuse to acknowledge this complexity. They live in a simplistic world where between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, only one people is entitled to national self-determination. It’s really pathetic!
Great Wisdom—Sad conclusion.