Between the undesirable and the unattainable

by Hasan Abu Nimah

The argument about whether the final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians would be based on two states or on one binational state is heating up. Supporters of the two-state solution are struggling hard, in the face of adverse realities on the ground, to save that option. They know quite well that even if the validity of the binational option is in the end established, it will be a very hard and long road before such a solution can take root.

Many in the region see this possibility as a direct threat to their interests. Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher was recently quoted in Haaretz as urging the need to "push ahead with the roadmap, before it's too late". Probably the roadmap, in the minister's view is the only available scheme for implementing the two-state solution, which he described "as a Jordanian national interest today, and this explains our strong commitment to all efforts aimed at arriving at such a solution, whether the Arab initiative or later the roadmap".

The Jordanian concern stems from the fact that if a Palestinian state is not established in the West Bank and Gaza "another solution will be sought at [Jordan's] expense", in Muasher's words, which, according to Haaretz's interpretation, might mean that "[the Palestinian state] will ultimately arise in Jordan.

Neither this nor the much talked about possibility of Israel pushing more Palestinians into Jordan should be allowed on the list of our concerns. We should not allow our confidence, and indeed our ability to defend our national interests, regardless of what others may maliciously contemplate, be questioned, let alone shaken.

The Palestinian National Authority has also repeatedly voiced its concern over the slipping opportunity for a two-state solution, and warned that Palestinians may shift their strategy from seeking independence to demanding annexation in a single democratic binational state. But it is obvious that any such threat is often meant to urge Israeli attendance to the changing peace plans rather than truly opting for the single state option which renders the PNA's role, and probably its existence, pointless.

The strongest opposition to the idea of the single binational state comes from Israel because this idea destroys the Zionist dream of creating in Palestine a purely Jewish state, without sharing the "promised land" with any other people. In the summer issue of the Middle East Report, Gary Sussman writes that 78 per cent of the Israelis oppose the idea of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence in one nation, and that they consider it a recipe for a "Greater Palestine".

According to Haifa University's Arnon Sofer, (Middle East Report) Jews will become a 40 per cent minority in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza combined, when the total population west of the Jordan will reach that year 15.5 million, of which 8.8 millions will be Palestinian Arabs, and 6.4 millions will be Jews.

But Israel, which opposes the idea of a binational state on demographic and many other grounds, has also opposed the two-state based solution in word and in deed. The last pronouncement indicating Israel's determination to obstruct the emergence of a Palestinian state came from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's influential chief adviser, Dov Weisglass. He said in no unclear terms that the Sharon plan for unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was meant to block the creation of a Palestinian state as well as the freezing of the peace process. He also revealed that this policy is approved by Washington.

That is the word. The deed: the creation of facts on the ground has been ongoing since 1967 when Israel started a relentless process of colonising the West Bank and Gaza (and of course the Syrian Golan Heights). At present, less than 10 per cent of the historic land of Palestine remains uncolonised, with over three and a half million Palestinians living on those fragmented leftovers.

If it is impossible for Israel to allow a settlement on the basis of a single democratic binational state for Jews and Arabs alike, and if it is equally impossible as a result of Israeli actions on the ground to allow the emergence of a separate Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza, as it is internationally envisaged, what will the exit from this impasse be?

Israel is actually besieging itself behind two walls. One is the actual wall, the separation wall which physically isolates Israel from the immediate region of which it is supposed to be part. The other is the diplomatic wall which has been steadily blocking Israel from any possibility of a political exit from the tight corner it has painted itself into. Israel has, as a result, become the victim of its ridicule of the Palestinians' "not missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity".

For Israel to arrest the deterioration going towards certain disaster, it has to choose one of the only two possible options. One is the two-state solution, which means the return to the June 1967 lines without leaving behind any settlers or soldiers, and without playing with deceptive formulas of land swaps and territorial alterations which are simply tricks to let Israel keep its ill-gotten gains mainly in and around occupied Jerusalem. There is no room for that. The other is a single state for both Arabs and Jews, where all people will have equal rights. If the first is not attainable because Israel, with American support and, sadly, Palestinian acquiescence, insists on maintaining its illegally built colonies in the occupied territories, then Israel might have to opt for the other: the highly undesirable (for it) binational state.

In its quest to "redeem" the land, while getting rid of its native Palestinian population, Israel has been driven to contemplate an apartheid system of walled ghettos or outright ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population. But while such drastic measures will widen and intensify the conflict beyond our worst nightmares, they would also fail, producing one sure result: the self-destruction of the Zionist plan in Palestine.

To avoid that, Israel must choose either the unattainable or the undesirable, and definitely before it is too late.

This article was published in the Wednesday, October 20, 2004 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.