Binational state solution "One problem, one solution"

by As'ad Ghanem , Al-Ahram Weekly 23-29 July 1998 (Via Imra)

The writer is an Arab citizen of the state of Israel and a history lecturer at Haifa University.

EXCERPTS:

. . .the establishment of an independent state as a solution to the Palestinian "problem" has become an impossibility. This assertion rests on several facts:

The establishment of a Palestinian state is not mentioned in any of the clauses of the Oslo agreement, thus leaving the matter to be determined by the balance of power in the region. This balance tilts in favour of Israel, which rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state,.... No Israeli party, neither Labour nor Likud, is ready to accept a Palestinian state....

{S}ettlement activity in the West Bank continues, as does the confiscation of land and the opening of roads to service the settlements. Israeli governments, past or present, have never been willing to commit themselves to the evacuation of settlers... . Yet this is a basic pre-condition for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, especially in the light of Israel's obligation towards the settlers .. .

Furthermore, in any future solution it is certain that Israel will invoke its security needs to justify continuing to tighten its control over the Jordan Valley (Al-Ghor), thus rendering the Palestinian project impossible.

Jerusalem has suffered and is still suffering from the continuation of settlement activity, the building of Jewish neighbourhoods, the confiscation of Jerusalem IDs and the policy of "facts on the ground" which leaves no room for future Palestinian control over the city.

Israel's continued exploitation and depletion of the natural resources of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for the benefit of Israelis, settlers or otherwise, is another probably fatal obstacle. Israel deliberately persists in drawing down water reserves in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, ... .

The basic characteristics of the PA and the manner in which Palestinian officials have used the power vested in them since the establishment of the Authority, indicate their inability to move towards establishing a modern and independent state. Their methods of managing those areas of Palestinian life which fall under their control are among the most important obstacles to the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In addition, Palestinians living outside the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are experiencing increasing difficulties. The Palestinian community in Israel is unable to integrate or assimilate with either of the two sides, Israeli or Palestinian. It is this fact which underlies its failure to act politically and its deepening sense of social, cultural and economic crisis.

IF THE GOAL OF AN INDEPENDENT Palestinian state is indeed unattainable, for the reasons set out above, is there then an alternative solution?

One answer that is increasingly to be found in the writings and pronouncements of certain Palestinian intellectuals and politicians is the idea of a binational state (Israeli/Jewish-Palestinian/Arab) in Mandatory

Palestine. ... Inherent in such an arrangement is the condition that the groups living there are enabled to coexist and to develop on the following

fundamental bases:

1. There exists a broad coalition of representatives of the two communities and a balance of power is preserved. ...

2. Both groups should have the right of veto. ...

3. Representation on all bodies and governmental apparatuses should respect balance and equality between the two communities. ...

4.Institutional or regional self-rule for each group: each group will conduct and develop its own private affairs through an apparatus of self-rule, particularly in the cultural and educational fields.

Those who support the concept of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have to believe that the Palestinians in Israel will be able to continue to live there as citizens, and will solve their problems within the Israeli framework. Yet if so many of the problems besetting these people have not been solved already, it is precisely because they cannot be solved in an Israeli context, in which Palestinians, far from being treated as equals, are viewed as foreigners and, sometimes, even as enemies.

Nor can their problems be solved as long as they continue to be cut off politically and culturally from the rest of the Palestinian people.

In this new Israel, the "old" Israeli Palestinians would, on the one hand, be citizens with equal rights; while on the other, they would be part of the Palestinian community, thus transcending their present position as a weak numerical minority.

Their reintegration with the Palestinian community living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will bolster their confidence and expand the scope of their development. It is only within such parameters that both their identity as citizens and their national belonging can find some form of completion.

One of the conditions for the establishment of a Palestinian state set by Israel is that the Palestinian Authority will not open its doors to Palestinian refugees, as this would result in a rapid change in the Israeli-Palestinian demographic balance.

The majority of these refugees have in any case been forcibly removed from areas where the State of Israel stands today. They are subject to continuing discrimination wherever they are in the Arab world, which explains why, over the last few years, large numbers of these refugee youths have emigrated to the West, especially Europe.

FOR ALL THESE REASONS, it is necessary to find a political solution to the Palestinian problem that can guarantee these people, theoretically at least, the possibility of return to their country of origin. This solution can only be a binational state based on equality and parity.

For in such a state, the right of return that has been exercised by millions of Jews since 1948, would have to be extended to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees... .

{T}he evolution and implementation of a binational state does not necessitate the agreement of Israel at this stage, but merely that of the Palestinians. Israel's consent will be needed at the end of a process by which that concept is forcefully imposed upon the attention of the Jewish community -- a process which may well take many decades.

{A} binational state will not abort the concept of a Palestinian national project; on the contrary, it is an expansion of it, as it will include the Palestinians in Israel, and as the state will be established on all of Mandatory Palestine, with the proviso that the other national-ethnic group there -- the Jews -- deserves to be treated according to the same criteria.

Palestinians in Israel will have to seek possibilities of cultural, social, economic, political and syndical cooperation and integration with those Palestinians living under the rule of the PA. The Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, for their part, will have to encourage their compatriots in Israel by engaging extensively in Arab activities taking place inside Israel -- an exchange that would take place under the auspices of the PA.