As a long-time supporter of a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine, I can only mourn the success the settlers and the Israeli and US governments have found in destroying that path. But reality is reality, and I’ve been saying for some time that the Oslo process is dead. So what to do now? A single state is already a reality, and it is an ugly one. I examine an alternative and the prospects for getting there at Souciant this week.
Archive for the ‘Zionism’ Category
The One-State Solution
Posted in One-State Solution, Zionism, tagged Arab Spring, East Jerusalem, Fatah, Gaza Strip, Habayit Hayehudi, Hamas, Israel, John Kerry, Likud, Mahmoud Abbas, Meretz, Occupied Territories, One-State Solution, Palestine, Two-state solution, United States, West Bank, Yair Lapid, Yesh Atid, Yisrael Beiteinu, Zionism on April 26, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
The Scent of Anti-Semitism
Posted in Anti-Semitism, Zionism, tagged Abraham Foxman, Adam Shapiro, AIPAC, Ali Abunimah, American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism, Electronic Intifada, Flotilla, Free Gaza Movement, Freedom Flotilla, Gaza, Greta Berlin, Huwaida Arraf, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, International Solidarity Movement, Israel, Israel Lobby, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Jewish State, Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews, Kenneth Stern, Naomi Klein, National Council of Churches, Palestine, Palestine Solidarity Movement, Palestinians, pro-Israel, Rabbi Steve Gutow, Racism, Zionism on October 12, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
In this week’s article at Souciant, I examine “two faces” of anti-Semitism, along with the question of whether being anti-Zionist or anti-Israel is the same as being anti-Semitic. As someone who is comfortable neither with the label “Zionist” nor “anti-Zionist” I’d like to think I bring some much needed perspective to that question. In any case, I look at it through the lens of the controversy over Greta Berlin and the Free Gaza Movement and the hysteria of many leading Jewish groups over some Protestant leaders having the temerity to suggest that aid to Israel should be monitored for compliance with US laws and policies, like all other foreign aid.
Saved By Demography
Posted in One-State Solution, Zionism, tagged Benjamin Netanyahu, Channel 10, Daniel Ben Simon, Diaspora, Ha'aretz, Haim Weizmann, Israeli Arabs, Jews, Kadima, Knesset, Labor, Law of Return, Meretz, Palestinians, Post-Zionism, settlers, Shas, Shelly Yachimovich, Tal Law, Yair Lapid, Yesh Atid, Yisrael Beitenu, Zehava Gal-On, Zionism on August 3, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
In this week’s article at Souciant I look at recent shifts in the Israeli political landscape within the context of how two-staters might start to seriously rethink their approach in a post-Oslo world.
Israel for Everyone
Posted in 1967, Zionism, tagged asylum seekers, Avigdor Lieberman, B'Tselem, Benjamin Netanyahu, David Ben-Gurion, Eli Yishai, HaMoked, Israel, Jewish National Fund, Josef Weitz, Mandate for Palestine, Migrants, Miri Regev, Palestinians, Peace Index, Peel Commission, Refugees, United Nations, Yishuv, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Zionism on June 13, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
This week’s Souciant article is up. In it, I look at the bigotry of the Zionism of Eli Yishai, its prominent role in Israel and Zionism not only today but historically, and how Jewish self-determination could exist without both that hate and the obsession with an artificially created and enforced “Jewish majority.”
Unfair to Whom?
Posted in Refugees, Zionism, tagged Anti-Zionism, BDS, Daily Beast, human rights, international law, Israel, Jerusalem, Justice, Middle east, One-State Solution, Open Zion, Palestinian Refugees, Peter beinart, pro-Israel, Right of Return, Two-state solution, United Nations, West Bank on April 24, 2012 | 3 Comments »
In response to my piece at the Daily beast today, the noted UK activist and author, Ben White, asked me, on Twitter, what I meant by the following sentence: “Yousef (Munayyer) implied that the only way to recognize Palestinian rights is to allow each refugee and their descendants to choose whether and where, within all of historic Palestine, to return to. That is an unfair standard.”
I respond here because it’s a fair question that deserves more than a 140 character response.
What I mean here is that, while I think it is perfectly legitimate for Palestinians to call for, and for others to support, the full right of return to their original homes, there are also legitimate reasons not to support that call.
In the piece to which my own was a response, Yousef Munayyer claims that Zionism is inherently incapable of recognizing Palestinian rights. His takeoff for this point is Daniel Levy’s statement that he cannot support the Palestinian civil society call for BDS. That call has three clauses, two of which I fully support and I would feel very safe in saying Daniel does as well: self-determination for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and full equality for Arab citizens of Israel. So the issue is with the third, the call for the right of return for refugees.
I think it is not inherently anti-Israel to call for full RoR. I also think it is not inherently anti-Palestinian to say that RoR must be limited, and this is what i describe in my Daily Beast piece. But Yousef seemed to imply that anything less than full support for RoR proves that “liberal Zionists” like Daniel Levy (and non-Zionists like myself, presumably) cannot truly accept that Palestinians have the same rights as everyone else. I disagree, in that I think they do have the same rights as everyone else and, like everyone else, those rights exist within political realities that we all have to deal with. And, as I state in the piece, those universal rights only entitle refugees to return to their home country, not to specific areas within it, necessarily.
Thus, I believe the standard Yousef set for what would be viewed as respecting Palestinian rights is an unfair one.
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