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BY JOHN REES
Amid the slaughter and destruction in Gaza let us take a moment to ask how is this happening for the third time in five years? And to ask what strategy can bring the Palestinians victory? These questions return us to a central debate among Palestinians: should the struggle aim at a ‘two state solution’ in which Israel returns to the territory it occupied before its annexation of further Palestinian land in 1967 and a Palestinian state emerges on what is left, or should a totally new state come into existence in which Palestinians, Christians and Jews can again live side by side as they did in the area of historic Palestine before the creation of the state of Israel?
Resistance undermined
Let’s look first at the roots of the current crisis. The Obama initiated Israeli-Palestinian negotiations broke down because the Netanyahu government started a new wave of settlement building. This was followed by a violent Israeli opposition to the emergence of the Fatah-Hamas unity government—itself in part a product of a weakened Hamas position resulting from the coup that overthrew the Morsi government in Egypt. Then Israel failed to deliver the fourth stage of the Palestinian prisoner release. Then, and only then, were three Israeli youths kidnapped in the West Bank, not in Gaza. Netanyahu then went to war in Gaza.
What’s more, engagement with the two state solution has damaged the Palestinian cause. The project is always pursued through US sponsored negotiations, always involves Palestinian compromises and ends in undermining Palestinian representatives among the Palestinians themselves.
What this latest onslaught proves beyond doubt is that the Israeli state is in its essence an expansionist state. It was born in 1948 out of the dispossession of Palestinians, and it cannot co-exist with an independent Palestinian state. With every decade that passes more Palestinian land has been seized, no matter what formal agreements are breached to do so. The construction of the Apartheid Wall and the continued spread of illegal settlements has decimated even the reduced territory over which the Palestinian Authority has nominal control since it was set up by the Oslo accords in 1993. The reality of Israel’s expansion has all but removed the possibility of Israel’s withdrawal from the territory it seized in the 1967 war and the formation of an independent Palestinian state.
So the ‘two-state’ solution is a vanishing possibility on the ground. But it is also an increasingly impossible political solution. Even the slightest moves towards Palestinian statehood, like recent recognition at the UN, are met with outright rejection by Israel. No Israeli government would agree to withdrawal to the 1967 borders. And Netanyahu has now ruled this out.
The sight of Palestine Authority forces in the West Bank being stoned by Palestinians during the recent kidnap crisis is only the logical result of this. The rise of Hamas was entirely based on its willingness to resist Israel when the Fatah-led Palestine Authority was not. The Oslo peace process undermined and divided the Palestinian resistance.
All other options are failing
The rise of the two-state solution was in part a result of the decay of Arab nationalism which reached its zenith with the establishment of independent Arab states in the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s. After this their leaders embraced neo-liberalism and dumped their previous affinity for some kind of Russian inspired nationalisation. The result, over time, was the entirely corrupt and illegitimate dictatorships that became the target of the Arab Revolutions in 2011. Arab nationalism was increasingly overtaken as a vehicle for anti-
2 imperialist sentiment by Islamic radicalism, especially after the Iranian revolution of 1979. It has found expression in Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Its primary appeal has been its relative willingness to fight imperialism rather than collude with it as the Arab leaders were doing.
Palestinian loss of land (1946 - 2013)
But this current, although still powerful, is now entering a crisis as a direct result of the Arab Revolutions. The uneven and disputed process of revolution, the recent gains of the counter-revolution in Egypt, the militarisation of the Syrian revolution, the role of Saudi Arabia, the implosion of Iraq, have exposed the weaknesses and contradictions of the Islamic revival. Its moderate political forces have not been able to retain power and its armed variants aiming at a Caliphate imposed by force are unacceptable to most Muslims and are seen as an existential threat by others. Even Hamas, which is a legitimate resistance movement with a considerable base in Gaza, is more unpopular when it is at peace and more popular, unsurprisingly, when it is defending Gaza from Israeli attack.
The one-state solution
All this returns us to the possibility of a onestate solution, for which there are historic precedents. The Palestine Liberation Organisation adopted a one-state solution as its aim in 1969. That year Fatah too declared that it was not fighting against Jews, but against Israel as a racist and theocratic entity. The 5th national council of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in February 1969 passed a resolution confirming that the PLO’s objective was ‘to establish a free and democratic society in Palestine for all Palestinians whether they are Muslims, Christians or Jews’. A 2007 poll of Palestinians found that ‘70% support a one-state solution in historic Palestine where Muslims, Christians and
Jews live together with equal rights and responsibilities’, despite an almost 50-50 split between support for Fatah and Hamas among those polled. Another poll this year showed ‘a clear majority (60% overall, including 55% in the West Bank and 68% in Gaza) say that the five-year goal “should be to work toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine, from the river to the sea”.’ Even the timid Washington Post’s headline proclaimed ‘The two-state solution, RIP’.
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The paper concludes: ‘For at least two decades, a key assumption to U.S. policy on this question is that the final outcome would be two states within the territory that Israel currently controls. That assumption will have to be revised — and US policy in the region will have to be revised along with it’. It would be wise if all who want Palestinian freedom provide a good old answer before the US provides a bad new one. For the full article go to www.counterfire.org
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