This morning, Sept. 10, there was a panel discussion on my new book, “What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda,” at the Wilson Center with my fellow panelists Aaron David Miller of the Wilson Center and Rob Malley of the International Crisis Group. I think it is one of the best conversations on the question of peace and how to get there in which I have ever been a part. Video of the event should be forthcoming in a few days from Wilson, but in the meantime, I am posting my prepared remarks that served as a basis of my formal comments. As delivered, they were somewhat different, of course, as will be reflected in the recording of the program. But the ideas are all the same. I would like to thank the Center and Dr. Miller for arranging the event and to Mr. Malley for his outstanding participation.
PREPARED REMARKS FOR THE 9/10/O9 WILSON CENTER PANEL:
On college campuses in the United States and Britain, and increasingly among grassroots activists in the West generally, the cause of ending the Israeli occupation and securing independence for a Palestinian state is being abandoned in favor of a much more far-reaching goal of replacing Israel with a single, democratic state for all Israelis and Palestinians, including all of the refugees. Until now, this rhetoric has been largely unchallenged from a pro-Palestinian point of view, which is probably been a significant factor in its appeal.
My new book, “What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda?,” which is available for free download or purchase on the website of the American Task Force on Palestine, traces the development of this agenda and interrogates its assumptions and claims.
The outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000, which inflicted profound suffering and created deep ill-will on both sides, bolstered stridently nationalist perspectives in Israel and among the Palestinians. For many, it prompted a negative reevaluation of what kind of peace was possible and desirable.
In Israel, this was manifested in the collapse of the ?peace camp,? a radical shift to the political right and the election of Ariel Sharon. Among Palestinians, Islamists, especially Hamas, gained significant ground.
In the Palestinian diaspora, where support for Hamas is both limited and, especially in the United States, politically untenable and even legally risky, this same disillusionment and radicalization has been largely expressed through the rise of the one-state agenda.
More generally, the one-state agenda reflects the widespread conclusion that Israel will never agree to seriously end the occupation and allow for the creation of a fully sovereign, viable Palestinian state, and that therefore negotiations and diplomacy are pointless.
At the end of part one of my book I pose a series of pointed questions that are not usually addressed to, or have been insufficiently answered by, one-state advocates, and in many cases not adequately considered by their sympathizers:
? If Israel will not agree to end the occupation, what makes anyone think that it will possibly agree to dissolve itself? If Israel cannot be compelled or convinced to surrender 22% of the territory it holds, how can it be compelled or convinced to surrender or share 100% of it?
? What, as a practical matter, does this vision of a single, democratic state offer to Jewish Israelis?
? What efforts have Palestinian and pro-Palestinian one-state advocates made in reaching out to mainstream Jews and Israelis and to incorporating their national narrative in this vision?
? How do one-state advocates propose to supersede or transcend Palestinian national identity and ambitions? Why is it that no significant Palestinian political party or faction has adopted this goal?
? How, apart from empty slogans about largely nonexistent and highly implausible boycotts, do one-state advocates propose to realize or advance their vision? What practical steps do they imagine and what is their roadmap for success?
? Since they reject both Palestinian independence and the ongoing agenda of infrastructural and institutional development presently defining the strategy of the ?quisling? Palestinian Authority, what do one-state advocates, as a practical matter, offer those living under occupation other than expressions of solidarity and interminable decades of continued struggle and suffering?
It is striking that the most ardent and tenacious one-state advocates seem to be taking a great deal of time in starting to formulate an answer to any of these questions.
I have no doubt that sooner or later a response, and hopefully a calm and thoughtful one, will be forthcoming from some of the committed one-state advocates. But the amount of time it is taking to formulate any sort of answer to these extremely relevant and pointed questions suggests that, perhaps, they are proving somewhat difficult to formulate and, quite possibly, in many cases were not anticipated.
But there surely must be a considerable burden of proof on those proposing that the Palestinian national movement abandon its long-standing goal of ending the occupation, which is based on a huge body of international law and reflects a regional and international consensus, in favor of a grand experiment in almost entirely uncharted waters that seems to pose significant risks and offer uncertain benefits.
One-state proponents have an obligation to explain how exactly they think they can achieve the extraordinary task of compelling or convincing Israel to effectively dissolve itself.
If they cannot answer simple, clear and obvious questions such as these, it will be impossible to consider one-state rhetoric an actual agenda for accomplishing anything, but rather a convenient vehicle for rejecting any and all things Israeli and adopting a position of uncompromising confrontation.
While the one state agenda (I will not call it a solution, as it is at best a distant outcome) is really only influential on campuses and among grassroots activists and has no role in the policy conversation in Washington, there nonetheless is the question outlined by Dr. Miller regarding the viability or achievability of a two state agreement. Both of my colleagues here today are on record questioning whether such agreement could be achieved and whether, even if it were, it would really resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
I think we have to start an evaluation of these suggestions with two fairly obvious points which I think are not disputed by any serious commentator: first, that a military victory which resolves the conflict is not available to either party; and second, that the status quo is untenable and unacceptable to both. Neither Israel nor the Palestinians are going to go away or capitulate and abandon their national identities or projects. Therefore, in the absence of a resolution, or a process leading towards resolution, conflict will continue and there will be a generalized relationship of violence and indeed warfare.
It strikes me that anyone who wishes to conclude that a two state peace agreement is either unachievable or undesirable has a political, and indeed a moral, obligation to propose a workable alternative. And let me stress that this alternative must be acceptable to both parties, which is to say it must meet the minimum national requirements of both Israel and the Palestinians. For the reasons I’ve outlined in my book, while I think the one-state agenda might be acceptable to many, and possibly even to most, Palestinians, at least in theory, I am absolutely convinced that there is no way, and no one has been able to demonstrate any plausible way, to make it appealing to all but a tiny fringe of Jewish Israelis. They will not accept it, and they will fight vigorously and virtually unanimously against it.
Much the same applies to ideas on the Israeli right about somehow forcing Egypt to resume responsibility for Gaza and passing parts of the West Bank which Israel does not wish to retain back into Jordanian control, thereby obviating the need for any agreement with the Palestinians. This may be very appealing to many Israelis, but it is absolutely unacceptable to the Palestinians, the Egyptians and the Jordanians, and they too will not accept it and will fight vigorously and virtually unanimously against it. So these ideas are not plausible alternatives, because at best they only speak to the interests of one side. Rather, they are excuses for not having a plausible workable alternative while rejecting the two state solution.
If there is another formula for meeting the minimal national requirements of both parties in a manner that would, in fact, end the conflict, as I strongly believe a two state solution would, I am completely unaware of it. It strikes me that, as I repeatedly stress in my book, it is not as if the parties, the region and the world has a plethora of interesting choices regarding this conflict. In fact, I think the choice boils down rather starkly to a rather brutal binary: war or peace. To conclude or assert that a two state agreement is unavailable and unworkable without providing a workable alternative that both parties would or might plausibly accept under realistically imaginable scenarios, it seems to me, fails to constructively address the real policy challenge facing not only the parties but also the United States.
Over the past decade or so, maybe longer, the benefits to the United States in resolving this conflict have become increasingly clear. But I think what’s now becoming more acutely appreciated, and this partly explains the Obama administration’s prioritizing of diplomacy on Palestinian-Israeli peace, are the very real costs to the United States of failing to resolve the conflict. Dr. Miller, for example, for all his skepticism, reflected a very well-developed appreciation for these costs in his superb book “The Much Too Promised Land.”
It seems to me that to propose that a two state agreement is simply too implausible to form the basis of a sound policy for the United States, or a reasonable strategy for either Israel or the Palestinians, without proposing a viable alternative is to suggest that somehow the status quo is tenable or that one simply has to except that an extremely brutal and highly damaging conflict is going to continue for the foreseeable future and that there is nothing we can do about this. I don’t think this is the most constructive approach to the issue.
And let me add, the alternative is not simply a continuation of the conflict as we have known it, but a serious intensification and, in all probability, an increasing atmosphere of religious fanaticism in terms of reference making the conflict much more violent and much more resistant to any kind of negotiated resolution. Just because the only available path to avoiding an incredibly dangerous and tragic future is going to be extremely difficult is not a good argument for abandoning it. I’d be extremely happy to consider alternatives, but I really have not heard of any serious ones. It’s the practical equivalent of saying but there is no political way to sell the necessary steps to avoid catastrophic global warming, and by implication therefore we shouldn’t try to address the issue.
In my book I propose what I think is the real measure of how to judge when the two-state solution really becomes an implausible anachronism and should be either abandoned or seriously rethought, and that would be when large majorities of both Israelis and Palestinians conclude over a sustained period of time that such an agreement is either unattainable or undesirable. At that point, obviously, it will be difficult and possibly pointless to resurrect this model. However, until now the two state solution is the preferred option for majorities among both Israelis and Palestinians. It has been accepted in principle by an Israeli government, however reluctant it was to do so, and was unchallenged at the recent sixth Fatah General Party Congress in Bethlehem. It is rooted in a very large body of international law and UN Security Council resolutions. It is supported by almost the entirety of the international community, including the Arab states as reflected in the Arab peace initiative, and is now a national security priority for the United States.
Most importantly, it is the only way for Israel to secure its goals of peace and regional recognition and integration and for it to secure a Jewish majority within its borders, and for the Palestinians to achieve their national goals of freedom and independence. In everyone’s interest, therefore, our challenge is to find a way to make this work, not to conclude that it cannot work.
But let me be clear about this: I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the optimist party. I have no illusions about the obstacles facing the realization of such an agreement, or the significant possibility (and perhaps even probability although I do not think so) that no such agreement can be reached. However, given the lack of plausible, workable alternatives and the grim reality of what the consequences of a failure to achieve such an agreement would be for all parties, even if one work to conclude the chances for such an agreement are in the range of, say, 10 or even 5%, the only constructive course would be to work to achieve it nonetheless.
Past administrations have tried to avoid this problem, but it is too central to be ignored and always has a way of coming back to bite one in the backside, so to speak. Walking away is not a reasonable option, in my view. At least not for the United States. Neither is accepting the status quo and managing an inherently unmanageable conflict that is in continuous deterioration as long as the diplomatic process is not functioning properly. And, I repeat, I see no viable alternatives, which is exactly why I wrote this book about the one-state agenda, which I think is plainly a nonstarter at least for most Israelis.
For all the reasons, I can only conclude that the challenge before us is to devote our energies to finding a way to make a two state agreement functional and achievable, unless and until anyone comes up with a serious, practicable alternative.