A reader writes, "If any Palestinians who desire to are not allowed the Right to Return to homelands within the present state of Israel, haven’t the Zionists won? Wouldn’t the Zionists succeed in consolidating a racially supremacist ‘Jewish’ state that maintains Palestinians as second class, minority citizens?” [There was more to this question, but it essentially reiterated these two points.]

I think I dealt fairly thoroughly with the issue of the right of return in a recent posting on the Ibishblog. I’d encourage you and anyone else is interested in my views on the topic to review that, and if you have any specific questions based on that perspective, I’d be happy to entertain them. However, there are aspects to this question that are worth considering.

First of all, I think we simply need to accept the truth of the matter, however unpalatable: the state of Israel is not going to agree to any peace arrangement that involves the mass return of millions of Palestinian refugees into Israel. Anyone who holds out hope for this as a realistic possibility, or predicates their support for any conflict-ending agreement that could actually secure the end of the occupation, is tying their aspirations (and, more significantly, the aspirations, rights and living conditions of Palestinians) to an unachievable objective. I cannot imagine a scenario in which Israel would agree to effectively dissolve itself, which is what the mass return of millions of refugees would entail. If Palestinians were to make that a dealbreaker, then they would not be open to an achievable peace agreement, instead preferring occupation and conflict for the foreseeable future. The same applies to the Israeli position on Jerusalem, which is a sine qua non for Palestinians.

These are bitter pills for both to swallow on either side, but the political realities are such that there are deep-seated and in many ways legitimate aspirations that simply cannot be secured because one party considers them irreconcilable with their fundamental national interests. It is essential that any peace agreement correspond to the minimal national interest requirements of all parties, and any vision of the future that does not acknowledge these national interests in a serious way is not a serious vision and does not participate in what is called the real world.

The reader asks whether accepting this would mean that, "the Zionists have won?" I think this is a very anachronistic and reductive way of looking at the problem, although it is true that I think that the 1948 war demonstrates the effective limitations of Palestinian national aspirations. I would add that the 1968 war and its aftermath until the present day demonstrates the effective limitations of Israeli national aspirations, and that a healthy understanding of both of these limitations produces support for a two-state agreement that ends the occupation and allows for Palestine to live alongside Israel in peace and security. However, even though there will be people on both sides who will declare that a reasonable agreement means, in effect, that the other side "has won," the whole purpose of negotiations, an agreement, and developing a more healthy attitude on all sides towards the conflict means transforming a zero-sum equation into a win-win dynamic. Israel has much to gain from such an agreement, and faces grave dangers if it is not secured. Palestinians have much to gain, as well, and face a grim future if it is not achieved. Although such an agreement would not resolve all outstanding problems, grievances and issues, it would succeed in ending the occupation and the conflict, and would allow both peoples to go forward outside of the context of occupation and warfare. Maximalists on both sides will declare the other side victorious, but in truth, both parties, and all the peoples of the Middle East, and certainly the United States, will be winners in the sense that their immediate circumstances and long-term prospects will have greatly improved.

One final point: I don’t think that this agreement would necessarily mean that Israel will always be treating its Palestinian minority as second-class citizens. However, in the context of a two state agreement, relations between Palestinian and Jewish Israelis will be a matter for the political system in Israel, the law courts, and other measures through which Palestinian citizens of Israel can seek to secure full legal and political rights within that state. Netanyahu’s efforts to force Palestinians to declare their recognition of Israel as a "Jewish state" is a red herring, and a brand-new demand that has not been heard since Palestinian-Israeli negotiations began in 1993. Obviously, it will be up to Israel to define itself, as it does. This includes the perspective of Palestinian citizens of Israel, but should be entirely independent of the opinion of Palestine, the PLO, or anybody else. Obviously, there are extreme circumstances in which the domestic affairs of member states of the United Nations become international concerns, such as genocide at the most extreme level, but generally speaking questions of discrimination against minority groups are internal matters, particular to each state and society, and really this is the way that Palestine and Israel ought to approach each other. It is the only possibility for Palestinians and Israelis to achieve anything approaching a healthy relationship, through two states that are equally sovereign and relate to each other through the normal conventions of international relations and diplomacy.