Seumas Milne (Guardian Utd): Too late for two states?

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Saturday January 24

Too late for two states?
More than three years into the intifada, the Palestinian situation seems worse than ever: the weekly death toll, the poverty and now the wall. So has the uprising failed? And how can suicide bombings ever be justified? Seumas Milne had exclusive access to leaders across the political spectrum - from president Yasser Arafat in his devastated compound to the underground strategists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. He found an unprecedented willingness to compromise - but a growing belief that the wall will scupper the best ever hope for peace
By Seumas Milne

In a back street in Gaza city, we wait in our car at an agreed rendezvous. The engine is running. My go-between keeps checking the wing mirror for any sign of the man we have come to meet. After Israel's assassination of around 150 prominent militants during the last three years of the Palestinian intifada (uprising), no leader of an armed faction takes chances - even in the heartlands of the occupied territories. As the minutes pass, my contact seems edgy. "The problem isn't just that the Israelis may attack while we are in the meeting," he says. "Sometimes they attack immediately after you have left - and then the groups may suspect you of tipping them off." Eventually, a car drives by, does an abrupt u-turn and signals to us to follow. We tail it across the impoverished urban sprawl, stopping outside a bland-looking workshop. On the first floor, we are ushered first into a waiting room, lined with golden sofas in the Islamist style, and finally into a small office. Seated behind a desk, flanked by the Palestinian flag and a black and gold banner, is Nafiz Azzam, leader of Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.
The Islamist group is often regarded as the most extreme of the Palestinian armed resistance organisations, notorious for suicide attacks against Israeli targets, both civilian and military. But in his manner at least, Azzam turns out to be the image of bookish moderation, as he reflects on the failure of the Palestinian armed factions to agree a new ceasefire - or hudna. "We want to minimise the suffering of our people, avoid internal Palestinian conflict and demonstrate that we are not an obstacle to achieving a settlement." But, referring to the breakdown of last summer's two-month unilateral Palestinian ceasefire after repeated Israeli killings of activists, he adds: "Israel violated and abandoned it. This time we asked whether there were any guarantees on offer from the other side and were told no. So it was very difficult to expect us to agree a hudna for free. We know the balance of power is not in our favour, but we will not allow that to force us to surrender."
When challenged to justify attacks on civilians, Azzam seems almost apologetic, citing a string of Israeli massacres and killings of civilians - from the slaughter of the villagers of Deir Yassin in 1948 to the shooting of 12-year-old Muhammad Durrah in his father's arms at the beginning of the current al-Aqsa intifada in 2000. "We are never happy about the death of any innocent human being, regardless of their religion, but Israel initiated these killings. Palestinians were pushed into such operations in an effort to stop Israel killing our civilians. A year ago, Islamic Jihad proposed that both sides avoid civilian targets - and that was recently repeated by Hamas - but the Israelis have not responded positively."
After dark, we go in search of Abd al-Aziz Rantissi, political leader and co-founder of Hamas, the largest Islamist resistance group and the only force among the Palestinians to offer a serious challenge to the leadership of Yasser Arafat and his nationalist Fatah movement. That is especially true in the Gaza Strip, where its support is rooted in a network of social welfare and educational institutions among the poorest of a destitute population. Since Israel launched an abortive assassination attempt against him in June last year, Rantissi, a 56-year-old paediatrician, has gone underground, never moving around outside in daylight. Arrangements are made by word of mouth in the shadows of Gaza's bomb-cratered buildings, to avoid Israeli electronic surveillance. We are told to wait at an office block for further instructions. Suddenly, Rantissi himself appears with two armed bodyguards, joking about his chances of survival if he had agreed to appear on a live satellite TV talk show that night.

Please read both parts.

While Rantisi makes some reasonable-sounding noises in the first part, he is still being totally unrealistic. Israel is not going to be driven into the sea and any talk of negotiating a withdrawal of the IDF from the territories as a "temporary" solution is simply ludicrous.

Even if only one is formally organized into a state, there are two nations west of the Jordan River. This is a concrete reality. Neither is going away. To hear Palestinian militant leaders talk as Rantisi and Azzam do in the first part, ignoring this reality, is discouraging.

In part two, the interview with Arafat reveals that he is holding some strong cards and that he is aware that Sharon is doing what he can to avoid making concessions:

(T)he US and Israel are determined to avoid new Palestinian presidential elections - because they know Arafat would win. In any case, as Arafat points out, Abu Mazen failed as Palestinian prime minister "because the Israelis didn't give him anything - no release of prisoners, nothing on the building of the wall, no lifting of the siege of the president".

Overall, the situation is not very encouraging.

[bemildred]

1. Fascinating. Thanks for putting it up. nt

[Jack Rabbit]

9. You're welcome

EDITED for typing

This is a look inside the Palestinian power structure that we don't often see. Regardless of one's view of the crisis, this is worth reading.

[bemildred]

10. One rarely gets a look under the hood.

Mostly its propaganda all day long.

This piece, read closely, relates to the Saudi Peace Plan,
here:

By refusing to deal with Arafat, Israel and the US seem
intent on breaking the key political link with the refugees
in order to reach an internal deal with a local West Bank
and Gaza leadership.

Your basic divide-and-rule approach. The Saudi plan is similar
in that it intends to deal with the Palestinians piecemeal. I am
quite skeptical about the Saudi plan, BTW, mostly because it still
assumes that the Palestinians may be disposed of without being
consulted.

The absence of Arafat-bashing of late is quite notable too,
but it's hard to be sure as to what's behind the change. One might
speculate that this strategic approach is, ummm, in abeyance, but
it seems a bit early to draw such a conclusion.

[Jack Rabbit]

11. Saudi Plan

I want to see more details, but those are some concerns.

There's plenty to bash about Arafat. He's a crook and a terrorist, hardly the sort one would think came within a whisker of being the George Washington of Palestine. Nevertheless, he's been almost irrelevant since the start of the second intifada. The militants hold the real power now. They are the ones who direct the resistance. I doubt they would honor a cease file just because he says so. That's not a cause for optimism.

[bemildred]

12. I too would like more details.

I'm not against the plan, just skeptical. Anything that gets
to a peaceful settlement accepted by most of the populations
involved is OK with me.

I'm not defending Arafat, either, I have just noticed that he is
no longer the subject of the propaganda barrage, and that leads
me to wonder about why. It could be as simple as it being so
overused as to lose effect.

[Resistance]

2. yes it is too late for a viable 2-state solution

There is now one state in place, and there isn't anything to be done about that. The facts on the ground have been established.

The question now is: do we continue the path of implementing a racist, Apartheid situation where you have Israelis living next to a huge prison-like ghetto filled with Palestinians?

Or do we want true Democracy?

[Muddleoftheroad]

3. Not too late

And a one-state solution won't happen. The facts on the ground have been established. There is Palestinian territory and Israeli territory. But there is much work to be done to create a peace. For starters, let the Palestinians stop the terror and eliminate the need for Israel to take action.


I loved this line from the article, "When challenged to justify attacks on civilians, Azzam seems almost apologetic."

Yeah almost...

Let's make peace with him, he seems reasonable.

Not.

[Jack Rabbit]

4. Haven't we been over this before?

As Milne points out, "there are precious few takers for such a state among Israeli Jews."

Furthermore, as long as the demographics are split more-or-less on the Green Line, with 80% of the population west of the Green Line excluding Gaza Jewish and 92% of the population in the West Bank and Gaza Palestinian Arab, you cannot say "there is now one state in place." That is absurd.

Consequently, your attempt at imposing a black-or-white solution of either a binational democratic state or an Apartheid-like Jewish state simply doesn't fly (we won't even entertain the militants' idea of an ethnically cleansed Arab state; that, fortunately, is well beyond the realm of possibility).

There will be difficulties in reaching a two-state solution, but it is in the realm of possibility. An acceptable (i.e., binational democratic) one-state solution is not.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. Obviously, I prefer a two-state solution

It is Mr. Resistance who uses the term Apartheid in reference to a one-state solution. Nevertheless, I concur with the characterization.

Democracy is a state where:

• Citizenship is universal. Each person born within the boundaries of the state is a citizen, as is one born abroad to at least one citizen parent or who swears allegiance to the state in a rite of naturalization.
• Citizenship is equal. Each citizen has an equal opportunity to participate in and influence public affairs. Every adult citizen shall be enfranchised with the right to vote. Decisions are made by a majority voted based on the principle of one man/one vote.
• Citizenship is inalienable. A guaranteed set of civil liberties is in place to assure full and open public discourse of civic affairs. No citizen may be stripped of his citizenship or otherwise punished by the state for expressing any point of view, no matter how unpopular or even absurd.

The fact is that Israel was founded with democratic values. That is something many here, I included, would like to preserve. However, a state can only be Jewish and democratic if the overwhelming majority of the population is Jewish.

Since Prime Minister Begin, a man who badly needed a geography lesson, declared the West Bank and Gaza an "integral part of Israel" in 1977, Israel began a program of building up settlements in territory seized in th 1967 war. Under Begin's plan, Palestinians were to be granted autonomy but not citizenship. This is undemocratic on its face. It sets up a system in which citizenship is either not universal or not equal. It is a state where some people have more rights than others. This was a characteristic of South African Apartheid.

In addition, in the occupied territories are administered in a way that Palestinian land is confiscated to build settlements in which they cannot live and are accessed by roads on which they cannot travel. This segregation is based on nationality. Such segregation was also a characteristic of South African Apartheid.

Some would argue that the segregation is made necessary in order to prevent attacks on Israelis living in Israel. This is a bogus argument. Segregated bypass roads and checkpoints between Palestinian towns in the middle of the West Bank do not protect Israelis living in Haifa or Tel Aviv. They are necessary to prevent attacks on Israelis living beyond Israel's recognized borders in occupied territory. If the GOI were really interested in protecting Israeli citizens, then Israelis citizens would not be encouraged or even allowed to live among people who don't want them there and who support a violent resistance movement. The settlements would be evacuated and their residents withdrawn to a defensive perimeter inside Israel. Then the border (or the Green Line, since it has served as a border for over half a century) would be fortified. The Wall, in fact, would be built quite a bit closer to the Green Line than it is.

The settlements had nothing to do the security of Israeli citizens inside Israel in the first place. Their construction was intended to be and continues to be for the purpose of expanding Israeli sovereignty into the occupied territories. Consequently, the purpose of segregation based on nationality in the occupied territories is simply to assert the rights of Israeli citizens over the Arab majority of those lands, not Israeli security. It is racism, plan and simple.

According to the report on settlement policy by the Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem:

Israel has created in the Occupied Territories a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and is reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

Although it pains me to say it, the term reminiscent of Apartheid or Apartheid-like is justified in this context.

[Ms. Wonderful]

7. I tender my apologies

for addressing you as Resistance, however, it seems that your last sentence shows I was being psychic anyway.

[JohnLocke]

8. LOL