Zionists panic over Palestine vote in UK Parliament

Here's a motion to be debated in the UK Parliament on Monday 13 October:

this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.

There hasn't been much news about the debate and I have to say I don't feel particularly moved by it but then Ive never claimed to support the so-called two state solution.  But Zionists here in the UK have gone into collective panic.

The first thing I noticed was a post to Harry's Place by a chap called Stephen Hoffman.  Actually that's where I got the text of the motion from.  Here's what Zionists are suggesting should be done to neutralise the motion:

At end, add’, on the conclusion of successful peace negotiations between the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority.

which of course means, this House believes that the Government should never recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.

Now the original motion is pretty weak and open to interpretation.  A state of Palestine alongside Israel could be in Syria, Jordan, Egypt or Lebanon.  But according to the Jewish Chronicle,

The [Zionist] activist said MPs backing the motion had been "very clever. The motion is very blandly worded and could be interpreted as being supportive of a two-state solution, which all key groups here support".

Yup, it's certainly bland but how could the words "recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel"  be open to any interpretation other than support for a two state solution?

Ah I know, the JC very smartly avoiding quoting the motion so here it is again just in case Marcus Dysch (who else?) happens to pop by:

this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel

Bad news for one staters like me but why is the JC so down on it it won't even show it to its readers?

Bibi's one state solution

Here's an article by Saree Makdisi on the implications of Bibi's decision to further colonise the West Bank, separating north from south and the whole thing from Jerusalem.  It appears in the International Herald Tribune which is the "global edition of the New York Times".  This is just a snippet:

Once the fiction of a separate Palestinian state is revealed to have no more substance than the Wizard of Oz — which the E1 plan will all but guarantee — those Palestinians who have not already done so will commit themselves to the only viable alternative: a one-state solution, in which the idea of an exclusively Jewish state and an exclusively Palestinian one will yield to what was really all along the preferable alternative, a single democratic and secular state in all of historical Palestine that both peoples will have to share as equal citizens.

A campaign for rights and equality in a single state is a project toward which the Palestinians will now be able to turn with the formidable international support they have already developed at both the diplomatic and the grassroots levels, including a global boycott and sanctions movement whose bite Israel has already felt.

For Palestinians, in any case, one state is infinitely preferable to two, for the simple reason that no version of the two-state solution that has ever been proposed has meaningfully sought to address the rights of more than the minority of Palestinians who actually live in the territory on which that state is supposed to exist.

Things have been changing quickly lately. Israel was left isolated at the UN over the Palestinian UN bid and it had to settle for unfavourable terms over its recent lost war in Gaza. I'm guessing things haven't changed so much for Saree Makdisi's article to appear in the New York edition of the New York Times but I could be wrong.

Mainstreaming the one state solution

Here's another call for the one state solution from, to my mind anyway, an unexpected source.  Simon Hughes of the UK's Liberal Democrats has described himself before now as "unequivocally a lover of Israel".   George Galloway picked up on it back in 2004 when he said it and so did I.

Well now he's calling for the one state solution on the grounds that Israel has made the two state solution impossible.  Here he is in The Jewish Chronicle:

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes has said that the opportunity for a two state solution to the Israel-Palestine dispute is now “near to the end” and the international community should consider a “one state solution”.

Speaking on the eve of his party conference, the veteran Lib Dem politician said he believed a single federated state in which Muslims, Jews and Christians had separate constitutional rights may now be the best option.

Mr Hughes’s controversial words are a departure from Liberal Democrat and government policy.

The Lib Dem deputy leader said: “We are near to the end of the opportunity of being able to get a peaceful two-state solution because of the extent of the settlements.” The separation of Gaza from the West Bank and the increasing encroachment of the settlements meant that an alternative to the two-state model must be explored: “We need to be honest and realistic about having a Plan B and a Plan C as well as a Plan A, as an international community.”

It gets a bit weird when he suggests that Jews in the UK should try and persuade Israel of his "new" idea:

 Mr Hughes said that the UK Jewish community should press the Israeli government to honour international law. “I call on Jewish friends who are moderate and internationalist and careful about these things to use all their influence to make sure that international law is honoured and particularly that forced removals of people don’t go ahead where possible.

“On the minority rights issue, the human rights issue, the international law issue, the United Nations issue: these are things that just stack up against Israel as unnecessary steps that don’t enhance its reputation. That’s a government of Israel point, it’s not an anti-Jewish point.”

Not sure why he thinks Jews in the UK would be influential there but when I posted about him back in 2004 I titled the post, "I love ethnic cleansing and apartheid laws": Simon Hughes. Funny then that he specifically mentions the ethnic cleansing though not by name. He appears not to be ready to describe Israel's laws as "apartheid" laws just yet.  I'm suggesting that this member of the UK Jewish community has influenced Simon Hughes. It's just curious that he has gone from being a supporter of the State of Israel to flirting with the idea of abolishing it altogether.

Golda Meir said what?

Deborah Maccoby posted the link to this Independent article by Sir Terence English some time ago but I've only just read it.  It's am interesting take on the state of the so-called peace process setting out three scenarios for the future:

I am no politician but it seems that there are only three options with respect to a resolution of the present untenable state of affairs.

The option most commonly promoted is that of a two-state solution, in which a Palestinian state would be formed from Gaza and from what is left of the West Bank after withdrawal of the Israeli occupation. This, however, has been seriously compromised as a result of the remorseless increase in Israeli settlements since 1967. As a result of this there are now approximately 500,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, most of whom would strenuously resist being resettled within Israel’s internationally recognised borders. Another serious problem with the two-state solution is the future of Jerusalem. That the whole city should become the capital of Israel has been regarded as “non-negotiable” by the Israelis, whereas Palestinians see East Jerusalem as their capital of a future Palestinian State.

A second option and one favoured by many Zionists, is that Israel should eventually incorporate the whole land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. This implies that Palestinians living in the West Bank would either have to be displaced to neighbouring Arab countries such as Jordan, or accept living in a Jewish state as second class citizens. The injustice of such an outcome hardly bears scrutiny and I cannot believe the international community would ever allow this to happen.

The third option and one that I think should be given more serious consideration than it is receiving is that of a single democratic, pluralistic, bi-national state. The concept of one state shared equally by the two peoples might seem unacceptable if not impossible to most Israelis and Palestinians living in the region. However, as the two-state solution becomes progressively more problematic and impractical there is a need to look critically at a bolder and potentially more lasting solution.

There then comes the inevitable South Africa comparison:

Growing up in South Africa I had difficulty in imagining how transformation to a post-apartheid democratic state could ever be achieved without bloodshed. However the country was then blessed with two great leaders in Mandela and de Klerk, who managed to persuade their respective constituencies that this was the only way forward. It is similar leadership that is now so desperately needed in Israel and Palestine.

Now look what comes next:

Leaders who, from the Israeli side, can recognise and put an end to the injustices of the present situation and reiterate sentiments once expressed by Golda Meir in a speech to the Knesset in May 1970 when she declared, “We did not come to dispossess the Arabs of the land but to work together with them in peace and prosperity, for the good of all”.

She said that?  Sheesh! I don't think the word hasbara was used to describe that kind of thing back then but who knows? It could have been.  It should have been.

Cornerstones of Israeli apartheid make for a one state solution

Here's a very useful article in Jadalliya which I just found via the Angry Arab News Service In it Noura Erakat explains why the singular legal regime necessitates one state solution by reference to the various laws and practices which allow for Jewish colonial settlement and the dispossession and segregation of the Palestinians:

The Law of Return (1950) defines a Jewish national as someone born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and is not a member of any other religion. Said nationality confers exclusive rights and privileges including the right to enter Israel at any time, to obtain citizenship at any time, and to live in Israel and/or the settlements in the West Bank. In practice, this distinction affords more rights to Jewish nationals living outside Israel who have never visited or cared to visit the State than it does the State’s own non-Jewish citizens. 

Israel’s efforts to maintain a Jewish majority drives its policy of forced population transfer throughout Mandate Palestine. Population transfer seeks to alter the demographic composition of an area by moving people into and/or out of the area. Specific components of the policy of population transfer amount to war crimes under the Rome Statute (arts. 7 and 8) and the Geneva Convention IV (arts. 49 and 147). The Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the former Commission on Human Rights has clearly defined population transfer as:

the movement of people as a consequence of political and/or economic processes in which the State Government or State-authorized agencies participate. These processes have a number of intended or unintended results that affect the human rights of the transferred population, as well as the inhabitants of an area into which settlers are transferred. (…) The State’s role may involve financial subsidies, planning, public information, military action, recruitment of settlers, legislation or other judicial action, and even the administration of justice.

This policy is as prevalent within the West Bank as it is within Israel. In both instances, it aims to facilitate the migration and settlement of Jewish nationals whilst ensuring their dominant and legal status at the expense of the rights of Palestinian Arabs in order to compel and/or enforce their forcible displacement. Said policy, together with other policies based on the distinction between Jewish nationals and non-Jewish nationals, specifically violates Articles II(c) and II(d) of the Apartheid Convention. 

Israel’s discriminatory land laws constitute a core component of the policy of population transfer. This litany of laws begins with the Absentee Property Law (1950), which authorized the State to establish a Custodian to confiscate the lands of those persons deemed absentees or present absentees. Absentees refers to those refugees who fled during the war and who were denied entry as a matter of fact. Similarly, present absentees refers to those Palestinians who fled their homes but remained within Israel, also known as internally displaced persons. They too were not permitted to lay claim to their homes and lands. Under the Absentee Property law, the Custodian transferred the lands to the Development Authority (DA) whose purpose was to “to work with relevant Government agencies to acquire and prepare lands for the benefit of newly arriving Jewish immigrants.” Under the law, the DA may transfer acquired land only to the State and the Jewish National Fund (JNF) to be used for the exclusive benefit of the “Jewish people.” Through this land law, Israel has transferred ninety-three percent of Palestinian lands owned or collectively held by Palestinians before 1948 into ‘Israel lands’ and cannot be challenged in court because it has been nationalized. Consider that Palestinian-Israelis who constitute one-fifth of the population use or control 3.4 percent of the land today. 

And she concludes:

Beyond appropriate legal regimes is a question of pragmatism. While two-state adherents emphasize the pragmatic nature of the two-state solution relative to the idealistic proponents of a single and democratic state, the facts on the ground demonstrate firstly, the inextricable population distribution of Palestinian Arab and Jewish populations. Indeed, the Gaza Strip may be the only territory where there exists a homogenous population. In light of this, achieving a two-state solution will not only necessitate land swaps but population transfers of Jewish and Palestinian populations as well. Such transfers should be opposed by the international community as they are likely to fuel accelerated ethnic cleansing policies akin to those seen in the former Yugoslavia. Advocating for equality among citizens of a single state is arguably more practical than is supporting the forced removal of ethnic populations aimed at achieveing homogeneous ethno-national entities. In a quickly shifting Middle East where citizenship, democracy, and plurality have gained increasing salience it is especially troubliing to advocate for reverse trends in Israel and the OPT. Not only is the two-state solution insufficient to treat Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, but it is impracticable as well. 

 I wonder if Norman Finkelstein has read it...