July 16, 2007
Why the Right of Return Matters to Palestinians
My father’s family is from a Palestinian town named Atteel that lies a few kilometers north of the West Bank city of Tulkarem. In 1948, as Zionist gangs set about ethnically cleansing most of Palestine, they did not succeed in eradicating our village. Today, the town lies in the West Bank, just east of the Green Line—the virtual separation line between the West Bank and “Israel proper”. Some of Atteel’s agricultural land was not as lucky—it fell on the other side of the partition and now forms part of the state of Israel. My grandfather had orange groves there that went to Israel, and are now owned by the Jewish National Fund, and can only be given to Jews. Any person claiming to be Jewish from anywhere in the world can travel to Israel, receive an Israeli passport and be given that land by the Israeli government at a subsidized price. Meanwhile, my cousins and I, some of whom live meters away from that land are not even allowed to set foot on it. Such is real estate in “The Only Democracy in the Middle East.”
Whenever peace is discussed, the majority of Israelis and westerners (and many Arabs) automatically assume that in order for there to be peace, the Palestinians need to give up their right of return. Israel has to remain a Jewish state, they argue, and giving Palestinians a right to return would mean no more Jewish majority, which would bring about a system of governance not based on religious exclusivity. It always amuses me when people make this argument with a straight face. Instead of ethnic cleansing and expulsion—an unquestionable evil—being used as an argument against a religiously exclusive racist state, the presence of the religiously exclusive racist state is used as an excuse for the propagation of ethnic cleansing and expulsion.
The problem that any secular or humanist (or even rational) person would have with the idea of a religious state is that it is a recipe for disaster, conflict and oppression. Never in history has a religious state not led to massive bloodshed. In Israel, this is obviously true: to set up a Jewish state in a land that was predominantly non-Jewish, the Zionist movement’s terrorist gangs had to undertake an enormous premeditated program of ethnic cleansing that murdered thousands and displaced almost a million Palestinians from their homes, for no reason other than that they believed in the wrong god. Israel then destroyed their homes (and some 400 of their villages) and denied them their right to return to them. Ilan Pappe has recently published a book detailing and documenting the elaborate nature of these crimes, how their planning started in the late 1930’s and how cynical and ruthless their execution was.
That monstrous crime against humanity had to be carried out in order to establish a religiously exclusive state should give us pause to think about the desirability of having any religiously-exclusive state, especially in a place as religiously diverse as historic Palestine, and especially considering that this state has not stopped expanding its territory until today, as can be attested by the increasing building of religiously-exclusive colonies in the West Bank. Instead, many people are hypocritical and racist enough to state that this crime needs to be continued, with millions denied their right to return, in order to save the existence of this religiously-exclusive racist state.
That the right of return is legal is not something even worth arguing, it is fully and comprehensively established in international law and UN resolutions. That it is necessary for many Palestinians to return to their home can be seen from the terrible conditions in which many refugees live in countries surrounding Palestine. Getting these lands back will be what these people need to lift them out of the horrible poverty of exile in which they have lived for 60 years. These vital uncontroversial issues are not the points I want to make today. Even if one were to ignore them, the right of return remains vital, and we as Palestinians should continue to cling to this inalienable right after almost 60 years, since it is the only commendable and honorable thing to do, and it is the only path to achieve a true and comprehensive peace.
In my case, I would be lying if I said I needed these orange groves. My grandfather has 56 descendants spread out all over the world, and splitting these lands is unlikely to give any of us a large amount of land or money. Yet that does not in any way diminish my determination to fight until my last day for these lands, and all my cousins all over the world think similarly. In order to understand this “unreasonable” demagogical clinging to old pieces of land, it might be instructive to contrast it with another famous case of someone "unreasonably" refusing to give up something which a racist authority had told them they were not entitled to.
When Rosa Parks got on a bus in Montgomery and was asked to move to the back of the bus, she refused. It was an honorable stance in the face of incredible racism. This, as is well known, led to an invigoration of the civil rights movement and mobilized the masses to the streets until they were victorious and segregation was abolished all over the south.
After abolishing segregation, Rosa Parks may have never taken a bus, or sat in the front of it. Her descendants may never think about where they sit when they board a bus, if they ever take one. Everyone would agree that the problem with segregation is not with the mere act of sitting in the front of a bus, it is about living in a society that bans people from sitting in the front of the bus based on their race. This is equally a problem for someone who takes the bus every day and someone who never takes it.
The same people who tell me I am being unreasonable clinging on to my grandfather’s land, should surely have told Rosa Parks that she was unreasonable clinging on to the seat in the front of the bus. After all, a lot of protests, riots, clashes and lynchings resulted from the civil rights movement, surely, it would’ve been better for the sake of “peace” for Rosa Parks to have compromised and moved to the back of the bus. Similarly, a lot of resistance, fighting and murder resulted from Palestinians not giving up their right of return and it would’ve been better for the sake of “peace” for Palestinians to have compromised and forgotten their homes and lands. This, of course, is equally nonsensical in both cases.
However, most people who tell me to forget my land in Palestine would never be caught dead saying Rosa Parks was unreasonable. But the blatant hypocrisy is still lost on them. Why is it that in one case, blacks should not give up a seat on a bus because of their race, while Palestinians should give up their own lands, homes and villages on which they and their ancestors have lived for millennia because of their religion (or lack thereof)?
The way to end racial conflict in the American South was not for Rosa Parks and blacks to give up their rights to the front of the bus and ‘let everyone live in peace’, but by ending the system that denies someone the right to sit in a certain part of a bus depending on their skin color. Similarly, peace in Palestine will not come when Palestinians give up their right to own a piece of land because of the religion to which they were born; but rather, when we abolish the system that assigns plots of lands, houses and villages to people based on what version of god they believe in.
I will never consider there to be peace in Palestine so long as I can visit my grandfather’s house in Atteel and look a few kilometers west to see my land that I can not visit, own, or sell. The day I can reclaim that land, I will visit it once, savor the feeling, and the very next day, I’ll sell my share of it to the highest bidder regardless of their religion, race or ethnicity, and donate the money to an educational institute that will teach the children of Palestine, regardless of their religion, race or ethnicity about the importance of equality and justice, about Rosa Parks, and about how peace could never be achieved on the basis of racist exclusion, whether it be from the front of a bus or from an orange grove.
Posted by Saifedean Ammous at 12:01 AM | Permalink
Comments
Saifedean,
An excellent piece, thoughtfully and reasonably argued. Thanks for sharing your personal story with us, and for addressing the stock GIYUS responses one gets that are always most refutable, not that that stops their unctious attempts. Its good to see some of the other commenters have appreciated your article as much as I did.
Posted by: Ann | Jul 18, 2007 7:43:09 AM
VoT,
I don't "defend" the expulsions. I just don't agree with Saifdean Ammous's prescreptions for resolving them.
His position seems to be that the occupation is not solvable unless a one-state solution is implemented. He also seems to be wavering on allowing all refugees to repossess their land, precisely because so many people have pointed out how this could never be resolved in practice.
I don't agree with him, because I don't think a one state solution is the only solution or even necessarily the most "just" solution.
Most of your examples of people returning to their lands are examples of internal refugees. The Chechens were deported to other parts of the Soviet Union and returned from them. Same for the Aborigines of Australia, who by no means have gotten back the "majority" of their land. The Crimean Tatars also started returning to Crimea while the Soviet Union still existed. Their repatriation has sped up under the Ukrainian government, which takes a dim view of forced Russification in Ukraine and thus is positively disposed toward non-Russian minorities with loyalties to the Ukrainian state returning.
None of these examples have much to do with Israel/Palestine, where people who fled Israel in 1948 live _in other countries_ (that are in general, extremely hostile to Israel) or in the West Bank, which by international law and Israel's own laws, is not part of Israel. There are a number of closer parallels, like India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, where no one has gotten restitution for lost land and refugees are not allowed to return and gain citizenship.
So, I don't think your examples are particularly relevant to this specific situation.
It seems to me that the Jewish settlers will have the same choice in a two-state solution that Israeli Arabs had: they can stay or go. Since I don't believe in ethnically pure states anyway, having a Jewish minority in the new Palestinian states might be instructive for Palestinians and Jews both, largely about what kind of state the new Palestine is.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Jul 18, 2007 8:11:01 AM
There is some hypocrisy that is hard to stomach.
A minor one that nonetheless really bugs me: how can it be that "returning to your origins" after 2000 years is a noble cause for zionism, but wanting to return to confiscated land that was owned 60 years before is inmature and out of touch with realism?
And why is it repeatedly pointed out that other arab nations are no cradle of religious tolerance neither? How does it justify the treatment of palestinians? Ah, because they are all arabs, that's why (and worse, muslims). But why do people think it indicates moral high ground to be able to say "we might not be better than Saudi Arabia and Iran, but hey, we're at least not worse!"? Hello?
What really, really gets me is a certain lack of perspective. (the following numbers are estimates, so feel free to correct them)
Palestine is reduced to 11% of its original territory. There are about 4 million palestinians living in Gaza and West Bank. 1 million refugees away from Palestine not allowed to return.
Now imagine this: The indian population of North America is taking back the land reasoning that it was once theirs (only 4 centuries ago!), they kept the memory of their cultural origins alive and the land is a vital part of their religion.
In the process about 6 million americans are killed and 60 millions scattered all over the world as refugees. 200 million americans would be relocated to California and NewYork, the remaining US territory (again, if the numbers are inaccurate, you can throw in Ohio as well). Some rednecks fighting the occupation will be labeled terrorists and all of the other americans that do not despise those are labeled terrorists as well because of their support. You would condem them too? Ok, so it's the americans own fault that in the following years California and NewYork are cut of from the rest of the world, their infrastructure is bombed and levelled repeatedly, and another 3 million are killed (300.000 indians die too). The indians have to battle hard for their security, attacking most of the neighbouring, mainly christian nations. They occupy some million square miles in Canada, Mexico, Venezuela etc.
I could go on but i think you get the idea. The sad thing is, i know this is not helpful. Such reasoning won't bring an end to this conflict. But i strongly doubt that neglecting such perspectives will help in bringing peace about. Yes, forgeting about old wrongdoings is an essential part of finding peace. But i think we fool ourselves if we think that something on this scale can be forgotten without amends.
After all what happend to jews in the world over the centuries, i can understand the desire, even need, for a "secure" national state. But palestine had no part in that so it is simply no excuse, just a reason for what happens there.
Posted by: snibril | Jul 18, 2007 8:52:10 AM
dkmy comes out with more propaganda and falsehoods, "Yet I also understand the anger felt by many Israelis at the continued bombing of Sderot after the evacuation of the Gaza Strip. We accept the concept of land for peace, but even when we comply, to the letter, with UN resolutions and evacuate lands we continue to be killed and bombed. What was the pretext for the kidnapping and killing of Israeli soldiers along the UN recognized Israel-Lebanon border, which started the 2nd Lebanon war? As someone has already stated here, you cannot use International law when it is convenient for you and discard it the next."
Israelis have never accepted the idea of "land for peace". They like to accept the UN resolution giving them half of Palestine that they never deserved but ignore all the resolutions going back to 1948 that tell them to allow the return of the people they violently expelled.
Lebanon did not violate international law. When did the Lebanese government attack Israel? Israelis dropping a million cluster bombs on Lebanon is a war crime and a crime against humanity. An Israeli soldier, or any soldier, is not "kidnapped", he is captured. Furthermore, that was not the cause of the Israeli massacre of Lebanese, it was a pretext as the attack had been planned by the Israelis long before.
Jews would not be getting killed in Palestine if they had stayed home and not invaded Palestine, and that goes back to the beginnings of the zionist movement. The only cause of the conflict is the zionist invasion.
There is so much disinformation in dkmy's posts that it is impossible to address it all.
For further information:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
http://www.palestineremembered.com/
Posted by: bernarda | Jul 18, 2007 10:33:34 AM
First, a disclaimer - I know Saif pretty well and have worked with him on Palestinian rights before. Second, I recognise people's concerns about language and anger, but I think it reflects more on them then on Saif (more on which later).
But here's the crux for me - all the detail about who expelled who, when and how, who has more extremists and so on - all this is irrelevant to the central question (and the central point of Saif's piece).
If we agree to be universalists, then the only question is whether we agree with the following statement:
"The right of group X to self-determination is non-negotiable and is not related to actions that members of group X may or may not carry out against members of group Y."
It seems clear to me that we would agree to this statement whenever we fall into group X, however defined. So I do not think that my right of self-determination, or the right of self-determination of the citizens of England, is affected by actions of other English citizens against citizens of any other polity, whether that be by armed invasion, colonialism or simple murder. Similarly, the right of citizens of Israel to self-determination is not affected by the actions of the IDF or settler militias against Palestinians. And, to continue with the segregation argument, the rights of african americans to self-determination* would not have been lessened or compromised if some african americans had engaged in political assassinations, cafe bombings or mass non-violent protest.
If we agree with the preceeding claims it follows that terrorism, armed resistance, missiles falling on settlements, Haifa or Jerusalem - none of these have any bearing on the question of the rights of Palestinians to determine their own future without interference.
Yet the language of the conflict continues to violate this principle. It is often emphasised by defenders of Israel that Israel has an inalienable right to self-defence, which in political theory terms follows from the right of Israel to self-determination. This right, it is emphasised, is so basic that any other actions that Israel may or may not have carried out have no bearing on this right.
Yet, often in the same breath, it is said that Palestinians can have a state, can discuss restitution for previous wrongs, can be treated as 'partners for peace', ONLY WHEN they stop violence, don't use their democratic right to vote for parties we don't like, when Fatah or Hamas renounces this or that part of their Charter/ideology. In terms of our initial statement this is the equivalent of "Group X have the right to self-determination, but only when they satisfy conditions set by Group Y". This is patently ridiculous, as any of us non-Palestinians will discover by substituting the group of which we are members for X and another group (whether our friend or not) for Y.
The series of comments on Saif's piece here reflects an even more disgusting trend which amounts to "Group X have the right to self-determination, but only when they stop being so angry about everything and when they stop using language that Group Y, Z or Q find uncomfortable and counter-productive".
It will be argued that equal rights for non-Jews in Israel violates the right of Jews in Israel to self-determination. Leaving aside the obvious violation of any basic principle of universal democracy that this statement contains, it also does not follow in terms of our initial statement on the rights of self-determination. It should be obvious that a corrollary principle to the non-negotiable right of group X to self-determination is that 'self-determination' cannot involve the right to deny other groups, however defined, their right to self-determination (this follows from the universalist bit). Since the self-determination of an ethnic, racial or religious group is perfectly possible without an ethnically homogenous state, self-determination cannot be the justification for the racial, ethnic or religious purity of a nation. This goes for Saudi Arabia, England, Iran and Israel.
A final point for those complaining that Saif doesn't lambast (other) racist states enough is that political discourse is clearly contextual. You would not preface every criticism of X or Y government or group by pointing out that, of course, Hitler, Stalin and Mao were much worse. That is because it is basically given that everyone knows this. There are not a lot of people running around arguing otherwise. This is the difference when it comes to Israel/Palestine. Noone is on primetime news night after night arguing that Saudi Arabia is the most enlightened country in the middle east, that it doesn't torture or repress it's own citizens, or that it is an all-round good egg. But people do argue that Israel isn't really oppressing anyone, that's there's no occupation to speak of, that Palestinians don't actually exist as a group anyway, that Israel is not seriously responsible for one of the world's biggest (if not biggest) refugee problems, that Israel doesn't violate international law and has never broken basically accepted rules of war. So it is completely legitimate to focus on Israel to counteract such misinformation. I might as well criticise people who point to Palestinian suicide bombings or Hamas by saying "yeah, fine, but I don't hear you complaining about the Chinese occupation of Tibet".
(* I should clarify, to avoid confusion, that self-determination is not the same as exclusive nationhood. Groups within countries can have self-determination without having their own country. Although the desire for a country is often a part of the claim of self-determination, it is not a necessary element of it)
Posted by: Pablo K | Jul 19, 2007 6:58:09 AM
This sentence in particular leaps out at me as strange:
"If we agree with the preceeding claims it follows that terrorism, armed resistance, missiles falling on settlements, Haifa or Jerusalem - none of these have any bearing on the question of the rights of Palestinians to determine their own future without interference."
If you start a war with your neighbors, that seems to invite your neighbors to interfere in determining your own future, if only to stop you from killing them. This principle is true even if you didn't start the war, but merely continue it.
So I don't understand what you mean by this - self-determination is not some absolute right that all other rights, including the right to life, must bow before.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Jul 19, 2007 8:25:25 AM
Also, about the other states comment. I agree with you that one must pick what they will focus on, but that doesn't mean that one denies the reality of other states: "Saudi Arabia is entirely Muslim", for example, is just factually wrong and insulting.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Jul 19, 2007 8:27:37 AM
Hektor,
This goes to the root of the issue. It doesn't actually matter whether we agree on who 'started' the war. Let's say England starts a war with France. Of course France has a right to self-defence which follows from its right of self-determination. But it does not consequently have the right to rule or prevent English self-determination, even if England has attacked it. This is not self-determination obliterating the right to life but a limit on what it is reasonable to do in 'self-defence'. Of course, it may be that bombing or violence is an outcome of this self-defence, but the right does not go to colonisation or collective punishment.
In the Israel/Palestine case the issue is whether or not renouncing violence is a precondition for the right to self-determination. I am saying that it is not. The fact that the King David hotel was bombed during the period of Mandate Palestine does not violate(or should not have violated) the right of Jews or Zionists (there were no Israelis then) to self-determination. This is so even though the British could have argued that the terrorism of the Irgun (and others) 'invited' their interference in the future of Jewish refugees, which parties or political fronts were permissible, and so on.
It certainly would not legitimate a complex series of refugee camps and bantustans controlled by the British with unequal rights for any Jews living in Britain until there was an unequivocal renunciation of violence from all those who identified with the Zionist cause. Police, or even military action, may have been required to save civilian lives. But collective punishment through the denial of the right of self-determination to a group of people on the basis of the actions of individuals or smaller collectives within that group is not a legitimage form of self-defence.
Posted by: Pablo K | Jul 19, 2007 8:40:11 AM
Now that Saifedean Ammous and dkmy have helped focus the debate again, and given the thoughtful comments that have followed, it would be good to have a response from both dkmy and Hektor to, i) the (moral and legal) right of Saifedean Ammous to his land ii) if they feel that such a right holds, how they feel about the situation that prevents its exercise, iii) how this might be redressed as part of, and in the context of a broader resolution.
Saifedean Ammous has proposed what sounds like a one-state solution (I broached this earlier). Hektor and dkmy dismiss this as utopian and/or unpopular. dkmy proposes a two state solution based on territorial terms that seem practically unfeasible (the work of Eyal Wiseman is particularly instructive here).
How to address this moral, legal and 'practical' crux?
Posted by: miuw | Jul 19, 2007 8:41:11 AM
Pablo,
I think I see what you are talking about here now, but let me ask you something. What is preventing the Palestinians from exercising their right to self-determination and declaring a state in Gaza? The Israelis don't occupy Gaza, and declaring a state would be a quick way to force the Israelis to give up control of the border crossing with Egypt and the Gazan territorial waters and airspace.
It isn't only a case of the Israelis denying the right of self-determination to Palestinians, but of the Palestinians choosing not to exercise that right.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Jul 19, 2007 8:58:31 AM
Miuw,
Simple, money. A two, or even three state solution, compensation for refugees (hopefully including Israeli refugees from Arab states, though that is unlikely given the current political situation), guarantees for minority rights in Israel/Palestine, final borders agreed to by negotiation. Patriation of Palestinian refugees to Palestine or granting of full citizenship rights in the lands they currently reside in. Possibly some small observer force in the Old City.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Jul 19, 2007 9:03:10 AM
I think the truth is self-evident for those who want to see, the world wants Palestinians and their culture to disappear just like the Native Americans and Aborigines etc. only to give way to Western culture (and Judaism -the nation- does belong to Western culture now)to dominate the planet. All of the above discussion only proves that negotiations are not the way back home because in negotiations basic truths and morals are considered "unrealistic". The only way is to keep fighting... And for the love of Yahweh, Arabs and all Near Eastern peoples are Semites. The jews no longer live in the ghettos of Europe. So update the term; to speak of "anti-semitism" today should refer to the hatred and denial of Palestinian human rights.
Posted by: Rawand | Jul 19, 2007 9:52:25 AM
It seems to me there is something a bit reactionary about all arguments which frame property "rights" in absolutist moral terms. I am more of absolutist about basic human rights such as the right not to be tortured, the right to hold and speak about one's beliefs, and so forth; but the notion of "property" is an artificial construction (one that originally seemed foreign to american indians when europeans sought to purchase land from them), a sort of collective agreement made by society because it serves the common good, and so the question of what "rights" people have should be framed in purely utilitarian terms, not absolutist moral ones. Most would probably agree with this in the case of intellectual property, for example; few think patents and copyrights should last forever, they should last whatever time is optimal for encouraging innovation. In the case of land, whatever attachment a person may feel about the place they grew up, if in utilitarian terms more people would be better off if the area was flooded to make a dam, or if part of the land was declared public property in order to preserve its natural state, then the government should have every right to take that person's property away from them. In the case of Israel, I wouldn't argue that the way the land was obtained from Palestinians in the first place was just, but when thinking about where to go from here, we should again think in utilitarian terms; the suffering and death caused by the continuing occupation is likely to be a lot greater than the suffering that would be occur under a two-state solution, however many unsatisfactory compromises the solution might involve, and such a solution is a lot less likely to become a reality if either side makes absolutist ultimatums about any issue, including the right of return (and also including Israel's desire to keep control over Jerusalem, to keep the settlements, to not negotiate unless the Palestinians renounce violence, to have the Jewish National Fund preventing Palestinians from *buying* family land back, etc.). It's possible one could come up with a purely utilitarian argument for taking a hard line on the right of return, but Saifedean Ammous has not made this sort of argument.
I really don't see any comparison with Rosa Parks here, because that case had nothing to do with property rights, it had to do with not being discriminated against on a piece of public transportation which wasn't owned by any of the passengers.
Incidentally, I would also like to see the right of return advocates address the questions of SLC in an earlier comment, since they have direct bearing on the issue of utilitarian pragmatism vs. moral absolutism about property rights:
Does Mr. miuw propose that the land taken from Native Americans by European settlers be returned to the descendants of the original owners? Does Mr. miuw propose that land taken from ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland area of the Czech Republic be returned to the descendants of the original owners? Does Mr. miuw propose that land taken from Moslems in what is now India and Hindus in what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh be returned to the descendants of the original owners? If the answer to any of these queries is no, then Mr. miuws' demand vis a vis the State of Israel demonstrates a lack of consistency.
Posted by: Jesse M. | Jul 19, 2007 10:50:44 AM
The issue of property and rights overlap when we see Palestinians living like cattle. They also overlap because the land becomes representative of cilture, so when Palestinian artists (not extremists) are murdered, Palestinian culture is being wiped out, that is an issue of right but represented through land i think. So many examples have been rightly brought up that lands have always belonged to many different peoples at different times, so land should not "rightfully belong" to anyone as such. This is why I do support a one state solution as Saif had proposed in a previous comment, although I believe that will be problematic for the Israelis because the demography will eventually make the jews a large minority. The many propositions brought forth about a two states solution are not really an outstanding revelation, how many plans have been made and how many American envoys to Israel and Saudi Arabia to create such a workable plan? All to no avail! I suggest we address the factors that are making all Palestine/Israel discussions about peace remain forever theoretical?!
Posted by: Rawand | Jul 19, 2007 11:15:27 AM
Jesse M - it's not an issue of property rights at all. The issue is one of racism; is it, or is it not, acceptable for Israel (or anyone else) to limit who can purchase or access land based on their ancestry or religion? I suppose that's still not an explicitly consequentialist argument, but I think making a consequentialist argument for an absolute rejection of racism is pretty easy. I, a non-religious half-Jew who's never visited Israel, could purchase Saif's family's land if I had the money. He could not. Who does this benefit? Well, I suppose there's the arms industry...
dkmy - I'm surprised and heartened that you have adopted a more reasonable tone, because that Herzog speech you initially posted is malicious bile premised on the disingenuous conflation of Zionism and Judaism.
SLC - is better ignored. This guy is a far-right Zionist who I've seen trolling a number of blogs, but have yet to see contribute usefully to a discussion.
Posted by: David | Jul 19, 2007 3:07:39 PM
it's not an issue of property rights at all. The issue is one of racism; is it, or is it not, acceptable for Israel (or anyone else) to limit who can purchase or access land based on their ancestry or religion?
That's why I said Israel shouldn't stand by those rules of the Jewish National Fund (although I'm unclear on the current status of the rules--this article says that the Israeli Supreme Court recently forbid discrimination between citizens, although it also suggests that they've created a new discriminatory 'workaround' where the Jewish National Fund is automatically granted new land every time it sells some to a non-Jew, and it may be that they are still allowed to discriminate between non-citizens who want to buy land). However, I understood the "right of return" to mean that Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens, but whose ancestors lived in what is currently Israel, should automatically be able to immigrate to Israel if they wished to (that's how it's defined in the wikipedia entry), and I also had the impression (though I may well be confused about this) that the idea was that Palestinians would simply be able to reclaim land that belonged to their ancestors, not that they could purchase it back if they had the money and if the owner was willing to sell.
I don't know anything about SLC's posting history, but I had been thinking of asking about american indians myself, so I just quoted him because he provided some additional examples I hadn't thought of. I suppose the relevance of these analogies depends on whether I've misunderstood the meaning of the term "right of return" though (certainly american indians are free to buy land that was once lived on by their ancestors), so I'll wait for clarification on that.
Posted by: Jesse M. | Jul 19, 2007 3:33:21 PM
The elephant in the room which no one addressing here is the true geographic scale of this dispute. The Palestinians are part of the greater "Umma Arabia", the Arab nation which shares a common religion, ethnic makeup, culture history and language. The Arab nation controls 20+ countries stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, repleat with oil and other natural resources, with a total surface area of about 11.5 million square kilometers. The Jewish homeland, Israel, covers just 26 thousand square kilometers, or 0.2% of what the Arab nation controls. Thats what all the self righteous wailing, squealing and knashing of teeth is about: 0.2%
Posted by: aguy109 | Jul 19, 2007 6:41:51 PM
Miuw,
Let me start off by stating emphatically my position regarding land ownership: To my mind, there can be no legal discrimination based on race or creed or any other factor regarding land ownership in Israel. Mr. Ammous' family should, and to the best of my knowledge, can, buy land in Israel.
However, Jews are forbidden, by penalty of death, to buy land in the PA: http://world.std.com/~camera/docs/backg/land-pa.html).
Another example:
"PA cabinet decision passed at its weekly meeting in Ramallah on May 2-3, 1997 (Voice of Palestine, May 3, 1997):
"The Palestinian leadership listened to a report regarding the fact that a number of land speculators have sold, via foreign intermediaries, Palestinian land to foreign companies, which are in fact Israeli companies working in the framework of the settlement plans being carried out by the Israeli government. The Palestinian leadership has decided to forbid the sale of land anywhere in Palestine either directly or via intermediaries. The leadership has empowered the legal authorities and security forces to implement the decision on this matter and to punish anyone who has sold land directly or has assisted in its sale. The sale of land constitutes the gravest danger concerning the Judaization of the Palestinian lands."
As I stated before, I come from a long line of uprooted people, so, sadly, I am in an excellent position to appreciate Mr. Ammous' point of view.
However, I cannot agree with with the mythology that comes with it. The blood thirsty Zionist hordes did not descend on the peaceful orange groves of Palestine in 1948 from nowhere just to relish in the displacement of the Palestinian people. Such a view of history is a fabrication to anyone who studies the subject.
By 1948, Palestine had been under English mandatory rule for 28 years.
Article 2 of that mandate states:
"The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion." (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Palestine_Mandate).
387,500 acres of Arab land were purchased by the Jews during this period.
1948 saw the Jewish Agency, as the acting representative of the Jewish people, accept the UN sanctioned partition of Israel. The Arab bloc flat out denied it and declared war on Israel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_UN_Partition_Plan).
The Arab bloc was absolutely confident that it could win that war and seize by military force what the international community denied.
They lost.
That loss was and is tragic in their eyes, but Israel cannot be saddled with the blame for that loss. Nor can it be saddled with the moral obligation of restitution occurred by that loss.
The theoretical question of morality is a very complex one - and I fail to see how I could ever persuade you or Mr. Ammous or Rawand or any other contributor here of my moral righteousness, or the other way round. That is why I emphasis practicality and pragmatism.
I do not see any chance of a one state solution in Palestine. The suggestion can only be made by people who do not live in the region and who have not experienced this conflict on a daily basis for decades.
Israel has made many mistakes. It has done shameful things. So have the Palestinians.
A two state solution, while difficult (and would probably lead Israel to, or near, a civil war) is feasible.
Posted by: dkmy | Jul 19, 2007 6:43:20 PM
Re David
"SLC - is better ignored. This guy is a far-right Zionist who I've seen trolling a number of blogs, but have yet to see contribute usefully to a discussion."
Apparently Mr. Davids' definition of a far right Zionist is anybody to the right of Norman Finkelstein, undoubtedly one of his heroes.
Re dkmy
The two state solution has apparently become a three state solution (e.g. Israel, West Bank, Gaza Strip).
Posted by: SLC | Jul 19, 2007 7:49:17 PM
dkmy,
You made countless factual errors in your latest comment.
I am NOT allowed to buy my land back. Non-jews can not buy land in Israel; even the land that they themselves had owned before 1948. That's a fact, stop twisting it and lying to get your warped views across.
Your talk about the law in the PA is nonsense. The reality was that some of these lands were sold to third parties who then transferred them to settlements for Jews only. Since these settlements would then be fenced off and no Palestinians allowed to enter them, it is pretty sensible to make sure that none of these lands go to Israelis. If Israelis would just buy land like anyone else in the PA, that wouldn't be a problem, but when they buy the land and then fence it off for Jews only, move IDF tanks to protect it, and then expect to keep it in any future negotiation on the borders, then that's just criminal.
Finally, the "history" you wrote of 1948 is completely bullshit, to put it mildly. I have no interest in acting like a school teacher and showing you your mistakes. Please try to read some real history about the conflict before coming here and making a fool of yourself by reciting Israeli high-school textbook propaganda. A good place to start may be Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, Walid Khalidi or Rashid Khalidi.
Once you actually know the history, it might be possible for adults to start taking you seriously and replying to your comments.
Finally, one more very important point about your previous comments. The difference between your ancestors' land in Bulgaria and my land in Palestine, is that you could, if you wanted to, go to Bulgaria, buy land, live there and even get the passport. The property itself may have gone, but there is no system of discrimination that prevents you from going there. That is actually what I would like to have in Palestine. I wouldn't mind losing my land itself, as long as I am not discriminated against. I would gladly give up my land for the abolition of the racist Zionist system that prevents non-Jews from owning land.
Posted by: saifedean | Jul 19, 2007 8:05:24 PM
aguy109,
I usually don't stoop down to the level of your likes to answer your "arguments", but I will have to make an exception this time because the point you make, as ridiculously racist and idiotic as it is, is one that is made all too frequently and needs to be answered sometimes.
By your "logic", it would be perfectly ok for, say, Gypsies to come to Michigan and ethnically cleanse it, forcing all non-Gypsies to move to other American states. After all, gypsies do not have their own state, and Michigans are Americans and have 49 other states to which they can move.
Palestinians are Arabs, and they do consider themselves so, but they are also very consciously Palestinian. You can read the work of Yehoshaua Porath or Rashid Khalidi on Palestinian identity if you don't believe me. There is nothing wrong with them having both these loyalties, everyone, everywhere in the world has several loyalties. Someone can be Parisian, French, European, Catholic and Black and have a strong sense of belonging to all of these identities. That does not make any of them expendable by invading armies.
Palestinians feel a very strong attachment to Palestine, which is evident by the fact that they are still fighting for it after all those years. For a genius like yourself to stand and say that they're just Arabs and can go anywhere is as nonsensical as me telling someone from France that they're just Europeans and can move anywhere they want in Europe, as they don't really need France.
Posted by: Saifedean Ammous | Jul 19, 2007 8:14:04 PM
There seems to be a fundamental material discrepancy between Saifedean Ammous's key contention that in Israel he faces a legal system which resorts to racial determinations to exclude him from even purchasing land that belonged to his grandfather (and a system based on such determinations is surely racist), and dkmy's position that this is not so (indeed, he asserts that the contrary conditions obtain).
I am presuming that Saifedean Ammous has had direct experience of the legal conditions he describes and has had ample opportunity to explore their legal form and their practical implications.
What implications follow, then, from dkmy's own claim that 'To my mind, there can be no legal discrimination based on race or creed or any other factor regarding land ownership in Israel'?
It would seem to be genuinely valuable to resolve this material discrepancy, for then it would allow the ethical and pragmatic implications (which are necessarily folded into each other) to be directly addressed by dkmy (I believe that Saifedean Ammous has done so).
(To my mind, and for what it's worth, the distinction that Saifedean Ammous draws between Bulgaria and Israel in this connection is a powerful one.)
Posted by: miuw | Jul 19, 2007 8:47:32 PM
Mr. Ammous,
Citing Revisionist historians (why do you conclude that I've never read them?) does not constitute an argument. Nor does the fact that they present a different view mean that they are actually right. I can point you here - http://www.meforum.org/article/302 for an excellent discussion of Revisionist theory and assumptions. But the fact that Israeli society is able to bear such diversity is encouraging. Where is your diversity? Where is the Palestinian different perspective?
Hurling abuse does nothing to prove your point. Prefixing automatic derogatory terms before every mention of "Zionist", "Jew" and "Israel" makes reading you ridiculous.
Miuw,
Here is a concrete example. Of course it will be lambasted by Mr. Ammous as vile Zionist propaganda, but then again, he says that about everything.
"Jerusalem, 8 March 2000
High Court: Decision on Katzir
(Communicated by Court's Spokeswoman)
The High Court of Justice today (Wednesday) 8.3.2000 ruled in the Katzir case. Following is the case summary:
Petitioners are an Arab couple who live in an Arab settlement. They seek to build a home in Katzir, a communal settlement in the Eron River region. This settlement was established in 1982 by the Jewish Agency in collaboration with the Katzir Cooperative Society, on State land that was allocated to the Jewish Agency (via the Israel Land Authority) for such a purpose. The Katzir Cooperative Society only accepts Jewish members. As such, it refuses to accept the Petitioners and permit them to build their home in the communal settlement of Katzir. The Petitioners claim that the policy constitutes discrimination on the basis of religion or nationality an that such discrimination is prohibited by law with regard to State land.
The Court examined the question of whether the refusal to allow the petitioners to build their home in Kaztir constituted impermissible discrimination. The Court's examination proceeded in two stages. First, the Court examined whether the State may allocate land directly to its citizens on the basis of religion or nationality. The answer is no. As a general rule, the principle of equality prohibits the State from distinguishing between its citizens on the basis of religion or nationality. The principle also applies to the allocation of State land. This conclusion is derived both from the values of Israel as a Democratic state and from the values of Israel as a Jewish state. The Jewish character of the State does not permit Israel to discriminate between its citizens. In Israel, Jews and non-Jews are citizens with equal rights and responsibilities. The State engages in impermissible discrimination even it if is also willing to allocate State land for the purpose of establishing an exclusively Arab settlement, as long as it permits a group of Jews, without distinguishing characteristics to establish an exclusively Jewish settlement on State land ("separate is inherently unequal").
Next, the Court examined whether the State may allocate land to the Jewish Agency knowing that the Agency will only permit Jews to use the land. The answer is no. Where one may not discriminate directly, one may not discriminate indirectly. If the State, through its own actions, may not discriminate on the basis of religion or nationality, it may not facilitate such discrimination by a third party. It does not change matters that the third party is the Jewish Agency. Even if the Jewish Agency may distinguish between Jews and non-Jews, it may not do so in the allocation of State land.
The Court limited its decision to the particular facts of this case. The general issue of use of State lands for the purposes of settlement raises a wide range of questions. First, as the petitioners themselves agreed, this case is not directed at past allocations of State land. This petition looks to the future. Second, this petition focuses on the particular circumstances of the communal settlement of Katzir. In discussing this issue, the Court stated:
"Naturally, there are different types of settlements, for example, kibbutzim and moshavim. Different types of settlements give rise to different problems. We did not hear arguments regarding other types of settlements and therefore, we do not take a position with regard to these types of settlements. Moreover, we must consider the possibility that special circumstances, beyond the type of settlement, may be relevant. We did not hear arguments with regard to such special circumstances, and therefore we do not take a position with regard to their significance. Moreover, it is important to understand and remember that today we are taking the first step in a sensitive and difficult journey. It is wise to proceed slowly, so that we do not stumble and fall, and instead we will proceed cautiously at every stage, according to the circumstances of each case."
With regard to the relief requested by the petitioners, the Court noted various social legal difficulties. In light of these difficulties, the Court rendered the following judgement:
A. "We hold that the State of Israel was not permitted, by law, to allocate State land to the Jewish Agency for the purpose of establishing the communal settlement of Katzir on the basis of discrimination between Jews and non-Jews.
B. The State of Israel mist consider the petitioners' request to acquire land for themselves in the settlement of Katzir for the purpose of building their home. The State must make this consideration based on the principle of equality, and considering various other relevant factors - including those factors affecting the Jewish Agency and the current residents of Katzir. The State of Israel must also consider the numerous legal issues. Based on these considerations, the State of Israel must determine with deliberate speed whether to allow the petitioners to make a home within the communal settlement of Katzir."
President Aharon Barak filed an opinion in which Justices T. Or and I. Zamir joined. Justice M. Cheshin concurred in the judgement and filed an opinion. Justice Y. Kedmi dissented in the judgement and filed an opinion."
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2000/High+Court-+Decision+on+Katzir+-+8-Mar-2000.htm
Posted by: dkmy | Jul 20, 2007 5:14:44 AM
I did not address my remarks to Mr Ammous but to the international audience before which he is pushing his case. Arab Muslims control 99.8% of the lands of the Middle East that were once under Ottoman control. Should the rest of the world go out of its way to help them get their hands on the remaining 0.2% and throw out the Jews, whose religious, ethnic and political origins in that slither of land have always been accepted and tacitly acknowledged, even by the Prophet Muhammed himself, who knew and argued with Jews personnally and even incorporated the Hebrew patriarchs and Moses into the Islamic faith? How fitting that Ammous, like the Nazis, compares Jews with Gypsies. No coincidence: the leader of the main Palestinian group in the 1930's, the Mufti of Jerusalem, obtained a personal audience with Hitler and signed a pact with the Fuehrer. A number of Palestinians voluntered to serve in the Nazi army, which came close to conquering North Africa.
Posted by: aguy109 | Jul 20, 2007 5:41:36 AM
From yesterday's Haaretz:
"The Knesset plenum approved a bill Wednesday, in its preliminary reading, which calls for all lands under the Jewish National Fund (JNF) to be allocated to Jews only. The bill passed by a massive majority of 64 MKS to 16."
http://themagneszionist.blogspot.com/2007/07/israel-racism-watch-knesset-gives.html
Posted by: Dave G. | Jul 20, 2007 5:32:48 PM
Damn I came late to this... I wish I'd seen this article earlier as this is my kind of brawl. I don't have the time to read thru every comment now and so I'll refrain from jumping in (just yet) other than to say props and bravo to Saif for this piece. It's time we really began to understand the central issues of the Palestinian-Israeli struggle; not the nonsense of "age-old" hatred but of practicalities like the right of refugees to return or be compensated for their lost property. None of the issue will be solved until 1948 is revisited -- all the Zionists here really need to take note of this. Until there is a just accounting of that historical moment, this tragedy will simply continue.
So many points deserve rebuttal, and Saif and others have done well so far. I would like to respond to those who castigate Saif for the passion of his elocution. This is such a tiresome way of putting down those who raise issues of justice -- seriously, just watch and see how white folk get uncomfortable when an African-American talks about ongoing racism... and when they're alone they look at each other and say, if only she was a little more reasonable in how she made her argument, if only a bit more polite. Saif's family (and hundreds of thousands - now millions - of others) have had the ongoing trauma of 1948 and then the occupation digging into their souls. You want them to be more polite while they make their points? Thank you masta, yessir masta?
Speaking of racism, thanks aguy109 for giving us a shining example: "Arab Muslims control 99.8% of the lands of the Middle East that were once under Ottoman control. Should the rest of the world go out of its way to help them get their hands on the remaining 0.2% and throw out the Jews..." (etc) First of all, Turks, Armenians, Bulgarians, Serbs and all sorts of non Arabs now have nations where the Ottomans once were, so your stats are all off my friend. But the point is what do Palestinians have to do with "Arab Muslims" unless, since you're racist, you think that all Arabs are just interchangeable, and so what if this million are ethnically cleansed they can just git up and move on over there with the others of their swarthy kind? That's textbook racism. And if you want to get into the race game, how many Jews actually have a blood link back to the fabled biblical Israelites? No one knows, and I really don't care, but making your asinine arguments about a birthright hold no water to those of us who see the world as a complex place whose history doesn't match a few odd stories in the Good Book. (By the way, how many days did it take for God to make the earth?)
Posted by: kevin | Jul 20, 2007 6:29:35 PM
Folks, I, for one, am keen to establish the facts as they pertain to Saifedean Ammous's central contention. It would be useful to reach agreement about points of law.
As I noted in an exchange with Hektor, the mere existence of a formal or legal condition of possibility says nothing of the ease or arduousness of the process of its realization. Nevertheless, it is important to establish what formal conditions do obtain (or did obtain until the most recent ruling posted above by Dave G). Of course, it is not always easy to reach an apodictic conclusion regarding a point of law, because laws tend to be established through contest and the actual nature of statute is always subject to (often willful) interpretation.
I distrust many of the online sources that address the issue, though many suggest that (at least until yesterday) such a 'formal' possibility (for non-Jews to buy land in Israel) did obtain. However, it also seems that the reason for such rulings as have been made establishing such a right is that in practice such a possibility was impossible to realise (for Palestinians).
I think it would be useful to keep this thread alive, and I think that the more substantiated facts that are brought to the debate the better. It would be truly useful for a great many people sympathetic with your position, Saifedean Ammous, if you would point towards relevant rulings and statutes (I'm sure you've much else to be busy with, but you did start this thread). Likewise, I think it would be of real benefit, at the risk of seeming school teacherly, if you did point out specific factual errors and untenable historical interpretations offered here as a rebuttal of your claims.
dkmy and Hektor, given your variously angled contentions that 'racism' is not at play here it would be truly useful to learn your response to the following from 'Jerry Haber', an orthodox progressive Jew (this text can be found at the URL in Dave G's post above):
Basically, the Israeli Knesset gave preliminary approval today to a bill outlawing the lease of land owned by the Jewish National Fund to goyim. It now goes into committee where, God willing, it will be buried. But I doubt it.
Of course, it is against the halakha to sell the land of Israel to idolaters. The fact that Rav Kook ruled that Muslims are not idolaters is a source of unending embarrassment to the religious right.
But the point of this bill -- cosponsored by a member of Ehud Olmert's Kadimah party -- is to bypass the High Court's 2004 ruling that required the JNF to lease state land to Israeli arab Adil Ka'adan as a result of that ruling, Meni Mazuz, the State Comptroller, instructed the JNF not to discriminate in sales. That angered the Israeli legislators, who wish to pass this discriminatory law. The irony is that there was an attempt to prevent the bill from being tabled because it is racist. Apparently, not enough.
By the way, the Ka'dan ruling was praised by Alan Dershowitz in his book, "The Case for Israel."
I am hoping that Alan will speak loud and clear against this racist -- oops -- "Jewish" law, (that is how the proponents are describing it.)
Should I be glad that the racism that is so deeply rooted in political Zionism, and the State of Israel, is being flushed out of the closet for everybody to see? Not really.
But hang on...it is a Jewish state, right? And that land was bought by Jews for Jews. I mean shouldn't everybody have to a right to buy land for her family?
http://themagneszionist.blogspot.com/2007/07/israel-racism-watch-knesset-gives.html
Sure, and I have a legal and moral right to sell only to whites -- right?
Posted by: miuw | Jul 20, 2007 7:48:03 PM
Miuw,
As I stated before, to my mind the preliminary approval of this law is an abomination. However, it still has to go through a long legislative process to become law, and I am sure that it will be contested in the Supreme Court and the Knesset itself. I would think that this attempt at legislation proves that no such legislation existed until now, as opposed to what Mr. Ammous and others keep claiming.
"Jerry Haber", a pseudonym for someone who claims to be an orthodox Jew yet uses the byline -"Not just another Israel-bashing blog" seems to me a very suspect authority for someone who claims to distrust online sources.
Dave G. - why not quote Ha'aretz's editorial about this attempt at legislation, which condemns it in the strongest terms:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/884358.html
Kevin,
Regarding the "passion" of Mr. Ammous' elocution - I'm surprised that a call for some restraint on language is so annoying to some of you. Is it so strange to have a debate that does not entail abuse?
One of the things I've learned during this discussion is that unlike Israeli discourse on the conflict, which ranges from revisionist historians such as Mr. Pape to right wing politicians who promote laws such as the one discussed here, the Palestinian side is a monolith. There are no gradations, no difference of tone or perspective, no self-doubt or admission of error.
As I started my comments here with a long quotation, I would like to end them with another one, from The Economist / May 26, 2007, which sums up my views on the matter quite succinctly:
"The 6-day war, 40 years on
Israel's wasted victory
On the seventh day Jews everywhere celebrated Israel’s deliverance from danger. But 40 years after that tumultuous June of 1967, the six-day war has come to look like one of history’s pyrrhic victories. That is not to say that the war was unnecessary. Israel struck after Egypt’s President Nasser sent his army into the Sinai peninsula, evicted United Nations peacekeeping forces and blockaded Israeli shipping through the Gulf of Aqaba. Israel’s victory opened the waterway and smashed its enemies’ encircling armies, averting what many Israelis sincerely expected to be a second Holocaust. And yet, in the long run, the war turned into a calamity for the Jewish state no less than for its neighbours.
Part of the trouble was the completeness of the triumph. Its speed and scope led many Israelis to see a divine hand in their victory. This changed Israel itself, giving birth to an irredentist religious-nationalist movement intent on permanent colonisation of the occupied lands (see article). After six days Israel had conquered not just Sinai and the Syrian Golan Heights but also the old city of Jerusalem and the West Bank—the biblical Judea and Samaria where Judaism began. In theory, these lands might have been traded back for the peace the Arabs had withheld since Israel’s founding. That is what the UN Security Council proposed in Resolution 242. But Israelis were intoxicated by victory and the Arabs paralysed by humiliation. The Arabs did not phone to sue for peace and Israel did not mind not hearing from them. Instead, it embarked on its hubristic folly of annexing the Arab half of Jerusalem and—in defiance of law, demography and common sense—planting Jewish settlements in all the occupied territories to secure a Greater Israel.
The six-day war changed the Palestinians too. They had been scattered by the fighting that accompanied Israel’s founding in 1948. Some fled beyond Palestine; others became citizens of the Jewish state or lived under Egypt in Gaza and Jordan in the West Bank. The 1967 war reunited them under Israeli control and so sharpened their own thwarted hunger for statehood. When, decades later, Egypt and Jordan did make peace with Israel, the Palestinians did not recover Gaza and the West Bank. This has left some 4m Palestinians desperate for independence but in a confined land choked by Jewish settlements—along with the fences, checkpoints and all the hardships and indignities of military occupation. Ariel Sharon, it is true, dragged Israel out of the Gaza Strip two years ago. But so what? The Palestinians will not consider peace unless they get the West Bank and Arab Jerusalem too. And Hamas, the Islamists who now run what passes for a Palestinian government, says it will not make a permanent peace even then.
Is there a way out? Yes: but making peace will take courage, and too much of the energy that should have gone into peacemaking has been squandered on the blame game. There is, admittedly, plenty of blame to go round. What right had the British, in 1917, to promise the Jews a national home in Palestine? Why did the Palestinians reject partition in 1947? Why did Israel colonise the territories after 1967? Why did the Americans let Israel get away with it? Why did the Arab states leave the refugees to fester in camps? The Palestinians are terrorists, Zionism is racism, Israel’s enemies are anti-Semites. Yasser Arafat should have accepted Israel’s “generous offer” at Camp David in 2000. But, hang on, Israel’s offer was not so generous...
And so the quarrel spins, growing more bitter with each revolution and spreading far beyond the Middle East. What started as a national struggle between two peoples for one land is gradually, and often wilfully, being transformed into a war of religion, feeding poison into the wounded relations between Islam and the West as a whole. It is scandalous that the occupation has persisted since 1967. This conflict should have been resolved long ago, and its continuation is an indictment of all involved, from the warring parties for their intransigence, to regional powers that have exploited the Palestinian cause for self interest, to the great powers for their lack of sustained attention. It should end—but how?
The answer has been obvious at least since 1937, when a British royal commission under Lord Peel reported that “an irrepressible conflict” had arisen between the Arabs and Jews of Palestine and that the country would have to be partitioned. More recently, the manner of the division has become obvious too. Despite all Israel’s settlements, demography and justice still point to a border based on the pre-1967 lines, with minor adjustments of the sort Bill Clinton suggested in 2000.
As Mr Clinton’s failure at Camp David demonstrated, securing agreement for such a deal will be hard. The Clinton solution would require Israel to give up the bulk of its settlements in the West Bank, uproot a great many more settlers than it did in Gaza and share sovereignty over Jerusalem. The Palestinians would have to accept that most refugees would “return” not to their homes of 60 years ago inside Israel but to a new state in the West Bank and Gaza. Such compromises will hurt. But for either side to give less and demand more will merely tip the difficult into the impossible.
Right now both continue to offer too little and demand too much. Israel has at least abandoned the dream of a Greater Israel that bewitched it after the great victory of 1967. The illusion that the Palestinians would fall into silence has been shattered by two intifadas and every rocket Hamas fires from Gaza. Israel’s present government says it is committed to a two-state solution. But it is a weak government, and has lacked the courage to spell out honestly the full territorial price Israelis must pay. The Palestinians have meanwhile gone backwards. If Hamas means what it says, it continues to reject the idea that Jews have a right to a national existence in the Middle East.
What self-defeating madness. For peace to come, Israel must give up the West Bank and share Jerusalem; the Palestinians must give up the dream of return and make Israel feel secure as a Jewish state. All the rest is detail.
Posted by: dkmy | Jul 21, 2007 1:24:16 AM
Dkmy displays the sad reality of American comprehension of this matter... while her or his perspective shows some awareness of those (few) brave Israeli Jews who dissent from the heavy weight of mainstream Israeli public discourse, yet when a Palestinian writes about anything the images of toothless raving Muslim hordes overwhelms his or her imagination: "the Palestinian side is a monolith. There are no gradations, no difference of tone or perspective, no self-doubt or admission of error."
Is it any longer acceptable to make claims that any peoples all think, act, are alike? Of course not - to claim that they do is now recognized as a form of racism. It's like saying "the Jews all say..." or "the Blacks all do..." The fact that you don't perceive variety among these impolite rabble-rousing Palestinians is due more to your willful ignorance and, let's face it, your racism toward Palestinians. I say this with some concern for you - you need to really examine how you view Palestinians. Perhaps it escaped you that recent months have brought about a significant ideological split between two very different political visions among the Palestinians. "A monolith"? Saif himself has already spoken about wide differences between Palestinians on the right of return as well as a range of other issues - just to begin with, as a baby-step to learning about this issue, you might take a look at the attention Sari Nusseibeh receives from lefty Zionists for arguing against the right of return - of course, he's a legitimate part of Palestinian public discourse, but someone Saif would argue against passionately, yet you can't - don't want to - see it... So much for the monolithic ideology that you seem to think every Palestinian robotically intones in jarring and uncouth statements.
And on your other point: it's your arrogant sense privilege that renders Saif's eloquence into 'abuse'. Every supposedly "common sense" claim you make about what the Palestinians need to give up here has such a long and terrible history of violence and oppression woven into it. But heaven forbid a Palestinian dare to speak back to you as an equal; that would certainly be abuse.
Posted by: Kevin | Jul 21, 2007 5:40:56 AM
"68% of Jews would refuse to live in same building as an Arab."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/697458.html
"A Haifa University poll released in June revealed that over 63 percent of Jews believed that the Government should encourage Israeli Arabs to emigrate."
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41723.htm
Posted by: PeaceThroughJustice | Jul 21, 2007 1:43:16 PM
It's interesting how few of the comments here have responded to the fundamental issues of justice that Saifedean raised. As usually happens with discussions touching on Zionism, this one was sidetracked into pointless quibbles over terminology and historical irrelevancies. It's so common a tactic on the Internet that it's hard not to suspect that it's intentional.
As we attempt to move forward in solving the problem the world faces in the Middle East, there are many principles and practices over which people of good faith can disagree. But the racism inherent in an ideology that teaches that Jews must not live amongst Gentiles, and that they possess a claim to Palestine which takes precedence over all others -- including the inhabitants' -- is not among them.
If the SLC's and dkmy's and guy109's continue to deny this, I'm afraid they must be politely left behind. Too much is at stake to let them continue to sabotage the struggle for justice. Sixty years is too long.
Posted by: Dave G. | Jul 21, 2007 9:11:50 PM
I posted a long time ago in this sad exchange. Returning to it a week later, I'm further dispirited to see that relatively moderate posts like dkmy's "Israel must give up the West Bank and share Jerusalem; the Palestinians must give up the dream of return and make Israel feel secure as a Jewish state" get treated like they're the ravings of "zionist racists." Such is madness. For as long as discussions like this get stuck in the idiom of the Ramsey Clark brigade they really don't offer much in the way of enlightenment, knowledge, or conversation.
Posted by: Jonathan | Jul 23, 2007 9:27:33 AM
The passage of this post, from dkmy's initial Herzog quote to that of the Economist article, should surely be welcomed, surely presents openings for genuine dialogue. Why is his position being dismissed out of hand? (And I am unsure why Kevin is making dkmy a proxy for the 'American comprehension of this matter'.)
It is so that the everyday of most Israelis affords (literally) more space for perspective. As an occupying power (and dkmy seems to accede to as much) they occupy the strategic heights, they control the water rights that keep the ample lawns of settlements green, they control the electricity in the very homes of Palestinians. So, perhaps one should expect greater accommodation in Israeli discourse (though, who is to judge the share of another's suffering without even knowing who they are?).
dkmy has clearly stated that discrimination on the grounds of race is an abomination, but has pointed to rulings that suggest, whatever the case in practice, this practice is not (or was not) enshrined in law. Of course, the case in practice is what counts, and so it would have been useful to have precise and considered examples from the likes of Saifedean Ammous, that either illustrate the situation in practice or confirm his claims about points of law.
It seemed to me that dkmy's approach was humane, principled and reasoned. It would be most heartening to see an engagement here. In such a forum as this, with intelligence, compassion, a rich historical sense and a forward looking political imagination, can we not try to sustain a debate that moves us all closer understanding and opens a space for the posing solutions?
Posted by: miuw | Jul 23, 2007 11:42:35 AM
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F8527028-AA0F-4560-92E1-11D89FE0A4E3.htm
Posted by: Shlomo | Jul 24, 2007 1:10:54 PM
"Ramsay Clark brigade"--
In other words, anyone who steps outside the mainstream opinion in the US is to be lumped in with crazies, crackpots, etc. Typical bullying tactic by people who don't want to be bothered by reasonable arguments that make them uncomfortable.
Saife's opinion is logically unassailable. It might or might not be politically achievable--there's no evidence the two state solution is politically achievable in the current climate.
Posted by: Donald | Jul 26, 2007 9:47:46 PM
"Saife's opinion is logically unassailable."
Only logical to those who accept the premises of his argument. These include the complete denial of any national right of Jews to live in the land of Israel, and the rightness of turning the clock back 120 years to the advantage of Saif's displaced family members. Is the best, most just way to conflict resolution the elimination of one side of the conflict?
Hey, I'm not too worried. The Israeli economy is booming, 5,000 American Jews, as well as thousands of French Jews, have come to settle here over the past 3 years, Israeli textile companies have boosted the Jordanian economy and provided many jobs there, the Palestinian camp has split into 2 main warring factions, apart from the many sub factions. Not wonderful, but not too bad, so we needn't worry about closet anti semites like Kevin etc who jump on the Palestinian bandwagon, even when its stuck in the mud.
Posted by: aguy109 | Jul 27, 2007 4:12:30 AM
"the complete denial of any national right of Jews to live in the land of Israel"
Only if they continue to insist in not sharing it.
(A people apart, indeed.)
Posted by: Elaine | Jul 28, 2007 5:42:29 PM
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