BY RAMZY BAROUD – Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist, author, and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story
LONG before Dec. 28, when Secretary of State John Kerry took the podium at the Dean Acheson Auditorium in Washington DC to pontificate on the uncertain future of the two-state solution and the need to save Israel from itself, the subject of a Palestinian state has been paramount.
In fact, unlike common belief, the push to establish a Palestinian and a Jewish state side-by-side goes back years before the passing of United Nations Resolution 181 in November 1947.
That infamous resolution had called for the partitioning of Palestine into three entities: a Jewish state, a Palestinian state and an international regime to govern Jerusalem. A more thorough reading of history can pinpoint multiple references to the Palestinian (or Arab state) between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
The idea of two states is Western par excellence. No Palestinian party or leader had ever thought that partitioning the Holy Land was ever an option. Then, such an idea seemed preposterous, partly because, as Ilan Pappe’s ‘Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’ shows, ‘almost all of the cultivated land in Palestine was held by the indigenous population (while) only 5.8 per cent was in Jewish ownership in 1947.’
An earlier, but equally important, reference to a Palestinian state was made in the Peel Commission, a British commission of inquiry led by Lord Peel, that was sent to Palestine to investigate the reasons behind the popular strike, uprising, and later armed rebellion that began in 1936 and lasted for nearly three years.
The ‘underlying causes of the disturbances’ were two, the commission resolved: Palestinian desire for independence, and the ‘hatred and fear of the establishment of the Jewish national home.’ The latter was promised by the British government to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland in 1917 which became known as the Balfour Declaration.
The Peel Commission recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, which would be incorporated into Transjordan, with enclaves reserved for the British Mandate government. In the time between that recommendation eighty years ago, and Kerry’s warning that the two-state solution is ‘in serious jeopardy,’ little has been done in terms of practical steps to establish a Palestinian state.
Worse, the US has used its veto power in the UN repeatedly to impede the establishment of a Palestinian state, as well as utilising its political and economic might to intimidate others from recognising (although symbolically) a Palestinian state.
It has further played a key role in funding illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem – all of which rendered the existence of a Palestinian state virtually impossible. The issue now is: why does the West continue to use the two-state solution as their political parameter for a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while, at the same time ensuring that their own prescription for conflict resolution is never to become a reality?
The answer, partly, lies in the fact the two-state solution was never devised for implementation to begin with. Like the ‘peace process’ and other pretences, it aimed to promote among Palestinians and Arabs the idea that there is a goal worth striving for, despite being unattainable. But even that goal was itself conditioned on a set of demands that were unrealistic to begin with.
Historically, Palestinians had to renounce violence (their armed resistance to Israel’s military occupation), consent to various UN resolutions (even if Israel still reject those resolutions), accept Israel’s ‘right’ to exist as a Jewish state, and so on. That yet-to-be-established Palestinian state was also meant to be demilitarised, divided between the West Bank and Gaza, and excluding most of occupied East Jerusalem.
Many new ‘creative’ solutions were also offered to alleviate any Israeli fears that the nonexistent Palestinian state, in case of its establishment, ever pose a threat to Israel. At times, discussions were afoot about a confederation between Palestine and Jordan, and other times, as in the most recent proposal by the head of Jewish Home Party, Israeli Minister Naftali Bennett, making Gaza a state of its own and annexing to Israel 60 per cent of the West Bank.
And when Israel’s allies, frustrated by the rise of the right-wing in Israel and the obstinacy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, insist that time is running out for a two-state solution, they express their worries in the form of tough love. Israel’s settlement activity is ‘increasingly cementing an irreversible one-state reality,’ Kerry said in his major policy speech last month.
Such a reality would force Israel to either compromise on the Jewish identity of the state (as if having religious/ethnic identities of a modern democratic state is a common precondition) or having to contend with being an Apartheid state (as if such reality doesn’t exist anyway).
Kerry warned Israel that it will eventually be left with the option of placing Palestinians ‘under a permanent military occupation that deprives them of the most basic freedoms,’ thus paving the ground for a ‘separate and unequal’ scenario.
Yet while warnings that a two-state solution possibility is disintegrating, few bothered to try to understand the reality from a Palestinian perspective. For Palestinians, the debate on Israel having to choose between being democratic and Jewish is ludicrous. For them, Israel’s democracy applies fully to its Jewish citizens and no one else, while Palestinians have subsisted for decades behind walls, fences, prisons and besieged enclaves, like the Gaza Strip.
And with two separate laws, rules and realities applying to two separate groups in the same land, Kerry’s ‘separate but unequal’ Apartheid scenario had taken place the moment Israel was established in 1948. Fed up by the illusions of their own failed leadership, according to a recent poll, two thirds of Palestinians now agree that a two-state solution is not possible.
And that margin keeps on growing as fast as the massive illegal settlement enterprise dotting the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. This is not an argument against the two-state solution; for the latter merely existed as a ruse to pacify Palestinians, buy time and demarcate the conflict with a mirage-like political horizon.
If the US was indeed keen on a two-state solution, it would have fought vehemently to make it a reality, decades ago. To say that the two-state solution is now dead is to subscribe to the illusion that it was once alive and possible.
That said, it behoves everyone to understand that coexistence in a one democratic state is not a dark scenario that spells doom for the region. It is time to abandon unattainable illusions and focus all energies to foster coexistence, based on equality and justice for all. Indeed, there can be one state between the river and the sea, and that is a democratic state for all of its people, regardless of their ethnicity or religious beliefs.
• Meanwhile the Israeli authorities have issued 26 stop-construction and land confiscation orders since the beginning of this year to Palestinians in the Salfit area villages of Haris, Broqeen, Deir Istiya, Rafat and Zawieh, in the north of the West Bank.
These orders were based on the pretext that the land in question is in Area C, which is under full Israeli military control, and therefore no Palestinian is allowed to build on it or cultivate it before getting the right permit from the so-called Israeli Civil Administration, a wing of the Israeli military government. Data shows that almost 75 per cent of the area of Salfit is considered Area C.
Wa’el Qutt, an attorney with al-Quds Centre for Legal Aid (QCLA), told WAFA that ‘the 26 orders are only the first phase of a series of arbitrary measures by the Israeli Civil Administration and occupation authorities to demolish homes.’ He said Salfit has a special status because of the large number of Israeli settlements in the area while villages’ zoning and planning are confined to a narrow area because the occupation authorities do not care for the growth needs of these villages, which prompts residents to build outside the built-up and zoned area.
He said that according to international law, Israel, the occupying power, has a responsibility to meet the needs of the people under its occupation, including the need for population growth and expansion. He said any demolition carried out by Israel is therefore a clear violation of international law and harmful to private property protected by local and international laws.
Husam Abdul-Qader, 54, from Deir Istya, said this area is vital for all the villagers and their only hope for agricultural expansion while part of it houses animal and livestock barns built 10 years ago and today they are threatened by Israel with destruction. Abdul-Qader said he has two barns for breeding cattle in this land with an area of 900 square metres. The two barns have more than 100 calves and had cost more than $65,000 to set up, he said.
‘It is impossible to remove them because there is no other place to put them,’ he said. ‘This is the only place for investment in the village.’
Meanwhile, 60-year-old Taleb al-Dik, from nearby Kufr al-Dik, said he received a notice from the Israeli authorities regarding land planted with olive trees he had inherited from his father and where he had built a home a year ago, which has water and electricity. Israel considers this land as Area C even though it is three kilometres away from the settlement of Adumim.
Yazan Dawoud, from Haris, spoke about the troubles he has had from the Israelis since 2005. He said he has cases at the High Court and orders to demolish homes and that this month he received orders from the Israeli authorities to stop construction on three other buildings, which shelter 50 people.
‘We have children who are growing up and need homes,’ he said. ‘The Israeli authorities would not allow us to build and expand on the only land we have because they say it is located in Area C. At the same time, they build every day new homes for settlers on land we had inherited from our ancestors,’ he added.
The settlements of Arial, Ravava, Adumim and others keep growing on land that belongs to the governorate of Salfit. Israel continues with settlement construction with total disregard to Security Council resolutions particularly the recent 2334 that called on Israel to stop construction in settlements on occupied Palestinian land and which considers the settlements as illegal.