When the PLO formally recognized Israel within its internationally recognized borders and agreed to a two-state solution in 1993, like most Palestinians, I swallowed hard but accepted it. We believed that this unprecedented historic compromise, though bitter, was necessary to bring about peace. Those who completely rejected the creation of a state limited to the West Bank and Gaza Strip — a mere twenty two percent of the country in which Palestinians were an overwhelming majority just fifty years ago — were relegated to the margins of the Palestinian movement, both on the left and the Islamist right.
Israel gave everyone the impression that it would agree to a Palestinian state, and that it was only a matter of working out the technical formalities. But almost 10 years later, Israel has still never recognized the Palestinian right to statehood, much less agreed to the creation of such a state. On the contrary, in practice it has done everything to make the emergence of such a state impossible by continuing to furiously build colonies all over the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. The settler population in the West Bank has more than doubled since 1993, and not a day goes by without further colonization.
Because this policy has succeeded in solidifying Israeli control, and has, as intended, rendered a rational partition of the country virtually impossible, an increasing number of Palestinians, including some representatives of the Palestinian Authority, have started to talk once again about bi-nationalism — the creation of a single democratic state for Israelis and Palestinians — as the only viable solution to the conflict.
This idea is horrifying to many Israelis, who view it as a plot to “destroy Israel” since the vastly higher birth rate among Palestinians will soon make them a majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, just as they were until 1948.
None are more horrified by this prospect than Israel’s traditional “peace camp,” represented by the Labor and Meretz parties. And yet, because of its liberal values, the “peace camp” is unable to embrace formal apartheid or ethnic cleansing to “solve the demographic problem” as do Israel’s right wing parties. The liberals want both the benefits of Jewish privilege that comes from living in a “Jewish state” while at the same time being faithful to their democratic values. They have shown themselves to be entirely bankrupt morally, intellectually and politically, and to have no serious ideas whatsoever for resolving the conundrum of their hypocrisy. They embrace Palestinian statehood warmly in theory but miss no opportunity to undermine and sabotage it in practice and to present proposals for meaningless and nominal statehood within a greater Israel.
I am one of those who accepted the two-state solution (although I opposed the Oslo Accords because I believed they could not lead to that goal) not enthusiastically, but because it offers Palestinians and Israelis a chance at normalcy from which they could one day — like the European Union — build a future of peace and prosperity from the ashes of war and hatred. Moreover, an international legal framework already exists for the transition from the current situation to Palestinian statehood, at least in theory making the path easier than to any other solution.
For Palestinians, giving up the seventy-eight percent of Palestine that became Israel in 1948 is giving up a part of themselves.
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