The Future Is One Nation
The two-state approach in the Middle East has failed. There is a
fairer, more durable solution
By Ghada Karmi
25/09/08 "Guardian" -- -
Imagine the scene: the United Nations general assembly meets to
discuss a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Unlike
previous resolutions, which have been based on a Jewish state in
most of historic Palestine with Palestinians relegated to the
remnants, this one calls for a new state, covering what is now
Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, whose present and former
inhabitants are equal under the law. Such a resolution has, in
fact, already been drafted and discussions have begun to place
it on the agenda at the UN.
The one-state solution is now part of mainstream discourse.
Increasingly, Palestinians - and some Israelis - support it as
the only alternative to a Palestinian state subordinate to
Israel. One-state groups have sprung up and conferences and
studies are under way.
A UN resolution is the logical next step, underlining the
issue's global importance and exposing the inequity and
dishonesty of the two-state solution, to replace it with
something fairer and more durable. It would be encapsulated in
the following clauses, part of the draft UN resolution for a
one-state solution, which has been under discussion for six
months. Its principal authors are my fellow Palestinian Karl
Sabbagh and myself:
"The general assembly notes the failure of recent efforts made
by regional and international parties to resolve the conflict
through the creation of two states; Recalling the recent history
of the former [Palestine] Mandate territory as a land where
Arabs and Jews shared equal rights of habitation; Reviewing
Israel's non-compliance with UN Resolution 194, requiring Israel
to repatriate the Palestinian refugees, and its illegal conduct
in the occupied territories.
"Calls upon representatives of Israel and Palestine to agree on
behalf of their peoples to share the land between the
Mediterranean and the river Jordan ... by setting up a state
which is democratic and secular, in which the rights of all
people living within its borders to freedom of worship,
security, and equality under the law are enshrined in a new
constitution, to replace the separate forms of government that
apply currently in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza."
The two-state adherents will not approve. David Miliband at the
Labour party conference this week continued to argue for a
two-state solution. Tomorrow in New York, Mahmoud Abbas will
petition George Bush for the same thing. Both are on a hiding to
nothing.
The pace of Israeli colonisation, unimpeded since 1967,
redoubled after the Oslo accords, demonstrating Israel's
aversion to a two-state solution. By 2007, the West Bank Jewish
settler population had reached 282,000. In East Jerusalem, it
rose to 200,000, massively Judaising the city and precluding it
as a Palestinian capital. Today the West Bank is a jigsaw of
settlements, bypass roads and barriers, making an independent
state impossible. Gaza is a besieged enclave. In 2006 the UN
special rapporteur in the Palestinian territories concluded that
"a two-state solution is unattainable". Avraham Burg, former
Knesset speaker, told the Israeli daily Haaretz in June that
"time was running out for the two-state solution".
Scores of others have articulated the same view. The peace
process predicated on the two-state solution is stagnant, and a
momentum has started towards the obvious alternative, a unitary
state. This month a new forum, encompassing Palestinian
personalities from the occupied territories and outside, has
published a petition in the Arabic daily Al-Hayat to halt
negotiations, annex the territories to Israel and demand equal
rights in one state. This echoes many recent Palestinian demands
to dissolve the Palestinian Authority and start an
anti-apartheid campaign for equal rights.
The UN high commissioner for human rights has referred us to
Robert Serry, the UN official responsible for the peace process,
who stated that UN policy must conform to the Palestinian formal
position, the two-state solution. A change in that position is
not unthinkable. For our resolution to be discussed at the UN, a
member state would have to present it, and several are privately
known to support our aims.
A unitary state is inevitable. Establishing an exclusive state
defined along ethnic-religious lines and excluding its previous
inhabitants was unjust and ultimately unsustainable. No
political acrobatics will alter this. The sooner the UN, which
unwisely created Israel in the first place, takes charge of the
consequences, the better it will be for Palestinians, for
Israelis and for the region as a whole.
· Ghada Karmi is research fellow at the Institute of Arab and
Islamic Studies, Exeter University
g.karmi@exeter.ac.uk
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