Palestine: one region, two states, no solution (PR7)

Where now for Palestine? The demise of the two state solution

Edited by Jamil Hilal

Zed / 2007 £17.99

 

Where now for Palestine is a collection of essays from a series of authoritative, if somewhat academic, Palestine experts and edited by Jamil Hilal, a sociologist and writer on Palestinian affairs.

Hilal explains how “Israel was created against the will of both the Palestinian people and the peoples of the region as a whole . . . by relying heavily on the support and collaboration of the world imperialist powers . . .” (p2)

Through a process of ethnic cleansing, 78% of historic Palestine was expropriated. The answer of the Palestinian people to this historic crime, the “Naqba” or disaster, was to call for “a secular and democratic Palestinian state for all its citizens, irrespective of religion or ethnicity.”

This would be a bi-national state across the entire area of Palestine, where Palestinians refugees, who had had their land and homes stolen, were allowed to return, but which was secular and did not discriminate against Jewish, Christian or other religions or nationalities present, hence its bi-nationality.

But the proposal of a bi-national solution was “ignored by Israel and the West” (p3) and undermined among the Palestinians, by the defeats of the 1970s and 80s, so that by 1988 the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) endorsed a strategy of “two states, for two peoples”. They did not specify the borders of the two states and retained the demand for the right of Palestinian refugees who had been expelled by the Israelis to return to their homes. Nonetheless the “two state solution”, was a major retreat, the consequences of which still dominate Palestinian politics until now.

Hilal shows how it was the growth of a Palestinian bureaucracy in the 1970s, on the back of subventions from oil rich Arab states and the former USSR “which limited its agility and created interests specific to this bureaucracy.” (p4) This increased the weight of conservative forces who wanted to establish a modus vivendi with Israel. When combined with the dispersal of PLO forces after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the collapse of the USSR in 1990 and the repercussions of the first Gulf War in 1990, the PLO turned to the Oslo accords of 1991 in an attempt to turn the two state solution into reality.

And it is the experience of this reality which has so radically undermined support for the two state solution amongst the Palestinians today. The Oslo accords were a disaster for the PLO. Not only had they accepted Israel’s right to exist on stolen land, but when the final negotiations were due to take place in 2000, Clinton and the Israelis demanded further concessions on the so called “final status” questions, the future of Jerusalem, the fate of the refugees, Israeli settlements and Israeli-Palestine borders.

In addition the transformation of the PLO into the Palestine National Authority (PNA) meant that it surrendered its role as the leader of the Palestinians as a whole and became instead the governor of the Palestinian population within the occupied territories on behalf of Israel and the USA.

The rise of Hamas was the result. But contrary to general impressions, Hamas was not as fundamentalist on the recovery of Palestinian land and establishing a single state, as is popularly portrayed. As one of the essays points out, in 2005 it signed the Cairo accord with Fatah, declared a ceasefire and in June 2006 and signed a document calling for “a political settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based, effectively, on the creation of a Palestinian state beside that the state of Israel.” How did Israel respond? “The next day the Israeli army invaded areas of Gaza.”

The redundancy of the two state solution stems from the utter unwillingness of the Israelis to allow the compromise necessary for the creation of a Palestinian state, at even the most minimal level.

In 2003, before he became prime minister, Ehud Olmert explained the reasons for the Israeli policy:

“We don’t have unlimited time. More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated, two state solution, because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one, from a struggle against ‘occupation’ in their parlance, to a struggle for one-man-one-vote. That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle – and ultimately a much more powerful one. For us it would mean the end of the Jewish state.” (p12)

Olmert’s comparison between apartheid South Africa and modern Israel is entirely apt. Israel cannot tolerate a democratic solution in Palestine because it was founded on a profoundly undemocratic act, the criminal consequences of which persist to this day.

The book traces the development of Israel and modern Palestine, from the early British Zionist schemes, through the partitioning of Palestine between 1947-67, to the two state formula and its present demise. The problem for Israel is that the growth of the Palestinian population means that Israeli Jews will shortly be outnumbered in historic Palestine despite the recent large-scale emigration into Israel of Jews from Russia. This so-called “demographic danger” means that the Israeli government cannot countenance a single unitary state – one person, one vote – to do so would be the abolition of Israel. Israel must advocate the two state solution for its own survival, but neither can it allow a viable Palestinian entity to develop in the occupied territories for fear of fostering Palestinian national aspirations. (The Turks see the same threat in regard to an independent Iraqi Kurdistan.)

Consequently it needed to create a series of “bantustans” out of the occupied territories, ensuring any Palestinian entity was economically crippled and dependent on Israel for its economic survival. The continued expansion of the armed Jewish settler communities in the Palestinian territories, their exclusively Jewish road corridors and the construction of the apartheid wall were all part of this plan. This policy has had the paradoxical effect of regenerating demands for the bi-national single state the Israelis so wanted to avoid.

So the Israeli’s have pursued a policy of partial withdrawal from Gaza and the occupied West Bank, combined with partial self-determination, permitting the existence of the PNA: “The official existence of the authority was intentionally spared so as to claim that there was a Palestinian body responsible for providing basic needs and services to its people, and to exonerate Israel from these responsibilities under international law.” (p59)

The book explains the legal and geo-political context of the contemporary Palestinian struggle, in particular through examining US neo-con support for the Zionists, and considers the economic basis for a capitalist Palestinian state based on the occupied territories. It points out in passing how the control of utilities by the PNA means that PA officials “in senior positions in the Authority have earned millions of dollars per year from these monopolies” (p136) before concluding that “The process of bantustanization has destroyed the possibility of constructing a national economy in the WBGS [West Bank, Gaza Strip] . . . Talk about a viable Palestinian economy is irrelevant in the presence of occupation, closures, and the bantustanisation process.” (p136)

As a discussion around the environment of the occupied territories reveals all too clearly, not only is Palestinian population growth placing unendurable pressure on public services, water and sewerage systems, this is further exacerbated by Israeli policies of destruction and oppression. The Israelis destroyed 400 Palestinian houses in 2002, 1,200 in 2003 and 1,500 in 2004.

A comparison of resources further exposes the gross inequalities between Israelis and Palestinians. Per capita Israelis have 3.5 times more land, 12 times more accessible area, 11 times more irrigated area and 11 times more water consumption. As the book explains, “Depletion of water resources is largely due to Israeli consumption, which utilises more than 80% of Palestinian ground water.” (p149) It continues, “The 450,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, generate 471 tonnes of solid waste a day, 80% of which is dumped on Palestinian land and dumping sites.” (p150)

As Prime Minister Sharon explained in 2001: “Is it possible today to concede control of the hill aquifer, which supplies a third of our water? . . . you know, it’s not by accident that the settlements are located where they are.” (p127)

This is combined with the seizure of thousands of hectares of Palestinian land, the creation of 538 check points across the occupied territories and the construction of the 788km long separation wall, annexing an expected further 45% of the West Bank.

But the Israeli determination to crush the Palestinians national dream, even in the form of a two states, has not gone without resistance. The inevitable consequence of the marginalisation and corruption of the PNA is the rise of Hamas. The final concluding chapters of the book explain the origins of Hamas out of the Muslim brotherhood and attempt to explain its dilemma, caught between international demands for it to abandon its opposition to Israel and Palestinian demands for the opposite.

So paradoxically the Palestinian liberation movement has arrived back where it began: faced with the Israeli destruction of any viable Palestinian state next to Israel, demands for a bi-national state across the whole region have resurfaced.

If this book has one weakness it is that the essays are a little academic and as a result can be a slightly dry. This quibble aside, Hilal’s book provides a really interesting and comprehensive assessment of the current state of Palestinian politics.

by Bill Jefferies

 

Mon 03, March 2008 @ 20:07