Dear Sirs,
In you timely edition, "Towards Statehood" (Volume VI, No. 2,
1999), both Mustafa Abu Sway and Jumana Abu-Zayyad, in their
respective articles "An Islamic Perspective on Palestinian
Statehood" and "Undefined Borders: A New Concept in International
Affairs," observe that Palestinian statehood is long overdue. As
someone who has been advocating the two-state solution - although
we didn't call it that then - since the early seventies (and had
confidently expected it to have come about by the mid-seventies), I
would strongly endorse their sentiment. While the conditions are
less auspicious these many years later, owing to detrimental
developments on the ground, it now seems clear that the majority of
Israelis and Palestinians, together with their respective political
authorities, are at last preparing, after decades of denial, to
face up simultaneously to the reality that statehood for the
Palestinians is inescapably the next step forward.
The critical issues for the immediate future are thus the
character, shape and stability of the incipient state and the
nature of its relations with the neighboring Jewish state. A
far-sighted Israeli government would view the Palestinians not as
eternal enemies forever to be feared, encircled and suppressed, but
as allies in the final end to more than thirty years of a military
occupation that has brutalized the occupier as well as the
occupied, and its peaceful replacement with a viable, albeit
non-militarized, Palestinian state.
For their part, it is surely in the interest of the Palestinians to
seize the opportunity - with all its apparent imperfections - that
is finally almost within their grasp to establish their own
self-determination, in their own image, and to create a state and
civil society explicitly committed to the protection of human
rights, democracy and peaceful neighborly relations. There are many
examples around them to demonstrate how elusive these goals can be
if they are not institutionalized from the outset. Difficult
political and intellectual challenges lie ahead.
With this in mind, it is dismaying that someone of Professor Edward
Said's intellectual eminence (cited by Ilan Pappe with apparent
sympathy in his article "A Palestinian State in Zionist and Israeli
Thought") should revert at this critical juncture to the argument
for a one-state solution. In so doing, he displays a remarkable
talent for taking the discussion about the future structure of the
Israeli-Palestinian relationship and of Palestinian
self-determination backward under the guise of moving it forward.
There is a danger that he will succeed only in distracting
attention from the immediate issues at hand by diverting the whole
debate down a back alley.
Neither Professor Said's nor Dr. Pappe's doubts about the
feasibility of the two-state solution mean, abracadabra, that a
different solution is thereby more feasible, or indeed more
acceptable. On the contrary, a one-state solution may be tantamount
to the continuation of occupation and political and economic
domination under another name. The compelling need to rectify the
historical imbalance between the two national movements, whereby
one people is still stateless and subordinate to the other, while
the other enjoys all the benefits and self-esteem that
self-determination brings, cannot be glossed over.
If the proponents of a one-state-for-all want us to believe that
its creation will not in practice perpetuate and exacerbate the
existing imbalances, they have a clear responsibility to address
these questions squarely. How can one state be taken seriously as
an authentic alternative to two states without the proposal being
fleshed out and elaborated in detail? It cannot be left merely as a
default solution, as a hypothetical idyll for all manner of critics
of the two-state path. Would it be a unitary state? A binational
state? A democratic secular state? A federal state? A confederal
state? A cantonal state? These are quite different ideas and
potential realities, yet they are often used interchangeably as if
they are one and the same thing. If the supporters of a one-state
solution were tomorrow to put it into effect, they may soon find
that they agree on the nomenclature but little else. The article by
Simcha Bahiri and Hanna Siniora, "Separation, Confederation or
Binationalism," in distinguishing some of the options, illustrates
the ambiguities and confusions within the one-state rubric.
In any event, binational states, by whatever definition, have not
had an encouraging track record in recent years - witness Canada
and Belgium, among others. And there is currently very little
support for such a solution among either Israelis or Palestinians.
But, as Dan Leon observes in his piece, "Binationalism: A Bridge
over the Chasm," it need not be ruled out eventually, if, over
time, it is the genuine wish of two independent peoples to
progressively merge their sovereignties. If there is a shortcut,
the case has yet to be persuasively made. Until then, it is to be
hoped that Professor Said will yet have a change of heart, and that
he will use his immense intellect and influence to further the
cause of his people and the goals of peace and reconciliation. In
this he can guide us all through the thicket of conceptual and
practical problems which imminently confront the embryonic State of
Palestine.
Dr. Tony Klug
London, U.K.