The Israeli-Palestine Question

Is a one state solution possible

The peace in the middle east seems to be extremely difficult because both Israel and Palestine are locked in a state of mutual recrimination: peace with justice means that the existing paradigm for ordering the relations between the two societies has to be reconsidered. The Ashkenazi elite from eastern Europe and Poland that is essentially the ruling aristocracy of Israel has dominated the politics of Israel since 1949 and given its long association with Zionism is unlikely to support the obvious soulution to the problem: A single Palestinian and Israeli state. A decade back even the so called liberals in the State of Israel would have been aghast at this solution but now civil society groups in Israel have begun debating the single state solution. The great Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine has been a long time advocate of this new shift in Israeli perception toward Palestenians.

The central feature of this new solution is the recognition that land for peace has not provided either security to the State of Israel or peace to the Palestinians. It is necessary for those affected by the placement of Israel in the erstwhile land of Palestine to have a chance to lead a life of hope and a normal life as any signatory to the UN Charter of Human Rights will testify. An ethnically pure State of Israel has been of great moment only to the Ashkenazi and the Mizrahim sections of Israeli society with roots in North Africa, Asia and the Ottoman Empire have now willing to consider the possiblity of the joint Israeli-Palestine state. This solution trecogises the historical injustice of evicting the Palestenians from the land and at the same time recognises that a jewish homeland, as promised in the Balfour Declaration is a reality. The fact that 4.5 million Palestenians are living in conditions of extreme deprivation is the real cause for terrorism in the region and if USA is sincere about a viable peace in the region it must address this issue.

For more than 2 decades the official US position as reflected in the Camp David accord and later the Oslo Agreement is the 2 state solution. While Israel is in favor of this policy it does everything to undermine the peace accords by making the living and working conditions of Palestenians in Gaza and the West Bank extremely difficult. These territories are so closely guarded by Israel for fear of suicide attack that both territories have become huge camps where life, to put it mildly, is horrible.

It is time for USA the major backer of Israel to put its weight behind a solution as promised by all American administrations since Richard Nixon.

6,769 views 51 replies
Reply #1 Top

The Ashkenazi elite from eastern Europe and Poland that is essentially the ruling aristocracy of Israel has dominated the politics of Israel since 1949 and given its long association with Zionism is unlikely to support the obvious soulution to the problem: A single Palestinian and Israeli state.

End of quote

That's one way of putting it.

Of course, given the extreme hostility of many Arabs towards any minority and especially Jews; given that non-Arab minorities in Arab countries have been persecuted, discriminated against, and gassed in the last century; and given that most Arab countries have murdered and expelled their original Jewish minority populations any solution that would hand over the remaining middle-eastern Jews to those same Arab nationalists might indeed find little support among the Jewish elite.

The leader of the Arabs in "Palestine" (or southern Syria, as he saw it), Muhammed al-Husayni said in 1944, in Berlin:

"Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you."

End of quote


After both wars he wrote in his memoirs:

"Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer I got was: 'The Jews are yours'."

End of quote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Amin_al-Husayni

So, yes, I agree with you. The reason there is a conflict in Israel between Jews and Arabs, actually in the entire Arab world between Arabs and all minorities but specifically Arabs and Jews, is the refusal of the Ashkenazi Jewish elite to support the obvious solution.

I am fully confident that if the Jewish elite had supported the obvious solution, the conflict would be over by now, and "Palestine" would be as Jew-free as the rest of the Arab world (sans Morocco). And there would be no conflict and we would have perfect peace in "Palestine" (except for the odd major war between Islamic fundamentalists and Arab nationalists and the like).

Note that al-Husayni is still revered by the PLO. Yasser Arafat (al-Husayni's nephew) called him his mentor and the father of the "Palestinian" people.

So how do we convince Israel's current elite (which includes Jews that fled Arab countries) to support the "obvious solution"?

After 6 million died in the Holocaust perpetrated by the Arabs' German friends and several Arab attempts to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews and millions of Jews expelled from all Arab countries (except Morocco), an "obvious solution" that depends entirely on the good-will of those same people seems a bit problematic to me.

I can tell you that I won't support the "obvious solution"; although when Hassan Nasrallah called on all the Jews in the world to assemble in northern Israel so he could kill them all, I did go to northern Israel and had I not been evacuated, the "obvious solution" would have allowed me to find peace.

 

 

 

Reply #2 Top

can tell you that I won't support the "obvious solution"; although when Hassan Nasrallah called on all the Jews in the world to assemble in northern Israel so he could kill them all, I did go to northern Israel and had I not been evacuated, the "obvious solution" would have allowed me to find peace.
End of quote

When History clashes with personal biography we sometimes feel diffident. My concwern is only to show that the two state solution may not be viable and there is need for fresh thinking on the subject though I do understand that there are deep scars on both sides to heal.

Reply #3 Top

When History clashes with personal biography we sometimes feel diffident.
End of quote


History didn't clash with personal biography. My experience was EXACTLY what Arab leaders had announced in the 1930s and 1940s.



My concwern is only to show that the two state solution may not be viable and there is need for fresh thinking on the subject
End of quote


Your "fresh thinking" has already been thought of. But after numerous attacks and threats against the Jewish population of "Palestine", the League of Nations and later the UN luckily decided against it.

Your idea is not new, it has merely been shown not to work.


though I do understand that there are deep scars on both sides to heal.
End of quote


The difference is that some scars are caused by Arab and German attempts to eradicate the Jews while other scars are caused by Jewish refusal to die.

Your attempt to make these sound morally equivalent are part of the problem.

What we need is for the Arabs to face their history and come to the conclusion that it was WRONG to try to exterminate middle-eastern Jews, not for Jews to apologise for something they never did and never tried to do.

What you are proposing as a "fresh idea" is simply a Holocaust. And I thought the world was sick of it.

How can you propose that two peoples live together when one of them still wants to destroy the other???
Reply #4 Top
I refuse to die voluntarily even if it is the "obvious solution".

Deal with it and include it in any peace plan.
Reply #5 Top
Interesting comments. I wish I had more to add, but I think Leauki has stated the important parts.
Reply #6 Top

I think Leauki has stated the important parts.
End of quote


I wonder why none of the "let's all live together" types ever call on the Arabs to modify their stance on the "Jewish question".

Why does the dream of us all living together never include live Jews???
Reply #7 Top
Why does the dream of us all living together never include live Jews???
End of quote


It is not Jews per se. It is rational people. You cannot reason with irrational people, so they always put the onus on the rational ones "Why dont you....".

They do it to the US and other peace loving nations because they are peace loving, and eventually some gullible sap is going to take up the mantra.
Reply #8 Top
I do not see the possibility of a single state other than the State of Israel as it is. Rather than trying to destroy Israel, perhaps it would be wiser for Palestinians to try to work with her toward finding a way to live together. Both sides need to find ways to resolve their conflicts non-violently.

Shalom.
Reply #9 Top

it would be wiser for Palestinians to try to work with her toward finding a way to live together
End of quote


Palestinian Arabs have found such a way. Israeli Arabs do live in peace with Israeli Jews. Arab clans in Hevron have come to an arrangement with the settlers (since both sides hated the PLO). Arabs in Gaza have been interviewed and some (older men) have said they wanted the occupation back rather than live under Hamas.

The problem is people like Bahu and others who want to interfere and turn the clock back and restart the war Israel won.

They really do believe that a world without Zionism means peace. And they are right. But such a world is also a world without Jews in the middle east just as a world where nobody opposed Hitler is a world without Jews in Europe. There would be peace, but there would also be millions dead.

You can always have peace if you give the violent people what they want; EVERYTHING they want. The violent people want peace. They just don't want it before the others are dead.
Reply #10 Top

Why does the dream of us all living together never include live Jews[/quote

][]Your idea is not new, it has merely been shown not to work.[/quote

What we need is for the Arabs to face their history and come to the conclusion that it was WRONG to try to exterminate middle-eastern Jews, not for Jews to apologise for something they never did and never tried to do

End of quote

The Arabs had nothing to do with the Holocaust. It was perpetrated by Germnasns in Europe and as David Goldhagen has argued the policy had large scale support in Germany. Why are the Palestenians made to bear the Cross for the Germans.

To the best of my knowledge the 2 astate solution has not been ebated within the Palestenia or Israeli circles except as one of two possible solutions. It has not been shown to be ineffective, as yet. You may be right but the solution has not been tested.

It certainly includes the jews as they have every right as indeed the Palestenians to live in peace, prosperity and frienship with all in the region.

 

Reply #11 Top

The Arabs had nothing to do with the Holocaust.
End of quote


Have you even read the quotes I gave you???



It was perpetrated by Germans in Europe and as David Goldhagen has argued the policy had large scale support in Germany. Why are the Palestenians made to bear the Cross for the Germans.
End of quote


Simple: because they a) supported the Germans and b) tried to do what the Germans did.

I don't see why Arabs are morally better than Germans just because they were unable to implement what they learned from the Germans!

The Holocaust was in Europe, but the Palestinian Arab's attempt to do the same in "Palestine" happened in the middle east, as did Arab persecution of Jews and other minorities in Arab countries.

"Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world." -- Muhammed al-Husayni, "Arafat's" uncle and mentor, to this day seen as a popular hero by Palestinian Arabs

If you want to look for a difference between Germans and Arabs, don't look at their relative ineptness, look at how much they have changed since then. Germans DO NOT want to kill Jews any more and DO NOT revere their former leaders as heroes. Did the PLO ever say that al-Husayni's cooperation with the Nazis was anything but a patriotic and heroic act?

You certainly won't find a German government official telling you that some SS leader is the "father of the nation" or a "mentor". And the newphew of an SS leader would not be made president, at least not if he openly revered his uncle.

Your racist remark about Jews being a "cross to bear" shows where you are coming from.

Incidentally, the Germans are "bearing" that "cross". Jews do live in Germany today. They immigrated from Russia and the west. Some survived. None of them have to live as second-class citizens or are persecuted by the state. And they are not perceived as a "cross to bear" either.

You can learn a lot from the Germans, Bahu, a whole lot.

You are still at the "Jews are a cross to bear" stage where murdering Jews seems like an acceptable solution to you. The Germans have left that stage behind. Maybe some day so will you.

And the next time you pretend that Palestinian Arabs had nothing to do with the Holocaust, remember al-Husayni's words and his alliance with the Nazis, and remember that a "Holocaust" is not just something that happens, but also something that can be stopped.

And by G-d, Israel will continue to stop it.

Reply #12 Top

the solution has not been tested.
End of quote


The one-state solution has been tested. Jews and Arabs lived together in one state, the British mandate "Palestine (Land of Israel)".

The Arabs attacked the Jews, tried to murder them, and made a pact with the Nazis. That's how it went.

The two-state solution was what the League of Nations and the UN came up with to AVOID your "solution", because your solution was too bloody.

It was far easier for the Jews to defend themselves when they had their own state.

Look at other middle-eastern minorities that don't have their own state (and I don't mean Arabs, they have dozens of states). Look at the Kurds: gassed by Iraq, persecuted by Syria, finally now free in an autonomous region that the Arabs are not strong enough to take away any more. Look at Darfur: those people flee to Israel to escape genocide. Look at southern Sudan: before George Bush brokered a peace treaty that granted autonomy to the south, there was all-out civil war in the region. Yes, the one-state solution worked really well in the Arab world.

Just like the one-state solution worked really well in Europe.
Reply #13 Top

This solution trecogises the historical injustice of evicting the Palestenians from the land and at the same time recognises that a jewish homeland, as promised in the Balfour Declaration is a reality.
End of quote

In Jan 2007 i posted a proposal along the same line of thinking an dlisted the basis for it .... the logic behind it and its benefits for all .... here is the link if anyone is interested ....

http://thinkaloud.joeuser.com/article/142414/Proposal_for_the_Holy_Land

as you can see from the comments there .... logic and real honest-to-God desire for peace is not there yet ... may be it will exist sometime in the future

Reply #14 Top

the historical injustice of evicting the Palestenians from the land
End of quote


The Jewish mayor of Haifa, in 1948, together with the last Muslim mayor of Haifa BEGGED Haifa's Arabs to stay and defend the city against the Syrian attackers.

Most left. Today only 20% of Haifa's population are Arab and that includes Christian refugees from Lebanon.

Not bad what one learns if one actually goes there and sees; right, Bahu?

Bahu, was the "historical injustice" not the Arab attempt to destroy Israel and kill the Jews?

And what about the historical injustice of expelling middle-eastern Jews, stealing all their property, and then complain that they now live in Israel?

Bahu, tell me honestly, in your opinion... the Arabs in Israel who collaborated with the invading Arab armies, who tried to kill the Jews and destroy the state of Israel, what should have been done with them? Kill them all? Let them kill the Jews? Evict them? Tell me.
Reply #15 Top
ThinkAloud,

Before I read your old article, can you just tell me: does it take into account the fact that a) the Jews don't want to be killed and b) that the Arabs do want to kill the Jews (unless they were lying in the last and just pretended to try to destroy Israel)?

Because if it is another of those "let the Arabs deal with the Jews" plans, I'm afraid I will be against it.

What about a peace plan in which the Arabs reject al-Husayni's vision and the PLO, as well as Hamas and Hizbullah, denounce their Nazi ties, and just stop trying to kill the Jews?
Reply #16 Top

Your racist remark about Jews being a "cross to bear" shows where you are coming from
End of quote

The Holocaust was in Europe, but the Palestinian Arab's attempt to do the same in "Palestine" happened in the middle east, as did Arab persecution of Jews and other minorities in Arab countries

End of quote

tried to do what the Germans did.
End of quote

This is an original: not even the most rabid Istraeli fundamentalist has ever sais so badly that the Arabs have tried to do a Holocaust. I think this in not an argument just feverish thinking.

As far as historical record go the first time the jews were slaughtered in the Holy Land was by frankisn conquerors in the eleventh century. Right through the Ottoman occupation of Palestine there was no attempt at killing or expelling the jews or christians form Palestine. The first large scale ehnic cleansing happened in 1948.

I said the arabs are bearing the cross not jews so thats that.

Reply #17 Top

This is an original: not even the most rabid Istraeli fundamentalist has ever sais so badly that the Arabs have tried to do a Holocaust. I think this in not an argument just feverish thinking.
End of quote


Did you even read the quote from the "Palestinian" leader I gave you above?

So what does it mean when the Arabs try to "throw the Jews into the sea"? Or when PLO leaders before the six-day war announce that they don't believe that there will be any survivors after the attack? Or when "Palestinian" television announces that Jews are pigs and apes that must be killed?

If this is "original" to you, then perhaps you ought to do more research before you try to solve a conflict you don't understand.

The "grand mufti" of Jerusalem, Arafat's uncle and mentor, was not in Bosnia to recruit Muslims for the SS because the weather in the region is so excellent.


As far as historical record go the first time the jews were slaughtered in the Holy Land was by frankisn conquerors in the eleventh century. Right through the Ottoman occupation of Palestine there was no attempt at killing or expelling the jews or christians form Palestine. The first large scale ethnic cleansing happened in 1948.
End of quote


That "ethnic cleansing" was, presumably, when Arab leaders told the Arabs in Palestine to leave and Jews begged them to stay and defend the country?

You are a liar, Bahu.

Blame the Jews, if you like, but don't pretend that you can contribute anything to a peace plan.

You might be surprised to learn that even most Palestinian Arabs, inside and outside Israel, do not have as anti-Semitic views as you do, at least not when they have met Jews or Israelis.


I said the arabs are bearing the cross not jews so thats that
End of quote


Yes, you implied that the Jews are a cross to bear. That's what offended me.

But Arab nationalists (like German nationalists) think the same thought. That's what al-Husayni meant when he said the famous words (that you, for some reason, never address):

"Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you."

That was in 1944, so don't tell me that "ethnic cleansing" (or rather "begging them to stay") caused al-Husayni and his ilk to conspire with the Nazis.

Bahu, I dare you to write another article using al-Husayni's statement ("Kill the Jews whereever you find them.") as the title. If you don't think that the "Palestinian" leader calling for a Holocaust in 1944 in Berlin constitutes a "Palestinian" attempt to kill Jews, especially when a few years later there follows a full-scale Arab attack on the Jews, there is no reason not to quote him on that!
Reply #18 Top
"Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer I got was: 'The Jews are yours'."

-- Muhammad al-Husayni, Yasser Arafat's uncle and mentor in his memoirs


"The Holocaust was in Europe, but the Palestinian Arab's attempt to do the same in "Palestine" happened in the middle east, as did Arab persecution of Jews and other minorities in Arab countries"

-- me


"not even the most rabid Israeli fundamentalist has ever said so badly that the Arabs have tried to do a Holocaust."

-- Bahu Virupaksha, after reading the above two quotes, referring to the second one


Bahu, when are you going to join our reality; or will you just continue to judge us?
Reply #19 Top
This is an original: not even the most rabid Istraeli fundamentalist has ever sais so badly that the Arabs have tried to do a Holocaust. I think this in not an argument just feverish thinking.
End of quote


No, but Amadenijad has. As well as Saddam (He is arab, right????), Assad, and many, many more. Try listening to what the leaders (albeit tyrants and despots) of the Arabs say, and not what the anti-semites say they say.
Reply #20 Top
Dr Guy,

I am somewhat at a loss as to what exactly Arab leaders could do to refute Bahu.

Here was the leader of Palestinian Arabs in 1944, in Berlin, talking to Hitler about eradicating the Jews in the middle east. What more can they do?

It's not like we can ask them to shout it whenever they can (although they do).

What exactly, apart from TELLING the world, conspiring with HITLER in BERLIN, ATTACKING the Jews, and confirming it again and again, can the Arabs do to convince Bahu that they tried to exterminate the Jews in Palestine and the middle east???

Here's a picture of the "Palestinian" leader with Hitler:

http://www.jimena.org/faq/images/mufti_husseini_hitler.jpg

And here are three pictures of al-Husayni with his SS unit in Bosnia:

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_ph.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007255&MediaId=6099

And this is what Yasser Arafat had to say about al-Husayni in 2002:

"We are not Afghanistan. We are the mighty people. Were they able to replace our hero Hajj Amin al-Husseini?... There were a number of attempts to get rid of Hajj Amin, whom they considered an ally of the Nazis. But even so, he lived in Cairo, and participated in the 1948 war, and I was one of his troops."

http://hnn.us/roundup/archives/11/2007/9/

Incidentally, the Jordanian King Abdullah exiled al-Husayni from Jerusalem following the war and replaced him with a saner scholar, who was unfortunately assassinated four years later. I assume that King Abdullah didn't agree that only rabid Israeli fundamentalists thought that al-Husayni was evil.


Perhaps Bahu ought to dress up as a Jew and walk through an Arab town somewhere in Egypt and test his theory that Arabs do not want to kill Jews.

If he does, I will voluntarily walk through Tel Aviv wearing an Arab nationalist t-shirt to give them a chance to ethnically cleanse me or whatever it is Jews do when they see an Arab.
Reply #21 Top

There are two different sequences at work in what Leuki writes: First, there have been irresponsible statments from Arab leaders and the President of Iran's statement needs to be condemned. Having said that we must remember that all the rhetoric from the Arabs have been reactive. They are reacting to the loss of land, history and memory and there is now a possiblity of a solution in thje form of a Israeli-Palestinian state.

There is an academic journal called Genocide and Holocaust studies and is a serious research journal on the subject. It has addressed the issue of Arab-Israeli violence, but that violence is not to be confused as being of genocidal purpose. I feel that such charge as the moral equvalence between the Israeli-Palestenian conflict and the German sponsored Genocide that Leuki is advocating is a kind of revisionism and the unique nature of the Holocaust is undermined if such comparisons are made for rhetorical purposes.

Now if you ask me about Arafar or the PLO or for that matter the HAMAS I will say that I do not agree with their methods of targetting civillians and their strategy will only be counter-productive.

Reply #22 Top

First, there have been irresponsible statements from Arab leaders and the President of Iran's statement needs to be condemned. Having said that we must remember that all the rhetoric from the Arabs have been reactive.
End of quote


What about the irresponsible attempts to make those statements into reality?

Arabs are always reactive, they don't have free will. Or so I hear from their supporters.

What loss of land was al-Husayni reacting to again when he called for the extermination of all Jews in the middle east in 1944?

Reply #23 Top

I feel that such charge as the moral equvalence between the Israeli-Palestenian conflict and the German sponsored Genocide that Leauki is advocating is a kind of revisionism
End of quote


Actually, the revisionism is your denial of Arab attempts to exterminate Jews.

Arab leaders called for the extermination of the Jews, and given that they also attacked Israel regularly, I happen to believe them.

Why is that revisionism?

_I_ don't care if the person calling for my death is German or Arab. Why do you?

"Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer I got was: 'The Jews are yours'."

-- Muhammed al-Husayni (not a German but revered today still in "Palestine")

Dr Guy, I bet you five dollars (to be handed over if/when we ever meet) that Bahu will never ever address al-Husayni's statement!

I do understand how this works. Even a picture of the "Palestinian" leader with Hitler in 1944 won't convince him that the Arabs were anything but "reacting" to the fact that Jews are a cross to bear.

That's the view I tried to satirise here:

http://www.netneurotic.net/Extrablatt/

Reply #24 Top
First, there have been irresponsible statments from Arab leaders and the President of Iran's statement needs to be condemned. Having said that we must remember that all the rhetoric from the Arabs have been reactive. They are reacting to the loss of land, history and memory and there is now a possiblity of a solution in thje form of a Israeli-Palestinian state.
End of quote


Excuse me? Iran has ever given a diddly damn about Palestine? Har Har Har! Wrong. They are not Arab, they have done nothing for the Palestinians, they have not reacted to anything. Except to express hatred for Jews. This has to be the lamest excuse I have ever seen for the insanity and criminal behavior of the mad mullahs and Amadenijad!

The lame excuse that "they are fellow muslims" are belied by the fact that "fellow muslims" are committing genocide, because some genuflect from the left and the others genuflect from the right.
Reply #25 Top
So what have we learned?

1. When an Arab leader calls for the extermination of the Jews in 1944 it is purely a reaction to Jews stealing land.

2. Jews are a cross to bear.

3. A German SS commander is evil, an Arab SS commander is not.

Anything else?