Prognosticating over a One-State or Two-State Solution....we must not help to distract from the reality of the current political struggle, and escape to discussions that have no relevance to this struggle.
The situation
of the Israeli movement against the occupation is not good, to say the least.
To a great extent this reflects the situation of the Palestinian national movement
and its struggle against the Israeli occupation and settlement in the West Bank. In light of the ebb in protest activities, the
small number of demonstrations and their tiny size, two dangers await us. One
is to invent gimmicks as a replacement for struggle. These gimmicks bring
short-term media attention, primarily for individuals. On its own a gimmick is
not a bad thing, if it promotes the strengthening of a movement or an awakening
of activism; if, however, it is only a replacement for building a movement,
then it is better to not even have it. Without a movement there is no long-term
activity, and before us we face a very long struggle.
A movement
does not necessarily mean one framework: the coalitions against the occupation,
the War against Lebanon
and Walls, which combined tens of relatively small movements and organizations,
represented a type of movement, in which each framework preserves its own
specific agenda, while simultaneously working with others to organize a
campaign, either one-off or long-term. This is the best framework at our
disposal in Israel today,
and it succeeded in organizing several thousand demonstrators in joint actions
against the war against Lebanon
and the occupation. Too few, without a doubt, but this is what we have. By the
way, it would have been possible to substantially increase the number of
participants if we had left more room and influence for the political parties
and organizations of the Palestinian population in Israel. In other words, they could have
been the leading force and leader of our struggles.
The second
danger lurking is an escape from a political struggle, and in its place, to
focus on the argument over solutions, as if the selection of this solution or
another would hasten…the solution. How much energy do activists, primarily
abroad, focus on the topic of “one state or two states”? Last year I received
more invitations to speak on the topic of one state/two states than on the
colonial situation in the Occupied
Palestinian Territories
(OPT). On principle, I refuse these invitations even though I was one of the
first to raise, in the mid-1970’s, the topic of a bi-national solution. We must
not help to distract from the reality of the current political struggle, and escape
to discussions that have no relevance to this struggle.
If the
establishment of an independent state in the territories occupied in June 1967
is no longer relevant, then we must admit that this is an historical failure of
the Palestinian movement and its allies, and not the success of those
advocating for a one state solution. In other words, we did not succeed in
attaining the limited goal of ending the 1967 occupation, and the Palestinian
national movement must thus design a new longer term strategy at the end of
which, perhaps, will be a solution based not on separation. If we failed in the
struggle to end the occupation in our time, we must not think that we will necessarily
succeed in establishing a democratic, i.e. non-Zionist, state, common to both
peoples.
The raising
of the discussion of one state is first and foremost an internalization of the
defeat, and it is good to be aware of this.
Moreover,
has anyone asked the Palestinians—the Palestinian People and not a small group
of activists and philosophers—if today, they are willing to share their future
with Israelis? And perhaps they wish to share it with their brothers in Jordan, who
represent a majority of the population there?
The central
struggle, instead, should focus on how to shorten the suffering of the
Palestinian people in the OPT, Israel and abroad, how to develop an effective
strategy of struggle, how to expand our experience in Bilin and Nilin, how to
end the siege of Gaza—these are the questions that must occupy us today, and
not how this place will look when lambs and wolves lie together.
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