Annapolis: Oslo for slow learners


by Dave Osler    
3:22 pm - November 30th 2007

Tweet       Share on Tumblr

Israel and the Palestinians – or one faction of the Palestinians, at any rate – have agreed to talks with a view to a peace deal and the creation of a Palestinian state by the end of 2008.

But yesterday’s announcement in Annapolis takes up no further forward than we have for at least 15 years. This is simply Oslo for slow learners.

The outline of a two-state solution to the root of all Middle East evil has long been easily sketchable on the back of a beer mat; Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders and hands over one-third of Jerusalem, and everybody lives happily after. Simple, really.

Except a two-state solution necessarily will not work like that. All it amounts to is the establishment of an aid junkie Bantustan on Israel’s doorstep.

In particular, the Gaza Strip – currently outside Mahmoud Abbas’ control, anyway – will into a giant prison camp, cut off on all sides with no seaport or airport. No one will be able to enter or leave without passing through Israel. Israel will at will be able to cut off the supply of food, raw materials, water, fuel, gas and electricity at will.

This much should be elementary to anybody on the democratic left.

Criticism of the state of Israel does not automatically align the critic with the ‘wipe the Zionist entity off the map/until victory! until Jerusalem!’ tendency.

It doesn’t take a crypto-irridentist to observe that the state of Israel’s brutal repression of the Palestinians is contrary to most widely accepted definitions of human rights, to international law, and to the principle of self-determination.

While touting itself as the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel has purposefully excluded hundreds of thousands of Arab victims of ethnic cleansing for more than half a century. These actions weaken its political and moral standing, and by implication, the political and moral standing of its friends and supporters.

For every Israeli killed, Israel kills 3.4 Palestinians, many of them innocent bystanders. The ratio is even higher when it comes to children, where it runs to almost six to one. Pointing this out does not transform a writer into a vicarious Arab nationalist.

Denying the Palestinians their legitimate political rights has not made Israel any more secure. In the final analysis, the killing and marginalization of generations of Palestinian Arabs has work only to prop up the corruption of Fatah and, more recently, generate the backlash that has won mass popular support for the reactionary fundamentalists of Hamas.

The only potential winner from a two-state solution is perhaps a layer of the nascent Palestinian Fatah crony bourgeoisie. In the fourth world refugee camps – some of which I saw on a trip to Jordan – nothing will change. Hamas will be gifted the opportunity to establish an Islamist theocracy governed by sharia, contiguous to Israel itself.

Ultimately, the only stable long-term solution is a democratic secular state, with full religious and political freedoms for all inhabitants, a notion that has respectable grounding in progressive Zionist thought.

As Hannah Arendt argued: ‘The real goal of the Jews in Palestine is the building up of a Jewish homeland. This goal must never be sacrificed to the pseudo-sovereignty of a Jewish state.’ Whatever else Arendt got wrong in political theory, on this much she is completely correct.

(cross-posted from Dave’s Part)

  Tweet   Share on Tumblr   submit to reddit  


About the author
Dave Osler is a regular contributor. He is a British journalist and author, ex-punk and ex-Trot. Also at: Dave's Part
· Other posts by


Story Filed Under: Blog ,Foreign affairs ,Middle East


Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.


Reader comments


1. Nick

Ok. Everyone agrees that the current situation is terrible. But how do you create a one state solution in which Jews can still live safely?

2. ad

The outline of a two-state solution to the root of all Middle East evil

How would this solution have prevented/solved the Iran-Iraq war? Or the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait? Or made Iraqi Kurds, Sunnis and Shites happier with each other?

To name but three.

3. Eamonn McDonagh

The real goal of the Palestinians is the building up of a Palestinian homeland. This goal must never be sacrificed to the pseudo-sovereignty of a Palestinian state.
————–
anyone who said that would, rightly, be laughed out of court

4. Robert

Ok. Everyone agrees that the current situation is terrible. But how do you create a one state solution in which Jews can still live safely?

That question might equally applied to the Palestinans, given the ratios David cites above!

I suppose it all centres on what you beleive is the cause of the violence. If you think that it is due to an anti-semitism inherent in Palestinan peoples and culture, then one would be right to be worried for Jews in a single state. But if you assume, alternatively, that the violence stems from the occupation, the inequality, and the general injustice of the status quo, then its reasonable to assume this kind of violence and hatred would dissipate once a single-state solution is implemented.

Clearly, negotiations can only progress when founded on the latter belief.

The South African constitution incorporates explicit references to the divisions of the past, and guaranteed that the Afrikaans would have parity with the myriad ethnicities in that country.

In the Times today, Peter Watson makes the case for secularism. Surely the secular route seems to be the most sensible option on paper, and (to my mind) a more morally coherent position.

By contrast, the Two State solution, while apparently more likely in the current political climate, seems like a fudge. It seems, like Nick’s comment above, to convey an ultimate lack of faith in people. It fails to provide any inspirational or aspirational ideal upon which a country should be founded. The land of Abraham can surely do better.

5. ad

Do you have faith in the Israelis?

If not, what happened to this faith in people?

If so, why do the Palestineians have cause to believe they have been treated unjustly?

Or do you just think that we should have faith in the Palestineians, not people in general?

6. Robert

Of course I think we need to have faith in people in general. I was only mentioning the faith in Palestinians in particular in response to Nick’s comment.

7. ad

Robert, if I had complete faith in everyone, I would argue for the complete elimination of the MOD, the criminal justice system, and the government in general.

Those things are all safeguards I support because I do NOT have complete trust in everyone.

So I have no right to expect Palestinians or Israelis to completely trust each other.

I think the greatest problem is this:

If the Israeli PM tells the Israeli military to not attack the West Bank, the Israeli military will not attack the West Bank.

If the Palestinian PM tells people not to attack Israel, some group of Palestinians may still attack Israel.

So what is his promise to not attack Israel worth?

So what will the Israelis pay for that promise?


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
  1. Britblog Roundup No 146 - Philobiblon

    [...] David Osler on Liberal Conspiracy looks at Annapolis, and concludes that it is really only Oslo for slow learners. [...]





Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.