It’s time to envision a Jewish home that is a Palestinian home, too
JVL Introduction
For decades now Peter Beinart has been one of the most resonant voices of liberal Zionism in America. His long essay just published in Jewish Currents, coming to terms with what he terms the failure of the liberal Zionist project, is perhaps his most important contribution.
Its conclusions may not be original but the route to them is, coming from the heart of liberal Zionism and facing up to the contradictions of that philosophy from within.
“The painful truth,” affirms Beinart “is that the project to which liberal Zionists like myself have devoted ourselves for decades—a state for Palestinians separated from a state for Jews—has failed.”
He calls for a return to “the essence of Zionism [which] is not a Jewish state in the land of Israel; it is a Jewish home in the land of Israel, a thriving Jewish society that both offers Jews refuge and enriches the entire Jewish world.”
We must “ explore other ways to achieve that goal…that don’t require subjugating another people. It’s time to envision a Jewish home that is a Palestinian home, too.
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An explanation of Yavne, in the title of Peter Beinart’s essay:
“For roughly a thousand years, Jewish worship meant bringing sacrifices to the Temple in Jerusalem. Then, in 70 CE,… [f]rom the academies of Yavne came a new form of worship, based on prayer and study. Animal sacrifice, it turned out, was not essential to being a Jew. Neither is supporting a Jewish state.”
This article was originally published by Jewish Currents on Tue 7 Jul 2020. Read the original here.
Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine
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Excellent. This journey away from the two state solution is not easy to make. Peaceful co-existence in an equal multiethnic society is the only solution on offer to avoid all the heartache.
A one state solution I think is wishful thinking, the Israelis have other solutions in mind. When Professor N Finkelstein spoke in Dublin not long ago he said this..”If you can’t get half a loaf, why not ask for the whole loaf, if it seems as if the two states is not within reach, well why not ask for one state? I can understand that reasoning , the logic of it, but you would have to convince me of two things, number one, that two states is not within reach, and you would have to convince me that one state is more within reach than two states. I think neither propositions is true, I think the second proposition is positively insane. If Israel will not abandon/give up the West Bank, if that’s true do you think it would be easier for Israel to give up a Jewish State? Does that make any sense? If two states is remote, one state is another time warp”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS4eBHz2wEU
The clue lies in the fact that we have acres of virtual print written by people who live in places such as New York and are Americans, as Peter Beinart, or other nationalities, compared with what we see from Israel/Palestine, or so it seems to me. It is external pressure that will ultimately lead to change and of course the big one is who is in the White House.
I think Beinart’s article is the most important piece looking at potential ways forward that anyone has written. And it is hugely important because it comes from deep within Jewish thinking and culture. Also, Beinart is not ideologically committed to one state – he thinks that two states has been rendered impossible and that one state can be argued for using principles of justice, equality, human rights etc and that it can be shaped so as to respect the needs and aspirations of all who live within Israel/Palestine. So it can be a tool for helping people of very different views and identities find a way towards each other – it doesnt require those who have been committed to two states to be categorised as colonialist and then hit over the head until they give up their terrible views.
Also, Beinart isnt the first from a liberal Zionist background to say two states is no longer on. Someone who is far less philosophical in his move towards a one-state position is leading Israeli political activist from a liberal but much more Zionist perspective, Gershon Baskin. Two states runs through his backbone like Brighton through rock – and all his adult life, this is what he has been pushing both publicly and in all sorts of behind-the-scenes activities. He isnt involved in wider left activities, campaigning, alliances etc. He has been for forty years a totally focused two state proponent. Then a few weeks ago, he wrote a piece in the Jerusalem Post (With the two-state solution dead, we must build for a new future) where he said unequivocally that his dream lay in ruins. I do not have either a one or two state ideological preference – I consider the practicalities of a peaceful, sustainable and just solution are for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate – but Baskin’s piece more than anything else persuaded me that the practicality of the two states option has almost certainly gone.
Beinart mentions the British appointed Mufti of Jerusalem as a practitioner of the ‘my enemy’s enemy should be my friend’ notion; but long after Yitzhak Shamir sought help from the Third Reich (Jerusalem Post July 7 1989), his electoral success carried him into the position of Prime Minister of Israel.
Binary does not mention this, confining his related links to the relatively innocuous examples of Reza Shah Pahlavi and Subhas Chandra Bose.
As for 1981-2 analogies with Treblinka, the Israeli use of their Lebanese puppets at Sabra and Shatila to commit mass murder perhaps more closely resembled the work of the Einsatzcommandos.
The projection of Israeli genocidal fantasies on to their Palestinian subjects surely comes from a lot closer in space and time than the Khurbn committed by the Third Reich.
Beinart’s motives are very laudable but he underestimates the depth of the Zionist problem.
The traditional two states formula that results in a fractured, settler-ridden Palestinian state should certainly be opposed. But the two-states option supported by Israeli Palestinians and the Joint List make for a Palestinian state with genuine sovereignty. Beinart downplays that option.
I come from a very different background to Peter Beinart and arrived at the same point a long time ago. Following a Study Tour to Israel/Palestine some years ago, I returned quite clear that a two-state solution was impossible, as was the status quo. This was despite most Israelis and Palestinians I met still looking to one as the only way forward.
In a long history of supporting liberation movements, I’ve always taken the view that it isn’t up to outsiders to impose a way forward on those we support and, despite the Israeli government claiming to be acting on my/our behalf, I think it’s important we stick to this, even though past outcomes haven’t been all we might have wanted (Vietnam, South Africa, Nicaragua, for example).
However, that doesn’t mean we can’t have an opinion! The reality is that there will never be a two-state solution, because there are around 750,000 settlers in the West Bank and most of them aren’t going to move under any circumstances. To try to force them out following an agreement would mean civil war and that is simply not going to happen.
So, as Sherlock Holmes put it, once the impossible has been eliminated, whatever is left must be the solution, however improbable. There is an increasingly popular movement advocating a single state with entrenched guarantees for all ethnic and religious groups and I would encourage everyone to read anything they can find by Jeff Halper, an Israeli Jew who founded the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).
It looked impossible that the whites in South Africa would voluntarily agree to a majority black government, but they did, so anything can happen! In the medium-term, annexation is likely to come back and bite the Israelis, as it would turn the current dispute over states and boundaries into a fight for civil rights, which is much easier to explain and much easier to win.
No solution is going to be easy or straightforward, but I think a single state is the most realistic option.
Six months ago I came across a pamphlet, published by Gollancz in 1948 and written by Walter Zander, a distinguished German Jewish lawyer who fled to Britain in the 1930s. “Is this the Way” (which can be found online) is wise, sensitive, profound and prophetic.
Looking back to the origins of Zionism, Zander quoted from Ahad Ha’am’s 1891 article, “The Truth from Palestine”, in which Ha’am warned Jews to give the Arab question the most careful consideration:
Ha’am wrote: “We abroad are accustomed to believe that the Arabs are all savages who are living on the level of animals, and who do not understand what is happening here around them. This, however, is a great mistake. The Arab, like all Semites, possesses a sharp intelligence and great cunning. The Arabs, and particularly the urban population, see through our activity in the country and its purpose, but they keep silent, since for the time being they do not fear any danger for their future. When, however, the life of our people in Palestine will have developed to such an extent that the indigenous population will feel threatened, then they will not easily give way any longer.”
Ha’am went on: “How careful must we be in dealing with an alien people in whose midst we want to settle. How essential is it to practise kindness and esteem towards them. . . . For if ever the Arab could consider the action of his rivals to be oppression or the robbing of his rights then, even if he keeps silent and waits for his time to come, the rage will remain alive in his heart.”
Zander’s pamphlet, with its anguished warning and its calls for tolerance and understanding, was ignored – just as Ha’am’s warnings were ignored. And the consequence has been that for more than 70 years Israel has lived in fear – wielding great military power, no doubt, but unable to grasp Lord Acton’s truth: power corrupts.
Peter Beinart – like Walter Zander 72 years ago – has done something courageous and searingly honest in recognising and saying publicly that the two-state solution is simply a means of camouflaging the fact that what Israel has been doing for many years was morally wrong. The two-state solution was always a sham.
Beinart’s article is another sign (along with Jamaal Bowman’s astonishing defeat of Elliot Engel in the New York primary) that world opinion on Israel is shifting. His article will, I believe, act as an ice-breaker. The ice will not melt overnight, but the possibility of a new channel and a new discourse has been opened. For 50 years Israel’s western allies have paid lip-service to something which they knew in their hearts would never come about but were unwilling to address. The fact that someone of Beinart’s background has now challenged and exposed this deception suggests that deep changes are taking place in the United States – and I welcome those changes.
two state solution, with Israeli settlements having the choice of accepting Palestinian Sovereignty or returning to Israel. That is the fair way to deal with it, and if the world came on side it would be the solution.
Billie Dale Wakefield
And if the world came on side
The world should make a simple offer to Israel, peace and reconciliation or war crimes and BDS
I agree with Dave that events in the US are pivotal in determining events on the ground in Palestine/Israel. Trump may decide that support for annexation is a battle not worth fighting for right now. However he seems to be wedded to supporting the apartheid state of Israel come what may.