Israel MUST EMBRACE SINGLE STATE WITH EQUAL RIGHTS 7-17-2020

 

17, July 2020            Israel MUST EMBRACE SINGLE STATE WITH EQUAL RIGHTS

The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population and a significantly larger indigenous Palestinian population. The declaration was contained in a letter dated 2 November 1917 from the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. Fast forward to the global “Black Lives Matter” movement. Palestinians have eagerly embraced the symbolism with large banners “Palestinian Lives Matter’ on prominent display in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Since its birth Israel has displaced the local indigenous Palestinian population by brute force supported by $billions in US military and economic aid prodded by AIPAC and other powerful Jewish organizations.

In the midst of the grinding Coronavirus and crippling economy more and more Americans, including Senator Bernie Sanders, are calling for a complete halt to further unconditional aid to Israel which enjoys a significantly higher standard of living than the US.

For decades, Israel has encouraged illegal settlers to occupy more and more Palestinian land and fulfill its dream of creating a “greater Israel,” closely resembling former apartheid South Africa.

About 640,000 illegal Jewish settlers now live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israeli and American governments now admit that a contiguous Palestinian state has lost any sense of reality. Even the leaders of Israel’s center-left parties no longer support such a fragmented Palestinian state.

The Trump-Kushner disastrous “peace plan” envisions an archipelago of Palestinian towns, scattered across as little as 70 percent of the West Bank, under tight Israeli military control, much like Bantustans of apartheid South Africa. This is a profoundly cruel “remedy” perpetrated by Netanyahu’s right wing government in close collaboration with the Trump administration.  The only practical, equitable way forward is ONE STATE where all Palestinians and Jews enjoy the SAME EQUAL RIGHTS otherwise Israel’s claim to be a Jewish democratic state is patently absurd.

Highly respected writers, Peter Beinart, Yousef Munayyer and Edward Said, have long argued that equality comes in the form of one state that includes Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

Military checkpoints, special bypass roads for Jews and favored energy and water rates should be tossed into the dustbin of history. The siege of Gaza must be lifted and a peace initiative should be initiated by Israel and soon to be President Biden to support a single state initiative to heal the wounds of decades of horrific Israeli military occupation and multiple assaults on Gaza.

Recent history provides convincing examples where such remedies have been successfully implemented. A peace agreement between Protestant Northern Ireland and a Catholic South ended decades of strife. 

Another poignant example is the peaceful settlement between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda. Rwanda is currently one of the most progressive states in the African subcontinent. Decades of foreign “divide and rule” mischief (Britain in Ireland), (Belgium in Rwanda) and the (US and Britain in Israel) was responsible for creating death and misery for many millions of innocent victims.