SOME REAL FOUNDING FATHERS HARPERS FERRY, 1859

Who actually gained from that victory over England? It’s very important to ask about any policy, and especially about war: Who gained what? And it’s very important to notice differences among the various parts of the population. That’s one thing were not accustomed to in this country because we don’t think in class terms. We think, “Oh, we all have the same interests.” For instance, we think that we all had the same interests in independence from England. We did not have all the same interests.

Do you think the Indians cared about independence from England? No, in fact, the Indians were unhappy that we won independence from England, because England had set a line—in the Proclamation of 1763—that said you couldn’t go westward into Indian territory. They didn’t do it because they loved the Indians. They didn’t want trouble. When Britain was defeated in the Revolutionary War, that line was eliminated, and now the way was open for the colonists to move westward across the continent, which they did for the next 100 years, committing massacres and making sure that they destroyed Indian civilization.

So when you look at the American Revolution, there’s a fact that you have to take into consideration. Indians—no, they didn’t benefit.

Did blacks benefit from the American Revolution?
Slavery was there before. Slavery was there after. Not only that, we wrote slavery into the Constitution. We legitimized it.

What about class divisions?

Did ordinary white farmers have the same interest in the revolution as a John Hancock or Morris or Madison or Jefferson or the slaveholders or the bondholders? Not really.

It was not all the common people getting together to fight against England. They had a very hard time assembling an army. They took poor guys and promised them land. They browbeat people and, oh yes, they inspired people with the Declaration of Independence. It’s always good, if you want people to go to war, to give them a good document and have good words: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Of course, when they wrote the Constitution, they were more concerned with property than life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You should take notice of these little things.

There were class divisions. When you assess and evaluate a war, when you assess and evaluate any policy, you have to ask: Who gets what?

We were a class society from the beginning. America started off as a society of rich and poor, people with enormous grants of land and people with no land. And there were riots, there were bread riots in Boston, and riots and rebellions all over the colonies, of poor against rich, of tenants breaking into jails to release people who were in prison for nonpayment of debt. There was class conflict. We try to pretend in this country that we’re all one happy family. We’re not.

And so when you look at the American Revolution, you have to look at it in terms of class.

Do you know that there were mutinies in the American Revolutionary Army by the privates against the officers? The officers were getting fine clothes and good food and high pay and the privates had no shoes and bad clothes and they weren’t getting paid. They mutinied. Thousands of them. So many in the Pennsylvania line that George Washington got worried, so he made compromises with them. But later when there was a smaller mutiny in the New Jersey line, not with thousands but with hundreds, Washington said execute the leaders, and they were executed by fellow mutineers on the order of their officers.

The American Revolution was not a simple affair of all of us against all of them. And not everyone thought they would benefit from the Revolution.

...was not so much a "revolution for freedom against Great Britain, per se," as it was a shrewd and carefully calculated set of moves on the global chessboard of Real Politik, that amounted to a "Counter-Revolution" against freedom: That is to say, it was a revolution against ending freedom for its slaves and other slaves around the colonial empire....

...Against Great Britain's edict to its colonies to end slavery forthwith, brought about through a legal case made by a slave named James Somerset back in London, only the slave-holding colonies of British America flatly refused to follow through. Instead of ending slavery, our much revered and mythologized founding fathers, with the help of one Mr. Thomas Jefferson in particular, launched its own counterrevolution against slavery, and in doing so, unconscionably enshrined the american revolutionary rhetoric forever in the "false" language of "freedom," which all too painfully we have now come to know and understand today that their freedom meant a special kind of "white man only freedom." 

The Founding Fathers wanted to restore and assert as their own, not the “rights of man,” but the old rights of Englishmen.

They weren’t interested in making the world safe for liberty, equality, fraternity — or even democracy.

Alberta Tar Oil Sands It Don't Look Good To Me In Fact It Looks So Bad

...contaminants in traditional foods such as muskrat and moose, and that aboriginal community members feel less healthy than they did a generation ago...

 ...this development, as well as upstream hydro projects, compromises the integrity of the environment and wildlife, which, in turn, adversely affects human health and well-being...

This report confirms what we have always suspected about the association between environmental contaminants from [tar sands] production upstream and cancer and other serious illness in our community.

It's time the government does something. The reality is our people are dying.

On one hand, industry, notably the Oil Sands, cause a decline in the health of the environment and ultimately of community members. On the other hand, the existing health care infrastructure is unable to address these declines in human health. The communities are caught in the middle, and the impacts are clear and worrisome.

"There's something unique that is happening in Fort Chipewyan. It's a situation that is alarming and demands attention.

Among other health problems First Nations people in the region suffer are miscarriages, lupus and skin abscesses, which they attribute to the degradation of the traditional food they hunt and harvest. Beyond their health, "local traditional economies like fishing and fur trading have been decimated by industrial pollution and widespread habitat destruction, leaving many residents with no other option but to seek employment in the local oil sands mines. Today, the indigenous bands in northern Alberta are no longer able to safely sustain themselves off the land that has nurtured their lives for centuries," states borealcollective.com, a dedicated group of photojournalists who are committed to the documentation of injustice and inequities that exist environmentally, socially, culturally and politically in Canada and abroad.

Palestinians watch a World Cup football game on a wide screen on the beach of Gaza City. Somehow I doubt this can happen today without the people having bombs dropped on their heads.

‘Exporting Gaza’: The Arming of Brazil’s World Cup Security

Machover's reading of Zionism is pretty trivial.  "Israel," he says, is a "settler state." For Machover this is a necessary point of departure because it sets Zionism as a colonialist expansionist project.  The reasoning behind such a lame intellectual spin is obvious.  As long as Zionism is conveyed as a colonial project, Jews, as a people, should be seen as ordinary people.  They are no different from the French and the English, they just happen to run their deadly colonial project in a different time.¹

In order to understand Israel's unique condition we must ask, "who are the Jews?  What is Judaism and what is Jewishness?"³
Zionism is a continuation of Jewish ideology.⁴
The never-ending robbery of Palestine by Israel in the name of the Jewish people establishes a devastating spiritual, ideological, cultural and, obviously, practical continuum between the Judaic Bible and the Zionist project.  The crux of the matter is simple yet disturbing: Israel and Zionism are both successful political systems that put into devastating practice the plunder promised by the Judaic God in the Judaic holy scriptures.⁵
Sadly, we have to admit that hate-ridden plunder of other people's possessions made it into the Jewish political discourse both on the left and right.  The Jewish nationalist would rob Palestine in the name of the right of self-determination, the Jewish progressive is there to rob the ruling class and even international capital in the name of world working class revolution.⁶
Were Jewish Marxists and cosmopolitans open to the notion of brotherhood, they would have given up on their unique, exclusive banners and become ordinary human beings like the rest of us.⁷
I do not consider the Jews to be a race, and yet it is obvious that "Jewishness" clearly involves an ethno-centric and racially supremacist, exclusivist point of view that is based on a sense of Jewish "chosen-ness."⁸
At the most, Israel has managed to mimic some of the appearances of a Western civilisation, but it has clearly failed to internalise the meaning of tolerance and freedom.  This should not take us by surprise: Israel defines itself as a Jewish state, and Jewishness is, sadly enough, inherently intolerant; indeed, it may be argued that Jewish intolerance is as old as the Jews themselves.⁹
Israel and Zionism then, has proved to be a short lived dream.  It was initiated to civilise Jewish life, and to dismantle the Jewish self-destructive mode.  It was there to move the Jew into the post-herem¹⁰ phase.  It vowed to make the Jew into a productive being.  But as things turned out, neither the Zionists nor the "anti Zionists" managed to drift away from the disastrous herem culture.  It seems that the entire world of Jewish identity politics is a matrix of herems and exclusion strategies.  In order to be "a proper Jew," all you have to do is to point out whom you oppose, hate, exclude or boycott.¹¹

The endless trail of Jewish collective tragedies is there to teach us that Jews always pay eventually (and heavily) for Jewish power exercises.  Yet, surprisingly (and tragically) enough, Jews somehow consistently fail to internalise and learn from that very lesson.¹²

The remarkable fact is they don't understand why the world is beginning to stand against them in the same way they didn't understand why the Europeans stood against them in the 1930s.  Instead of asking why we are hated they continue to toss accusations on others.¹³
Within the discourse of Jewish politics and history there is no room for causality.  There is no such a thing as a former and a latter.  Within the Jewish tribal discourse every narrative starts to evolve when Jewish pain establishes itself.  This obviously explains why Israelis and some Jews around the world can only think as far as "two state solution" within the framework of 1967 borders.  It also explains why for most Jews the history of the holocaust starts in the gas chambers or with the rise of the Nazis.  I have hardly seen any Israelis or Jews attempt to understand the circumstances that led to the clear resentment of Europeans towards their Jewish neighbors in the 1920's-40's.¹⁴

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The Politics of Anti-Semitism: Zionism, the Bund and Jewish Identity Politics

Those amongst us who support the Palestinian people, those amongst us who are devastated by the growing scale of Israeli atrocities, those who want to bring justice to Palestine and this includes bringing Palestinians back to their land, will have to make up their minds sooner or later. From now on, everything we do or say about the Jewish state is seen by one Jew or another as anti-Semitism. We have to make up our minds and decide once and for all, is it world Jewry which we are trying to appease, or is it the Palestinians we are fighting for?

I myself made up my mind. For me it is Palestine and the Palestinian people. If this makes me into an anti-Semite in the eyes of some confused Diaspora Jews (left, right and center), I will have to learn to live with it. At the end of the day, I cannot make everyone happy.

Already in 1973, Abba Eban, then Israeli foreign minister, identified anti-Zionism as ‘the new anti-Semitism’:

“Throughout the 19th century, the revolutionary left literature is full of invidious remarks about the Jewish insistence on self-affirmation and survival. The assumption was that in a free national society there would be no room for the maintenance of Jewish particularism. It was assumed that the destiny and duty of Jews was to disappear in the universal utopia. When Zionism came on the scene as the product not only of specific currents in Judaism but also of European nationalism, the phrase nationalism no longer had about it the fine glow that it possessed in the days of Garibaldi… recently we have witnessed the rise of the new left which identifies Israel with the establishment, with acquisition, with smug satisfaction, with, in fact, all the basic enemies… Let there be no mistake: the new left is the author and the progenitor of the new anti-Semitism. One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all. Anti-Zionism is merely the new anti-Semitism. The old classic anti-Semitism declared that equal rights belong to all individuals within the society, except the Jews. The new anti-Semitism says that the right to establish and maintain an independent national sovereign state is the prerogative of all nations, so long as they happen not to be Jewish. And when this right is exercised not by the Maldive Islands, not by the state of Gabon, not by Barbados… but by the oldest and most authentic of all nationhoods, then this is said to be exclusivism, particularism, and a flight of the Jewish people from its universal mission.” (Abba Eban, Congress Bi-Weekly, American Jewish Congress publication, 1973)

Sameness and Singularity

Any tendency to establish a coherent Jewish national identity can be realized as a dialectic struggle between two opposing poles. On the one hand, we can notice the clear inclination towards ‘sameness’ in the form of ‘nation amongst nations’. On the other hand, we can detect a definite tendency to celebrate one’s symptoms, a keen leaning towards uniqueness and singularity. The argument would be as follows: as much as we (the Jews) are people like all other people, we are still slightly different and we want to celebrate our uniqueness.

(Illustration: Zionist recruitment poster, “Salvation and Vengeance!”)

In the late 19th century and the first part of the 20th, two emerging Jewish national political schools were trying to resolve the dialectical duality between ‘sameness’ and ‘singularity’. They were both competing for the hearts and minds of the Jewish masses. One was the Bund, a unique esoteric form of Judeo-centric socialist reading of the Jewish question, Jewish history as well as Jewish destiny. The other was Zionism, a colonial nationalist settlement philosophy. Zionism conveyed an exceptionally harsh reading of the Jewish Diaspora conditions and promised a transformation of the Jewish reality.

The debate between the Bund and the Zionist movement has very little historical significance, yet it enlightens the notion of Jewish tribal politics; it is a glimpse into Jewish marginal philosophy and identity-politics. It throws light over the current apparatus of Jewish political lobbying within the West and even within the left. I want to believe that a brief elaboration on this debate and its implications will elucidate the ever-growing tendency amongst Jewish ethnic activists (left, right and centre) to label every ideological and intellectual criticism as anti-Semitism.

Bund Versus Zionism

The Bund was initially an internationalist movement active mainly in Eastern Europe. It posited that Jewish people form a class and therefore should be recognized as an ethnic national minority within the emerging Russian proletarian movement. Zionism, on the other hand, was there to argue that in order to save the Jew of his ‘Diaspora atrocious reality’, a new Jew must be formed, and this could only take place within an accomplishment of a settlement project on a consecrated Jewish Homeland, i.e. Palestine.

Clearly, both political movements aimed towards the transformation of the Jew and his surrounding reality. While the Bund was aiming towards a terminological or even semantic transition grounded on an alternative materialistic reading of Jewish history, Zionism pointed towards a real metaphysical transition of the Jewish subject, his reality and his role in the universe.

While the Bund failed to grasp the obvious meaning of cosmopolitanism and universalism as an opposition to any form of racial or ethnic division within the ‘international’, early Zionists were clever enough to realize that the true meaning of nationalism can only be realized in terms of geographical orientation. For the Zionist, nationalism meant a bond between man and ‘his’ land.

The Bund leaders naively insisted that sustaining the Yiddish language and Yiddish culture would mature into an organic awareness of national identity that would pull eastern European Jews in but would be recognized by others as a legitimate ethnic minority as well. They were obviously wrong. Already in 1903, following Lenin’s criticism of the Bund’s national agenda, the majority of the delegates at the 2nd RSDLP’s (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party) congress had rejected the agenda the Bund proposed. Consequently, the Bund representatives had left the Congress. Moreover, not only had the Bund failed to make itself ideologically recognized by the Goyim around them, it also failed to develop a general tolerant attitude towards the manifold of ethnicity within the Jewish people around the world. Being Askeno-centric, the Issue of Sephardic and Arabic Jews was totally ignored by the Jewish (national) socialists. I would assume that the Bund expected Moroccan Jews to learn Yiddish, or even become Russian working class before they could be entitled to have a ‘Bund membership card.’

Being obsessed with Yiddish, the Bund stood up firmly against the Zionist Hebrew revival project. They tried to invest some real effort in spreading Yiddish culture. But even there it failed in the long run. As we know, nowadays, Yiddish language and culture are alive only within a very small circuit in the Ashkenazi Orthodox sector. It is almost non-existent amongst secular and assimilated Jews.

While both movements were secular, early Zionists were honest enough to admit that on the eve of the 20th century, there was not much in Jewish secular life to be proud of (either culturally or spiritually). This was only natural, considering the fact that in 1898 (the First Zionist congress) Jewish emancipation was still in its early days (just about 100 years from the emancipation of French Jews). Within the growing process of assimilation, Jews did very little to develop their secular Jewish culture. It is not that they didn’t want to, they simply didn’t have to. The fall of the Ghetto walls allowed the Jew to join European culture and discourse as an equal amongst equals. This meant largely joining the spirit of enlightenment and the belief in the primacy of reason. For many Jews that meant developing a new loyalty to their host nations as well. On the eve of the First World War, the vast majority of German Jews regarded themselves first as German nationals, the Jewish tribal identity was on the verge of disappearance. Assimilated Jews were largely adopting European modern ethical value systems. Literally speaking, Jews have skipped the birth moment of enlightenment and the pain involved with the anthropocentric revolution. For Jews to join their European liberal discourse meant in practice dropping God and assimilating culturally, financially and spiritually.

Consequently, by the end of the 19th century there was very little Jewish secular culture around, there was neither a Jewish secular ethical value system, nor was there a secular Jewish spiritual bond, there was no secular Jewish theatre except some sporadic Yiddish theatre groups, no secular Jewish popular music except a few isolated songs that failed to establish a body of work, no Jewish great symphonies, no secular Jewish poetry or any great Jewish secular work of plastic art. There were already great symphonies, poetry, great works of art, political ideological texts written, painted and composed by assimilated and converted Jews (Heine, Marx and Mendelssohn for instance.) Yet these were accepted as esoteric European cultural assets rather than any form of esoteric Jewish secular culture. Though assimilated and converted Jews found more and more avenues to express their talent and wisdom, most of them preferred to regard themselves as ordinary human beings rather than maintaining their tribal identity that clearly meant less and less to them.

Zionism — A “Success” Story

As sad as it may be and as much pain as it may take to admit it, the Zionist project was there to make a change and it indeed succeeded in doing so. The first generation of Zionist ideologists was aiming at the formation of Jewish secular life and secular meaning. It is impossible not to admit that the first generations of Hebrew speaking Palestinians had managed to erect a substantial body of literature, poetry, plastic art and music in a very short period of time. Early Zionists, European thinkers such as Echad Ha’am who spoke about the revival of the Jewish culture, saw Zionism primarily as a spiritual project.

He believed that the creation in Eretz-Israel, of a Jewish cultural center would act to reinforce Jewish life in the Diaspora. His hope was that in this center, a new Jewish national identity based on Judaic ethics and values might resolve the crisis of Judaism. Being an ethical being, Echad Ha’am was one of the first to warn his fellow Zionists that Palestine is far from being a free land. He saw the obvious deception in the early Zionist slogan ‘land without people for people without land’. He knew that Palestine was far from being uninhabited.

The revival of the Hebrew language pioneered by the Zionists was there to celebrate the emerging bond between the Jews, Eretz Israel and Jewish heritage. The revival of Hebrew was there to create a continuum between the new Israelites and their ancestors. It was there to turn the Bible into a ‘land registry’ and God into a ‘real estate agent’. Within just a few decades this bond has matured into a new Jewish dynamic identity, namely the ‘Israeli’. However, as much as we despise the crimes committed by the ‘Israeli’ for more than 6 decades, we must confront that which fuels him with such militant and spiritual zeal.

We would have as well to accept the fact that Zionism, at least in its early days, had more than just one face. German Jewish philosophers and thinkers who immigrated to Israel in the mid 1930’s such as Gershon Scholem, Martin Buber and Hugo Bergman felt an urge to establish a Zionist ethical value system. Prof. Yeshayahu Leibovitch, a Zionist Orthodox Jew dedicated much of his intellectual life to criticizing Zionist expansionism. In fact it was Leibovitch who was the first to label the Israeli military as ‘Judeo Nazis’. Naively, these morally orientated Zionist thinkers believed that that an ethically enlightened Jewish nationalist project was within reach. This school of thought was so naïve that one of its last followers, the Israeli so-called philosopher Asa Kasher even spent some time writing the “IDF ethical code.” Clearly Kasher failed to understand Emmanuel Kant’s categorical imperative. Ethics could never be set into codes. Ethical judgment is rather a fluid dynamic process the must be revised continuously. However, for early Zionist thinkers and especially the humanists amongst them, the emerging Jewish state would be respectful towards the indigenous population of Palestine i.e. the Palestinians. The gloomy historical tale of Israel and the emerging of the current starvation in Gaza alongside a sinister apartheid Israeli legislation proves how wrong they were.

As far as the Jewish National project is concerned, the Bund had failed completely. In fact, by the end of WWII, there were hardly any Bundists left to sustain the Jewish (national) Socialist philosophy. Indeed, the Bund was involved with some fierce fighting against the Nazis during the war. Probably the most notable battle the Bund should be credited for was the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. However, the majority of the Bundists who survived the Nazi Judeocide immigrated to Palestine, they settled in a few Kibbutzim and joined the Zionist left parties. The rest settled in Britain and the USA. Their followers still insist upon claiming that they know how to save the Diaspora Jews from their misery. The half a dozen contemporary Bundists operate mainly within Jewish segregated political cells from which they try to monitor the Palestinian solidarity discourse. They insist that as far as Palestinian solidarity discourse is concerned, ‘fighting anti-Semitism is a primary issue’. Clearly, no one within the Palestinian solidarity movement can take such a stand seriously. The Bundists spread their message to the world via some minor sectarian, predominantly Jewish cyber cells that attract very little intellectual, political and ideological attention. The Yiddish that was supposed to be their cultural flag is rather non-existent amongst Jewish seculars. It has zero cultural impact on Jews or anyone else. As the Marxist Jewish thinker Abraham Leon predicted already in the 1930’s, Yiddish is now officially a dead language as far as secular Jews are concerned.

Interestingly enough, Hebrew has replaced Yiddish as a secular symbolic identifier of Jewish brotherhood and a representation of Jewish ethnicity as well as tribalism. Even when Jews do not speak Hebrew, they know enough to say ‘Shalom’, or ‘Toda Raba’ (Thank you). The usage of the reincarnated biblical language is there to assert their ethnic belonging. And this should not take us by surprise. Though modern Yiddish journalism and publication is literally non-existent, you can find more than a few Hebrew daily papers and not only in Israel, you can also find films in Hebrew, pop music in Hebrew and even porn in Hebrew (I am not aware of any porn in Yiddish unless the last Bundists, have something in the pipeline). Hebrew and Israeliness has been perceived by most Jews as the current symbolic identifier of their ethnicity.

Israel Versus Diaspora

The debate between the Bund and Zionism lost its political relevance six decades ago. The Bund died and Zionism won. Yet, as much as Zionism is meaningful within the Diaspora Jewish context, it is totally meaningless within the Israeli reality. As much as the Diaspora Jew may struggle to synthesize the initial dialectic polarity between ‘sameness’ and ‘singularity’, that very duality is totally irrelevant within the contemporary Israeli discourse. From the very dialectical perspective at stake, the Israeli Jew is an authentic genuine character, he regards Israeliness as a genuine national identifier, but he lives as well in peace with his singularity: with his unique traits, with his Hebrew language, with his culture and even with the crime his Jewish state is involved with. For the Israeli-born Jew, the Zionist aspiration is rather meaningless, he is born in the Jewish homeland into a Hebraic civilization. Unlike the Diaspora Jew who is awaiting transformation to come, the Israeli Jew is born into an already transformed reality.

The new Israeli, the one who is born in a Jewish state, is not concerned at all with the Diaspora Judeo-centric query “who am I?” The Israeli subject regards himself as an ordinary citizen within a normal national society. Some Israeli Jews tend to agree with other s’ criticism of their Jewish state. Some Israelis are outraged by the very criticism, yet they accept its legitimacy. More than just a few Israelis would argue that any criticism of Israel is just unacceptable. And this is probably the biggest success of Zionism. UnlikeMax Nordau, who argued that the “The emancipated Jew is insecure in his relations with his fellow-beings, timid with strangers,” the Israeli isn’t timid or insecure, he is proud and to many people’s taste, he may even be ‘far too proud.’

Yet the Western Diaspora Jew, the one who insists upon maintaining a tribal identity within an opening multi-cultural society, is still searching for an identity. He is looking for a recipe to bridge the abyss between ‘sameness’ and ‘singularity’ and as it seems, Israel and Zionism has become the only viable model to identify with. As sad as it may sound, Israel and Zionism has managed to hijack the notion of Jewish secularism. The Diaspora Jewish youngster who has to choose a between a pale, bearded Rabbi who calls him to join a Yeshiva and a young athletic Israeli Marine who offers him a gun, a red beret and war to fight, may find the latter slightly more appealing. The young Jewish Diaspora female who has to choose between a wig to cover her head and the Israeli rather liberated interpretation of femininity will probably find the Israeli lifestyle far more attractive.

The Diaspora Jews at large identify with Israel, some are hardcore Zionists, others just borrow light folkloric and even meaningless verbal manifestations. However as it stands, every Jewish Simchas (Bar Mitzvah, Wedding etc’) is now a celebration of Israeli Hebraic folklore. To a certain extent, due to the extremely deep penetration of Israeli folklore and the new Hebraic culture, every Bar Mitzvah and Jewish wedding asserts a symbolic identification of the Jewish state. Every Jewish festive occasion can be seen as a mini Zionist rally. The cultural slot that just four decades ago was occupied by Yiddishkeit is now overwhelmingly invaded by Israeli and Hebrew culture. As tragic as it may sound, Israeli culture and folklore has become the new Jewish cement. Hebrew has become the tribal bond and Israeliness is the new Jewish cultural symbolic identifier.

This brings us back to Abba Eban who was probably the first to identify anti-Zionism as the “new anti-Semitism.” From the point of view of the Jewish secular Diaspora subject, Israel is the vivid unification of the dialectical polarity between ‘equality’ and ‘particularity’. From a Jewish Diaspora perspective Israel has managed to resolve the so-called “Jewish problem” it bonded the ethnicity, the tribal and even the religion into one unified notion. It offers the Diaspora Jew a destiny as well as something solid to identify with in day-to-day life.

Consequently, any criticism of Israel is realized by the Diaspora Jew as an assault against the legitimacy of any possible Jewish identity. If this is not enough, any criticism of Israel is regarded as an assault against the possibility of Jewish secular existence or even fate. As Eban had eloquently articulated already in the 1970s, “The new anti-Semitism says that the right to establish and maintain an independent national sovereign state is the prerogative of all nations, so long as they happen not to be Jewish.”

Eban manipulatively identifies Israel with ‘Jewishness’ and vice versa. Israel, according to Eban, is the “Jewish people’s universal mission”, accordingly any attempt to criticize Israel robs the Jew of his ‘universal right’, an act that must be realized as sheer anti-Semitism.

As we all know, the accusations of anti-Semitism are tossed in the air by almost every Jewish activist: Jewish ethnic campaigners, Israeli officials and even elder contemporary Bundists. I hope that by now it should all be clear. In the light of the total failure of the Bund and the lack of any alternative authentic lucid Jewish Diaspora identity, Zionism and Zionism alone has become the one and only symbol of Jewish secular identity. Bearing this in mind, any criticism of the Jewish state is perceived by many Diaspora Jews as a clear attempt against the possibility of Jewish secular identity. Mistakenly, many Diaspora Jews interpret any criticism of Israel as an attempt to expel them from an equal share within the emerging Western ‘multi-cultural’ discourse.

Those amongst us who support the Palestinian people, those amongst us who are devastated by the growing scale of Israeli atrocities, those who want to bring justice to Palestine and this includes bringing Palestinians back to their land, will have to make up their minds sooner or later. From now on, everything we do or say about the Jewish state is seen by one Jew or another as anti-Semitism. We have to make up our minds and decide once and for all, is it world Jewry which we are trying to appease, or is it the Palestinians we are fighting for?

I myself made up my mind a long time ago. For me it is Palestine and the Palestinian people. If this makes me into an anti-Semite in the eyes of some confused Diaspora Jews (left, right and centre), I will have to learn to live with it. At the end of the day, I cannot make everyone happy.

The farthest-stretching mine belt on Earth isn’t in the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the Angolan savannas or the Afghan mountains. It’s in one of the most desolate parts of the Sahara Desert.

The U.N. classifies the Western Sahara as a “non-self-governing territory,” despite two-thirds of the region being occupied by Morocco.

Located on the west coast of Africa—near the Canary Islands, south of Morocco, west of Algeria and north of Mauritania—Western Sahara was Spanish until 1976, when pressure from pro-independence fighters compelled Spain’s forces to withdraw.

Subsequently Mauritania and Morocco, through hostile takeover, divided the desert territory.
Following the 1975 Moroccan invasion, the Sahrawi indigenous people fled by the thousands across the border into Algeria. And in 1980 Morocco—sensing that the territory was vulnerable—made a push to annex the majority of the ungoverned desert.

Moroccan engineers built the Berm—a 1,500-mile tract of land mines and elevated barricades that cuts through the Western Sahara.

The Berm is one of the most secure defensive barriers ever. It consists of 10-foot-high walls, barbed wire, electric fences and, every seven miles, human sentries. On top of that, the fortification lies amid the world’s longest continuous minefield.

In sections, year by year, Morocco expanded the walls of the Berm until 1987, when it reached the southern tip of the border with Mauritania. Upon completion, the wall encased all the major settlements of the Western Sahara including its largest city El Aaiún, which is under Morocco’s control.

Among locals of the region the Berm is also known as Hassan’s wall—named for King Hassan II, who annexed most of what was then called Spanish Sahara.

Today there are still 120,000 Moroccan troops along the border of the Southern Provinces—the areas Morocco claims. East of the Berm is the free zone, a landlocked swath of desert next to Algeria and Mauritania.

The Sahara's Forgotten War Part 1 AND PART 2

Will Ukraine Be the Christian Right's Next Anti-Gay Battleground?

"While western leftists (including myself) took it upon ourselves to critique the Ukrainian enthusiasm for the EU, it was suddenly clear to me that the LGBT community had no choice. It was either Europe, or a return to Russian anti-gay legislation. In fact, a law similar to Russia's was already being proposed under the Yanukovich regime. And yet, Ukraine had been the first of the post-Soviet countries to decriminalize homosexuality. These activists wanted to keep things that way but they want much, much more.

"Unlike their counterparts in the west, the Ukrainian LGBT activists aren't devoting most of their resources to gay marriage. For certain practical matters, they support civil partnership but it's only a part of their multi-pronged strategy. Their activities including building a gay-friendly doctor's network, both for People With AIDS and for the increasing number of lesbians wishing to give birth. They are excited about their building of alliances with Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) -- family is very important in Ukraine."

It is universally acknowledged that nuclear waste must be kept away from water circulating through the environment of living things since water is seen as the main vehicle for eventual dissolution and dissemination of radiotoxic pollutants.

Is dilution really the solution to pollution—especially when it’snuclear waste that can stay radioactive for 100,000 years? A four-member expert group told a federal joint review panel it is.

The panel is examining an Ontario Power Generation proposal to bury low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste from the Darlington, Pickering and Bruce nuclear plants in limestone at the Bruce site in Kincardine, beside Lake Huron. According to the Toronto Star, the experts reported that 1,000 cubic meters of contaminated water could leak from the site, although it’s “highly improbable.” But even if it did leak, they argued, the amount is small compared to Lake Huron’s water volume and the quantity of rain that falls into it.

If the materials were instead buried in Canadian Shield granite, any leaking waste would be diluted by active streams and marshes, the experts claimed: “Hence, the volumes of the bodies of water available for dilution at the surface are either immense (Great Lakes) or actively flowing … so the dilution capacity is significant.” 

Others aren’t convinced. The Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump group has more than 62,000 signatures on a petition opposing the dump. Many communities around the Great Lakes, home to 40-million people, have passed resolutions against the project, including Canadian cities Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton, Niagara Falls, Kingston, Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Windsor and more, and local governments in the states of Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York and Ohio. The United Tribes of Michigan, representing 12 First Nations, is also opposed.

Michigan’s Senate recently adopted resolutions to urge President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Congress to intervene, and for the International Joint Commission, the Great Lakes Commission and all Great Lakes States and Ontario and Quebec to get involved.

According to Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump, burying such highly toxic wastes in limestone next to 21 percent of the world’s fresh water “defies common sense.” The group’s website notes, “There are no precedents anywhere in the world for burying radioactive nuclear waste in limestone. The repository must function to safely contain the nuclear wastes for over 100,000 years. No scientist or geologist can provide a 100,000 year guarantee.” The Great Lakes are only 12,000 years old!

On top of that, retired Ontario Power Generation research scientist and chemist Frank R. Greening wrote to the review panel stating that OPG has “seriously underestimated, sometimes by factors of more than 100” the radioactivity of material to be buried.

Greening says the company acknowledged his criticism but downplayed its seriousness, which he believes raises doubts about the credibility of OPG’s research justifying the project. “Their response has been, ‘Oops we made a mistake but it isn’t a problem’ and that really bothers me as a scientist,” he told Kincardine News. “It is rationalizing after the fact.”

According to the newspaper, “a radiation leak at a nuclear waste site in New Mexico—cited by OPG as an example of a successful facility—is further fueling criticism of the project.” In February, radiation was detected in vaults and in the air a kilometre from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, where radioactive materials from the nuclear weapons program are stored. The facility, the world’s only deep geologic repository, had only been in use for 15 years and is closed for now. The cause of the leak isn’t yet known.

Those and other factors led the joint review panel to re-open hearings beginning September 9. They initially ended October 30, 2013. A federal cabinet decision is expected sometime next year.

This “out of sight, out of mind” mentality must end. We can’t continue to dump garbage into the oceans, waterways and air or bury it in the ground and hope it will disappear. If we can’t find better ways to use or at least reduce waste products, we must stop producing them.

In the meantime, this project must be halted. The Great Lakes are already threatened by pollution, agricultural runoff, invasive species, climate change and more. We can’t afford to add the risk of radioactive contamination to one of the world’s largest sources of fresh water.

Written with Contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

In the words of writer Mychal Denzel Smith, “Marissa Alexander was just trying to save her life” when she was assaulted and threatened (again) by her estranged husband. When she retrieved a gun and fired a warning shot in self-defense, she could not have imagined being convicted and sentenced to a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison. Yet we know from history that too often women who protect themselves from unrelenting violence are criminalized.

‘No Selves to Defend’ features the stories of women of color who have been criminalized for self-defense. The exhibition examines the contested meanings and historical and contemporary understandings of self-defense. It seeks to locate Marissa Alexander’s story within a broader historical context and legacy. The exhibition also addresses the campaigns and mobilizations that emerged to resist their criminalization and demand their freedom. Finally, it considers how we can support current survivors of violence who have been criminalized for self-defense.

• FRIDAY, JULY 25:
  Registration & Opening Ceremony
  Logistical details here; Crowne Plaza Jacksonville Riverfront Hotel, 1201 Riverplace Boulevard
• SATURDAY, JULY 26:
  SisterSong Reproductive Justice Institute & Southern Freedom Alliance/ National Youth Bill of Rights Youth-Led Assembly
  Logistical details here; Crowne Plaza Jacksonville Riverfront Hotel, 1201 Riverplace Boulevard
• SUNDAY, JULY 27: Beach Day for Youth; VIP Legal Defense Fund Benefit; Waterfront Benefit Concert to Free Marissa Alexander
  Concert at Waterfront Jacksonville Landing, 2 Independent Dr (time TBA)
• MONDAY, JULY 28: March from CROWNE PLAZA Hotel to Duval County Courthouse - meet at 1201 Riverplace Boulevard, march to 501 W Adams St (time TBA)
  Southern Movement Assembly (SMA) at Courthouse (time TBA)
  Verbal Essence Poetry Night (location/time TBA)
• TUESDAY, JULY 29:
  12pm - 2pm: Book reading of Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America's Prison Nation by author, Prof. Beth Richie
  Chamblin Uptown, 215 N Laura St
  3 pm: Forum on the Women's Movement and Social Change, featuring Prof. Beth Richie, author of Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America's Prison Nation, Downtown Jacksonville Library, 303 N. Laura Street
• WEDNESDAY, JULY 30: Forum on Prison Industrial Complex and Mass Incarceration
  Milne Auditorium, Edward Waters College, Grunthal St. & W. 5th St. (time TBA)
• THURSDAY, JULY 31: Civil Rights Law & Community Legal Support
  Milne Auditorium, Edward Waters College, Grunthal St. & W. 5th St. (time TBA)
  Evening Jazz, Ritz Theatre and Museum, 829 N Davis St (time TBA)
• FRIDAY, AUGUST 1: Court Watch at Marissa Alexander's hearing
  Duval County Courthouse, 501 W Adams St (time TBA)

#SelfiesForSelfDefense

Show your support for Marissa Alexander, a black mother of three and survivor of domestic violence from Florida who is being threatened with 60 years in prison for defending her life! 

HERE'S WHAT YOU DO::

1. Take a selfie that includes a photo of you holding a supportive message to Marissa like the ones in the gallery below. Make your own or download this pre-made sign.
   
2. During July 25-Aug 1, post your selfie on twitter, facebook,& tumblr! Use hashtag #SelfiesForSelfDefense.
   You can also send it to us @freemarissanow on twitter or post onfacebook.com/freemarissanow so we can help share your selfie.
   Free Marissa Now will print out the selfies and mail them to Marissa Alexander at the end of the week.
   
3. E-mail your photo to the following addresses & let them know you want Florida to DROP THE CASE against Marissa Alexander:

• Florida Gov. Rick Scott: rick.scott@eog.myflorida.com
• State Attorney Angela Corey: sao4th@coj.net
• Free Marissa Now: freemarissanow@gmail.com

July 25-Aug 1: Standing Our Ground Week of Action
Standing Our Ground Week of Action is a major mobilization of support for Marissa Alexander in Jacksonville, FL and other communities who will stand our ground to demand the end of domestic violence, mass incarceration, and reproductive violence.  On August 1st, Marissa Alexander will learn from a judge if he will grant her a new Stand Your Ground hearing. More ways to take action can be found HERE!

Reactionary Islamic Fundamentalism and the ISIL (or ISIS)

5. Communism and Religion: Getting Up and Getting Free—Making Revolution to Change the Real World, Not Relying on "Things Unseen"

Track 1, Track 2,
Track 3 , Track 4

As the 400 plus deportees freeze on the Lebanese mountain sides, the United Nations is again shamelessly exposing itself for what it is -- the public relations office for US imperialism. With UN diplomatic blessing the US bombs Iraq in the name of UN Resolutions and international democracy. Israel meanwhile, a reliable ally ofthe US and UN, neither faces nor expects any retaliation for its repeated defiance of numerous UN Resolutions including Security Council Resolution 799 demanding a return of the deportees.These illegal deportations -- among an arsenal of repressive measures Israel inherited from the British mandate including collective punishment, detention without trial, destruction of homes and orchards -- are more than just retribution for the death of Nissim Toledo. They are part of stepped-up repression against an Intifada resurgent since the November 1992 hunger strike by Palestinian political prisoners. More particularly they were designed to disable Hamas which is emerging as a major force in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

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FUNDAMENTALISM -- REACTIONARY, PRO-CAPITALIST POPULISM

The rise of Hamas -- an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement -- has paralleled the wave of Islamic fundamentalism sweeping the Arab world. In Algeria, the Islamic Salvation Front commands massive support among the poor and is waging a terror campaign in its drive for power. Egypt's largest opposition group is the Muslim Brotherhood. It has the support and the means to seriously destabilise Mubarak's pro-US government. The Jordanian branch of the Brotherhood extends its influence into every sector of the state, while fundamentalist forces gather influence in Tunisia, in Iraq, in Lebanon and elsewhere. In Palestine they claim to command anything between 25 per cent and 40 percent of popular support, reaching 60-70 per cent in certain areas of the Gaza Strip.With the collapse of the USSR, the Great Powers are targeting Islamic fundamentalism as the 'evil enemy' undermining world order, the market economy and democracy. Such propaganda combined with fundamentalism's radical, anti-western and anti-Israeli rhetoric can generate illusions that it has progressive, democratic, anti-imperialist features. Hamas's record and role shows this is not the case. Islamic fundamentalism -- like its Christian and Jewish variants -- is an anti-democratic, reactionary and pro-capitalist political trend. It cannot represent the interests of the working class, the poor, the unemployed, the peasantry or the impoverished petit-bourgeoisie.
In the West petit-bourgeois and bourgeois anti-working class, chauvinist, xenophobic and sectarian movements assume the form of populist reactionary nationalism and racism. In Israel they have long assumed the form of Zionism. Islamic fundamentalism is the form they take in the Arab world. Today it represents the most dangerous obstacle to the development of a new movement capable of representing and enforcing the interests of the poor and exploited.
While each fundamentalist movement differs according to the character of the economy and class relations in each particular country, they by and large all share an essentially similar ideological and political standpoint. Committed to the defence of private property and capitalism, Islamic fundamentalism harbours a particular and savage hatred of communism and Marxism. It has acted as the ruling class's terror squad in the struggle against communism in the Middle East. Fundamentalism is characterised by an unremitting hostility to equality, democracy and rationalism. It opposes the right of the working class to organise independently of Islamic institutions. It is also uncompromisingly opposed to the emancipation of women from domestic slavery and is intent on driving them out of all spheres of public life.
Fundamentalism represents a ruling class alliance of less privileged sections of the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie. It is the political movement of those sections of the ruling and privileged classes who were by-passed and marginalised during the period of post-colonial economic development. This stratum did not share fully in the post-colonial feast that the nationalist ruling class enjoyed as it squandered national wealth and degenerated into corruption and crime. Today, with an international economic crisis devastating the Third world and further discrediting the nationalist bourgeoisie, the fundamentalists see their opportunity to redress past grievances.
Despite fundamentalism's reactionary pro-capitalist character imperialism is determined to control its expansion and if possible defeat it. Today's fundamentalist forces, whilst prepared to co-exist with imperialism, are demanding a better deal for themselves. Imperialism will not readily countenance this. It prefers its traditional allies among the existing dominant sections of the ruling class whose demands are more 'moderate'. Furthermore, fundamentalist forces, resting upon mass support which is fired by hatred for imperialism, are inherently unstable and therefore ill-fitted to act as imperialist servants.
The distinctive and most dangerous feature of fundamentalism is this capacity to command support among the desperately poor and impoverished rural and urban population which sees no future for itself or its children. Experiencing the bitter results of opportunism among Arab communist parties, the poor and sections of the working class abandoned communism for fundamentalism. Most communist parties, essentially Menshevik organisations, were incapable of conducting an uncompromising class struggle against the rich and privileged ruling class. In the name of 'national unity' they all too often abandoned the needs of the poor and moderated the class struggle in favour of an alliance with a corrupt and pro-imperialist national bourgeoisie.
Without manipulating and exploiting popular discontent the fundamentalist leadership would not have the social power to mount a challenge to the long-established ruling class. Thus it promises to make the poor rich without, however, making the rich poor and without abolishing private property. On the basis of Islamic mores it promises to restore the social stability, cohesion and security which has been destroyed by capitalist development. The growth and evolution of Hamas reveals precisely the general conditions which have enabled fundamentalism to so displace communism and socialism as the ideology of the poor and exploited.

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HAMAS DIVIDES AND WEAKENS THE INTIFADA

Hamas, the main fundamentalist force in Palestine, was formed in 1987 by the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood initially opposed the Intifada but was rapidly forced to change tack. Refusal to join an uprising of the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian people risked losing the fundamentalists all the popular support they had built through welfare, educational and religious work. But given the popular, revolutionary and anti-imperialist character of the movement, the Brotherhood decided to retain its distance and intervened one step removed by forming Hamas.Hamas entered the political arena, but only to undermine the democratic and anti-imperialist struggle. The revolutionary wing of the Palestinian movement has always fought to destroy the racist and sectarian Zionist state and replace it with a democratic and secular Palestine. In such a state Arabs and Israelis, Muslims,Jews and Christians would have equal rights irrespective of race or religion. Hamas is opposed to this and aims to establish an Islamic state in which even many Palestinians who are Christians would be second class citizens.
Within the Intifada Hamas divided and weakened the popular movement. It not only opposed the PLO but refused to unite with it or collaborate with UNCU. It refused to participate in the popular committees which in the Intifada's early stages developed into the beginnings of organised popular power. Hostile to the independent organisation of the poor and working class it opposed the left-wing's call for a civil disobedience campaign to incapacitate the Zionist administration on the West Bank. In a direct challenge to the unity of the Palestinian resistance it organised strikes on days and times that the UNCU decreed as no-strike periods. Its anti-Christian sectarianism led to the founding of a Christian Resistance Movement (Hamam) in Ramallah.
Most significantly it violently opposed women's participation in the Intifada. Democratic Palestine comments:

'Hamas supporters launched a large-scale campaign against Palestinian women and their participation in the Intifada...This deprived the Intifada of about 50% of its activists.'

The PFLP's overall assessment of Hamas' role is sobering for those who mistake it for a genuine component of the Palestinian revolution:

'In the final analysis, Hamas has, whether consciously or not, contributed to the Israeli occupation's effort to undermine the Intifada. And here Palestinian leftists and other progressive nationalists are partially to blame, for they somehow closed their eyes to what was happening in the name of national unity, whereas they should have stood up to Hamas.'

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HAMAS - AN ANTI-COMMUNIST TERROR SQUAD

The left's and progressive nationalists' toleration of Hamas was a terrible mistake. The Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas reserve their vilest venom for the left. A Hamas slogan makes the organisation's purpose clear: 'Communism is a cancer inside the nation's body and we will cut it out.' For such reasons these movements have for decades been nurtured and financed by the ruling class in its struggle against communism, Marxism and popular democracy in the Middle East. In Egypt and in Syria, the fundamentalists were used to oppose strong working class and communist organisations. In the Palestiman arena both Zionism and Arab reaction, while attacking the Palestinian and Arab left, financed and facilitated the growth of fundamentalism. Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, in their book 'Intifada -- Israel's Third Front', comment:

...the Civil Administration has contributed considerably to the development of the Muslim groups...Many Israeli staff officers believed that the rise of fundamentalism...could be exploited to weaken the power of the PLO...'For the better part of a decade, the Israelis had allowed fundamentalist Muslims to move into positions of power in the religious establishment.'

Raim Baram, writing in Middle East International (8 January 1993), notes:

'The Israelis pumped millions of dollars into the Muslim coffers as part of their grand design to circumvent the PLO at any conceivable price.'

But the Muslim Brotherhood's major financier was the pro-US Saudi regime, notorious for its bankrolling of the fascist Mojahedin in Afghanistan, its support for the US war against Iraq and its support for counter-revolutionary forces in the Arab world. While it abstained from participation in the national struggle, with Saudi funding the Muslim Brotherhood built a vast network of support through Islamic endowments, welfare organisations, societies, universities and mosques it controlled.With Saudi money and Zionist licence the Brotherhood launched a veritable civil war against the democratic and particularly Marxist and left-wing forces in Palestine. A few examples demonstrate this. In January 1980 they attacked and severely damaged the Palestinian Red Crescent offices in Gaza claiming it was dominated by communists. In 1982 they did so again, attacking twice. In 1981 Dr Mohammad Hassan Sawalhah was thrown out of a third floor window of Al Naja University because he was a left-winger. In 1983 fundamentalists launched attacks on leftists and nationalists in the Universities of Bir Zeit and Gaza. In 1984 they dispersed a demonstration in Al Bireh refugee camp claiming it was supported by the 'atheist left'. In the Gaza Strip PFLP and Palestine Communist Party members have been subjected to acid and razor attacks. Violence against PLO supporters continued and in June 1992 fundamentalists tried to drive PLO supporters off the streets in Gaza.

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CLASS CHARACTER AND SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC BASE OF FUNDAMENTALISM

How have such reactionary forces won the loyalty of large sections of the poor and oppressed -- not only in Palestine but in large parts of the Arab world? An answer is offered by 'Democratic Palestine'. The rise of fundamentalism is:

a reaction to the failure of the Arab regimes to achieve the goals and aspirations of the Arab peoples, most importantly national liberation and social progress...It is equally a reaction to the inability of the secular opposition...to constitute a real alternative in terms of achieving these goals.'

In the Arab world, as in other parts of the Third World, imperialist-dominated capitalist development has generated a terrible social polarisation. A tiny post-colonial ruling class, allied to imperialism and steeped in corruption and crime, lives a life of unbelievable luxury. In sharp contrast are the devastated lives and shattered hopes of the poor and exploited: the working class, the unemployed, under-employed, the city dwellers forced off the land and now living in hopeless urban squalor and a huge and impoverished petit-bourgeoisie. The central issue of the class struggle has revolved around the question of who was to organise the poor and impoverished. Would it be the ruling class in alliance with the fundamentalists or the powerful communist forces based within the small working classes?For decades the Arab ruling class spared no violence to defeat communist and working class organisations whose membership was banned, imprisoned, executed and massacred. Parallel to repression, Gulf oil money funded the fundamentalists to organise among the poor and oppressed and undermine the appeal of socialism, democracy and secularism. In the absence of state welfare provision, fundamentalist organisations posed as alternative welfare providers. But at a price: provision of some cheap services in return for supporting fundamentalism, passivity in the class struggle and abandonment of communism. This assault, facilitated by the widespread opportunism within the communist parties, succeeded in severely weakening the left in the Arab world.
Within the Palestinian context Zionism and the Arab ruling class waged a similar struggle to debilitate the left and revolutionary nationalist currents. In September 1970, King Hussein's army suppressed a mass insurrection and drove the PLO out of Jordan. In 1976 Assad's Syrian regime used its army to save the Lebanese fascist falange from defeat at the hands of a joint democratic and leftist Lebanese/Palestinian alliance. The same forces were used to stifle a resurgent alliance in 1984. These repeated assaults severely weakened the position of the left and revolutionary nationalist forces.
As a result the dominant bourgeois faction of the PLO increasingly tied its fortunes to the Arab ruling class and abandoned the revolutionary struggle. In return it hoped that imperialism would reward it by pressurising Zionism into a compromise settlement. The dominant PLO leadership, representing a substantial Palestinian bourgeoisie -- both inside and outside Palestine -- underwent a process of degeneration, developing an anti-democratic, bureaucratic stratum. Its privileged existence decisively separated it off from lives and experience of the majority of the Palestinian poor and exploited. The current 'peace process', which, has produced nothing for the Palestinians, has accelerated popular disillusionment with the PLO. Such developments have provided fertile ground for the fundamentalists, enabling them to pose as defenders of the poor and oppressed. Their rhetoric of total opposition to Zionism and to any negotiations with the Israelis is winning them growing support from a population which has no faith in the bourgeois course of appeasing Zionism and imperialism chosen by the PLO leadership.
The collapse ofthe socialist bloc and the retreat ofthe anti-imperialist movement internationally has also enormously benefited the fundamentalists. The Palestinian people, abandoned first by the Arab bourgeoisie and imperialism, now find themselves internationally more isolated than ever from the world working class and peasantry. Their economic and material conditions continue to deteriorate as a result of the international recession, the consequences of the Gulf War and the crippling effect of Zionist colonisation. Such circumstances strengthen the appeal of Islamic populism, apparently more radical and promising than a Soviet socialist experiment that failed.
However, Hamas's vociferous denunciation ofthe PLO and its radical rhetoric are designed only to lull the people whilst it negotiates a better position for itself at the table of the privileged. Whilst its street slogans denounce 'autonomy', its respected leaders such as Dr Mahmoud al-Zahar state that 'The Islamic movement is ready to enter into negotiations concerning autonomy for the Palestinians'. While condemning the PLO, Hamas is demanding 45 per cent representation in its institutions as a condition for joining it. The recent crisis over the deportation of Hamas supporters has in fact driven the PLO leadership and the Muslim Brotherhood leadership even closer.
The immediate future suggests no rapid defeat of fundamentalist forces by communist or progressive movements. But as the class struggle unfolds, life itself will prove that fundamentalism is incapable of resolving any of the problems facing the Palestinian and Arab people. The mass movement will then pass its own ruthless judgment and sentence upon a movement which has caused so much damage to the cause of national and social liberation. They will return more vigorously to defending and developing their own independent organisations. To do this they will turn to those forces within the Arab, Palestinian and international movement who are guided by science, by rationalism, by democracy - in other words by scientific socialism, by communism, by the heritage of Marxism and Leninism. The collapse of the socialist bloc may have been a body blow to such forces, but they exist and are continuing their struggle for socialism and progress.

MILITANT PATRIARCHY AT WAR – AGAIN!

ANOTHER HAPPY LEGISLATOR IN TENNESSEE UPON PASSAGE OF A NEW BILL TO SEND  "THE WORST OF THE WORST' MOMS TO JAIL

...this type of prosecution of pregnant women goes back decades. The first incidences can be traced to the beginnings of the war on drugs in the 1980s and ’90s, when the attention was primarily on the over-hyped and misinformed “crack baby” epidemic. In that era, mostly black women were being targeted for using crack cocaine during pregnancy. Back then, they were often charged under existing laws that hadn’t been written with pregnant women in mind—such as child abuse laws, or laws prohibiting the sale of drugs to a minor. Tennessee has taken things a step further with a law crafted specifically to criminalize pregnant women with drug problems.

There was little evidence during the initial crack baby hysteria that in-utero exposure to the drug actually had long-term negative consequences. But a longitudinal study published last year proved outright that children exposed to crack cocaine during pregnancy did no worse in life than their peers from similar neighborhoods. The study showed that, in reality, the thing to blame for the often poor outcomes of these children was not drugs, but rather poverty. Scholar Dorothy Roberts, in an appearance on “All In with Chris Hayes” this week, recounts this history.

This law was sold as if it were just about illegal narcotics. But sure enough, the first case has nothing to do with illegal narcotics — and nothing actually to do with harm to anybody. There’s no injury. There’s just a positive drug test.

This view of pregnant women essentially means that as soon as you’re carrying a fertilized egg, you’ve lost your medical privacy and your right to make medical decisions.    But all matters concerning pregnancy are health care matters. Pregnancy, like other health issues, should be addressed through the public health system and not through the criminal punishment system or the civil child welfare system.

Advocates for pregnant women say the bill will only scare women away from seeking prenatal care and addiction treatment, and that it does nothing to help low-income mothers who may not be able to take time away from their families and jobs to seek treatment. According to RH Reality Check, only two of Tennessee's 177 addiction treatment facilities provide on-site prenatal care and allow older children to stay with their mothers.

 Our state chooses to waste tax dollars locking up women instead of getting them the health care they need. We are already receiving reports of women seeking out non-licensed health providers to avoid having a medical record and risking arrest. This is extremely dangerous.

A study by NAPW of the arrests and prosecutions of pregnant women from 1973 to 2005 found that African-American women were “significantly more likely to be arrested, reported to state authorities by hospital staff, and subjected to felony charges.” Part of what influences this bias is the fact that there is no consistent policy regarding drug testing of pregnant women, which means it is left up to the discretion of hospital personnel. Often, a trigger for testing is a complication with the birth, such as a low infant birth weight or premature delivery. These are things for which women of color, particularly black women, are already at higher risk. As a result, black women in particular face higher levels of scrutiny than white women—leading to more prosecutions under these types of laws. 

I can almost guarantee that this [law] will be used disproportionately against African-American women because, even though we know that fewer African-American women than white women use drugs, they are more likely to be blamed for the outcomes of their pregnancies.

As I reported in my book the government has long been on a mission to reduce women to vessels for pregnancy. In 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidelines instructing all women of childbearing age—whether they were pregnant or not, whether they even had plans to become pregnant or not—to care for their "pre-conception" health. Starting as soon as girls got their first period until they hit menopause, the CDC said that women should take folic acids, not smoke or "misuse" alcohol, refrain from drug use, avoid "high-risk sexual behavior" and maintain a healthy weight. (There go my 20s!) What could happen if a woman  didn't follow these guidelines and had a miscarriage or stillbirth? Could she be sent to jail, too?

Criminalization, Crisis and Care:  Tennessee’s S.B. 1391 and Attacks on Reproduction

Recently, Flo Jo has been paying attention to Tennessee,  where the State now has the authority to criminalize women for potentially harming their newborn children with drugs.  Last week, the first woman was arrested under this new law. We have been working on a two-part series on the law, an analysis of what it means, and what we think care workers should do in response.  Below is the first article in this series.

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Tennessee recently passed a law, S.B. 1391, making it the first state to prosecute women for criminal assault if their fetus or newborn is considered harmed due to illegal drug use during pregnancy.  Criminalization of pregnant women and mothers is one side of the various ways the State attempts to control reproduction and discipline womens’ bodies.  This is an attack against working class women of color not unlike those we have seen in Texas, California, nationally and globally.  All of these measures will impede women’s access to health care and efface women’s reproductive skills and knowledge.  But unlike abortion restrictions and forced sterilization, the Tennessee law is an attempt to divide feminized workers under the guise of “protection” of women and children, a strategy we are likely to see more frequently as the economic crisis deepens.

S.B. 1391 and the Crisis.

Today’s crisis is manifested in the inability of the class to take care of itself, or reproduce itself; it is a crisis of reproduction.  Wages are so low that the class cannot afford to get everything it needs to go to work every day.  Of course, “everything” we need is a relative term based on time and place; workers in America need a smartphone and cable TV after years of changes in living standards.  The class has supplemented this crisis of reproduction with personal debt.  We get credit cards to buy clothes and pay our cell phone bills and we take out student loans we will never pay back to make an extra $3/hr.  This is what life looks like for the working class today.

For the ruling class, there is another type of hustle.  It is a general law of capitalism that profits must always increase.  So capitalists make changes to the workplace, by introducing more and more machines and pushing workers out of the production process, to ensure an increased profit.  However, this catches up to them.  Since workers are the only ones capable of creating value (there is always a worker somewhere in the production process!), the more capitalists push workers out of the production process, the more the profit margin weakens.  Couple this phenomenon with the working class’s increased dependence on debt and loans and we find ourselves in today’s economic crisis.

On top of this, because so many workers are pushed out of the production process (consider Detroit’s 23% unemployment rate for example), a surplus population of workers makes it possible for capitalism to pit people against each other in competition for jobs.  In this sense, the ruling class has an interest in controlling the actual number of workers there are in the world at a given moment, based on the needs of capital.

Silvia Federici describes this phenomenon in the early days of capitalism, when disease threatened to wipe out the emerging waged working population.  Federici argues that the State implemented a reproductive policy in the interest of capitalism by criminalizing abortion and contraception and all forms of non-reproductive sexuality, punishing such crimes by death.  While the measures the rulers use today are not this extreme, it is clear that there is still an interest in controlling women’s bodies and reproduction in general, in order to manage population levels and discipline women’s knowledge and control over reproduction.

Furthermore, a large surplus population and competition for jobs means that workers are extremely replaceable.  Workplaces have been reorganized so workers are increasingly non-unionized and in precarious working conditions.  Additionally, from a capitalist perspective, the working class is not as motivated as it was in the past.  In the 1950s it might have been ok if you didn’t find a job right after graduating high school or if you did not go to college; there were many jobs to choose from and your meager earnings could take you pretty far.  Today, it is a real problem if you are out of work for an extended amount of time and wages are so low, so many workers are forced to rely on welfare benefits to supplement their income.  However, the crisis and capitalist restructuring has meant intense austerity measures.  Increasingly, there is no safety net for unemployed and low wage workers, and it is becoming harder to find a job with benefits.  It becomes clear why some capitalists have pushed policies that increase criminalization of welfare recipients, most recently around drug testing, and have traded the carrot for the stick in order to ensure a generalized desperation around keeping a steady (but sporadic) wage.

It is no surprise, then, that the latest round of attacks against poor women of color occurred in Tennessee, a state that refused Medicaid expansion alongside the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.  It is more clear than ever that the rulers are not interested in actual health of babies or the welfare of society.  They simply want the most efficient, interchangeable, disposable workers at the lowest possible cost.  This means cutting the cost of reproduction in the form of the Welfare State and access to medical care.  Concretely, in Tennessee this will look like criminalizing women who give birth in hospitals.  In New York, this will look like hospital closures and mergers.  In Texas, this will look like shutting down women’s health care centers in rural areas.

Finally, we cannot ignore the gendered and racialized form the crisis is taking.  A crisis of reproduction means health care, education, feeding, cleaning, and other forms of care work that has increasingly become paid work (thanks to the contradictory struggles of the women’s liberation movement), will be pushed back into the home.  And since women still do most of the domestic labor in the home, working class women of color will have to take care of their young, elderly, and sick family members on top of working 2-3 jobs to pay the bills.  It is frightening to think that on top of absorbing the reproduction of other members of the working class, women are being discouraged and physically blocked from obtaining care for themselves.

Divisions within feminized labor.

In Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici describes 16th century Europe, where medical professionalization began.  She argues that in the process of primitive accumulation (the need for the new capitalist system to absorb as many resources, including land and labor power, as possible and force peasants into the wage system), the medical system became “professionalized.”  Concretely, this meant that midwives, who were largely organic female healers in the community, were forcibly replaced by male doctors.  Concomitantly, largely feminized (waged) professions around health care,  including nursing developed.  Federici describes this process:

“With the marginalization of the midwife, the process began by which women lost the control they had exercised over procreation, and were reduced to a passive role in child delivery, while male doctors came to be seen as true ‘givers of life’… With this shift, a new medical practice also prevailed, one that in the case of a medical emergency prioritized the life of the fetus over that of the mother.  This was in contrast to the customary birthing process which women had controlled; and indeed, for it to happen, the community of women that had gathered around the bed of the future mother had to first be expelled from the delivery room, and the midwives had to be placed under the surveillance of the doctor, or had to be recruited to police women.

“In France and Germany, midwives had to become spies for the state, if they wanted to continue their practice” (89).

The world that Federici describes is not too far off from the context we now find ourselves in.  Hospitals are highly feminized workplaces; over 90% of RNs are women and 73% of other medical and health service providers are women.  Further, S.B. 1391 will force a majority female workforce to act as reproductive snitches and spies for the State.  This division will no doubt have a severe racialized component as well, since about 81% of nurses are white and S.B. 1391 is expected to target primarily working class women of color, as has historically been the case for drug offenses in the US.  More than anything, this is another step toward the State’s absolute control over reproduction and female bodies.

The Myth of “Protection.”

The State has spent the last 50 years slowly chipping away at the gains of the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s.  While the movement itself, and therefore the demands that accompanied it, was contradictory, some of the women’s accomplishments included (some) access to abortion and contraception, increased financial independence from men and diminished isolation through an increase in the Welfare State and access to higher paying waged labor, and a generalized increase in liberatory expressions of female and queer sexuality.

Over time, many of these gains have been incorporated into capital or reversed in some way.  The most obvious example is theslow, state by state repeal of reproductive rights.  Another strategy is the liberal patriarchy of the State that attempts to “defend” or “protect” women and our children by expanding the prison-industrial complex.  One side of this process is the hyper-incarceration of men of color who are said to be a danger to our communities.  The other side is the increasing arrest, detention and incarceration of women and transgender people (the women’s prison population increased 646% between 1980 and 2010, and trans people are routinely policed for their gender transgressions who are a supposed danger to the families they care for.  (Note that 62% of incarcerated women are mothers.)  Passing S.B. 1391 is another of the rulers’ strategies for increasing state repression of women and queers under the guise of “protection.”  In reality, women and people of color don’t need the State’s protection!  In fact, police and prisons increase the danger within our communities, since police and corrections officers areknown to regularly police gender, sexually harass, beat and rape women/queer/trans people.

Furthermore, a provision of S.B. 1391 will allow women to escape prosecution and incarceration by participating in the drug court system.  This is similar to an initiative in Dallas, Texas, that allows sex workers a “treatment-based” ultimatum.  Such methods simply reinforce the patriarchy of the State.  Forcing individuals into treatment does nothing to build their self-confidence and capacity as subjective actors in society (for more on forced treatment see this statement from a comrade and the(de) Voiced videos).  Additionally, drug courts failed to significantly reduce recidivism.  But clearly this is not what the U.S. government is going for.

Finally, and here’s the kicker…41% of all neonatal abstinence syndrome cases (meaning a baby is born with some level of drug dependence and suffers withdrawal) in Tennessee last year involved doctor-prescribed medications.  So  the State of Tennessee is actually criminalizing and incarcerating women for taking drugs that its healthcare system is encouraging them to use.  Clearly, women’s and children’s protection is not what is at stake here.

41% of all neonatal abstinence syndrome cases in Tennessee last year involved doctor-prescribed medications.

Why people use drugs.

Many of the liberal voices objecting to S.B. 1391 argue that the bill does nothing to actually encourage women to seek drug treatment/help, and the State should look for the root causes of drug abuse instead of targeting pregnant women.  While we agree in principle that people should have options to get off drugs if they wish to do so, to us the issue is far more complicated than increasing access to 12-step programs and treatment centers.  For us, the root reason people abuse drugs is the State and capitalism itself (and not the moralistic, individual failure of the individual abusers/addicts).  Many of us are overworked, and feel alone and unhappy most of the time.  We are abused by our bosses and compete and fight with our coworkers.  We have antagonistic relationships with our partners, children and parents.  We are harassed in the streets.  It is no wonder that millions of women seek to numb the misery of capitalism, patriarchy, racism and homo/transphobia through pain medications (causing the CDC to declare a “pain killer endemic among women”).

This is not a social problem we can overcome through more programs.  “Treatment” itself is a complicated idea.  On the one hand, we agree that there are some advances made by our capitalist society that benefit us, for example, hormone therapy and surgery for transgender individuals or brain and heart surgery.  However, on the other hand, the majority medical technologies that simply increase harm to ourselves, other people, animals, and the environment, all in the name39 of ever-increasing profits.  This is why, Flo Jo believes that through struggle, we need to retain what is useful, but completely reorganize and reinvent how we care for ourselves and others.

Some Possible Solutions.

We do not purport to be experts on this issue.  While many of us work in healthcare, we are still learning what it truly means to care for ourselves and others.  Furthermore, we do not believe that we can simply invent the answers out of thin air.  We need a movement, millions of people coming together for an extended period of time, in order to clarify what it means to be fully healthy human beings.

But absent a movement, we believe there are some things we can do to start building the world we want to see.  The first is socializing knowledge and regaining control of reproduction.  Flo Jo has been studying groups like the Jane Collective as a model for self- and community-led care and democratic use of technical skills.  Specifically, the Jane Collective offered a holistic approach to abortion services and socialized skills for performing and assisting with abortions.  As health care workers, we believe there many things we do daily that could be done by people without professional training.  We also believe that since we were trained to do our work, we can just as easily pass on those skills.  Relating specifically to S.B. 1391, we should socialize the skills to bear and birth children, so we no longer rely on the State or the professionalized medical profession that clearly do not have our interests in mind.

Alongside socializing skills, we must always engage in work that will build up women’s self-confidence and capacity for subjective action.  This means taking risks in feminized workplaces, struggling for small gains and welfare reforms, and transforming “care work” into useful and enriching social relationships in the process of struggle.  These acts will build up our self-confidence, strengthen our skills, and give us practice for the longer term fights we will wage against capital, patriarchy, racism, homo/transphobia, and the State.

Immediately, healthcare professionals should boycott S.B. 1391, socialize their grievances and start building grassroots, worker- and patient-led groups that will build our confidence and ability to struggle against attacks on women of color and other oppressed layers of the class.

Another Care is Possible: Pt. 2 of Reflection on SB 1391

Here is part two of our analysis of SB1391 from a medical worker deeply acquainted with people with addiction and in recovery. This piece further articulates the relationship between medicalization and the history of anti-drug legislation, and lays out a series of mandates/demands for healthcare and society.

Another Care is Possible: Thinking Beyond Criminalizing Substance Using Mothers

Kristen was 19 when she took her first Percocet at a party, and for that moment, all of her depression and anxieties disappeared. But it also set off a decade of addiction to pills and eventually intravenous heroin. She dropped out of college and plunged from one crisis to another. It wasn’t until Kristen realized she was pregnant that she finally reached out for help and enrolled into treatment at a New York City public hospital where doctors provided her with treatment and helped her deliver a healthy baby boy.

Kristen’s story is not a miracle – recent findings have demonstrated the effectiveness of treatment for mothers with illicit substance and alcohol dependence. However the recent passage of Tennessee’s SB 1391 has dealt a blow to women’s rights and the autonomy of healthcare workers to provide quality care.  The law mandates healthcare workers to report substance abusing mothers to the police, who face misdemeanor charges if babies are deemed to be harmed by the mother’s substance abuse. Despite evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of substance treatment, cuts in education, public housing, and healthcare services have crippled efforts to support women in recovery and diverted public funds to incarceration.

Such events are not incidental and are linked to dominant historical, ideological, and economic forces that shape how healthcare is provided.  We must beyond such events and rethink our autonomy as healthcare workers and how we can collaborate with marginalized communities to launch more lasting alternatives. We must open spaces in and outside the clinic that can launch conversations that allow us to listen and collaborate with marginalized communities in order to launch new modes of reproducing care.

Nixon, Reagan, and ‘Just say no’
In the 1960’s, organizations such as the American Indian Movement, Black Panther Party, Young Lords, and Brown Berets rattled the core of the American establishment. In the wake of the Civil Rights Act and weakening Jim Crow era laws, Nixon’s ‘War on Drugs’ re–escalated the government’s disciplinary apparatus in communities of color.   Spaces and social bonds that could produce non–capitalist alternatives were nearly annihilated, including radical organizations, unions, and eventually family and neighborhood networks with the waves of foreclosures, gentrification, and rising incarceration (particularly in communities of color). A new mode of economic production would come to dominate poor communities – the sale and consumption of illicit drugs.

Reagan’s assault on social services in the wake of rising unemployment and aggressive enforcement approach destroyed the lives of millions of Americans. The state abandoned the unemployed, the mentally ill, and those suffering from addiction – and were diverted to the care of families, non-profits, prisons, and even homelessness. America was transformed, from the state with a market, to a market state. The poor were now forced to participate in a new ‘market state’ of life in the tragic form of the drug trade.  The sale of illicit drugs monetized personal relations and converted urban spaces that were once rallying points for radical organizations into the sale and consumption of drugs, with the state obsessed on an endless spiral of greater surveillance and incarceration.

Mothers in Care, Not in Handcuffs
In this context, the state has all but abandoned poor and substance using pregnant mothers to the mercy of hostile district attorneys and prison wardens. Many trends observed among pregnant mothers of color are parallel to national trends as well: 1) most mothers tested and incarcerated for substance use are women of color even though most addicted mothers are white; 2) substance treatment for pregnant mothers are tragically inadequate despite the promising outcomes of specialized clinics for substance using mothers ; 3) when forced into prison in order ‘to protect the health of the fetus’, substance treatment is nonexistent further hurting the health of the mother and baby; and 4) nearly half of detained mothers were tested positive for a physician prescribed substance (i.e. Percocet, valium, etc).

The mother has no voice in the clinic, courtroom, or her community –  she is decontextualized from the dominant economic and political forces, vilified by the media, state, and scientific community, and left vulnerable to recurring witch hunts. For instance although Black mothers made up a fraction of the national crack epidemic, they became the replayed media image of a reckless wave of mothers poisoning a new generation of ‘crack babies’. Medical journals caught on and more often published data exposing the alarming impact of crack/cocaine on fetuses.  This spectacle resulted in a moralistic subjugation, reducing the woman’s role in society to an organ (i.e. uterus) responsible for delivering a healthy fetus, whose legal rights superseded the mother’s.  On the pretext of ‘saving the fetus’, many states have favored aggressive sentencing and incarceration of mothers rather than securing more equitable access to housing and healthcare.

Where Should We Stand?
To reflect on our autonomy, we must explore our relation to our institutions (clinics, hospitals); and our relation to the state, communities served, and existing economic and political forces.

This process requires that we have the space, time, and resources to define our relations based on social justice and scientific evidence rather than profit, power, and popular sentiment.  To abandon our autonomy, our desire to care, and relapse into a disciplinary function.  The disciplinary function leads to two tragic consequences for the mother, the obvious being that she is left in handcuffs rather than any form of care, and the more implicit and equally tragic is that we censor her from using a presenting illness as a point of departure to collectively respond to her concrete experiences.  The mother is lying alone in the exam room, her ´complaints´, physical exam, and laboratory results are organized in a linear series of codes that neutralizes her from any desire to articulate a more concrete response to the broader socio-economic context with other mothers and allies. This process is done within minutes, and we are off to ‘manage’ the next case.  To engage in this process ‘productively’, we internalize these contradictions, remaining complicit with the existing disciplinary forces (police, hospital administration), and feeling more bitter than ever.

The close proximity of our complicity in this process raises another question – how have we reached the point in our profession, education, and ethical framework to be placed in such close proximity with the police? Does such an intimate complicity and abandonment of our role as care workers call for a more intensive self-examination of a perhaps more discrete disciplinary function we fulfill in society? Similar to calls by psychologists to expel colleagues from professional societies that participate in state organized torture, can we draw a similar argument here? More importantly, can we organize our clinical practice, the layout and organizational flow of the clinic, to better care for mothers, and collaborate with collectives of mothers.

A Clinic Without Organs
After recuperating our autonomy, we offer several suggestions for collectively affirming our role in expressing the alternative.

1.    We must cease to be the paternalistic intermediaries of the state when working with pregnant mothers or any other vulnerable populations.  We should open spaces in the clinic and beyond that nurture bonds based on mutual aid, reciprocity, and collaborations with collectivized patients in order to launch new alternatives. The desire to collectivize with patients will require an exhausting, at times challenging, process of confronting our own paradoxical position of privilege within the hospital (and society) that has been instilled in our education, profession, and even union practices.  But is nonetheless an absolute necessity in the struggle to deconstruct power and recuperate care and autonomous forms of socialization.

2.    We must identify spaces and mechanisms that can allow us to sustain our collective expression, be it in the form of assemblies, committees, or radical organizations. This is perhaps the most challenging but necessary responsibility in protecting our historical significance

3.    In the realm of public health, the legitimacy of those who claim to represent or speak for us (such as unions, politicians, academics, and media) repeatedly comes under question. Its not a matter of blaming – but a matter of unleashing our potentials. We must move beyond opposing positions that simply react and expire after a certain point. Our opposition should be directed to institutions and hierarchies that when effectively challenged, finally create an open space that unleashes our desires, collaborations, and alternatives.  We must make our voices heard:
1)    We will not report substance using mothers to the authorities. Platforms may include petitions, public letters to the media, and protests
2)    Academic societies, healthcare workers, and organizations of pregnant mothers must inform healthcare workers that notify the police how they´re complicit with a broader trend of economic and political oppression, and explore other alternatives to help pregnant mothers.  This process allows us to move beyond becoming fixed on a single legislation or co–worker, and to take collective responsibility for launch new subjectivities
3)    In collaboration with marginalized pregnant mothers, we must expand research and implementation of specialized clinics that address the gambit of medical, substance, and social needs. Lack of access to primary care treatment drives patients back to ER’s and criminal justice settings, further perpetuating cynicism and disempowerment (of mothers and healthcare workers)
4)    And beyond these few immediate demands and efforts, we refuse to prescribe any further alternatives until we´re able to collaborate non– hierarchically with mothers, in spaces that are open and able to sustain a longer–term conversation.

4.    We must not shun ourselves from injustices perpetuated in the communities we serve, including unemployment, gentrification, racism, and other catastrophic events. We must have protected time from our places of labor to engage with community organizations in order to participate in efforts that respond to ‘upstream’ structural inequalities that result in worsening health outcomes seen in our facilities.  In other words, every effort must be made to expand education, prevention, and treatment practices to prevent mothers from further worsening health outcomes requiring clinical intervention. These spaces will allow us to nurture new political subjectivities that move from the antagonistic, to the affirmative.

5.    We must reclaim and transform existing healthcare infrastructure, technologies, and resources in a mode that allows our new political subjectivity to address local contextual experiences.

Conclusion
Tennessee’s legislation is more than a mistake, requiring an antagonistic approach confined to a profession, time period (i.e. the outcry and the win of removing this legislation), and self-assuring sentiments that the present is working, and capable of self-resolving future mistakes.  Rather, such events must serve as a rupture to produce a period of interruption in which the law, complicit institutions, power dynamics, and ideologies are recognized, deconstructed, and materializing collectively affirmative forms of alternative building.  We, the healthcare workers of the world, are drowned in concrete experiences, too much, to the point of becoming disillusioned, depressed, internalizing the cries of the oppressed, and we too, becoming oppressed in our cocoons – the unions don’t hear us, the state doesn’t hear us, but our patients do, our colleagues do – grab a concrete experience, embrace the rupture, collectivize, and articulate the alternative.

"Refusing to force-feed us was a historical act and a strong statement. We were all amazed."

...was on the phone with my client, Abu Wa’el Dhiab– a detainee of the US government at Guantánamo Bay who has been cleared of any involvement in terrorism – discussing our litigation and whether he had reason to believe he might one day be released. He has been on a hunger strike for over a year and is fighting in court to stop the government from abusively force-feeding him, so he was listless, as is typical. But then he perked up. "I have great news", he said. "Someone at Guantánamo has made a historic stand."

One Navy nurse at Guantánamo had refused to force-feed detainees anymore and declared the practice unethical: I have come to the decision that I refuse to participate in this criminal act, Dhiab told me the nurse said.

The nurse, Dhiab tells me, is the first staffer at Guantánamo to choose medical ethics over military logic. Like all staff assigned to force-feed detainees, this Navy nurse was initially a volunteer. But when he arrived on base this spring, he told Dhiab, he encountered something different from what he expected: The story we were told was completely the opposite of what I saw.

As described in letters from detainee Emad Hassan, the hunger striker is strapped into a restraining chair, often tightly around the abdomen. A tube larger than one used for standard nasogastric tube-feeding is forced through delicate nasal passages, down the throat, and into the victim's stomach. Nutritional supplement, at times containing medication or water, is injected rapidly in large quantities into the stomach, sometimes causing nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. The tube is then removed -- and is sometimes yanked quickly from the nose, causing trauma in the nasal passages.

Dhiab's lawyers are challenging his forced-feeding in federal court. In a related lawsuit, Judge Gladys Kessler granted the disclosure of videotapes of forced-feeding sessions to attorneys. One attorney described the footage as "so 'grim' that I had trouble sleeping." Media groups are asking a judge to release the videos to the public, which absolutely should happen. Regardless of the ruling on the tapes, President Obama should view them and ask himself if forced-feeding is something he or the United States can condone.

The nurse refusing to obey the order to force-feed prisoners displayed great courage and integrity. Nonetheless, it is astounding that it has taken until now for a medical professional to refuse to engage in forced-feeding.

Those who oppose the proposed Right To Farm amendment counter that far from protecting small family farms, the measure gives free rein to large corporate producers like Smithfield Foods to continue expanding without fear of ‘nuisance lawsuits’ over odors, flies, and runoff that are bound to be present when livestock are confined in the kinds of numbers only a large corporate operation can handle.

It is important to note that a co-sponsor of “right to farm” was Rep. Jason Smith, whose family owns Smith’s Kennels, a puppy mill in Missouri. This bill was introduced after Proposition B was approved by Missouri voters; it's not hard to see Amendment 1 is simply payback for Proposition B.

In light of Monsanto being headquartered in St Louis as they are, and Monsanto’s  roughly 90% control of the total crops in genetically modified corn and soy, having sold their GMO pig, and moving ever forward in patenting and mutating all life on the planet, that scares the heck out of me!

Would this proposed Amendment destroy any chance of our ever having a right to know if we are eating GMO products or not? It sure could be argued that letting people know what they are consuming would prohibit farmers from using some “modern” “technology” in their ag endeavors.

This bill is NOT good for farmers. It will greatly increase further consolidation of agriculture, increase proliferation of genetically modified patented life forms, and destroy local control of the spread of the consolidating (ie. Family Farm Destroying) CAFO’s.

There is only one segment of the population that this is “good” for. The Biotech and Mega Farm Corporations.

...three states with efforts for constitutional amendments similar to Missouri’s proposals. Another few keystrokes and I found the source of the language. It came from ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. And on the ALEC website, a few more clicks took me to the list of legislative members from Missouri.

In November 2012, North Dakota, a state besieged with fracking (and, yes, ALEC has policies and sample legislation favoring that subject also) passed a “right to farm” amendment into the constitution. Its language is eerily like the proposal in Missouri: The right of farmers and ranchers to engage in modern farming and ranching practices shall be forever guaranteed in this state. No law shall be enacted which abridges the right of farmers and ranchers to employ agricultural technology, modern livestock production and ranching practices.

While you might think this guarantees farmers against the frackers, please note the seriously vague and troubling words “modern,” “technology,” and the confusing phrase “no law shall be enacted …” So, in North Dakota, no county, township, parish, city or any governmental body will be able to pass a law or ordinance to protect themselves from chemicals, GMOs, CAFOs or any other kind of industrial farming scheme.

Not only will farmers be affected. This amendment can have serious repercussions for consumers: North Dakota, one of our chief wheat-raising states, will not be able to refuse to plant untested (and untrusted) GMO wheat under this Constitutional clause.

The same sort of language is being considered in Montana, another primary wheat-raising state, and in Indiana, one of the buckles on the corn belt. 

What cannot be dismissed is the fear that purchasers of Monsanto seed must sign a contract dictating how it can be used. A license to use seed as we wish? Freedom to farm?

I am not as concerned about Amendment 1 protecting Monsanto’s practices as I am about it allowing corporate farming companies free rein to operate as they wish.

For example, I don’t want wake up one morning to find a CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) upstream or uphill from my farm.

CAFOs aren’t good neighbors to family farmers.

One example of corporate farming is Smithfield Foods, Inc. which was sold to the Chinese company Shuanghui last year.

Even before it was sold it was a menace to family farmers and not just because they can’t compete with it successfully. It is huge. It owns companies that produce foods we know from our supermarkets. There are too many to list.

Smithfield raises 15 million pigs on its own. It processes 27 million total, producing 6 billion pounds of pork per year.

In 1997, Smithfield was fined $12.6 million by the Environmental Protection Agency for 6,900 violations of clean water regulations. As an example, its slaughterhouses dumped huge amounts of waste into a river, polluting it. The damage to the river itself and area water supplies was immense.

The company didn’t do enough to guard against such a spill.

In 1999, Smithfield settled with North Carolina after it failed to contain water after Hurricane Floyd flooded its lagoons. It agreed to pay $50 million over 25 years as a fine and $1.3 million to clean up its mess.

I don’t want Smithfield, or any other mega-corporations, especially those owned by the Chinese, from building a factory farm next to mine. I don’t want hog waste flowing from my shower heads and kitchen faucets.

And remember, Smithfield is but one of many industrial farmers. There are an estimated 500 large hog operations in the river valley Smithfield polluted alone.

I also don’t want Roundup or some other herbicide or insecticide sprayed over my home and farm by air.

How could these things happen? Amendment 1 protects the farming practices of corporate farmers absolutely.

All farming and ranching practices are guaranteed forever? The right to build factory farms--including those with thousands of hogs confined next to family farms? Spraying poison over our homes and farms that can also drift over towns? Protected absolutely and forever? Do we want that?

Factory farms could flaunt present regulations concerning the air we breathe and the water we drink. The amendment seems to clear the way to do legally what they already do illegally.

 The uninitiated voter reading that ballot language will understandably be confused. Is farming in Missouri in trouble?

It is not. Agriculture in Missouri is a profitable industry. Amendment 1 is a concerted effort to shield factory farms and concentrated agricultural feeding operations from regulations to protect livestock, consumers and the environment.

Right to Farm should not include the Right to Harm

Several of you have asked about our opinion on Missouri Amendment 1, the “Right to Farm” amendment.  We know it sounds like something we would be supporting, but it’s exactly the opposite.  We are encouraging all of you to vote NO on Missouri Amendment 1.

At first glance, the wording of the amendment (and what will be on the ballot) sounds encouraging: “Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to ensure that the  right of Missouri citizens to engage in agricultural production and ranching  practices shall not be infringed?”  This does not tell you the true content of the amendment. Voters are simply asked to vote “yes” or “no” on the above language, which sounds like a good thing.

However, let’s look at the actual amendment, which contains two Resolutions, nos. 11 and 7.  Here is the verbatim wording from those Resolutions (I’ve bolded the passages that are most concerning to us):

Resolution 7:  “That agriculture which provides food, energy, health benefits, and security is the foundation and stabilizing force of Missouri’s economy. To protect this vital sector of Missouri’s economy, the right of farmers and ranchers to engage in modern farming and ranching practices shall be forever guaranteed in this state. No law shall be enacted which abridges the right of farmers and ranchers to employ agricultural technology and modern livestock production and ranching practices.“

Resolution 11:  “That agriculture, which provides food, energy, and security, is thefoundation and stabilizing force of Missouri’s economy. To protect this vital sector ofMissouri’s economy, it shall be the right of persons to raise livestock in a humane mannerwithout the state imposing an undue economic burden on animal owners. No lawcriminalizing the welfare of any livestock shall be valid unless based upon generallyaccepted scientific principles and enacted by the general assembly.”

There are no definitions provided in the language of these bills; “agricultural technology” usually means the biotech industry, including genetically modified plants and animals (they’ve already come up with spider goats… what’s next?).  “Modern livestock production” generally includes confined operations, including chickens in warehouses, pigs in farrowing crates, cattle in feedlots.

This does NOT protect family farms.  This does NOT protect sustainable farmers or those who believe in the welfare of their animals.  This allows corporate and large farms to use all the GMOs, pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers they want without anyone being able to say anything against it.  This allows CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) to operate freely without the ability for anyone to argue against their practices or try to enact laws that restrict their harmful practices without getting a multitude of the scientific community to back them (And, if the state decided to have cats and dogs fall under the livestock category, puppy mills would be protected, too).  This protects producers of GMO technology (i.e. Monsanto, Syngenta, etc.) and destroys the ability of sustainable and organic growers to protect themselves against what they call “agricultural technology.”  This leads to air pollution, water pollution, and so much more.

This could allow the government to later mandate practices that are completely out of line with our growing ideals, like requiring the irradiation of our produce before we offer it for sale.  It could prevent our ability to save seed or preserve livestock bloodlines.  We would have no recourse against genetically altered crops that infiltrate our fields.  It will further jeopardize the ability of small farms to compete in an open market and lead to more of them going bankrupt.

The rights of Missouri farmers are already, inherently, protected.  It’s the corporations and big ag special interests that are taking that away from us.  This, from the Joplin Globe:

Darvin Bentlage, a Barton County farmer, made a compelling case in this newspaper that what’s threatening small, independent family farms is big ag — corporate ag — which is what some critics think this amendment is designed to protect.

“I remember our right to farm when we didn’t have to sign a grower’s contract to buy seed, a document telling us what we could and couldn’t do with what we grew on our farm,” Bentlage argued. “I remember when family farmers could load their own feeder pigs in their truck and go to the local auction and sell their livestock in an open and competitive market. So who’s taken this right to farm away from us? It is the same corporate factory farm supporters, corporations and organizations that have pushed this constitutional amendment through the Missouri Legislature.”

The ballot question asks, “Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to ensure the right of Missouri citizens to engage in agricultural production and ranging practices shall not be infringed?”

Infringed by whom? What practices? And who qualifies as a farmer in Missouri?

Smithfield Foods, for example, owner of Premium Standard Farms? How about Tyson Foods? Both of those are Fortune 500 companies that count their revenue in the billions.

Which Tyson practice “shall not be infringed,” the one that left more than 100,000 dead fish in Clear Creek this spring?

It’s Missouri that may need protection from big ag.

We can’t state it any more plainly.  Please, please, please, pass the word to your friends and neighbors.  Vote NO on Missouri Amendment 1.  The right to farm should not include the right to harm.

Karin and Arcenio Velez

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"And then there are the people...who are just... dead."

Both sides are guilty of violating international law but the source of an attack on a Gaza UN school could be a game changer.

By Lolita Brayman

An attack on a United Nations-run facility in northern Gaza sheltering displaced Palestinians left at least 15 civilians killed and many more wounded on Thursday morning, reports indicate. Israel and Hamas are pointing fingers and negating responsibility for the deadly incident, the circumstances of which remain unclear but are significant in light of the UN Human Rights Council’s recent launch of a commission of inquiry into alleged Israeli war crimes.

The Israeli army is investigating the source of the hit, while UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack and admitted in an official statement that the circumstances remain unclear. Israel denied intentionally targeting the school belonging to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which is located in the densely populated northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, but did say that it fired mortars in the area after the army was shot at from a source nearby.

Both the Israeli army and UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness confirmed that Hamas rockets were being fired near the UNRWA school, and that sometimes Hamas rockets fall short of their intended Israeli targets. It is also confirmed that the exact location of the UNRWA shelter was known to the Israeli army and that several rockets fell in Beit Hanoun that same day. The army spokesperson also tweeted that the Red Cross was told to evacuate civilians from the UNRWA shelter between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., as they were planning on targeting nearby Hamas rocket launchers. Gunness confirmed via his Twitter account that the precise coordinates of the school were formally given to the army.

The source of the attack seems to be one of the following possible scenarios: 1) A Hamas rocket was launched from Beit Hanoun aimed at Israel and fell short of its target, landing on the UNRWA school; 2) the Israeli army targeted the Hamas rocket launchers in Beit Hanoun and accidentally hit the shelter; or 3) Israeli forces responding to Hamas militant fire shelled the school accidentally by targeting the source of the fire.

In a rather ambiguous tweet, Gunness wrote: “UNRWA tried to coordinate with the Israeli army a window for civilians to leave and it was never granted.” This is vague because it is unclear whether the Israeli army or Hamas refused to grant the opportunity for civilians to evacuate – a very pivotal factor in determining which side would be liable for the violation of international law that resulted in a large number of civilian casualties.

If a Hamas rocket is found to be the cause of this latest tragedy, Hamas could be found liable for crimes against humanity under international humanitarian law and customary international law. By intentionally targeting Israeli civilians with rockets, Hamas is in violation of the strict law of war standard, whereby only military objectives are permitted as military targets. The mens rea (guilty mind) intent is not negated even though their target was not the victim – the Geneva Conventions distinguish civilians from non-combatants but not civilians from civilians.

If the Israeli army is found to be responsible for the deadly attack due to an accident while targeting a rocket launcher, it would not be in violation of targeting civilians because the mark was clearly a legitimate military objective. However, Israel’s precision would come into question and the issue of proportionality must then be addressed as a principle of international customary law. Attacks seen as excessive in relation to concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated are considered unlawful.

Palestinians prepare the body of a baby in Kamal Edwan Hospital’s morgue after an attack on Beit Hanoun elementary school killed at least 17 people, Jabalyia, Gaza Strip, July 24. The school was being used as a shelter by 800 people at the time (photo: Anne Paq/Activestills)

The UN facility itself might be considered a legitimate military target since UNRWA schools have recently housed military objectives: On two separate occasions since the start of Operation Protective Edge, UN aid workers discovered a cache of weapons in UNRWA facilities and returned them to Gaza authorities. However, the Israeli army would not necessarily be absolved of responsibility for the civilians’ deaths even if it was found that proper evacuation procedures and warnings were effectively communicated. In international courts, Israel would still have to prove that the targeted buildings were making an effective contribution to Hamas’ military effort at the time it was attacked.

A similar legal analysis of proportionality would have to be assessed if the source was found to be Israeli artillery fire in response to Hamas militant fire.

It is indisputable that Hamas militants operate in urban and residential areas of the Strip, but whether they are guilty of using human shields is an extremely contested debate. It can be concluded from the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I, and the Statute of the International Criminal court that a co-location of civilians and military objectives can amount to the use of human shields. Moreover, historic examples of this war crime have been cases where persons were actually taken to military objectives in order to shield them from attacks. Since UNRWA schools previously had hidden military objectives on their premises and then sheltered civilians in these buildings, the attack resembles – from a legal perspective – the use of human shields; however, more evidence would be needed to make this argument.

The tragic UNRWA hit comes a day after the UNHRC condemned Israel for its military operation and issued a commission of inquiry into alleged Israeli war crimes. The 49-member council backed the Palestinian-drafted resolution by 29 votes, with the U.S. being the only state to vote against the resolution. Although the condemnation is a far cry from actual UN judicial action – the Palestinian Authority has repeatedly threatened to seek redress from the International Criminal Court (ICC) – it places a significantly harsh international spotlight on Israel and delegitimizes military action in Gaza.

A Palestinian girl cries after an attack on Beit Hanoun elementary school, as people mourn in Kamal Edwan Hospital, Jabalyia, Gaza Strip, July 24. The school was being used as a shelter by 800 people. The attack killed at least 17 and injured more than 200 of the displaced civilians. (photo: Anne Paq/Activestills)

It is a little-known fact that international law is an ever-evolving field dependent on state actors, who sometimes take advantage of the law’s ambiguity in interpretation. The authenticity of seeking justice via UN courts should be questioned, because the threat alone can be manipulated into a political tool to delegitimize instead of persecute. The ICC in particular has limited authority in imposing international law convictions because many countries, including the U.S., China and Russia, are hesitant to become signatories; however, the court does influence policy making and what conflicts are worthy of media attention. In the Palestinian case, acceding to the Rome Statute – a necessary step for ICC action – would also open the Palestinian Authority to persecution for Hamas’ war crimes. This is a potentially disastrous move for the newly established and unstable Palestinian unity agreement.

International law and the media have a hard time distinguishing between legality and legitimacy. In a recent INSS report, Pnina Sharvit Baruch, a former legal advisor for the Israeli army, explained: “Issues touching on the legality of Israel’s actions are not synonymous with issues concerning the legitimacy of these actions in the international arena, and legal actions may still be deemed illegitimate.” The UNHRC commission is an example of this difference: Israel’s legitimacy was questioned, no actual judicial action was proscribed, and the very next day both sides violated international law, resulting in more casualties.

At the end of the day, international law might just be adding more fuel to the fire and feeding the media frenzy by blurring the lines between legality and legitimization, and Hamas and Israeli war crimes. The debate over fault in the UNRWA attack will hopefully draw attention to the political consequences of UN condemnations and its shortcomings in creating a facilitative environment for a ceasefire to materialize.

IN THIS war, both sides have the same aim: to put an end to the situation that existed before it started.
Once And For All!"To put an end to the launching of rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, Once And For All!"To put an end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt, Once And For All!"
So why don't the two sides come together without foreign interference and agree on tit for tat?"
They can't because they don't speak to each other. They can kill each other, but they cannot speak with each other. God forbid."

"THIS IS NOT a war on terror. The war itself is an act of terror.
Neither side has a strategy other than terrorizing the civilian population of the other side."
The Palestinian fighting organizations in Gaza try to impose their will by launching rockets at Israeli towns and villages, hoping that this will break the morale of the population and compel it to end the blockade that turns the Gaza Strip into an "open-air prison".
The Israeli army is bombing the Gaza Strip population and destroying entire neighborhoods, hoping that the inhabitants (those who survive) will shake off the Hamas leadership."
Both hopes are, of course, stupid. History has shown time and again that terrorizing a population causes it to unite behind its leaders and hate the enemy even more. That is happening now on both sides."
So why don't the two sides come together without foreign interference and agree on tit for tat?"They can't because they don't speak to each other. They can kill each other, but they cannot speak with each other. God forbid."
"THIS IS NOT a war on terror. The war itself is an act of terror.Neither side has a strategy other than terrorizing the civilian population of the other side."The Palestinian fighting organizations in Gaza try to impose their will by launching rockets at Israeli towns and villages, hoping that this will break the morale of the population and compel it to end the blockade that turns the Gaza Strip into an "open-air prison".The Israeli army is bombing the Gaza Strip population and destroying entire neighborhoods, hoping that the inhabitants (those who survive) will shake off the Hamas leadership."Both hopes are, of course, stupid. History has shown time and again that terrorizing a population causes it to unite behind its leaders and hate the enemy even more. That is happening now on both sides."

Between One and Two: Debating Confederation and One-State Solution for Israel/Palestine

By Oren Yiftachel

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of MEI

Middle East Reflections 2 Yiftachel

This lecture was first given at the conference “One State between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River – A Dream or Reality?” at Tel Aviv University, May 2012 and at MEI in October 2012.

As far as I know, this is one of the first times that the subject, which is so central to the future of the society in Israel/Palestine, has been discussed in the Israeli academic world in an open forum with many participants. The courage to discuss this issue deserves highlighting these days, and it represents the real and free academic spirit that has recently been under strong attack.

We can begin our journey by noting the symbolic date of our meeting, the 17^th of May. On this date, two revolutionary political events took place in Israel. The first, in 1977, brought Menachem Begin to the reins of power; the second was the election of Ehud Barak as prime minister, in 1999. These two governments had a disastrous effect on the chances for Israeli-Palestinian peace. My cautious hope is that today’s conference is an omen of revolutionary change – in the opposite direction.

My talk is based on much research and writing, over many years, on the political geography of Israel/Palestine. Some of what I will say appears in my book Ethnocracy published a few years back, and in follow-up articles. In that book, I analyze in depth the regime prevailing between Jordan and Sea, and interpret the major dilemma in sketching the future political geography of this space, that is– Israel/Palestine: On the one hand, the Jewish colonialism in the West Bank prevents, and apparently will continue to frustrate, the establishment of a viable Palestinian state as a foundation for conciliation; on the other hand, the existence of Israel as a recognized state and the strength of Zionist nationalism prevent the coming of the one-state-solution (bi-national or secular) between Jordan and Sea. These factors have created a structural situation in which neither the standard solution of two-states nor the one-state solution provides a reasonable framework for the needed and urgent Zionist-Palestinian reconciliation.

Consequently, I will argue that we urgently need, now, to create a third space–conceptually and politically–that leads to creation of an Israel-Palestinian confederation. This arrangement is the most suitable for creating a geopolitical foundation for a viable peace, since it provides a framework that enables each of the two states to realize its right to self-determination, while considering the territory’s complex geography and history. The Palestinian state will realize the right to self-determination for the Palestinians and the Israeli state the right to self-determination for the Israelis, with the full rights of the minorities living in both states being ensured. The inhabitants of the confederation will maintain a joint economy and benefit from freedom of movement between the two entities. An autonomous, jointly-run capital region will be established in Jerusalem. A similar political plan, with somewhat different geographical borders, was laid out in UN Resolution 181. Despite the political opposition at the crucial time, both sides ultimately accepted the resolution. In the present political setting, this idea can offer a new path for ending the present colonial grip over Palestine, secure Israel’s existence, and protect human rights for all living between Jordan and Sea. Below I shall elaborate on my argument, focusing on conceptual points, as much as time permits.

At the request of the organizers, I shall concentrate primarily on criticism of the one-state solution, as worded in dozens of articles and books in recent years, and in the One-State Declaration that was published in 2007. I will not dwell on the deep problems entailed in the standard two-state solution, which I have criticized on numerous occasions. I will state only in brief, that a solution that seeks to attain stability and legitimacy by forcing complete separation of Israelis and Palestinians is an illusion. Since the Oslo Accords, in the framework of purported discussions on establishment of a Palestinian state, Israel has done almost everything it could to destroy that possibility, principally by deepening the Jewish colonization and restricting development of a national Palestinian leadership. Under current settings, should a Palestinian state be established, it would be highly dependent on Israel; geographically split, and lacking real sovereignty. Hence, it’s likely to become a source of constant instability. This being the case, continued discussion of the two-state solution in its present format is a certain recipe for continuation of the conflict, rather than its solution.

In addition to the important substantive elements of the confederation framework I propose, it unsettles the problematic dichotomy dominating the political debate between proponents of the one- and two-state solutions. By sanctifying the final format, the dichotomy prevents serious and frank discussion of the various possibilities to move toward a political geography of conciliation between Jordan and Sea. The confederation model, on the other hand, is more open and flexible. In several places around the world, confederation has served as a stabilizing bridge in the time between conflict and conciliation.

Confederations at a Glance

You are no doubt asking now–“What is confederation?” There are several technical definitions which appear in encyclopedias and lexica, but they all share the notion that a confederation is a framework for close association and cooperation between sovereign states, held by a covenant or treaty. Confederation is created in a “bottom up” process, in contrast to a federation, which is “top down.” In a federation, powers are delegated from the central sovereign body (government, parliament) to the states or provincial sub-units. In a confederation, the states, which retain their sovereignty, allocate powers “upward” to create the ‘higher’ body to govern joint affairs. Hence, in a confederation, as opposed to federation, the states maintain veto power on the existence and nature of the joint political framework …

Sounds promising? Maybe. But research on the confederation model is insufficient, and the historical record of this solution is uneven. Let us elaborate on a couple of the known success stories.

Switzerland and Canada were established as confederations after 19th Century ethnic wars resembling the Zionist-Palestinian conflict. In those cases, a strong ethno-national group gained control over weaker groups, but rather than continue to oppress them, offered a framework of self-determination, and a decentralized form of government, by way of compromise and cooperation. In recent decades, Belgium, too, has transformed (unofficially) to a model resembling a confederacy: the Walloons and the Flemish enjoy self-determination and self-rule in almost all spheres of life. Brussels–possibly in a status similar to Jerusalem, with local, national and global significance–is a shared autonomous capital region.  In Bosnia-Herzegovina, vicious ethnic conflict stabilized following establishment of the Dayton confederation framework in which the Serbs, Bosnians, and Croats enjoy autonomy and separate territory while operating a joint economy and security apparatus, with a strong European umbrella. The last two examples are far from ideal, but their confederal system, which combines separate ethno-national existence with joint management of the space, enables them to create a non-violent democratic space after generations of bitter ethnic conflicts.

The key to these models is a combination of freedom of movement throughout the entire space, statutory and political self-determination for the different groups in various regions, and establishment of a “layer” of joint governance management and administration of the whole territory.

The European Union is the most famous and ambitious confederation “in the making”. The EU is an incredible precedent: strong nation-states with a chauvinist past of nationalist wars and racist colonialism, which have given up some of their sovereignty for the sake of a supra-national entity. The unprecedented success of the EU–now the most peaceful region in the world–has provided a major geopolitical foundation for the long era of international cooperation and prosperity. In this context, it should be mentioned that the EU began as a very “thin” confederation, with only six countries in the 1950s. It began with the intent of instituting uniform trade laws on the import and export of coal and steel, and later created a common economic community. On these modest foundations an enormous political organization was later built, one that institutes confederation arrangements between Estonia in the east to Portugal in the west.

The list of confederations throughout history is not long. Poland and Lithuania had extensive confederation agreements that evaporated with the rise of the Soviet Union. For many years, Norway was part of a confederation with Sweden, and later with Denmark. The United States began as a confederation of thirteen states, and Egypt and Syria created the United Arab Republic (a union of the two countries) in the 1950s. The United Arab Emirates created confederations, albeit not democratic. Benelux and Czechoslovakia were confederations that were replaced by the European Union.

The confederation model, therefore, exists in practice, though it is not widespread. It has succeeded primarily in stabilizing ethno-national relations to some degree, following a period of conflict and war, and thus is a proper “candidate” for entering the debate on the future of Israel/Palestine.

Israel/Palestine – Political Geography

Before discussing how to reconstruct the desired future, we should briefly examine a few questions about the structure of the past and present: What is the political geography of the territory we are discussing? What is the political regime in Israel/Palestine, and how did it come into being? Without answers, progress would rest on shaky grounds. Just like in medicine, diagnosis must precede treatment. So, what are the dominant views on our political geography?

One, and possibly the most common view at the international level, portrays the Israel/Palestine space as a site of struggle between two national movements. This symmetrical approach views Israel as a legitimate homeland of a Jewish nation in which it exercises its sovereignty “like all other nations” after generations of persecution. A similar view is applied to the Palestinians, whose homeland is considered to be the West Bank and Gaza. The main manifestation of the conflict appears in this view to be a long-term border dispute. This approach gives the conflict the symmetry of “Israelis versus Palestinians” by treating Israeli control of the “colonized” (occupied and settled) Palestinian territories as “temporary,” and by ignoring the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 and the situation of the Arab-Palestinian minority within Israel, when discussing solution of the conflict. This attitude, which is characteristic of the Zionist left, some Palestinians, and most of the international community, maintains that a stable solution can be achieved in the form of two nation-states on the basis of the 1967 borders.

A different perspective held by most Zionists (in Israel and around the world) sees Israel/Palestine, primarily as the historical-religious homeland of the Jewish people. The process of settling and controlling Palestine is considered a “return” to the “promised” homeland, and a realization of the “historical right”. It is achieved by a ‘natural’ course of events free of ethical problems, and with almost no mention of the Arab history of the land. The return is to the entire homeland, between Jordan and Sea–a territory belonging to the Jews, and to the Jews alone. Minorities in this view can coexist with Jews, as long as they accept Jewish political supremacy.

In addition, the Zionist view links the need for Jewish sovereignty to recent history of murderous European anti-Semitism ,Arab ill-treatment of Jews in the Mideast, and persistent Arab rejectionism. Most Zionists do not ignore that Jewish immigration and settlement created problems for Arabs, but blame Arab intransigence and aggression. At the same time they refuse to recognize Palestinian historical rights to the land, and deny Israeli responsibility for the problems created by the founding of the state and its discriminatory policies. Recently, as a result of political pragmatism, some Zionist rightists became willing to recognize certain Palestinian collective rights, though these rights are far from granting them sovereignty in the occupied territories or full civil and communal equality. Any discussion on questions of return of the refugees, the events of the Nakba, and the Jewish character of the country are taboo in the narrative of this approach.

The prevalent Palestinian perspective, on the other hand, views the space between Jordan and Sea as one political entity, referred to as “Palestine”, which was legally created by the British Mandate. However, the newly created would-be state was immediately and unjustly offered to, and settled by foreigners–Jewish colonials. This state was later cruelly partitioned in a process accompanied by massive ethnic cleansing, turning most Palestinians to refugees. According to this perception, Mandatory Palestine was supposed to become an independent Arab state like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, but was ultimately divided among various predators–Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. After 1967, the entire land remained in the hands of one conqueror–Israel. The prolonged denial of Palestinian rights, so this perspective holds, has occurred with the support of western imperialist powers.

While this perspective concurs with much research on the history of Israel/Palestine, it also has some glaring blind spots and denials. For example, it conveniently ignores the flight of Jews in Europe and the Arab world (without which one cannot understand their flight to Palestine); it scoffs at the historical and religious connection of Jews to the land; it overlooks the disastrous 1947 Arab rejection of the chance to establish an internationally recognized Palestinian state; and hardly deals with the use of incessant terrorism against Israel. These factors are taboo in the Palestinian narrative, as much as the Nakba and present colonialism are taboo among Zionists.

Today, moderate Palestinians view the struggle for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and for civil equality in Israel, as worthy politically, but not as historical justice or genuine reconciliation. The current official Palestinian struggle is viewed by moderates as protecting ‘the crumbs’ left from Palestine for the Palestinians, rather than historical correction. Meanwhile, the one-state solution is rapidly gaining popularity among Palestinians on both the Islamic right and the secular left. This increasing support, and the unlikely alliance it brings from such distant political wings, is due to the potential of the one-state future to achieve justice and historical correction for the Palestinians. However, as elaborated later, both camps tend to ignore that historical justice must consider now a powerful factor that did not exist in the 1940s–the existence of the state of Israel, and the just rights attached to such existence.

My framework seeks to be precise and not polemical in discerning the political geography of the conflict, for which I attempt to combine these perspectives. My analysis shows that Israel/Palestine is indeed a land of religious and historical attachment to Jews, and that Zionism dressed this belonging in modern-political and territorial garb. Zionism, which was a movement of a small minority of the Jewish people until the 1930s, correctly identified the destructive potential of anti-Semitic racism, and sought to create a safe haven for Jews in the historical homeland. Historically, given the ways in which Jews were stripped of their rights, evicted, and were victims of a genocide, almost before they became Zionists, and inasmuch as most of the Jews who came to Israel had no alternative, one can conclude that Jews were actually “expelled to the homeland”. This observation, somewhat ironically, is ignored by both Zionist ideologists, who wish to make us believe that Jews always longed to return to Zion, and most Arab research and narratives, who wish to portray Jews as ‘normal’ colonials.  As a side comment, and with a touch of sad irony, one can observe that the state of safe refuge created by Zionism, has now become the least safe place for Jews in the world.

Zionism managed to create in the reconstructed Jewish homeland, a strong viable ethno-national community, albeit one that is fragmented unevenly along lines of ethnicity, religion and class. Zionism managed to plant in Zionist Jews a real and legitimate sense of homeland belonging, while politically realizing the right to self-determination of the Jewish-Israeli nation that was actually created anew in the country.

However, these observations, that are closer to the Zionist narrative, do not contradict the Palestinian perspective that the conflict over Israel/Palestine is also the result of a clash between a Jewish colonial society, whose aim is to colonize the land, and its indigenous Palestinian population. The literature defines colonialism as the organized expansion of a group to new territory, generally accompanied by conquest, settlement, appropriation, and exploitation of local population and resources. The current Jewish regime in Israel/Palestine fits this definition. It was established on the foundational process of Jewish expansion, settlement and appropriation, while receiving the general support of world powers, primarily Britain and the United States, which served for long periods as the “metropole” for the Zionist colonization project. Thus, the Zionist-Palestinian conflict is both a clash between colonizers and indigenous peoples, and between two nations battling over the same territory. Any progress towards a solution must take into account this deep structure.

In addition to understanding this structure, and for the sake of precision, we must refine the definitions and point out that over the past century the nature of the Zionist project has changed in significant ways. Until 1947, it could be conceptualized as “colonization by refugees” that developed through the immigration of Jews who were forced out of their previous states due to persecutions and racism. To be sure, there was a small nucleus of ideological Zionists who came voluntarily, but the majority became Zionists only once their lives in the original homeland became unbearable. Zionism colonization in that period was advanced by using all the loopholes existing under Ottoman and especially British rule–by purchasing and receiving land, erecting settlements, and building a military and demographic force.

Over the next twenty years, the project became one of “internal colonialism,” which includes ethnic expulsion and Judaization of the Israeli territory within the Green Line. After 1967, it changed shades again and became almost classic “state-led” or “external” colonialism in which the state settles its citizens beyond the state’s sovereign borders and seeks to appropriate it. Simultaneously, Israel deepened its liberal-democratic character inside the Green Line, primarily for its Jewish population. This factor aided in building a broad consensus around defining the regime as a “Jewish and democratic state”, while ignoring the eviction, colonialism, and the oppression of the Arab citizens living inside the Green Line, most conspicuously the Bedouins in the south.

In the past two decades, the regime between Jordan and Sea has been transforming into a new stage, I have termed it ‘oppressive consolidation’. Since the Oslo Accords, Israel has sought to stabilize the situation by carrying out strategic withdrawals–from Area A, from Lebanon, and in 2005, from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. In doing this, it has shown a certain willingness to allow the existence of a quasi-state Palestinian unit that would grant a degree of self-determination to the Palestinians, while legitimizing an “agreed-upon solution” that maintains Jewish control over most of the land between Jordan and Sea. To this we can add the proposals for a Palestinian state made by Barak and Olmert, and most significantly by Netanyahu in his 2009 Bar-Ilan speech and several statements following the 2013 elections, vowing to advance towards a situation of “two states, for two peoples”.

The present stage marks the weakening of Jewish colonialism in the face of international condemnation, Arab resistance, and the shrinking of direct Israeli rule. Some exceptions exist, such the establishment of outposts in the West Bank or new towns and villages in the Galilee and Negev, but the overall picture is of selective withdrawals. This stabilizing stage is taking place alongside accelerating globalization, development, and the onset of liberal tendencies of the Jewish population inside the Green Line. However, these withdrawals have not changed the structure or ideology regarding the Jewish aspiration to control the entire space between Jordan and Sea. Rather, at this stage, they constitute only a change in the methods of control over the Palestinians, from direct to partially indirect.

One of the most blatant expressions of the colonization and Jewish control is the issue of land. Israel has been laboring for sixty years on what Sandy Kedar has called “judicial land redemption”, in which Israel has registered more than 93 percent of the country’s territory and some one-half of the land in the West Bank as state land. As a result, the Palestinians, who amount to about one-half of the population between Jordan and Sea, control only some 15 percent of the land area. Inside the Green Line, the situation is worse–the Palestinians constitute 18 percent of the population but control only three percent of the land. This is the tip of the iceberg of deep and structural Judaization, which creates intense pressures and tension. These arise not only because of the prolonged dispossession, but also because the “state” became an entity that, rather than representing the whole population, represents almost exclusively its Jewish citizens.

The regime that characterizes all the stages is one I conceptualize as “ethnocracy” and it has ruled for 64 years inside the Green Line and for 45 years, somewhat differently, between Jordan and Sea. The cultural and economic details of this regime are laid out at length in my books and articles, but here I emphasize the observation that now in Israel/Palestine there is one regime–an ethnocracy that controls, in various means, the diverse populations, consistently giving preference to the Jewish population, and ranking the other groups according to their attitude toward the Zionist project.

However–and here I begin my argument with those who favor the one-state solution–who claim there is already one state between Jordan and Sea. Conceptually, it is necessary to distinguish between regime and state. Although there is one regime with sovereign powers vested in Israel and its institutions, there is not one state, since about half of the inhabitants are not, and apparently will not be, citizens. These people live under military rule or in a temporary status of one kind or another. In any event, this structure contains no political program that will bring all the permanent inhabitants of the area under one law, citizenship, or culture, as in customary in a modern state.

Furthermore, “beneath” the political geography of one colonial regime there are, according to international law, two states–Israel and Palestine. This was reinforced by the well-known 2004 decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague regarding the separation barrier, and many decisions of the UN Assembly and of the Arab League for the establishment of Palestine, which is yet to be fulfilled but receives the support of nearly all the international political and legal institutions. The territory between Jordan and Sea is home to two robust national movements that seek to realize their right to self-determination. Therefore, the Jewish ethnocratic regime between Jordan and Sea is not viable and cannot, at this stage, constitute a normative or legal basis for a joint state. We shall return to this later.

This analysis leads me to understand the geopolitical situation in Israel/Palestine as comparable to regimes in which only part of the territory is under their colonial control, and thus illegitimate, while the other parts are under legitimate sovereignty. This is a more complex view of the situation, comparing Israel/Palestine to, for example, the case of Britain in Ireland until 1921, the French in Algeria until the early 1960s; Jordan and the West Bank until 1987; and, recently, the situation in Serbia and Bosnia and Kosovo, Morocco and the Western Sahara, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, and elsewhere. In the past, solutions to such partial colonial conflicts generally arose when the regime retreated from territories it held illegitimately and remained in control of its legitimate sovereign lands. In none of these cases, however, did the illegitimate occupation of territory lead to a threat to the existence of the mother state. This implied by the one-state proponents, who claim that Israel’s colonization of the West bank is irreversible. You don’t have to throw out the baby with the bath water.

Returning to the cases of the Israeli regime, we must admit that the analysis offered above is too “clean,” since it is hard to make a clear distinction between the different stages through which the Israeli regime has developed. This situation must trigger warning lights, inasmuch as the current regime continues to institutionalize the colonial situation in the West Bank, in the form described by Lev Grinberg through the oxymoron “democratic occupation”. I may add that one cannot make a clear distinction between both sides of the Green Line since Israel is also colonizing and Judaizing parts of its own legitimate territory, particularly the Negev and the mixed cities, in a process I describe as ‘internal colonization’.

The result is the gradual institutionalization of “separate but unequal,” and a structural process I have termed “creeping apartheid” that we have witnessed in the past decades. Naturally, Israel does not declare that such a process is in train, and continues to flag the hollow definition of a “Jewish and democratic state,” but it still settles Jews in the West Bank and Arab areas inside Israel, nationalizes Palestinian land, and enacts statutes separating Jews and Arabs in Israel and separating the two groups from Palestinians in the occupied territories. Thus, without formal declaration, Israel is, one step at a time, institutionalizing a de jure (and de facto of course) system that classifies populations between Jordan and Sea based on their ethnic origin and geographic place of residence, and imposes on each group a different system of control and privileges. In other words, as noted, a quiet but continuous and ‘thickening’ process of ‘creeping apartheid’.

This situation, needless to say, poses serious structural danger, but one that can be stopped. The confederation framework can stop it, and return fundamental democratic structure of full and equal citizenship to the entire population, as one would expect of a viable regime in the twenty-first century.

Return of the One State

In conjunction with these structural changes, the one-state idea, which had been seriously discussed in the 1930s and ‘40s, arose again. The books of Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ali Abunimah, and Virginia Tilley, published a few years ago, sparked a flood of writing on the subject. The one-state solution claims to guarantee an honorable way out of the contradictions described above. Proponents of the idea argue that Israel’s control in the occupied territories (reflected by the settlements, the military deployment, and the infrastructure for the most part) is irreversible and no longer enables establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

The alternative to two states, then, is to treat Mandatory Palestine as one “natural” political unit that will enable all its inhabitants to live in peace. The framework would, the proponents contend, eliminate one of the main obstacles in the conflict–the question of the refugees. The entire land of Israel/Palestine would be open to those who were forced from it. The other heated questions–the settlements and Jerusalem, for example–will be easier to resolve in the one-state strategy, which will neutralize the ethnic competition over territory, resources, and power that now characterize the relations between the sides.

The one-state idea has various hues. The democratic version offers a secular-liberal, bi-national, or multicultural state. The nationalist brand offers a Jewish or Arab ethnocracy with a sizeable minority; the religious version offers a state governed, interchangeably, by the Muslim Sharia or Jewish Halacha.

On the face of it, the one-state framework has great appeal. It is based on important ethical arguments; it is comprehensive, inclusive, and even elegant. It treats the political territory created by the British in 1917 as the basis future regime, and properly contends that for almost one hundred years (since 1917), with the exception of only nineteen years, the whole country was under one regime (though they do not give proper weight to the fact that, in the course of that nineteen-year period, the legitimate sovereign state of Israel was created).

Proponents of the plan also correctly identify the area between Jordan and Sea as the object of belonging and national aspiration of both Jews and Palestinians, who feel that the entire country is their homeland. A quick look at the Palestinian and Zionist maps, symbols, and publications indicate again and again the image of the entire land of Israel/Palestine as a single unit.

The attractive idea has spread rapidly. In recent years, it has been the most “bon-ton” proposal among Arab academics, and some Jews, primarily outside Israel. Among the Palestinians supporting the idea are researchers such as Nur Masalha, Ghazi Falah, Nadim Rouhana, George Basharat, Assad Ghanem, Ali Abunimah, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Omar Barghouti, Samira Esmeir, Ghada Karmi, Leila Farsakh, Huneida Ghanem, Islah Jad, Saree Makdisi, Azzam Tamimi, Nura Erekat, and Jamil Hilal. It is also interesting to note who has not supported the idea to the best of my knowledge–Samil Tamari, Rima Hamami, Rashid Khalidi, Saleh Abd al-Jawal, Sari Hanafi, Manuel Hassassian, and Beshara Doumani–all prominent thinkers who have refrained, for the time being, to hop on the one-state bandwagon.

The popularity of the idea among Palestinians is not surprising. It fits well with the long history of Palestinian opposition to partition recognition of a Jewish political entity in Israel/Palestine, fueled from the outset with some elements of political Islam. This stance stood until 1988, when the mainly secular PLO accepted the partition decision and recognized Israel. Since the rise of Hamas in the 1990s, and its victory in the 2006 elections, the Islamic agenda is again salient in Palestinian politics and with it the one-state idea. As we know, most Islamic movements view all of Israel/Palestine as sacred Waqf, which must be liberated, sooner or later, peacefully or violently. The one-state agenda fits well with these deep currents in Palestinian spatial imagery and aspiration.

Support for the one-state idea exists to a much lesser degree among Israeli Jews. It includes researchers such as Meron Benvenisti, Yehouda Shenhav, Niv Gordon, Ilan Pappe, Haim Braishit, Gabi Piterberg, and, recently, Yoav Peled. Less important are those who are not proponents, since most Jewish researchers continue to support two states, or even one Jewish state between Jordan and Sea, possibly with a few Palestinian enclaves. There is also international support for the idea, including among prominent researchers who have written extensively on the Zionist-Palestinian conflict, such as Virginia Tilley, whom I have already mentioned, the late Tony Judt, Ron Greenstein, and Judith Butler. Here, too, a number of prominent researchers oppose the idea, some of them critical researchers: Ian Lustick, Joel Migdal, Norman Finkelstein, and Noam Chomsky, for example.

Critique: Apolitical Political Geography

I agree with many of the aims and values of the democratic proponents of one state–equality, the creation of a common space for peace and trust, historical justice, and the peaceful reintegration of Israel and Palestine. The state, according to most progressive theorists, is a modern political entity whose goal is improvement of human life. A state–in and of itself–is not a worthy goal unless it advances human welfare. Yet, given the geopolitical settings in Israel/Palestine, and particularly the existence of Israel, the path to conciliation and acceptance cannot, I contend, be achieved by a one-state framework, but through gradual integration by means of two sovereign entities, within a confederation format, as I shall elaborate.

The main problem of one state is–ironically–that the idea is a-political: it does not properly cope with the political, legal, and violent forces holding the system it seeks to change–first and foremost–the existing (Israeli) state. None of the texts I have read offered any explanation why and how Israel would allow it to be replaced by a new political entity, which would completely change its identity and dramatically reduce the power of its dominant elites. A serious political analysis seeking to bring about change needs to deal with the validity and strength of the apparatuses it aspires to topple. The one-state strategy simply ignores this need.

Let us remember that following the establishment of the United Nations, the right of a state to exist under international law is inalienable. So is its right to territorial integrity and self-determination. These are the very arguments that make Israeli colonialism in the occupied territories illegal: it prevents realization of the Palestinian right to self-determination. But international law also ensures the validity of the Israeli state, which the one-state proponents seek to change completely. The one-state framework clashes with the rights of Israel as enshrined in international law, forming a serious flaw in a process that seeks to bring about political change.

Precedents

From the historical and comparative perspective, a merger of type projected for Israel/Palestine by the one-state solution is without precedent in the present era. The historical record shows that only three unions of two states have been successful since 1945–North and South Vietnam, East and West Germany, and North and South Yemen. Each of these cases, we readily see, involved union of states populated by the same nation of people, previously split as a result of imperial policy. The merger came about with the consent of the peoples in the two uniting states. In contrast, there has never been a successful union of two states of different ethno-national character, certainly not after a century of bloody conflict.

Quite the opposite: partitioning, splitting and devolution of states are more common in world politics than ever before. Since the founding of the UN in 1945, thirty-five states have officially split (not including liberation from a colonial/imperial state, which occurred in some sixty other cases). The splits occurred in a number of principal waves:

(a)          The anti-colonial wave and its aftermath, which led to division of the colonies from the metropolitan states, and later to splits within the new states themselves, such as in India-Pakistan-Bangladesh, Korea, Ethiopia, Singapore-Malaysia, and Cyprus.

(b)          The post-Soviet wave, in which primarily the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia were divided; at the same time, a number of states in Asia and Africa were established, among them East Timor and Eritrea.

(c)           The “ethnic-conflict” wave of recent years, in which new state-like entities (official or semi-official) have split following bitter ethnic fighting, such as Kosovo, Montenegro, Abkhazia, Ostia, Iraqi Kurdistan, Kashmir, Gaza and South Sudan.

One-state proponents, then, seek to run counter to the grain of history, and create an entity that is without precedent, in which an ethnic state merges with a neighboring rival nation. The lack of precedent does not by itself prevent the one-state option, but one may still ask–why should the first such union occur in Israel/Palestine? Is it reasonable that a state comprised almost completely of (Jewish) refugees and descendants of refugees following genocide be the first to give up its cultural and ethnic dominance? It appears like one-state proponents are not attuned enough to the almost sacred status of the Israeli state in the eyes of most Jews, given their recent historical trauma and the nature of Zionist response to that trauma. In other words, it is hard to imagine any nation giving up its sovereign power, let alone imagine Israeli Jews acting in this way.

Irreversibility?

Another common argument of one-state proponents describes Israelization of the West Bank as irreversible. Indeed, there are now some two hundred settlements and outposts, towns have been founded, infrastructure laid, and industrial areas created, which annexed de facto large sections of the West Bank to Israel.

This thesis is problematic. It is built on an ethnocratic mind-set, which assumes a-priori that every area on which Jews have settled will remain under Jewish sovereignty, and that every Jew must continue living under Israeli rule. This mind-set fits well with the assumptions of the Israeli colonial regime in the occupied territories, but contradicts the long experience of liberal democracies, where minorities live among a majority having a different culture. Also, a recent report of B’Tselem, which I helped prepare, shows that the gross built-up area of the settlements covers less than two percent of the West Bank. So, despite the attempts of settlers and their supporters to destroy the Palestinian national space, the situation is not irreversible.

I do not ignore the bloody history of conflicts between the settlers and the Palestinians, but I also do not negate the possibility of coexistence with some (although not all) of the settlers, if they accept Palestinian sovereignty and give up their weapons. The confederation framework proposed here makes it easier for them to do this, in return of Palestinian guarantees for their safety and community.

The irreversibility thesis also assumes that, if no Palestinian state is established, there will arise in its place, almost by default, a joint (democratic) state for Israelis and Palestinians. The experience of the past four decades puts a question mark over this assumption. If a Palestinian state is not established, Israel will most likely continue to administer the area, possibly allotting crumbs of sovereignty to Palestinian groups in areas that will continue to function as “Palustans” (Palestinian Bantustans). The option, then, is not between one state and two, but between reconciliation (based in part on Israeli sovereignty) and deepening apartheid. It goes without saying that the Israeli sovereignty will apply only within the recognized borders of Israel, the area inside the Green Line, and that Israel must ensure the full rights of the Arab-Palestinian minority in the country, as well as the rights of other significant communities, the foremost being the Haredi (ultra-orthodox) community.

Simultaneously, one-state proponents want to change the boundaries of the political debate, and to depict establishment of a Palestinian state as an arbitrary attempt to partition the country, echoing fears that draw on the trauma the Nakba events. This view again ignores the fact that, under current circumstances, establishment of a Palestinian state on all the occupied territories would be, first of all, an act of decolonization and not partition. This course of action also leaves open the possibility of recognizing Israel inside the Green Line as a legitimate political entity, after eliminating its colonial components, and upon granting equal citizenship to all its minorities.

Between South Africa and Serbia

Another important element of the comparative discourse is the difference between Israel/Palestine and South Africa. One-state proponents often compare the two cases. In both cases, dangerous conditions of racist apartheid developed. But, as I have written elsewhere, apartheid regimes, like all forms of governmental regimes, come in a variety of versions. Hence it’s not too strange that different models of apartheid–a regime based on principle of ‘separate and unequal’–developed in South Africa and Israel/Palestine.

Geopolitical analysis indicates a significant structural difference: South Africa was created as a single, recognized state that became a member of the United Nations, which at some stage denied citizenship to most of its black citizens. The blacks demanded a return of full citizenship in their state, which eventually was aided by the country’s move to democracy. In contrast, the juridical foundation of Israel/Palestine is two states, and Israeli citizenship was never granted, and hence never revoked from the Palestinians of of the West Bank and the Gaza.

A similarity to the South Africa case is found with respect to neighboring Namibia, a territory over which South Africa received an international mandate in 1920. When the mandate ended, South Africa refused to leave and imposed the apartheid laws on that territory. South Africa fought to put down an uprising that broke out in 1973 with international backing. In a situation that recalls the regime over Palestinian territories, the whites living in Namibia received full rights, and were even represented in South Africa’s parliament, while the blacks were denied their rights. Following the long period of rebellion and release of Nelson Mandela from prison, South Africa left Namibia, which became independent  in 1990.

Patterns of Serbian control over neighboring territories also show some important similarities. For several generations Serbia attempted to dominate surrounding states and regions. Territories held by Serbs outside the Serbian state included sections of Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Kosovo. Following the disappearance of Tito, Serbs enjoyed privileges over other ethno-national groups in these territories. During the 1990a Serbia gradually retreated from these territories, shrinking to its recognized borders, and ending the ‘separated and unequal’ conditions.

Political Geography of Morality

Proponents of one-state justifiably base their arguments on ethical considerations of historical justice and human rights–all highly worthy in the shaping of desirable political future. But at the same time, they tend to ignore countervailing ethical arguments. For example, the dissolution (some may say–disappearance) of a state like Israel (even a “soft” dissolution by uniting it with a neighbor in a way that does not entail occupation or violence) seriously violates the rules of international morality as they exist in the present global political-legal international system. Israel is not “just another” state, but a political entity created by and for refugees after an unprecedented genocide committed against the Jews. The one-state plan will gravely harm a supreme value of international law, and Israeli Jews. Under such circumstances, it is hard to imagine the one-state plan as an option for peace.

Furthermore, in most of the peace frameworks based on one state, such as the One-State Declaration, which most of the proponents have signed, there is no explicit recognition of the Jews’ right to self-determination (except in the writings of Assad Ghanem and Nadim Rouhana). The leading thinkers in this sphere, George Basharat, Ali Abunimah, Omar Barghouti, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Saree Makdasi and Virginia Tilley, for example, and the late Edward Sa’id, relate generally to the one future state as non-sectarian. The collective rights of Jews, for example, in the one-state declaration, arise only from a number of references to “the concerns and fears of the Jews” as a protected religious (or ethnic) minority, or as a protected community (perhaps in accordance with the dhimmi tradition in Islam). In the present reality, the one-state framework, regardless of the ethical rhetoric in which it is wrapped, significantly denies existing and legitimating  political rights. I am not referring to privileges that the Jews enjoy (which should be revoked), but to the basic right of self-determination, inside a recognized state. Have the one-state theorists considered if this denial is morally justified?

Another moral issue concerns the following question: is it ethical to demand that Israel, with the traumatic past of its citizens, to lose its state identity for the sake of merging with a state of a nation with which it is in a bitter conflict? A generous interpretation would consider it a naïve demand; showing a lack of historical awareness. A more sinister interpretation would consider it an attempt to undermine the foundation of Israeli existence. My comments should not be understood as approval for the immoral acts committed by Israel–expulsion, ethnic oppression, settlements, prevention of Palestinian self-determination, and so forth–against which I have fought for decades. But a distinction must be made between a critical analysis of Israel’s criminal policies and its existence itself, which should not be a subject for discussion between people interested in reconciliation and peace.

A personal piece of history would shed light on another problematic aspect of the one-state strategy.  In the 1960s and ‘70s, my father had extensive ties with Arabs in the Galilee. He had a particularly close relationship with the Shufani family in M’ilia, to which he went for weddings and other family occasions. The family had an elderly uncle who would talk at length about his pre-1948 travels to Beirut and Damascus, (and on the beautiful women there). I remember how he would sigh, again and again: “Lesh fi hadol el-hudood! Ragh’uni li’lbilad a-sham!” [“Why do these borders exist … take me back to ‘greater Syria’ (the area of Palestine-Syria-Lebanon, which was once a seamless political unit).” This longing for an open Middle East is of course shared by many individuals, including myself. For the private person, the non-political person, open and accessible space is far better than borders and restrictions. But this is a nostalgic hope, not to say illusory, detached from juridical and political settings of our times. Hoping to erase structural or legal elements that came into being since 1948 (such as modern states) is not a political program or serious analysis, but wishful thinking.

In this context, the Jewish researchers often quote the heritage of Brit Shalom, the impressive organization of intellectuals that was active in the country during the British Mandate and worked hard to prevent partition of Mandatory Palestine and for a binational state. Without delving into the fascinating writings of Magnes, Buber, and Schalom, I will mention that there is a big difference between a discussion on a Jewish-Arab state before the founding of an independent Israeli state, and the discussion on that option after the state was established. At present, the one-state solution must entail the negation of Israel’s existence as an independent state. This is a major obstacle.

Further–good ideas are not sufficient. To most prominent scholars who deal with the links between theoretical writing and political recruitment, such as Gramsci, Fanon, Lefebvre, Sartre, Russell, Gandhi, and even Edward Sa’id, the role of the intellectual is, first, to courageously expose publically unjust and oppressive reality. Second, the intellectual must also create a political avant-garde that can be translated into action in the political arena. The intellectual is active in the public arena in the discourse of producing ideas and tools for transformation, liberation, and ending oppression. But these are developed within the spheres of social or political systems. That is, they challenge the institutional powers and the resources through which skewed power relations are determined. Where only esoteric or theoretical thought is involved, Gramsci argues that the intellectual becomes marginal, mired in the swamp of hollow discussions, thereby serving the hegemony that continues to rule unchallenged in the political and economic reality.

This is, of course, an evasive line. It is very hard to assess, in real time, the ability of new ideas to break into the political field. I am convinced that most writers at the forefront of the one-state strategy believe that their efforts are politically influential. Still, since we are involved in a debate about the foundations of the existing geographic-political-legal systems, within which we all work, ideas that seek to make the existence of a legitimate state redundant appear too far from political or legal feasibility, and hence from the ability to jointly mobilize Israelis and Palestinians.

Attitude toward Present Struggles

By its nature, the one-state movement does not take part in contemporary struggles on both sides of the Green Line. Although most of its leading figures certainly oppose all types of oppression, they are in a dilemma since it is harder for them to battle against the expansion of Jewish West Bank settlements, for example, if on the horizon they share a geopolitical goal with these settlements–the prevention of the two-state solution.

Therefore, is there not a danger that the one-state movement would actually assist, with its relative indifference to contemporary Palestinian struggle for sovereignty, in strengthening the oppressive status quo? Wouldn’t the demand for a new political framework enable continuation of Palestinian suffering? Wouldn’t the intellectual journey toward one-state harm the struggle for a Palestinian state and equality for the Palestinian minority inside Israel? These are complex questions that proponents of one state must address.

Take the ‘vision documents’, charted by leading Palestinians inside Israel only a few years ago. These made an uncompromising demand for civil equality and collective rights for Palestinians within Israel, and caused much uproar for demanding (rightly) an end to Jewish hegemony. The documents mentioned the present state of Israel (without the occupied territories) as the political framework, and the basis for their struggle, and hence, as a legitimate entity. But, over the course of just a few years, some of the writers of the vision documents have changed their opinion and now support a one-state solution, meaning that they advocate the establishment of a new political domain and negate their own recent call. This change is surprising, and lessens the credibility of the vision documents.

Another problem is that most proponents of the one-state solution ignore the geographical congruence of the one-state solution with the messianic visions for the future of Israel/Palestine, especially Jewish settlers, and the Hamas. The growing volume of writings on a future democratic one-state solution focuses on human rights, and a benign transition to an all-inclusive democracy. They ignore, however, the very possible scenario that once a single political unit is established from Jordan to Sea, the democrats and liberals may be pushed aside in favor of fundamental religious powers from each nation, vying to fulfill their messianic visions. The leading writers in the field, such as Abunimah, Basharat, Ghanem, Tilley, Rouhana, Shenhav, and Benvenisti, ignore almost completely this dire possibility.

As we know, Hamas won the Palestinian elections and remains firm in its opposition to recognize Israel. Some of the talk is tactical, but some represents deep Palestinian and Islamic aspirations. How can one ignore this plan to turn Israel/Palestine–the framework sought by the one-state proponents–into a Shari’a state? Would it be possible to separate between Hamas’s vision and the vision of the liberal Palestinians for one state? Wouldn’t the possibility of one state increase support for Hamas’s vision among Palestinians? And let us not forget that in Israel too, strong political elements (led by the ruling Likud’s convention) seek to use the same territorial unit, between Jordan and Sea, to create a ‘greater’ Jewish state–ethnocratic or religious. From an ethical perspective, are the advocates of a democracy between Jordan and Sea ready for the possibility that religious or counter-colonial entities gain control over Palestinian politics, as they have done in many other countries in the Mideast, most notably Iran and Egypt?

I am convinced that the one-state proponents do not intend to cause further suffering in our land, or advance the agenda of messianic and anti-democratic political parties. Most, I assume, seek peace and justice. But a serious discussion must deal with the troubling truth that mobilization for one state induces serious researchers and writers to join the fray, thereby weakening the struggle to end Israeli colonialism and establish a Palestinian state. Simultaneously, the one-state mobilization promotes the geographic agenda of fundamental religious (Muslim and Jewish) movements. These factors significantly reduce the democratic appeal and political feasibility of the one-state vision.

Feasibility

Practically speaking, it is hard to imagine the one-state solution gaining serious momentum. It is of course a type of ‘default’ destination, hanging over Israel’s unending colonial rule, but not a convincing political agenda, for several reasons. First, as already noted, its proponents do not answer the key question: Why would the Jews forgo Israel as the state of the Jewish/Israeli nation? Since approval of Israeli citizens is vital for a democratic process that leads to one state, what sensible or utilitarian reason can be raised to convince Israeli Jews that one state will benefit them when it will almost certainly, sooner or later, have an Arab majority? I leave aside the weighty ethical question of the legitimacy of ethnic considerations in democratic politics. Rather, I ask a practical question, the answer to which is, I believe, clear. Public-opinion surveys taken among Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel indicate that, despite the dissatisfaction with the ethnocracy and oppression in Israel, a stable and large majority prefer the two-state solution. Is it not obvious, then, that most Israelis would prefer, if they had to choose between annexation of the settlements and the continued existence of the state, to shrink geographically rather than become “Isra-stine”?

Furthermore, as it stands now, there is not one official political body, Palestinian or Jewish, that has adopted, as a recruiting and crusade framework, the concept of one democratic state (some religious groups support one state, but not a democratic one). This is understandable, since the framework for discussion so far has been based on the idea of two states as the action plan of the left, and a meeting point for the political elites opposing Israeli control in the occupied territories. However, I may add that the lack of a meaningful movement towards two states, some twenty years after the Oslo Accords, raises serious doubts about the simplistic two-state option. The confederation option is offered below to address this weakness.

Still with practical considerations, what do the one-state proponents demand from the Israeli regime? Give up its control on its accord? Dissolve the Knesset and establish a substitute parliament? And if so, is the Knesset–the sovereign body–expected to dissolve itself? Is the Zionist Knesset supposed to repeal all the Basic Laws and amend the Zionist Declaration of Independence?

Or, alternatively, will the immediate demand be to grant citizenship to four to five million Palestinians and millions of refugees? Will this action be taken by the same Knesset that enacted the racist Citizenship Law? To remind you, even Abir al-Sana, wife of Murad al-Sana, my neighbor and friend from Beersheba, and mother of his children, who was born in Bethlehem, cannot obtain citizenship after ten years of marriage to an Israeli citizen. What will convince the ethnocratic Zionist sovereign to take such actions? Possibly, international pressure can assist, but, as I noted previously, it is highly likely that most Israelis would prefer retreat to losing Jewish sovereignty, and to admitting millions of Palestinians as citizens.

So, at this stage, it is very doubtful, to say the least, that Israel will take these actions. To be sure, Israel acts in a deceptive and cynical manner,-“colonizing”. It continues to colonize the West Bank, thereby preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, and simultaneously shedding crocodile tears over the purported threats to the “fragile and endangered” Jewish state. Here, too, it is clear to most thinking persons that this is self-deception, and that Israel’s colonial rule and “creeping apartheid” are not sustainable and must end. However, the battle against Israel’s wrongdoing, and in favor of Palestinian rights, must be based on the legitimate foundation of Israel as a state, confined to its recognized borders.

Confederation

Let us return in the remaining minutes to the concept of confederation. The need for such a horizon begins with the justifiable fear of one-state proponents that the Palestinian state will not be genuinely sovereign. It appears that if it ever comes to being, Israeli (and US) policies and demands will devoid it from controlling many aspects of its sovereignty–such as borders, security or water. The deep split between Fatah and Hamas and between the West Bank and Gaza contributes to Palestinian weakness and the grim prospects of establishing a Palestinian state, as an end state strategy.

The classical two-state path is also threatened by structural deficiencies in the citizenship of Palestinians in Israel. The value of this citizenship is being undermined by the prolonged oppression of Arabs in Israel, and of the natural inclination to support their brethren in the occupied territories. This persistent tension is a complex challenge to the internal strength of the Jewish state. The cracks have widened significantly in the Negev, where Israel attempts to remove many unrecognized Bedouin villages, which sit on their ancestors lands; thus deepening the polarization between Jews and Arabs inside the Green Line.

It appears as if these structural difficulties can be resolved, neither by one state, nor by two, but by development of a third space–conceptually and politically–that is located between these options. Such a space combines elements of the other two options, but does not violate the principle of Israeli and Palestinian sovereignty. The confederation option overcomes many of the geographic and security complexities and the complicated historical and community settings in the shared homeland.

Confederation enables progress by maintaining the logic and significant symbolism of two sovereign spaces for two national communities, while developing a “layer” of joint administration on key matters that may include: environment, external security, economy, transportation, immigration, and even a joint body to protect human rights. The confederation model creates a single economic market and freedom of movement for purposes of employment, tourism, trade and even limited residence. The model, in accordance with international law–can rely on the foundation of two states. On this basis, progress can be made to create a functioning system that will not only be economically beneficial for the two nations, it will also advance historical justice for Palestinians and Jews.

The confederation framework, with international support, will enable the two sides to move toward reconciliation. It will be easier for each side to proceed from Point A (the existing colonial ethnocracy) to Point B (reconciliation and inevitable compromise), when both sides see Point C (the confederation arrangement). In this arrangement, the two sides provide each other invaluable assets: Israel allows, at last, Palestinian sovereignty, movement in the entire homeland and economic development; and the Palestinians provide safety for the existence of the Israeli state. Hence, the sovereignty and security of each nation will be profoundly assisted by the existence of joint arrangements that will ensure for coming generations not only their political rights, but also development, water, infrastructures, natural resources, environmental quality and personal security. In other words, realization of full citizenship, security, and development for Israeli citizens entails also realization of those benefits for citizens of Palestine, and vice versa.

According to the framework developed in detail in several articles, the confederation model is based on two sovereign entities in the 1967 borders, in which the laws of Israel and Palestine would apply accordingly. This is accompanied by the establishment of an autonomous and shared capital region in metropolitan Jerusalem/al-Quds (the Capital Region). The Israeli-Palestinian Confederation Council (probably under a different name such as Council of “The Union” or “The Treaty”), elected by citizens of the two states, will be created and empowered to set policies on agreed subjects. Inhabitants of the two states will be guaranteed freedom of movement throughout, for purposes of employment, leisure, trade, and tourism, but without automatic right for long-term residency which will have to be approved by the host state.

Another possibility, raised now and then, is to bring Jordan into the arrangement and develop the Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian space of joint management of economic, security, and environmental matters. Given the complexity and sensitivity of the proposed setup, and past failures to advance confederations with Jordan, I recommend that in the first stage at least, Jordan will be left out of the equation.

The confederation model is flexible enough to assist the resolution of ‘core issues’ in the Zionist-Palestinian conflict. As for the Palestinian Right of Return, Israel already recognized the right when it was accepted into the UN in 1949. However, there is no need, I believe, to demand its current implementation, since it would rectify one injustice by creating another, and would completely change the character of Israel and consequently harm the right of Israelis to self-determination. So I propose that the right of return will be exercised, in the spirit of the solutions reached in most comparable cases, primarily to the nation-state to which the refugees belong–Palestine.

The refugee issue may even offer an opportunity for promoting historic reconciliation: in the name of a new symmetry, Israel will allow residency to Palestinians returnees in a number equivalent to the amount of Jewish settlers remaining in Palestine. Israel’s absorption of these refugees will be based on criteria the Palestinians set, which may include, for example, giving priority to refugees from Lebanon, who suffer from harsh living conditions, and to persons born in Palestine prior to 1948.

Regarding Jewish settlements, the confederation model allows most of the settlements to remain, provided they do not challenge Palestinian sovereignty. The objective is to prevent a deep crisis in Israel and mass uprooting, which would undoubtedly have a negative effect on Palestine as well. In researching the recent report by B’Tselem, which I mentioned earlier, we found that the built-up area of the settlements covers one percent of the land area of the West Bank, and the settlements’ built-up surrounding areas, which include necessary infrastructures, cover an additional two and a half percent. In principle, it is possible to include these settlements in the Palestinian state, after they are demilitarized, and the confiscated land is paid for, with the Palestinian state being responsible for their security. The public infrastructure (roads, industrial areas, purification facilities, and so forth) that was built for the settlements will be transferred to the Palestinian state and made available for the use of its inhabitants.

Presumably, as a result of the establishment of Palestinian sovereignty over the settlements, a large proportion of their settlers will leave the West Bank, and Israel will have to make plans for absorbing them. Upon Palestinian consent to allow settlers to remain in their homes, a significant number of them will stay and become residents or citizens of the Palestinian state, reducing the shock to Israeli society and sending an important message, that a new page in Israeli-Palestinian relations has been turned. The ability of a Palestinian state to protect a small Jewish minority will also be a positive step towards genuine reconciliation.

Simultaneously, the confederation plan must promote democratization of Israeli and Palestinian regimes. Israel should be redefined as belonging to the Jewish-Israeli nation as well as the Palestinian minority. Democratization of the space must also ensure full and equal citizenship for the minority population, including a fair share of the state’s resources and budgets, return of confiscated land, recognition of all the Bedouin villages, representation in public institutions, and cultural and educational autonomy. The status of the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel is crucial to stability of the system, not only because the minority is entitled to these rights, but because internal ethnic conflicts can easily undermine political systems, as has occurred around the world – from Turkey to Thailand, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Cyprus, Spain, Georgia, Iraq, and to India and Sudan.

Returning to a point already mentioned, it is worth repeating that the plan I propose resurrects the political framework of UN Resolution 181, of 1947, which was called at the time “partition with economic union” and established Jerusalem as an autonomous region. True, at the time, the resolution appeared hostile to the Palestinian people and imposed on them harshly. However, in an historic reversal, the confederation scheme allows Palestinians, more than six decades later, to regain most of their political rights, while advancing toward cautious and responsible reintegration of the Israeli and Palestinian spaces. This historical reversal symbolically began on 29 November 2012, precisely 65 years after the original UN decision, when the UN Assembly decided to award Palestine the status of “a non-member state”.

To repeat, Resolution 181 is one of the only resolutions regarding Israel/Palestine that was endorsed by both sides–by the Zionists in 1947, and by the Palestinians in 1988. It is worthwhile quoting from the declarations of independence of the two peoples, which relate to the UN resolution in question. The Israeli Declaration of Independence, of 1948, declares:

. . . by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.

The Palestinian Declaration of Independence answers it, forty-one years later:

… historical injustice was inflicted on the Palestinian Arab people … following upon UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947).. . . yet it is this Resolution that still provides those conditions of international legitimacy that ensure the right of the Palestinian Arab people to sovereignty. . .

In addition to UN resolutions, the confederation solution will jumpstart what I referred to in my writings as a process of “gradual bi-nationalism,” the vital element for moving our land into a post-colonial and democratic stage on both sides of the Green Line. The two sovereign states, the autonomous Jerusalem region, as well as other urban regions, such as Haifa, Nazareth and Beersheba, would be binational and multicultural.

I do not have time here to discuss the many inevitable problems in implementing the confederation governmental structure. These begin, first and foremost, with security arrangements, and the management of state violence and terror, which requires a lecture of its own. Other key problems will involve the absorption of Palestinians in the Israeli labor markets and the relaxation of civil relations between remaining Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West bank. The management of Jerusalem, based on equality will also be a major challenge. The many inevitable difficulties can be countered by three key points. First, the confederation framework is flexible and the depth of cooperation is likely to gradually strengthen over time, as security and relations between the sides improve. The confederation model is typically characterized by decentralization, enabling the existence of autonomous regions and diverse and multicultural forms of government, which is suitable for Israeli and Palestinian societies, composed of many different cultural and regional communities. One promising possibility, raised by attorney Hassan Jabarin, is drafting and adopting a democratic overarching-constitution between Jordan and Sea as a foundation for administering Israel and Palestine. Such a constitution will ensure the right to self-determination of the two peoples and also the rights of the individual citizen and of the minority communities, on both sides of the border. The political structure, if based on viable foundations, will lead to the gradual integration of the Israeli-Palestinian space, possibly leading, later down the road, to the making of a federation.

Second, the proposed model allows for a gradual decentralization of many aspects of governance into metropolitan spaces, which would reflect the high degree of urbanization in Israel/Palestine. The urban scale is promising, as it neutralizes the “burden” of historical, religious and territorial issues, so dominant in other scales. We can picture, for example, such functioning metropolitan regions around Nazareth-Karmiel, Haifa, Nablus, Ramallah, Gush Dan, and Beersheba, along with the autonomous metropolitan region of Jerusalem/al-Quds. Urban spaces are generally open and encourage movement and mixing; they can introduce more direct, inclusive and democratic forms of government less dependent on fixed identities; they can reorient public discourse to present future issues, rather than burdening history and identity.

Third, confederation opens the possibility for novel and original thinking that may rekindle the hope for peace which has been all but extinguished over the past decade. The framework proposed here provides a better (albeit imperfect) answer to the deep problems of the conflict than the other proposed solutions, in a way that does not impinge on Israeli or Palestinian sovereignty, which still forms the basis for global political-geographic order. Most importantly, the proposed arrangement entails acceptance of Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian sovereign entities, not only in our homeland but throughout the Mideast–two objectives for their attainment no stone should remain unturned.

Yes, the confederation path sounds utopian, for the time being. Yet, it enables us to imagine and plan a third space, post-colonial and democratic, between the polarized and unachievable one- and two-state solutions. It also allows the mobilization of wide public support among both Israelis and Palestinians, unattainable by all other political agendas. Under confederation, Israel and Palestine will be able to advance toward real reconciliation, for which generations of Palestinians and Israelis have been yearning in their shared homeland. The path to realizing this horizon may be best captured by the gentle words of the poet Yehuda Amichai, “the two of us together, and each one of us alone.”

Postscript:

Since the lecture, conditions for peace in Israel/Palestine continue to be confusing. On the one hand, the Israeli government has sustained its unabated colonization of the West Bank, and deepened its attempts to control Israel’s Palestinian citizens, most notably the Bedouins in the south. On the other hand, Prime Minister Netanyahu reaffirmed his (vague) commitment to a ‘two states for two nations’ solution, and agreed to resume peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, still headed by Mahmoud Abbas.  On the Palestinian side Hamas maintains its rejectionist position to recognition of Israel, while opinion polls show growing Palestinian support for the one-state solution. Israel’s elections, held in early 2013, did not bring a major change on the Palestinian issue, returning Netanyahu to power, with a slightly modified coalition. The new government appears to promote both further liberalization of economy and society and continued colonization of Palestinian territories. The stalemate has thus not broken, causing a growing sense of despondence among both nations. It appears as if the confederation idea outlined above is one of the only viable options to break the deadlock. During the last year, a group of Palestinians and Israelis, including the author of this paper, was formed to promote the idea. The group plans to produce a series of documents and public debates, in an effort to inject new life into the effort to transform the colonial setting in Israel/Palestine into a process of reconciliation and peace.

Professor Yiftachel teaches urban studies and political geography at Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba. He has published over 100 articles and ten authored and co-edited books, including Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Palestine/Israel (2006), Planning as Control: Policy and Resistance in Divided Societies (1995), and Indigenous (in)Justice (co-author, 2012). Yiftachel serves on the editorial boards of such journals as Urban Studies and theInternational Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. He has taught at a range of universities, including the University of Melbourne, Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Cape Town. He is also chair of B’Tselem, an Israeli NGO that monitors human rights violations in the Palestinian Territories.

Further readings:

Abunimah, A. 2006. One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. New York: Metropolitan Books.

Abu-Odeh, L. 2008. “The Case for Binationalism.” Boston Review. Retrieved at http://bostonreview.net/BR26.6/abu-odeh.html

Adalah 2007. The Democratic Constitution see: http://electronicintifada.net/content/adalah-proposes-draft-democratic-constitution-multicultural-state-israel/6782 (Arabic).

Aloni, U. 24 February 2010. “Judith Butler: As a Jew, I was taught it was ethically imperative to speak up.” Haaretz. Retrieved at http://www.haaretz.com/news/judith-butler-as-a-jew-i-was-taught-it-was-ethically-imperative-to-speak-up-1.266243

Avneri, U. and I. Pappe 8 May 2007. “Gush Shalom Forum – Two States or One State.” Retrieved athttp://toibillboard.info/transcript_he.htm (Hebrew).

Azoulai, R. and A. Ofir 2008. This Regime that is Not One: Democracy and Occupation between Jordan and Sea. Tel Aviv: Resling (Hebrew).

Benvenisti, M. 23 January 2010. “How Israel became a binational state.” Haaretz Magazine. Retrieved athttp://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/1.1187762

Ghanem, A. 11 June 2007. “One state is enough.” Haaretz Magazine. Retrieved athttp://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/1.1417054

Ghanem, A. 2003. “The Status of the Palestinians in Israel in the Era of Peace: Part of the Problem but not Part of the Solution.” Israel Affairs 9(1-2): 263-289.

Grinberg, L.  2010, The Israeli-Palestinian Union: The “1-2-7 States” Vision of the Future  http://www.palestine-studies.org/journals.aspx?id=10629&jid=1&href=fulltext

Grinberg, L. 2008. “Democratic Occupation Army?”, Sociologia Yisraelit 7:1: 297-323 (Hebrew).

Hanafi, S. 2003. “The broken boundaries of statehood and citizenship.” Broken Boundaries 2(3). Retrieved athttp://www.borderlands.net.au/vol2no3_2003/hanafi_boundaries.htm

Hilal, J. 2007. Where Now for Palestine?: The Demise of the Two-State Solution. London: Zed Books.

Judt, T. 23 October 2003. “Israel: The Alternative.” The New York Reviews of Books. Retrieved athttp://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2003/oct/23/israel-the-alternative/?pagination=false

Khalidi, R. and A. Abunimah 2009. “One or Two?” Democracy Now. Retrieved athttp://www.democracynow.org/2006/11/28/one_state_or_two_rashid_khalidi

Lustick, I. 2002. “The Cunning of History, A Response to the Case for Binationalism.” Boston Review. Retrieved athttp://bostonreview.net/BR26.6/lustick.html

Makdisi, S.  2010. Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. New York: W.W. Norton.

O’Leary, B., J. McGarry, and S. Khaled (Eds.) 2005. The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Peled, Y. and H.H. Peled 29 January 2012. “The way forward in the Middle East.” Informed Comment. Retrieved at http://www.juancole.com/2012/01/the-way-forward-in-the-middle-east-peled-peled.html

Piterberg, G. 24 October 2011. “Annex the territories already.” Haaretz Magazine. Retrieved athttp://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/1.1529627(Hebrew).

Plosker, S. 22 February 2012. “Finkelstein on BDS: A Cult of Dishonesty.” HonestReporting. Retrieved athttp://honestreporting.com/finkelstein-on-bds-a-cult-of-dishonesty/

Qumsiyeh, M.B. 2004. Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle. London: Pluto Press.

Shenhav, Y. 2010. In the Trap of the Green Line: A  Jewish Political Essay. Tel Aviv: Am Oved (Hebrew)..

Tamari, S. 1 April 2004. The Two-State Solution – Argument and Political Consequences. Jerusalem: Passia.

Tamari, S. 2012. “Is there a Palestinian Strategy?” Jaddaliya. Retrieved at http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/3962/is-there-a-palestinian-strategy-

Tamimi, A. 2007. Hamas: the Unwritten Chapters. London: Hurst.

The One-State Declaration 2007. Retrieved at http://onestate.net/pages/declaration.htm

Weiss, P. 4 April 2009. “Chomsky: I’ve been for one state all my life, but we need two states first.” Mondoweiss. Retrieved at http://mondoweiss.net/2009/04/chomsky-ive-been-for-onestate-all-my-life-but-we-need-two-states-first.html

Yiftachel, O. 2005. “Neither Two States Nor One: The Disengagement.” The Arab World Geographer 8(3):125-130.

Yiftachel, O. (2006) Ethnocracy: Land, and the Politics of Identity Israel/Palestine (PennPress – the University of Pennsylvania Press

Yiftachel, O. (2012). ‘Between Colonialism and Ethnocracy: ‘Creeping Apartheid in Israel/Palestine’, in Jeenah, N. (ed),Pretending Democracy: Israel, an Ethnocratic State, African Middle East Centre, Johannesburg, pp. 95-116.

© MEI Singapore 2013.