[lbo-talk] Re: The Chomsky vs. Dershowitz debate: both sides wereawful!

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Mon Dec 5 06:36:19 PST 2005


Joanna:
> I support a unitary secular state. I think this becomes much more
> realistic when the economic and military support for Israel by the U.S.
> comes to an end. I think the uprooted and oppressed Palestinians deserve
> full citizenship in a Palestine that includes both former Israelis and
> Palestinians. They also deserve reparations on the scale that the Jews
> received following WWII. Those reparations to be paid by the U.S. and
> Israel. That's what I support.
>
> The reality of a Middle Eastern peace will not happen so long as the
> Zionist, blood-based state of Israel continues. (Oh, and in case we need
> to establish credentials, I am the daughter of a Jew who was in a labor
> camp, lost his entire (and considerable) family fortune to the nazis,
> and I have relatives who live in Israel.)

I too think it is a sensible position once we stop giving ethnic identities undue weight. The conflict is fueled not by "ancient ethnic" hatred but by gross economic inequality and the lack of economic opportunities for most Palestinians. A multi-state approach will do nothing to reverse it, au contraire, it will create a Palestinian Bantu-stan with limited economic opportunity and thus ripe for demagogues exploiting that situation to escalate hatred and violence.

The argument that a single state solution is impossible given the current psycho-ethnic reality is like saying that socialism is impossible given greedy human nature. It misses the main argument historically advanced by the left that being determines consciousness, not the other way around. If structural conditions facilitating greed or hatred disappear, so will greed and hatred (to a large extent, of course).

A single state solution will likely alleviate structural conditions that produce the current ethnic tensions and eventually the tension will subside. It will not happen overnight, to be sure, but at least there is a chance that the future generation will leave in peace. The status quo or the Bantu-stan solution does not guarantee that, it virtually ascertains that the business as usual will go on for the foreseeable future.

Wojtek



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