[lbo-talk] A One-State Solution

[Michael Hirsch]

One state makes more sense than two, as Wojtek says. One world government
that is democratic and secular makes more sense than (what is it now) nearly
200 states and counting, and if Granny had wheels, she'd make a
great crosstown bus. But politics isn't a smorgasbord; it's a limited menu;
make a choice. I don't believe that Yoshie's nightmare scenario--a unitary
Israeli garrison state and a permanently displaced, landless Palestinian
population, which is certainly the current reality-- is possible much
longer. The Palestinians have proven they will not abide it and the Israeli
left is in a position to form a government that can strike a deal. The
two-state solution is only preferable in the sense Chomsky means it, which
is the way I mean it. It is the deal that can be struck that brings an
element of justice with it. Yoshie is wrong, I think, to continue advocating
for a unitary state because it cannot happen. Efforts to make it so only
play against efforts to establish two homelands.

Let's be clear. I have no sympathy either for the Zionists who want to
establish a Greater Israel (or a lesser Judea) or those Islamists who want a
return to the Caliphate of the 7th century. Even the language of "homelands"
grates on me.  Yet both these dominant obscurantist faiths--Zionism and
political Islam--are expressions of the failures of socialist
internationalism and working-class hopes, and we live with the dreary
consequences. The consequences don't get any less grim by pretending, as
Yoshie does, that a binational secular state is feasible in the short run.
Calling for one is a fashion statement--and not au courant, either.

On 12/6/05, Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
>
> > Bryan:
> > > Actually, on Saturday, during the Alternative Information Center
> > > (AIC)seminar in Bethlehem this last weekend, Shir Hever, our
> > resident
> > > (and in my opinion brilliant) economist made what I thought was an
> > > excellent lecture that dealt with the issue which Yoshie brings
> > up here.
> >
> > Not that it matters, but I do not think Yoshie is an advocate of
> > the "one state" solution.  As far as I can tell, she favors an
> > independent Palestinian state, which is exactly the opposite that
> > Hever is arguing here. AFAIK, the supporters of the one state
> > solution based on economic reasons on this list are Joanna and myself.
> >
> > Wojtek
>
> As a goal, one state in which Jews and Palestinians live in equality
> is ideal (and I've said that many times here prior to the current
> thread on the subject), especially since there are objective economic
> reasons why one state will make more sense than two arbitrary states,
> as Shir Hever explains; and people can and ought to advocate for it.
> I'm saying, in addition, that, in the near future, what we'll have is
> neither one state of equality nor two states (one Jewish, the other
> Palestinian); in the near future, there will be only one state in
> historic Palestine, it being Israel, and Palestinians in Gaza, the
> West Bank, and refugee camps abroad remaining essentially stateless.
> How long will that statelessness continue?
>
> Yoshie Furuhashi
> <http://montages.blogspot.com>
> <http://monthlyreview.org>
> <http://mrzine.org>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

--
________________________________________
`And these words shall then become
Like oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again -- again -- again--
`Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number--
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you--
Ye are many -- they are few.'
--------Shelley, "The Mask of Anarchy:
Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester" [1819]
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