> The main shift I think has occurred in both Palestinian civil society and
> > the solidarity movement supporting it is away from "statehood" as a focus
> > and towards the prioritization of "rights."
>
> Interesting. And positive, I think. Implicitly, it leads
> more toward a one-state solution than a two-state one --
> which appeals to me, for one. But doesn't it also
> strengthen the South Africa parallel -- mutatis
> mutandis, of course -- and also the BDS strategy?
>
Yes, to varying degrees, in each case. I certainly see one state as the political solution most likely to result from the exercise of Palestinian rights, and I think most solidarity activists who've done any sort of number-crunching do as well. But that's not really our goal in the same way the rights themselves are. If someone advocates two states along with Palestinian rights, as several Palestinian parties do, why quibble? But if they advocate two states as some kind of defense against Palestinian rights, then we'll have a fight on our hands.
With regard to South Africa comparisons, yes, they're much more common than they used to be, among Palestinians and others. If nothing else, they're far more accurate than attempts to treat Palestine, or even the '67 territories alone, as a straightforward "occupation," in which one country invades and occupies another, before eventually getting the $%&@ out. (In Palestine, they would get out of what, and to where, one wonders?) Darryl Li wrote one of the single best articles I've read this year, in which he argued that that framework was neither analytically nor politically useful regarding the situation here:
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/2295/occupation-law-and-the-one-state-reality
That said, I continue to think that a focus on South Africa analogies, which many Palestinians and solidarity activists share, distracts from the more potent use of actual laws defining and criminalizing apartheid unambiguously.
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."