For years the Palestinians and Israelis have been caught in a struggle over their “homeland.” Both peoples consider it their ancient homeland. More and more the two-state solution shows no sign of ever being a reality. The one-state solution is gaining more and more influential support.

 

Parallels from US history

 

 In 1848 the Guadeloupe Hidalgo treaty ended the Mexican War, with almost half of the northern territory of Mexico annexed to the United States. Among the provisions was US citizenship to all the inhabitants of the territory, unless they specifically rejected it. The subsequent flood of non-Hispanic settlers resulted in subtle and not so subtle measures to nullify the influence of the new citizens on the governance of the territories and states. It took more than 150 years for the full effect of the “Hispanic vote” to begin to make itself felt.

Following on the Civil War a great popular movement to consolidate the victory over slavery brought radical Republicans to Congress. Between 1866 and 1870 the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the US Constitution ended slavery in the United States, defined citizenship and gave Congress authority to enforce voting rights. But readmission of the Confederate states and withdrawal of the Army allowed the white supremacists to organize a reign of terror that had as its aim suppression of the freed slaves’ rights by Jim Crow laws and lynching

It took Congress almost 100 years to act on the power granted by the Fifteenth Amendment, with the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965.

These changes in minority status and rights did not come about automatically. Defense organizations, notably the NAACP, applied constant pressure through the courts to enforce these constitutional rights. The civil and voting rights defined in the constitution and undergirded by a series of judicial decisions were finally brought into the mainstream of American civil society by the Freedom Riders, the sit-down demonstrations, and other peaceful civil disobedience acts, conducted under the glare of national and international television journalism, awakening the civic conscience.

 

"Forewarned, forearmed, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance." –

Frederick Douglass, "The Nation's Problem," 1890

Another great advance in human rights was achieved by the struggles of the vast disenfranchised population of South Africa against apartheid. Again the key was a massive civil disobedience campaign aided by world opinion, under the public eye of world TV and press, supporting the worldwide boycott movement of people of conscience.

 

Jewish and Democratic?

 

Define the territory of Israel.

 

United Nations General Assembly resolution 181(Nov. 29, 1947) on the partition of Palestine was never given final UN force. It proposed to give less than half the land of Palestine to the original Arab inhabitants who still constituted the majority of the residents. Concretely, the plan of partition proposed

• A Jewish State covering 56 % of the British Mandate of Palestine (excluding Jerusalem) with a population of 498,000 Jews and 325,000 Arabs;
• An Arab State covering 43% of Palestine, with 807,000 Arab inhabitants and 10,000 Jewish inhabitants;
• An international trusteeship regime in Jerusalem, where the population was 100,000 Jews and 105,000 Arabs.

Because of Palestinian objections, it was referred to the Security Council. The British government and the Jewish Agency for Palestine, under the leadership of David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, accepted and designated representatives to assist the commission set up by the Security Council. As regards the Arab Higher Committee, representing all the Arab nations in the area, the following telegraphic response was received by the Secretary-General on 19 January:

ARAB HIGHER COMMITTEE IS DETERMINED PRESIST [PERSIST] IN REJECTION PARTITION AND IN REFUSAL RECOGNIZE UN[O] RESOLUTION THIS RESPECT AND ANYTHING DERIVING THEREFROM [THERE FROM]. FOR THESE REASONS IT IS UNABLE [TO] ACCEPT [THE] INVITATION.”

 

Meanwhile the British occupation was under severe attack by Jewish militia, (Irgun, Stern Gang  and others). On July 2, 1946: the King David Hotel in Jerusalem was bombed, killing 91 people, mainly British soldiers. This was the work of Irgun, under the leadership of Menachem Begun, another future Prime Minister of Israel.

 

Israel, May 14, 1948

 

The British had finally enough of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict and the campaign of terror by the Zionist militia. They decided to withdraw from the British mandate of Palestine, created by the League of Nations after WWI. On May 14, 1948 while the Security Council was in the midst of debating GA 181, the British lowered the flag and left. The Zionists immediately declared the state of Israel and raised their flag in its place, without a constitution, without explicitly defined borders —  and without official UN approval.

 

The subsequent history has been largely obscured by Zionist obfuscation. Large numbers of Palestinians fled before savage reprisals – or fear of them – and the poorly led armies of several surrounding Arab states were repelled by the well-trained and well-armed Israelis. (Temporarily on the side of Israel, Stalin allowed Czechoslovakia to send large amounts of high-grade arms from the Skoda works, which had served as a German arsenal in WWII.) By the time hostilities ceased, Israel occupied far more territory than had been allocated by GA 181.

 

The cease-fire line became a de facto border between Israel and neighboring Arab states. This was the jumping off point for Israel on June 5, 1967, that ended after only six days, with Israel in full occupation of all the land claimed by the Zionists: all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

 

Israel had finally achieved Zionist rule over all the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, Eretz Yisrael, including Gaza and East Jerusalem.

 

Only East Jerusalem was officially annexed to Israel. Far from extending citizenship to the Palestinian inhabitants of East Jerusalem, Israel adopted restrictive residency rules designed to gradually drive them out. For example, if a resident, even a life-long resident born in East Jerusalem, should leave for seven years, right of return would be revoked. From the start the goal has been the Judaization of East Jerusalem. Today, as from the very beginning of the state of Israel, dwellings are confiscated on flimsy pretexts and turned over to Jewish settlers. As for the West Bank, “Judea and Samaria” in Israeli doublespeak, the inhabitants are simply shoved aside as sites are claimed for the construction of “settlements.”

 

 

The Security Council, in Resolution 242, called for Israel to withdraw from (the) territories it had occupied in those six days. I have enclosed the definite article, “the,” in parentheses. It appears in the French version; unfortunately it was omitted from the equally official English version, allowing Israel to claim that it was only required to withdraw from some of the occupied territories. It should be emphasized that SC 242 was adopted unanimously. Far from vetoing it, or even abstaining, the US voted for it. (Lyndon Johnson was in office at the time).

 

It seems that the world is not ready to accept absorption of the remaining Palestinian land into Israel. The (possibly modified “by mutual agreement”) Green Line is becoming the eastern de facto border of Israel.

 

A sticky point in the negotiations is the statute of East Jerusalem. If Israel refuses to disgorge its conquest, it should be forced to grant full citizenship rights to the Palestinians there. The alternative is to return East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.

It should be noted that treating non-Jewish inhabitants of East Jerusalem as illegal residents is in direct violation of Israel’s own Nationality Law of 1952, which anticipated future annexations. §3(a)(3) specifically extends Israeli citizenship to persons if

 

(3) [they were] in Israel, or in an area which became Israel territory after the establishment of the State, from the day of the establishment of the State to the day of the coming into force of this Law, or entered Israel legally during that period.

 

Conversely, the colonists residing on Palestinian territory would have to give up their effectively extraterritorial status, where they remain subject to Israeli law, even though residing beyond the Green Line, to the extent that their particular colony is not part of the “agreed exchanges.”

Because of the universal condemnation of the annexation under international law, including by the United States, it would have been paradoxical to press for the extension of Israeli citizenship to the inhabitants of East Jerusalem, still more so for the people of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel covets the land, not its inhabitants (Israel’s Occupation, Neve Gordon, University of California Press, 2008).

 

Israel was created in the same kind of dispossession of the native inhabitants of the land as the United States. Just as the US took land from the Native Americans, the Israelis took land from the native Palestinians, except that Palestine was much more densely settled before the Jews “returned” than the forests and plains of North America before the great immigration of the European settlers. The stated aim of the Zionists was to incorporate all the land from the Jordan to the Mediterranean into Israel. Read the platform of Likud, the governing party, emblazoned on the Knesset website.

            The Jordan River as a Permanent Border

The Jordan Valley and the territories that dominate it shall be under Israeli sovereignty. The Jordan River will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel.                  

[http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections/knesset15/elikud_m.htm]

 

This, of course, is a simple statement of the goal of the Zionist movement, since its founding, in the 1890s, with the aim of reclaiming Palestine as the Jewish National Homeland. It was given formal status at the founding congress in 1897, in Basel, Switzerland, when Theodor Herzl was elected president.

Already in 1937 the founding ideologue of Israel, Ben Gurion, defined “peace” simply as a tactic to achieve this goal.

"We do not seek an agreement with the [Palestinian] Arabs in order to secure the peace. Of course we regard peace as an essential thing. It is impossible to build up the country in a state of permanent warfare. But peace for us is a mean, and not an end. The end is the fulfillment of Zionism in its maximum scope. Only for this reason do we need peace, and do we need an agreement." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 168)

When the British Royal Commission under Lord Peel proposed partition in 1937 many Zionist leaders expressed opposition. This didn’t fit with their ultimate goal. But Ben Gurion was ready to accept less than the ultimate goal, pointing out that any Jewish state would be able to build its military might and conquer what remained to acquire.

While addressing the Zionist executive, he again emphasized the tactical nature of his support for partition and his assumption that:

"after the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the [Jewish] state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of the Palestine" (Simha Flapan, p. 22)

Ben Gurion saw “population transfer” as an integral part of this perspective. This was the Zionist euphemism for what later became known as ethnic cleansing. Ben-Gurion explained how the Palestinian Arab citizens of the Jewish state might be treated: As he explained, the advantage of the [Palestinian] Arabs having Arab citizenship was that in the event of hostilities, their legal status would be that of resident aliens, and they therefore "could be expelled" from the Jewish state for potential disloyalty. With Israeli citizenship, on the other hand, "it would only be possible to imprison them, and it would be better to expel them than to imprison them." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 176)

On June 16, 1948, there were calls by members of the MAPAM party for the return of Jaffa's "peace minded" Palestinian refugees, and in response, Ben-Gurion stated during a Cabinet meeting:

"I do not accept the version [i.e. policy] that [we] should encourage their return. . . I believe we should prevent their return . . . We must settle Jaffa, Jaffa will become a Jewish city. . . . The return of [Palestinian] Arabs to Jaffa [would be] not just foolish." If the [Palestinian] Arabs were allowed to return, to Jaffa and elsewhere, "and the war is renewed, our chances of ending the war as we wish to end it will be reduced. . . . Meanwhile, we must prevent at all costs their return," he said, and, leaving no doubt in the ministers' minds about his views on the ultimate fate of the [Palestinian] refugees, he added: "I will be for them not returning after the war." (Benny Morris, p. 141 & 1949, The First Israelis

 

The Zionists did not succeed in ridding the new state of Israel of all their Arabs. Today some 20% of Israelis are Palestinians. Israel calls itself “Jewish and democratic.” The law of citizenship does not distinguish among citizens of diverse religions and ethnicities. All are equal before the law. The only difference is that Jews from anywhere in the world – provided that they satisfy certain rather stringent criteria imposed by the Orthodox rabbinate – can claim Israeli citizenship upon landing on the soil of Eretz Israel; others have to establish that they or their parents were present continuously since the very day that the state was founded. There is no right of return for non-Jews. Once they’ve gone the door is slammed shut.

 

But at least, aren’t all those to whom citizenship is acknowledged equal before the law? “One citizen, one vote?” Well, yes … and no.

 

There is the infamous Population Registry, with its categories of Religion and Nationality. If you are registered in Israel as a Jew you have certain rights and privileges that non-Jews may not enjoy. This relates in particular to laws regulating marriage and other family matters. It also determines where you can live and how freely you can move around in the land between the River and the Sea. If you are registered as a Jew by religion, you are automatically a Jew by nationality—but not the reverse. A Jew by nationality, i.e., by birth, can register as an atheist or even a Christian.

 

“Who Is a Jew?” is more aptly the question of “Who is to Determine Who is a Jew?”

Oscar Kraines, “The Impossible Dilemma: Who is a Jew in the State of Israel.”

Bloch Publishing Co., New York

Whither the Occupation?

 

In 1967 Israel drove out the armies of the surrounding Arab states from the coveted lands of Eretz Israel, at that time still not incorporated into the state of Israel. East Jerusalem was annexed; the remaining lands were placed under military rule. Security Council condemnation of this land grabbing was universal. Withdrawal was demanded, with the US agreeing. In the French text, withdrawal was demanded from the occupied territories but by virtue of Israeli lobbying the article was omitted from the equally official English text. Withdrawal was demanded from unspecified illegally occupied territories.

 

The US and other countries, as well as international bodies, have called now for over four decades to reverse these conquests. Israel’s successive governments have steadfastly ignored these demands, preferring from time to time to engage in inconclusive negotiations. Central to the international demands was cessation of further encroachments on the occupied land by the construction of “settlements.” One frank statement by a Prime Minister reveals the essence of Israel’s program.

 

On leaving office in 1992 Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, declared, “I could have negotiated for 10 years and in that time we would have achieved [another] half million settlers.”

 

The Palestinian goal, supported by most of the international community, is to achieve independence, to end the occupation. Their application for UN membership is now before the Security Council.

But the putative land for the future state is chopped up into noncontiguous patches by the settlements and by the infrastructure of limited access roads enabling high speed communication between cities in Israel and the settlements, roads from which the Palestinians are excluded.

Meanwhile the international community is pressing for two-party negotiations to draw up a peace treaty between the (future) Palestinian state and Israel. The suggestion is that the negotiations start with the definition of the boundary between the two-states, based on the 1967 armistice (cease-fire) line with “agreed” exchanges of territory. This could enable Israel to incorporate the settlements, while conveniently “transferring” a substantial number of Israeli Palestinians to the new state—without consulting them. Press reports indicate that even though they suffer from discrimination and inferior status in Israel, they reject suggestions to get rid of them from Israel.

 

For some time now influential voices have been raised against the discriminatory practices against Palestinian Israelis. Until recently these have been prophets preaching to the wind. It appeared that dominant Israeli public opinion was ignoring the sermons. But in recent months the massive public demonstrations, on the model of the Arab Spring or – more to the point, the American “Occupy Wall Street” movement – have included significant contingents agitating for Palestinian-Israeli rights.

 

And further, from a few skeptics of the two-state solution, more and more we are seeing calls for a single bi-national state as the way to demolish Zionist imposed apartheid. (Ali Abunimah, One Country, Metropolitan Books, New York, 2006). Their goal is the creation of a single secular state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, with full equality for all its citizens.

 

 

Can Apartheid Be Ended?

 

The short answer is: Yes.

 

Israel has no constitution.

 

At the founding the first Knesset was actually elected as a constituent assembly. But the need for a constitution was rejected on the grounds that Torah gave all the law needed. Israel is almost alone among states claiming to be democratic  that is without a fundamental law. But Israel’s 65 years history shows amply that Israel needs a constitution.

 

A constitution is necessary, not only to protect equal rights for the Palestinian Israelis, but to head off the Haredi assault on secularism in Israel. The US mainstream press, lukewarm to reporting assaults on the Palestinians, has been assiduously reporting assaults on women, even 8-year old female school children. Perhaps the attack on women’s rights does not (yet) go as far as the Taliban’s, but “back of the bus” and “get off my sidewalk” recall our own Jim Crow South. A recent event, where Orthodox IDF (Israeli Defense Force) members walked out of an official military exercise where women sang, has aroused outrage in Israel and bemused condemnation abroad.

 

Abolish the Population Register.

 

Israeli apartheid is strongly supported by the infamous Population Register which supports the de facto two-tier citizenship, by recording both nationality (Jewish, Arab, other) and religion (Jewish, Muslim, Christian, …). Can it be maintained in a Constitution, adopted in the view of the entire world? Nationality and religion are entered in the registry at birth or immigration. It is these entries that are the basis for regulations about residential and educational rights, marriage and divorce. It places the private lives of Israeli Jews under the orthodox rabbinate.

 

Only the abolition of the Register, with its notations of religion and nationality, will enable full and equal civil rights to be extended to the Palestinian Israelis.

 

A democratic constitution would repeal the archaic “Right of Return,” which grants every recognized Jew in the world automatic right of immigration to Israel. The law has been construed in such wise as to give the Orthodox Rabbinate veto power over any Jew they don’t like. See the partial record of Litigation in “Who is a Jew.”

 

Extend full rights to all who dwell between the Jordan and the Sea

 

The world is slowly becoming aware of the true meaning of “Jewish and Democratic.” The more the injustice of the regime and the plight of the Palestinians is revealed, the greater will be the pressure for a truly Democratic regime. The internet, with YouTube, with Facebook, with blogs and news sites, will bring down the full potential of enlightened world opinion on the Zionist project. The end result of this democratic process will be the end of Israel’s apartheid system, as was the case with South Africa, with far weaker resources.

 

Finally, on the model of property restitution to Holocaust survivors or their living next of kin by Germany, a just society must restore the property abandoned by the Palestinians who fled the Zionist terror unleashed in 1947-48.

 

Can this be done?

 

'However different the historical situations in the United States, South Africa and the land between the Jordan River and the sea may be, what is common to all three is the issue of explicit legal ( i.e. constitutional) protection for citizenship rights. 

This may not result in de facto equality — a subsequent campaign for full civil rights will have to be waged by the Palestinians, with wide international support,  to achieve that—but it is the sine qua non for achieving that equality.

It was done in the southern states of the US when Jim Crow was dismantled; it was done in South Africa when apartheid was abolished. It took years of public education and the gathering force of full world exposure of the crimes against humanity by the world press. It wasn’t done in a month or a year. Each of us must keep the goal clearly in view, missing no opportunity to expose the crimes and to call clearly for their end.

 

The single democratic state that will be created between the River and the Sea should not be called either Israel or Palestine. Jordan was once known as Trans-Jordan (across the Jordan River) How about Cis- Jordan, which means this side of the Jordan? This recognition of two native peoples with ancestral rights to the same land can lead to the formation of a truly free and democratic state in the ancient land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.