Politics
The End of Zionism?
Roland Rance
In a recent article in Israel’s leading daily, Ha’Aretz, two veteran activists independently reach the same conclusion: that there is no longer any possibility of a two-state resolution of the Palestinian-Israel conflict. They argue that the only acceptable solution is the return of Palestine refugees, the abrogation of Israel’s Law of Return, and the establishment of a bi-national state in the whole of Palestine. [1]
Haim Hanegbi, one of the founders in the 1960s of Matzpen, the anti-Zionist, Israeli Socialist Organisation, had wholeheartedly supported the Oslo agreement, to such an extent that he even joined the Israel Labour Party. Now, he says:
Everyone with eyes to see and ears to hear has to understand that only a bi-national partnership can save us. . . Israel as a Jewish state can no longer exist here. . . If Israel remains a colonialist state in its character, it will not survive . . . The attempt to achieve Jewish sovereignty that is fenced in and insular has to be abandoned. [
2]
Meron Benvenisti, a founder of the liberal, anti-occupation, Meretz party, was for many years deputy mayor of Jerusalem - something that would be inconceivable today, with the huge growth in Jewish fundamentalism in the city. He argues that,
In fact, even today, we are living a bi-national reality, and it is a permanent given.. The basic story here is not one of two national movements that are confronting each other; the basic story is that of natives and settlers. . . this country will not tolerate a border in its midst. . . What we have to do is to try to reach a situation of personal and collective equality within the framework of one overall regime throughout the country. [
3]
Although they come from different corners of the political spectrum, Hanegbi and Benvenisti have some common political and social background. Crucially, both are in their seventies, and grew up in Jerusalem as a multicultural and undivided city before the partition of Palestine. They are both more concerned with the nature of the society in which they live than in its borders, and the article is a convincing rejoinder to the mainstream Israeli politicians in the recent Guardian debate on two states, in which both participants ignore even the theoretical possibility of a bi-national approach. [
4]
The positions advanced by Hanegbi and Benvenisti will not be new to readers of Socialist Outlook. They point out the expansion of Israeli settlements, the obscenity of the apartheid wall, the centrality of the Palestinian right to return, the ecological and economic unity of the region, and the obvious truth that Israel has no intention of enabling the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state. Indeed, these insights are not even uncommon in Israel, and have for decades informed the positions of the small (but growing) number of radical activists. What is new, and significant, is the fact that these arguments, long treated as eccentric and beyond the pale, are becoming recognised as legitimate and serious contributions to the public debate in Israel. While not yet mainstream, they can no longer be disregarded.
It is not hard to see why, as the Oslo agreement collapses amid the barbarism of Israel’s onslaught against the Palestinian people. The shortcomings of this agreement were apparent from the start: the Palestinians were to give up any hope of return of the refugees, or even meaningful compensation, in return for a very limited autonomy in a de-militarised and divided fraction of Palestine. They would have no rule in even part of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements would not be removed, and Israel would not end its massive exploitation of Palestinian water. Even under the most favourable of circumstances, Oslo could not have brought an end to the conflict.
In any case, successive Israeli governments have made it clear that they have no intention of honouring the letter or spirit of Oslo. Even Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a settler after he signed the agreement, repeatedly reneged on commitments and failed to honour promises. His successors (with the exception of Shimon Peres, who was briefly Prime Minister following Rabin’s murder) all opposed the agreement at the time, and have done their best to ensure its failure. Since the Oslo agreement, Israeli settlements have doubled in number and population, while their size has increased massively. Palestinians in the 1967-occupied territories have been under almost constant curfew, their economy has collapsed, and child malnutrition has soared.
Ehud Barak’s so-called ‘generous offer’ at Camp David was nothing of the kind; as Gush Shalom, of the Israeli Peace Bloc, notes, this offer ‘left the Palestinians able only to tortuously navigate throughout 17.6% of their historic homeland . . . it is a humiliating demand for surrender’. And this contempt continues. Israel’s response to the latest ‘road map proposals’ from the US was to issue a list of fourteen ‘reservations’, spelling out that there would be no return of refugees, no Palestinian autonomy in Jerusalem, no Palestinian army, and that there would be ‘Israeli control over the entry and exit of all persons and cargo, as well as of its air space and electromagnetic spectrum’.
The Right of Return
Although it is clear that Israeli intransigence fatally undermined the Oslo agreement, it would be a mistake to suppose that the agreement would have resolved the conflict, even if Israel’s leaders had genuinely acted to do so. In the first place, the agreement failed to address the concerns of most Palestinians. For some - those living under Israeli military rule in the West Bank and Gaza - it would have offered some immediate improvement, with the removal of Israeli forces from everyday control over a large part of the territory. Even for these Palestinians, the improvement would have been limited, since they would have few resources and an impoverished population, with no access to sources of income, employment or markets beyond their borders. Additionally, 1.5 million residents of the occupied territories - about half the total population - are refugees expelled from their homes, towns and villages in Israel, who would not be allowed to return, but would be expected to accept their exile and settle permanently where they now live.
Implementation of the Oslo agreement would have been particularly problematic for Palestinians living in Jerusalem, illegally annexed by Israel following its conquest in 1967. Most of them have refused Israeli citizenship and maintained their Palestinian identity cards. There was great fear that they would be compelled to choose between taking Israeli citizenship, or moving to the Palestinian ‘state’.
There are a further 2.5 million registered refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, plus hundreds of thousands of Palestinian exiles elsewhere, who would not be allowed to return to their homes. Many of these - particularly those in Lebanon, subject to growing discrimination - fear being uprooted once more, and forced into the already overcrowded and under-resourced West Bank.
Palestinian citizens of Israel, too, 20% of the population, living under institutionalised discrimination, had reason to be concerned that the establishment of limited Palestinian autonomy in the occupied territories would further threaten their situation. There are increasing calls in Israel, even from cabinet ministers, for the forcible expulsion of all Palestinians; some suggest an ‘exchange of population’ with the settlers, and the establishment of an Arab-free, Jewish state.
Two States No Answer
Although many liberals and utopian optimists will attempt to develop another Oslo-style, two-state approach to the Palestine conflict, we must recognise that this cannot succeed. There can be no solution based on redrawing the borders in the Middle East, because this conflict is not about borders. As Benvenisti recognises, Palestine is a classic colonial situation, in which the Zionist movement, with the backing of western imperialism, has replaced the indigenous Arab population with Jewish settlers. This is as true in the areas within the pre-1967 borders of the state of Israel, as in the territories occupied in 1967. In fact, the period of partition, from 1948 to 1967, was an anomaly in the history of Palestine; its history, like its geography and ecology, can only be understood as a whole.
The Zionist movement, in its colonisation of Palestine, did not merely uproot the Palestinians from their land, which it divided and partitioned; it divided and partitioned the Palestinian people themselves. Their fragmented and sometimes conflicting interests are a direct result of the different situations and regimes which they have experienced as a result of Zionist colonisation. It is this division, even more than the irredentist desire to return to homes and villages (many of which no longer exist) that drives the Palestinian demand for realisation of their right to return. Families divided for over 50 years want to meet and live together; Palestinians want the simple right to live and travel anywhere they choose in Palestine.
The Israeli government clearly recognises this, even if some liberal Zionists do not. A recent law in Israel denies Israeli citizenship, and the right to reside in Israel, to any Palestinian who marries an Israeli citizen. This racist Act, which has been denounced by the United Nations, is designed both to force Palestinian citizens to leave Israel if they want to marry other Palestinians, and to remove any hope of reunification in Palestine itself
As Benvenisti and Hanegbi both realise, there can no longer be any realistic prospect of a repartition of Palestine. The growth of Israeli settlements, the construction of the Apartheid Wall, and the growth and increasing assertiveness of the Palestinian minority in the state of Israel, demonstrate Benvenisti’s assertion that Israelis and Palestinians are already living in a bi-national reality, albeit in a situation of coloniser and colonised.
While socialists and anti-imperialists must continue to demand the immediate, total and unconditional withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the territories occupied in 1967, we should not delude ourselves or others that this in itself is the solution of the conflict. It is no more than a necessary condition in which a solution can be reached. Such a solution must include implementation of practical measures to enable Palestinians to realise their right to return; dismantlement of the discriminatory Zionist structure of the state of Israel, and abolition of all racist legislation; and massive international aid to assist in the rebuilding of the shattered Palestinian economy, society and infrastructure. Such a future state would be secular, giving equal rights for all religious, ethnic and linguistic minority communities.
Neither a one-state nor a two-state approach is sufficient in itself. Regimes are more important than borders. The abolition of Zionist institutions is the issue. The real choice, which becomes ever clearer, is between colonialism and liberation, between socialism and barbarism.
