Dan Harkin tries to take emotion and ideology out of the question and look at the matter of Israel/Palestine philosophically . Now, in practice this is difficult, as the blogosphere is full of people posting rabidly partisan postings on one side or the other.
Dan does suggest that a binational state is a viable solution. That would give both communities (Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs) a stake in land which they both value. However, unfortunately, I think the hope of a democratic secular state is a forlorn one. Too much blood as been spilt on each side for a binational state to be viable. The one chance of a binational state would have been before the UN stated working on a partition plan in 1947. But, even then, it would have required neutral troops on the ground to stop the violence that was already taking place [and had been since the 1920s] and make such a binational state peaceful.
Instead, a 2-state solution seems the sensible one. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. As such, it is illogical for Israel to say that it should be a nation-state of the Jewish people while preventing the creation of a Palestinian state which can be a nation-state for the Palestinian Arabs. The devil, of course, is in the detail - as fixing the borders of such a state and the future of Jerusalem would be a tricky question.
The Oslo Accords marked a potential path for a settlement. The PLO and an Israeli Labour government were in a better position to negotiate a deal than Hamas and a right-wing Israeli government ever will be.
The continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank makes a viable Palestinian state more difficult to achieve. It is this which undermines the elements of the Palestinian Authority that are open to negotiations with Israel.
The futher issue has been the rise of Hamas. Fundamentally, bringing religion into a territorial dispute makes it less likely to be resolved. Religion is seen as an all-or-nothing issue. People think God gave them the land and so are not prepared to negotiate. Secular nationalism has more potential for enabling negotiations and compromises.
The victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections, to some degree, was a result of popular discontent with PLO corruptions and popular admiration for Hamas welfare services. In a society without a welfare state, the organisation was able to gain support by providing some welfare services that we in rich countries take for granted. However, fundamentally, people must have realised (and if they did not they were being wilfully ignorant) that Hamas was not likely to be willing to strike a deal on the 2-state basis outlined in the Oslo Accords. Their religious view of the world makes it very difficult for them to concieve that others have the same rights to national self-determination as they do.
The issue of Hamas 'terrorism' is made a lot of. Now, I think there is a danger of 'terrorism' being used as a 'boo word'. One man's terrorist is often seen as another man's freedom fighter. However, it is the case that Hamas did launch rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip. Israel had, prior to this, unilaterally withdrawn from Gaza. The Gaza Strip is not necessarily itself a viable state, but Israel had shown willing to disengage from territory it had occupied in 1967. Hamas should have seen that as an opening to make some concessions from their side. They failed to do so. More importantly for the developement of a democratic civil society in Gaza, they used force and violence against Fatah (the dominant faction of the PLO). This brutality shows - not only were they not prepared to acknowledge the right of self-determination of Israel (as their propaganda makes clear) - but they had no respect for Arabs who disagreed with them. It is difficult to have a stable and peaceful Gaza Strip if the organisation running it behaves like that.
The Israeli action against Gaza, though, due to the number of people it has killed, is bound to fuel anger among the population. This could well win new supporters and sympathisers for Hamas. The prospects for the peoples of the land between the Medeterrean and Jordan look bleak. Due to religious or secular nationalist ideology, people are not looking at finding a solution to the question - but at fighting in defence of 'their side' without paying attention to the rights and concerns of others.
technorati tags:
political news | news | world news
More at: News 2 Cromley
No comments:
Post a Comment