One of the key arguments against a ‘2 States’ solution to the Palestinian Question has been that this would provide an incentive for the Zionists to transfer Israel’s remaining 1+ million Palestinians into the bantustan (or in reality Palestinian Reservation). We should therefore thank Israel’s Foreign Minister and leader of the ‘moderate’ Kadimah for spelling it out.
In an article in Ha’aretz of 11.12.08. ‘Livni: National aspirations of Israel’s Arabs can be met by Palestinian homeland’ it reported that Livni was quoted by Army Radio as saying to students at a Tel Aviv high school that:
Once a Palestinian state is established, I can come to the Palestinian citizens, whom we call Israeli Arabs, and say to them ‘you are citizens with equal rights, but the national solution for you is elsewhere.
Once a Palestinian state is established, I can come to the Palestinian citizens, whom we call Israeli Arabs, and say to them ‘you are citizens with equal rights, but the national solution for you is elsewhere.
And in a repetition of the standard ‘left’ Zionist line, which the social imperialists of Britain’s tiny Alliance for Workers Liberty have espoused, she says:
The idea is to maintain two states for two peoples, that is my path to a democratic nation.
But then Livni, the daughter of an Irgun terrorist, made it clear last month that ‘the State of Israel is a national homeland for the Jewish people.’ adding that ‘the national demands of Israeli Arabs should end the moment a Palestinian state is established.’
And therein lies the problem. Because at heart the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not a conflict of two nations or nationalities. It is the conflict between a settler-colonial state and the indigenous population. In South Africa the Africans didn’t demand a 2 State solution but one state for all. This is the fundamental error that the Palestinian organisations and the PLO historically made, which played into the hands of the Zionist movement. The problem is not a conflict of two peoples or nations but one of racism and expulsion.
And in an article ‘More Israeli Jews favor transfer of Palestinians, Israeli Arabs – poll finds’ Ha’aretz of 12.12.08. by Amnon Barzilai, we learn that 46% of Israel’s Jewish citizens favor support the transfer of Palestinians out of the occupied territories while 31% favor transferring Israeli Arabs out of the country. This is according to the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies’ annual national security public opinion poll.
In 1991, 38% of Israel’s Jewish population was in favor of transferring the Palestinians out of the territories while 24% supported transferring Israeli Arabs. But 60 percent said that they were in favor of ‘encouraging’ Israeli Arabs to leave the country. 24 percent of Israel’s Jewish citizens believe that Israeli Arabs are not loyal to the state, which is hardly surprising since it is difficult to think why you should be loyal to a State that considers you a guest at best.
A representative sample of 1,264 Jewish residents of Israel were polled for the survey last month in face-to-face interviews.
The article goes on to say that:
Israeli-Arabs pose a threat to Israel’s security, according to 61 percent of the Jewish population, while around 80 percent are opposed to Israeli-Arabs being involved in important decisions, such as delineating the country’s borders, up from 75 percent last year and 67 percent in 2000.
Some 72 percent of Jewish Israelis are opposed to Arab parties being part of a coalition government, compared to 67 percent last year and 50 percent in 1999.
Some 72 percent of Jewish Israelis are opposed to Arab parties being part of a coalition government, compared to 67 percent last year and 50 percent in 1999.
It is doubtful if such high percentages, effectively half the population or more if the slightly ‘softer’ question about encouraging Palestinians to leave is included, were attained in January 1933 when Adolf Hitler was put in power by the German capitalists and their army.
Tony Greenstein
Posted in Blog
