Opinions of Peter Belmont
Speaking Truth to Power
| Response to Peter Beinart’s Preference for 1SS over 2SS |
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by Peter A. Belmont / 2025-02-20
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| In a very interesting interview piece discussing among other things possible futures for Israel and Palestine Peter Beinart said many things, with most of which I agree. He clearly agrees with me that no non-Israeli -dictated “solution” to the Israeli/Palestinian situation is likely in the near term. In answer to the question, “What changed your thinking about the need for a one-state solution versus a two-state solution,” he said: I spent my whole adult life as a supporter of the two-state solution, of partition. I think two things changed. The first was just the recognition that I was arguing the same position year after year after year. And facts on the ground were changing, right? Every year, Israel was more deeply entrenching itself in the West Bank, which would be the heartland of a Palestinian state. And the chances of a Palestinian state that could ever really be sovereign and contiguous were becoming harder and harder to imagine. I found an article from someone saying the two-state solution was almost dead. It was Anthony Lewis writing a column headlined “Five Minutes to Midnight”in the New York Times, in 1982, when there were maybe not even a hundred thousand settlers in the West Bank. Now there are seven hundred thousand if you include East Jerusalem. My response to this paragraph I disagree with Beinart’s reasoning and with his conclusion. I believe that a two-state-solution is possible (whenever sufficient today-unlikely OUTSIDE COERCION comes into play) and that a one-state-solution is far harder to imagine as possible. Let me explain. • First, regarding the likeliness or unlikeliness of any non-purely-Israeli-determined future (hereafter a “solution”). Any “solution” depends on pressure from outside powers to coerce Israel. IMO, if there is no coercive power, then there will be no “solution”, neither any two-state-solution nor any one-state-solution other than today’s apartheid Greater Israel, possibly without many Palestinian residents. Beinart agrees. Also, if and when there is coercive power, then that power might and should listen to the Palestinians to see what Palestinians want, especially if the Palestinians can create a unified and universally-accepted Palestinian voice. Beinart agrees. In any case, when contemplating a “solution”, we must, I believe we agree, speak of the need, today, for “COERCIVE POWERS”. I doubt that either today’s PA or the PLO, if the PLO still exists, would qualify as a unified and universally-accepted Palestinian voice. In Oslo, the PLO made colossal mistakes. The PA is widely distrusted by Palestinians as corrupt. Anyway, no-one else “speaks for” all the Palestinians today. Most Palestinian leaders are in Israeli jails, as Beinart says, or, of course, dead. The BDS movement has been a sort of spokesman for the Palestinians. I think that the BDS movement would accept any “solution”, for example a two-state-solution or a one-state-solution, which guaranteed a near-term non-discriminatory, non-apartheid democratic future within Mandatory Palestine for all the following Palestinians: [a] those living now in Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem, [b] the scattered refugees—at least the near-east diaspora, [c] all Palestinians now living inside Israel (the part occupied before 1967), and, looking to the future, [d] all Palestinians, if any, who will subsequently live under post-”solution” Israeli power, also if any. But BDS is not the unified and universally-accepted Palestinian voice. No-one is at present, I think. Beinart seems to agree. As to Israeli agreement anytime soon to a Palestinians-acceptable “solution” not dictated by COERCIVE POWERS, I am skeptical. Today Israelis are getting more and more away from accepting any “solution”. They, with unlimited USA support, are “on a roll”, triumphant, like today’s MAGA/Trump/Musk/Republican Party is in the USA. Either might lose power someday, but, today, both are presently in the cat-bird seat. Beinart agrees. On the other hand, some commentators write about today’s Israel being weakened economically by huge Gaza-war expenses and combat deaths, by a work-force severely reduced by the need for a large army permanently in the field, by business failures, by genocide-generated difficulties with trade, by internal political discord, and by a brain-drain and other out-migration of Israelis unhappy or feeling unsafe living in Israel today. There is also the gradual (too gradual to suit me) disillusionment of USA’s Jews for Israel. These tend to make Israel weaker and, therefore, perhaps, more amenable to outside opinion or to (weaker) outside pressure. • Second, regarding feasibility of one-state-solution. Even without the out-migration from Israel, there is today in the Israeli Jewish population an increasingly right-wing, Jewish-supremacy, greater-Israel- and religiously- fanatic (not to say, today, triumphant!!) Israeli Jewish majority. I don’t believe anyone would suppose that such people could live comfortably on equal, democratic, non-discriminatory terms with Palestinian non-Jews, and vice-versa. So one-state-solution doesn’t look very likely to me, whether imposed or negotiated. Look how Jim Crow succeeded slavery in the USA after supposed democracy and equality of the races was declared and imposed on the South. Declaring or imposing non-discriminatory democracy doesn’t necessarily work. Furthermore, non-Jews might well far outnumber Jews if the Palestinian near-diaspora were to elect and be permitted to return into this one-state, and even if they weren’t, even today’s Palestinian non-Jewish population may exceed Israel’s Jewish population. It is hard to imagine Jewish Israelis being content to live as a minority in a post-Israel democratic single state. • Third, regarding feasibility of two-state-solution. Thinking of impediments to a two-state-solution, Beinart mentions the 10% or so of Israeli Jewish citizens who today live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, he says 700,000 Israeli citizens. Removal and re-settlement of these would be hard and costly, but not impossible. Moreover, mandated removal of populations is in line with past Israeli practice: Example [1] is the 1948 Expulsion of 750,000 Palestinian non-Jews from Palestine; Example [2] is the removal of a few Israeli-citizen settlers from Gaza. International law (as generally understood) says that all these Israeli-citizen settlers (are there any non-Israeli-citizen settlers?) are present in the OPTs illegally and they should be removed. UNSC Res 465, which the USA did not veto, calls for the removal of all settlers. Israel should not be rewarded by the COERCIVE POWERS for violating any international law; allowing these settlers or any of them to remain (against Palestinian wishes) would be a gigantic reward to Israel for violating international law. Of all restorative or reparative measures in I/P, removing the settlers is the easiest to imagine and the easiest to define, the easiest to justify, and the easiest to accomplish. • Fourth, regarding the matter of reparations. As an aside, as to any Israeli/Palestinian peace, I think about restitution because I don’t like the idea that an oppressive, cruel, murderous, evil, criminal, and terrorist enterprise (as I regard Israel) should be allowed to retain all the profits from its crimes. In my opinion, a just “solution” would somehow in some degree provide for restitution for loss (loss of life, loss of limbs, loss of liberty, loss of community and society, loss of happiness, and loss of property) by the Palestinians, loss in 1948, loss in 1967, loss since 1967, and especially loss in Gaza in the last year or last decades. I think Israel and the USA should pick up the tab. Pie-in-the-sky, right? But any money spent by the USA in these reparations would pale in comparison to the trillions (USD) already spent on the USA wars instigated at Israel’s request: Iraq and Afghanistan in particular. I don’t recall that Beinart addressed the question of reparations. Reparations ought to be addressed some day. Those thinking about reparations should consider, to choose the easiest example, the still-standing pre-1948 Palestinian houses in Israeli cities, houses of so-called (by Israel!) “absentees” (that is, Palestinians expelled from and not readmitted to Israel) now occupied (and, I suppose, “owned” under Israeli law) by Jewish settler-immigrants since 1948-50, houses to which some Palestinian refugees might wish to return. I care about this if only to suggest that the entire ugly history of life for Palestinians after Israel sprang violently into being should be considered when any “solution” is considered. At a minimum, Americans and Israelis ought to think about and speak about these things. Summary And Final Words. On most of the points discussed above, Peter Beinart and I agree. We got there from different starting points. I have never been any flavor of Zionist, never loved Israel, never viewed Israel as anything other than a criminal enterprise, whereas Beinart is or used to be some flavor of Zionist. So our agreement is noteworthy. We each came to our starting points legitimately. Beinart was born to Zionism and has had to escape from it (or from part of it)—but retained a special concern for Jewish people, including Jewish Israelis. I was born to a secular, but universalist, Jewish family and in late June, 1967, married a daughter of Palestine. She led me—cautiously!—to an understanding of the Palestinian tragedy and to friendly relations with many Palestinians sojourning in the USA (mostly as students at Harvard). I have no special concern for Israeli Jews, but do have a special concern for Palestinians. Different strokes for different folks! Nature and nurture. And so forth. I am very glad that the world has Peter Beinart! -- Peter Belmont 166 Columbia Hts Brooklyn, NY 11201-2105 718-596-2648 |
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