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March 7, 2003
Bi-national state unrealistic
Letters
Editor: Not having attended the recent showing of John Pilger's
film Palestine is Still the Issue, I can't comment on Pat Johnson's
report on the film or the discussion that followed. ("Movie
takes aim at Israel," Bulletin Archives, Feb. 14) However,
I was baffled by his remark that in Pilger's film, "Israel's
various historical offers of a bi-national state were dismissed
as Bantustans."
The idea of a bi-national state which would belong equally to Jews
and Arabs was indeed advocated in the pre-state period by a small
minority within the Zionist movement, including such groups as Ichud
(which included figures such as Judah Magnes, Martin Buber and Hannah
Arendt) and the socialist-Zionist Hashomer Hatzair. However, I doubt
very much that the state of Israel ever proposed the creation of
a bi-national state, which would imply the abandonment of the existence
of Israel as a "Jewish state."
Carl Rosenberg
Vancouver
(Editor's note: The original sentence in Pat Johnson's article
was intended to read "Israel's various historical offers of
a bi-national solution were dismissed as Bantustans and 'stateless
states' by Pilger." Due to a copy-editing error, the word "state"
was used instead of "solution.")
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