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June 15, 2007
Prof. bangs apartheid drum
Palestinian intellectual delivers sermon for 40-year anniversary.
GEOFF D'AURIA
A one-state solution, where Palestinians and Israelis live as equals
in the same nation-state, is the only path to peace, said a Palestinian
intellectual and former member of the Palestinian government last
Wednesday.
Dr. Naseer Aruri presented this argument June 6 to approximately
200 people at an event entitled Forty Years of Occupation: Prospects
for Peace, held at the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library.
The event was organized by the Canadian-Palestine Support Network
to mark the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War and the beginning
of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East
Jerusalem. It was the culmination of a day-long event marking the
anniversary.
Earlier in the day, Svend Robinson, Outlook editor Carl Rosenberg
and assorted church and labor movement leaders gathered at Simon
Fraser University's downtown campus to exchange views on the topic.
Aruri, who is currently a chancellor emeritus professor in political
science at the University of Massachusetts, was present at both
events. In his evening lecture, he noted that his aim was, "To
expand the reasons why the two-state solution is not working, and
has not worked, and is not likely to work.... I made the observation
that maybe a single state [would work, if it were] based on equality,
the equality of every single human being living in the area between
the river and the sea receiv[ing] equal treatment from the law."
In a talk that recounted the history of the failed peacemaking process,
the self-proclaimed former supporter of the two-state solution said
that after 40 years of trying to find that solution, it was time
to admit that "objective circumstances" are preventing
that from occurring.
The "objective circumstances" for Israel, according to
Aruri, are the strategic desires to consolidate the gains of the
Six Day War in order to ensure the ongoing security of the nation,
which means denying Palestinian sovereignty.
Aruri called this "politicide," a term he borrowed from
the late Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling.
"It [politicide] is a process that aims to destroy the aspirations
of a whole nation for independence in political, economic and social
terms," said Aruri, paraphrasing Kimmerling. "Israel controls
the Palestinians in terms of state, in terms of force and in terms
of time – and that is accomplished through politics, it's accomplished
through economics ... it's accomplished through the bureaucracy
... and it's also accomplished through diplomacy."
The Israeli fear of a permanent peace, Aruri claimed, is one based
on a demographic threat. He said that soon there may be more Arabs
living between Jordan and the Mediterranean for the first time since
1948. "I think this has been seen as a major threat to Israel,"
he said. "Hence, what to do is to keep the Palestinians in
enclaves with no sovereignty."
The "objective circumstances" for Palestinians, according
to Aruri, are that they are de facto living in occupied territories
that are run like apartheid states and are no longer invited to
the peace table to talk about substantive issues.
"I mean, you're under perpetual occupation," said Aruri,
adding later in his talk that the conditions are a "ferocious
apartheid."
The one-state solution, he said, "would emerge from a common
struggle by Israelis and Palestinians – Israelis who don't
want to be permanent masters of another nation or living in an apartheid
state and Palestinians who do not want to be living under occupation
for another 40 years."
He admitted that this idea, which has existed since the 1920s, might
sound unrealistic and utopian to some and, to others, it might even
be seen as a cynical attempt to destroy Israel.
Those were some of the only sentiments Adam Carroll, director of
Canada-Israel Committee, Pacific Region, shared when contacted for
comment later by the Independent.
Carroll said that the problem with this idea is that it would eliminate
Israel's Jewish identity. It would mean that Israel, founded as
it was as a Jewish state and safe haven for Jews after centuries
of persecution, would effectively cease to exist as a Jewish state.
"It wouldn't take very long for Jews to be a minority,"
Carroll explained, especially if all Palestinian refugees were given
the right of return, which is also something for which Aruri argued.
Carroll added that peace process after peace process put the two-state
solution on the table. In fact, Israel offered almost 100 per cent
of the occupied lands back. If the country didn't want a two-state
solution, he suggested, then they wouldn't have made that offer.
"The only thing that a one-state solution solves," he
said, "is the wishes of extremist Palestinians who want to
eliminate the Jewish state," said Carroll.
Geoff D'Auria is a Vancouver freelance writer.
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