Two states or one?

Editorial

An op-ed run in the New York Times recently has raised hackles, some of them legitimate, for appearing to call for an end to the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

University of Pennsylvania professor Ian Lustick penned “Two-state illusion,” which ran prominently in the Sunday edition on Sept. 15. Lustick contends that the idea of a negotiated two-state settlement, resulting in a secure Israel and an independent Palestine, is a fruitless myth perpetrated by a two-state “industry” based more on self-perpetuation than actual solutions.

Lustick’s premise – that the status quo between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River is unsustainable and destined to crumble like Yugoslavia, apartheid South Africa, Pahlevi’s Iran or the Soviet Union – is not a fresh idea. His corollary – that a negotiated resolution resulting in two states is unfeasible – seems newer, at first glance.

“Peacemaking and democratic state building require blood and magic,” writes Lustick. “The question is not whether the future has conflict in store for Israel-Palestine. It does. Nor is the question whether conflict can be prevented. It cannot. But avoiding truly catastrophic change means ending the stifling reign of an outdated idea and allowing both sides to see and then adapt to the world as it is.”

Despite its substantial length – just under 2,500 words – the op-ed leaves much of the seemingly inevitable catastrophe to the reader’s imagination. Indeed, the article is so vague that at times the premise seems to be that, while Lustick’s solution may be nebulous, clinging to the idea of negotiated settlement is the redoubt of self-defeating fools. A single state is not only a reasonable result, but inevitable, he contends. Never mind that such a result would satisfy almost no one in the picture, Lustick promotes a vision of strangely pacific new relations across ancient and modern lines of disagreement.

“In such a radically new environment, secular Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank could ally with Tel Aviv’s post-Zionists, non-Jewish Russian-speaking immigrants, foreign workers and global-village Israeli entrepreneurs,” he writes. “Anti-nationalist ultra-Orthodox Jews might find common cause with Muslim traditionalists. Untethered to statist Zionism in a rapidly changing Middle East, Israelis whose families came from Arab countries might find new reasons to think of themselves not as ‘Eastern,’ but as Arab. Masses of downtrodden and exploited Muslim and Arab refugees, in Gaza, the West Bank and in Israel itself could see democracy, not Islam, as the solution for translating what they have (numbers) into what they want (rights and resources). Israeli Jews committed above all to settling throughout the greater Land of Israel may find arrangements based on a confederation, or a regional formula, more attractive than narrow Israeli nationalism.”

And the lion will lay down with the lamb.

Accepting the idea of a two-state solution is a point of near faith for contemporary Zionists worldwide. It is seen as the sole reasonable alternative to the loss of Jewish self-determination through, as Lustick puts it, “war, cultural exhaustion or demographic momentum.” However, he contends that lip-service to two states is undermined by settlement activity that both undermines the potential for two states and belies Israel’s commitment to the idea.

A two-state solution is also a sacrosanct idea because it is seemingly the only alternative to a one-state solution, which is widely acknowledged as the end of Zionism and Jewish national independence. Essentially, despite the sound and fury around Lustick’s piece, there is nothing new here. The only thing that seems to differentiate Lustick from other one-staters, like Noam Chomsky, is his contention that conflict is inevitable, whereas some others propose a rosy view of two people with a long history miraculously coming together à la peaceable Canadian biculturalism.

A response to Lustick in the Times of Israel by analyst Gilead Ini makes the case, foremost, that the New York Times is guilty of publishing ideas that are “beyond the pale.” Certainly, “mainstream” Jewish organizations and thinkers draw a line right about here. We will engage and dialogue with those who acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, but we view as illegitimate – and, therefore, deem unspeakable – any suggestion that Israel as a Jewish majority state should cease to exist. It seems a step beyond, if not the pale, then reasonable intellect, to demand that one of the world’s leading newspapers adhere to our rules of discourse.

Ini argues that the Times does not run op-eds by conspiracy theorists like 9/11 “truthers,” so should not debase its pages with the writings of a one-state proponent. But there’s a difference. The 9/11 conspiracy theorists are widely dismissed as crackpots. A one-state “solution” is considered a legitimate alternative by a significant – and possibly growing – number of voices, Jewish and other. In the absence of any progress toward two states, even the most unworkable ideas can seem reasonable. Even so, of all Lustick’s examples, perhaps the most unwittingly apt is Yugoslavia, a multinational state held together only by Tito’s iron fist and which unraveled amid great violence and genocide when the authoritarian unifier died. Of all the precedents available to apply to the case of Israel and Palestine, the dystopia of Yugoslavia may be more realistic than the other comparative idylls Lustick drags out.

Even so, the intellectual exercise is not beyond the pale if it helps proponents of two states formulate our arguments and ponder potential alternatives. We may view a single state as undesirable because it would eliminate Jewish self-determination, or because it is practically unworkable, or for a range of justifiable reasons. But the more remote a two-state solution gets, the more reasonable a one-state alternative appears to some, so we must be sure of our position and be able to communicate the reasoning behind it, and why a one-state solution is untenable.

Lustick’s premise is right in this: the status quo is intolerable. Something has to give. Rather than debasing the idea of a single state, our efforts would be better exerted advocating more determinedly for two states.

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