Politics Magazine

On The Future of Palestine

Posted on the 28 July 2013 by Thepoliticalidealist @JackDarrant

West Bank Barrier (Separating Wall)

I have not written on the

topic of the Israel/Palestine conflict before. Perhaps rightly, I concluded

that the issue is so controversial and complex that my few hundred words on the

matter are of little value to the debate. Nevertheless, there have been a few

points made and ideas raised about the long-running conflict that deserve

examination.

I recently watched two

documentaries, one on the system of military justice which has been existed in

the West Bank since the beginning of occupation and one on the changing shape

of the two nations in the 21st century given the large population of

Israeli Arabs and Jewish settlers in the West Bank. The theme of both films

suggested that Palestine is rapidly approaching the point at which it cannot be a

viable independent state. Although it recently gained Observer status at the

United Nations, its own Google domain, and has almost achieved the

international recognition of nationhood it deserves, Israel’s moves to crush

its economic viability have been very successful. After all, the

entrepreneurial spirit which we credit Palestinians with is of little use if

they cannot trade. And two generations of dependence on meagre international

aid payments takes its toll on a country’s self-esteem. It has been suggested,

and I am basing my opinions on the assumption that nearly every media source is

biased, that a number of young Palestinians, who have only ever known Israeli

occupation, no longer view independence as a serious goal, but aspire to be

equal citizens of a ‘Greater Israel’.

It is certainly true that a

number of Israelis support the idea, which would see the West Bank annexed and

Arabs awarded full citizenship of a bicultural state, but with constitutional provision for the maintenance of Jewish

institutions and laws. As the population of Greater Israel would be approximately

50% Arab and 50% Jewish, it sounds like ‘both races are equal, but one is more

equal than the other’. And to do that is to make the unified nation flawed from

day one. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that such a country would exist

without demand from the Arabs for a greater share of the national wealth, and

the cessation of state benefits for the ultra-orthodox community. In such a

country, it would be only a slender majority who support unification, and separatist

violence would render government impossible.

And yet the alternatives

involve the mass displacement of people. Attempts to remove Jews from the West

Bank are of course going to depend on the co-operation of those who believe

they have a divine right to settle there. People who claim divine rights to

things will often resort to violence to defend those ‘rights’, in my

experience. Not that that means that they can be allowed to continue: Israel

has breached international law by effectively annexing occupied Palestine, and

it is intolerable that Arabs are being treated like second class citizens in their

own territory. There is no freedom in the West Bank. There is little wealth.

There are few good jobs. That is, unless you’re a citizen of the occupying

power. That is why I am outraged that Israel rejects Palestine’s request for a

temporary cessation of development on the West Bank while negotiations take

place. The international community should be using every peaceful means

possible to stop Israel’s illegal actions continuing.

Palestine, it is said, would

have more international credibility if its population didn’t support terrorist

activity to achieve independence. I don’t dispute that. Though many of us would

resort to militancy if our country was not only being absorbed by a hostile

neighbour; our protests not only being ignored by the rest of the world; but

for decade after decade even peaceful demonstrations against this being broken

up with tear gas and water cannons. Hamas, which is guilty of unjustifiable

actions, is successful as a consequence of justified desperation. We can only

hope that the moderate majority in Palestine, in whatever nation they find themselves

in in the future, will reject extremism once true peace is established. To an

extent, they already have, given how reasonable their representatives have been

in negotiations with Israel in the past few years.

A military checkpoint along the route of the f...

‘Fortress Israel’ will not

last forever. “Traditional” Israeli Jews are undergoing a demographic squeeze between

the ultra-orthodox and Israeli Arab communities, to the point that Israel will

change beyond all recognition, and it will be impossible to maintain a large

army to subjugate Palestine and periodically attack neighbouring states, in

self-defence or otherwise. It is in everyone’s interests that Israel adapts

now, rather than find itself in a situation in which militancy and violence

destroys any prospect of a peaceful future in the region.

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