This website entitled "One-state solution, unitary state, bi-national state for a democratic, equal rights, post-apartheid Palestine" is an alphabetical compendium of the humane views of numerous anti-racist Jewish Israeli, Palestinian and other scholars, writers, leaders and activists who argue the compelling case for urgent replacement of grossly humane rights-violating, international law-violating, nuclear-armed, state terrorist, race-based, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel in Palestine with a unitary state (bi-national state, one-state solution) as in post-apartheid South Africa involving peace, equal rights for all, economic justice for all, secular democracy, security, freedom of movement for all, and return of all refugees ( “Secular, one state, democratic Palestine”: https://sites.google.com/view/onestatepalestine/home ).
Humanity demands that we speak out, bear witness, and tell the truth for a better world (see “Gideon Polya Writing”: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/ and “Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home ).
In 1880 Palestine contained about 500,000 Arab Palestinians and about 25,000 Jews (half of the latter being immigrants). Genocidally racist Zionists have been responsible for a Palestinian Genocide involving successive mass expulsions (800,000 in 1948 and 400,00 Arabs expelled in 1967) , ethnic cleansing of 90% of the land of Palestine, and in the century since the British invasion of Palestine in WW1 about 2.3 million Palestinian deaths from violence (0.1 million) or from violently-imposed deprivation (2.2 million). Presently there are now 8 million Palestinian refugees, and of 14 million Palestinians (half of them children and three quarters women and children) about 50% (7 million) are forbidden to even step foot in their own country on pain of death, only 1.8 million Palestinian Israelis (13%) are permitted to vote for the government ruling all of the former Mandated Palestine, and 5.0 million Palestinians have zero human rights as Occupied Palestinians in West Bank ghettoes or mini-Bantustans (3.0 million) or in the Gaza Concentration Camp (2.0 million). The “lucky”, circa 2 million Palestinian Israelis are Third Class citizens subject to about 50 Nazi-style discriminatory laws. Indigenous Palestinians now represent 50% of the population of the territory ruled by Apartheid Israel (Jewish Israelis represent 47%) but of these Indigenous Palestinian subjects, 74% are excluded from voting for the government ruling them – in a word, Apartheid. The per capita GDP (nominal) is a deadly $3,000 for Occupied Palestinians as compared to $40,000 for Apartheid Israel. Over 4,000 Occupied Palestinians die avoidably from imposed deprivation each year with an average of about 500 being killed violently by Apartheid Israel each year ( “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ ).
The “two-state solution” has been a convenient fig-leaf for pro-Apartheid Western dishonesty and inaction over Palestine. The Zionist ethnic cleansing of 90% of Palestine has rendered the “two-state solution” dead but the continuing obscenity of a grossly human rights-abusing Apartheid Israel is intolerable to decent people around the world. However the racist Jewish Nation-State Law makes it abundantly clear that the racist Zionists running Apartheid Israel are resolutely committed to a neo-Nazi Apartheid State and endless, deadly subjugation of the Indigenous Palestinians with the ever-present threat of 100% ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The world must resolutely act over Apartheid Israel as it successfully did over Apartheid South Africa with Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its racist supporters (“Boycott Apartheid Israel”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/ ).
A clear, humane solution to the continuing human rights catastrophe in Palestine is a unitary state (one-state solution, bi-national state) as in post-Apartheid South Africa that would involve return of all refugees, zero tolerance for racism, equal rights for all, all human rights for all, economic decency for all, one-person-one-vote democracy, justice, goodwill, reconciliation, airport-level security, nuclear weapons removal, internationally-guaranteed national security initially based on the present armed forces, and untrammeled access for all citizens to all of Palestine. It can and should happen tomorrow (Gideon Polya, “Israeli Jewish Nation-State Law enshrines Apartheid and genocidal racism”, Countercurrents, 24 July 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/07/24/israeli-jewish-nation-state-law-enshrines-apartheid-and-genocidal-racism/ ).
122 PALESTINIAN AND ARAB ACADEMICS, JOURNALISTS AND INTELLECTUALS re the IHRA definition of “anti-Semitism” (2020): “We, the undersigned Palestinian and Arab academics, journalists and intellectuals are hereby stating our views regarding the definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), and the way this definition has been applied, interpreted and deployed in several countries of Europe and North America. In recent years, the fight against antisemitism has been increasingly instrumentalised by the Israeli government and its supporters in an effort to delegitimise the Palestinian cause and silence defenders of Palestinian rights. Diverting the necessary struggle against antisemitism to serve such an agenda threatens to debase this struggle and hence to discredit and weaken it. Antisemitism must be debunked and combated. Regardless of pretence, no expression of hatred for Jews as Jews should be tolerated anywhere in the world…
3. The IHRA definition of antisemitism and the related legal measures adopted in several countries have been deployed mostly against leftwing and human rights groups supporting Palestinian rights and the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, sidelining the very real threat to Jews coming from rightwing white nationalist movements in Europe and the US. The portrayal of the BDS campaign as antisemitic is a gross distortion of what is fundamentally a legitimate non-violent means of struggle for Palestinian rights.
ABDELFATTAH. Awad Abdelfattah (secretary-general of the National Democratic Assembly Party, which is represented in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, by three members; journalist for an English language Palestinian newspaper for 10 years; member of Abnaa al-Balad (a small Marxist nationalist movement), which has advocated for a one democratic state in all of Palestine and was co-founder of the National Democratic Assembly party (NDA)) on one-state (2018): “The idea of a one democratic state in historic Palestine is not a new idea. It’s an old one. Also this is not the first attempt to organize and build a framework to promote an egalitarian political entity as an alternative to the excising Israeli brutal colonial apartheid regime. The Palestinian national movement, and the then predominantly communist national liberation league, had advocated an equal unitary state, before the Nakba of 1948. Even before that there was the Jewish Brit Shalom, led by Yehuda Magness and other Jewish intellectuals, who called for a binational state, and argued against a Jewish state in Palestine. In the last decade, especially after the crushing of the second intifada, and the failure of the two state option, the idea of a one state has re-emerged again, in the form of an academic and intellectual debate, and followed by attempts by former political, young and old, activists and leaders to build popular movements. The debate has expanded, and started to penetrate into the society, but none of the movements that were launched have turned into effective and popular ones. Their membership has remained very small. Given this background, and out of our principled belief in one state, we have thought it’s time to launch an initiative to unite all those who endorse this noble idea” (Awad Abdelfattah in interview with Francois Lazar, “Awad Abdelfattah: after Trump’s deadly blow to the two state solution the time is ripe for one state”, Mondoweiss, 29 August 2018: https://mondoweiss.net/2018/08/abdelfattah-trumps-solution/ ).
ABUNIMAH. Ali Hasan Abunimah (a Palestinian-American journalist and leading American proponent of a one-state solution) on Apartheid Israeli rejection of a democratic unitary state (2018): “In a one-state solution, Palestinians and Israelis would have equal political rights in a single country with a modern democratic constitution. The solution would require decolonization policies to repair and make restitution for the effects of decades of Israeli land theft, expulsion and economic and social disadvantage perpetrated against the indigenous Palestinian people… All such two-state proposals are predicated on preserving Israel as a “Jewish state” by physically and politically segregating the Palestinian population because Israel considers them a “demographic threat” to Israeli-Jewish dominance. This would necessitate abrogating the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees solely on the racist grounds that they are not Jews, recognizing Israel’s “right” to be a racist Jewish state, and confining Palestinians to a mini-state on fragments of historic Palestine under overall Israeli control – similar to the bantustans of apartheid South Africa” (Ali Abunimah, “One state solution is democratic but Israel will reject it, says UN boss”, The Electronic Intifada, 21 September 2018: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/one-state-solution-democratic-israel-will-reject-it-says-un-boss ).
Ali Abunimah on Twitter (2018): “You can quote me: I call for the full liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, an end to the Israeli Zionist system of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid, and its replacement with democracy, equality and justice for Jews, Palestinians and all in that land” (Ali Abunimah, “Marc Lamont politically lynched for telling truth about Palestine”, The Electronic Intifada, 30 November 2018: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/marc-lamont-hill-politically-lynched-telling-truth-about-palestine ).
ALAWI. Ibrahim Alawi (Arab writer) (2014): “Ex-deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, believes that Israelis and Palestinians are already living in a "binational reality". Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, Ilan Pappe, and many other prominent Jewish voices argued for a binational state. While more people admit the irreversible reality of the occupation, more will acknowledge the only viable solution left: coexistence. In a modern context, coexistence doesn’t seem to be a far-fetched culture. Yet in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is. The reasons are not only related to elite interests and foreign policy inertia, they are also related to the ideologies that drive both sides of the conflict. Edward Said described the claim that Palestine is "principally and exclusively" Arab as a nationalistic myth and a radical simplification of "a land of many histories". This is not to feed the Zionist myth either, but it is to acknowledge the rich multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious nature of Palestine which is perpetually threatened by Zionist hegemony” (Ibrahim Alawi, “In memory of Edward Said: the one-state solution”, Uruknet, 16 October 2014: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=110257 ).
AL-RAZZAZ. Omar al-Razzaz (Prime Minister of Jordan) (2020): "You close the door to the two-state solution, I could very well look at this positively - if we're clearly opening the door to a one-state democratic solution. .But nobody in Israel is talking about that, and so we cannot just sugar-coat what they're doing. Who's talking about the one-state solution in Israel? They're talking about apartheid in every single sense. I challenge anybody from Israel to say yes, let's end the two-state solution, it's not viable. But let's work together on a one-state democratic solution. That, I think, we will look at very favourably. But closing one and wishful thinking about the other is just self-deception"( Omar al-Razzaz quoted in “Jordan hints at support for one Israeli-Palestinian state”, Al Jazeera, 22 July 2020: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/jordan-pm-hints-support-israeli-palestinian-state-200721144404052.html?fbclid=IwAR3sNxMZmdLUWUEUsNEM9Wb3xhunxdxBExTksA9Hh2Ii21_HZiW_i9X7RG4 . )
ANGLO-AMERICAN COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY. The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry was formed in January 1946 to examine solutions for the Palestinian situation and issued the "Report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine” (April 1946): “Recommendation No. 3. In order to dispose, once and for all, of the exclusive claims of Jews and Arabs to Palestine, we regard it as essential that a clear statement of the following principles should be made: I. That Jew shall not dominate Arab and Arab shall not dominate Jew in Palestine. II. That Palestine shall be neither a Jewish state nor an Arab state. III. That the form of government ultimately to be established, shall, under international guarantees, fully protect and preserve the interests in the Holy Land of Christendom and of the Moslem and Jewish faiths. Thus Palestine must ultimately become a state which guards the rights and interests of Moslems, Jews and Christians alike; and accords to the inhabitants, as a whole, the fullest measure of self-government, consistent with the three paramount principles set forth above” (“Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-American_Committee_of_Inquiry ).
ARAB LEAGUE. Council of the Arab League on Palestine as a unitary state (1946): “(i) Palestine should be a unitary State. (ii) It should have a democratic constitution, with an elected legislature. (iii) The constitution should provide guarantees for the sanctity of the Holy Places, covering inviolability, maintenance, freedom of access and freedom of worship in accordance with the status quo. (iv) The constitution should guarantee, subject to suitable safeguards, freedom of religious practice in accordance with the status quo throughout Palestine (including the maintenance of separate religious courts for matters of personal status). (v) The law of naturalisation should provide amongst other conditions that the applicant should be a legal resident of Palestine for a continuous period of ten years before his application… ” (Council of the Arab League, “Arab Plan for Palestine, 1946”, Wikisource, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Arab_Plan_for_Palestine,_1946 ).
ARENDT. Hannah Arendt (eminent anti-racist German-Jewish political philosopher) had a shifting position on various schemes for a democratic Palestine as detailed by scholar Gil Rubin (2015): “The German-Jewish intellectual Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) had famously opposed the establishment of a Jewish nation state in Palestine. During the Second World War, however, Arendt also spoke out repeatedly against the establishment of a binational Arab-Jewish state. Rejecting both alternatives, Arendt advocated for the inclusion of Palestine in a multi-ethnic federation that would not consist only of Jews and Arabs. Only in 1948, in an effort to forestall partition, did Arendt revise her earlier critique and endorse a binational solution for Palestine” (Gil Rubin, “From federalism to bi-nationalism: Hannah Arendt’s shifting Zionism”, Contemporary European History, Volume 24, Issue 3 , August 2015 , pp. 393-414: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/contemporary-european-history/article/from-federalism-to-binationalism-hannah-arendts-shifting-zionism/1820C58DE4D748FADE0D6F43324A793E ).
Hannah Arendt on a democratic Palestine as part of a Federation (1943): “Palestine can be saved as the national homeland of Jews only if (like other small countries and nationalities) it is integrated into a federation. Federated arrangements hold out good chances for the future because they promise the greatest chance for success in solving national conflicts and can thus be the basis for a political life that offers peoples the possibility of reorganizing themselves politically” (Hannah Arendt, “Can the Jewish-Arab question be solved?”, 1943, in Jerome Kohn and Ron H. Feldman, editors, “The Jewish Writings”, Schocken Books, New York, 2007, page 195; Hannah Arendt quoted in Samuel Bernofsky, “Hannah Arendt, alternative constructions in Zionist nationalism”, 29 March 2013).
Hannah Arendt (famed anti-racist Jewish scholar) referred to by Ibrahim Alawi (2014): “Ex-deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, believes that Israelis and Palestinians are already living in a "binational reality". Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, Ilan Pappe, and many other prominent Jewish voices argued for a binational state. While more people admit the irreversible reality of the occupation, more will acknowledge the only viable solution left: coexistence. In a modern context, coexistence doesn’t seem to be a far-fetched culture. Yet in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is. The reasons are not only related to elite interests and foreign policy inertia, they are also related to the ideologies that drive both sides of the conflict. Edward Said described the claim that Palestine is "principally and exclusively" Arab as a nationalistic myth and a radical simplification of "a land of many histories". This is not to feed the Zionist myth either, but it is to acknowledge the rich multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious nature of Palestine which is perpetually threatened by Zionist hegemony” (Ibrahim Alawi, “In memory of Edward Said: the one-state solution”, Uruknet, 16 October 2014: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=110257 ).
BARAM. Nir Baram (anti-racist Jewish Israeli novelist; author of “A Land Without Borders: my journey around East Jerusalem and the West Bank”) on the 2-state solution is dead (2017): “The 2 state solution … is totally dead… immorality of the Occupation” (“Journeys through the West Bank and East Jerusalem”, ABC RN, Saturday Extra, 6 May 2017: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/a-land-without-borders/8480942 ).
BARGHOUTHI. Dr Mustafa Barghouthi, “Thirty years after the Oslo Accords: facing a reality of apartheid”, Mondoweiss, 13 September 2023: https://mondoweiss.net/2023/09/thirty-years-after-the-oslo-accords-facing-a-reality-of-apartheid/ .
Quotes: “After 30 years of Oslo, the only remaining alternative to apartheid is one democratic state with equal national and civil rights, including the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people… The number of Israeli settlers, considered illegal according to international law, grew from 121,000 to more than 700,000. Moreover, Israeli settlers have become a decisive political force in the Israeli Knesset, with no less than 14 members out of 120. They also became a decisive force in the current Netanyahu government. Among them is Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security. Another is Bezalel Smotrich, the Minister of Finance and de facto civil governor of the West Bank. The main agenda of both is to fill the West Bank with settlements and settlers, so that Palestinians, as Smotrich said, will lose any hope of having a state of their own. By hindering all forms of negotiations with Palestinians and pushing the rapid expansion of settlements, successive Israeli governments under Netanyahu gradually killed the possibility of a two-state solution. Their response to the demographic presence of Palestinians, who are equal to or slightly outnumber the Jewish Israeli population in the land of historic Palestine, was the creation of an apartheid state and reality, in which Palestinians are not given equal rights to Jewish Israelis.”
BARGHOUTI. Omar Barghouti (leading Palestinian human rights activist and scholar who has advocated for the secular democratic state solution for more than three decades) on a one-state Palestine solution based on equal human rights (2013): “Other than being the right thing to do per se, an ethically consistent struggle in line with international law and universal principles of human rights will encourage Jewish-Israelis to join in “co-resistance” which is the most assured path to ethical co-existence… By emphasizing equal humanity as its most fundamental principle, the secular democratic state promises to end the fundamental injustices that have plagued Palestine and, simultaneously, to transcend national and ethnic dichotomies that now make it nearly impossible to envision ethical coexistence in a decolonized Palestine, based on equality, justice and freedom—a truly promising land.” (Omar Barghouti, “What comes next: a secular democratic state in historical Palestine”, Mondoweiss, 21 October 2013: https://mondoweiss.net/2013/10/democratic-palestine-promising/ ).
BEINART. Peter Beinart (editor at large of Jewish Currents.) (2020): “For decades I argued for separation between Israelis and Palestinians. Now, I can imagine a Jewish home in an equal state… About 640,000 Jewish settlers now live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the Israeli and American governments have divested Palestinian statehood of any real meaning. The Trump administration’s peace plan envisions an archipelago of Palestinian towns, scattered across as little as 70 percent of the West Bank, under Israeli control. Even the leaders of Israel’s supposedly center-left parties don’t support a viable, sovereign Palestinian state. The West Bank hosts Israel’s newest medical school. If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fulfills his pledge to impose Israeli sovereignty in parts of the West Bank, he will just formalize a decades-old reality: In practice, Israel annexed the West Bank long ago. Israel has all but made its decision: one country that includes millions of Palestinians who lack basic rights. Now liberal Zionists must make our decision, too. It’s time to abandon the traditional two-state solution and embrace the goal of equal rights for Jews and Palestinians. It’s time to imagine a Jewish home that is not a Jewish state” (Peter Beinart, “I no longer believe in a Jewish state”, New York Times, 8 July 2020: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/opinion/israel-annexation-two-state-solution.html ).
BENVENISTI. Meron Benvenisti (former deputy mayor of Jerusalem) referred to by Ibrahim Alawi (2014): “Ex-deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, believes that Israelis and Palestinians are already living in a "binational reality". Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, Ilan Pappe, and many other prominent Jewish voices argued for a binational state. While more people admit the irreversible reality of the occupation, more will acknowledge the only viable solution left: coexistence. In a modern context, coexistence doesn’t seem to be a far-fetched culture. Yet in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is. The reasons are not only related to elite interests and foreign policy inertia, they are also related to the ideologies that drive both sides of the conflict. Edward Said described the claim that Palestine is "principally and exclusively" Arab as a nationalistic myth and a radical simplification of "a land of many histories". This is not to feed the Zionist myth either, but it is to acknowledge the rich multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious nature of Palestine which is perpetually threatened by Zionist hegemony” (Ibrahim Alawi, “In memory of Edward Said: the one-state solution”, Uruknet, 16 October 2014: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=110257 ).
BISHARAT. George Bisharat (Professor, UC Hastings College of the Law) on a unitary state “solidly based on the principle of equal rights” (2012): “As it stands, there is one effective sovereign between the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and the Jordan River to the east: Israel. It is the Israeli government whose actions most impact the lives not only of its 7.6 million citizens, but also of its 4.3 million subjects in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. As this functionally unitary state will not be divided, the question that looms is: on what principles will it be organized, ethnic privilege for Jews, as it is now, or equal rights? Ethnic privilege for Jews is currently institutionalized not only in the segregated Jewish communities Israel has established in the West Bank, but also in more than 35 laws within Israel that bestow benefits exclusively to its Jewish citizens. A growing number of forward-looking Palestinians and Israelis are rejecting Jewish ethnic privilege as both ethically insupportable and politically unsustainable, and are opting for equal rights. That is the position of a number of the participants in a “one state” conference held recently at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School. Recognizing that Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are destined to live together, the conference participants were seeking ways to share power equitably between the two communities… By abandoning the still-born two-state solution, the emerging Israeli and American conservative advocates of one-state achieve a form of progress. But real, on-the-ground progress will follow only if the state that ultimately emerges is solidly based on the principle of equal rights. Inequality, in contrast, is a formula for perpetual conflict” (George Bisharat, “A one-state solution for Israel and Palestine”, Huffington Post, 10 June 2012: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-bisharat/israel-palestine-one-state-solution_b_1416120.html ).
BOYCE. Professor Peter Boyce AO (adjunct professor in the University of Tasmania’s Politics and International Relations Program and immediate past President of Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) Tasmania) on a 1-state solution (2018): “14 May 2018 marks the 70th anniversary of Israel’s proclamation of independence, and May 15 will solemnly recall the Nakba (“catastrophe”) that saw the displacement of some 700,000 Palestinian Arabs from Israeli territory. The extraordinarily successful achievement of Israeli state-building since the promise of a Jewish homeland—first issued by imperial Britain during the Great War (without moral or legal authority)—must be measured against the heavy price paid by the nearly 5 million Arab Palestinians who remain under Israeli occupation or blockaded in Gaza. The elaborate 1947 UN-sponsored plan for a Jewish state to co-exist alongside a Palestinian state was shattered by Israel’s sensational victory in the six-day war of 1967 and, despite repeated international endorsement of the “two-state solution”, we can now fairly confidently conclude that the two-state concept will not materialise… If it is now too late to persevere with the two-state formula, the only alternatives appear to be either a unitary state or a confederation of two self-governing polities which remain economically linked. But unitary status would annul any claim by Israel to be a Jewish state, because the Arab population is almost equal to the Jewish population and predicted to eclipse it by 2020. Moreover, Israel could no longer lay any claim to being a democratic state if it failed to accord equal rights to Palestinians. Israel’s proud [but utterly false] boast of being the only democracy in the Middle East has long been a cherished plank of its vigorous public diplomacy” (Peter Boyce, “Death knell of the two-state solution”, Australian Institute of International Affairs, 14 May 2018: http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/death-knell-of-two-state-solution/ ).
BRIT SHALOM. Brit Shalom (anti-racist Jewish organization in Palestine) as described by Daniel Reisel: “It [Brit Shalom] was started by Jews from Jerusalem and elsewhere in Palestine, in the mid-1920s. They were conjoined by a common belief in co-operation between the Yishuv and the Palestinian Arabs, which they felt was not merely a moral necessity, but the only long term practical solution. They were influenced by the seminal Israeli writer Ahad-Haam, often referred to as the leader of spiritual Zionism. He was on of the earliest critics of the policies of the Zionist Movement, the title of his essay: "Lo zeh ha-derech" (This is not the way), quickly becoming a slogan of earnest criticism” (Daniel Reisel, “The History of the original Brit Shalom, founded 1925”, Brit Shalom: http://www.britshalom.org/background.htm ).
BUBER. Martin Buber (eminent anti-racist Austrian-Jewish and thence Jewish Israeli philosopher) advocating a binational Jewish-Arab state (1920s): “Martin Buber started, stating that “[the Jewish people should declare] its desire to live in peace and brotherhood with the Arab people, and to develop the common homeland into a republic in which both peoples will have the possibility of free development” (Martin Buber quoted in “Martin Buber”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber ).
Martin Buber (1945): “Only a true peace with neighboring peoples can render possible a common development of this portion of the earth as a vanguard of the awakening of the Near East” (Martin Buber in a 1945 speech quoted in Daniel Reisel, “The History of the original Brit Shalom, founded 1925”, Brit Shalom: http://www.britshalom.org/background.htm ).
Martin Buber (famed anti-racist Jewish scholar) referred to by Ibrahim Alawi (2014): “Ex-deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, believes that Israelis and Palestinians are already living in a "binational reality". Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, Ilan Pappe, and many other prominent Jewish voices argued for a binational state. While more people admit the irreversible reality of the occupation, more will acknowledge the only viable solution left: coexistence. In a modern context, coexistence doesn’t seem to be a far-fetched culture. Yet in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is. The reasons are not only related to elite interests and foreign policy inertia, they are also related to the ideologies that drive both sides of the conflict. Edward Said described the claim that Palestine is "principally and exclusively" Arab as a nationalistic myth and a radical simplification of "a land of many histories". This is not to feed the Zionist myth either, but it is to acknowledge the rich multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious nature of Palestine which is perpetually threatened by Zionist hegemony” (Ibrahim Alawi, “In memory of Edward Said: the one-state solution”, Uruknet, 16 October 2014: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=110257 ).
BUTTU. Diana Buttu (a lawyer specializing in international law; former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization) condemning the failed 2-state solution (2018): “Yet, once again, Abbas failed to deliver. His “historic” speech turned out to be more of the same: a call for the world to salvage a two-state solution that died years ago, systematically destroyed by Israel as a result of its relentless construction on Palestinian land of settlements deemed illegal by the United Nations… For five decades, as Israel has built and expanded settlements and trampled on the rights of Palestinians, the world has done little more than issue empty condemnations declaring how “unhelpful” Israel’s actions are to achieving a two-state solution. Israel has not faced meaningful sanctions, it is recognized in international forums and Israel’s leaders have not been shunned – although they should be. Rather, largely as a result of Abbas’ dual demands – recognition and negotiation – Israel continues to reap the benefits of seeking peace while sowing the seeds of its own version of apartheid… With the Trump administration firmly on side with Israel, and with the vast majority of Palestinians no longer supporting the negotiation process, it is past time for bold moves by Abbas: to make it clear that our rights are not negotiable; to promote support for the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement; to push to hold Israel accountable; and to make it clear that Palestinians will press for equality.
COOK. Jonathan Cook (Israel-based humanitarian journalist) on US attitudes to the 1-state solution (2018): “The American public is now evenly split between those who want a two-state solution and those who prefer a single state, shared by Israelis and Palestinians, according to a survey published last week by the University of Maryland. And if a Palestinian state is off the table – as a growing number of analysts of the region conclude, given Israel’s intransigence and the endless postponement of Mr. Trump’s peace plan – then support for one state rises steeply, to nearly two-thirds of Americans… All of this is occurring even though US politicians and the media express no support for a one-state solution. In fact, quite the reverse.The movement to boycott Israel, known as BDS, is growing on US campuses, but vilified by Washington officials, who claim its goal is to end Israel as a Jewish state by bringing about a single state, in which all inhabitants would be equal. The US Congress is even considering legislation to outlaw boycott activism… Americans, like other westerners, are waking up to this ugly reality. A growing number understand that it is time for a new, single state model, one that ends Israel’s treatment of Jews as separate from and superior to Palestinians, and instead offers freedom and equality for all” (Jonathan Cook, “Growing support for one state falls on deaf ears”, Antiwar.com, 18 December 2018: https://original.antiwar.com/cook/2018/12/17/growing-us-support-for-one-state-falls-on-deaf-ears/ ).
DAHLAN. Mohammed Dahlan (former Palestinian Security Services head and political opponent of Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas) on the 1-state solution (2018): “Our bigger dream is, of course, an Independent Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza. But the United States will never agree to it, and Israel is opposed as well. Instead of nurturing illusions that will never be fulfilled, we should start internalizing the notion of one state for two nations, and demand full rights for the Palestinians. The 'deal of the century' that the Americans speak of as a solution to the Palestinian problem is a total disaster. And I do not see the two-state solution happening as well. That is why I come with a new proposal: to establish one state, where Palestinians can run their lives without being dependent on Israel” (Smadar Perry, “Abbas rival calls for one-state solution”, YNet, 12 December 2018: https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5424475,00.html ).
DAVIS. Uri Davis (Jewish Israeli member of Fatah) on the multiracial One Democratic State (ODS) in Palestine (2017): “[ODS means change] from the current state of affairs into a single Palestinian sovereignty (stretching) from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River under a liberal-democratic Palestinian Constitution; single Palestinian citizenship; and a single Palestinian currency, hopefully leading to a socialist democratic Federal Republic of Palestine” ((Daoud Kattab, “ODS movement seeks to popularize one-state solution for Palestine”, Arab News, 31 December 2017: http://www.arabnews.com/node/1216726/middle-east ).
DEMOCRATIC POPULAR FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE. The Democratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine presented the following in a resolution introduced to the Palestine National Congress (1969): “The Palestine National Congress will struggle for a popular democratic Palestinian state where Arabs and Jews enjoy equal rights without discrimination, where all forms of national and class oppression shall be abolished” (quoted in Black for Palestine, “An Appeal by Black Americans Against United States Support for the Zionist Government of Israel”, 1 November 1970: http://www.blackforpalestine.com/1970-black-nyt-statement.html ).
EREKAT. Saul Erekat (Palestinian negotiator) on 1-state solution (2018):“The two-state solution is over. Now is the time to transform the struggle for one state with equal rights for everyone living in historic Palestine, from the river to the sea” (Bernard Avishai, “Confederation: the one possible Israel-Palestine solution”, New York Review of Books, 2 February 2018: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/02/02/confederation-the-one-possible-israel-palestine-solution/ ).
Saeb Erekat (senior Palestinian politician) after the shift of the US embassy to Jerusalem (2018): “The two-state solution is over. Now is the time to transform the struggle for one state with equal rights for everyone living in historic Palestine” (Saeb Erekat quoted in Oliver Holmes, “One-state solution gains ground as Palestinians battle for equal rights”, Guardian, 14 March 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/13/one-state-solution-gains-ground-as-palestinians-battle-for-equal-rights ).
FALK. Professor Richard Falk (anti-racist Jewish American formerly international law and international relations professor at Princeton University, presently professor of Global and International Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara, Chair of the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, UN Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine, 2008-2014) (2019): “The Two State Solution should be pronounced ‘Dead.’ For several years, at least since the de facto abandonment of the Oslo diplomacy in 2014, the two-state solution cannot reasonably be continued to be put forward internationally and in liberal Zionist circles as a viable political option. Yet it continues to be affirmed by many governments and at the UN. This is not because there is any informed belief that it might finally happen, but rather because every other outcome seemed impossible, too horrible to contemplate, or calls upon Israel to give up its claim to be an exclusivist Jewish state … The strength of the Palestinian national movement is, and always has been, on the level of people as fortified by the growing international moral consensus that Israeli apartheid colonialism is wrong, indeed a crime against humanity according to international criminal law [see Article 7 of the Rome Statute governing the International Criminal Court and the International Apartheid Convention of 1973 on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid]. It is this bottom up process of struggle, spearheaded by Palestinian resistance and given leverage by global solidarity initiatives such as the BDS [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] Campaign as it gains momentum and heightens pressure… In light of these conclusions, what Is the best course of action? It would seem that only a democratic and secular single state could uphold self-determination for both peoples, holding out a promise of sustainable peace. It would need to be carefully envisioned and promoted with international safeguards along the path toward realization … In such a binational (one state, two nations) situation, the newly created single state could offer national homelands to Jews and Palestinians, while finding a name for the new state that is congenial to both peoples. Maybe this will never happen, but it is the most just and sustainable vision of a peaceful future that responds to decades of diplomatic failure, massive Palestinian suffering and abuse. Above all, such a solution recognizes that is people that possess the moral authority and fulfill political promise of national resistance and global solidarity. Such an understanding would be tantamount to a legislative victory by that still unacknowledged, yet powerful, Parliament of Humanity” (Richard Falk, “Can we imagine a just peace for Palestine?”, Countercurrents, 2 March 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/03/02/can-we-imagine-a-just-peace-for-palestine/ ).
HALAWI. Ibrahim Halawi (Teaching Fellow in International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London, Politics and International Relations Department) (2014): “Historian and essayist Tony Judt pleaded in his book "Israel: the alternative" that "the true alternative facing the Middle East in coming years will be between an ethnically cleansed Greater Israel and a single, integrated, binational state of Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians." Ex-deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, believes that Israelis and Palestinians are already living in a "binational reality". Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, Ilan Pappe, and many other prominent Jewish voices argued for a binational state. While more people admit the irreversible reality of the occupation, more will acknowledge the only viable solution left: coexistence...
The stubborn question that managed to complicate an already complicated peace process is that of Jerusalem. The complication stems from the Zionist rejection of a secular alternative that governs the life in the land of Semitic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is vital for both peoples to admit that their existence is a secular existence which does not undermine nor threaten the imperative role of their different religious beliefs in their lives. Jerusalem stands, in a secular binational state, as the capital of all, with equal and free access to its venues. The capital, just like the rest of the Holy Land, must be protected and governed under secular laws that protect the civil and juridical rights of its people. This humanistic alternative that Said and many other scholars from both sides argue for is the alternative to further outrageous colonial partition and/or continuous war. As Tony Judt put it in his book, it’s time to "think the unthinkable"” (Ibrahim Halawi, “In memory of Edward Said: the one state solution”, Uruqnet, 16 October 2014: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=110257 ).
HALPER. Jeff Halper (anti-racist Jewish human rights activist, Israeli Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) ) on the One Democratic State Campaign, (ODSC) (2018): “Any possibility of a viable [2-state-based] Palestinian state in the OPT has long been buried under the massive “facts on the grounds.” Israel’s Matrix of Control has rendered its control over the entire country permanent. The two-state solution nonetheless continues to be the solution-of-choice of governments. It provides a perfect vehicle for endless conflict management… The time is far overdue to begin formulating a genuinely just and workable political settlement, then follow it up with an effective strategy of advocacy within Israel/Palestine and abroad. Over the past year I have been engaged with a number of Israeli Jews and Palestinians over the formulation of a one-state program. We call ourselves the One Democratic State Campaign, (ODSC). Over the past year I have been engaged with a number of Israeli Jews and Palestinians over the formulation of a one-state program. We call ourselves the One Democratic State Campaign, (ODSC), and among are members are Awad Abdelfattah, a founder of the Balad Party and its long-time Secretary General; Ilan Pappe, the well-known Israeli historian; Diana Buttu, the well-known analyst and Palestinian activist; Daphan Baram, a lawyer, comedienne and the Director of ICAHD UK; As’ad Ghanem, a professor of Political Science at Haifa University; Siwar Aslih, a Ph.D. student in Social Psychology; Nadia Naser-Najjab, a doctoral student; Shir Hever, a political economist; Muhammad Younis, a high-tech engineer; Yoav Bar, an Israeli activist; Mohamed Kabha, a student; Sami Ma’ari, a professor of economics; and others, including myself… The ODSC promotes a one-state concept that is both democratic and just but that also acknowledges the multicultural character and the collective rights of the peoples living in the country, Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews… Key to any solution is the return of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants, or compensation and resettlement for those who choose not to return… This ties into yet another issue: how do we prevent the refugee population, traumatized, impoverished, severely under-educated and unskilled, from becoming an underclass in their own country?” (Jeff Halper, “The One Democratic State Campaign for a multicultural democratic state in Palestine/Israel”, Mondoweiss, 3 May 2018: https://mondoweiss.net/2018/05/democratic-multicultural-palestine/ ).
HASAN. Dr Rumy Hasan (Senior Lecturer, Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, UK; PhD in transition economics, Oxford) on creation of a single, unitary, democratic state (2009): “This paper utilises a comparison between Apartheid South Africa and Israel to argue that Israel, from its inception, has been an apartheid state, albeit different in form to the South African variety. The fundamental proposition is that only the dismantling of the Zionist legal code, the constitution and discriminatory state structures will ensure the end of apartheid in Palestine–Israel. The sine qua non for this is the creation of a single, unitary, democratic state. Accordingly, the goal of the Palestinian liberation struggle should decisively shift away from the 'two-state solution' in favour of a 'one-state solution'. To this end, six theses are presented” (Rumy Hasan, “The unitary, democratic state and the struggle against Apartheid in Palestine-Israel”, Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies, volume 7, issue 1, pages 81-94, 2009: https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/E1474947508000073?journalCode=hls ).
HOLMES. Oliver Holmes (Jerusalem correspondent for the UK Guardian) (2019): “One-state solution gains ground as Palestinians battle for equal rights. Belief in two-state solution crumbles as 600,000 settlers remain on occupied land… When polled, a majority of Palestinians do not see that [2-state solution] as a possibility. Roughly 600,000 Israeli settlers now live on occupied land with no intention of leaving. Meanwhile, Israeli politicians in cabinet talk about annexing vast swathes of the West Bank. “Almost nobody believes in the two-state solution anymore,” [Fadi] Quran says.” (Oliver Holmes, “One-state solution gains ground as Palestinians battle for equal rights”, Guardian, 14 March 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/13/one-state-solution-gains-ground-as-palestinians-battle-for-equal-rights ).
HONIG-PARNASS. Tikva Honig-Parnass socialist writer) on the 1-state solution (2009): “The very struggle for a one-state solution constitutes a challenge against the imperialist order in the Middle East, of which the Zionist colonial state is its cornerstone. Hence, as socialists, we cannot stay neutral to the issue of the resolution of the conflict. Joining the movement for one secular democratic state in Historic Palestine should be perceived as part and parcel of our struggle against US imperialism and the Zionist settler state of Israel, and for socialism in the Middle East” (Tikva Honig-Parnass, “One democratic state in historic Palestine. A socialist viewpoint”, International Socialist review, May, 2009: https://isreview.org/issue/90/one-democratic-state-historic-palestine ).
HUSSEIN. Cherine Hussein (Egyptian deputy director and research fellow at the Council for British Research in the Levant’s Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem) on the re-emergence of the single state solution in Palestine/Israel (2015): “Since then [Oslo Accord 1993] , the two-state solution has continued to both dominate and frustrate the official search for peace in Palestine/Israel. In parallel to this, however, a more obscured struggle of resistance- centred upon the single state idea as a more liberating pathway towards justice – has re-emerged against the hegemony of Zionism and separation, and the shrinking territorial space for a viable two-state solution in the contested land” (Cherine Hussein, “ The Re-emergence of the Single State Solution in Palestine/Israel”, Routledge, New York, 2015).
IHUD. Ihud (a bi-nationalist Zionist political party founded by Judah Leon Magnes, Martin Buber, Ernst Simon and Henrietta Szold of the anti-racist Jewish Brit Shalom) argued for a democratic bi-national state. Daniel Reisel writing for Brit Shalom: “Brit Shalom continued to propound their ideas throughout the twenties and thirties. In 1942, they founded a small political party, called the Ihud (Union) Association of Palestine, and continued to lobby mostly the international for support and recognition for their ideas. However, the Jewish Agency and the political leadership of the Yishuv [pre-1948 Jews in Palestine] all but ignored them. The Ihud party's biggest victory was undoubtedly the fact that they were able to present their ideas at length first to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in 1946 and then to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine in 1947. The Anglo-American Committee voted largely in favour of the proposals of Ihud, recommending an Economical Union in Palestine. In both these cases, Ihud proposed the creation of joint organs of government, and a division of the country into districts based on a communal basis. Although there would inevitably have been differences of opinion among the Jews and the Arabs, Ihud stated that there would also be a great degree of cooperation. On issues such as economic development, social security, standards of life, trade, agriculture, industry, labour, commerce, etc, would, in their opinion draw the Jews and Arabs together” (Daniel Reisel, “The History of the original Brit Shalom, founded 1925”, Brit Shalom: http://www.britshalom.org/background.htm ).
JARAI. Radi Jarai (Fatah member and spokesperson for the multiracial One Democratic State (ODS) in Palestine founded in March 2013) (2018): “We need to make the idea [One Democratic State (ODS) in Palestine] understandable to the common person so that it begins to gain traction… There are Israeli Jewish groups that support our goal but have chosen not to join us at the moment… Their [most PLO supporters] minds are still set on the two-state solution and they use the one-state idea as a threat. That includes President [Mahmoud] Abbas who wants to change the international sponsors of the peace process, not understanding that Israel doesn’t want peace, regardless of who the sponsors are” (Daoud Kattab, “ODS movement seeks to popularize one-state solution for Palestine”, Arab News, 31 December 2017: http://www.arabnews.com/node/1216726/middle-east ).
JASSAT. Iqbal Jassat (chairperson of Media Review Network in Pretoria, South Africa) reviewing “The One-State Solution” by Virginia Tilley (2005): “As Israel’s apartheid wall colonizes 30-40 percent more of the 22 percent of Palestine that remains, an increasing number of analysts, activists, and academics have begun to challenge the two-state solution designed to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With Palestinians eventually ending up with only 12-15 percent of their land, made up of disjointed ghettoes over which they will have no sovereignty- a single, secular polity that would encompass both Israel and the Occupied Territories is looking increasingly attractive. “The One-State Solution” written by Virginia Tilley, associate professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, lucidly demonstrates why the two-state model “is an idea whose time has passed”.” (Iqbal Jassat, “Book review: The One State Solution”, The Electronic Intifada, 16 July 2005: https://electronicintifada.net/content/book-review-one-state-solution/3490 ).
JUDT. Tony Judt (anti-racist Jewish British historian and essayist): "The true alternative facing the Middle East in coming years will be between an ethnically cleansed Greater Israel and a single, integrated, binational state of Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians" (Tony Judt, "Israel: the alternative”, quoted in Ibrahim Alawi, “In memory of Edward Said: the one-state solution”, Uruknet, 16 October 2014: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=110257 ).
KALVARYSKI. H. M. Kalvaryski (anti-racist Jewish Zionist) on equality and justice for all in Palestine (1930s): "Any solution found and put into practice against the will of the Arabs endangers our future. We must recognise the kinship existing between the two branches of the Semitic race, and the duty of both parts to act in accordance with the principle: "that which it would not have the other branch do unto him, that it should not do unto the other." From this follow the principles of equality - parity - and of non-domination of either people by the other. We must find a way of reconciling the two national movements, the Zionist and the Arab, which seem conflicting and mutually exclusive, but which are in reality complimentary to each other, and able to live side by side in peace and harmony. I have reached the conclusion, first, that it is not the fault of the other party only that so far the way has not yet been found; and secondly, that "if any one tell thee, I have striven and have not found, then believe him not" ( H. M. Kalvaryski quoted in Daniel Reisel, “The History of the original Brit Shalom, founded 1925”, Brit Shalom: http://www.britshalom.org/background.htm ).
KARMI. Dr Garda Karmi (Palestinian academic and writer; research fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, UK) on a unitary state for Palestine (2011): However, changes on the ground in the occupied Palestinina territories since 1993 threraten to make such a [2-state] solution unlikely, if not impossible. The Israeli colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem has so advanced as to make questionable the logistical possibility of creating a viable Palestinian state on the territory that remains. Yet there is an extraordinary reluctance on the part of most politicians concerned with the conflict to look the facts in the face and draw the obvious conclusion: A two-state solution that complies even with the minimalist Palestinian requirements cannot emerge from the existing situation. Rather like Hans Christian Anderson’s tale of the emperor’s new clothes, none of them is willing to see the naked truth. As the feasibility of a two-state solution recedes, the debate has turned to the one-state alternative, often as an undesirable outcome of last resort failing implementation of the [2-state] preferred option. Both sides have used it as a threat against those standing in the way of the two-state solution”” (Garda Karmi, “The one-state solution: an alternative vision for Israeli-Palestine peace”, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Winter 2011), pages 62-76: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jps.2011.xl.2.62?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents ).
Dr Garda Karmi on an equal rights for all, 1-state solution (2008): “ A UN resolution is the logical next step, underlining the issue's global importance and exposing the inequity and dishonesty of the two-state solution, to replace it with something fairer and more durable. It would be encapsulated in the following clauses, part of the draft UN resolution for a one-state solution, which has been under discussion for six months. Its principal authors are my fellow Palestinian Karl Sabbagh and myself: "The general assembly notes the failure of recent efforts made by regional and international parties to resolve the conflict through the creation of two states; Recalling the recent history of the former [Palestine] Mandate territory as a land where Arabs and Jews shared equal rights of habitation; Reviewing Israel's non-compliance with UN Resolution 194, requiring Israel to repatriate the Palestinian refugees, and its illegal conduct in the occupied territories., Calls upon representatives of Israel and Palestine to agree on behalf of their peoples to share the land between the Mediterranean and the river Jordan ... by setting up a state which is democratic and secular, in which the rights of all people living within its borders to freedom of worship, security, and equality under the law are enshrined in a new constitution, to replace the separate forms of government that apply currently in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza… A unitary state is inevitable. Establishing an exclusive state defined along ethnic-religious lines and excluding its previous inhabitants was unjust and ultimately unsustainable. No political acrobatics will alter this. The sooner the UN, which unwisely created Israel in the first place, takes charge of the consequences, the better it will be for Palestinians, for Israelis and for the region as a whole” (Garda Karmi, “The future is one nation”, The Guardian, 25 September 2008: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/sep/25/middleeast ).
LAMONT. Marc Lamont (African American journalist sacked by CNN for supporting a free Palestine and Palestinian resistance to the ongoing Palestinian Genocide (2018): “We must advocate and promote nonviolence at every opportunity, but we cannot endorse a narrow politics of respectability that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in the face of state violence and ethnic cleansing… a free Palestine from the river to the sea” (Ali Abunimah, “Marc Lamont politically lynched for telling truth about Palestine”, The Electronic Intifada, 30 November 2018: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/marc-lamont-hill-politically-lynched-telling-truth-about-palestine ).
LOEWENSTEIN. Antony Loewenstein (anti-racist Jewish Australian writer; of “My Israel Question”) reviewing “The re-emergence of the single state solution in Palestine/Israel” by Cherine Hussein (2015): “The death of the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine has been a long time coming… The unspoken reality, however, has always been that a two-state arrangement, if it ever came to fruition, would disproportionately discriminate against Palestinians, including Palestinian citizens of Israel. Moreover, a true democracy doesn’t divide itself along ethnic or religious lines unless it wants to resemble apartheid South Africa or the Jim Crow south in the United States.In today’s Jewish state and even more so in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israeli violence against Palestinians isn’t an aberration but a deliberate policy of control… How to mainstream the one-state solution, to generate widespread support among Palestinians in the diaspora and in Palestine itself is a key question without any set answers… Deepening Israeli racism, occupation and intransigence are arguably the best weapons one-state advocates have and there’s every indication Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government will continue delivering on that front” (Antony Loewenstein, “The elusive path to a one-state solution”, Electronic Intifada, 19 October 2015: https://electronicintifada.net/content/elusive-path-one-state-solution/14931 ).
Antony Loewenstein (2012): “In a new book I’ve edited with Ahmed Moor, “After Zionism”, we explain both the justice and sense of imagining a one-state future. A one-state equation isn’t about dismissing or ignoring Jewish history, but recognising the land is shared between two peoples and a soon-to-be minority Jewish population has no legal or ethical right to control a majority Arab people.On its current path, despite some mainstream Israeli politicians advocating the illegal annexation of the West Bank to create an indefinite apartheid state, Israel will become increasingly ghettoised and militarised, convincing once-proud diaspora supporters to decide between their morality and Zionist loyalties. The time for a one-state solution has surely come” (Antony Loewenstein, “A one-state solution is the only way forward for Israel and Palestine”, The Conversation, 30 July 2012: https://theconversation.com/a-one-state-solution-is-the-only-way-forward-for-israel-and-palestine-8465 ; also see Antony Loewenstein and Ahmed Moor, editors, “After Zionism. One state for Israel and Palestine”, Saqi Books, 2012).
Antony Loewenstein and Ahmed Moor on their book “After Zionism. One state for Israel and Palestine” (2012): “We come together on this book [“After Zionism. One state for Israel and Palestine”] not because we agree on everything – we don’t – but because of a shared belief that Jews and Palestinians are destined to work together, whatever our differences in background, ideals and daily life. We are connected with our desire to see peace with justice for our peoples” (Antony Loewenstein and Ahmed Moor, editors, “After Zionism. One state for Israel and Palestine”, Saqi Books, 2012).
MAGNES. Judah Magnes (anti-racist Jewish Israeli first president of the Hebrew University) on Jewish -Arab cooperation as both necessary and possible: “ Our contention is that Arab-Jewish cooperation is not only necessary for the peace of this part of the world, but that it is also possible. We contend, upon the basis of the experience of the past twenty-five years, that Arab-Jewish cooperation has never been made the chief objective of major policy, either by the Mandatory Government, by the Jewish Agency, or by those representing the Arabs. We regard this as a great sin of omission which has been committed throughout all these years” (Judah Magnes quoted in Daniel Reisel, “The History of the original Brit Shalom, founded 1925”, Brit Shalom: http://www.britshalom.org/background.htm ).
Judah Magnes (anti-racist Jewish scholar) referred to by Ibrahim Alawi (2014): “Ex-deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, believes that Israelis and Palestinians are already living in a "binational reality". Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, Ilan Pappe, and many other prominent Jewish voices argued for a binational state. While more people admit the irreversible reality of the occupation, more will acknowledge the only viable solution left: coexistence. In a modern context, coexistence doesn’t seem to be a far-fetched culture. Yet in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is. The reasons are not only related to elite interests and foreign policy inertia, they are also related to the ideologies that drive both sides of the conflict. Edward Said described the claim that Palestine is "principally and exclusively" Arab as a nationalistic myth and a radical simplification of "a land of many histories". This is not to feed the Zionist myth either, but it is to acknowledge the rich multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious nature of Palestine which is perpetually threatened by Zionist hegemony” (Ibrahim Alawi, “In memory of Edward Said: the one-state solution”, Uruknet, 16 October 2014: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=110257 ).
Judah Magnes (anti-racist Jewish educator) referred to in Lee Shai Weissbach , translator, “A Jewish Life on Three Continents”: The Memoir of Menachem Mendel Frieden” (2013): “It is telling, for instance, that despite his own strong Zionist sentiments [Menachem Mendel] Frieden nonetheless has only praise for the educator Judah Magnes, whose support for a binational state of Jews and Arabs in Palestine conflicted with the vision of mainstream Zionists, those who saw foresaw a state that would have an exclusively Jewish character” (Lee Shai Weissbach , translator, “A Jewish Life on Three Continents.: The Memoir of Menachem Mendel Frieden”, Stanford University Press, 2013, page 358).
MARGOLIS. Eric Margolis (anti-racist, Jewish-origin conservative US writer) on Palestinian human rights advocacy of his mother, his mother Nexhmie Zaimi and a secular non-racist state in Palestine (3 June 2018):“I have been steeped in Mideast affairs since the early 1950s, when my late mother, Nexhmie Zaimi, was one of the first female American journalists to cover the Arab world, interviewing Egypt’s President Nasser, and Anwar Sadat, Jordan’s King Hussein, and Iraq’s strongman, Nuri As-Said. She began reporting the plight of 750,000 Palestinian refugees driven from their homes by the newly created state of Israel. Few Americans had ever heard of Palestinians. They were told Israel was ‘a land without people for a people without land’. My mother’s newspaper articles and lectures brought her much attention and constant death threats and attacks on our New York City home. The newspapers for which she wrote were pressured by major advertisers to drop her columns. A courageous, outspoken woman, Mrs. Zaimi continued public speaking until she was finally silenced by threats to throw acid into my face. Fifty years later, after living in Egypt and a lifetime travelling across the Arab world and Israel, I am an ingrained pessimist. I would like nothing better than see a just Mideast peace, with Arabs and Jews living together peacefully and productively in a secular, non-racist state.” (Eric Margolis quoted in Manzoor Ahmed Manzoor, “The Palestinians cannot be defeated”, PAP, 1 May 2018: http://papofmam.com/2018/05/01/the-palestinians-cannot-be-defeated/ ).
MOOR. Ahmed Moor and Antony Loewenstein on their book “After Zionism. One state for Israel and Palestine” (2012): “We come together on this book [“After Zionism. One state for Israel and Palestine”] not because we agree on everything – we don’t – but because of a shared belief that Jews and Palestinians are destined to work together, whatever our differences in background, ideals and daily life. We are connected with our desire to see peace with justice for our peoples” (Antony Loewenstein and Ahmed Moor, editors, “After Zionism. One state for Israel and Palestine”, Saqi Books, 2012).
NAJJAR. Professor Rima Najjar (a Palestinian activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank) on an eventual an exodus of Jews from Palestine and a unitary state in Palestine (2018): “Israel cannot survive as a Jewish state without a constant influx of Jews as immigrants to keep the Jewish majority it created by denying Palestinian right of return and blocking Palestinian aspirations to self-determination in their own homeland. Today, thanks to BDS, we are no longer trapped in the language of “disputed territory” or dual “narratives”. It’s finally clear that the demise of the Jewish state is inevitable, leading to an exodus of Jews from Palestine … The time has finally come for Zionist chains to be broken and for self-determination, dignity, and transformative justice for Palestinians to spring forth across synagogues, churches and mosques worldwide. As Dr Gideon Polya eloquently put it in “Palestinian Me Too: 140 Alphabetically-listed Zionist Crimes Expose Appalling Western Complicity & Hypocrisy”: “A peaceful , humane solution that would be of enormous benefit to all the world, to all the Jewish Israelis and to all the Indigenous Palestinians, would be a unitary state in Palestine with return of all refugees, zero tolerance for racism, equal rights for all, all human rights for all, one-person-one-vote, justice, goodwill, reconciliation, airport-level security, nuclear weapons removal, internationally-guaranteed national security initially based on the present armed forces, and untrammelled access for all citizens to all of the Holy Land. It can and should happen tomorrow” (Rima Najjar, “An exodus of “Jewish settlers” from Palestine in inevitable”, Global Research, 12 February 2018: https://www.globalresearch.ca/an-exodus-of-jewish-settlers-from-palestine-is-inevitable/5629042 ).
OPHIR, Jonathan Ophir (Israeli musician, conductor and writer based in Denmark) (2020): “Peter Beinart, Prince of ‘Liberal-Zionism’, published a nearly 7K-word essay in Jewish Currents titled “Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine”, explaining why he is abandoning the two-state solution. It was followed up by his much shorter piece in the New York Times titled “I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State”. I don’t need to write an essay to explain just how deeply this cuts into the Zionist heart. Equality between Jews and Palestinians is anathema to Zionism, and abandoning the Jewish State is relinquishing the conceptual means by which this inequality is maintained. These advocacies in general are not novel. Many others as well as this writer have been making them for years. But the person who is now voicing them is part of this story which makes it that much more explosive. The prince has just abandoned the castle. Even though Beinart seems keen to soften the blow by suggesting that Zionism continue more as “essence” rather than “form”, that is, become a kind of cultural signifier without a Jewish nation-state as such, for Zionists today, this is still very much tantamount to a death blow… And if it’s Apartheid, no matter what you do, then it’s logical that the goal needs to change from managing it, to abolishing it. When the goal is abolishing it, then we are called on to imagine a future without Apartheid. This is where the “pragmatists” of the status quo orthodoxies will come in to demolish these imaginings as “unrealistic” or worse. People once talked that way about Apartheid South Africa, too, until it wasn’t Apartheid anymore” (Jonathan Ophir, “Peter Beinart’s defection is a desperate crisis for liberal Zionists”, Mondoweiss, 20 July 2020: https://mondoweiss.net/2020/07/peter-beinarts-defection-makes-liberal-zionists-reactionary/ ).
PAPPE. Ilan Pappe (anti-racist Jewish Israeli director of the European Centre of Palestine Studies, University of Exeter, UK; author of 15 books on the Middle East, including “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”) on “one democratic state”) (2018): “A new-old thinking about Palestine is needed. We should aim to create one democratic state and a decolonisation process of the Zionist ideology in Palestine, though this is not going to happen tomorrow. It would be deluding people by telling them it would happen tomorrow or that it is an easy road. No, it is a very difficult road giving the American support for Israel and the American ideology, coupled with the Arab world's disunity and the disunity in the Palestinian camp… The Jews in Palestine are six million people and they are a third generation of settlers. In other parts of the world, third-generation settlers, like in [formerly Apartheid] South Africa, are entitled to have their ethnic and political rights, only if they are not at the expense of the indigenous population… Look, I am an Israeli Jew who was born in Israel. I care about the people. My family is there. I am doing it because I mainly believe it is morally just, but I also think it is for their future” (Ilan Pappe in interview with Ali Younes, “Ilan Pappe: Palestinians don’t need US for their statehood”, Al Jazeera, 2 May 2018: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/ilan-pappe-palestinians-don-statehood-180430115438783.html ).
Ilan Pappe on pre-WW2 British and Palestinian agreement on a unitary state (2007): “Until 1937, the British were still visualizing the future with a one state paradigm… In a country that had a majority of Palestinians (85% of the population), the British must have felt triumphant when they succeeded in persuading the Executive Committee of the Palestine National Council… to share land with Jewish settlers. The idea was to build a state on the basis of parity… It was a concept of a unitary state that was accepted by the Palestinian leadership in a rare moment of unity.. But the Zionist leadership refused to partake in such a solution… the Zionist leaders preferred the idea of partition, with the hop of annexing more of Palestine when favourable conditions for such expansion would develop” [and realized in1948 and 1967] (Ilan Pappe quoted in Cherine Hussein, “The Re-emergence of the Single State Solution in Palestine/Israel”, Routledge, New York, 2015).
Ilan Pappe (2018): “In April this year, a new initiative was launched in Israel-Palestine entitled the ‘Campaign for a One Democratic State’. It was a Palestinian initiative supported by progressive Israeli Jews. The aim of the initiative is to try and organise under one umbrella all the groups and individuals who support the idea inside and outside historical Palestine… The research under taken by supporters of this project, and the numerous conferences on the one-state solution, helped the movements on the ground that support the idea to highlight the link between the nature of the conflict in Palestine and the only viable solution to the problem. The analysis points clearly to the conflict as a struggle between a settler state and the indigenous population. An accurate diagnosis is the first step on the way to a successful prognosis. The research juxtaposed constructively the various models that are on offer for a one state solution; a secular democratic state, a bi-national one, an Islamic state or a socialist one. The new initiative reported in the beginning of this article is now looking for the points of agreement between its various members in order to create a ‘broad church’ among those who believe in this vision. This is not an easy enterprise, but it is a necessary one and the initial attempts so far have been very encouraging. Another challenge for building the movement on the ground is how to involve more women and young people in leading it. It is a long journey ahead, but finally the direction seems to be the right one” (Ilan Pappe, “One-state solution and the way forward for Palestine”, Global Research, 23 July 2018: https://www.globalresearch.ca/one-state-solution-and-the-way-forward-for-palestine/5649294 ).
Ilan Pappe (famed anti-racist Jewish Israeli historian) referred to by Ibrahim Alawi (2014): “Ex-deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, believes that Israelis and Palestinians are already living in a "binational reality". Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, Ilan Pappe, and many other prominent Jewish voices argued for a binational state. While more people admit the irreversible reality of the occupation, more will acknowledge the only viable solution left: coexistence. In a modern context, coexistence doesn’t seem to be a far-fetched culture. Yet in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it is. The reasons are not only related to elite interests and foreign policy inertia, they are also related to the ideologies that drive both sides of the conflict. Edward Said described the claim that Palestine is "principally and exclusively" Arab as a nationalistic myth and a radical simplification of "a land of many histories". This is not to feed the Zionist myth either, but it is to acknowledge the rich multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious nature of Palestine which is perpetually threatened by Zionist hegemony” (Ibrahim Alawi, “In memory of Edward Said: the one-state solution”, Uruknet, 16 October 2014: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=110257 ).
PELED. Miko Peled (Israeli-American activist and author) on 1-state solution (2017): “The demand for a democracy with equal rights over all of historic Palestine must be made loud and clear by all people of conscience and by the international community. Israel must make way for a political reality where the voices of all people are heard and the rights of all people are guaranteed. This is what has inspired the BDS movement, whose demands include ending the military occupation, granting equal rights, and allowing the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and their land. If we can learn anything from the examples set by the non-violent resistance to end apartheid in South Africa through BDS, then supporting a one-state solution is precisely the right answer and the right action with which to confront Donald Trump’s Jerusalem declaration and Israel’s occupation of Palestine” (Miko Peled, “A One-sate solution with equl aiorghts is th eonlyanswerr or to Trumop’s Jeruslem declaration”, Mint Press News, 16 December 2017: https://www.mintpressnews.com/one-state-solution-with-equal-rights-is-the-only-answer-to-trumps-jerusalem-declaration/235569/ ) .
Miko Peled (Jewish Israeli peace activist, author, karate instructor and author of “The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine): “Just as people of conscience around the world hope to see the old tyrants like Mubarak and Qaddafi toppled, so must they act so that Zionist Israel will be transformed into a secular, tolerant, pluralistic democracy. A democracy in which all citizens enjoy equal rights and have a say in their future. As the drastic changes in the Middle East took place with little warning, one may expect that little warning will be given and that change will happen within Israel/Palestine sooner rather than later. Those who stand beside Zionist Israel now will later come to regret it and the stain of shame will be hard to erase. As it is the Zionist state will go down in history as the lowest and most shameful chapter in the long history of the Jewish people “ (Miko Peled, “Israel Is No “Island of Stability””, 12 April 2011: https://mikopeled.com/2011/04/14/israel-is-no-island-of-stability-april-12-2011-by-miko-peled/ ; see Miko Peled quotes: http://www.thehypertexts.com/Miko%20Peled%20Quotes%20Articles%20Essays.htm ).
Miko Peled: “Israel is faced with two options: Continue to exist as a Jewish state while controlling the Palestinians through military force and racist laws, or undertake a deep transformation into a real democracy where Israelis and Palestinians live as equals in a shared state, their shared homeland. For Israelis and Palestinians alike, the latter path promises a bright future” (Miko Peled in Miko Peled quotes: http://www.thehypertexts.com/Miko%20Peled%20Quotes%20Articles%20Essays.htm ).
POLYA. Dr Gideon Polya (anti-racist Jewish Australian scientist, writer, artist and humanitarian activist; formerly Associate Professor (Reader) in Biochemistry, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia) on unitary state (“one state solution”) for Palestine (2018): “The “two-state solution” has been a convenient fig-leaf for pro-Apartheid Western dishonesty and inaction over Palestine. The ethnic cleansing of 90% of Palestine has rendered the “two-state solution” dead but the continuing obscenity of a grossly human rights-abusing Apartheid Israel is intolerable to decent people around the world. However the racist Jewish Nation-State Law makes it abundantly clear that the racist Zionists running Apartheid Israel are resolutely committed to a neo-Nazi Apartheid State and endless, deadly subjugation of the Indigenous Palestinians with the ever-present threat of 100% ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The world must act over Apartheid Israel as it did over Apartheid South Africa. A clear, humane solution to the continuing human rights catastrophe in Palestine is a unitary state (a “one state solution”) as in post-Apartheid South Africa that would involve return of all refugees, zero tolerance for racism, equal rights for all, all human rights for all, one-person-one-vote, justice, goodwill, reconciliation, airport-level security, nuclear weapons removal, internationally-guaranteed national security initially based on the present armed forces, and untrammelled access for all citizens to all of Palestine. It can and should happen tomorrow” (Gideon Polya, “Israeli Jewish Nation-State Law enshrines Apartheid and genocidal racism”, Countercurrents, 24 July 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/07/24/israeli-jewish-nation-state-law-enshrines-apartheid-and-genocidal-racism/ ).
QURAN. Fadi Quran (West Bank Palestinian activist) (2019): “Almost nobody believes in the two-state solution anymore” (Oliver Holmes, “One-state solution gains ground as Palestinians battle for equal rights”, Guardian, 14 March 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/13/one-state-solution-gains-ground-as-palestinians-battle-for-equal-rights ).
RIGBY. Professor Andrew Rigby (Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies, Coventry University, UK) on the 1-state solution (2017): “So there are in fact two versions of the one-state solution: a democratic bi-national state where Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs enjoy equal rights of citizenship, and an apartheid-like state within which Palestinians would remain as they have been throughout much of their history – an occupied people without basic human or civil rights” (“Thank you Trump for legitimising debate aboutr a “one-state sukltion” to the Israeli-Palesrins conflct”, Open Democracy, 22 February 2017: https://www.opendemocracy.net/andrew-rigby/thank-you-trump-for-legitimising-debate-about-one-state-solution-to-israel-palestine ).
RUBENSTEIN. Danny Rubenstein (formerly on the editorial board of the newspaper Haaretz, author and specialist on Arab and Palestinian affairs; academic at Ben Gurion University and The Hebrew University in Jerusalem) on one-state solution (2010): “It would not be a great exaggeration to assert that the new Palestinian generation in the West Bank (less so in Gaza), who know Israel so well, would prefer to fight for equal rights in a single binational state rather than continue a struggle that seems almost hopeless—to establish an independent state. This is not a casual suggestion or a guess. In the past few years, Palestinian figures have talked about ending the discouraging struggle to create Palestinian rule in the territories. Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al-Quds University, once suggested, with a degree of cynicism, that the Palestinians should demand total annexation so that they could receive the same rights as Israelis in the common homeland. Ali Jirbawi of Beir Zeit University has raised the possibility of a voluntary dismantling of the Palestinian Authority. In international diplomacy there is a pervasive idea that it is possible and necessary to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza that will exist side by side with Israel. Many Israelis and Palestinians want this and believe in it. But the forces working against this possibility are many and powerful. Israeli governments have enabled the settlement of over half a million Jews beyond the 1967 borders. This represents almost 10 percent of the Jews in Israel. About 300,000 of them live in settlements in the West Bank and about 200,000 are in the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. There are those among them who will fight with all their strength to prevent an Israeli withdrawal and the establishment of a Palestinian state. But what is no less important is that on the Palestinian side as well a new situation has emerged. National unity has dissolved, the national movement has atrophied and declined, and the idea has become acceptable that if there won’t be two states for two peoples, it is better that there be one state” (Danny Rubenstein,”One state/two states: rethinking Israel and Palestine”, Dissent, Summer 2010: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/one-statetwo-states-rethinking-israel-and-palestine ).
SAID. Edward Said (eminent Palestinian-American scholar) (1999): “The problem is that Palestinian self-determination in a separate state is unworkable, just as unworkable as the principle of separation between a demographically mixed, irreversibly connected Arab population without sovereignty and a Jewish population with it. The question, I believe, is not how to devise means for persisting in trying to separate them, but to see whether it is possible for them to live together as fairly and peacefully as possible… I see no other way than to begin now to speak about sharing the land that has thrust us together, sharing it in a truly democratic way, with equal rights for each citizen. There can be no reconciliation unless both peoples, two communities of suffering, resolve that their existence is a secular fact, and that it has to be dealt with as such. This does not mean a diminishing of Jewish life as Jewish life or a surrendering of Palestinian Arab aspirations and political existence. On the contrary, it means self-determination for both peoples. But it does mean being willing to soften, lessen and finally give up special status for one people at the expense of the other… during the interwar period, a small but important group of Jewish thinkers (Judah Magnes, [Martin] Buber, [Hannah] Arendt and others) argued and agitated for a binational state. The logic of [racist] Zionism naturally overwhelmed their efforts, but the idea is alive today here and there among Jewish and Arab individuals frustrated with the evident insufficiencies and depredations of the present” (Edward Said, “The One-state Solution”, New York Times Magazine, 10 January 1999: https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/10/magazine/the-one-state-solution.html ; Edward Said quoted in part in Ibrahim Halawi, “In memory of Edward Said: the one state solution”, Uruqnet, 16 October 2014: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=110257 ).
Edward Said (eminent Palestinian American scholar): "The question, I believe, is not how to devise means for persisting in trying to separate them, but to see whether it is possible for them to live together as fairly and peacefully as possible"( Edward Said quoted in Ibrahim Alawi, “In memory of Edward Said: the one-state solution”, Uruknet, 16 October 2014: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=110257 ).
SAVIR. Uri Savir (Israeli diplomat and politician) on Palestinian Authority and the one-state solution (2018): “A representative of the Israeli Civil Administration recently presented the Knesset with demography statistics that indicate there are more Palestinians than Jews (by a very small margin) between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea. The numbers presented March 26 stipulate that 6.8 million Palestinians and 6.5 million [Jewish] Israelis live on these lands. Now that these numbers were recognized by Israel, the option of a so-called one-state solution is gaining momentum in the Palestinian Authority (PA). A senior PLO official, close to President Mahmoud Abbas, told Al-Monitor that for the foreseeable future, the two-state solution is off the table for several reasons” (Uri Savir, “Are Palestinians contemplating one-sate solution?”, Al Monitor, 8 April 2018: https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/04/israel-palestinians-mahmoud-abbas-demography-two-state.html ).
SFARD. Michael Sfard (legal adviser to Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din) (2020): “People should ultimately ask themselves what the end goal of Israel’s policy is. Twenty years ago, most people would say it was two states — but I’m sure that’s not their answer today. And if one democratic binational state is also not their answer, then they have no escape route from apartheid” (Michael Sfard quoted in Jonathan Ophir, “Peter Beinart’s defection is a desperate crisis for liberal Zionists”, Mondoweiss, 20 July 2020: https://mondoweiss.net/2020/07/peter-beinarts-defection-makes-liberal-zionists-reactionary/ ).
SHEPPARD. Barry Sheppard (socialist and human rights activist) on the 1-state solution (2017): “In the preparation of our [US Socialist Workers Party] 1971 convention, I and Gus Horowitz (who knew a lot more about Jewish and Israeli history than I did) drafted a resolution on Israel that included support for a democratic, secular Palestine. This resolution was adopted by the SWP at the convention… How the situation on the ground has evolved in the decades since , with Israel becoming a fully-fledged apartheid state, has not only made the arguments for a democratic single state more glaringly obvious, but a burning necessity. The only realistic solution, as [Saul] Erekat said, is a single state with equal rights for all. This position is gaining ground among Palestinians, as the two-state option fades into oblivion” (Barry Sheppard, “The solution is clear: a democratic, secular Palestine for all its peoples”, Green Left Weekly, 16 Decemebr 2017: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/solution-clear-democratic-secular-palestine-all-its-peoples ).
SHINDLER. Colin Shindler (first professor of Israel Studies in the UK and is emeritus professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) on a bi-national unitary state (2017 ): “Given that the Arab birth-rate is higher than the Jewish one, if voters vote according to their ethnic origin, then this [unitary state] means the end of Jewish self-determination in their own nation state. Some on the Israeli far-right favour either a full or partial annexation of the West Bank while restricting democratic rights for the Palestinians. Meanwhile, an interim solution of a bi-national state would see both national groups working constructively within the same state, but one which offers protection for their political and legal rights and preserves their national identity. Nationalism however has proved to be a powerful force in recent times with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia into individual nation-states - and some have argued that while a one-state solution is logical in a theoretical sense, the national enmity between Israelis and Palestinians would produce an unworkable entity” (Colin Shindler, “Israel and the Palestinians: what are alternatives to a two-state solution?”, BBC, 17 February 2017: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39002001 ).
SHUPAK. Gregory Shupak (media studies academic at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto, Canada) on media censorship of the one-state solution (2018): “The one-state solution is the idea of bringing justice and peace to Palestine/Israel by having all inhabitants of historic Palestine — the land that includes Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza — living in one, binational country, where everyone has equal rights and political matters are settled on the basis of one person, one vote. This arrangement differs from the two-state solution, which would partition historic Palestine into two states divided along ethno-religious lines, and contrasts with present conditions, in which Palestinians live as second-class citizens inside Israel, and under Israeli occupation in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — the last of which is subject to a merciless siege. The one-state option is gaining traction, but media coverage consistently suggests that the only possible scenarios for Palestine/Israel are either the two-state solution or the continued regime of Israeli occupation, colonization and apartheid” (Gregory Shupak , “A just “one-state solution” is still possible in Israel/Palestine: but not if the media buries it”, Salon , 5 June 2018: https://www.salon.com/2018/06/05/a-just-one-state-solution-is-still-possible-in-israelpalestine-but-not-if-the-media-buries-it/ ).
SZOLD. Henrietta Szold (anti-racist Jewish co-founder of the Israeli bi-nationalist Ihud Party (1942): "If we do not give every member of the public the opportunity of considering the Jewish-Arab question, we will be committing, I think, an unpardonable sin. Why do I think so? For two reasons. First: it was Judaism, which brought me to Zionism and I cannot but believe that Judaism, Religion as I understand it, is our moral code; and Judaism bids us to find a way in common with the Arabs living in this country. Secondly: I am almost certain that at the end of the war it will not be easier that it is now to shape the development of our life in the way we desire by bearing our influence on those who determine the course of affairs. The more I return to this matter, the more do I become convinced that politically as well as morally, the Jewish-Arab question is the decisive question. I insist that we must reach an understanding of this question, and we can succeed in this only if we are offered opportunities of meeting and discussing the matter. I think that even at this late hour we must endeavour, through IHUD, to find ways of speaking and conferring about this question with clear insight and full knowledge of its importance. And that paragraph of national discipline printed on the Shekel cannot deprive us of the right to speak and understand” (Henrietta Szold quoted in Daniel Reisel, “The History of the original Brit Shalom, founded 1925”, Brit Shalom: http://www.britshalom.org/background.htm ).
TILLEY. Virginia Tilley (associate professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges; author of “The One-State Solution”) arguing for a democratic one-state solution (2010): “The resulting [2-state] Palestinian statelet would be blocked off physically from the Israeli economy, its major cities would be cut off from each other, and its government would be unable to control the territory’s water resources, develop its agriculture, or manage its trade with neighbouring states… [a] sealed vessel of growing poverty and demoralization… Looking to the South African experience for guidance or inspiration [for a 1-state solution] will avail little unless policymakers also adopt the [anti-racist and democratic] principles, standards and values that guided that struggle: that is, that ethnic supremacy is illegitimate and cannot generate a just political system” (Virginia Tilley, “The One-State Solution: a breakthrough for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock”, University of Michigan Press, 2010; see: https://www.amazon.com/One-State-Solution-Breakthrough-Israeli-Palestinian-Deadlock/dp/0472034499 ; Iqbal Jassat, “Book review: The One State Solution”, The Elctronic Intifada, 16 July 2005: https://electronicintifada.net/content/book-review-one-state-solution/3490 ).
TLAIB. Rashid Talaib (first Palestinian-American elected to the US Congress) on a 1-state solution (2018): “One state. It has to be one state. Separate but equal does not work. I’m only 42 years old but my teachers were of that generation that marched with Martin Luther King. This whole idea of a two-state solution, it doesn’t work” (“J Street withdraws endorsement of Rashid Tlaib, Palestinin-Amercian camndiate who supports one-state solution”, Jewsih Telegtaph Agebncy, 17 August 2018: https://www.jta.org/2018/08/17/politics/j-street-withdraws-endorsement-rashida-tlaib-palestinian-american-candidate-supports-one-state-solution ).
TRUMP. Donald Trump (US president) on one-state solution (2018): “If the Israelis and the Palestinians want one state, that’s OK with me. If they want two states, that’s OK with me. I’m happy if they’re happy” (Donald Trump reported in “Trump open to one-state solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, Reuters World News, 27 September 2018: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-israel-trump/trump-open-to-one-state-solution-to-israeli-palestinian-conflict-idUSKCN1M634J
84. The Sub-Committee examined the proposals of the Arab States regarding the future constitution of Palestine made to the British Government in 1946 and early in 1947, and took into account the statements made during the general debate in the Ad Hoc Committee. The basic idea underlying those proposals, and which is in accord with the principles of the United Nations Charter, is that the future constitution and government of Palestine must be based on the free consent of the people of that country and must be shaped along democratic lines. In other words, the constitution of Palestine should be framed by a representative body, namely, an elected constituent assembly. The basis and conditions of franchise, the qualifications of electors and numerous other complex questions connected with the setting up and working of the constituent assembly would have to be decided before the constituent assembly could be convened
85. While the task of framing a constitution must naturally be left to the constituent assembly, the Sub-Committee feels that it should indicate in general terms the main principles on which the future constitution should be based. These are summarized below.
(a) Palestine shall be a unitary and sovereign State.
(b) It shall have a democratic constitution, with an elected legislature and an executive responsible to the legislature.
(c) The constitution shall provide guarantees for the sanctity of the Holy Places covering inviolability, maintenance, freedom of access and freedom of worship in accordance with the status quo.
(d) The constitution shall guarantee respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion, and freedom of religious belief and practice in accordance with the status quo (including the maintenance of separate religious courts to deal with matters of personal status).
(e) The constitution shall guarantee the right of religious bodies or other societies and individuals to maintain, in addition to educational establishments administered by public authority, educational institutions of their own, subject to normal government supervision and inspection.
(f) The constitution shall recognize the right of Jews to employ Hebrew as a second official language in areas in which they are in a majority.
(g) The law of naturalization and citizenship shall provide, among other conditions, that the applicant should be a legal resident of Palestine for a continuous period to be determined by the constituent assembly.
(h) ) The constitution shall ensure adequate representation in the legislature for all important sections of the citizenry in proportion to their numerical strength.
(i) The constitution shall also provide for adequate reflection in the executive and the administration of the distribution of representation in the legislature.
(j) The constitution shall authorize the legislature to invest local authorities with wide discretion in matters connected with education, health and other social services.
(k) the constitution shall provide for the setting up of a supreme court, the jurisdiction of which shall include, inter alia, the power to pronounce upon the constitutional validity of all legislation, and it shall be open to any aggrieved party to have recourse to that tribunal.
84. The Sub-Committee examined the proposals of the Arab States regarding the future constitution of Palestine made to the British Government in 1946 and early in 1947, and took into account the statements made during the general debate in the Ad Hoc Committee. The basic idea underlying those proposals, and which is in accord with the principles of the United Nations Charter, is that the future constitution and government of Palestine must be based on the free consent of the people of that country and must be shaped along democratic lines. In other words, the constitution of Palestine should be framed by a representative body, namely, an elected constituent assembly. The basis and conditions of franchise, the qualifications of electors and numerous other complex questions connected with the setting up and working of the constituent assembly would have to be decided before the constituent assembly could be convened
85. While the task of framing a constitution must naturally be left to the constituent assembly, the Sub-Committee feels that it should indicate in general terms the main principles on which the future constitution should be based. These are summarized below.
(a) Palestine shall be a unitary and sovereign State.
(b) It shall have a democratic constitution, with an elected legislature and an executive responsible to the legislature.
(c) The constitution shall provide guarantees for the sanctity of the Holy Places covering inviolability, maintenance, freedom of access and freedom of worship in accordance with the status quo.
(d) The constitution shall guarantee respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion, and freedom of religious belief and practice in accordance with the status quo (including the maintenance of separate religious courts to deal with matters of personal status).
(e) The constitution shall guarantee the right of religious bodies or other societies and individuals to maintain, in addition to educational establishments administered by public authority, educational institutions of their own, subject to normal government supervision and inspection.
(f) The constitution shall recognize the right of Jews to employ Hebrew as a second official language in areas in which they are in a majority.
(g) The law of naturalization and citizenship shall provide, among other conditions, that the applicant should be a legal resident of Palestine for a continuous period to be determined by the constituent assembly.
(h) ) The constitution shall ensure adequate representation in the legislature for all important sections of the citizenry in proportion to their numerical strength.
(i) The constitution shall also provide for adequate reflection in the executive and the administration of the distribution of representation in the legislature.
(j) The constitution shall authorize the legislature to invest local authorities with wide discretion in matters connected with education, health and other social services.
(k) the constitution shall provide for the setting up of a supreme court, the jurisdiction of which shall include, inter alia, the power to pronounce upon the constitutional validity of all legislation, and it shall be open to any aggrieved party to have recourse to that tribunal” (Chapter 3 of the Report of Sub-Committee 2 to the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian question of the UN General Assembly 1947”: http://www.mlwerke.de/NatLib/Pal/UN1947_Palestine-Minority-Report_Chapter3.htm ).
VLAZNA. Dr Vacy Vlazna (Australian human rights activist, coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters, editor of a volume of Palestinian poetry “I remember my name”, Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, convenor of the Australia East Timor Association, and coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby) (2019): “The chimerical two state solution is dead. Ironically Israel’s rapacious settlement expansion killed it. Palestine, inevitably has come full circle; support for a one state where Palestinians and Israelis “live under the same constitution and same social contract that provides them with freedom, justice and dignity for all.” is gaining traction” ( Vacy Vlazna, “10 points on Palestine’s Nakba and “Israel’s” illegitimacy”, Countercurrents, 15 May 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/05/10-points-on-palestines-nakba-and-israels-illegitimacy ).
Dr Vacy Vlazna (Coordinator of “Justice for Palestine Matters” and editor of a volume of Palestinian poetry, and a regular contributor to Palestine Intifada, Palestine Chronicle, Dissident Voice, Al Jazeera, Counterpunch, Countercurrents) on the one-state solution (2017): “Here is the delicious irony; Israel’s monumental hubris- its greed and violent theft of Palestine- has created the basis for a one state, not within the present frame of apartheid, but a state of equality for all citizens” (Vacy Vlazna, “Double Exposure: plays of the Jewish and Palestinian Diasporas”, Countercurrents, 30 March 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/03/double-exposure-plays-of-the-jewish-and-palestinian-diasporas ).
WHITE. Ben White (UK journalist specializing in Palestine/Israel) on a humane, equal rights one state solution (2018): “For now, the 'two-state solution' remains the dominant paradigm for a long-term solution, even as Israel consolidates its de-facto, single state between the River and the Sea. But for how much longer? Other futures are coming into view, including those proposed by Israelis who seek a defiantly apartheid, single state. But there is also an opportunity to suggest something different; a rupture with the settler colonial past and present, where the return of Palestinian refugees is liberatory rather than destructive, and where Jewish Israelis and Palestinians relate to each other as equal citizens in a shared home. The idea of a single democratic state is not new, but it is now being explored, returned to, and revived. Dismissed as 'utopian' by its opponents, a single democratic state in Palestine/Israel is, in fact, a realistic and vital alternative to both formal apartheid and doomed attempts to accommodate settler colonialism through ethnic partition” (Ben White, “The one-state solution is the only solution”, The New Arab: 18 May 2018: https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2018/5/18/the-one-state-solution-is-the-only-solution ).
WIKIPEDIA. Wikipedia offers the following summary of the one-state solution (2018): “The one-state solution, sometimes also called a bi-national state is a proposed approach to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Proponents of a unified Israel advocate a single state in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with citizenship and equal rights in the combined entity for all inhabitants of all three territories, without regard to ethnicity or religion. Some Israelis advocate another [race-based] version of the one-state solution in which Israel will annex the West Bank but not the Gaza Strip and remain a Jewish state with a larger Arab minority. While some advocate this solution for ideological reasons, others feel simply that, due to the reality on the ground, it is the de facto situation. Alternatively, supporters of a united Palestine wish for a single state without regard to ethnicity or religion. Such a state would be similar to pre-World War II Mandatory Palestine, which is sought out a wish to forgo Israeli occupation, as well as 19th and 20th-century Zionist settlement, widely viewed among supporters as a form of colonialism Though increasingly debated in academic circles, this approach has remained outside the range of official efforts to resolve the conflict as well as mainstream analysis, where it is eclipsed by the two-state solution. The two-state solution was most recently agreed upon in principle by the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority at the November 2007 Annapolis Conference and remained the conceptual basis for negotiations proposed by the administration of U.S. president Barack Obama in 2011. Interest in a one-state solution is growing, however, as the two-state approach fails to accomplish a final agreement” (“One-state solution”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-state_solution ).
Wikipedia on UN General Assembly Resolution 181 and Indigenous Arab objection to Partition (1947): “The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Resolution 181 (II)… The Plan also called for Economic Union between the proposed states, and for the protection of religious and minority rights… The Plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, despite its perceived limitations. Arab leaders and governments rejected it and indicated an unwillingness to accept any form of territorial division, arguing that it violated the principles of national self-determination in the UN Charter which granted people the right to decide their own destiny. Immediately after adoption of the Resolution by the General Assembly, a civil war broke out and the plan was not implemented” (“United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine ).
YESH DIN. Yesh Din (Israeli human rights organization) reporting legal advice from Michael Sfard (2020): “The alibi used by successive Israeli governments that the situation is temporary and there is no desire or intent to maintain the domination and oppression of Palestinians in the area or preserve their inferior status falls apart in the face of the clear evidence that the separate policies and practices Israel applies in the occupied territory are designed to maintain and cement the domination and oppression of Palestinians and the supremacy of the Israelis who migrated to the area. That is not all. As described in this opinion, the government of Israel is carrying out a process of “gradual annexation” in the West Bank. From an administrative perspective, annexation means the revocation of military rule in the annexed area and the territorial extension of powers held by Israeli authorities deep into the West Bank. Continued creeping legal annexation, let alone official annexation of a particular part of the West Bank through legislation that would apply Israeli law and administration there, is an amalgamation of the regimes. This could mean strengthening the argument, which already is being heard, that the crime of Apartheid is not committed only in the West Bank. That the Israeli regime in its entirety is an apartheid regime. That Israel is an Apartheid state. That is distressing and shameful. And even if not all Israelis are guilty of the crime, we are all responsible for it. It is our duty, each and every one of us, to take resolute action to stop the commission of this crime” (Yesh Din, “The occupation of the West Bank and the crime of Apartheuid: legal opinion”, Yesh Din, 9 July 2020: https://www.yesh-din.org/en/the-occupation-of-the-west-bank-and-the-crime-of-apartheid-legal-opinion/ ).
YOUSEF. Abdul Yousef (Masters thesis author, City University of New York) on the one-state solution (2012): "The debate for a two state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been ongoing for decades. However, given the current circumstances and realities on the ground, this approach has become more implausible with each passing day. Therefore, many have come to argue the real solution would be a single state that would afford equal rights for both Israeli and Palestinian citizens regardless of ethnicity, religion, or racial background. Considering the troubled history of the region, many would view a state where Israelis and Palestinians living together, sharing land, and engaged in a peaceful democratic process to be an unattainable fantasy. This paper does not purport that a single state is a guaranteed solution to the problem. Rather, it attempts to show that a one state solution is the most practical and pragmatic approach for a peaceful resolution. The one state solution is not necessarily what both parties are willing to accept, but considering the circumstances it is an alternative proposal which at the very least must be acknowledged, discussed, and examined. This proposal is not about what can be solved in the present, but rather what can be achieved in the future. Taking into account the current political climate, it would be irrational to believe creating a single state would automatically unite Jewish and Arab citizens and erase over half a century of troubled history. But what a secular, non-sectarian, democratic state can do is begin to lay a workable political framework for the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians. Hopefully, this study will add positively to the discourse in better explaining and understanding the task which lies ahead" (Abdul Yousef, , "The one state solution. An Alternative Vision for Ending The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict", CUNY Academic Works, 2012:
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/111 ).
ZOCHROT. Zochrot (Israeli NGO): “Zochrot ("remembering" in Hebrew) is an NGO working since 2002 to promote acknowledgement and accountability for the ongoing injustices of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 and the reconceptualization of the Return [of Palestnian refugees] as the imperative redress of the Nakba and a chance for a better life for all the country's inhabitants… Zochrot envisions Return as an extended and multidimensional process, which includes not only the physical return of refugees to this country, but also their appropriate and dignified integration in an equal, joint Palestinian-Jewish society” (see "Zochrot": https://zochrot.org/en/content/17 ).
Apartheid Israeli state terrorism: (A) individuals exposing Apartheid Israeli state terrorism, and (B) countries subject to Apartheid Israeli state terrorism”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/apartheid-israeli-state-terrorism .
“Gaza Concentration Camp”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/gaza-concentration .
“Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/ .
“Non-Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/ .
“Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .
“Palestinian Genocide essays”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestinegenocideessays/ .
"Zionist quotes re racism and Palestinian Genocide": https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/zionist-quotes .
BDS – Boycott Apartheid Israel: https://sites.google.com/view/bdsopinions/home .
Secular, democratic, one state Palestine: https://sites.google.com/view/onestatepalestine/home .
“Gideon Polya Countercurrents articles”, “Palestinian Genocide Essays”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestinegenocideessays/gideon-polya-countercurrents-articles .
“Countercurrents articles by Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/countercurrents-articles .
“Expose holocaust denial & ignoring”: https://sites.google.com/site/exposeholocaustdenialignoring/Home .