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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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 Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 1:15 pm Post subject: The Two-State Solution Is Not Going to Work - Ilan Pappe |
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| Quote: | 'The Two-State Solution Is Not Going to Work': An Interview With Ilan Pappe
Ilan Pappe, formerly of Haifa University, left Israel for Britain last year following his endorsement of an academic boycott of Israel, for which he and his family received death threats. He is currently chair of the Department of History at the University of Exeter.
Pappe is the author of numerous books on the Middle East, including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld Publications; reprinted Sept. 25, 2007) and A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (Cambridge University Press; second edition, July 31, 2006).
His latest book, The Bureaucracy of Evil: The History of the Israeli Occupation, is due out later this year.
Am Johal interviewed Pappe last month in Vancouver.
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Why did you decide to leave Israel?
The main reason was an inability to function as an academic, which is what I was within the Israeli academic community. I could not manage a proper dialogue with my professional group or with the public at large. There was a feeling of being irrelevant to the debate. Israel was becoming a closed society. My family wasn't safe because of threats. That alone wouldn't have pushed me out, but was a factor. Thirdly, I thought the focus of the struggle over the public discourse is much more outside of Israel to change public opinion to a different reality. As someone who travels to different places in the West, to me it seems the debate around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is mediated differently in parts of Europe, Canada, and the United States.
What is your view of how the conflict is disseminated in different places and the diversity of the public sphere?
I think there are differences. In the U.S. and Canada, for the purpose of this question, there is no real debate in the mainstream media. I think there is a stifling affect that happens. Whenever someone tries to enlarge the scope of the debate, the existing mechanisms don't allow it.
In Britain, the Scandinavian countries, Spain, Italy, parts of France, different opinions can be heard. Germany is not that different from the U.S., Canada, or Austria. The new members of the European Union in Eastern Europe are even worse. I'm amazed. I didn't expect to see such a difference—the variety of views, the lack of pluralism. Even Jimmy Carter said that there is a difference in terms of how things are talked about in Israel and outside of it.
If you compare the U.S. to Canada, or to Israel, there are differences in the limitations of the discussion. The difference is that in Israel, it is done by self-censorship. People are very confident in their own truisms, their own moral high ground. This is the function of years and years of indoctrination. We have some changes in the civil society. Here, in Canada, people are timid. They are afraid to say what their human instinct tells them they should say. It is an intimidating situation to speak out.
What are the limitations today facing the Palestinian citizens of Israel, who comprise 20 percent of the Israeli population?
The situation in Israel today is that the Arab citizens of Israel are treated differently. They do suffer from a regime of discrimination in terms of Israel being portrayed as a democracy. There are certain laws passed by the Israeli Knesset that are discriminatory. There are barriers to owning land, the Israeli Land Authority administers the situation in a discriminatory way—social benefits in the society are often connected to military service.
On a less formal level, budgets are being delivered to health, education, and school systems in an unfair way. The school system is segregated. There are quotas for Palestinians for professional programs. Even less obvious is the institutional duress placed on Arab citizens. It's important to remember that leaders of Zionist parties have basically agreed that the Arab citizens of Israel can only be a small minority. If they get larger, they represent a demographic challenge to the Israeli state, which is being portrayed as an existential threat.
You are in support of a one-state solution to address the historic challenges of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and support the right of return. It seems to me politically unrealistic given the trauma of this conflict that Israel would willingly agree to such a situation of democracy where the population would be almost 50/50 Israeli and Palestinian. Even the progressive movements within Israeli and Palestinian movements are split on this. Isn't a two-state solution more realistic in the immediate term, even if it is imperfect?
Both of these mutual positions, should Palestine fight for nationhood and whether the Israelis should fight to expand, are not tenuous. Taking over all of Palestine is an impossible dream for the Israelis. The two-state solution does not take in to account the history of the region. If Israel exists the way it does now, it antagonizes not just the Arab world but the Muslim world.
One day the world will wake up. The two-state solution or the wish of full Israeli control is not possible. It can be taken by force perhaps, but is not a viable long-term solution. The peace process failed after 2000 for the same reasons it failed before that. The two-state solution is not going to work—they are not equal partners at the table. What happened in 2000 was a more ridiculous form of what they offered before. There still is not Palestinian sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Even in 2000, they didn't bother to promise that. It was remote control as opposed to direct control.
Can the European Union role play an effective role in the region given the historic inability of the United States and the United Nations to move the parties closer together to a permanent peace? Is the European Union better positioned given its regional proximity and its historic role in establishing Israel as a state following the Second World War?
The EU can play an important role not just on human rights, but we have to be realistic about what it is. These are political outfits after all. Had it not been for the holocaust, Israel would not be a state today. There has been European involvement in the region long before the Americans appeared on the stage. The Europeans have certain historical and moral responsibilities to this conflict and have tended to have a slightly less biased position. They EU has to balance America because they have the Middle East in their own backyard. The protracted conflict is the main source for discontent in the region for Europe. They also have to deal with their colonial past. So far, apart from Britain, most of the countries haven't played a productive role. Related to the Middle East, I believe that the American empire in the Middle East will collapse and there will be a vacuum. The EU is best positioned to fill this vacuum.
Is the Kosovo example relevant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
I think Kosovo is not the right example. South Africa is the much better one. They didn't say that whites should have their own state in the apartheid debate. There was a war for liberation that was supported by pressure from the outside. You can change the ideology of the state. They are both based on notions of supremacy and racism. In other words, Jews and Palestinians, if they have a chance to survive in the future, must choose a future together in one state.
There are not two states right now. There is only one state. The state is already there. Can you create a state with a better situation? Israel is very much in a colonialist position right now. A bi-national model with secular democracy is also a possibility. It would take invention—it would require the principle of territorial integrity, return of refugees, exclusive ethnic, religious ideology. From these principles, we must end the military occupation. We have to convince the world that Israel is an oppressive, racist state.
What is your view of the regional situation in the Middle East as it's often used as the pretext for increasing American influence in the region? In particular, is the Iranian situation allowing Israel to continue its policies in the West Bank or will Israel be forced to balance its policies to turn down the temperature in the region as a result of Western pressure from the United States and the European Union?
I think the regional balance of power was very much in favor of Israel, but certainly after 9/11 it was enhanced. The policies of occupation are not sustainable however. The Israelis wanted to maintain the modus operandi situation. Iran and Syria directly supported the political formations that resisted by force the Israeli plans in the area. Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah worked closely together with Iran.
Israel worked closely with the Americans to challenge these political formations and the regional countries that support them. It is an interesting stalemate because the military imbalance between Israel and the U.S., which are strong, and Hezbollah and Hamas, which are weak militarily, has proven to be effective for these weaker movements. For the U.S., it's not that they have Iraqi or Israeli support—they don't have a vision for the region. It's not easy to take positions.
Progressive people in the area reject Israeli policies, and now follow the ideologies of Hamas and Hezbollah. A lot can happen if one of the major pro-American regimes could collapse and throw regional players in to the equation. There have been 50 years since the United Arab Republic. This could be the future scenario. There could be more input from radical Arab leaders.
How will the oil situation in the Middle East influence geo-strategic politics in the future with emerging economies in India and China?
Oil plays a very important role in explaining the political motivational forces in the region. It explains the attack on Iraq, U.S. influence in Saudi Arabia, and is obviously driven by the desire to maintain the American way of life. Both India and China will challenge this significantly when it comes to regional oil reserves. There will be challenges in what the region can produce and it will diminish its ability to influence events in its own region. It's worth watching what will happen. It is difficult to imagine how much regional oil that China and India will need. It is not the sole factor. Christian fundamentalism, European guilt—there is a whole set of issues that involves the West's relationship with the non-Western world. There is a double standard. These are relevant issues to the future of the region.
Your visit to Canada was portrayed as the visit of some sort of radical figure in the Israeli political landscape when in fact you have often engaged in lively public debates with new historians like Benny Morris and others. On the other hand, the visit of Moshe Feiglin, a right-wing activist within the Likud Party, seems to be presented as within the mainstream in Canada even though he engages in hate speech and supports the ethnic transfer of Arab Israelis, among other policies. What are your views of this?
It's a very interesting comparison. Feiglin believes that he could translate his beliefs in to reality. A pure, ethnic religious state for Jewish people in Israel. He addresses very specific religious laws and others like the racist Rabbi Kahane. For that reason, the British didn't allow him in. The Canada-Israel Committee shouldn't be defending this guy. He has extremely racist views.
I am presented as a great danger to Israel because I support the establishment of a democratic state. In the name of the struggle for "democracy," countries are being invaded and destroyed by the U.S. It is this kind of abnormal world of concepts and positions that we have been living in with respect to Israel. The juxtaposition of an historian who acts according to humanist international principles shows how distorted the media can be. |
from http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/3112.cfm |
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nekokate
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Location: West Yorkshire, UK
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| Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 2:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Really good article. I can't wait for his new book. I hope GG gets him on the show to talk about it. |
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faceless
admin
Joined: 25 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 2:13 pm Post subject: |
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| It was a good read indeed - cheers Luke |
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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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| Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 2:15 pm Post subject: |
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i wonder if he gives many talks? i didn't realise he lived here now - be good to check him out, i meant to check his book after you mentioned it a while back neko, but i forgot
thanks for bolding the questions  |
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