“The Geopolitics of Peace” is a brilliant – and I’m tempted to say encyclopedic – written version, by Jeffrey Sachs, of his speech to the European parliament. Everyone should read it. His prescription for world peace, the human race and sanity with professionalism in government and diplomacy cannot be improved. His analysis and advice are impeccable, and he proves it with his documentation and his history of personal experience in most of the events about which he writes.
With one exception: the two-state solution to the problem of Israel, Zionism and the rights of Palestinians and other peoples that Israel violates to get what it wants. Let me begin with the question “Who proposed the two-state solution?” The answer is: the vast majority of nations on the face of the earth, including the Arab nations, but especially the imperialist nations. But who did not propose it? Neither Israel nor Palestine.
It is a matter of historical record that representatives of both peoples have agreed from time to time to the principle of a two-state solution. But neither has proposed it. This is because for both peoples the two-state solution has never been an end goal, only a strategic way-station on the road to their real objective: the whole basket. They agree to the two-state solution because they want to exercise the influence of the great imperialist powers toward their real objective.
The Palestinians want all the land “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.” (It rhymes in Arabic “min al nahr lel bahr.”) For them it has always been a matter of getting back what was taken from them. There was never anything inherently racist or exclusivist in their intentions. Palestine has incorporated many peoples from many places throughout the world. This history is reflected in many of the family names: al-Hindi (“the Indian”), Daghestani (“from Daghestan”), al-Maghrabi (“from Morocco”), Franjiyeh (“from France/Europe”), al-Masri (“the Egyptian”), al-Roumi (“from Rome/Byzantium”) and so on. Over the centuries, they have all been welcomed as Palestinians, living in a land called Palestine since even before Roman times. They don’t mind anyone coming to live there as fellow Palestinians, including the Jews, who considered themselves Jewish Palestinians until Zionism sprang out of Europe (and for some even afterward; Zionism was a foreign ideology for them). What Palestinians want is not to be expelled, and for those who have been, they want to return.
Zionism also wants all of the land “from the river to the sea,” – and even beyond – for Israel, but not to share with everyone who wants to live there, only Jews, and preferably Zionist Jews. Israel is an exclusivist state. It was created by expelling more non-Jewish Palestinians in 1947-49 than the number of Jews living in Palestine at the time. Israel made the decision at the time of its founding, that it would continue its goal of reclaiming all the Land of Israel (all of Palestine and even beyond) only if it could empty it of most of its non-Jewish inhabitants, so that it would become and remain an overwhelmingly Jewish state. This objective remained in 1967 when it captured the remaining territory of Palestine, as well as the Egyptian Sinai and the Syrian Golan Heights. That is why Israel did not annex the West Bank or Gaza: too many Palestinian non-Jews. It is also why they chose to annex the Golan Heights, because they drove out 95% of the indigenous Syrian population. Israel similarly drove out roughly 1 million Lebanese from south Lebanon in 2006 with the same intentions, but the Lebanese resistance proved too strong, and Israel had to pull its troops back after only 34 days. This is obviously the motive behind Israel’s current genocide in Gaza and ultimately the West Bank: Israel wants the land but not the people, because they’re not Jews.
This difference between Palestinians and Israelis is also why a two-state solution cannot work. If it is imposed, Israeli Zionists will simply be waiting, as they have until now, for an opportunity to continue to pursue the Zionist dream of a “Greater Israel”. In the meantime, exiled Palestinians all over the world will be waiting for restoration of their land and territory. A two-state solution is not a solution, merely an explosion waiting to happen. It is a pause in the fighting. Neither side will be satisfied with such an outcome, and will be waiting for an opportunity to take or take back what they believe belongs to them, or what they simply want, regardless of whether it belongs to them or not.
I suspect that Professor Sachs knows this, but that he regards this as the closest that we can come to a solution: to divide the object of contention. Unfortunately, this will satisfy neither side. Palestinians will wait for as long as necessary to recover their land, and ardent Zionists will seek to expand their “promised land” insofar as their population, resources and influence with powerful governments will allow them.
As you might imagine, there is another solution, usually called the one-state solution, for a single state, including both Palestinians and Israelis, and allowing immigration of Jews and return of exiled Palestinians, with equal rights for all and restoration and compensation for all that has been lost. This is rather like the South African solution that ended apartheid, at least officially. To the extent that it is popular at all, it is moreso among Palestinians than Israelis, perhaps because the Palestinian model is not exclusivist. Of course, South Africa is by no means a perfect society after the end of apartheid, and Palestine will not be after the Zionist state disappears. To the extent that the concept is an ideal, it unfortunately seems unlikely under the present circumstances.
Perhaps the most realistic conclusion to the struggle will be a winner-take-all, as horrific as that may be. That was the strategy behind Yahya Sinwar’s design of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza: to be able to keep resisting regardless of the sacrifices endured by the Palestinian people. It must be said that it seems to be having an effect on Israeli society, exhausting its resources. The strength of the Palestinian society has always been sumud – steadfastness, and this may be the deciding factor. A millennium ago, it was, in effect, what enabled Palestine to rid itself of the European crusaders. Israel’s counter strategy is clearly genocide, as it has been since the beginnings of the Zionist movement. It is hard to know which will prevail, but it may depend upon currently unknown factors, such as the balance of power in the world.
But a two-state solution? Dividing the territory between the thief and the victim? I don’t think so.