Introduction
On 15 January 2025,
Qatar’s prime minister announced that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a
three-phase Gaza ceasefire deal including an exchange of captives, and it would
take effect on 19 January. As Israel’s bombing of Gaza continued unabated and
the Israeli cabinet delayed ratifying the deal, well-informed commentators
predicted that Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist allies would make sure that
the ceasefire would collapse after the first phase.[1] Indeed, ‘Netanyahu
stressed that the ceasefire was “temporary” and Israel reserved the right to
resume strikes in Gaza’.[2] Despite such
uncertainties, however, the ceasefire deal could provide an opportunity to move
towards a just and peaceful future.
On 25 October 2024,
Forensic Architecture released an interactive cartographic platform entitled ‘A
Cartography of Genocide’ along with an 827-page text report entitled ‘A spatial
analysis of the Israeli military’s conduct in Gaza since October 2023,’ providing
conclusive forensic evidence of genocide in Gaza.[3] On 5 December 2024,
Amnesty International released a report which concluded that the Israeli state
was committing genocide in Gaza in the strict legal sense of the term.[4] On 19 December 2024, Human
Rights Watch released a report on the Israeli state’s intentional deprivation
of access to water, a necessity of life, from the population of Gaza, and
concluded that this amounts to an act of genocide.[5] These reports confirm
analyses by dozens of Holocaust and genocide scholars, the South African
government’s testimony before the International Court of Justice, and the
court’s own rulings.
In fact, what we have
been seeing in Gaza is the inevitable consequence of the model of European
colonialism chosen by the original Zionists: not just occupying a colony and
dominating it, not even the apartheid form of settler-colonialism that needed
the indigenous people’s labour, but the model of settler-colonialism that
wanted the land without the people, as in the Americas and Australia. Their
plan to create an ethno-religious Jewish state in a land where only 8 percent
of the population was Jewish in 1914 required the remaining 92 percent of
Palestinians to lose their homeland.[6]
Raphael Lemkin, who lost
49 members of his family in the Nazi Holocaust and who coined the term
‘genocide,’ had studied the phenomenon historically, and found that
settler-colonialism which engaged in what was then called forced displacement
and is now called ethnic cleansing inevitably entailed genocide. Because how do
you clear the land of the people living in it? By massacres and the threat of
massacres, by taking away people’s homes and livelihoods and herding them into
ghettos, by subjecting them to conditions that make life impossible, and
finally by killing those who remain: exactly what has been happening in
Palestine since 1948.[7]
The ‘two-state solution’
Britain handed over the
mess it had created by promising a Jewish national home in Palestine, which
resulted in ‘an organized campaign of lawlessness, terror and sabotage’ by
Zionist terrorist groups since the beginning of 1945, to the UN General Assembly
in 1947. The UNGA accepted the Jewish Agency’s request to be heard, despite the
fact that non-governmental organisations had not previously been allowed to
present their positions. The Palestinian delegation withdrew from the
proceedings in protest against being relegated to a position inferior to that
of the Jewish Agency; their position was ‘The destiny of Palestine cannot be
decided by outsiders. It is against the Charter. The destiny of Palestine shall
be decided by its own people…’ The Palestinian viewpoint was thereafter
represented by the Arab delegations, which deplored the deletion of references
to a Palestinian state in the terms of reference of the Special Committee set
up to look into the issue, while David Ben-Gurion stated the Zionist view that
the whole of Palestine belonged to the Zionists.[8]
The Special Committee was
unable to agree on recommendations, with the majority of it in favour of
partition (the two-state solution), a minority in favour of an independent
federal state of Palestine. When the two plans were placed before the UNGA in
August 1947, there was strong opposition to partition, and not only from Arab
delegates. Rabbi Judah Leon Magnes, a leader of Reform Judaism and President of
the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, wrote prophetically that ‘partition would
not stop the terrorist activities of Jewish groups, and that having secured
partition through terror, they would attempt to secure the rest of the country
for the Jews in the same way’. The Pakistan delegate said, ‘In effect, the
proposal before the United Nations General Assembly says that we shall decide –
not the people of Palestine, with no provision for the self-determination, no
provision for the consent of the governed…’ Thirteen delegations spoke against
partition and only eleven in favour. Yet in the final vote on 29 November 1947,
there were 33 votes in favour including the USSR and other Soviet Socialist
Republics, 13 against, and 10 abstentions.[9]
How was this result
obtained? ‘Chaim Weizmann, the senior Zionist figure in London and Washington,
asked Truman to intervene. “I am aware of how much abstaining delegations would
be swayed by your counsel and the influence of your government,” he told the
president. “I refer to China, Honduras, Colombia, Mexico, Liberia, Ethiopia,
Greece. I beg and pray for your decisive intervention at this decisive hour.”
The Philippines, Cuba, Haiti, and even France were also on the list of
countries that needed a push. “We went for it”, Clark Clifford, Truman’s
special counsel, said later. “It was because the White House was for it that it
went through. I kept the ramrod up the State Department’s butt.” Herschel
Johnson, the deputy head of the US mission at the UN, cried in frustration
while speaking to Loy Henderson, a senior diplomat, head of the State
Department’s Office of Near Eastern Affairs and strong opponent of the
establishment of a Zionist settler state in Palestine. “Loy, forgive me for
breaking down like this,” Johnson said, “but Dave Niles called us here a couple
of days ago and said that the president had instructed him to tell us that, by
God, he wanted us to get busy and get all the votes that we possibly could,
that there would be hell if the voting went the other way.”’[10]
This is how the
Philippine delegate ended up voting for partition after having earlier strongly
rejected the partition proposal, saying, ‘The Philippine Government has come to
the conclusion that it cannot give its support to any proposal for the political
disunion and the territorial dismemberment of Palestine. We have assessed the
legal arguments and found that they are not the decisive factors in shaping a
just and practical solution. Whatever the weight we might choose to assign to
the arguments of the one side or the other, it is clear to the Philippine
Government that the rights conferred by mandatory power, even if subsequently
confirmed by an international agreement, do not vitiate the primordial right of
a people to determine the political future and to preserve the territorial
integrity of its native land.’ The Lebanese government protested vehemently
against the tactics being used to arm-twist delegates into voting against their
conscience, and pressed its delegation to resist them: ‘I can also imagine how
you have resisted all these attempts in order to preserve what we hold dearest
and most sacred in the United Nations, to keep intact the principles of the
Charter, and to safeguard democracy and the democratic methods of our
Organization. My friends, think of these democratic methods, of the freedom in
voting which is sacred to each of our delegations. If we were to abandon this
for the tyrannical system of tackling each delegation in hotel rooms, in bed,
in corridors and ante-rooms, to threaten them with economic sanctions or to
bribe them with promises in order to compel them to vote one way or another,
think of what our Organization would become in the future. Should we be a
democratic organization? Should we be an organization worthy of respect in the
eyes of the world? At this supreme juncture, I beg you to think for a moment of
the far-reaching consequences which might result from such manoeuvres,
especially if we yielded to them …”’[11]
Indeed, far from stemming
the violence, the UNGA resolution to partition Palestine, achieved by
corruption and sordid self-interest, merely provided a fig-leaf for escalating
violence that has led inexorably to genocide. Despite widespread references to the
so-called ‘two-state solution’ even today, it was evident from the beginning,
as David Ben-Gurion made clear at the UN partition discussion referred to
above, that the Zionists had no intention of allowing a Palestinian state to be
established on even a small fraction of Palestinian territory. The goal of
establishing the Israeli state over the entirety of Palestine has been
expressed more openly in recent years, with Benjamin Netanyahu displaying a map
of the region in the UN in September 2023 with no vestige of Palestine.[12] The ‘two-state solution’
was finally laid to rest by Israel’s Knesset voting overwhelmingly (68:9) on 18
July 2024 that Palestinian statehood would pose ‘an existential danger to the
State of Israel,’ making it clear that so long as the Israeli state exists,
there will be no Palestinian state.[13] Indeed, according to
Finance Minister Belazel Smotrich, the Israeli state should encompass not just
Palestine but also extend into Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi
Arabia.[14]
Given that around 95
percent of the land controlled by Israel has been acquired through the forcible
expulsion of the original Palestinian population, it is not surprising that it
rejects both international law and UN principles, which would rule out such a
course of action. The participation and complicity of Western leaders in such
violations enabled the descent of ethnic cleansing into genocide. For example,
while the Israeli bombardment of Gaza after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023
was targeting civilians and slaughtering thousands of children, these leaders
justified it by citing ‘Israel’s right to defend itself,’ trying to provide
credibility to the flagrant lie that Hamas was the only target. In any case,
‘To suggest that the thief has any kind of “right” to “defend” stolen property
is ludicrous. The right belongs to the person fighting for its return, as the
Palestinians have been doing every day since 1948. Beyond the 5-6 percent the
Zionist land purchasing agencies actually bought before 1948, the Israelis are
living on and in stolen property. They will defend it but they have no “right”
to defend what by any legal, moral, historical or cultural measure belongs to
someone else.’[15]
The only just and moral
solution: one democratic state
So long as the Israeli
state exists, its attempts to eliminate Palestine will continue, and so will
its bombing, invasion and occupation of neighbouring states like Lebanon and
Syria. The war with Hamas will also continue, because resistance to genocidal
settler-colonialism is inevitable, and if non-violent resistance is crushed,
there will be violent resistance. Israel has murdered peaceful demonstrators in
the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza,[16] and Zionists in powerful
positions in other countries have tried to shut down the non-violent BDS
(Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement.[17] They have arrested and
beaten peaceful pro-Palestine demonstrators including Jews, and punished people
expressing support for Palestine by taking away their jobs or university
places. In their zeal to crush non-violent support for Palestine, Zionists have
teamed up with neo-Nazis like the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, Alternative
for Germany), putting Jews in danger of their antisemitic violence.[18]
Israel has never been a
democracy; no ethno-religious or ethnic state – whether Jewish, Christian,
Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist or other – can be a democracy, because those who do
not belong to the dominant group will not have equal rights. At best it will be
an apartheid state, at worst a genocidal one. In the past, however, Jewish
citizens of Israel enjoyed a fair range of democratic rights, but these have
been drastically eroded as Israel descended from ethnic cleansing to genocide.
Ofer Cassif, the only Jewish Member of the Knesset from the left-wing Hadash
Party, says, ‘alongside genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, atrocities,
occupation, and persecution of Palestinians in their territories, there’s also
fascism growing stronger in Israel by legislation and by the persecution of
citizens, arresting people, beating people, etc. Israel is on the verge of a
full-fledged fascist regime.’[19]
The Israeli state has become a menace even to its own Jewish citizens.
The solution proposed by
the One Democratic State Initiative (ODSI) is a democratic, inclusive
Palestinian state in the whole of Palestine, ‘from the river to the sea,’ in
which all citizens would have equal rights regardless of ethnic or religious
identity.[20] ‘By identifying
Zionism’s politicization of identity and
Israel’s nature as a
state exclusive to Jews as the root issue of the
suffering and injustice in Palestine, the “One Democratic State” solution
clearly defines liberation as the dismantling of the apartheid,
settler-colonial state and the establishment of one democratic state in its
stead.’ It thus identifies its twin goals as decolonization and
democratization.
Why should it be called a
‘Palestinian’ state? ‘For the same reason why Theodor Herzl, Arthur Balfour, the World
Zionist Organization, the British Mandate and the League of Nations called
it Palestine, why the “Jewish Agency for Israel” was originally
called the “Jewish Agency for Palestine”, why they considered
naming the Jewish state “Palestine” (and only dropped it in
anticipation of partition), and why Shimon Perez and Golda Meir held Palestinian
citizenship: Because “Palestine” has been the land’s name for over 2500
years. Unlike the Hebrew word “Israel”, which is exclusive to
Judaism and therefore exclusive
of non-Jews, “Palestine” refers, not to an Arabic or
Islamic identity, but to the geographical area where a democratic state can
treat all its citizens equally, regardless
of how they choose to identify.’
Wouldn’t this mean the
ethnic cleansing or genocide of Israeli Jews? Not at all. ‘Although there is no
universal consensus on the conditions that define one’s belonging to a society,
the principles of jus soli (“right of soil”, the right of an
individual born in a territory to be a citizen of its state) and jus
sanguinis (“right of blood”, the right of an individual to hold their
parents’ citizenship) are commonly applied… In accordance with the above,
…Palestinian citizenship will be extended to all native Palestinians, including
all who were expelled over the past century and their descendants.’ The new
state would also extend ‘Palestinian citizenship to all Jews who have broken
free from Zionism and who wish to remain in it as Palestinians.’ In other words,
Israeli Jews who wish to remain in Palestine as Palestinian citizens would have
the right to be citizens of the new democratic state on the basis of equal
rights.
Doesn’t the state of
Israel have the right to exist? ‘The Zionist project has disregarded the basic
democratic rights of the (Jewish and non-Jewish) population of Palestine by
effecting, with essential British colonial help, the mass immigration of
non-Palestinians to Palestine prior to 1948 and by establishing a “state
exclusive to Jews” in Palestine in 1948 with no democratic mandate to do so.
The continued existence of a
state exclusive to Jews rather than a democratic state
of all its citizens means that the trampling of these democratic human rights
is ongoing and is therefore not “right”. A transition to a
democratic state of all its citizens would right this century-old wrong and
would be a historic step in achieving just and lasting peace in Palestine and
the Middle East.’ Not even members of an oppressed community have a ‘right’ to
oppress others, and the existence of the state of Israel is premised on its
supposed ‘right’ to oppress Palestinians.
In addition, this would
be:
‘A democratic state,
a state for all its citizens with no discrimination on the basis of religion,
ethnicity, culture, language, sex or gender, thus preserving the
distinctiveness of the Palestinian heritage in its cultural, religious, and
ethnic diversity; not a duplicate of capitalist colonial models, but a state,
i.e. a functional administrative tool, whose society actively takes part in
politics and through which its society expresses its political will and chooses
how to administer its affairs.
A secular state, that
separates religion from politics, claims no religious legitimacy, safeguards
the freedom of belief, the right to profess and practice religion, and all
fundamental rights, and refuses to grant or deny rights on the basis of one’s
religious, ideological or cultural background, in full rupture with Zionism and
its sectarian nature.
A socially just state, whose
institutions are built on the principle of economic and social equality
between segments of society and that builds a pluralistic, free and progressive
society as an aspect of liberation. A state that frees popular classes from
poverty, unemployment and marginalization and guarantees free quality
education, social security and workers’ rights.’
Is the establishment of a
democratic state in place of Israel antisemitic? ‘Claiming that a democratic
solution is antisemitic implies that Judaism is antidemocratic, and that is
antisemitic… Zionism has used Judaism to justify its settler colonial project…
and has effectively conflated Judaism and Jewishness with colonialism in the
eyes of Jews and non-Jews alike. It is noteworthy that
although Zionism is the only ideology to have succeeded at establishing a state
for one identity over others in Palestine, the ODS solution does not single it
out as the sole ideology to aim at doing so, and is also opposed to the
creation of a state exclusive to Arabs, Muslims, or any other identity.’ This
is an important clarification: ODS is as much opposed to an Arab or Muslim
state as it is to a Jewish state.
Indeed, none of what has
been suggested above is antisemitic according to the definition proposed by
hundreds of Jewish scholars in the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism,
provided that ‘the same norms of debate that apply to other states and to other
conflicts over national self-determination apply in the case of Israel and
Palestine.’[21] Thus, for example, one
would have to apply the same norms of debate that apply to Ukraine’s struggle
against Russia for self-determination to Palestine’s struggle against Israel
for self-determination.
ODSI suggests that
supporters of Palestine carry on doing what they are already doing – taking
part in demonstrations, educating themselves and others about what has been
happening in Palestine for over a century, participating in the BDS movement,
and so on – but, in addition, emphasise that One Democratic State is the goal,
and coordinate their efforts with others who share that goal.[22] Among them is the
Palestinian National Initiative (Al-Mubadara) led by Mustafa Barghouti, which
is trying to unify Palestinians around the goal of decolonisation and the
establishment of a democratic Palestinian state.[23]
Moving towards justice
and peace
Anti-Zionist Jews who
live in Israel need to retain Israeli citizenship in order to continue their
struggle, but those who live in other countries have found another way:
renouncing their Israeli citizenship. In the words of Nadav Gazit, ‘Modern
Zionism, which emerged in the 1800s, is an unethical, immoral, and evil settler-colonial
project, held together by lies, racism,
propaganda, and the support of
world superpowers with their own
interests in the resource-rich region.
It cannot provide a “safe haven” for Jews, and Zionism is antithetical to
Jewish values… Every moral and ethical part of my bones, flesh, and soul leaves
me with only one viable option: to unequivocally renounce my Israeli
citizenship.’ He also said he was moved to tears after posting his letter of
renunciation on social media, when he ‘received heartfelt messages from
Palestinians inviting me to their homes and families,’[24] reminding us that among
the admirable qualities displayed by Palestinians in this dark time is their
incredible generosity.
Another renouncer, Avi
Steinberg, explains, ‘Citizenship, of the kind I hold, has been a material
piece of a long-standing genocidal process. The Israeli state, from its
inception, has relied on the normalization of ethnically determined supremacist
laws to bolster a military regime whose clear colonial goal is the elimination
of Palestine.’ He criticises his parents, who ‘managed to become both American
liberals who opposed the U.S. invasion of Vietnam, while also acting as armed
settlers of another people’s land,’ and for being proponents of ‘a “peace” in
which the original sin of the state, the ongoing process of ethnic cleansing,
would remain firmly in place’. He believes that Jewish liberation is
inseparable from broad social movements, and says that ‘As a traditional Jew, I
believe the Torah is radical in its contention that Jewish people, or any
people, have no right at all to any land, but rather are bound by
rigorous ethical responsibilities… The only entity with sovereign rights,
according to the Torah, is the God of justice, the God who despises the usurper
and the occupier. Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism or Jewish history…
Zionist colonization cannot be reformed or liberalized: Its existential
identity, as expressed in its citizenship laws and repeated openly by those
citizens, amounts to a commitment to genocide.’ Hence, decolonization is ‘both
the path and the destination.’[25]
Preventing and punishing
Israel’s genocide in Palestine is a priority right now; the sadistic cruelty of
what the Israeli state has been doing constitutes an assault not only on the
human rights of Palestinians, but also on the whole edifice of international
law, and on humanity itself. 153 countries have ratified the Genocide
Convention but it is considered to be binding even on those countries which
have not done so, and political leaders in all of them are under an obligation
to prevent Israel from resuming the genocide by imposing full sanctions
on it, and punish all those involved in it, from the Israeli political
and military leadership down to every soldier. Failing this, they would be
guilty of complicity with genocide, which is also a crime under the Genocide
Convention.[26] Countries which have been
colluding with Israel’s genocide owe reparations to the Palestinians, including
compensation to the families of those who have been killed, payment for medical
treatment and rehabilitation to those who have been injured, trauma counselling
for all survivors, especially children, and rebuilding of all infrastructure
and buildings that have been destroyed or damaged, along with re-equipment of
hospitals, schools, universities, etc.
It is worth pointing out
that although the United States and most Western countries have been most
obviously supportive of Israel in its genocidal onslaught on Palestine, the
BRICS+ countries, especially China, Russia, India and the UEA, have also been collaborating
with it. Brazil and even South Africa, which has taken the commendable step of
bringing the genocide case against Israel to the ICJ, have continued to supply
oil and coal to Israel.[27]
Therefore we, the peoples of all these countries, who have been watching in
anguish the carnage which Holocaust survivor Gabor Maté compared to Auschwitz,[28] are under an obligation
to put maximum pressure on our political leaders to abide by the Genocide
Convention, while campaigning for boycott of and divestment from not just
Western companies but all companies which have been colluding with the
genocide, including China’s Hikvision and India’s Adani. Crucial to a just
peace is an alternative vision of the ultimate goal in Palestine: From the
river to the sea, freedom and democracy.
(This essay was published by New Politics on 20 January 2025 and is available at https://newpol.org/the-only-path-to-peace-in-palestine-one-democratic-state/ )
[9] United Nations,
‘Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: Part II (1947-1977)’ https://www.un.org/unispal/history2/origins-and-evolution-of-the-palestine-problem/part-ii-1947-1977/ The final vote
was as follows: In favour: Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil,
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia,
Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland,
Liberia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama,
Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist
Republic, Union of South Africa, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, United
States of America, Uruguay, Venezuela.
Against: Afghanistan,
Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria,
Turkey, Yemen.
Abstained: Argentina,
Chile, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, United
Kingdom, Yugoslavia.
[10] Jeremy Salt, 2024, ‘Not October 7 or any other date – This is all
about 1948 now,’ Palestine Chronicle. https://www.palestinechronicle.com/not-october-7-or-any-other-date-this-is-all-about-1948-now/
[11] United Nations,
‘Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: Part II (1947-1977)’.
[12] Brett Wilkins, 2023, ‘Netanyahu shows map of “New
Middle East – without Palestine – to UN General Assembly’. https://www.commondreams.org/news/netanyahu-map