"Trade union activists find themselves circulating hyperlinks to articles written by notorious American white supremacists..."

If this is a reference to the Jenna Delich case, then it's clear that Dave doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

Please, anon. Enlighten me. Please.

(8) Only a democratic secular state is going to work.

I think you'd have to reformulate that a little: As any outcome, even two states is going to effectively be a single state solution. There will have to be so many bilateral agreements, bodies, arrangements etc. that the two (three?) nominally distinct states will behave as one.

Realistically, it is a single state now, with a Palestinean county council. Beyond that, though, I think you need:

9) Peace at any political price, no matter where the border goes, what it calls itself, who is in charge (for now) peace first.

Dave, I'll take up the baton from "anon".

Trade union activists find themselves circulating hyperlinks to articles written by notorious American white supremacists, while the leader of one far left group feels constrained to defend every action of Israel’s rapacious and corrupt ruling class, even to the point of offering carte blanche in advance of planned aggression.

The article concerned was "only" on the website of a notorious American white supremacists, and former KKK leader. Surrounded by dodgy symbolism and adverts for his books it was, not that the trade union activist concerned seemed to notice, but he didn't write it. Instead it was written by a notorious 9/11 conspiracy theorist (who says "it woz Israel wot don it"). The article was reposted from another, presumably politically similar website, with the same name as a now defunct (?) academic journal/event/organisation once published by the Eurocommunist wing of the ex-CP/Democratic Left/New Times Network.

While I don't buy Sean Matgamna's line on Israel completely, I don't recall (having read some of the articles in question) him ever giving 'carte blanche' to the Israeli ruling class, and certainly not on the subject of bombing Iran (I presume that's what the rather oblique reference is trying to say). I can only suppose you got your 'information' from the Weekly Worker on that one.

Otherwise, I agree with most of the rest, though, probably not with no. 8, if only because the latest news here is that Belgium is (again) on the verge of collapse, and only questions on the future status of Brussels is preventing it from disappearing from the world map. Some are (seriously) suggesting a kind of Transitstrecke from Brussels to France, in the manner of the Autobahn between West Germany and West Berlin inside former East Germany.

OK, more precise formulation re: Ms Dellich.

Largely sensible, but two differences:

1. To your point (4): Mearsheimer/ Walt and similar analysis makes the tail wag the dog. Israel is & has been since the 1960s a *subordinate* ally of the US in the Middle East. It is genuine US geo-strategic interests in the Middle East which form the basis of US military and economic support for Israel and hence of the phenomena described by Mearsheimer and Walt.

This is immediately important because it looks just at the moment as if the US is turning towards a "new Cold War" policy towards Russia (which would have the advantage of justifying much bigger bucks on military expenditure than small wars in the Middle East). If this turn takes place on a full scale, the US will make an under-the-table deal with the Iranian clericalist regime & will not permit an Israeli military attack on Iran.

2. To your point (8): Moshe Machover's point, that the Arabs of the Mashreq face a 'German unification' problem, i.e. that a single national-cultural group (& indeed a single Ottoman province) has been cut up into fragments, of which Mandate Palestine is only one. This is not a matter of 'socialist federation' proposals but of immediate democratic slogans. Hence, single state within Mandate Palestine is no more a solution to the national problem than is two-states within Mandate Palestine.

Mike

On Ms Dellich. Perhaps supporters of the UCU can explain how legal threats that have shut down Harry's Place because it criticised her Klu Klux Klan hyperlink etc, furthers their cause?

Personally I dislike talking about Israel and the Palestinians for all the reasons Dave lists and more, such as the fact that I know supporters of both sides and it is not something I want to have a shouting - or posting - match about (I reserve that for other topics, such as the use of slug pellets or the use of Wardour Street redundant and precious words like 'gotten').

There are three exceptions: 1) I cannot support the 'don't buy yid' campaign to boycott Israel since I clearly feel this is often ineffective gestural and self-rightous. If it is effective at all it taps into anti-semitic, anti-Israel-by-virtue-of-it-being-run-by-Jews constituency. 2)I have no the slighest doubt that whatever party leads Israel it is ruthlessly nationalist, and prepared to pursue it goals whatever the human cost. So, I oppose them. 3) While the left is very rarely anti-semitic, part of it is *tolerant* towards anti-semitism notably when it comes from Arab and, above all, Islamist sources. The root of this comes from the same set of bogus arguments used to 'explain' and excuse terrorism generally, torn to shreds by Michael Walzer in his essay collection *Arguing About War*. (2004) So I oppose Hamas.

As DZ say re.Beligum btw, Brussels is felt by many who live there to be encircled by the Flemish speakers (who seem to spend their time passing rules denying the use of French in anything, from public libraries, picking up household waste, to bus time-tables - see le Soir, http://www.lesoir.be passim; and the popular Brussels Evening paper whose name I forget has been full of such stuff for years). The idea of a safe couloir, through some woods, to Francophone territory got in le Monde not so long ago. One of the reasons the Flemish hate French speakers? Guess which second (or, their offsprings' first)language the Brussels region immigrants speak....

What are you on about "don't buy Yid"?
There are good reasons to boycott Israeli goods and indeed Israel itself to highlight the issue of their oppression of Palestine, that is not anti-semitic, does not amount to "don't buy Yid" and this is the type of caricature that Dave was referring to in the article above.
The AWL are specialists at it, if you need any more advice ask Sean Matgamna and assorted hangers on.
The one state solution is the only democratic solution as every other proposal amounts to the forced segregation of Jewish and non-Jewish populations, akin to Jim Crow in Southern USA.
Jewish people living in the region have rights like anyone else, but they don't have the right to oppress the Palestinians, which is unfortunately a pre-condition for the continued existence of Israel, which is founded on such oppression and maintains it on a daily basis.
It is paradoxical that a legacy of the CPGB's flirtation with the AWL a few years ago, was their effective adoption of an undemocratic and de facto racist two state position.
This is definitely something they should ditch.

The trouble with "self determination" is that it runs counter to my heart felt belief in internationalism..

A though provoking post Dave.

The Palestine-Israel issue is unfortunatley one of those issues where people believe that there is no middle ground. People refuse to accept that there is a universal set of values that should apply on both sides of the border (wherever that may lay).

In looking at these conflicts we must look at them from a universal perspective of right and wrong. They are simple truths.

The Israelis deserve peace and security. The Palestinans deserve a stable state without interference and indeed occupation from Israel.

Both sides are to blame for the current mess and indeed their proxy supporters must also take some blame. A good post Dave.

"Now, am I right or am I right?"

You are right.

"Now, am I right or am I right?"

You are right. Best post on Palestine/Israel I've seen in a while - I usually avoid debates on this issue like the plague (especially on the internets) for the reasons Dave alludes to in the first part of the post.

Both sides are to blame for the current mess and indeed their proxy supporters must also take some blame. A good post Dave.

Agree with the second sentence but the first one is too wishy washy and easy to stand up to real
scrutiny.

In a conflict of two equals, or even nearly equals, it is possible for both sides to hem themselves in to positions that make any truce/settlement difficult to achieve. At that point, generally, outside agencies are able to enter the arena and manipulate a solution that allows the combatants a way out that panders to their respective extreme wings and hopefully engages the moderates.

But the above does not apply to Israel/Palestine.

It is an unequal conflict by definition and origin. Every proferred solution that treated the Palestinians with dignity and equality has been traduced by the Israel/US nexus in the UN and elsewhere. Treaties supposed to solve the conflict have been rigged to ensure that their final terms were clearly unacceptable to the Palestinians. When these were rejected, Israel, as a matter of course, uses that as justification for more land grab and more settlements and more hostility. In short, they are not peace treaties, they are strategic milestones for the furtherance of Israel's regional goals. Incidentally, the Palestinians reject these treaties - not all of them - not out of bloody-mindedness, but because there's nothing in them that remotely helps them or eases their situation. Any other state would do the same. Analogies are banal but at the very least can you imagine the Free French accepting a Peace Treaty with the Vichy that essentially gave Germany free reign over French elections, water supply, movement of goods, access to schools et al?

If your choices in a conflict are a) accept everything your aggressor wants of you and for you or b) look to the world for support against an illegal act and that help never comes, then you are not to blame if the conflict continues and intensifies. Some, maybe even most, conflicts are opaque and difficult to fathom. This one is not. The blame lies fairly and squarely with Israel and until it realises that it cannot win the peace with force it will not end.

If you love peace, if you teach your children not to steal or not to harm others, if you are a decent human being with values and honour, then get behind the Palestinians. Israels inverts morality in this crisis.

Dave I think you could be right.

Good to point out that a one state solution is sane and humane although getting there will be tough.

Green Party of England and Wales will be developing some new policy on Palestine I think at our 2009 spring conference, watch this space.

I agree with a lot of this, but equating the ANC with the IRA with Fatah with Hamas?

Spot on. It is good to see some very fundamental things being re-stated.

The ugly colouration that the situation has taken on should not blind us to the basic facts.

I should, of course, have picked you up on certain of your formulations.

I don't think it would help, though.

Two states are viable, one state would be a disaster. Beside that good post.

LL, if you've got better formulations, please offer them up. In this debate, it helps to have watertight wording or the pedants shoot you down. So please contribute your thoughts!

I think you are completely right...except for 8.
I still think a two state solution is feasible, as does Fatah. To continue the Northern Ireland analogy, putting forward a one state solution as a prerequisite is equivalent to calling for a United Ireland as a prerequisite for talks there, neither possible nor helpful.

I adore Belgium, but it isn't a model for Israel and Palestine.

Belgium is a relatively prosperous EU country surrounded by the three leading regional powers, all of which have an interest in its stability. The French and Flemish communities have lived together in an independent state since 1830 and share a common religious heritage, former empire and imperial masters, cuisine, football league, love of beer etc, and there has NOT been genocide, ethnic cleansing, terrorist campaigns etc.

And yet Belgium is still regularly paralysed to the point of partition by cultural divisions and is at the point where further devolution of powers to the regions is almost impossible. Were it not for the fact that Brussels is now 75pc French-speaking while being surrounded by Dutch-speaking areas, Belgium would split tomorrow.

Django,

of course, *if* the SDLP/Fianna Fail merger goes ahead, this raises the spectre of the same party governing North and South, and de facto unification (with special features)...

Django

The Belgium analogy was me being flippant. Sorry.

But I thought they were the specialists in drawing up constitutional settlements for binational communities? De Hondt formulas and all that?

D

Yes Dave - you are right (which means left of course). Like Ben, I'm not sure that you have to see one state as the only solution, though I'm heading much more in that direction than I used to.

If more people on the left adopted these standpoints loudly and clearly we certainly would have a more fruitful ideas and political strategy on this issue, and it would flush out those who continue to call themselves left but are injecting antisemitic arguments in the discourse and those that call themselves left but are still ultimately trying to to defend Zionism.

Only thing I would like to add is that there should be a recognition that Zionism has always been a contested political opinion in Jewish life since it came into being, and there have been and continue to be ideas of "Jewish self-determination" that are non-territorial and do not mean establishing an ethnocracy at the expense of the Palestinians .

David Rosen wrote:

"and it would flush out those who continue to call themselves left but are injecting antisemitic arguments in the discourse "

excellent idea, why not start "flushing them" off of the UCU activist list?

perhaps you could start at http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2763 ? then process onto http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/08/not-free-speech-martyrs.html

good luck, you'll need it

[Andy and Phil BC took a lot of unnecessary stick over this]

"LL, if you've got better formulations, please offer them up." I'm sorry I was being flippant - alluding the likelihood that pedants would jump in.

David Rosen wrote:

"and it would flush out those who continue to call themselves left but are injecting antisemitic arguments in the discourse "

excellent idea, why not start "flushing them" off of the UCU activist list?

perhaps you could start at http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2763 ?

good luck, you'll need it

[all credit to Andy and Phil BC took a lot of unnecessary stick over this]

PS: David, then proceed onto http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/08/not-free-speech-martyrs.html

But the Fatah support for two states is incoherent, as it continues to oppose the Law of Return.
Without the Law of Return then the Palestinians would form the majority of what is now Israel, so two states would be an irrelevence.
Most Palestinians opinion is turning away from two states now, as its clear that its a trap set by the US and Israel, to turn Palestinians away from a unified national struggle.

ops, that's Rosenberg not Rosen, sorry about that

Yes, Dave, you're probably right on all counts except number 8.

The problem with a single state solution is that facts and rationality mean nothing in situations of entrenched collective hatred.

While I agree that a single secular state would be the ideal solution, it's simply not going to happen. There could be some limited neutral territories, perhaps for the centre of Jerusalem that is the only option - but otherwise it ain't going to happen while either side still has an army. Too many people have died on both sides for statehood.

Even just calling for a single-state solution is enough to make many Israelis believe you're a crazed anti-semite who wants to see them dead. After all, they are probably right that if all the weapons and armies spontaneously evaporated and there were a democratic election covering the whole Israel/Palestine area right now, the resulting government's first act would be to outlaw Jewishness in revenge for the last 60 years.

The real choice is not between two religious states and one secular state but between two religious states and the utterly disastrous (but equally likely, sadly, given the growing international popularity of the view that Islam is evil) outcome of one religious state.

Rosen...Rosenberg...no worries Mod!

On the one state, two state, three states, no states, conundrum activists within Israel and the Occupied Territories seem less hung-up on starting from the best theoretical solution than people outside.

Progressive Palestinians are resisting further land-grabbing where and when they can and are seeking to extend palestinian sovereignty where possible. Radical peace campaigners in Israel, outside of the Zionist consensus are increasingy coalescing around the demand that Israel becomes a state of all its citizens with full equality and an end to formal and indirect discrimination.

David,

One State is a great idea.

Let's try it out in Europe, first, then see if it catches on?

So socialists should forget about telling people in the middle east what to think, before they've tried it out in their own nation.

So the programmatic demand should:

One State for Europe
Down with borders.
Ireland, France, Britain, Germany,etc united as one!

anyone consider that remotely realistic ?

PS: Andy Newman is fighting a rearguard action against some very strange attitudes on his blog, THE HAZARD OF DUKE http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2766

Dave - I would add another 'parameter' to your list:

Not to compare the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people with the Nazi holocaust of the 1940's, as often happens in the Israel / Palestine debate.

Yes - what Israel is doing to the Palestinians is an enormous atrocity - one of the great injustices of our time.

But nothing yet compares to the horrors of the Nazi holocaust, which remains unique in modern history. Such analogies inevitably belittle the holocaust.

Dave,

Points 6 and 8 contradict each other.

Israel will not give up nationhood, so why peddle the dss line?

Modernity,

Let's try it out in Europe, first, then see if it catches on?

I beleive it's called the European union, which may de jure be soveriegn independent states but which is a de facto state, much like I expect the actual outcome of any israel/Palestine negotions to resemble...

indeed RD, but you missed out the key political issue, that's not what most of the British Left argue for, you'll be hard put to find many saying "Europe is the solution, let's give up all nation sovereignty, now!"

Dave: I can agree with just about all your points, especially the rejection of unique "demonisation" of Israel (and you should have made it claer that that (is( what goes on) for doing what *all* other states do (hence the change of political anti-semitism against large sections of then left)...but why, then, reject the *only( prgramme with anay hope of briniging peace and reconcilaition to both peoples...two states?

Yes: ventually we need a secular democratic state of the Middle East...and of the world...but, in the meanwhile, how do we build the human solidarity that will get us there? Rxcept by *both* sides recognising the others' right to exist within secure borders? Two peoples: two states!

Two peoples two states. The slogan of apartheid if I'm not mistaken. Eventually of course we want justice, but in the meantime, we'll just settle for racist segration.

Dave,

until the Left gets beyond slogans (and vilification of "Zionists") when it comes to the Middle east (as Bill J aptly demonstrates) then another "ops, did someone post from david Duke" moment is just waiting to occur.

I wasn't vilifying Zionists - I was vilifying the AWL - although I'll concede the distinction is vague.
But I do think we need clarity.
The proposal from groups like the AWL, that two states be formed - "separate but equal" - the old slogan of deep South Jim Crow - is one for forced segregation or apartheid.
There is nothing progressive about this at all. The idea that forcibly separating people against their will is the way to bring them together is perverse.
In fact this proposal is nothing less than one for racist discrimination.
That, for whatever misguided reasons, the AWL propose this (I'm in no position to judge their sincerity or otherwise - some of them may be sincere), is an affront to the idea of socialism.
They have banned me now from their site, for saying this.
Not particularly noteworthy, but nonetheless illustrative.

Against their will? What if the Palestinians WANT two states? Isn't it THEIR choice, not ours?

Illustrative of what other than that you are a bore who makes the same inane 'point' over and over again?

Yes it is the Palestinians choice. That's why I support self-determination for the Palestinian people, including their right to return to what is currently Israel if they want.
I'm sure you don't.
Of course if the Palestinians don't want to return then you've got nothing to worry about have you?
Illustrative of the fact that the AWL are happy to denounce the left as anti-semites, but object when its pointed out they've got a racist policy on Israel/Palestine.
Far from being the pluralist democratic group they pretend, they are deeply intolerant and undemocratic as well as advocating racist segregation to boot.
Not great is it?

Bill: I'm getting tired of this, but once more: do you not understand that it is possible to both support Palestinian national rights, and also defend Israel's right to exist (within pre-1967 borders)?

That means two States for two peoples. The comparison with Apartheid is so grotesque and insulting as to be beneath answeing (though I can). Opposition to two states falls into two caragories: benign utopianism, with no bearing upon reality; and malign hostility to Jewish national rights. I think I know which side you're on, Bill.

I'm getting tired of this too.The comparison with apartheid is one made by the Israeli Prime Minister Erhud Olmert;

"If the two-state solution collapsed, he said, Israel would "face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished". Israel's supporters abroad would quickly turn against such a state, he said."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/nov/30/israel

What's grotesque is that an alleged socialist denounces the comparison as grotesque.
People need to wise up to the AWL. They support Israel/US imperialism in the middle east. Fight against Palestinian rights in the workers movement and propagate a racist apartheid solution.
Their two "separate but equal" states is nothing more than Jim Crow apartheid, designed to racially segregate Palestinians from Israelis.
While all the time claiming to be pluralistic and open but with a regime staffed by what can best be described as a deeply intolerant bunch of macho bullies.

But, isn't the essence of apartheid that there are different systems for different peoples within the same country?

If you visit Jerusalem you can see that the Arab traders who pay the same business rates get worse street cleaning and lighting services than the Jewish traders. i have seen this with my own eyes.

Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have passes and get stopped at road blocks. Isreali citizens do not have the same restrictions.

The illegal settlements in the West bank are connected by a road system that only Isralis can use.

Ii wrote about my eye-witness expereince of the apartheid road system here:

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=153

What Jim Denham does is abstract away from the actually existing relationship between Israel and the West bank - which does very much resemble apartheid.

Instead he creates an idealiased mental model of an israel that doesn't occupt the Weast bank, that hasn't annexed East Jeruslaem, and isn't building illegal settlements.

True, the idealised israel that only exists in Jim's imagination isn't similar to apartheid.

the actually existing Israel is an apertheid state.

Anyone who thinks that preseent-day israel (for all its faults) is comparable o apartheid, doesn't understand what apartheid wa...anyone who tghinks a "two state" (partial) solution, as advocated by the PLO, is "apartheid"...needs their head examined. The situation in South Sfrica was a minority (white) population keeping all the levers of power within their own hands...the situation in Israel/Palestine is two nations disputing he same piece of land...two completely different situations.

Isn't the PLO's demand for "two nations, two states", and hasn't it been so since the mid-80s? That Yassir Arafat, he was a pro-apartheid Zionist, you know.