The story is told about Josef Stalin at the Yalta Conference that, bored by a discussion about the role of the Vatican in postwar Europe, he asked brusquely, “How many divisions has the pope?”
He had a point: The pope had none. And yet, although diplomatic verbal disputes often seem academic, the diplomats continue to wrangle — in part because words have implications that have a way of not going away. The current debate between Palestinian and Israeli negotiators, in the run-up to the Annapolis summit — about whether the solution they are aiming for is one of “two states” (the Palestinian formulation) or of “two states for two peoples” (the Israeli formulation) — is a good example.
After all, what difference does it make? There will be, if and when an agreement is reached, a state called Israel and a state called Palestine, and relations between them will be determined by the facts on the ground. How many divisions will the words of this agreement have?
To which, there is an answer: They may not have divisions now, but they may one day be capable of moving them. Let’s reflect on this.
When the Palestinians speak of a “two-state” solution, what is it that they have in mind? The answer seems clear. On the one hand, there will be a State of Palestine that will be inhabited entirely by Palestinian Arabs, since the Jewish settlers now living within its future boundaries will be required to evacuate their settlements. At no point has the Palestinian Authority been willing to consider allowing these settlers to remain as residents of Palestine, and at no point has the government of Israel broached such a possibility either. Palestine, it is agreed by both parties, will be one state for one people: the Palestinians.
And yet, in Israel, even if (as all Israeli governments have insisted) no Palestinian refugees will be allowed to return, there will continue to live two peoples: a Jewish majority and an Arab minority. Will Israel be one state composed of two peoples but for only one of them — that is, a Jewish state for the Jewish people in which Arabs will be citizens with equal rights as individuals but without a collective or national status equal to that of the Jews? Or will it rather be a state in which the Jewish people have no special status?
The former is the Israeli negotiating position: Hence, “two states for two peoples” — one for Arabs and one for Jews. The latter is the Palestinian position: Hence, “two states” — one for Palestinians and one for Palestinians and Jews. This explains why, too, Palestinian negotiators, while ready to recognize the State of Israel in a peace agreement, have refused to recognize it “as a Jewish state.” To their minds, Israel must be a bi-national state, shared by Jews and Arabs alike — or, to use the current buzz phrase of Israel’s Arab political leaders, not a “Jewish state” but a “state of all its citizens.”
Although this might seem like a mere semantic quarrel, it is one with great implications. The State of Palestine will be, as the Palestinians envision it, a state whose national symbols, language, culture, educational system, institutions, calendar, immigration and naturalization policies, and so on will be at the service of the Palestinian Arab people; the State of Israel will not, in the same sense, be at the service of the Jewish people. It will be run as a Jewish-Arab condominium that must take the needs of both groups equally into account.
And if it is not run this way? What if, for instance, the State of Israel refuses to abolish its Law of Return, which favors Jewish immigrants over non-Jewish ones, or does not approve of the establishment of Arab-language universities that can grant the same degrees as Hebrew-language universities, or declines to recognize Muslim holidays as, in the manner Jewish holidays, national days of rest? If Israel is not defined as a Jewish state in an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty, then in the future, policies of this sort can be interpreted as violations of such a treaty and even as pretexts for abrogating it. The question of Israel’s Jewishness would thus be internationalized; no longer would it be a strictly internal Israeli affair, but rather part of Israel’s relations with its Palestinian neighbor and with the entire Arab and Muslim world. For those who wish Israel to remain a Jewish state, this would clearly be a dangerous situation.
Of course, it can be argued that Israel’s Arab minority, supported by the State of Palestine and other Arab countries, will in any case increasingly challenge the idea of Israel’s Jewishness, regardless of what any peace agreement says. This may be true — yet that doesn’t make it any wiser to legitimize such a challenge in advance. Two states for two peoples is a position to which Israel should adhere if it doesn’t want to ask for unnecessary trouble.
Questions for Philologos can be sent to philologos@forward.com.
It would be interesting if, as part of peace talks, Israel demanded a very simple thing: reciprocal rights. Whatever rights Israel extends to its ethnic minorities, so should Palestine. It would be a no-brainer. The Palestinians constantly assert that Israeli Arabs are second-class citizens. Fine. Let them accept Jewish citizens of their new state in the way that Israel has its minority citizens. Let it extend them all the rights that Israel does. On their logic, that is not very many rights in any case.
This article points to the round of attacks on Israel's legitimacy that will come, after a "peace" deal, from: Palestinian diplomats who will state that they are seeking to act on behalf of their brethren; NGOs that will focus on the difference between Arab and Jew living in Israel; the UN which will say it is seeking "equal rights" for Palestinians living in Israel; the likes of Jimmy Carter and Mearsheimer and Walt who will have new fodder; and global diplomats including and especially those from Europe. Hezbollah will use the "two peoples" argument like it uses Sheba Farms. Hamas et al. will cite this as a continued example of "occupation". A "peace" deal in Annapolis will not bring security for Israel. It will only result in Israel's inability to act against terrorists in the "sovereign state of Palestine", and for any such actions it will be scolded by the UN. Like southern Lebanon and Gaza before it, Judea and Samaria will only bring terror closer, the noose ever tightening. Perhaps a deal will include a guarantee of US military action against Iran to try to at least eliminate that threat, but Israel will pay the larger bill for any action. Until there can be much bigger, much broader, changes in the Arab world and in world opinion, can Israel really afford to move to this next round? We seem farther away from those changes that we did perhaps ten years ago, and those changes may never come. But until then Israel must maintain as much control over its security as possible. That will mean no state of Palestine, no return of the Golan , and no division of Jerusalem. Israel needs to keep those cards in its hand, until the time is right to play them. Does anyone really think that time is now??
The first problem in this debate is the question of refugees. The present inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank (Judaea and Samaria), with the exception of those ACTUALLY born in pre-1948 Mandate Palestine are not by ANY recognised legal definition, refugrees. A refugee is some who cannot return at present to their land of origin (or last place of habitation, if being of no-state, which is the correct term of the 1948 Arabs in Mandate Palestine). This does not extend to the descendents of those generations. Legally speaking Israel can only be asked to accomodate people born and residing within what became the borders of Israel in 1948-9. The second problem is the territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Well, strictly speaking the West Bank belonged to Jordan after 1949. A illegal annexation maybe, but one recognised on the ground by Israel and Jordan. If this is not to be legally recognised then the territories become "disputed" and not "occupied". An "occupied" territory is an area of land taken by military means from one state by another and not reconciled within a peace treaty. A "disputed" territory is one that belongs to neither but one or both sides put claims forward as to its ownership. The Arab areas of Mandate Palestine were not a legally recognised state once the Mandate was ended. Indeed, this is why Jordan could annex the West Bank, it belonged to no one state. Equally, Israel could take territory and settle it (as they did) because the land belonged to no state. International law does not recognise mere habitation as it deals in treaties and understandings between states. In a sense, International Law is a misnomer. Domestic law is the law of the state, controlling a monopoly on violence (the means of enforcement). International Law by way of contrast is a series of agreements voluntarily entered into by states between one another. Conversely, without sanction and enforcement (as in domestic law), states cannot be held accountable to one another as they might in a court of domestic law. Enforcement in international terms is more akin to alliances of nations seeking to re-establish a balance of power. The notion of a policeman on the international stage is one that is incompatible with the freedom of states, since states recognise no higher law than themselves. An empire polices its subjects, but states exist together in a strange, but free and perpetually shifting arrangement of power, alliance and mutual debate.
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