- When a delegation of young legal advisers to the Palestinian
Authority were in Washington recently, they made their usual pitch about
settlements and Israel's new security fence.
-
- But not far from the surface was a new argument with
old overtones: support for a two-state solution to the conflict is rapidly
waning among Palestinians, they said. Instead, more and more are supporting
the creation of a single, binational democratic state between the Jordan
River and the Mediterranean.
-
- That idea has generated little interest in Washington,
mostly because it is a blatant prescription for the quick elimination of
the Jewish state.
-
- But Jewish leaders are worried. In some quarters - including
across Europe and on campuses at home - "it will be a seductive idea,"
said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League.
-
- "It's a serious movement," he said. "We've
seen how effectively the Palestinians and their supporters can mobilize
their propaganda machinery."
-
- Observers said the one-state movement will throw new,
uncomfortable international attention on Jewish settlements, which in much
of the world are regarded as proof that Israel isn't serious about allowing
a Palestinian state.
-
- The movement is also energizing Israel's far right wing,
which is using it to justify a revival of their "greater Israel"
ideology. In major newspaper ads this week in Israel, right-wing groups
revealed new statistics countering the widespread belief that the Palestinian
population would soon surpass the population of Israeli Jews, justifying
in their eyes Israel's continued presence in the West Bank and Gaza.
-
-
- And it comes at a time of increased criticism of Israel
policy at home. Last week, four former security chiefs who served under
both Labor and Likud governments castigated Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
in the Yediot Achronot newspaper for his refusal to talk to Palestinian
President Yasir Arafat, his settlement policies and the controversial security
fence that critics say will cut deep into Palestinian territory and make
statehood even harder to attain.
-
- Those policies, the former Shin Bet chiefs said, are
dashing Palestinians' hopes for their own state alongside Israel.
-
- "The Palestinians are arguing, 'You wanted two states,
and instead you are closing us up in a South African reality,'" said
Avraham Shalom, who headed the agency from 1980 to 1986. "Therefore,
the more we support the fence, they lose their dream and hope for an independent
Palestinian state."
-
- The single-state movement may be just a gambit intended
to put new international pressure on Israel and further isolate the Jewish
state. But Jewish leaders fear it's a gambit likely to garner huge support
in a world in which sympathy for Israel is in scarce supply.
-
- "It's an attempt to hoist Israel on its own democratic
petard," said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish
Committee. "It could be nothing more than a negotiating ploy, but
my instinct tells me it's something much more significant."
-
- Harris compared it to the 1975 UN resolution equating
Zionism with racism.
-
- But like other Jewish leaders, Harris warned that to
avoid the looming train wreck, Israel will have to find a way out of the
current negotiating impasse.
-
- "This movement is a sobering reminder that the current
status quo can't continue, that peace is a strategic necessity," he
said.
-
- Palestinian supporters insist the new direction for Palestinian
activism represents genuine despair, not a new gambit to attract world
sympathy.
-
- "It's not that they want a unitary state,"
said Edward Abington, a former State Department official and now a consultant
to the Palestinian Authority. "What the Palestinians want is their
own state, in the West Bank and Gaza, a sovereign state. But increasingly
they feel there is less and less of a possibility for that to happen. That
inexorably leads them to look at alternatives."
-
- Abington pointed to surveys by the Palestinian pollster
Khalil Shikaki suggesting that some 28 percent of Palestinians now support
the single-state idea. And some of the top PA legal advisers, including
the ones who have visited Washington several times in recent months, are
publicly raising the issue.
-
- "They feel that with the settlements, with the transfer
of a large number of Israelis into the West Bank and Gaza and with the
building of the wall, a two-state solution is close to not being viable,"
Abington said.
-
- Adding to the pressure, he said, is the perception of
a "lack of any credible moves by the Bush administration to move toward
the goal of statehood."
-
- The PA still officially supports creation of a Palestinian
state alongside the Jewish one, he said, but "I think we are very
close to the point where you can't have two states, with a viable Palestinian
state."
-
- Most pro-Israel leaders dismiss such comments as a glossy
new veneer for an old goal - the elimination of the State of Israel.
-
- "The Palestinians, having finally figured out they
cannot dislodge Israel by violence and terror, or by attempts at boycotts
and diplomatic isolation, have come upon a nonviolent 'democratic' way
of eradicating the state," Harris said. "From the Palestinian
point of view, there's a strong internal logic to the approach."
-
- Harris dismissed the claim that settlements have made
Palestinian statehood impossible.
-
- "The settlements are an issue," he said, "but
they are not the principal issue. The principal issue is and remains the
willingness of the Palestinians to recognize the legitimacy and the right
of a Jewish state to exist in the region."
-
- But Israel can't wait forever for a negotiated settlement,
Harris said.
-
- "The inescapable fact is, the demographic ratios
in the region are shifting," he said. "Israel cannot live with
that reality forever without making decisions."
-
- Most Jewish leaders agree that the one-state movement
is still just a blip on the Mideast radar screen. But the idea is gaining
currency in some circles.
-
- "In Europe, this is already starting to resonate
because they are already so predisposed to dismiss Israel's right to exist,"
said a top pro-Israel activist here. "This idea could give many Europeans
a new and legitimate-sounding hook for their hostility to Israel. They'll
hear the 'let's have a democracy' side of the equation and ignore the fact
that it would spell the end of the Jewish state."
-
- The idea is also starting to exert its pull in American
intellectual circles. A recent ferocious exchange in the New York Review
of Books centered on the argument that a Jewish Israel has become an "anachronism"
justifying the one-state solution.
-
- Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine and leader
of the activist community built around the left-of-center publication,
said the idea is "gaining support" in left-wing circles in this
country.
-
- The Tikkun community, he said, "opposes the one-state
solution on pragmatic grounds: There is no constituency for it in Israel,
so the fight for a one-state solution would inevitably lead to a long postponement
of the ending of the occupation or the easing of the pain of the refugees."
-
- And most Tikkun activists, Rabbi Lerner said, "believe
that the Jewish people still need a state of our own as an affirmative
action measure to overcome the centuries of Jewish powerlessness and to
protect us in a world that has not yet overcome anti-Semitism."
-
- But a growing minority, he said, "is arguing the
other way - that the one-state solution is the only way to achieve democratic
rights for the Palestinian people and to counter the nationalist chauvinism
of the Israeli right."
-
- Rabbi Lerner said a majority in his group still supports
a two-state solution and is actively promoting the unofficial Geneva accord,
which follows the outlines of the agreements almost worked out three years
ago at Camp David and Taba.
-
- "This is the struggle taking place inside our community,"
he said. "So far, a majority is on the side of Geneva and the two-state
solution, though I doubt that can hold for more than a few more years unless
the occupation actually ends."
-
- And the one-state idea is starting to exert its pull
on American college campuses, where support for the Palestinians is strong
and Jewish students are on the defensive.
-
- Last week Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for
Reform Judaism, warned that "This is not a doomsday scenario for the
distant future. This argument is being made right now on talk shows and
college campuses and is evoking a positive response."
-
- Rabbi Yoffie, speaking to the Reform group's biennial
conference in Minneapolis, castigated the Sharon government for its settlements
policies.
-
- "Americans see little reason to oppose a single
state for Palestinians and Israelis that offers equal rights for all,"
he said. "Yet if settlements continue to grow and we are committed
to democracy, we have no convincing response to offer."
-
- But other Jewish activists say the single-state movement
is a reversion to the traditional Palestinian rejection of Israel.
-
- "It's back to the future," said Jess Hordes,
Washington representative for ADL. "This has been the traditional
Palestinian way of rejecting the right of a Jewish state to exist, so it's
extremely troubling to see it raised again. To the extent that it's a reversion,
it doesn't speak well for any future peacemaking."
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