Israel Denies Entry to Hundreds in Day of Action

The below video expands on a theme that we have often touched upon at The Other Americas: the incompatibility of a Jewish state and a democratic state.

The rightward shift in public opinion in Israel over the past decade only continues to deepen, the large protests that took place last summer over social questions ( the issue of the occupation was conspicuously absent for the most part) notwithstanding.

The specific targeting of left leaning political activists by the police while simultaneously allowing right leaning activists to act with impunity is a clear example of the systematic attempt to suppress dissent.

As always, antisemitism is the charge leveled against those standing up for the rights of a dispossessed people that have lived under occupation, as refugees, or as second class citizens for the past half century. It does not matter that many of the activists supporting the Palestinian cause were themselves Israeli Jews; they simply can be slapped with epitaph of self-hating Jew and no further thought on the matter is necessary.

As the struggle for Palestinian rights continues to unfold, both in the Palestian communities in the Occupied Territories and in Israel, as well as among Jewish and international solidarity activists, The Other Americas will continue is analysis with an eye towards a just, equitable, and lasting solution for all involved, recognizing that tyranny over any can only result in tyranny over all.

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Israel Denies Entry to Hundreds in Day of Action, posted with vodpod

Thoughts on Israel and Palestine

As far as I can tell there are three solutions to this ongoing conflict.  The two state solution, in which a Palestinian state exists side by side with the Jewish state, is dead.  The growth of the illegal settlement blocks in the Occupied West Bank, which should include East Jerusalem (unilaterally and illegally annexed by Israel with no legal recognition from any state in the world including the U.S.), has surpassed 500,000 settlers on the ground.  Presumably the vast majority of these settlers are going nowhere fast and are in fact only set to grow.  Anyone looking at a map of the settlement blocks can clearly see that a viable Palestinian state cannot exist with them in place.

 

The second solution is the one state solution.  This involves the Palestinians giving up their struggle for a separate homeland in favor of a civil rights based movement for inclusion in a state that would exist between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River (currently Israel and the Occupied Territories).  I am personally in favor of this option as it is most in line with a democratic solution: one democratic state where people are guaranteed rights based on their status as a citizen, not on any ethic, religious, or national categories.  Of course this means the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state in favor of a democratic one, not a likely outcome in the foreseeable future.

 

The claim the Israel is both a Jewish state and a democratic state is simply illogical.  25% of the population of Israel is not Jewish.  A full 20% of Israeli citizens are Palestinians who are not afforded the same rights as their Jewish counterparts.  This is not a democracy, it is legally two tiered society more akin to apartheid South Africa than a constitutional (Israel has no constitution) democracy like the UK, France, or the US.

 

I bring this point up because it must be recognized that a large part of the Palestinian population reside within Israel itself.  Other significant communities of Palestinians live in neighboring states where they forced to flee as refugees following1948.  Conditions for the refugees in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, et cetra, are often even worse than those in the Israel, as neenergyobserver rightly pointed out.   Any just and equitable solution to the conflict will have to take these communities into account.  There will be no solution unless all the affected Palestinians and Israelis are given a voice.

 

Finally there is the third option: continue on the present course.  Israel can just continue doing what is has been doing the past 45 odd years and slowly enact its expansionist and belligerent foreign policy.  When international pressure becomes intense attention can always be diverted to the evil state of the moment, whether it is Iran today or Iraq yesterday.  Meanwhile the status quo on the ground only continues.  When then invented foreign crisis is over with and people return to the issue of Palestine, Israel has gobbled up more land, water, and gas resources and negotiations can begin all over again.  Except that there is a little bit less land and a little bit more settlers than before.  The Palestinians have a valid complaint when they say they will not negotiated while settlements are being built; how can party A negotiate with party B for land for a future state while all the time Party B is expanding and building new settlements on the same land that is up for discussion!

 

This is often overlooked, but the fact is that Israel and its superpower backer the US have done pretty much everything throughout the years to prevent a workable resolution to the conflict from being agreed upon.  We can argue about the motives for this, but the actions are pretty clear.  Take a look a UN Security Council vetoes.  It is clear that the US back Israel completely in this conflict and any attempt to act as a just broker between the two sides is jaded at best.  Perhaps a better arrangement would have the US and Israel on one side and the rest of the world on the other.  This would be more consistent with the wide popular support the Palestinians receive throughout much of the world.

As long as Israel has the Backing of the US, the third option will be the one implemented.  A real solution to the conflict will only occur when the US decides that its interests do not align with the expansionist policies of Israel and revokes its support.  There are precedents, such as under the first Bush administration when US funding to Israel was temporarily cut off because of Israeli refusal to halt construction of settlements.  As long as Israel has US support, they can ignore the rest of the world.