JJP’s two-state position
This paper supports JJP’s two-state position
Arthur Goodman
This paper updates the paper I wrote in August 2014, when the executive at that time was considering whether to drop our two-state position. It was decided by a large majority to maintain it. The survey information in this paper is from surveys conducted from 2015 to date.
The issue of our campaigning position is of great importance to us. We want to support the Palestinians as effectively as we can. There are basically four strands to the issue, all of them combining moral and pragmatic considerations.
1. What do the Palestinians living under Israeli rule want, and what don’t they want ?. They have the right to decide what ‘s in their best interests and they are in the best position to do so.
2. What do Jewish Israelis want, and what don’t they want? It is axiomatic that sanctions, or the credible threat of sanctions, by the international community will be necessary to force an Israeli government to concede ending the occupation. But the Israeli government will be able to decide how to concede. It will be able to decide between negotiating a two-state solution or a confederation, or conceding a single, democratic state. The views of Jewish Israelis will determine in large measure which choice it makes.
3. What will the international community support? The willingness of important countries to apply or threaten sanctions will be crucial. International law and pragmatism will determine what they are willing to apply sanction to achieve.
4. Has settlement expansion become so great that it determines what is feasible?
Contents
Survey evidence
Summary of survey evidence
Social and political attitude evidence, Jewish Israelis
Means of applying pressure on Israel
International law
Lobbying
Influencing the Jewish community in the UK
The failure of the Oslo process
Dealing with the settlements
Conclusion
Survey evidence
There is strong survey evidence of the support among Palestinians and Israelis for the two-state solution in preference to either a confederation or the one-state solution. This is consistent over the six years covered by this updated paper and with the pattern in the 14 years covered in the original paper.
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza
The Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) conducts polls in the West Bank and Gaza. It usually conducts four surveys a year. It has conducted more than 80 surveys since 2000, 28 of them in the six years covered by this paper.
Simple questions
There is a simple question in the surveys asking respondents whether they support or oppose the one democratic-state solution and a similar simple question asking asking whether they support or oppose the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.
Between 60%-70% consistently oppose one state, while about 30% support it.
The former substantial support for two states (about 60% support, 30% oppose) has changed. In 2010 it started narrowing and switched to narrow but fluctuating opposition in 2014-2015 (about 55% oppose, 45% support). The responses have fluctuated wildly ever since, changing from small margins of opposition to small margins of support, and then reversing. This year there is opposition by a wide margin. The degree of support/opposition for the two-state solution correlates closely with fluctuating belief about its feasibility, so if there is a revival of good-faith negotiations for two states, then support would be expected to rise.
The opposition to one state is much higher and much more consistent than the opposition to two states.
Questions relating to the Palestinians’ immediate situation
Two new questions were introduced in 2010 when the pattern of responses to the simple two-state question began to change. They asked specifically about respondents’ views related to the situation at the time of asking. Both compared support for two states with support for one state. Support for two states and opposition to one state has been consistent in the 11 years that the questions have been asked.
First, “From among the following vital national goals, which in your view should be the first most important one that the Palestinian people should strive to achieve?”.
“to end the Israeli occupation in the areas occupied in 1967 and build a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.” is always the 1st choice (40%-50%).
Refugee return is 2nd (30%-35%). “
Establishing a democratic political system that protects freedoms and rights of Palestinians” and creating a moral Islamic society are always a poor third (10%-15%).
Second, “Under current conditions, do you support or oppose the following policy options?”, and giving five options. One of them is “Abandon the claim for two states and replace it with a claim for a single democratic state?” There is always a majority above 60%, usually near 70%, that opposes. (The other four options are unrelated to the one state-two state question.)
Three-way preference questions: two states, confederation or one state.
Two states is always first choice, followed by confederation and one state a long way behind. (Two states 46%-53%, confederation 10%-23%, and one state 6%-24%.) Preference for two states is always highest in Gaza.
Joint polls
The Israel Democracy Institute conducted polls in Israel jointly with PCPSR conducting polls in the West Bank and Gaza. The Israeli polls included the two simple questions in 2015, 2016 and 2020. In 2016, they started using preference questions in which respondents are asked to choose between the three options. The preference questions were asked in five polls and were discontinued after 2018.
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza
In the three simple questions, they began to oppose the two-state solution (47%-56% oppose, 43%-52% support), but they opposed the one-state solution by a much h bigger margin (65%-71% oppose, 27%-36% support). This is similar to the responses to the simple questions in the PCPSR polls
In the three way preference polls, two states is always first choice, followed by confederation, with one state last. (43%-53% two states, 30%-46% confederation, and 16%-39% one state).
Palestinian Israelis
In the three simple questions, they supported one state by a small margin. (47%-52% support, 31%-42% oppose). However they supported two states by a huge margin. (59%-87% support, 12%-21% oppose).
In five three-way preference polls from 2016 to to 2018, they ranked two states first, then confederation, then one state last. (81%-87% two state, 61%-74% confederation, 52%-61% one state.) In any case, it should be noted that a confederation implies two states, because there would have to be two states in order to form the confederation. As with West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, their margin of preference for two states over one state is large.
Jewish Israelis
In the three simple questions, a big majority opposed the one-state solution (66%-78%). while a minority supported it (19%-24%). They supported the two-state solution by a reasonable margin in 2015 and 2016 (50% & 53% support, 44% & 38% oppose), and opposed it in 2020 by a small margin (46% oppose, 41% support).
In the five preference polls, they ranked two states first, then confederation and one state. Their preference for two states was well ahead of both other options. (43%-53% two states, 20%-33% confederation, 19%-32% one state).
Summary of survey evidence
West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, Palestinian Israelis and Jewish Israelis all prefer the two-state solution to both confederation and the one state solution. Their preferences for two states over one state are by large margins.
The opposition of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians and Jewish Israelis to one state is by very large margins.
In one question Palestinian Israelis supported one state by a relatively small margin, but they supported two states by a huge margin.
Despite the fluctuation between opposition and support on the simple two-state question among West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, they revert to their long-standing, strong support of two states once the question is related to their current circumstances at the time of the survey.
These surveys show a consistent, large majority of Palestinians in the oPT, Palestinian Israelis and Jewish Israelis continuing to support two states over both a confederation and one state by a large margin.
A full analysis of the surveys is provided in the spreadsheet, “One state – two states, settlement and survey tables update”, here. (The spreadsheet has four pages. The first page contains the charts and the data tables used to create them. The second page contains Jewish Israeli responses to selected social and political survey questions from Israel Democracy Index surveys from 2015 to 2020. The third page contains the settlement data. The fourth page contains links to resources.)
Social and political attitude evidence, Jewish Israelis
I’ve selected the Jewish Israeli responses to 7 questions from the annual Israel Democracy Index surveys that bear directly on Jewish Israeli attitudes to Jewish dominance in Israel. Those attitudes will determine how the Jewish Israeli public can be expected to demand how the Israeli government would concede to international pressure to end the occupation. There are also three questions from the joint Israeli Democracy institute – PCPSR polls in 2016 and one question from the Pew Research Centre poll in 2016.
Surveys from 2014 to 2020 are covered. There are gaps because not all questions are asked every year. Six questions show a majority racist attitude to maintaining Jewish domination, sometimes a large majority. Four display a majority belief in equality and two display a more-o- less even split,
These results are somewhat mixed, but there is a skewing towards continuation of racist domination. Not surprisingly, there is a very strong correlation between the racist attitudes and right wing self-identification and right wing party membership. However high the percentage of all Israelis supporting a racist proposition, it was considerably higher on the right wing. That has implications for which option a right wing government is likely to take if it is forced to concede ending the occupation.
Means of applying pressure on Israel
There are three main ways of applying pressure on Israel.
BDS
BDS has great potential, but only if people like us successfully make the case for it well beyond our usual constituency. We don’t possess any of the levers of pressure. We have to persuade governments, local authorities, Churches, companies and performing artists to use the levers they possess. Nor do we have the numbers to make consumer boycotts effective ourselves. We have to persuade large numbers of people in the centre ground of politics to boycott Israeli produce and other goods. That is what was eventually achieved by the anti-apartheid campaign against apartheid South Africa.
If BDS ever gets big enough, then it will create material costs for Israel by progressively reducing Israeli exports and company profits, reducing the standard of living for some, and reducing employment. It would also damage Israelis’ self-esteem by preventing popular artists from performing in Israel. Probably most important, it would put pressure on big international companies and banks to reconsider their relationships with Israel. All that was part of what eventually caused the Apartheid regime in South Africa to concede defeat,
Economic pressure by the EU and the US
One third of Israel’s exports go to the EU and another third to the US, all free of tariffs. The EU and/or the US could apply tremendous economic pressure to Israel by suspending the tariff concessions. The politics of doing so, however, is daunting.
In the EU it would require unanimity in the Council of Ministers. In the US it would require the Administration to face down AIPAC and Congress. That might become easier in the future if the serious, growing criticism of Israeli policies in the Democratic party becomes established.
There are lesser but still effective means of economic pressure available to the EU which would not be anything like so politically difficult to implement. Even if the economic effects were small, the political effects could be significant.
Diplomatic pressure
The US could apply severe diplomatic pressure by ceasing to give Israel the automatic cover of the veto in the UN Security Council. That is what President Obama did by abstaining in the vote on Resolution 2334 in December 2016 in order to allow it to pass. EU member states on the Security Council can apply pressure by voting in favour of motions critical of Israel, as they are doing now. The US, Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain and Italy could apply severe pressure by suspending sales of weapons and equipment to Israel.
All this raises the question: what will governments, local authorities, Churches companies and individuals apply pressure on Israel for ? To achieve what ? The answer has always been to achieve the end of the occupation by creating a Palestinian state in the oPT. Firstly, because that is what the Palestinian leadership, now including Hamas, has been claiming since 1988. Secondly, because it is what the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the European Union, and every government in the world except Israel has supported since 1967. Thirdly, it is what the big majority of Palestinians themselves want.
It would be hopeless to expect those organisations and centrist people to go beyond the two-state demand, and demand a single democratic state which would necessarily do away with Israel as a big majority Jewish state. It would be like saying, “O.K., Israel has serially refused to end the occupation by accepting a Palestinian state on the Internationally legitimate parameters, so we will now demand that it accepts a single, democratic state instead, which of course it is even more determined to avoid. That will show them !”. It’s ludicrous. It would also be wrong for those actors to apply pressure on Israel to create a single state when most Palestinians themselves do not want it.
The two big Church divestment decisions, for example, were both based on human rights violations related to the occupation, not on demands for a single state. The US Presbyterian Church resolution, which passed in an extremely close vote, included this amendment: “Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign nation within secure and internationally recognized borders in accordance with the United Nations resolutions.” The joint United Methodist Church and United Methodist Kairos Response press release on the Methodist divestment said “This is the first time that a United Methodist general agency has included human rights violations related to Israel’s illegal settlements and military occupation in a decision to divest from a company.”
International law
The two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders is the position supported by international law. The seminal Security Council Resolution 242, passed after the 1967 war, confirmed the legality of the State of Israel within the pre-1967 borders. It also confirmed the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war – preventing Israel from legally acquiring any of the territory it occupied in 1967. The Palestinians’ claim to a state in that territory is confirmed by their right of self-determination, which includes the right for them to establish their own sovereign State, which was affirmed unanimously by the International Court of Justice in the 2004 Advisory Opinion on the legal Consequences of the Wall..
The Advisory Opinion is one of the Palestinians’ strongest cards. It is the irreducible backstop to their claim. Israel has no countervailing claim. The PLO has already capitalised on it by gaining upgrading to Observer State status in the United Nations, and bringing a case in the International Criminal Court.
Dropping their two-state demand would deprive them of the legal pressure strategy. The potential effectiveness of the strategy is demonstrated by the frenzied attempts Israel made to stop the reference to the ICJ and the application to the UN for Observer status. It is still trying to sabotage the case at the ICC.
Resolution 242 has been reinforced by several Security Council resolutions since, most recently by Resolution 2334 in 2016. The legal position guarantees support by most of the world’s governments for the Palestinian claim to a state, Dropping it would deprive the PLO of that big advantage.
Lobbying
Lobbying requires us to try to persuade governments and politicians to apply pressure on Israeli governments for specific purposes. In order of immediacy, the purposes are to end the particular Israeli depredation of the moment, to end the occupation and to support the creation of a Palestinian state. In all of them, we base our approach on international law and the human rights it enfranchises. If we were to drop our support for a Palestinian state, our interlocutors would rightly ask why we support international law in some respects but not others. Our effectiveness would be sharply diminished.
The problem would be worse if we supported a single state between the river and the sea because that has no legal backing at all.
“Rights-based” approach
A “rights-based” approach has been mooted by some people. The idea is to have no policy at all except for demanding that Palestinians’ rights must be protected until the parties work out a solution to their conflict themselves. It’s attractive at first sight because both the two-state and the one -state solutions seem impossible to achieve at the moment. I suspect another attraction is that it avoids the need to make difficult policy choices. It doesn’t stand up to examination.
Both parts of the prescription hide big problems. While being called “rights” based, it’s really concerned with Palestinians’ individual rights while ignoring their collective rights. The inconsistency would soon become apparent. Waiting for the parties to “work out a solution to their conflict themselves” invites permanent occupation punctuated by violent resistance and repression..
“Rights based”
Israeli governments routinely transgress individual Palestinian rights by, for example, house demolitions, evictions, and arrest and imprisonment without disclosed proof of guilt or trial. They commit those things in the pursuit of their basic goal of strengthening the occupation and making it permanent. They won’t stop doing them simply because other governments tell them to stop. That hasn’t worked in the past and there’s no reason to expect it to work now.
Therefore, we would have to continue making our main argument that governments have to apply pressure on Israel. In the immediate sense, we would have to tell governments to apply pressure in order to stop Israeli governments doing the kinds of things to individuals mentioned in the preceding paragraph. But we couldn’t stop there. In order to avoid serious inconsistency, we would also have to tell them to apply pressure on Israel to respect Palestinians’ collective rights, above all to stop settlement building that eats up Palestinian land and to lift the siege of Gaza..
But then we would come up against the big inconsistency in the ”rights approach”. Wouldn’t we also have to tell our interlocutors to apply pressure on Israel to end the occupation ? Otherwise, we would be implying that we aren’t objecting to the occupation itself as long as Israel does it nicely. The occupation is the basic, collective denial of rights that gives rise to all the individual denials.
So of course, we would also have to advocate putting pressure on Israel to end the occupation. And then the biggest logical problem of the “rights approach” would arise, because we would have deprived ourselves of being able to say what should replace the occupation. One state, two states, unitary or bi-national, a confederation, or some form of government as yet uninvented? It has to be a government structure of some kind, otherwise individual rights could not be protected. They would soon cease to exist in the ensuing chaos, violence and eventual strongman rule.
“work out a solution to their conflict themselves”
This would give Israel all the power in the negotiations since it is the dominant party in possession of the land, which it does not want to give up. It could and probably would, find reasons to demand terms the Palestinians couldn’t possibly accept, and then blame them for the failure to agree. When, inevitably, Palestinian resistance turned violent again, Israel would repress it violently and say they had no partner – again.
Therefore, in our lobbying we should advocate for what should replace the occupation providing there is evidence of what is most likely to be achievable. That is a question of what the majority of Palestinians want, what the majority of Jewish Israelis are most likely to accept, what international law and the international community supports, and what is feasible on the ground.
Influencing the Jewish community in the UK
The City University-Yachad survey of 2015, “The Attitudes of British Jews Towards Israel”, provides strong evidence that our criticisms of Israeli policies and Palestinian rights are common in the Jewish community. However, it also shows that “93% say Israel plays a part in their Jewish identity {and} 73% see it as an “important” or “central” part, and .” 90% “support its right to exist as a Jewish state”.
That shouldn’t drive our policy, but it should be considered if we are serious about trying to influence the Jewish community. If we dropped or fudged our two-state policy, we would probably forfeit the ability to influence the mainstream community. Having no policy other than ending the occupation would be a serious hindrance as it would be seen as being agreeable to the dissolution of Jewish Israel.
The failure of the Oslo process
Some people blame the failure of the 28-year long Oslo negotiations process on the fact that it was premised on the two-state solution. The false logic of that belief is revealed by asking whether the negotiations would have succeeded if only they had been based on the one-state solution. Knowing the innate desire among almost all Jewish Israelis to keep the overwhelming Jewish majority in Israel which guarantees Jewish dominance, it is inconceivable that Israeli governments would have agreed to a single, democratic state.
Oslo failed because it never exerted concerted pressure on Israel to end the occupation, not because it was premised on two states. The big lesson of the Oslo process is that, absent pressure or the credible threat of it, then no Israeli government will agree to end the occupation, regardless of whether the premised government structure is two-states, one-state or confederation.
Dealing with the settlements
The land swap solution
For many years, the feasibility of a two-state solution based on the 78% – 22% division of Palestine supported in international law has been predicated on an equal land swap. The East Jerusalem “neighbourhoods” and the big “blocs” of settlements just east of the Green Line would become part of Israel, and an equal amount and quality of land in Israel would become part of the new Palestinian state. An essential part of the concept is the evacuation of the settlements outside the blocs.
The territorial part of the Annapolis negotiations in 2008 was based on this concept. There were then about 60,000 settlers, or 15,000 households, outside the blocs, which was about 20% of the settler population. In the intervening 12 years of Binyamin Netanyahu’s premiership, settlement construction has not only shot up but has been predominantly outside the blocs. There are now 120,000+ settlers (30,000 households) outside the blocs, and about 75% of them are in the “ideological” settlements (2019 Peace Now data).
The distinction between the number of settlers, which includes all adults and children, and the number of households (families) is important. Decisions about evacuation (whether to accept or resist, or how hard to resist) would be made by the heads of the families. So there are really 30,000 settler decision makers, not 120,000. However, The number is still daunting. At first sight, its feasibility has to be questioned.
”Sustainable Border, Delineating a future Israeli-Palestinian boundary”
However, the comprehensive research project, ”Sustainable Border, Delineating a future Israeli-Palestinian boundary” conducted in 2017, raises the prospect that it may indeed be doable. The project was carried out under the auspices of the Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS) and managed by the Economic Cooperation Foundation, the leading Israeli NGO that created and managed the Geneva Initiative Group. The spreadsheet, “One state-two states-research settlement survey”, here, contains the most relevant figures.
The project included identification of suitable land in Israel adjacent to the borders of the West Bank and Gaza, a Gaza-West Bank road link, additional roads where necessary in the West Bank, housing stock in Israel and the big settlements that will be transferred to Israel, and existing building plans.
Settler survey
Most important of all is the survey of the settlers in the settlements that would have to be evacuated. Apart from surveying the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of those settlements, it probed the settlers’ willingness to be evacuated, their attitudes to obeying the law and their loyalty to Israeli government decisions – even when they didn’t agree with them.
It found that almost all of them would accept a government decision to evacuate as part of a peace agreement, providing suitable compensation and help were available. That was found even among the ultra-nationalist and nationalist groups for whom identification with the ”land of Israel” is greater than or equal to loyalty to the state of Israel. Applying the survey responses to the Peace Now settlement population data shows that only about 3,100 settler households would have to be coerced into evacuating.
Although there were hardly any “don’t knows” (average 2% among the four settler groups), there were a lot of “missing” responses to the crucial question (from 10% among the Ariel settlers to 26% among the ultra-nationalists). The meaning of the “missing” responses category is not explained. For that reason I have done a sensitivity analysis. In the event of an evacuation decision by the government, assume a 50%-50% split between accepting and refusing among the ”missing” and don’t know respondents, In that case, about 6,700 households would have to be coerced.
Land quality
The quality of the Israeli land which would be swapped was assessed twice. The first assessment was in the 2010 research paper based on the Annapolis negotiations,“ Imagining the Border: Options for Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Territorial Issue”, produced under the auspices of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It found “all of the areas [to be swapped] are potentially arable”.
Further detailed research was done for the 2017 Economic Cooperation Foundation paper on the land to be swapped for the parts of Ariel, Ofra-Bet El and Kedumim which would be annexed. It found that half the area was used for field crops or suitable for it,15% was used for orchards, fish ponds and quarrying, and a third was nature reserve.
The Gaza-West Bank disengagement precedent in 2005
The evacuations of all Gaza settlements (about 9,000 people) and four northern West Bank settlements (about 1,200 people) in 2005 provide some reassurance that an evacuation could be accomplished. Most of the settlers left without resistance, some put up barricades and had to be physically carried out of their homes by soldiers, but there was very little violence. There was no gunfire against the soldiers although there was one threat of it.
Groups of ultra-nationalist militants (estimated variously between a few hundred and 5,000) from outside infiltrated the Gaza settlements in an attempt to disrupt the evacuations. They were contained by police and arrests were made. Some 450 militants made a similar failed attempt in the West Bank settlements.
The soldiers obeyed their orders even though a few were crying as they did so. There were dire predictions of long-term militant violence, but they did not come true.
Open borders, mutual residency rights
The idea of two states with mutual residency rights has been in existence for many years as a means of avoiding the need to evacuate settlements, but has never gained traction. There would be two separate states, one in Israel within the ‘67 borders, as it is now, and one Palestinian state in the occupied Palestinian Territories. Jerusalem would either be their joint capital or West Jerusalem would be the Israeli capital and East Jerusalem the Palestinians capital.
The keys to the concept are that the 1967 borders would be maintained, settlers would not have to evacuate, Palestinians and Israelis would only be citizens of their own state but would have residency rights and employment rights in the other state as well, all residents would obey the laws of the state they resided in but would only vote in their own state’s elections. It would be a kind of confederation. Such crucial functions as defence, foreign relations and economic relations might be organised federally.
A small Israeli group called “Two states, one homeland, An open land for all” now exists to promote this idea. There are 14 listed members, of whom 11 are Jewish Israeli and three are Palestinian Israelis.
Diametrically opposed risks
The risk profiles of the two kinds of solution are diametrically opposed. The “land swap” risks would occur during the evacuations, which would probably take years. Would they be accomplished or would they be abandoned because there was so much determined resistance?
The risks in “Open borders, mutual residency rights” would occur after the change. Would there be a constant risk of violence between the settlers and their Palestinian neighbours? If that occurred, would an Israeli government be willing to let the Palestinian police contain it, or would it send in the IDF to protect the settlers? Would the Palestinians accept the permanent loss of land to the settlements deep inside the West Bank that would otherwise have been evacuated? Would Israel obey the spirit as well as the letter of the agreement by, for example, giving planning permission for expansion of the Palestinian towns in Israel in order to accommodate refugees who wanted to move to Israel? Would Israel allow job opportunities for them to develop unhindered?
Conclusion
A terrible conundrum has developed over the past 12 years. The arguments for two states and against one state are as strong as ever.
Between 60%-70% of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians consistently oppose to one state. Big majorities prefer two states to either confederation or one state. Their choice has to be respected. It is for them to decide what’s in their best interests.
An even bigger percentage of Jewish Israelis do not want one democratic state. A big majority of them prefer two states to either confederation or one state. Those views would certainly prevent an Israeli government from agreeing to concede a single state, which would necessarily wipe out the Jewish majority, even it it wanted to. They would probably prevent it from conceding a confederation.
The social and political attitudes of many Israeli Jews, sometimes a majority, are against sharing political power with Palestinians or even according them equal rights.
International law supports two states, not one state. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation demands two states in accordance with that. It is their strongest card. The international community supports two states, not one state.
Effective lobbying requires us to be able to advocate for what should replace the occupation, as well as simply ending it.
Yet, on the ground, the sheer number of settlers who would have to be evacuated in a land swap, and the ideological character of some of them, has become a huge problem. Its feasibility must be questionable. The agricultural quality of the Israeli land available to be swapped is also a question.
The 2017 research paper and settler survey provides evidence on both points that a land swap is still feasible. The open borders concept is a possibility although there would be long-term risks.
Looking at all of this, it seems to me we should retain our long-standing position, which supports the two-state solution in a qualified way, unless further analysis of settler attitudes and/or significant changes in Palestinian attitudes convinces us there is a case for changing it.
Our position
We state our position in two places in the Who We Are part of our About statement on the website:
First,
“We are committed to the Palestinians’ right to self determination and to their right to a viable state as set out in United Nations resolutions.
We support the right of Israelis to live in peace and freedom within Israel’s 1967 borders.”
Second, as part of our EJJP membership,
“WE WORK TO BUILD Jewish opposition to the Israeli occupation with like-minded groups around the world and are a founding member of EUROPEAN JEWS FOR A JUST PEACE – a federation of Jewish groups in ten European countries whose principles comprise:
CONDEMNATION of all violence against civilians in the conflict, no matter by whom it is carried out.
RECOGNITION of Israel’s 1967 ‘green line’ borders
A COMMITMENT to the Palestinians’ right to a viable state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.”
These two statements make our support dependent on international law and Palestinian rights, not on a love for Israel.
Arthur Goodman
November 2021