Jonathan Kuttab’s one state vision
Jonathan Kuttab at The Great Hall, Cooper Union, New York City, 14 August 2014
Robert Herbst writes in Mondoweiss about Beyond the Two-State Solution by By Jonathan Kuttab:
It has been only four years since the UN Security Council voted 14-0 with one abstention to condemn Israeli settlement building as a “flagrant violation” of international law and imperiling the viability of the Two State Solution.
Today, 2016 seems like a half century ago, as the Trump Administration’s actions in the last four years collectively amounted to an unremitting assault on Palestinians and their national aspirations: closing the Palestinian Embassy in Washington, moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights, cutting off aid to UNRWA and others. There has been little pushback from the global community as Israel’s creeping annexation of Palestinian land has inexorably continued. While formal annexation of 30% of the West Bank has been put off, normalization of the status quo by some of the Gulf Arab state regimes has been secured by Israel instead.
Today, as the Biden Administration takes shape, the Palestinian struggle for civil and national rights seems at an historic low point. Palestinians appear to be isolated, divided, poorly served by corrupt and collaborationist leaders, lacking financial, political and moral support – their narrative as victims of Israeli and Western discrimination, colonization and oppression still struggling to be heard — beset by high rates of unemployment, diminishing per capita income and, as if all that were not enough, now facing rising rates of pandemic infection.
Where do Palestinians and their allies go from here, in Palestine, in the Diaspora, in Washington, Europe and around the world? Are new strategies needed? What are they?
If the Two State solution is dead – no longer viable – is there, or could there be, sufficient Palestinian support for a One State solution that guarantees equal rights, dignity and resources to both peoples? How would we mobilize public opinion around it, there, here and around the world? What would the end game be? What might it look like? How do we get there?