The ugly reality in Israel/Palestine is that the Zionist leaders are engaging in a slow-walk ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, a crime that can only be averted now by a secular singular state, says ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller.
By Graham E. Fuller
Just because Donald Trump said it doesn’t mean it has to be wrong. During the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, President Trump publicly stated he is not necessarily wedded to a “two-state solution” in Palestine.
An Israeli strike caused a huge explosion in a residential area in Gaza during the Israeli assault on Gaza in 2008-2009. (Photo credit: Al Jazeera)
He is the first U.S. president to commit the heresy of questioning that sacred article of faith in U.S.-Middle East policy. Indeed, a serious rethink is long overdue in recognizing the bankruptcy — indeed the cruel cynicism — of the defunct two-state scheme.
Many honorable people have dedicated the bulk of their professional lives to the tedious minutiae and sad diplomatic history of the Palestinian-Israeli morass. Sadly, none of those efforts have brought any resolution whatsoever to a gangrenous issue — in many respects the granddaddy of so many of the Middle East’s contemporary ills.
Trouble is, apart from a few dedicated diplomats and scholars who had hopes of one day truly accomplishing something, the two-state solution in practice is by now revealed as essentially a fraud. Yes, a few wiser Israeli leaders in the past just possibly might have believed in that ideal, but for decades now the “two-state scheme” has simply been cynically exploited by newer Israeli leaders, especially by Bibi Netanyahu — the long-serving and most right-wing Prime Minister in Israel’s history.
Netanyahu has been backed by a formidable and wealthy pro-Zionist cheering section in the U.S. The goal is to conceal their true agenda — the ultimate Israeli annexation of all of Palestine. They themselves have been subtly but systematically torpedoing the “two-state solution” behind the scenes to that end.
None of my observations here on the hoax of the two-state solution are new or original. Many liberal Israeli observers have been stating the self-evident for years now. But those voices never get heard in the U.S. where it constitutes an unmentionable. But there should be no doubt: the concept of a “two-state solution” — a Palestinian and an Israeli state sharing historical Palestine and living side by side in sovereignty and dignity — is dead. It is almost inconceivable that it can now ever be resuscitated: nearly all the operative forces within Israel are systematically working to prevent it from ever coming about.
Facts on the Ground
The harsh reality is that Israel, through a relentless process of “creating facts on the ground,” is now decades deep into the process of taking over illegally, step-by-step, the totality of Palestine. Israel has scant regard for any international law in this respect, and never has had.
Controversial maps showing the shrinking territory available to the Palestinians. Hardline Israelis insist that there are no Palestinian people, that all the land belongs to Israel and that it therefore inaccurate to show any “Palestinian lands.”
Washington, apart from a few periodic pathetic bleats, has ended up functionally supporting this cynical scheme all the way, perhaps unwilling to confront the painful reality of what is really taking place, along with its dangerous political repercussions at home.
Israel is extending day-by-day its control — indeed ownership — of Palestinian lands through expansion of illegal Jewish settlements and the dispossession of the rightful owners of these Palestinian lands. Put simply, there is little left of Palestinian land out of which ever to fashion a “two-state solution.” That leaves us with only one alternative: the “one-state solution.” Indeed, Israel’s actions have already created the preconditions that make the “one-state solution” an unacknowledged but virtual fait accompli.
Honest observers know full well that the mantra of preserving “the peace process” for the two-state solution is now little more than a cover for full Israeli annexation of Palestinian lands. The sooner we all acknowledge this ugly reality, the better. That will then require Israel, the Palestinians, and the world to get on with dealing with the complex challenge of crafting the bi-national state — the one-state solution.
The calculations of the hard-line Zionists — who are now largely in control of Israeli state mechanisms — are unyielding.
1) Israel should functionally take over all of Palestinian territory and permit full Jewish settlement therein. 2) Israel should still play the “two-state solution” game with visiting foreign diplomats to reduce pressure on Israel, to play for time while it quietly establishes the irreversible facts on the ground that shut out any possible viable Palestinian state.
3) Make life harsh enough for Palestinians that, bit by bit, they will grow bitter and weary, give up and go elsewhere, leaving all the land for Zionist settlers. 4) If Palestinians “stubbornly” resist, predictable periodic military and security crises in Palestine over the longer run will enable Israel to rid Palestine of all Palestinians — a gradual process of ethnic cleansing that returns all the land promised by God to the Jews.
A Secular State?
Some liberal Israelis actually do accept the idea of a “one-state solution” in their own liberal vision of a future Israel — one in which Israelis and Palestinians live as equal citizens in a secular, democratic, binational, multi-cultural state enjoying equal rights, rather than the increasingly religiously dominated state that it is. And the liberal ideal makes sense: the country is already well on the way to becoming bi-lingual — and Hebrew and Arabic are closely-related languages. Both are Semitic peoples with ancient ties to the same land.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security meeting with senior Israeli Defense Forces commanders near Gaza on July 21, 2014. (Israel government photo)
The problem is, ardent Zionists don’t want a binational Palestinian-Jewish state. They want a “Jewish state” and demand that the world accept that term. Yet, in today’s world isn’t the term “Jewish state” strikingly discordant? Who speaks of an “English” or “French” state? The world would freak out if tomorrow Berlin started calling itself “the German State.” Or Spain a “Christian state.”
So what do we make of a state that is dedicated solely to Jews and Judaism? Such concepts are remnants of Nineteenth Century movements that promoted the creation of ethnically and/or religiously pure states. Indeed it was precisely that kind of ugly religious and ethnic nationalism that caused Jews to flee from Eastern Europe in the first place to find their own homeland.
The true historical task of Israel, with the support of the world, is now to begin the challenging work of introducing the range of major reforms that will transform Israel into just such a multi-ethnic and bi-lingual state of equal citizens enjoying equal rights under secular law. It is not a question of “allowing Palestinians” into Israel, they are already there and have been for millennia, in far greater numbers than Jews. Palestinians now seek full legal equality of treatment under secular law in Israel.
So let’s acknowledge the useful truth that Trump has blundered onto. Let’s abandon the naive and cynical rhetoric about the “two-state solution” that will never come about — in any just and acceptable form. Half of Israel never believed in it in the first place. It has served only as a cover for building an apartheid Jewish state — a term used frequently by liberal Israeli commentators.
Netanyahu and the right-wing Zionists clearly want all of Palestine. But they’re not ready yet to admit it. They want all the land, but without any of its people. But despite Zionist hopes, the Palestinians aren’t going to abandon their lands. And so the logical outcome of Israel’s take-over all of Palestine leads by definition to an ultimate single binational state.
The challenge to Israelis and Palestinians is huge. It entails a deep Palestinian rethink of their options and their future destiny in a new order, and the need to fight for those democratic rights in a binational state. It involves Israeli evolution away from “God-given rights” in a state solely for Jews and Judaism that can only be forever oppressive and undemocratic as it now stands. The process will be a slow and difficult one. But it also represents an evolution consonant with emerging contemporary global values.
We expect a democratic multi-cultural state from Germany and France, or from Britain, Canada and the United States — why not from Israel?
Graham E. Fuller is a former senior CIA official, author of numerous books on the Muslim World; his latest book is Breaking Faith: A novel of espionage and an American’s crisis of conscience in Pakistan. (Amazon, Kindle) grahamefuller.com
The 2 states solution is not working for the last 70 years.
Don’t repeat endless times the faulty solution attempt!
The Palestinian state idea is dated back from the ME partition by France and UK into the artificial states Iraq- Syria-Lebanon
The world faces enough troubles with the disintegration of the artificial states.
Avoid creating one additional artificial state named Palestine.
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The only sustainable long term solution is:
!!!! ARABS GOVERNED BY ARAB GOVERNMENTS AND JEWS GOVERNED BY ISRAEL!!!!!!
***************.
1:Gaza will be an integral part of Egypt.
2:Areas heavily populate by Arabs in the West Bank which are 98% of Arab population IN THE WEST BANK (Examples Jenin, Hebron, Nablus, Tulkarem, Jericho, Ramallah and many villages) will be integrated in Jordan
3:Parts of the land inhabited by Arabs currently with Israeli identity cards along the border lines will integrated in Jordan ( examples: Um el Fahem, Tayibe,Silwan, Sur Baher)
4: Areas populated by Jews in the west bank will integrated in Israel.
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Both Arabs and Jew will remain in their current homes, villages and towns- nobody will have to move physically and will be governed by their own people
So I get it. First you go and steal the land, then you move the Palistinians to some undesirable piece of their country then you parcel the new Palistinian lands off to the surrounding countries. How Jewish of you. And you wonder why the world periodically rises up and kills most of you. Just take a good look at what you are proposing. What about fair compensation for the land stolen from the Palistinians? What about compensation for Palistinian families who have had loved ones killed by your brutal occupation army? No I guess not. First the Jews steal it all, Then they offer a tiny bit back. And that to a Jew is negotiations.
TO DEAN KUHN….
I agree. These issues are taken up in detail in the books I cited
in ‘WHERE HAS gRAHAM fULLER bEN?”, (my comment above)
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
WHERE HAS GRAHAM FULLER BEEN?
One expects he would have done some homework.
To be brief, one-state solutions have been proposed
for Palestine. Since these required the recognition of
Palestinians and others as equal, they were all
rejected immediately by the Zionists who were
immediately supported by the US.
To quibble about Mr. Fuller’s analysis is not productive.
I recommend him and others interested in this issue to
read:
1. Thomas Suarez: STATE OF TERROR (2017)
2. Ilan Pappe THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE
3. Naseer H. Aruri DISHONEST BROKER (2003)*
*Aruri book is excellent to the beginning of the Administration
of George W. Bush. Its analysis of the details of those
developments is excellent.
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
A ‘Fait Accompli’ by any other name. And YINON too, from Mr.GLADIO(b) himself. so I guess it comes with authority. And although History does not read well on this; what else would be likely? Expansion/occupation has never ceased since the Nakbar revealed the soul and intention of Zion for all the world to see. And CASTLEAD locked Orwell’s cage around the consciousness of the empathetic world. So in that regard, the argument is true. We ‘must look forward.’ Zion is Implacable and ruthless and extremely well armed – what other way is now possible? Why would the Palestinian people and the people of the world not understand AshkenaZion will never give up the land stolen? Is the argument. It is too late for anything other than Eretz Israel. A free and open democracy of equals and fair play among men.
Another myth.
From the land of myth, by the makers of myth. That includes ‘Boston’ and Uncle Ruslan, btw.
When our country finally learns that supporting Israel has cost it 2.5-3.0 Trillion Dollars over the years and it learns the ill will Israel has for our people as in the conversation below, Israel will be alone and the Arabs will have a level playing field to invoke the final solution not because of the lie of 6million jews but because of the truth of the genocide of 2 million Arabs. Here is a conversation recorded by the US Defense Intelligence Agency in which Netanyahu called for the destruction of the United States.
“If we get caught they will just replace us with persons of the same cloth. So it does not matter what you do, America is a golden calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left but the world’s biggest welfare state that we will create and control. Why? Because it is the will of God, and America is big enough to take the hit so we can do it again and again and again. This is what we do to countries that we hate. We destroy them very slowly and make them suffer for refusing to be our slaves.”
Verify it by dping your own research.
God bless America.
In a one-state solution with Palestinians incorporated into Israel the first phase would make current Palestinian territory part of Israel which would be a composite of America’s Jim Crow South and South Africa’s apartheid state. The second phase – Israel’s Final Solution – would include a program to pressure all Arabs to emigrate or endure the ghettos created for them.
The great problem with the one-state solution is that if all Israeli citizens had full rights, then Palestinians would have the legal right to property they have lived on for generations. They would have good cases against Jews who stole their land. Every Jewish house sits on land that was stolen or forcefully bought from a Palestinian.
The Zionists will never allow Palestinians the right to land. They believe that their god gave the land to Jews and Jews alone. They will never accept full civil and human rights for Palestinians.
Zionists will banter around with the possiblity of a two-state or one-state solution until all Palestinians cease to exist. That may take 100 years, but genocide is the course Israel is committed to. Western nations like the US are fully complicit.
John’s comment on what Zionism had done to Judaism is well taken. Because of the allegiance of our politicians to Zionists, it has corrupted America, as well and ruined the lives of millions in the Middle East.. A bi-national state is inevitable, whatever the time it takes, and all the struggles the Arabs will face within a single state are struggles peoples have faced in he past. Whether the world, including America, will stand with them in that struggle is something to be hoped for.
I think the first step is for Jews to face and admit the harm to Judaism that Zionism has done.
How could they be so blind to follow those who claimed the Torah could be fulfilled by envying land that other people (who also trace their lineage to Abraham) lived on, who then bore false witness that these people did not exist, who then led a campaign to kill these people, steal their land and houses, in order to create a new god, the State, which would put up graven images of a hexagram (a symbol not identified with Judaism until the Nazi era – the Menorah was the symbol of Judaism before that).
Although Zionism has killed the bodies of countless Palestinians, it has also killed far more Jewish souls than even Hitler could have killed Jewish bodies.
If the Israeli leaders would be honest about their intentions, they could go ahead and use the German blueprints to build crematoria for the unwanted Palestinians, and save themselves a lot of time. (Maybe you think that is too harsh? Not really harsh enough. They are even now destroying these people. That is what is harsh.)
And please don’t tell me that I am “anti-semitic.” I honor all people who try to live the truth, the way of love. Those who follow an anti-truth, anti-love path do not deserve to be honored.
A “one-state” solution would merely codify the existing political and economic structure of Israel. I.e., Arabs as permanent second class citizens. (Third class actually after Ashkenazim Jews first and then Sephardi Jews.)
And from the PoV of a large percentage of Israelis, there are few moral reasons for anything but a de facto Apartheid outcome since they view the Palestinian Arabs as little more than human garbage merely tolerated do to the grunt work. I.e., Israelis have no intrinsic moral sense to treat the Palestinians fairly. So they won’t.
Parenthetically, the U.S. has never been a legitimate honest-broker/mediator in this dispute and never will be. So should step back both politically and withhold the massive “foreign aid” (i.e., taxpayer dollars) it sends to Israel every year.
Ron Paul has has it right. Israel has a right to exist, and Israel should be invited to solve its own problems within its borders without the biased, ham-fisted U.S. interference that has only protracted the problem.
South Africa also had a right to exist, but most members of the international community and the UN believed that the appartheid regime was contrary to international human rights law. After strong pressure and boycotts, and the resistance of the ANC, South Africa abandoned white rule and became a democratic state (at least they are trying) “Israel” has a right to exist but not to impose apartheid on around four million occupied Palestinians and second-class citizenship on about 1.7 million “Arab Israelis”. In other words, the oxymoron of a “Jewish” State in the 21st. Century, as Fuller says, is inadmissible. And in order to tackle this insormountable dilemma, the territory that was covered by Mandate Palestine should be renamed. “Israel” is only suitable for Jews, while “Palestine” will not be realistic either. They will have to look for a new name, a new flag, a new anthem, integrated armed forces and police, etc. Sounds too far-fetched? Probably. But the only other alternative seems to be perpetual oppression, killings, pain, injustice and the abandonment by the Jewish leaders of any pretense to belong in the “civilized” world.
The people of the Middle East call it “The United States of ISRAEL”!! They always refer to the Lobby and how Republicans and Democrats agree on almost NOTHING but what the LOBBY wants……..The Lobby is always ready to put an end to the career of any politician who gets out of line………….money is a bitch and can make people buy plenty of political whores……….
Integrity is just another commodity in the US. Getting cheaper by the year as well, more and more politicians line up for the cash from AIPAC. Actually it does not cost the Jews much in cash, they just tell the politician that if he wants to continue in office he had better be complient with AIPAC´s wishes.
As Ariel Sharon told the Jewish government. ” You say you worry about what the US will say or do, well I am telling you that we own the United States of America. ” Natanyahu had a good take of the US as well. He said ” we will take everything we can from the US and then so far as I am concerned it can dry up and blow away.” The US is just a bum boy for the Jews,
Some Israelis want a common state for today’s Israel together with the Westbank, but without Gaza. Caroline Glick describes this in her book The Israeli Solution. Palestinians in the Westbank would become Israeli citizens with full rights, while Gaza would be an independent Palestinian state outside Israel (there are some ideas about a bargain with Egypt, Gaza would be enlarged towards thinly populated areas in the Sinai, Egypt could be compensated with some land in the Negev and a connection to Jordan without Israeli border controls via bridges or tunnels near Eilat).
If the Westbank was integrated into Israel, the Arab part of the population would increase from about 20% to about a third, and because of the different age structures of the populations, even with equal fertility rates of Jewish and Arab citizens, the Arab percentage would rise to 40%.
It is not clear whether Palestinians would accept the division into two parts, and, on the other hand, it is not clear whether Jewish Istaelis would like such a significant decrease of the Jewish percentage of the population in the country in which they live, and integrating Palestinians in the Westbank who are much poorer than Israelis now as equal Israeli citizens would be expensive. But I think, if both sides agreed, there is nothing that is in principle bad about such a solution. Israel would still have a Jewish majority, but the Arab minority would be so large that it would have considerable political weight, and Israel could certainly be considered a binational state (Arabic already is an official language in Israel, anyway).
It is not clear whether such a solution has a better chance than “traditional” ideas about a two-state solution with a Palestinian state comprising both Gaza and the Westbank, but it is an alternative that could be considered (one problem is that many Israelis fear that in a Palestinian state in the Westbank sooner or later forces that would want to attack Israel could come to power, and that would be much more dangerous than rockets from Gaza).
What should certainly not be accepted are ideas that Israel should annex most of the Westbank, but without the main Palestinian population centers. This would correspond to Bantustans in South Africa. Of course, it would not be very different from the status quo, but it would mean that this untenable status quo would be made permanent.
“…..Palestinians in the Westbank would become Israeli citizens with full rights, while Gaza would be an independent Palestinian state outside Israel (there are some ideas about a bargain with Egypt, Gaza would be enlarged towards thinly populated areas in the Sinai, Egypt could be compensated with some land in the Negev and a connection to Jordan without Israeli border controls via bridges or tunnels near Eilat).”
Is the Gaza enlargement described here what Trump meant when he talked about a ” bigger canvas ” ?
Somewhere I’ve read that the Palestinians have already nixed the Gaza-plus idea , but maybe that was just a negotiating ploy.
With Trump’s apparent bromance with Putin , and since Assad owes Putin bigly , maybe they could all put together a deal to give the Palestinians the disputed Golan territories , along with funds to compensate for the homes stolen by Israel. Then let the Palestinians decide if they want the territory to become part of Israel or part of Syria. I can’t imagine that they’d choose Israel.
Trump is in a unique position to put real pressure on Israel – he’s just flakey enough to toss out a tweet threatening to cut off the $4 billion annual U.S. welfare check to Israel if they don’t play ball. Then give ’em 30 days to put up or shut up. That would focus Bibi’s mind , I bet.
Here is an article that looks at how other world powers have attempted to solve the Middle East problem:
http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2015/12/the-new-and-improved-middle-east.html
The long history of imposing boundaries on the Middle East by outside powers has done nothing
Israel is a prime example of this. Oddly, it’s not mentioned in the article.
Would a bridgehead like Israel be needed in the Middle East for the Western powers, if the region would not contain considerable energy resources (gas, oil)? What was the justification of Israel’s existence anyway? Doubtful that it was originally only the pity, felt for the Jews after the centuries of persecution.
On the other hand, I saw recently a documentary “Crusades – an Arab Perspective”. At the end, an interesting observation was made – there is a certain parallel between the crusades around the years 1100-1200 (European Christians freeing the Holy Land from the Moslems) and the later creation of a Jewish state and taking back the Jewish religious shrines from Arabs.
A relatively brief, well documented history of the backstory in establishing Israel is in “War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror”.
http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com