Israel, the Palestinians, and the Single State Solution: Promise and Problems

It is because the racism and oppressive system of control of populations of non-whites can be invisible to most whites, that I believe this is the most likely analogy for what post-apartheid Israel will look like.   It may not be a war on drugs that becomes the system of control, but some other non-racial method of maintaining a permanent under-class.  

Demographics

Demographics are the most boring of statistical data if the subject is voting patterns in Wisconsin or migration patterns into urban areas, but it becomes the most racist of terms when the subject is Israel and Palestine.   My fingers hesitated as I reached the "g" in "demographics," giving my brain a chance to find a synonym.   But "the underlying rationale for ethnic cleansing" is hardly better.

Israeli society is dominated by the minority Ashkenazi Jewish population (those descended from Eastern Europeans). As of 2006 only 22% of the Jewish population were Ashkenazi Jews, and the rest were Mizrahi⁹ (from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa).   Just as white privileged people in the U.S. were able to drive a wedge between poor whites and African Americans by allowing poor whites some measure of superiority over blacks, Israeli society drives a wedge between the Mizrahim and the Palestinians.   Ben-Gurion's disdain for Jews of Middle Eastern origin (he said they were "difficult human material--[their] cultural level is low"¹⁰) is shared by many Ashkenazi Jews today and the Mizrahim suffer discrimination in housing, education, and employment.   They would be natural allies of Palestinians, were it not for the exploitation of this wedge.   Mizrahi Jews supported Avigdor Lieberman's extreme racist Yisrael Beytanu party overwhelmingly in the last elections, which mirrors some poor white Americans' support of racist candidates.

Among the Jewish population in Israel divisions are exacerbated, as fundamentalist Orthodox Jews discriminate and attack others for not being Jewish enough.   The Orthodox Jews have had special privileges since the beginning of the State, where the men don't work or serve in the military, but receive welfare benefits and subsidized housing.   In post-apartheid Israel how willingly would they give up those benefits?   How willingly would the rest of the population continue them?

The divide and rule strategy, which served colonialists so well created havoc during post-colonial periods (a recent extreme example being the Rwandan genocide).   Palestinians, too, have been divided into many groups, which may never re-coalesce into a single people: there are the Palestinian Israeli citizens, West Bank residents, Gaza residents, refugees within the West Bank and Gaza, refugees in other countries, diaspora Palestinians, and now Hamas supporters and Fatah supporters.   At times the various groups have had little respect for one another, and certainly after many years of separation, culture, language and priorities have become differentiated.   In a post-apartheid country, even one in which the Palestinian population is approximately the same as the Jewish population¹¹, would these differences further divide people or could the population embrace differences?   History does not show many examples of the latter.

The birthrate within Israel (not including the occupied territories) is about 3 children per woman, higher than other developed countries. This is about 3.75 children per Palestinian Israeli woman and 2.97 children per Jewish Israeli woman¹³. Currently, with Israel's fear of "losing the demographic war," Jewish families with many children are encouraged. It is not unreasonable to believe that Palestinians feel the same way. Overpopulation, overcrowding in cities and suburbs, and dwindling resources, will only exacerbate the problems.

Environment and Land

Even well-intentioned post-apartheid players in Israel will come up against physical factors that would destroy hope of justice.   These include changes to the landscape, land use, resources, and environment.

The Jewish National Fund (JNF) has worked for over a century to build parks over ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages. It uses them as propaganda to promote its "good stewardship of the land"--carbon sinks, green space, the encouragement of wildlife habitat, a quiet spot for (Jewish) Israelis to picnic, etc., and all the while not mentioning the violations of human rights, the massacres, the theft, that take place because of those parks.¹⁴    Justice demands that those parks be returned to the villagers and descendents of those villagers who were expelled.   But in post-apartheid Israel, could that happen?

In the last 10 years, the estimated average per capita carbon dioxide emissions by Israelis were 6.9 metric tons per year (compared to 15.1 tons per capita per year for U.S. citizens)¹⁵.   With a population of about 8 million¹⁶, this is more than 55 million metric tons of CO₂ per year emitted on average from both Israelis and Palestinians.   One acre of forest absorbs approximately 75 metric tons over 20 years¹⁷.   (These numbers are given for rainforests and not arid regions, and may not be equivalent.)   Since 1901, the JNF has planted more than 250,000 acres of trees¹⁸, giving a sequestration rate of 18.8 million metric tons of CO₂ in 20 years.   In other words, the sequestration rate doesn't come close to the emission rate. But regardless of the origin of those forests, or the effects of forest fires¹⁹, there would be a world-wide outcry if the future state tried to cut out its lungs, even to repair a previous injustice. Since the trees planted over ethnically cleansed villages are not native to the region, their presence there has changed the ecology of the land, which is no longer suitable for growing the crops that sustained the former residents.

Land that has been confiscated for roads, houses, and the apartheid wall, is equally unsuitable for farming.   With a wildly increasing human population (there and everywhere else), the land will be required and used for other purposes.   The vast majority of Palestinians who were stripped of their living as farmers or herders will have to give up the dream of returning to that life for good.   Those types of farms will be replaced by factory farms, squeezing the highest yield from the smallest acreage, using high amounts of chemicals and water²⁰.   Those farms will be owned by the settlers and their descendents; Palestinians will work as laborers on the Jewish-owned farms.   Land redistribution ends up badly no matter where it is done or for what reason, and I can't envision a scenario where land is taken from a settler to give back to the Palestinian who formerly owned it.   The Palestinians who have suffered from land and livelihood confiscation, assessments of extraordinary fees, denial of educational opportunities, will not have enough wealth to purchase a farm, even if a Jewish land owner did not have heirs to which to will the land.  

With the land being now designated for various purposes, with an increasing population and decreasing resources, and with the divisions among the different Palestinian groups, what are the chances that a significant number of refugees will have the opportunity to return to the country?   Unfortunately, I see this also as a very low probability. 

I believe that the system of apartheid in Israel will end, but I do not believe that the end will mean justice for Palestinians.   So with all this pessimism, why do I continue?   Well, for one, I'm desperately hoping someone will read this and point out my basic analytical error.   But I've thought about this for a long time and don't believe I've made an analytical error.   For another, I like to believe that had I lived during slavery in the U.S., even knowing the oppression that African Americans would face at the end of that system, I would have worked to end it.   And then I would have worked to end Jim Crow. The end of one struggle is the beginning of the next²¹. So I will continue to work for justice and human rights in Israel/Palestine and continue to hope that somehow an equation can be found which will allow for justice to prevail.

___________________

¹ What Does Justice Look Like? The Struggle for Liberation in Dakota Homeland , by Waziyatawin, Ph.D., Living Justice Press, St. Paul, MN 2008.

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