In recent years, faced with a stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process and Israel's continued creation of facts on the ground, many have started to question whether it is still possible to implement a viable two-state solution, which is the peace process's stated goal. A number of alternative ways forward in the conflict have therefore been suggested that go beyond the usual one-state solution. As part of an exercise of "thinking outside the box," JPS is running two essays that suggest unconventional frameworks for dealing with the conflict.
IMAGINATION IS A NECESSARY but insufficient precondition for political change. Equally crucial are the political capacity to negotiate and compromise, a relatively even balance of power, and the authority (and popular support) to implement agreements. In addition to a lack of any shared vision, all these elements were absent in the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" of 1993- 2000. Two charismatic leaders allegedly committed to the two-state solution, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat, failed to agree on borders, postponed negotiations, and neglected to take steps to start decolonization. Their failure, compounded by subsequent developments on the ground, critically jeopardized the two-state solution's future chances of success. The one-state scenario on the other hand has not even reached the table. In light of the obstacles in the way of these two most commonly mentioned solutions, this essay suggests an alternative vision of how to contain the conflict in the absence of reaching a "solution".
Topic:
Democratization, Post Colonialism, and International Security
This November, the Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS) was privileged to host the second IPS-Mansour Armaly panel on Palestine at the annual conference of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) held in Boston. Dr. Armaly (1927-2005) was a world renowned pioneer in the treatment of glaucoma; according to the Archives of Ophthalmology, he "substantially changed the way glaucoma is conceptualized, evaluated and treated," with his contributions having become "such an integral part of medical practice that their revolutionary nature may no longer be apparent." Though the recipient of the medical field's highest honors, he never forgot his roots in Shafa 'Amr, Palestine. In the last few years of his life, he was the chairman of the Friends of the Institute for Palestine Studies. Dr. Armaly's family decided to honor his commitment to Palestine through these panels.
Whatever the ultimate fate of the Goldstone report's recommendations, the report itself, in the fierce emotions and controversy it has unleashed, will stand as a fitting coda to the event it investigates. Operation Cast Lead (OCL), Israel's military assault on the Gaza Strip launched 27 December 2008 with the avowed intention of stopping Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel, left some 1,400 Palestinians (mostly civilians) and 13 Israelis (including 3 civilians) dead. In the weeks and months that followed the operation's end on 18 January 2009, numerous human rights organizations published investigations of violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed during the conflict, principally on the Israeli side, but none was awaited with such anticipation or attracted such attention as the report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, otherwise known as the Goldstone report.
This edited collection of essays examines how processes of modernity and nationalism intersect in the production and shaping of urban spaces. By focusing on "mixed towns" in Israel/Palestine, the authors illuminate the varied ways in which individuals and groups articulate identity, conflict, collective memory, nationalism, and daily life. Unlike much literature on the Middle East that favors homeland/Holy Land dichotomies or other static models, this volume eschews such tidy frameworks and instead reveals what the editors describe as "a fascinating array of contradictions, overlaps, collusions, protrusions" (p. 2) that characterize interpersonal and structural interactions between Jewish and Palestinian urbanites in both historical and contemporary contexts. Strikingly, the chapters demonstrate how the realization of one set of national goals comes directly in the face of "the other," often involving processes of erasure that rewrite the city. As editors Daniel Monterescu and Dan Rabinowitz argue, the "competition over space, including urban space, was part and parcel of reality from the initial stages of the bifurcated national effort".
The Palestinian citizens of Israel live mostly in separate Arab communities. Only a minority lives in so-called "mixed cities." Thus, one would think that if there was any actual, or any hope for potential, coexistence inside Israel between the Jewish majority and the Palestinian minority it would be found in these cities. But what does the notion of "mixed city" really signify?
Desmond Seward, who normally specializes in popular historical works on medieval and early modern European history, has set out to provide an account of the life and work of Josephus, the first century C.E. Jewish historian, for general rather than academic readers. This departure was inspired by his father's experiences as a British Royal Air Force pilot in Palestine during World War I, which instilled in him a love of William Whiston's translation of Josephus's The Jewish War (London, 1736) and "a respect for the fighting qualities of the Jews in both ancient and modern times".
Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine belongs to that genre of sensational and populist journalism that eschews objective analysis and has no use for academic rigor. Packaging prejudice and hatred against Palestinians under the guise of academic work, Jonathan Schanzer, a director of policy at the Jewish Policy Center and counterterrorism analyst at the U.S. Department of Treasury, aims to build an anti-Palestinian polemic whose vulgarity would stun many readers, including many mainstream Israelis. Anti-Palestinianism infests the book from cover to cover as the author recycles every tired Zionist misconception about the Palestinians in a new disguise: the Hamas-Fatah rivalry. Thus, we read that the PLO and its factions "became the preeminent model for terrorism in the modern era" and that "violence in the name of Palestinian nationalism has led to death and destruction in nearly every territory that the Palestinians have inhabited" (p. 8). All military activities against Israel and its armed forces are naturally labeled "terrorist attacks," but Israeli atrocities, say, against the unarmed village of Samu' in November 1966, in which "more than 70 people" (p. 18) were killed, is not.
The "Hizballah model" has become synonymous with a militarily successful, politically astute, and strategically flexible organization that has managed to garner wide popular support in the Arab world, if not respect, for most of its actions and social services. Given its staying power and influence, Hizballah has been heralded as an exemplary model for others to emulate. How has this social movement-cum-political party managed to survive and morph into one of the most influential Islamic organizations over the years?
In telling the story of Taha Muhammad Ali, Adina Hoffman captures with remarkable sensitivity the sadness, hilarity, mysteries, absurdities, and absences that have made up the life of an extracanonical Palestinian poet, whose reputation in English surpasses his reputation in the Arab world. Born in 1931, Taha, as Hoffman refers to him, hails from the vanquished village of Saffuriyya and for decades sold trinkets to Christian pilgrims, only a few kilometers from his obliterated birthplace, in Nazareth, where he and his family made their home after a brief refuge in Lebanon.