Recently, Noam Chomsky wrote a very interesting article in The Nation (can I just say, that is the most stereotypical progressive sentence ever written). In one fell swoop, he managed to piss off a bunch of pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian people, all at once, by roundly criticizing Israel's actions, its treatment of Palestinians and its occupation of Palestinian land, while also drawing some interesting distinctions between Israel's situation and South African apartheid (to which many Palestinian activists compare Israel's current system) and expressing skepticism regarding the BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) movement.
Chomsky's Nation Article -On Israel-Palestine and BDS
Responses to Noam Chomsky on Israel-Palestine and BDS
So here are some thoughts that have been going through my head, on the situation in Gaza, BDS, and a bunch of the other issues floating around it. I'll sort of divide it into a few digestible parts, if that works. As a little background, I'm a half-Jewish, half-Catholic New Yorker who definitely leans toward the Palestinian side. Obviously, I also am no fan of Hamas, and I think Israeli actions have all but strengthened Hamas's grip on the Palestinian people, as people support them simply because they're the ones giving the biggest middle finger to the Israelis.
I also think many individuals on both sides are guilty of simplistic thinking, regarding many things. So here I outline my thoughts, and propose what I think is the only (if unlikely) potential solution that will lead to true justice, peace, and equality in the region. If you'll indulge me...
With regard to Chomsky's article, it's not that I agree or disagree with him completely. I think he's right on some points, wrong on some points, and missing the point on other things. The third category is what I find the most interesting. When he talks about the South Africa parallel, he's right in the fact that it's not an exact fit - through South Africa's system of bantustans, with their limited self-government, and the role of black Africans in their economy. And he makes an interesting point about the distinction between treatment of Palestinians versus Israeli Arabs, which although it is not what anyone would call "good," they do have representation in the Knesset through parties like Balad, Ta'al, and Maki/Hadash (the Israeli Communist Party, which is the only truly mixed party in the country) etc. This is unlike black South Africans, who had absolutely no representation in Parliament. But these are both less important than the issue of numbers.
Chomsky doesn't really get to this point - he focuses on the end of apartheid being a result of global political pressure and a result of political processes, as compared to economic pressure through boycotts and divestment. But to me, the big difference is that not only did South Africa's economy depend entirely on black labor, but the country was, even under apartheid, a nation where the population was more than 80% black. So deposing white rule was almost inevitable. It was just a question of time. And ultimately, while there was support from the outside for the ANC, the SACP and their allies, a lot of the credit really has to go to the ANC and SACP themselves, for galvanizing the black South African population enough to push things to the point where the apartheid era government simply couldn't sustain itself.
In Israel, the situation is a bit different - the population of Israel is about 8 million, and that of the Palestinian territories is about 4.5 million, plus a few hundred thousand settlers. And on top of that, Israeli military might makes South Africa's armed forces look like a group of guys with a couple of shotguns. It's one of the most powerful militaries in the world. So the pressure that South Africans were able to put on their government simply isn't there in Israel/Palestine.
I think BDS does a good job of raising awareness- but I don't think it has much of a shot at changing policy. Again, this is not really for the reasons that Chomsky proposes. To me, the issue is more the Israeli mentality. And this is something that a lot of people who share my pro-Palestinian stance don't understand at all. Israel's entire mythos is one of suffering. Economic pressure and/or backing them into a corner will not necessarily lead to the desired result, as to a large segment of Israelis, they would essentially blow up the world and/or annihilate all of their neighbors before they give an inch, economics be damned. And this is highly problematic, because it prevents any kind of good faith negotiation. Essentially, you're looking at a group as obstinate as Hamas, but with a hell of a lot more firepower, and a group that prides itself on toughness. So while I think the goals of BDS are noble, the group oversimplifies some of the philosophical and psychological issues that make the use of economic pressure somewhat ineffective.
Also, in this regard, I think much of the pro-Palestinian movement makes a mistake when they conflate Zionism completely with colonialism and/or racism. There's definite overlaps, of course, but there are some real distinctions, mostly in the philosophical/psychological sense. It's a huge difference when it comes to self-image. In the traditional colonialist context, you had the powerful nations of Europe, i.e. Britain, France, Spain, who had the belief that any land they touched, particularly if that land was occupied by brown people, was theirs for the taking, and that they could rule it as they saw fit. If the indigenous people fought back, they killed them. It's a simplistic version of colonialism, but it works for the purposes of this comparison. Zionism is a bit different - unlike in the traditional colonialist model, Zionists believe (erroneously) that this specific piece of land, Israel, was theirs to begin with, and that they had been pushed out and scattered to the 4 winds over the course of history. And much of this has to do with the fact that, as much as some may try to deny it, there is such a thing as a Jewish people, despite it being scattered and diasporic. What you have, essentially, is a nomadic people that has been shit on throughout history, in various countries.
With the creation of Zionism, it was a way of saying "like other nations, like other peoples, we deserve a state - a homeland." And this was tied back to the biblical "Israel," which I think was simply because it was an easy rallying point and fit into the religious mythos. Adding to that the fact that Ashkenazi Jews in Europe, as well as Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the Middle East and North Africa, were generally treated like crap in their own countries of origin, you had a group of people that were all too happy to move to a new "Jewish homeland," where they wouldn't get pushed around anymore - especially after WWII. With the creation of the State of Israel, as a Jewish state, I think a lot of it was people saying, especially in light of the Holocaust "We've been fucked everywhere, so we're taking this piece of land. It's ours now, and fuck you if you try to take it from us. We will kill you." Thus, Israelis' obsession with toughness, and with being the opposite of the bookish Jewish stereotype.
The problem with this is that, for all legitimate grievances Jews had with the countries they came from, be it Poland or Romania or Algeria or Iran, that didn't mean they could just go to a piece of land occupied by another people, the Palestinians, and take over. But, especially in light of WWII (and this is where the colonialism element comes in), the European powers, who were some pretty huge anti-semites, were looking for a way to get rid of their "Jewish problem," (perhaps even to get rid of people as a reminder of Europe's complicity in the Holocaust) and the easiest way was to encourage Jewish immigration to Israel. They essentially dumped Jews, who they didn't care about, on a bunch of Arabs, who they didn't care about either. And then they let them kill each other.
Meanwhile, Israelis developed their own sort of creation myth, as nation-states often do. It was no longer about "we want a homeland, so we're going to take it," and instead harkened back to the Bible, to being exiled and scattered, and reclaiming the place. And you also had Israelis promulgating the wrong-headed idea that Jews are not safe anywhere in the world, except for Israel. And there are those who believe it. Thus, even during this huge spike in violence, you still see large numbers of Orthodox moving to Israel, often into the settlements in the West Bank.
So I think a lot of the analysis of the conflict needs to take these psychological issues into account, at least from a strategic standpoint. And on both sides, people always get bogged down on the issue of "right to exist." The fact is, there's no such thing - there is just that which exists. And whether the other side likes it or not, Israelis exist, and Palestinians exist. And neither is going anywhere anytime soon. And they need to figure out a way to live their lives and not kill each other. The conclusion to me, however, is that Israel and Palestine cannot exist as a Jewish state, an Arab state, or as two states. The only solution is a shared state, "Isratine" as Ghaddafi called it, where both peoples exist as part of an undivided whole, with a power-sharing agreement that guarantees full political representation for all groups - Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, and others. It would be similar to Lebanon, which has a system in which the Presidency is guaranteed to a Christian (generally a Maronite Catholic), the Prime Minister to a Sunni Muslim, and the Parliament Speaker position to a Shi'a Muslim. There are set numbers of seats set aside for Druze, Orthodox Christians, Armenians, and other groups. Some guidance can also be taken from the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland.
Will both Palestinians and Israelis be miserable at first? Most likely. Will tensions and violence flare up from time to time? Absolutely. But eventually, they'll have to learn to live together ---- and the only way they can do that is if they share a vested interest. That vested interest is a shared binational state.
To me, the "two-state solution" is deeply flawed, and would likely lead to permanent warfare and continued misery. The Palestinian state would still be divided in two, without real freedom of movement. The settlement movement would continue to violate Palestinian sovereignty, which would likely lead to Palestinian authorities taking action, which would lead to the Israelis taking action, and kaboom, war again. Basically, you'd have two neighboring nations in a state of great economic inequality with a deep hatred of one another. And on top of that, large numbers of people on both sides would not accept two states.
So Isratine is a long shot, but it's the only thing that has any chance of working and leading to a long-term just peace.