Jefferson Corner

Dear Readers. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict could have been solved some years ago, if there wasa will power and there was no abstacle to peace from the Jewish Lobby in the US and from members of Congress whose bloodline to re-election comes through Tel-Aviv and the Jewish lobby. Too bad the majority of the American Jewish community do not support a two state solution, preferring to keep the conflict going for their own “mental being”. Every one in the world knows that the solution lies in a two state solution with Jerusalem at the shared capital, and with a proper and fair solution to the hundreds of thousands and now millions of Palestinians exiled by Israel in 48. Of course the ideal solution that makes lots of sense is a one state solution where Jews and Arabs can live side by side, equal in rights and equal to commitments to the state. Enjoy the following article.
Sami Jamil Jadallah

From time to time, the Palestine Center distributes articles it believes will enhance understanding of the Palestinian political reality. The article below by Leila Farsakh appeared in the Le Monde Diplomatique on 15 March 2007. To view this article online please go to: http://mondediplo.com/2007/03/07binational.
“Time for a bi-national state”By Leila FarsakhView This Report Online
Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas may have affirmed that they want a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but it may be more promising to return to a much older idea.
There is talk once again of a one-state bi-national solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Oslo peace process failed to bring Palestinians their independence and the withdrawal from Gaza has not created a basis for a democratic Palestinian state as President George Bush had imagined: the Palestinians are watching their territory being fragmented into South African-style bantustans with poverty levels of over 75 percent. The area is heading to the abyss of an apartheid state system rather than to a viable two-state solution, let alone peace (1).
There have been a number of recent publications proposing a one-state solution as the only alternative to the current impasse. Three years ago Meron Benvenisti, Jerusalem’s deputy mayor in the 1970s, wrote that the question is “no longer whether there is to be a bi-national state in Palestine-Israel, but which model to choose” (2). Respected intellectuals on all sides, including the late Edward Said; the Arab Israeli member of the Knesset, Azmi Bishara; the Israeli historian Illan Pape; scholars Tanya Reinhart and Virginia Tilley; and journalists Amira Haas and Ali Abunimeh, have all stressed the inevitability of such a solution.
The idea of a single, bi-national state is not new. Its appeal lies in its attempt to provide an equitable and inclusive solution to the struggle of two peoples for the same piece of land. It was first suggested in the 1920s by Zionist leftwing intellectuals led by philosopher Martin Buber, Judah Magnes (the first rector of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Haïm Kalvarisky (a member of Brit-Shalom and later of the National Union). The group followed in the footsteps of Ahad Ha’am (Asher Hirsch Ginsberg, one of the great pre-state Zionist thinkers).
Underlying their Zionism was a quest for a Jewish renaissance, both cultural and spiritual, with a determination to avoid injustice in its achievement. It was essential to found a new nation, although not necessarily a separate Jewish state and certainly not at the expense of the existing population. Magnes argued that the Jewish people did not “need a Jewish state to maintain its very existence” (3).
No to partition
Although supporters of the bi-national state remained a marginal group in Zionist politics under the British mandate, they made sure they were heard both in official Zionist circles and the international arena. They also pleaded before the 1947 United Nations special committee on Palestine. When the commission finally recommended partition, they strongly opposed it, calling for a bi-national state in Palestine, forming part of an Arab federation. They campaigned for a federal state that would respect the rights of all citizens, while guaranteeing the national aspirations of the Jewish people to cultural and linguistic autonomy. They proposed, in line with the British, the creation of a legislative council based on proportional representation, safeguarding the rights of its nationals but also assuring equal political rights for all citizens of the state.
But with the UN’s partition plan and the Arab-Israeli war that broke out in 1948, a one-state solution was shelved. It came to light again in 1969 with the call by Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement for the creation of a “secular and democratic state” in Palestine. The new state was based on the right of return — while accepting a Jewish presence in Palestine — and it was to end the injustices stemming from the creation of Israel and the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinian villagers. Although it called for the destruction of Israel as a colonial entity, it upheld the principle of a single state for all, Muslim, Christian or Jew. This was the first official attempt by the Palestinians to address the relationship between national and individual rights of citizenry. The idea met with no enthusiasm in Israel, and none internationally, and again lost momentum.
The failure of the one-state option has often been attributed to the idealism of its cause and its failure to come to terms with local realities. Nevertheless, as Magnes pointed out, the option offered significant advantages in demographic and territorial terms in 1947 to the Jewish cause (4).
In fact, the idea failed because the political actors of the time rejected it: the Zionist organisations were not interested, the British were unsupportive and the Arabs too suspicious. Between 1948 and 1993 the only significant change in these positions came from the Arabs, who finally came to terms with the existence of Israel.
Despite the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s calls for a secular, democratic state, Arafat prepared Palestinians for partition as the only available option. The PLO’s national council accepted the position in 1974, and confirmed it with its declaration of Palestinian independence in 1988 and the acceptance of the UN partition plan. A separate, independent Palestinian state was the best hope, even if it had to be on only 22 percent of the territory. The long Palestinian struggle for statehood culminated in 1993 with the Oslo accords.
From dream to nightmare
The tragedy of Oslo is that it turned the dream of two states into the nightmare of a single new state of apartheid. Israel’s prime minister Yitzhak Rabin declared that the great success of the accords, perhaps their only success, was to recognise that Israelis and Palestinians were “destined to live together, on the same soil in the same land” (5).
Since 1994 the Palestinians have not been liberated; they have been imprisoned by the Israeli system of permits and the installation of 50 permanent checkpoints and terminals fragmenting the territory into eight bantustans (6). Since 2002 the Palestinian Authority has seen its territory further eroded by the 700km-long wall being built with the aim of severing the West Bank from the remaining 46 percent of the territory.
What is the attraction of a bi-national state in these circumstances? For a start, a two-state plan appears to be less of a solution to the nationalist aspirations of either Zionists or Palestinians. Before 1947 partition had not been tried; since then it has taken root in circumstances of total Israeli domination. Despite the historic compromise of 1993, the Palestinians have not obtained the independent, viable state they sought. Palestinian nationalism has also met its limits: its leaders have failed to guide their people to independence and are now reduced to tearing themselves apart.
But partition has also failed to give Jews the security the state of Israel promised. About 400 Israelis were killed in suicide attacks in the 1990s, and 1,000 more have died since the second intifada of 2000. Antisemitic feelings are worsening around the world.
Demographic changes will continue to undermine any plans for partition. In 2005 there were 5.2 million Israelis living between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river, and 5.6 million Palestinians. Despite Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and its plans to demarcate the West Bank frontier, a separate Israeli state will have to deal with the much more rapid demographic growth of the Palestinian population within its own frontiers. This will have not only economic but political consequences, given the Palestinian population’s current lack of basic rights.
There is another factor that argues against a two-state solution: the idea of citizenship founded on justice and equality. History has shown that, in this region as elsewhere, partition cannot be achieved without the expulsion and transfer of populations. This raises ethnic issues. There can be no peace, from a moral point of view, without an equitable solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, based on the right of return or compensation, as required as early as 1948 by resolution 194 of the UN General Assembly.
But this right of return, and the expansion of the Palestinian population, endangers Israel’s Jewish identity. This has always been a major problem for Israelis.
Essential anachronism
According to historian Tony Judt, this is where Israel reaches its limits. No state can claim democratic credentials whilst practising ethnic exclusion; not after the crimes of the last century (7). Virginia Tilley says that partition, and the very existence of Israel, are “flawed from the start, resting on the discredited idea, on which political Zionism stakes all its moral authority, that any ethnic group can legitimately claim permanent formal dominion over a territorial state” (8).
The establishment of a bi-national state would redefine the identity of the state; it would favour democracy over nationalism. For Ali Abunimeh it would allow “all the people to live in and enjoy the entire country while preserving their distinctive communities and addressing their particular needs. It offers the potential to deterritorialise the conflict and neutralise demography and ethnicity as a source of political power and legitimacy” (9). At the heart of this conflict there remains a persistent territorial issue. Ethnicity (and, even more, religion) continues to be the main source of legitimacy and the quest for power.
Those arguing for a single democratic state now detect growing popular support for this solution, inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement. Boycott campaigns are being organised in Europe and the United States against what is often now called Israeli apartheid (10).
Groups in Israel and in Palestine are working together against the construction of the separation wall and are inventing new forms of resistance. The struggle has been redirected, against Israel’s policies rather than its people, and for rights for all rather than separate states for each.
True, the three political protagonists seem far from convinced. Israel’s politicians and the majority of its population insist on separation, as their wholehearted support for the wall seems to prove. The international community seems intent on a two-state solution, but does little to bring it about or influence progress. The Palestinian leadership is at a loss for a strategy, and the differences between Hamas and Fatah continue to generate conflict. But the present deadlock has created new conditions. Perhaps the time is ripe for original ideas and untried solutions.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund. This article may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the author.
(1) Leila Farsakh “Israel: an apartheid state?”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, November 2003.(2) Meron Benvenisti, “Which Kind of Bi-national State?”, Haaretz, Tel Aviv, 20 November 2003.(3) See www.one-democratic-state.org(4) Judah Magnes, Like All Nations, Weiss, Jerusalem, 1930.(5) Yitzhak Rabin’s statement at the signing of the Declaration of Principles, Washington, 13 September 1993.(6) www.btselem.org/english/statis tics/. See Dominique Vidal, “Jerusalem’s apartheid tramway”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, February 2007.(7) Toni Judt, “Israel: the Alternative”, New York Review of Books, 23 October 2003.(8) Virginia Tilley, The One-State Solution, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2005.(9) Ali Abunimah, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, Henry Holt, New York, 2006.(10) See the calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions against http://www.bds-palestine.net/

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Perhaps the new secretary of defense Robert Gates will be an exception to this Chaney –Bush administration that is rotten to the core.
Firing the Secretary of the Army should be the first step in cleaning house. No one could believe that our wounded soldiers have to live through all of this neglect and humiliation when they are only few miles from both the White House and the Pentagon. No one could believe that the president and his vice-president and senior administration officials both at the White House and at the Pentagon did not know what was going on, never bothered to see how the wounded are treated and how they live, given the very poor records of all veteran administration hospitals. Walter Reed was the place to be for the wounded, if this is the case at Walter Reed, one has to imagine what the other army hospitals look like.
Shortly after my honorable discharge from the US Army back in 68, I had the opportunity to visit couple of the veteran hospitals in both Chicago and in Tampa. Frankly there was nothing to write home about, with scenes like from Jack Nicholson movie, “ Birds who flew over the cuckoo’s nest” absolutely appalling and disgusting with wounded treated like hell.
It seems that nothing has changed in the treatment of wounded and injured soldiers from the days of the Vietnam War. It seems that for this administration, like Democratic and Republican administrations before ,the wounded soldiers are like scrap metal from the battlefield, to be discarded like rotten meat. They are no longer useful and are easily dispenses with.
What is not so surprising is the absolute and total silence of the representative of veterans’ organizations who should have been the first to expose the scandal and not leaving it to the Washington Post (thank you) to tell the true story and expose the incompetence, negligence and corruption at our veteran hospitals. Perhaps it is time for these organization to get out of bed with the administration and go out and do what they supposed to do in the first place, represent the membership and speak out on behalf of those who have no voice in this administration, the wounded, injured and active soldiers.
With all due respect to Joe Davis, the spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, his organization should have been in the forefront on this issue and should have been closely monitoring the conditions at Walter Reed hospital, After all the wars has been going on for over 5 years now with tens of thousands wounded. How could someone like vice-president Dick Chaney who declared at one time that he “has better things to do” than join the US military during the Vietnam War, can give an explanation to what has been going on, when both he and president George Bush did not think of or bother to see what was going on at Walter Reed which is only few miles away.
It seems that organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars that are in bed with this administration are more interested in politics and advancing the cause of the war than taking care of and being guardians of the interests of those who made the sacrifice for the nation. When such organizations are in bed with such an administration it is difficult to believe they have the independence to speak out for an on behalf of the tens of thousands of wounded soldiers. One has to agree with the assessment of both Congressman Jim Moran and Congressman John Murtha when they stated that this was going on for 6 years now and those responsible should have been aware of it.
Never understand what a White House commission will and can do. It is only a make over, a way to cover up the mildew and rotten wood that covers this administration.
Thank you Secretary Gates, perhaps you can set the pace for this administration for accountability and transparency. Perhaps you should take your courage and transparency further and make all of the defense contractors accountable for their robbery and fleecing of the nation and taxpayers. It is so great to have someone like Secretary Robert Gates in charge of the Pentagon. Perhaps we can see a difference since George Bush and Dick Chaney came to town. Perhaps the message of accountability can also be heard all over 270, 66, 495 and Dulles Toll Road. It is too bad that this administration, which is asking all of us to make the ultimate sacrifice, does not give a damn about all those who pay the high price of fighting their stupid war, and treat them with such neglect. But then for someone like Dick Chaney, they are dispensing cartages. Throw the bastards in the dump. They are alive and are costing us lots of money. It is cheaper to give them a small blot at Arlington National Cemetery. We need the money to give to our friends the defense and security contractors who are generous with their lobbying money.

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After a long wait, two news announcements came out of The Hague. The first was the decision of the International Court of Justice (perhaps injustice), which exonerated Serbia of the responsibility for genocide arising out of the cold-blooded murder of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in the city of Srebrenica. Of course we also need to remember that the city of Srebrenica was declared by the UN as “safe heaven) left under the protection of the Dutch contingent of UN peace keeper, all of whom simply left ahead of the advancing Serbs knowing full well that the massacre will take place, yet they walked away. I learned not too long ago, that this Dutch contingent was awarded medals for the honorable work it did in walking away and for handing over the Bosnian Muslims to the Serb.
Bosnia-Herzegovina filed the law suit against Serbia, not only seeking damages for Serbia’s role in the killing and murder of over 200,000 Muslims, but also to make sure that countries that allows and over looks crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing, by their citizens, must he held liable for such a crime.
The International Court of Justice, while exonerating Serbia, it also ruled that Serbia failed to prevent the 1995 genocidal slaughter of Muslims at Srebrenica. More interesting is the fact that the Court President Judge Roslyn Higgins rejected claims for monetary damages while calling on Serbia to hand over Ratko Mladic, the Serb who was the military leader directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands. This man remains in hiding and dodging arrest, of course with the support of Serbia and the Serbs. The court did not mention the need to arrest and bring to trial the other war criminal Radovan Karadzic who also remains in hiding in Serbia.
While the court ruled that the Bosnian killings were genocidal, it’s ruling simply emptied the verdict of any meaning, by not holding Serbia responsible and opening the way for other countries to commit the same and get away with it. One could never understand such ruling and how could the court simply ignore the cold-blooded murder not only of the 8,000 in Srebrenica but all over Bosnia. If there was a crime, then someone must be responsible for it and someone must pay for the crime. It is simple justice, but then the Hague is not knownfor handling such simple cases of international crimes. It is unbelievable that a country that provided full logistical support and manpower that allowed such crimes to take place is not held responsible and is not called upon to compensate all of the tens of thousands killed. That what makes the western justice system so interesting? I never understand why the International Court of Justice did not follow the precedent of the Nuremberg trial which was the basis for so many Nazi Germans to go to jail and death sentence and set pace for Germany to pay Israel billions of dollars in restitutions and compensation. I know that Bosnian Muslims are not Jews, but international criminal law must be “faith blind” and must not make any distinctions if the victims are Jewish, Muslims, Catholic or Orthodox Christians. So much of the ICJ.
The other news, which was long awaited and welcome news, is the announcement by Prosecutor Luis Moreno O’Campo of the indictment of some Sudanese officials for all of the crimes committed in Darfur. The Sudanese officials are Ahmed Mohammed Harun, who is a junior minister responsible for humanitarian aid, of all things, and the leader of the Janjaweeds Ali Mohammed Ali Abd-al-Rahman better know as Ali Kushayb.
Similar to the ruling of the ICJ, the indictment did not go further and indict Sudan as a county and its leadership for the terrible crimes it allowed its officer and agents to commit in Darfur resulting in the cold blooded murder of some 300,000 innocent people. When countries like Sudan, Serbia, Israel allow their agents and officers to commit murder and provide them with all of the logistical support and weapons to carry on with such crimes, then these countries must be held responsible for such crime. How could any one again, specially victims of crimes, trust and believe that nations that allows its officers and agents to commit genocide and international war crimes or ethnic cleansing, could ever pay for such crimes,if such international tribunal rule as it did in the Hague last week. The ICJ and the international indictment did not go far enough and put a check on leadership and nations making sure that such terrible crimes as those committed by Serbia in Bosnia, crimes as those committed by Sudan in Darfur and crimes committed by Israel in the Occupied Territories could NEVER happens again. Both the ICJ ruling and the indictment were big disappointment to the millions of victims of these crimes. Only severe criminal punishment and very expensive damages could ever put an end to such crimes. Leaderships and citizens must know they must pay for any crimes committed. No one and no country should get away with murder. The ICJ by its ruling is giving the wrong message to nations and to leaderships, even to citizens. But then what do we expect?

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The case of the “top” Islamic cleric in Australia. Sheik Taj el-Dene Elhilaly and his assumption that unveiled women invite rape and a similar retarded “fatwa” from Sheik Mohamed Kamal Mustafa, the former imam of the Spanish southern town of Fuengirola who published a book called” Women in Islam” in which he finds justifications if not promotion of “wife beating” as a way to solve marital problems and we need to add to that the likes of Syed Ikram Jilani of Oslo among others, raises serious problems and issues about how low can these “Islamic” clerics takes Islam. Perhaps unlike other religions with a well defined hierarchy of “priest hood” and rabbinic hierarchy, there are no such hierarchies in Islam, and any Islamic hierarchy of “imams” is an invention of modern states but not of the Holy Quran. The Holy Quran has more faith and trust in the judgment of individuals that did trust in these new “inventions”. These days, every Mohamed, Ali and Mahmoud or Taj eldin who failed at other professions becomes expert on Islam and takes over a mosques, such as the case in England, USA, Australia, among others, where mentally retarded and semi-illiterates becomes imams and start giving fatwas left and right and start to be the ugly, illiterate and retarded face of Islam. As a testimony of how low these mentally retarded and illiterate imams came to be we are not surprise that some of these think that the mentally retarded and murderers Taliblans are the “perfect” caliphates putting forward the Taliban state as a model of an Islamic state. There must be something very wrong with these people. Simply mentally sick. If Islam and early Muslims who opened the world to Islam where of such mentality and attitude, for sure Islam would not have left Mecca and would have been a religion that died before it started. These people and so many like them forget that Islam is a religion and faith of knowledge, of science, of education, of travel and most of all of social justice, with very strict and high standards of criminal accusation and convictions. With so many of these illiterate and retarded imams, who not only hijacked our mosques, but also hijacked our faith, perhaps it is time for us Muslim and for Islam to have another renaissance, similar to that of Europe in the Middle Ages. Perhaps what we need now more than ever is a “reformation movement” that will redefine again Islam as the way it was intended for “all ages”. Enough with today’s imams going back to thousands of years to find true and intelligent answers to days issue and concerns of Muslims. We all know that the “door” of “Ijtihad” or prudence was closed some centuries ago, as if modern day scholars are unable to reach for the truth except to going back in time. If Islam is the faith for all times, then we need scholars for the future and not only for the past and yes, why not for a new ‘reformation” movement that can take Islam to the future instead of keeping it in the past. Perhaps it is time for Muslims and those attending mosques to get more educated and more enlightened “imam:” than the retards we are getting these days to lead us in prayers. When I go to mosques I want to hear an intelligent and enlightened sermon, not to hear some imbecile who happens to recite few suras and never read another book in any language to give and share his ignorance with the believers. I am sure there are enough Islamic scholars in the US to take charge and lead us forward and liberate Muslims from retarded imams such as Sheik Taj el-Dene Elhilaly or Sheik Mohamed Kamal Mustafa or someone like Abu-Hamza Al-Masry. It is time to throw out these retards out of the mosques and reclaims our mosques again. Who said that Al-Azhar have to be the only “religious” reference for Muslims. There are enough intelligent and smart scholars in the US and Europe to lead the way to an Islamic Renaissance and redefine Islam as it was intended to be a religion, faith and way of life for all times and all ages. Not one defined by defined by terrorist leaders like the Bin Laden, Ayman Dhawahiri, Abu-Hamza Almasri, Abu-Qutada and all of these criminal terrorists. We need an Islam that is a religion of peace, of love, of reconciliation that bridges the gabs between people and culture. We want an Islam for all times.
Note: for some reasons, this posting does not appear all the times. Perhaps there are some organizations out there not too happy with what I post.

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Many discussions are going in the halls of Congress over the War on Iraq, and most of the talk will not go anywhere, leaving the situation created by the Chaney-Bush administration where it is for the last 5 years.
No one in the US Senate and US House of Representative so far take full responsibility for being duped, and for voting to go to war, based on lies and fraudulent evidence that a secondary school kid could see.
Of course Republicans are daring and blackmailing the Democrats to vote against the war and will claim that the vote will putour troops in harm way by cutting off the funding. Supporting the troops is one thing, supporting the war is another thing, and Democrats should know that simple point.
So many US senators who now speak out against the war, have voted for it, and when they voted for it, did not bother to ask the right questions and raise doubts on the credibility of the evidence given the fact that the Chaney-Bush administration is prone to lies and have a propensity to never tell the truth. These senators did not have the courage to stand up for America and have failed us and failed our troops at all levels, and dare not to stand up for what is and what was right. They voted for the stupid, useless war, because they did not have the courage to face the voters and tell them the truth that Dick Chaney and George Bush were liars.
So far, over 3000 of our finest troops are dead, over 30,000 are in run down hospitals( while defense contractors are making billions), without proper care with varying degrees of permanent injuries, and of course with over 65,000 dead Iraqis, with the country facing a vicious civil war. Of course while the war in Iraq, originally billed as against Saddam and his Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), the war, failing at all front, was re-billed by the spin masters at the White House as the part of the global war on terror. Every one, except the smart and semi-intelligent people at the White House and the major conservative think tank, tell us we are winning the war on terror. With over a 1000 x ($1000,000,000), and 5 years with some 300,000 of our finest troops in the battle field, and of course with the most powerful missiles, airplanes, smart bombs, aircraft carries, any nation could muster, we could not so far put an end to these criminal Talibans, who destroyed their country and are trying to destroy ours. No one can convince me, with all of the firepower and, the best-equipped army in the world we are unable to defeat the Talibans that raged tag army. Now we are even told to expect more poweful attacks by the Talibans.
Nothing short of a formal public apology from the US Senate and the House of Representative will do. Democrats before Republican should apologies to the nation, the families of all those who died fighting a war based on lies, and apology to all the tax payers who saw their hard earned money going to thieves and robbers pretending to be defense contractors. An apology should go the people of Iraq for failing them, in their quest for freedom from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. The only good thing that came out of this stupid war was the hanging of Saddam and the possible hanging of members of his revolutionary cabinet. Too bad the Iraqis proved they are unfit for democracy and freedom.
While not a military expert, though I did serve in the US Army, I never understood how can commanders, graduates from military academies could think that by destroying few tanks they could defeat an army? I could never understand how these commanders in the Pentagon and in the field did not think of the millions of small arms weapons, of rocket launchers, of land mines that the 400,000 strong Iraqi army took home with them when the army simply disappeared and George Bush declared victory from the deck of the aircraft carriers. Didn’t Donald Rumsfeld, the cocky former defense secretary asks what about all those weapons and what potential danger do they pose to our troops?
Not only there was a total failure on the military front, there was an absolute disaster on the civilian side as well. With Paul Bremer awarded the highest civilian medal, one has to wonder where did the billions of dollars disappeared under his watch? And why so many defense contractors made a killing and were allowed to rob and fleece the country.
Yes, Harry Reid, Hilary Clinton, Barak Obama, Carl Levin, John Kerry Nancy Pelosi all should take the lead and gather the rest of members of congress and should without delay apologies to the nation for failing to their job of representing our best interest as people and as nation.

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