Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 1999, pages 44, 98

Beyond the Oslo Accords

Back to the Future: Is There a More Equitable Palestinian-Israeli Solution in UNSCOP's "Minority Plan"?

By Issam Nashashibi

Prof. Norman Finkelstein defines colonial conquest as implementing any of the following four strategies: Extermination, Expulsion, Encirclement and Exploitation. A colonialist would choose an alternative strategy when the preferred option could not be implemented due to improving world moral standards or logistical difficulties.

For example, in conquering North America, Extermination gave way to Expulsion and Encirclement in Indian reservations. Facing the logistical difficulty of expelling the majority black population of South Africa, the white regime resorted to Encirclement and Exploitation strategies through implementing Apartheid.

Zionism and "Manifest Destiny"

In Palestine, David Ben-Gurion's vision of Zionism, which was similar to the white man's "manifest destiny" of conquering North America, gave way to a strategy combining Extermination and Expulsion in 1947-1948. This was consistent with Zionist solutions starting with Theodor Hertzl through the numerous Zionist plans to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Palestine--a policy that continues through such means as the confiscation of Jerusalem ID cards from Palestinians.

Having failed to completely "auto-dispossess" from Palestine, non-Jewish Palestinians found themselves Encircled and Exploited, victims of Israeli Apartheid, as citizens of Israel and later as an occupied population in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

The current Zionist strategy of Encirclement and Exploitation has been manifest in all the Israeli agreements with the Palestinian Authority. Thus it will most likely be at the core of any future agreement, even if it leads to a Palestinian state on whatever portion of the West Bank the Israeli government agrees to evacuate. Israel's Labor Party has called for a Palestinian state in most of Gaza and 50 percent of the West Bank, while Likud is calling for reducing the West Bank area available to the Palestinians to 25 percent.

This conclusion is also confirmed by even "leftist" Zionists such as Jerome Segal, a founder of the Jewish Committee for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. In a Feb. 6, 1988 Los Angeles Times article, he wrote: "Ironically, of all the alternatives, an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza is the one solution that best serves Israeli security....A Palestinian state would be the fullest possible satisfaction of the demands of Palestinian nationalism....

"It would win the support of the PLO and is the only likely basis on which the PLO would formally abandon the right to return to the land and villages lost in 1948....Only the PLO can compromise in the name of the Palestinians....

"A Palestinian state would be a demilitarized mini-state. It would be completely enclosed by Israel on one side and Jordan on the other.....The foreign policy of such a mini-state would be dominated by its links to the Israeli economy and by its national security realities. In the event of a war, its very existence would be in jeopardy.....Israel would not be seriously threatened if hostilities broke out......For Israel, a Palestinian state is not a charming prospect. It is simply better than the alternatives."

Having reaffirmed that Zionism, in any of its hues, is as compatible with the restitution of Palestinian rights as the racist KKK was with the U.S. civil rights movement of the '60s, Diaspora Palestinians like Professors Edward Said and Naseer Aruri have called for a binational state--an idea advanced by Arab member of the Israeli Knesset Dr. Azmi Bishara in his call for Israel to be a "state for all its citizens."

While a binational state (probably similar to Belgium) option has been absolutely rejected by the architect of the "peace process," Shimon Peres, and is completely ignored by the Palestinian Authority, it remains a Palestinian alternative that is gaining support amongst Palestinians and their friends. However, is that the only alternative?

Another may be available in the 1947 United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) report that led to the Palestine partition plan of U.N. Resolution 181. The report's Chapter VII, known as the Minority Proposal because it was only supported by India, Iran and Yugoslavia, is the proposed plan for a Federal State.

The Federal State proposal was born of the frustration with the built-in bias in UNSCOP's constituent members as demonstrated by calls for a Jewish, instead of Zionist, state; and an Arab, instead of Palestinian, state in Palestine.

The Federal State plan called for one country whose capital is Jerusalem.

Six Palestinians, including the late Dr. Khalil Budeiri and Mr. Mufid Nashashibi of Seal Beach, CA, eager to preserve the unity of Mandatory Palestine, proposed the concept that became known as the Minority Opinion to the UNSCOP's Yugoslav alternate representative Dr. Joza Brilej, who visited Jerusalem in 1947.

If parties to the present peace process fail to agree on an equitable two-state solution, maybe it is time to revisit the Federal State plan. To summarize, the plan called for one country whose capital is Jerusalem. This country would be composed of a "Jewish" and an "Arab" state that have full self-government and limited borders that take into account respective population growths. The people would elect a transitional assembly that would declare its independence after the U.N. certified that it had formulated a constitution that met the following Federal structure:

• Three governmental branches: a bi-cameral legislative, the executive and a Federal court system.
  
  
• The Federal authority would include defense, immigration, foreign relations, currency, taxation and interstate commerce.
  
  
• The Legislative branch, empowered to legislate all Federal matters with a majority vote, would be composed of one body with members elected on the basis of proportional representation while the second body would be of equal Jewish and non-Jewish representation.
  
  
• The Federal executive branch would be responsible to the Federal legislative body and would include a head of state and a deputy. The head of state, with powers determined by the constitution, would be elected by a majority of a joint meeting of the legislature. The deputy head of state would be similarly elected and would be from the community other than that of the head of state.
  
  
• The Federal court, with members elected by the legislature, would be the final court of appeal with a minimum membership, reflecting the population balance at the time, of four Arabs and three non-Arabs. This court would judge on the constitutionality of all state and Federal laws as well as other matters placed within its competence by the constitution.
  
  
• The constitution would forbid any discriminatory Federal or state legislation and would guarantee equal rights and privileges for all citizens irrespective of race or religion.
  
  
• The constitution would also include specific guarantees respecting the freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, organized labor, freedom of movement, freedom from arbitrary searches and seizures as well as rights of personal property. It would also respect custom and protect the political, civil and religious rights of the individual with specific protection provisions for linguistic, religious and ethnic rights and culture.
  
  
• The constitution would guarantee access to the holy places and freedom of worship and would recognize both Hebrew and Arabic as official languages with a single nationality and citizenship.

Despite, or maybe because of, its advantages as a democratic state with equal rights for its citizens, the Federal plan was not recommended. Having witnessed the failure of the partition plan to achieve the goal of two states, it may be time to consider the Federal plan. Many of its provisions are already incorporated in Israel's basic law.

Some may argue that given the current momentum to implement the Oslo accords, a plan such as this or a binational state may not be practical. However, before venturing too far down this nay-saying path, let us recall Haim Weizmann and his drive to establish the Zionist state.

Despite the obstacles of an overwhelming non-Jewish indigenous population and a Turkish ruler who refused to sell Palestine, Weizmann was able to turn the tables. Perhaps it is time to adopt his attitude and turn the tables again.