Human rights lawyer looks beyond the two-state solution

Presenter: International human rights lawyer Jonathan Kuttab, author of Beyond the Two State Solution, is speaking  in Eugene this week on the future of the Middle East. He spoke Sunday at the First United Methodist Church. KEPW’s Todd Boyle was there. 

Jonathan Kuttab: People are really being called upon to do some new thinking, where we can’t continue with the old process of thinking, which hasn’t gotten us anywhere, where the situation is really a situation of crisis, not just for the people of Israel and Palestine, but for the entire world.

[00:00:42] Because the foundations on which international law and international relations have been built are being questioned and are being ignored. And I don’t mean that only in the legal sense that people no longer respect international law and international conventions and international courts and international relations are being openly disregarded.

[00:01:12] But also because we see before our eyes things that used to occur only in the dark, that people would look at years after, ‘Oh, we didn’t know these things were happening. How is it possible that something like that could take place?’ This is what people were saying about the Holocaust. ‘We didn’t know, that it was happening,’ whether they knew or not.

[00:01:38] Today, there is no question. Everybody knows. It’s out there. There’s a good reason why people refuse to call it by its name, genocide, because if you do, then there are consequences.

[00:01:53] If this is actually a genocide taking place, then there’s a legal obligation to do something about it, and failure to do something about it is a violation of international law, and of your own human obligation as a human being. How could that happen?

[00:02:16] Things that used to be done in the dark are now being done openly. Using starvation as a weapon, determining how much food is going to be allowed in or not. Removing the distinction between combatant and non-combatant, creating a new category called Hamas. 

[00:02:41] So whether you are armed or unarmed, whether your doctor or a policeman, or a firefighter or a teacher, if you can be labeled Hamas, then both you and your family and your institution are a legitimate target that can be destroyed with everything around it.

[00:02:59] It doesn’t work. We can’t live in a world that is so lacking in standards, in values, in principles, in laws and obligations.

[00:03:17] If that is true, and if we really care at all about those human beings called Israelis or Palestinians, or Arabs, or Jews, whatever, then we must do some soul-searching. We must go back to the principles and say: What is this conflict all about? What are the ideologies? What are the thought processes? What’s the problem? Why can’t we solve it?

[00:03:51] And as a person who’ve been very involved in this for quite some time, I’d like to present you with a formula that tries as much as possible to be nonjudgmental, and I would like to say that without making any false equivalency between the two sides, because there isn’t, we see two movements, or two ideologies, or two groups that have diametrically opposite ideas.

[00:04:35] One of them, and I’ll start with the Palestinian one, says, فلسطين عربية والفلسطيني عربي/  (Palestine is Arab, Palestinian is Arab.) 

[00:04:45] What you talking about?

‘People living in Palestine can be Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, but they’re Arabs and they’ve been there for centuries. They’ve lived together, for better or for worse, and they want to be free and they want to be democratic and they want to live in an independent society.

[00:05:08]  ’We were part of the Third World that got rid of colonialism and imperialism and then this is who we are. We belong to the land. We are part of it. You can’t just come in from all over the world and say, you know, this is your place and not ours and we don’t belong here. We belong to the land. This is our land.’

[00:05:31] And this force, which I will call Palestinian nationalism or Palestinian Arab nationalism, has to deal with another force which I will call Zionism. I know there are different kinds of Zionism, but the kind that prevailed and that we are experiencing today says, ‘We want a place, a state that’s as Jewish as France is French.

[00:05:59] We want a Jewish state because we’ve been persecuted all over the world, particularly in the Western Christian world, and the persecution reached its height in the Holocaust. We can’t trust anybody. We can’t trust international law. We want our own state to be as Jewish as France is French.

[00:06:21] ‘The old slogan was: A land without a people for a people without a land. And what better place than our ancient homeland of 3,000 years ago, where we once had a state in which we are connected to historically, religiously, whatever reason, it belongs to us. Anybody else living there really don’t belong. Let them go somewhere else. Let them find a solution somewhere else.’

[00:06:49] So these two movements, these two ideologies, let’s face it, are mutually exclusive and are caught in a zero-sum conflict. The more we have, the less they have, and the elements of that conflict are demography and land. ‘The more people we can bring in (Jews) and keep out Arabs, the more Jewish we can become.’

And for the Arabs, ‘This is our land, what do you mean? What are you talking about? Where do we go? This is our land. We don’t go somewhere else.’

[00:07:35] And land becomes important. Also, ownership and use of the land, not only in terms of who owns it, is it a Jewish or an non-Jewish person, but then it becomes institutional. That land that we take and put in the public domain is here to serve only Jews and to serve them forever. And it should not be alienated.

[00:08:02] At best, we will give it a 49-year lease and only to a Jewish person. The state–the Jewish state–will ultimately own it, not the individual.

[00:08:15] So these two movements are in conflict, are in contradiction. Again, I’m trying desperately to avoid making judgements, moral, historical, or legal.

[00:08:30] And please be clear, I am not saying the two claims, the two ideologies are in any way equivalent or similar. But they are there and each group has a lot of supporters outside who are pumping money, diplomatic support, weapons into its group at the expense of the other.

[00:08:59] Presenter: He discussed the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and the aftermath of the Six Day War in 1967. Jonathan Kuttab:

[00:09:09] Jonathan Kuttab: I happen to be like many of you, probably like many churches, like many states: We thought this compromise of a two-state solution was a reasonable compromise.

[00:09:22] At some point, at some point, I and many others realized that the two-state solution is not going to happen. That so many changes were made, so many facts were created on the ground, so much was done psychologically to integrate the occupied territories and keep it under Israeli control, that it is no longer possible to really talk about a two-state solution.

[00:09:54] Nonetheless, people continue to talk about it. It continues to be the official position of many groups including some churches, including countries at the United Nations.

[00:10:08] So when I reached the point where I realized the two-state solution was not going to happen, I said, ‘Well, what do we do then? How do we deal with this new reality?’ The new reality is that there are two groups that are living in the land today, roughly 7 million each–7 million Jews and 7 million non-Jews, Palestinians, Arab.

[00:10:43] Is there a solution? Is it possible to satisfy the needs of both sides? I happen to think it is. In fact, I am bold enough to say that there is a solution that can give each side everything its ideology demands, except for exclusivity.

[00:11:16] In other words, you can have what you want as long as the other side also has something.

[00:11:28] Now is it possible to have a state that is both Jewish and Arab at the same time, that guarantees the rights of both? So I said, I’m going to do a little thought experiment.

[00:11:42] I’m going to ask my Jewish friends: What is it that you want? What does Zionism promise you? 

Well, we want a state that follows the Jewish calendar, whether we are religious or not.

[00:11:56] Good. Can can be done.

[00:12:00] We want a state with a right of return for Jews. So any Jew anywhere who’s persecuted can come and live here, as of right.

[00:12:08] Hm. Can be done. What else?

[00:12:13] Well, we want freedom and democracy to participate in the life of the country.

[00:12:19] Hm. Can be done. And I asked my Palestinian friends, what is it that we really want? Why do we want the state? Why do we want the state? Why do you want the Palestinian state?

[00:12:33] Well, so that we can be free.

[00:12:37] Okay.

[00:12:40] We want a passport, so that you can travel. If you give me a passport, but you don’t allow me to travel, to leave and to come, what? What good is it to me? We want dignity, equality, our language, our culture.

[00:12:58] Can be done, can be done. Both of them can be done if we give up the concept of exclusivity, in fact, I would argue that you end up with a state that is better for Jews than the state of Israel and better for Palestinian Arabs than any of the Arab states that we see around us.

[00:13:35] So I set up to write up this idea in a little book called Beyond the Two-State Solution. It’s available out there, or you can download it for free if you want. It even has a little executive summary that describes it in a few pages.

[00:13:54] It requires a constitution that protects each group as well as the individual from the majority. Yes, the majority will control the government, but then they will be controlled by the constitution. They can’t pass laws and they can’t have practices that violate the rights of the minority. There has to be some very clear, robust mechanisms to ensure that whoever has 51% will not be able to trample the rights of the others.

[00:14:33] We don’t have to wait till that vision comes about. For example, we can work to end the siege of Gaza, allow food and medicine and freedom of movement in and out of Gaza with no restriction and limitations. That’s, that’s something you can work towards. Feed Gaza, prevent the use of starvation as a weapon.

[00:15:02] Number two, bring the war criminals to justice. I don’t care if they are Hamas or if they are Arab leaders, or if they’re American leaders or if they’re Israeli leaders, those who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity should be brought to justice, should not be free to roam the world and go into different countries as if they are ordinary people.

[00:15:28] They’re not. They are criminals. They are monsters. They have to be brought to justice. Here’s another thing that you can work on. Three, call Israel to account for its actions. In the West Bank, there’s no Hamas there. There’s no armed resistance there, and yet, every day they are going round, uprooting trees, killing people, including American citizens.

[00:15:56] There’s four villages around Ramallah, which are 70% of them are Palestinian Americans with citizenship who are being attacked almost daily. Their trees uprooted their homes and cars burned, and they’re shot and killed by by total thugs who are Jewish settlers. Bring an end to that. Work on that. Bring acceptance and recognition to Palestinians and Palestinian voices.

[00:16:26] Right now, you can’t even come to the United States with a Palestinian passport, let’s say passe, because they are prevented. These are interim steps, okay? And the apartheid regime: Insist on laws that should be applied equally to Arabs and Jews alike, whether it’s in the West Bank or in Israel itself.

[00:16:51] The fight against apartheid is a necessary fight. Again, all these steps are short, far short of the vision I described, but they are concrete steps. And finally, I think, is work inside the churches against Christian Zionism, work against AIPAC and its influence in politics. Challenge your Congresspeople who are sending money and weapons and support for the state of Israel.

[00:17:24] There are many things that you can do, including even using the word Palestine and wearing a keffiyeh, which is now being prevented in many places.

[00:17:35] Speak. Speak up for your own freedoms of expression, academic freedom. Use BDS– boycotts, divestments and sanctions– against corporations and individuals who are involved in this ongoing genocide.

[00:17:53] And dare your churches to start using the word ‘genocide’ and call it for what it is. These are concrete things that you can do immediately. You don’t have to wait until we create this new, wonderful vision of a single state to start working for justice.

[00:18:15] So I would like to end with a positive note. There will be a new future for Palestinians and Israelis in Israel, Palestine, in this land, but it is only based on equality, human rights, and self-respect. It is not based on eternal enmity, it is not based on superiority, it is not based on dehumanizing the other side. Thank you very much.

[00:18:58] Presenter: Jonathan Kuttab is also speaking Monday, Nov. 17, 6 p.m, at the Eugene Public Library’s Bascom-Tykeson Room. Field recordings by Todd Boyle for KEPW News. For more, see Todd Boyle’s YouTube channel.