Is Opposing a Palestinian State and Palestinian Suffrage Racist?

Victor Shikhman: Stories
04 January '10

One of the arguments prevalent among those who advocate for the creation of a Palestinian state, including among staunch Zionists - such as Jeffery Goldberg - is that the Jews of Israel must make a choice between two incompatible futures. In one scenario, Israel relinquishes the territory it liberated through defensive war in 1967, divesting itself of millions of Palestinian non-citizens under its control and allowing a Palestinian state to take root in what is commonly referred to as the West Bank. The State of Israel will then remain an overwhelming and unassailable Jewish majority country, continuing to bestow democratic rights on all its citizens without risk of undermining the country's Jewish character. Alternately, Israel may annex the West Bank, but must then grant voting rights to the 1.5-2.5 million Palestinians who reside there (the exact number is debated), ostensibly ending the Jewish people's modern journey in national sovereignty.

In my last post, I discussed the traditional and contemporary commitment of Jews - all Jews - to democratic norms. Of course, Jefferey Goldberg's full argument is that certain problematic sectors of Israeli society - Jews of Middle Eastern and of recent Eastern European origin, residents of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and the rapidly growing haredi minority - are a unique obstacle to Israel relinquishing territory for a Palestinian state, while remaining opposed to granting citizenship to the 1.5-2.5 million Palestinians residing in the West Bank.

It may very well be that large constituencies within Israel are opposed to granting the Palestinians either a state or Israeli citizenship and voting rights (as opposed to say, permanent residency rights). However, neither Goldberg nor Israel's progressive left is really dealing with the reasons why this may be. Instead, they're suppressing the basis for inconvenient opinions and segmenting Israel's Jews into the good and the bad, the reasonable, progressive Zionist democrats, and the illiterate savages who are too stupid to be allowed to think for themselves. Pigeonholing people between the solution preferred by the country's self-anointed elite and the promise of a veritable apocalypse is not intellectually honest dialogue. Further, labeling a likely majority of the Israeli population as anti-democratic and racist for obstructing either a Palestinian state or Palestinian suffrage as Israeli citizens presumes a lack of alternative motivations.

(Read full "Is Opposing a Palestinian State and Palestinian Suffrage Racist?")

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