THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 144, June 1, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
SAREE MAKDISI'S ONE-STATE SOLUTION:
A DELUSIVE "JUST PEACE"
By Gideon Spitzer
SAREE'S MAKDISI'S VERSION OF A "JUST PEACE" BETWEEN PALESTINIANS & ISRAELIS: A SINGLE-STATE SOLUTION
TO THE ISRAELI-ARAB CONFLICT -- CREATION OF A PALESTINIAN STATE THAT WOULD INCLUDE ALL THE TERRITORY OF
HISTORIC PALESTINE -- A STATE WITH A POPULATION CONSISTING OF THE ISRAELI JEWS, PALESTINIAN ARABS CURRENTLY
RESIDING IN THE GAZA STRIP, THE WEST BANK & THE STATE OF ISRAEL, & PALESTINIANS LIVING IN "FORCED EXILE" IN
OTHER STATES -- GUARANTEE TO PALESTINIANS LIVING IN EXILE THE "RIGHT OF RETURN" TO THE LANDS NOW
COMPRISING THE STATE OF ISRAEL, THEREBY ERACING THE JEWISH CHARACTER OF ISRAEL -- A PROPOSED SOLUTION
BASED ON MAKDISI'S OBVIOUSLY ANTI-ISRAELI & PRO-ARAB BIAS
FULL STORY:
Recently, UCLA Professor of English and advocate of a single-state solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict, Saree Makdisi,
spoke in the student union at the University of Pennsylvania. The lecture, sponsored by the Penn Middle East Center
(MEC), the English Department, the Greenfield Intercultural Center and the Penn Arab Student Society, represented
another in a series of events sponsored by the university-funded Middle East Center that brought known anti-Israel
speakers to Penn, including UCLA's James Gelvin, Stanford's Joel Beinin, artists Reza Kanazi and Radio Rahim, and
numerous film screenings. To get a better sense of the level of bias at MEC, consider the following: in the first four
months of 2011, the MEC underwrote eight events co-sponsored by Penn for Palestine and associated groups, but
none by the Penn Israel Coalition or other pro-Israel campus groups. Moreover, by inviting an English professor like
Makdisi, whose academic specialty is Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century British poetry, MEC privileges his anti-Israel
politics over his lack of specialized knowledge of the Middle East.
Makdisi began his commentary with an attempt "to reset and remember, first of all, that the West Bank, Gaza, and East
Jerusalem together comprise a very small fraction of all of historic Palestine and only a minority of the Palestinian
people actually lives in the occupied territories." While four million Palestinians live in the West Bank, Gaza, and East
Jerusalem, Makdisi asserted, six to seven million Palestinians live either in "forced exile or as citizens of the State of
Israel," and "routinely they are left out of the equation of the status of how to resolve the conflict."
The point of this demographic discussion, as Makdisi would soon establish, was to lay the foundation of his version
of a "just peace" between Palestinians and Israelis:
"What I'm interested in…is a just peace, a peace that, by
definition has to take into account the rights of everybody
involved in the conflict; that is to say, all Israelis and all
Palestinians, the Palestinians living under occupation, the
Palestinians living as second class citizens in Israel, and
the Palestinians living in exile…everybody's rights have
to be addressed."
The above quote reveals Mr. Makdisi's deep desire to erase the Jewish character of Israel. By making Palestinians
outside of the West Bank and Gaza required participants in any "just" resolution to the conflict, Makdisi proves his
belief in the Palestinian right of return, and thus the assured destruction of the Jewish state. He reveals his
acceptance of the classic Palestinian mythology of 1948 – which ignores Arab treatment of Jews (and each other) and
focuses on what Jews did to Arabs. In a mendacious demonstration of his anti-Israel bias, Makdisi fails to mention
the United Nations agency, UNRWA, which perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem in cahoots with Arab
governments that provide Palestinians with pitiable treatment.
Speaking on the two-state solution's feasibility, Makdisi stated that, "the West Bank, the biggest single chunk of the
occupied territories, has been so broken up by Israeli colonization and development, that the idea of trying to create a
Palestinian state in this territory under the circumstances seems completely unrealistic and totally unworkable." Yet
he revealed a seemingly different point when he said:
"Even if…the Israelis were to withdraw tomorrow…from
all of the West Bank… Even if it [said] Palestinians could
have a real state with a real army, and real air force, real
police, and real all the rest…would that address the
rights of all Palestinians? And the answer, of course, is
no it wouldn't because only a minority of Palestinians
lives in the West Bank…. I think we have to think…
beyond the occupied territories for a just resolution to
this conflict."
The latter point reveals the subterfuge of Makdisi's earlier argument regarding the one-state solution's practical
"unworkability." The ill-defined "just peace" of which he spoke that looks "beyond the occupied territories" into
Israel proper, would of course destroy its character as a Jewish State.
Next, Makdisi turned his attention to socalled Israeli "apartheid":
"If you look at the all of the laws that constituted South
African apartheid, all the major laws, they have [the]
exact equivalent in Israeli law inside pre-'67 Israel with
respect to the Palestinian [Israeli-Arab] population."
As evidence, Makdisi cited the South African Population Registration Act, which assigned every citizen of the
Republic of South Africa a racial identity that determined which neighborhoods they could live in and which schools
they could attend, among many other restrictions. Makdisi claimed that, because Israel also notes on state-issued
identification the religious background of its citizens, it practices apartheid. Yet Makdisi noted, "the main feature of
South African apartheid was to exploit black labor…. Israel has never been interested… in Palestinian labor." Makdisi
failed to mention the numerous other states who require citizens to register their religion with the government,
including Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, and, until 2000, Greece. His attempt to undercut the legitimacy of Israel within its
pre-1967 borders adds Makdisi's voice to the insidious Arab propaganda whose notion of a Palestinian state includes
not just the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, but the entire area of Israel.
In his final defense of the one-state solution, Makdisi argued that the "democratic and secular" nature of such a
potential new state would, "treat all its citizens equally; that would safeguard the rights of everybody." No
suggestions were offered on overcoming the barriers to a single-state solution: economic integration, issues on
immigration, and the control of the defense forces, to name a few. Furthermore, Makdisi disregarded a century of poor
relations between Jews and Arabs in the region, offering no explanation of how such historical legacies would be
overcome in a new bi-national state. As for self-determination, Makdisi said that it, "can take many, many, many forms"
and asked, "why can't we invent our own forms? Why do we have to import the ones that work [from Europe]?"
As to what these new "forms" of self-determination might be, he offered only vague references to "cultural and
aesthetic autonomy." Asked by an audience member how Jews and Israelis should react to the fact that a single-state
solution would leave Jews without their own state and Arabs with twenty-two states in which they are the majority of
the population, Makdisi responded with the uncaring and prejudiced suggestion that Jews have to, "just get on with
their lives." So much for Makdisi's "just" peace.
Despite his criticism of the two-state solution and its impracticability, Makdisi suggested few realistic strategies to
implement a single state. His lecture rested upon pipe dreams of Israeli-Palestinian unity, all undergirded by the implicit
desire to undercut and destroy the Jewish nature of the State of Israel. Like other anti-Israel academics before him,
Makdisi has an uncanny ability to propagate double standards and fallacy as fact. Penn and its Middle East Center
would do well to invite specialists in Middle East Studies capable of offering straightforward, unbiased analyses of the
region's problems, rather than those from unrelated disciplines whose principal qualification, so to speak, is their
hostility to Israel.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Gideon Spitzer is a Political Science and History major at the University of Pennsylvania.
The foregoing article by Spitzer was written for the Middle East Forum's Campus Watch, was published in
Front Page Magazine, June 1, 2011, and can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East
Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining
U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam, working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel,
improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing
America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and
countering the Iranian threat.
(URL: http://www.meforum.org/ 2922/saree-makdisi-one-state-solution)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
June 1, 2011
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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