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It is shocking that some people still believe a two-state solution is possible. The racist Zionist settlers have seized more land in the West Bank than in 1967 or at any time during over 30 years of Oslo
By REDERWAAN CRAAYENSTEIN
Under current circumstances, such a State of Palestine would not be a single piece of land. Settlements on occupied territory are illegal under international law. Israel aims to retain the settlements and therefore controls about 10 percent of the West Bank. Israel also intends to keep the Apartheid Wall – which the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has declared illegal – as the border of Israel.
This indicates that most of the agricultural land in the West Bank will be transferred to Israel. Israel will control the water resources. The West Bank will not have a continuous connection to East Jerusalem, which is intended to be the capital of the State of Palestine. Consequently, the West Bank will be largely occupied by the Israeli army, deprived of food and water, and will require permission from Israel to travel to those parts of East Jerusalem that settlers have not yet seized.
To keep his racist settler colonial government in place, Benjamin Netanyahu has passed legislation to reoccupy parts of Gaza. His coalition partners, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, are more important than international law. Remember that the illegal settler project is a liberal Zionist Labour Party project. Netanyahu and his fellow racists are merely building on that. The ethnic cleansing and expulsion of Palestinians is a matter of public consensus in Israel.
The advocates of the two-state solution fail to address these facts. Instead, they insist that Palestinians be flexible. The frontline Arab states have just demanded that Hamas leave Gaza, disarm, and surrender their weapons to the collaborationist Palestinian Authority.
In South Africa, during the anti-Apartheid struggle, no one demanded that we lay down our arms before the fight ended. Without resistance, there is no freedom. Hezbollah has demonstrated that for the past 30 years. Iran, as imperfect as it indeed is, has learnt and taught that lesson for the past 50 years.
Refugees involved in any conflict have the right to return to their homeland, from which they were expelled or exiled. In South Africa, refugees who were foreign citizens were permitted to return because this right belongs to the individual, not the liberation movement. Moreover, the apartheid regime in South Africa never hindered the return of refugees.
Israel must not be allowed to deny Palestinian refugees the right of return. The Palestinian Authority should not negotiate away the right of return for six million Palestinian refugees in exchange for a flag, an airline, and an anthem. Netanyahu introduced the idea of Israel as a Jewish state in 2007–2008 at the Annapolis Peace Conference. His racist nationalism should not be legitimised at the expense of Palestinian refugees.
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Some supporters of the Palestinian cause argue it is unrealistic to expect all Palestinian refugees to return to their ancestral homeland because Israel will not permit it. This is the frustrating aspect of the supporters of Palestinians and also the Palestinian Authority. No one else ever makes this concession in any other conflict. Instead of appeasing Israel, countries should compel Israel to accept what is expected in every other conflict case.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has limited actual power, mainly functioning as a police force for Israelis and Americans. In return, it receives support from France, Germany, and the UK. The PA is compelled to accept humiliating peace negotiations with Israel because the USA covers its expenses and Israel collects its taxes. Its banking system is controlled by Israel. That is why Israel often withholds funds from the PA to keep it in check. France attempts to impose a two-state deal on a desperate Palestinian population, which highlights the façade of settler colonial Zionism and imperialism.
Israel will be a state with all the amenities, and Palestine will be a façade; it will have a national broadcasting corporation, a President, and a flag, but every move it makes, every breath it takes, will be with the Israelis’ permission. It will not have an army, nor control its skies or underground. It will not even control the ground it walks on.
The aim is to deliver a historic defeat to the Palestinian people. The settler colonial Zionist regime plans to make Gaza uninhabitable, destroying every building so Palestinians have no option but to leave Gaza and move into the Sinai desert, becoming Egypt’s problem. Throughout all this, the PA is a complicit Bantustan partner, smiling for photographs and shaking hands.
It is shocking that some people still believe a two-state solution is possible. The racist Zionist settlers have seized more land in the West Bank than in 1967 or at any time during over 30 years of Oslo. The Biden and Trump administrations have openly condoned the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
I believe that in any fight for justice, parrhesia is essential. That means speaking truth to power. But as an activist, one speaks truth both to those in power and to the powerless. We often avoid telling oppressed people uncomfortable truths. Our refuge is that it is their struggle.
I start with unqualified support for the Palestinian struggle against the racist settler colonial Zionist project wanting as much of historic Palestine as they can get away with and as few Palestinians as they cannot ethnically cleanse.
I am critical of the PA’s political initiatives. The PA is simply a Bantustan-like authority, akin to Lucas Mangope and Oupa Gqozo. They merely serve as obstacles to their people’s legitimate aspirations. They act as enforcers of the settler colonial project. They are ruthless towards their own people. Instead of halting the racist settlers on the West Bank, they shoot and imprison Palestinians who resist the lawless settlers. The PA may attack their own people, but they become fearful when confronting the Israeli Defence Force soldiers accompanying the violent settlers.
Even people threatened with genocide must organise to fight for dignity. They cannot just run from pillar to post searching for food and water. That is their immediate challenge.
Palestinians should consider the Great March of Return 2018, V 2.0. They can and must repeat it again and again. Israel cannot protect all the fences and segments of wall between it and Gaza and the West Bank. They can and must break borders and end the madness with their bare hands. Instead of moving from one unsafe zone to another, they could march in their tens of thousands – if not hundreds of thousands – and dismantle the wall and all the defences between Israel and Gaza. The same applies on the West Bank. They have to fight for their freedom. Marching to Israel unarmed in their hundreds of thousands is a realistic goal.
I write this during Arba’een for the martyrs of Karbala. By the way, I come from Qibla.
This was our stance during the anti-Apartheid struggle. People might criticise Qibla for many things, and many did. However, activists knew that when Qibla people participated in a demonstration, positive outcomes occurred. Activists had a spring in their step because they understood Qibla people did not easily retreat. Qibla people might not agree with the agenda, but they would always be where the people were. They were conscientised, organised, and mobilised.
I remember the March to Free Nelson Mandela from Pollsmoor Prison (August 28, 1985), organised by the United Democratic Front (UDF). In Qibla, we believed that we did not need to ask the Apartheid regime to free our leaders. Firstly, like Sedick Isaacs and Achmad Cassiem, as well as the Black Consciousness Movement activists who arrived on Robben Island, we believed that the prisoners’ duty was to use prison as a site for resistance. The aim is not to stay in prison but to break out. Every day was a day to resist the regime. Every day is a good day to die, Achmad Cassiem used to say. I can say that not every political organisation shared that view; some felt it was ill-judged to make life difficult for the prison authorities.
However, the Apartheid regime (which, as dreadful as it was, was not even a fraction of the wretchedness of the Israeli settler colonial regime) banned the march. The leadership of the UDF was being arrested overnight. Those leaders who were on the street at Klipfontein Road kept a low profile. Qibla activists saw the confusion, as there were thousands of people just milling around, utterly bewildered. This is when Qibla was at its best. We worked in the shadows and conscientised, organised, and mobilised people to move to Hewat Training College. In principle, we disagreed with the objectives of the march. If we want our leaders to be freed from prison, our task was to break them out. Is this another silly position that I am adopting?
Anyone familiar with Qibla will know that Dawood Parker, the husband of Zarina Parker and father of Taneem, Faizullah, Mohamed Junaid, and Salman, from Belgravia Road, did precisely that in 1987. He organised the escape of Pan Africanist Congress of Azania prisoners from Botswana. They were Ebrahim Desai and Bushy. He assembled a team of individuals who specialised in studying prison movements, and they successfully freed the PAC military personnel. This is Qibla at its very best. Not many people know about this at all.
Be that as it may, we managed to persuade people to meet at Hewat Training College and debate the next steps. This is shura and participative democracy in action. The people decided that the march would proceed as planned. The Qibla people disagreed with the goal of the march because we believed that people must free their own leaders. Breaking into and out of the prison are strategic tasks. Everyone at Hewat knew that the riot police were positioned at the Kromboom Road Bridge, a few hundred metres away. We expected to be stopped but on our own terms. The oppressive, racist apartheid regime cannot have the right to dictate which methods oppressed people should use to fight oppression. The march moved slowly, and people were afraid because we knew that some could be badly injured, others might die, and some would likely be arrested. The march did not even reach the bridge. In front of the march were the low-key leaders of the UDF, who—bless them—were afraid that the people were running ahead of them. I make these comments not to accuse or excuse the UDF or anyone else who is not Qibla. After all, Qibla has had its own faults. I make these points to show how dynamic the situation was and what it took to get people to face insurmountable odds.
The march advanced a few hundred metres and was broken up as expected. But it was on our terms. The regime had no right to stop us from marching. They could tell us to stay back, but we had to resist.
The same mentality is necessary for a starving Palestinian population in Gaza and on the West Bank. The mass movement of the wretched of the earth, as Franz Fanon might have called them – al-mustadafoon, al-fuqaraa, al-masakin, al-ardaloon – are vividly embodied in livestreams, with these Quranic words reflected in their plight.
The Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are akin to Imam Husain and his followers. From Makkah and Madinah to Kufa, they are urged to exercise caution, keep a low profile, and avoid provoking trouble. Imam Husain may not have been able to quickly raise awareness, organise, and mobilise a large movement as urgently as needed. Nevertheless, he took a stand for justice and what is right. Activists understand that the odds are never favourable. We often lack sufficient funds, phone data, transport, food, and other essentials.
Resistance movements face more setbacks than victories. One, almost every day, experiences defeat, while successes are infrequent. The struggle isn’t about winning or losing but about standing your ground. When knocked down, you don’t stay on the ground; you get up even if your head throbs, your knees wobble, your eyes are so swollen you can’t see, and your ears ache so badly that only echoes fill your mind. Your mouth might be battered so badly that speaking becomes impossible, but you stand again. The act of resilience inspires those few who join the cause and demonstrates your genuine commitment. It embodies the dignity and courage that shame those who, instead of supporting the oppressed, uphold and protect the oppressor. I saw this over and over again during the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa. This is a common occurrence in every struggle for justice.
International and regional public opinion does not care about Palestinians who die while fighting for a few crumbs in a bread line. Every day, a hundred or more people die as they stand in line for food and are shot.
Conscientise, organise, and mobilise. Head to the fences erected by Israel. Yes, the snipers will fire upon hundreds in the head. They are already doing that in Gaza and the West Bank. The snipers will go mad as they shoot, people will fall and more will continue to arrive. That is their nightmare scenario. Malcolm X said that when your enemy knows that you do not fear death, then your enemy cannot do anything to you. You already win. Amongst other things, October 7, 2023 has shown that Israel cannot defend the entire length of the fences it has built. A mass march in the night, then night after night, by Palestinians will not wait for permission from France, the USA, or anyone else. They will take their destiny into their own hands. With their empty hands, they will end this genocide. They will also not allow the Arab states to disarm the resistance.
There are some who believe that, given international opinion at the United Nations, only Israel, the USA, and a few others are preventing a two-state solution from being implemented. It is quite clear that the only ‘from the river to the sea’ logic that is operative is the one from Israel and its enablers. France knows that Israel is committed to a single state between the river and the sea. Every Israeli President, Prime Minister, and government is committed to there not being a sovereign Palestinian state anywhere between the river and the sea. There is already a single state between the river and the sea. This is an Apartheid state. This is the consensus view of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’tselem, and hundreds of Palestinian NGOs.
The world still does not have to recognise the Palestinian State. Nur Masalha wrote a book proving Palestine has existed as an entity for 4 500 years — as long as the so-called god promised Israel to the Jewish people. We have news for that god: there was never a land without a people for a people without a land. Also, Christian Zionists should take their god-forsaken, genocidal project elsewhere. Palestine existed before any of the white European nation-states.
As unjust as the 1947 UN Partition Resolution was, dividing historic Palestine created a Jewish-majority state and a Palestinian-majority state with protected rights for minorities in both. Israel has never accepted the partition if it meant that a Palestinian state would coexist alongside it. Since 1947, Israel has rejected the idea of a Palestinian state. Recognition does not require permission from Israelis, Americans, French, Germans, or British. Israel must either abide by international law and accept that the 1947 UN Partition Resolution established it, or have it imposed by the United Nations. If the UN Security Council cannot reach agreement, then the UN General Assembly has the authority to enforce the partition resolution upon Israel.
The idea of Israel as a Jewish state was never a concern before. Egypt in 1979 did not sign a peace agreement with Israel with the precondition that Egypt recognise the Jewishness of the Israeli state. Jordan was not required to do so in 1994 either. The Oslo Peace Process in 1995 did not stipulate that Israel is a Jewish state. Netanyahu’s racism led to the idea of a Jewish state between 2007 and 2009 after Hamas won the elections from the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu treats Arab Israelis as threats to the Israeli state. He considers Palestinians under occupation in Gaza and the West Bank as existential threats to Israel. If God and religion are kept out of this issue, a just solution can be found. It appears that the only god that counts is the Jewish god. Palestinians have a lesser god, and he does not count.
We have observed that Israel has been claiming since 1967 that evacuating 800 000 illegal Israeli settlers is impossible. The International Court of Justice, the highest legal authority worldwide, ruled that the occupation, siege, wall, and settlements are illegal. According to the 1947 UN Partition Resolution, Israel can exist within its pre-1967 borders. Since October 2023, we have seen that they are fully capable of relocating two million Palestinians from one dangerous area to an even more perilous one. Therefore, Israel’s argument for retaining the settlements is entirely unfounded. Israel consistently states that the settlements are a permanent status issue to be resolved in final negotiations.
Oslo has served as an effective propaganda tool for the gradual expansion of the Israeli settler colonial project. It has helped Israel evade public scrutiny over the occupation and has delegated control of Palestinian resistance to a collaborationist Palestinian Authority. Oslo functions as a showcase for further Israeli occupation; the ‘window cleaner’ is the collaborationist Palestinian Authority.
If Israel refuses to evacuate the settlements, then impose the one-state solution upon them and compel Israel to amend its constitution, establish the conditions for a peaceful transition to a single democratic state, and set a timetable. The UN General Assembly can do this, and all of this settler colonial Israeli Zionist mess can come to an end. The UN General Assembly can enforce international law.
The Palestinians are being wiped out by a genocidal settler colonial Israeli regime; they must conscientise, organise, and mobilise. The moment they decide to break the Israeli walls and fences, the UN will meet within days.
It is not Hamas or Islamic Jihad fighters who will determine how this unfolds. I salute these fighters. They have the right under international law to use armed force to resist the illegal occupation. The world has no right to arm Israel with the most advanced weapons and disarm Palestinians. The reality is that without resistance, there will only be slavery and occupation. We can see how attempts are made to dismantle resistance in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Palestine. Without resistance, there will be no liberation.
Resistance is necessary but insufficient. The more demanding task is training of hearts and minds to think of justice not only for their group but for everyone irrespective of differences in class, gender, ethnicity and religion. That includes justice and compassion towards enemies. So, Zionists do not call us haters. We leave that to them. We want justice for all, but like the Prophets of the Hebrew scriptures, we have a bias for widows, orphans, the homeless and the poor people. Everybody is created in the image of God. So says the Jewish Bible, and that is good enough for us. A Palestinian child in Gaza is as precious as a Jewish child in Tel Aviv.
Arab street outrage?
The frontline Arab states are agreeing to normalisation with the settler colonial Zionist Israeli regime. Where is the outrage from the Arab street? Arab people must stop blaming their governments for their silence.
The collaborationist Palestinian Authority has not spoken in defence of resistance against Israel. On the contrary, in the few times they have talked, it was to curse the mothers of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters. They blame the resistance for the genocide.
When Anwar Sadat signed the peace agreement with Israel, Egypt was expelled from the Arab League. Today, Arab countries and Turkey supply Israel while denying Palestinians, who are starving. These countries have the food, clothes and weapons to stop this genocide in a day. They do not need conferences. But they are afraid of America and the EU.
Muslim countries do to Palestinians what no African states did during the anti-Apartheid struggle. South Africa bombed Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Mozambique. These poor African countries never betrayed us. I cannot say the same for the Arab states, with 500 million people, whilst Israel has eight million citizens of whom 20 percent are Arabs.
For now, we must concentrate on halting the genocide. This French initiative for a two-state solution is merely a damage-limitation measure. It serves as a diversion because it is difficult to ignore the livestreamed rib cages and skeletons of Palestinian children. There is no hope for a two-state solution. There is only one sovereign state between the river and the sea. France is aware of this and supports it in practice. Since 1967, the Arab states have been aware of this, and the USA has agreed. Israel is a European outpost in the Middle East. Jews and Arabs lived in relative peace, like whites and blacks in South Africa today, before the founding of the state of Israel.
South Africa is one country that could change the narrative. It can challenge the fallacy of the two-state solution. It can collaborate with Algeria within the African Union for a one-state solution. The African Union has evolved from the days of the Organisation of African Unity. Algeria can also work within the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to break the deadlock in the political dynamics of the two-state solution. Algeria may face great difficulty because Arab states do not dare to confront Israel. They lost their nerve in 1967. Yemen exposes this, and as a result, Arab states bomb Yemen. South Africa can do the same through BRICS. India presents a problem. China and Russia are ambivalent about pressurising Israel. Then, BRICS, the OIC, and the AU can organise a meeting at the UN General Assembly to invoke UN General Assembly Resolution 377 ‘Uniting for Peace’ of November 30, 1950. This resolution allows the UN General Assembly to assume control of an issue that threatens global peace when the UN Security Council cannot act due to disagreements among its permanent members. Although the politics of the one-state solution are difficult, its prospects are simpler than those of the two-state solution. There will be unexploded bombs in Gaza for decades to come. The safest place for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is inside pre-1967 Israel. Siyaya e Jerusalem.
This livestreamed genocide requires a politics of integrity, honesty, decency and virtue. The same belated courage that South Africa displayed in leading the referral of Israel to the ICJ is needed on the political architecture for a just solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. This conflict is expected to be resolved within the next five to ten years. We did not know when South Africa would end Apartheid. It took six years of negotiations before the first democratic elections.
If South Africa could end the Apartheid regime after 350 years of white rule; if the Irish could make the Good Friday Agreement to imperfectly end the conflict in Northern Ireland and if the American Civil War – that cost a million lives- could end with a United States of America then Israel-Palestine is not as difficult an issue to resolve as people claim. Just stop indulging the Zionists.
For now, end the war, halt the genocide, and put an end to the silliness of a two-state solution, which is no solution at all.
