What we are headed for is a no-state solution; one people will have it all, the other none, nada, zip. Ethnic cleansing, transfer, genocide.

the two state solution is dead for the moment for one reason -- Iran. The regime has taken up the Palestinian cause as a means to establish their leadership role in the Islamic world, and they do not want a two-state solution. They want Israel dissolved. There will be no peaceful resolution, until Iran and their Hezbollah/Hamas surrogates are muzzled.

Forgive me for not having yet read your book yet, Mr. Avishai. But based only on your two posts, I am so far quite puzzled about what you are calling for.

You describe a one-state solution as unimaginable, and I am somewhat inclined to share your skepticism. So I take it you are still proposing a two-state solution, but also proposing some structural changes to the Jewish state that is to be part of this solution. You say:

The Hebrew Republic maps out the Jewish state as the most original forces in the Zionist movement conceived it. It is a democratic country whose language is Hebrew, much the way the French Republic is French. I am not proposing anything terribly original here. I'm just trying to bring Israel up to code.

Is that it? Are you saying that having a state whose official language is Hebrew is enough to make a state a Jewish state? This can't really be your position is it?

The analogy with France is instructive. French-speaking in France, and the conscious efforts by cultural and governing elites to preserve the French language there, may be necessary conditions for the Republic of France to be the state of the French nation and French people. But they are not a sufficient condition. They are necessary conditions in that the French language and its literature form the main repository of French cultural memory. And yet there are several other states in this world that are French in the sense that their language and literature are French, but that are in no way states of the French people.

Later you talk about the traditional Zionist and Balfourian idea of Israel as a Jewish "national home". Do you think simply speaking and writing in Hebrew would make a state a Jewish national home?

You appear to have an anti-religious agenda, which is fine. But from my point of view, it's not theistic religion that is the core of the problem of Israel. It is nationalism, secular as well as religious, and the concepts of national rights, national purpose, and national entitlements to land rooted in deep historical myths. Yes, for many, Jewish nationalism is infused and enlivened with religious ideas taken from Judaism. But there are many Jews who regard themselves as secular, but have what I would regard as quasi-religious views about the Jewish people or nation, and their collective rights in Palestine.

You seem to have some hope that secular enlightenment values are going to win out, and identify such values as the true wellspring of Zionism. But Zionism was not a movement of the enlightenment, although enlightenment values no doubt played some role. It was a 19th century movement, steeped in that century's romantic and revolutionary nationalist ideas about "nations", "peoples".

In any case, it turned out that a lot of the Jews who actually moved to Israel and built the Jewish state, before and after independence, didn't share the purely secular values you admire. A social and political movement isn't identical to the philosophical views or agendas set down on paper by the movement's founders. It is an expression of the attitudes, aims and commitments of the people who make up the movement. Zionism as an actual historical movement, as opposed to original Zionism on paper, has hardly been a secular movement, or an expression of the enlightenment. I don't see how you can turn back the block on this.

You are an optimist and I praise you for it.

Exactly wrong. There's never been an idea about a single state involving both Palestinians and Israelis. Indeed, the right-wing of Israeli politics have tried to make it impossible for Palestinians to make any agreement and always drive to disunify both Israelis and Palestinians, often killing the latter to do so. A drive to unify Jerusalem and annexation of much land to the East into the occupied territories beyond, and expropriation of much land beyond the 1948 boundaries proves the fact.

You are clearly wrong. Though I wish you were not.

Whoops! Thats was meant to be 1968 borders, which might be survivable.

UN Resolution 181 (the resolution that authorized the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states) called for the creation of "Constituent Assemblies" in both the Jewish and Arab states. Each of the Constituent Assemblies was to be democratically elected by all voting-eligible Jews and Arabs within the state. These assemblies were then to create constitutions for their respective states.

If this process had been followed, Arab Palestine and Jewish Palestine would have had governments created with the democratic consent of all their citizens, both Arab and Jewish. Instead, of course, the Jewish People's Council (Vaad Leumi) unilaterally created the Jewish state of Israel, excluding the Arabs from the decision-making process. Ever since then, it has been obvious that the state of Israel can exist only if it either excludes Arabs completely or limits their numbers or political rights.

The basic reason all two-state solutions will fail is that such solutions require the Arabs to permanently accept their exclusion from Israel. This might be possible if the Arabs were a small population, but they've always been a majority or near-majority in Palestine. It's hard to imagine them agreeing to a deal that leaves them excluded from much of their traditional homeland--especially as their population once again approaches majority status.

Because the Arabs remain a large population within Palestine/Israel and are unlikely to agree to their exclusion from the government or territory of all or most of Palestine/Israel, some sort of one-state solution (or maybe a federation that allows for the nominal existence of Jewish and Arab states) will be required. The only alternative will be the forceful removal of the Arab population, an unlikely event and one that would almost certainly result in a major war that would have devastating consequences for the region and for Israel, even if Israel were to win. The current situation--which is a de facto one-state solution with Jewish domination of the Arab near-majority--is inherently unstable and therefore cannot be permanent.

I haven't read Avishai's book and therefore am not sure what he's proposing. But assuming he's arguing for a secular Hebrew republic, the solution will only work if the Arabs agree to it. As long as solutions are created by Jews (or by Arabs) and not jointly by Jews and Arabs they are doomed to failure. Resolution 181 called for a democratic process in which Jews and Arabs created their states and constitutions together. Until that long-deferred joint process occurs, no peace is possible.

For those interested in the original political solution proposed for Jewish and Arab Palestine, the text of UN Resolution 181 is appended:

The Provisional Council of Government of each State shall, not later than two months after the withdrawal of the armed forces of the mandatory Power, hold elections to the Constituent Assembly which shall be conducted on democratic lines.

The election regulations in each State shall be drawn up by the Provisional Council of Government and approved by the Commission. Qualified voters for each State for this election shall be persons over eighteen years of age who are (a) Palestinian citizens residing in that State; and (b) Arabs and Jews residing in the State, although not Palestinian citizens, who, before voting, have signed a notice of intention to become citizens of such State.

Arabs and Jews residing in the City of Jerusalem who have signed a notice of intention to become citizens, the Arabs of the Arab State and the Jews of the Jewish State, shall be entitled to vote in the Arab and Jewish States respectively.

Women may vote and be elected to the Constituent Assemblies.

During the transitional period no Jew shall be permitted to establish residence in the area of the proposed Arab State, and no Arab shall be permitted to establish residence in the area of the proposed Jewish State, except by special leave of the Commission.

The Constituent Assembly of each State shall draft a democratic constitution for its State and choose a provisional government to succeed the Provisional Council of Government appointed by the Commission.

My friend Bernie's comments about my comment are spot on.

The Palestinians have earned a reputation for being chronic opportunity missers. For Palestinians the delay results in continued suffering and deprivation. The problem is that there is a heavy price to be paid by Israel as well if a two-state solution is not achieved soon: over time it will become an existential question. Writing recently in the New York Times about the urgency of a two-state solution, Tom Friedman said that "Israel is becoming permanently pregnant with a stillborn Palestinian state in its belly."

I take the point that a vast majority of Israelis favour a two-state solution more or less within the Clinton parametres or the Geneva initiative. The same is said of the Palestinians. However, we must allow for the possibility that people respond positively to polls about a two-state solution against the backgroun of knowledge that a two-state solution is not attainable any time soon.

Be that as it may, there are large obstacles that stand in the way of a two-state solution. One is the division between the Palestinians which is the manifestation of a fundamental challenge to the Palestinian paradigm as embodied at Oslo, and the unwillingness of the international community to understand that, as Aaron David Miller puts it, it is not possible to make peace with one half of the Palestinians while making war on the other half. Unappetizing as it may be, Palestinian reunification, which was on the way to being achieved under Saudi auspices in the first half of 2007, is a prerequisite for a two state solution.

The other obstacle is that the political system in Israel allows small, one-issue sectors to effectively prevent the government from following the wishes of the majority. A problem of this magnitude can only be overcome if the Israeli leader is a giant behind whom the people can rally. Israel needs, in effect, what Spanish speakers call a 'Caudillo'. Absent such a leader, it is essential for Israelis to receive, and act upon, the kind of wake-up call that Olmert tried to issue in his Haaretz interview (which I mentioned in my earlier comment) after the Annapolis conference, which apparently went unheeded.

My hope is that The Hebrew Republic can help achieve the kind of consensus that is needed in Israel because it does not approach the roadblocks via pressure or threats but rather by the argument, which should be extremely persuasive, that the basis on which Israel's spectacular success rests is portable and elusive and therefore fragile. I hope it works, even if it is a long shot. The alternative is either Friedman's festering diagnosis prolonged over time or a three-party solution, as Bernie hints, with a loose federal centre -- more or less what the UN proposed to the Cypriots in 2004 but much more combustible.

Alvaro de Soto

Again the question: What evidence is there that Arab moderation leads to political progress for the Palestinians. Compare the lack of progress of Abbas in the West Bank? And he is the "moderate."

When Arabs earn the title "moderate," what we mean is they just absorb Israeli violence without fighting back. How many retaliatory raids has Abbas ordered? How many Palestinians children have been killed since he started his weekly meetings with Olmert?

Note also that Albaro de Soto does not characterize any Palestinians position in the form of rights or law. This inability of Zionists and Westerners to even articulate Palestinians rights as basis for negotiations is why "moderation" fails. Essentially, Israel is always deemed morally innocent before negotiations begin. Israel has security needs, the Palestinians have "aspirations." In fact, the Palestinians have rights that are routinely violated. The inability of Westerners to speak those words explains why "moderation" is always, always a failure.

Bernard, do you have any thoughts regarding Jeff Halper's proposals for a (con)federation within a Middle Eastern Union? They appear, at least superficially, to bear a resemblance to what you're proposing.

What I find most creative about Halper's suggestions is the divorcing of residency from citizenship. Anybody (subject to prior ownership and related issues) can live and work anywhere within the Israel-Palestine (con)federation, but their voting rights remain within their own ethnic state. So a Palestinian refugee could return to live in Haifa -- or in a rebuilt Palestinian village/town on the "Israel side" of the Green Line that had been destroyed in 1947-49, but they would be citizens of, and voters in, the State of Palestine. Similarly a Jew could live in al-Khalil/Hevron but be a voting citizen of Israel. All such residents would of course be subject to the laws of the state of residence, and there would have to be constitutional protections against discrimination.

There are a million details not covered here, and of course that's where the devil is, but I'm thinking Halper might be on to something, as you are as well.

Sylvanen wrote: "It seems that o2u has the best read on this problem. Israel has only one choice and that is to ethnicaly cleanse the land west of the Jordan river of its Arab population."

Spoken like a true disciple of Milosevic.