Trump’s plan is the logical conclusion of the ‘two-state’ delusion - Part 2

Click here to read Part One. 

The project to create a Jewish state in Palestine has always been a fundamentally racist one – and will always be so as long as the project lasts. Until Zionist militias violently expelled half of the indigenous population in 1948, Palestine was always a majority non-Jewish country.

Therefore the attempt to impose and violently gerrymander a Jewish majority was by very definition a racist, colonialist one. And the early Zionist thinkers were quite explicit about this: read World Zionist Congress documents from the 1930s and you’ll see that they explicitly call their projects in Palestine “colonial”.

The current cant from “left” Zionists about Trump is therefore quite galling. The deputy director of liberal Zionist group Yachad, for example, writing on the Independent on Wednesday, whined that “true friends of Israel” would not support the “dangerous plan” that “does not serve” any of Israel’s “interests”.

Such delusions aside, the actual text of the document is actually very much in keeping with the two-state delusion.

It contains all the usual lies about “difficult compromises” between the two “sides” to the “conflict” – rather than the objective reality on the ground of a violent settler-colonial movement working hard for the liquidation of the indigenous people of Palestine.

READ: Saudi Arabia backs Trump’s deal, calls for direct Israel-Palestine talks

Furthermore, it explicitly draws on the legacy of the Zionist “left” and the racist heroes of liberal Zionist mythology.

The document gushes that Israeli Labor Party leader and former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin “gave his life to the cause of peace”. In reality, this racist war criminal ordered his troops to “break the bones” of Palestinian children in revenge for daring to protest against Israel’s military dictatorship during the first intifada.

But the authors of the document are correct to draw out the similarities between their racist plan for the liquidation of the Palestinian people, and the Zionist “left’s” racist plan for the liquidation of the Palestinian people.

It’s absolutely true, as the document states, that Rabin also demanded that large portions of the West Bank be annexed (“incorporated”) to Israel. Crucially, it also states that Rabin insisted that Palestinians would only get “civil autonomy in what he said would be something ‘less than a state’.”

Trump’s “Vision for Peace” would permanently trap Palestinians in bantustans, cementing Israeli apartheid.

But we will never surrender our rights and our land.

Inspired by the movement that helped end apartheid in South Africa, we call for international pressure through #BDS. pic.twitter.com/vhyYycIt3P

— BDS movement (@BDSmovement) January 29, 2020

The plan then draws on this toxic legacy to make it clear that when it uses the words “Palestinian State” (quite deliberately capitalising the word state) it does not actually mean a Palestinian state.

The plan is clear: “A realistic solution” would impose on Palestinians “the limitations of certain sovereign powers in the Palestinian areas (henceforth referred to as the ‘Palestinian State’)”.

This is the true meaning, and ultimate logical end point of the “two state solution”. It’s time that those standing in solidarity with Palestinians come to realise and acknowledge this basic truth.

What has happened in Palestine over the last 130 years is not some abstract, inevitable “conflict” between two equal “sides” that can be resolved through negotiations between “the parties”.

Israel is a violent, racist, settler-colonial project, whose ultimate goal is the removal of the indigenous population in order to impose an ethnically homogenous state – the so-called Jewish state.

READ: Palestinians push UN action over US peace plan, Abbas to speak at UN Security Council

As Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi correctly argued in the Guardian this week, in an extract from his forthcoming new book, negotiations based on the false premise that the US is some sort of neutral broker are doomed to failure.

Instead, a new reality will have to be imposed on Israel; Palestinian rights are human rights, and as such are non-negotiable. The right to live free from military dictatorship, with equal rights under law for all, and the right for refugees to return, are universal human entitlements.

It is these rights that can never be abrogated, nullified or negotiated away, no matter how many quisling leaderships are imposed on the Palestinian people.

Despite 130 years of failed attempts to destroy the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian people themselves have stubbornly refused to go away, to shut up, or to stop existing and struggling for their freedom.

Trump’s plan is only the latest of such failed efforts – it too will fail.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.