A Jewish Political Essay

For over two decades, many liberals in Israel have attempted, with
wide international support, to implement the two-state solution:
Israel and Palestine, partitioned on the basis of the Green Line -
that is, the line drawn by the 1949 Armistice Agreements that
defined Israel?s borders until 1967, before Israel occupied
the West Bank and Gaza following the Six-Day War. By going back to
Israel?s pre-1967 borders, many people hope to restore Israel
to what they imagine was its pristine, pre-occupation character and
to provide a solid basis for a long-term solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;" />


In this original and controversial essay, Yehouda Shenhav argues
that this vision is an illusion that ignores historical realities
and offers no long-term solution. It fails to see that the real
problem is that a state was created in most of Palestine in 1948 in
which Jews are the privileged ethnic group, at the expense of the
Palestinians - who also must live under a constant state of
emergency. The issue will not be resolved by the two-state
solution, which will do little for the millions of Palestinian
refugees and will also require the uprooting of hundreds of
thousands of Jews living across the Green Line. All these obstacles
require a bolder rethinking of the issues: the Green Line should be
abandoned and a new type of polity created on the complete
territory of mandatory Palestine, with a new set of constitutional
arrangements that address the rights of both Palestinians and Jews,
including the settlers.