Benny Morris, One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict.

Mendes, Philip

Benny Morris, One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/ Palestine Conflict. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. ISBN 9780300122817.

Discussions of potential solutions to the Israeli/Palestine conflict fall into two principal categories. The first category, which is generally called the two-state solution, envisages some sort of cooperative process based on mutual compromise that meets the national aspirations of both peoples. In contrast, the second category, which is generally called the one-state solution, assumes ongoing domination or oppression by one people over the other. Either the Israelis suppress or destroy the Palestinian national movement to create a Greater Israel, or alternatively the Palestinians destroy the existing State of Israel by military or demographic means to create a Greater Palestine.

This new book by the well-known and controversial Israeli historian Benny Morris explores the merits and weaknesses of these competing paradigms. Morris has in recent years shifted from his position as a critic of the Israeli expulsion of much of the Palestinian civilian population in 1948 and implicitly as a critic of the post-1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, to a view placing prime responsibility for the ongoing conflict on what he considers as the innate extremism and violence of Palestinian political culture. Hence throughout this book he tends to ascribe hardline attitudes to most Palestinian Arabs, and more moderate attitudes to most Israeli Jews. This obvious partiality aside, his book still provides an important historical insight into how and why contemporary attitudes have developed.

Morris begins by exploring the contemporary re-emergence of one-state views on the Palestinian side of the conflict. He notes that this is hardly restricted to Islamic fundamentalist groups such as Hamas, and cites the opinions of a number of leading Palestinian intellectuals who have questioned or opposed the two-state option. He also implies that Fatah's two-state position is insincere, and suggests that they have never really rejected their earlier call for the elimination of Israel.

More importantly, he identifies three events that have lead to the revival of one-state proposals, these being Yasser Arafat's rejection of the two-state proposals advanced by former US President Bill Clinton from July to December 2000; the rise of Hamas to power in the Palestinian territories; and the advocacy of a one-state solution by Tony Judt, Virginia Tilley and other Western intellectuals. Morris is scathing of the arguments proposed by these intellectuals, and particularly of what he considers are their naive assumption that a one-state solution would involve an equitable sharing of power by Jews and Arabs in a democratic secular polity, rather than the creation of one more fundamentalist ethno-religious Islamic Arab state.

Morris then shifts to history. He argues that the Palestinian national movement always adopted an exclusivist position which rejected any bi-national proposal based on sharing Palestine with the Jews. He suggests that both the "extremist" Husseinis and their more "moderate" Arab rivals such as the Nashashibis were united behind this perspective. All Palestinian leaders constructed the conflict as a "zero-sum" game which defied compromise, and would lead inevitably to total victory for one side and destruction for the other.

Morris claims that this "expulsionist or eliminationist mindset" also dominated the early philosophy of the PLO. He discusses the key details of the 1964 Palestinian National Charter or Covenant and early Fatah manifestos, and notes their refusal to recognise any legitimate Jewish national claims in Palestine. He describes the PLO's 1970s proposal for a secular democratic state of Arabs and Jews as a smokescreen intended to fool naive westerners who failed to realise that most Palestinian Muslims were intensely religious beings who overwhelmingly rejected secular and democratic ideas.

He then analyses the PLO's apparent shift over time from a one-state to a two-state position, and casts doubt on its sincerity. He points to Arafat's rejection of the two state offers made in 2000 as evidence of this insincerity, and argues that Arafat's insistence on a right of return of 1948 refugees to Green Line Israel rather than the Palestinian Territories confirms that the PLO never intended to accept Israel's ongoing existence as a Jewish state. He is also doubtful about the sincerity of the two-state position of PNA

President Mahmoud Abbas whom he dismisses as a lightweight representing only a small minority of Palestinians. He concludes his bleak overview with a sharp analysis of the antisemitic as well as hardline anti-Zionist manifestations of the Hamas Covenant. He rejects common western explanations for the success of Hamas such as the effectiveness of its charity networks and the alleged corruption of Fatah. Rather, he attributes its rise to the growing religious fundamentalism of the Palestinian masses as reflected in the rejection of western cultural mores including equality for women.

Morris's analysis of Zionist history tends to be much milder. He admits however that most of the early Zionists also sought to create an exclusively Jewish state, although they accepted reluctantly the establishment of Transjordan in much of historical Palestine. Particularly interesting is his analysis of the small number of Jewish groups such as Brit Shalom, Agudat Ihud and Hashomer Hatzair that advocated a bi-national solution in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Morris argues that they not only enjoyed little support in the Jewish community, but more importantly could find no Arab partner who shared their beliefs. In fact, the only Palestinian who ever signed a statement of Arab-Jewish cooperation, Fawzi Darwish al-Husseini, was immediately murdered by Arab extremists.

Morris argues that the Peel Partition Plan of 1936-37 provoked a change of views amongst the Zionist leadership who sought the urgent establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine (however tiny) in order to provide a haven for Jewish victims of Nazism. This sea change was assisted by the British willingness to consider transferring the large minority of Arabs from the intended territory of the Jewish state, although Morris insists that the Zionist movement never formally endorsed then or later the concept of transfer. Zionist pragmatism in favour of partition and two states persisted into the post-war period, even though it was opposed by the Revisionist minority which later formed the hardline Likud party. Morris notes that this pragmatism was also reflected in the 1967 Allon Plan-albeit never formally endorsed as Israeli government policy-which proposed returning most but not all of the West Bank to Jordanian rule.

Morris acknowledges the growth of the Greater Israel movement, and the key barrier posed by the West Bank settlements to any two-state solution. However he seriously under-states both the extent of formal Israeli Government support and popular Jewish support inside and outside Israel for the settlements. Contrary to what Morris suggests, most Israeli Governments elected since the First Intifada of 1987 have not attempted to negotiate a two-state solution. It was only in 1993 that Israel recognised the PLO, and only in July 2000 that an Israeli Government formally proposed two states for two peoples. And the current Israeli Government is at the time of writing unwilling to accept an independent Palestinian State.

Morris continually emphasises Palestinian rather than Israeli barriers to peace. Of course, the former are real, and nobody from the Palestinian side has ever seriously explained the rationale behind the indiscriminate violence of the Second Intifada directed mainly at Israeli civilians within the pre-1967 Green Line borders, and the rocket attacks following the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. But equally, Morris fails to acknowledge that there is a difference between legitimate Israeli security and military concerns in the Territories, and illegitimate demands for territorial expansion and ethnic domination as reflected in the West Bank settlements.

Finally, Morris considers the practical arguments for and against a one- or two-state solution. He argues convincingly that the common fear and hatred of the two peoples makes a bi-national state unthinkable. In addition, there are the overwhelming cultural differences between Jews and Arabs as reflected in the largely secular and liberal democratic values of Israel vis-a-vis the highly conservative and religious values of the Palestinians. He notes that the Christians, the more Westernised and liberal sector of the Palestinians, are greatly reduced in number.

Morris also rejects other possible variants of a one-state solution based either on permanent Jewish domination or expulsion of Arabs, or permanent Arab domination or expulsion of Jews. The former would not be acceptable to international public opinion or much of Israeli society. The latter would most likely reproduce historical examples of anti-Jewish discrimination as reflected most brutally in the 1941 slaughter of over 100 Jews in the streets of Baghdad.

Morris himself favours a two-state solution, but is extremely pessimistic about its chances of success. He argues that a small Palestinian state will meet neither the practical needs nor the national aspirations of the large Palestinian refugee population. However he provides little empirical evidence to support this view, and ignores many earlier books by both Israeli and Palestinian commentators which have provided a detailed vision of a successful two-state polity. I would personally have liked Morris to do some serious political theorizing about potential strategies to persuade an Israeli Government to dismantle the West Bank settlements in order to facilitate the establishment of a viable Palestinian State. Instead, he concludes with some superficial mutterings about reviving the old Jordanian confederation proposal which King Hussein rejected as far back as the late 1980s.

Overall, this book gives the impression of being rushed, particularly in the concluding chapter, and falls short of what it might have been. Nevertheless, the historical overview is crucial in reminding us that the core narratives of the two peoples are unlikely to change dramatically, and that any path towards peace and reconciliation based on mutual compromise is likely to be rocky indeed.

Philip Mendes

Monash University