Introduction
The constitutive documents legitimizing the establishment
of the State of Israel as a "Jewish State" alongside
the State of Palestine as an "Arab State" in the
territory of former British Mandate Palestine, joined together
in an economic union with Jerusalem as a corpus separatum
under international UN administration is UN General Assembly
Resolution 181 of November 1947 recommending the partition
of Palestine with economic union.
The said Resolution together with all other UN General Assembly
and Security Council resolutions on the question of Palestine,
such as UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (resolving inter
alia that the refugees wishing to return to their homes
and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted
to do so at the earliest possible date) or UN Security Council
Resolution 251, 267, 271 and 298 (declaring invalid inter
alia Israel's acts to unify Jerusalem as its capital and
condemning Israel's failure to comply with UN resolutions
on Jerusalem) endow the idea of the "Jewish State"
legitimacy provided the said state is a bi-national state
adhering to a democratic constitution and conforms to the
register of UN resolutions on the question of Palestine
and the standards of international law
The idea of the "Jewish State" as represented
in UN resolutions is diametrically opposed the idea of the
"Jewish State" in the political Zionist sense
of the term. The political Zionist idea of a "Jewish
state" is that of a sovereign state, established and
consolidated in the country of Palestine, such as attempts
to guarantee in law (e.g., Absentees Property Law of 1950)
and in practice (e.g., the mass expulsion, under the cover
of the 1948-49 war, of the native indigenous Palestinian
Arab people) a demographic majority of the Jewish tribes
(a demographic majority of ethnic Jews) in the territories
under its control. In other words, an apartheid state. The
UN idea of a "Jewish state" is, as noted above,
a bi-national state adhering to a democratic constitution
and conforms to the register of UN resolutions on the question
of Palestine and the standards of international law, namely,
a state that is essentially democratic with some "Jewish"
decorations (e.g., the official day of rest being the seventh
day of the week, Saturday, rather than the sixth, Friday,
or the first, Sunday) - definitely not a fundamentalist
apartheid state.
From the Israeli political Zionist point of view the primary
object of the Draft Permanent Agreement, known as the "Geneva
Accords", is represented in the last Article of the
said Draft, namely, Article 17, which stipulates Final Clauses
including a final clause providing for a "UN Security
Council Resolutions/UN General Assembly Resolution endorsing
the agreement and superceding the previous UN resolutions"
(emphasis added), thereby removing the international legal
foundation for challenging the reality of the State of Israel
as a "Jewish State" in the political Zionist sense
of the term above, an apartheid state, and hence, reducing
the prospects of international sanctions and boycott against
Israeli apartheid.
The Dangerous Failings of the "Geneva Accords"
The Draft Permanent Agreement, known as the "Geneva
Accords pioneered by former Minister of Justice of the State
of Israel, Dr. Yossi Beilin and former Minister of Culture
of the Palestinian Authority, Mr. Yasser Abd Rabbo, aiming
in the first instance to present an agreed model for Israeli-Palestinian
permanent status agreement, and succeed where the Taba Summit
of 2001 between the Government of the State of Israel and
the PLO has failed, is not likely to achieve its stated
aim of an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based
"on a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace and achieving
historic reconciliation", and will probably tear at
the seams for the same reasons that brought about the demise
of the "Oslo Accords" and the subsequent "peace
process".
The primary cause, in the view of this writer, for the projected
demise of the said "Geneva Accords" is represented
by their failure to address the core issue of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, namely, what is defined in international law a
crime against humanity, namely, the "ethnic cleansing"
the territories that came under the control of the Israeli
army from their indigenous Palestinian Arab population,
razing some 400 Palestinian rural and urban localities to
the ground in the course of and subsequent to the 1948-49
war, and underpinning the said crime against humanity with
the apartheid legislation of pre-1967 State of Israel and
the Defence (Emergency) Regulations of 1945 in the post
1967 occupied territories.
Specifically the primary cause, in the view of this writer,
for the projected demise of the said "Geneva Accords"
is represented by their failure to address the question
of the Palestinian Nakba and 1948 Palestine refugees in
conformity to relevant UN resolutions on the question of
Palestine, notably UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of
December 1948, and secure the removal from the Israeli law
books of such strategic pieces of apartheid legislation
as the Absentees Property Law of 1950, the World Zionist
Organization (WZO)/Jewish Agency for the Land of Israel
(JA) Status law of 1952 and the Jewish National Fund Law
(JNF) of 1953.
A contributing cause, in the view of this writer, for the
projected demise of the said "Geneva Accords"
is represented in their further failure to address the circumstance
of 1 million Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel (20 per
cent of the total population of pre-1967 State of Israel),
of whom some 20 percent are internally displaced persons,
"present absentees", and their rights, as well
as the rights of the 1948 Palestine refugees, to the titles
of their properties inside Israel and return.
In the view of this writer, these fundamental omissions
are likely to bring about the demise of the "Geneva
Accords" as did the parallel failure of the "Oslo
Accords" beginning with the Madrid "Peace Conference"
of 1991 and the "Declaration of Principles on Interim
Self Government Arrangements" (DOP) of 1993 agreeing
to postpone the core of the question of Palestine (including
Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements,
borders, relations and co-operation with other neighbours).
The "Oslo Accords" fell apart because they bracketed
negotiations on the core of the question of Palestine and
replaced them with a "peace process" and "interim
arrangements", and the "Geneva Accords" are
likely also to fall apart because, though recognizing the
core of the question of Palestine for what it is, they aim
to evade the best practical formula for a "just, lasting
and comprehensive peace and achieving historic reconciliation",
namely a solution that seeks to conform rather than abort
UN resolutions on the question of Palestine.
Setting aside the blatant imbalance characterizing the current
"Geneva Accords", such as positing a non-militarized
State of Palestine, while leaving the current level of militarization
of the State of Israel unchallenged, the failure of the
"Geneva Accords" to address future of the 1 million
Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel against the backdrop
of to Israeli apartheid legislation and the formulas the
"Accords" set for the "solution" of
the question of the 1948 Palestine refugees, additionally
allows for the possibility of further criminal violation
of international law by the Governments of apartheid Israel
and confessional Lebanon of forcibly expelling the 1948
Palestine refugee community and the Palestinian Arab citizens
of Israel into the territories a "Bantustan Palestine".
Introducing an Alternative: A Democratic State for All
of Its Citizens and Refugees
Citizenship is a certificate representing a legal relationship
between the individual and the state. Democratic citizenship
is a certificate representing the recognition by the state
of the right of every citizen to equal access to the political
process of the state (e.g., to elect and be elected to all
of the offices of the state); to the civil process (e.g.,
to equal standing before the law); to social and welfare
services (e.g., religious services); and to the material
resources of the state (e.g., land and water).
Like all rights, democratic citizenship as we know it today
is a right won by the struggle of the people vis-a-vis the
state.
Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
stipulates that (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality
and (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality
nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Unlike the US legislature, which recognizes, under a democratic
Constitution, one universal citizenship for all US citizens
without distinction of nationality, religion, language,
tribe, sex, sexual orientation or any other social status
- the State of Israel does not have one single universal
citizenship for all of its citizens. Rather, informed by
the dominant ideology of political Zionism, the Israeli
legislator (the Knesset) legislated a schedule of four classes
of citizenship based on racial discrimination and representing
blatant inequality in law, in other words, representing
a new form of apartheid.
It is in order to underline here that I refer to the term
"Apartheid" in the narrow and technical sense
of the word, namely, as a term designating a political programme
predicated on discrimination in law on a racialist basis.
Apartheid is not racism and racism is not apartheid Racism
is regrettably prevalent in all states, including liberal
democratic states such as the current western liberal democracies.
It is wrong to single out the State of Israel on the alleged
grounds that racism in Israel is significantly more prevalent
than in many other member states of the United Nations.
And I refer here to the term "racial discrimination"
as defined in Article 1(1) of the UN Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Racial Discrimination of 1966 (any distinction,
exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour,
descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose
or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment
or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental
freedoms on the political, economic, social, cultural or
any other field of public life.)
Apartheid, however, is a different phenomenon. Apartheid
is a political system where racism is regulated in law through
Acts of Parliament. In liberal democratic states, those
victimized by racism have (if they can raise the money)
legal recourse to seek the protection of the law under a
democratic Constitution, namely a Constitution that embodies
the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In an apartheid state, on the other hand, the state enforces
racism through the legal system, criminalizes expressions
of humanitarian concern and obligates the citizenry through
Acts of Parliament to make racist choices and conform to
racist behaviour. After the demise of apartheid in the Republic
of South Africa, Israel remains, to my knowledge, the only
member state of the UN that is an apartheid state, and it
is correct to single out Israel on this basis.
In the State of Israel the right of a citizen classified
in law as a "non-Jew" (namely, an "Arab")
to partake in the political process is formally equal to
the right of a citizen classified in law as a "Jew".
Likewise the standing of a citizen classified in law as
a "non-Jew" before the courts of law is formally
equal to the standing of citizen classified in law as a
"Jew".
On the other hand the right of a citizen classified in law
as a "non-Jew" to the social and welfare services
and the material resources of the State are not equal to
those of a citizen classified in law as a "Jew",
and, until the ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court sitting
as High Court of Justice on the case of Qaadan versus Qatzir
in March 2000, such citizens of the state of Israel as are
defined in law as "non-Jews" (namely, "Arabs")
were denied access to 93 per cent of the territory of pre-1967
Israel administered by the Israel Lands Administration (ILA).
In other words, the Israeli legal system is based fundamentally
on the determination of at least two classes of citizenship:
Class "A" citizenship for such citizens as are
classified in law as "Jews", and, as such are
allocated in law a privileged access to the material resources
of the State and the social as well as the welfare services
of the State only because they are classified in law as
"Jews" versus Class "B" citizenship
for such citizens as are classified in law as "non-Jews",
namely, as "Arabs", and, as such, are discriminated
against in law with regard to their right to equal access
to the material resources of the State as well as the social
and welfare services of the State, first and foremost their
right to equal access to land and water only because they
are classified in law as "non-Jews".
But subject to Class "B" citizenship above, there
exists in the State of Israel by force of the Absentees
Property Law of 1950 also Class "C" citizenship
for such Arab citizens of the State of Israel who are present
inside the state, yet classified in law as "absent".
These Arab citizens are indeed present inside Israel as
taxpayers and voters who cast (or refrain from casting)
their vote in the election ballot - but, being classified
under the said obscene law as "absentees" - they
have been denied all their rights to their properties (e.g.,
lands, houses, corporations, shares, bank accounts, bank
safes, etc.) such as were valid until 1948. Some 20 per
cent of the constituency of the Palestinian Arab citizens
of Israel, approximately 200,000 persons, are classified
in Israeli law as Class "C" citizens, namely,
as "present-absentees".
Also, subject to the said Absentees Property law of 1950,
the Israeli legislator (the Knesset) determined in law a
Class "D" citizenship, namely, the denied citizenship
of some 750,000 1948 Palestine refugees and their descendants
currently numbering according to UNRWA figures over 4 million
persons.
Under the terms of UN Resolutions 181 (Plan for Partition
with Economic Union) of November 1947, the constitutive
document of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine
recommending the partition of the territory of British Mandate
Palestine into a "Jewish State" and an "Arab
State" - the currently approximately 4 million 1948
Palestine refugees are entitled to the citizenship of the
"Jewish State". Yet, the Israeli legislator (the
Knesset), by force of the said Absentees Property Law of
1950, and in violation of the norms of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and the standards of international law,
denationalized the mass of the 1948 Palestine refugees,
denying their right to Israeli citizenship, thereby rendering
them stateless.
Under the terms of the said constitutive document of the
State of Israel and the State of Palestine (UN Resolutions
181) all Jews ordinarily resident in the territories allocated
by the UN for the "Arab State" and their descendants
are entitled to "Arab State" citizenship and all
Arabs ordinarily resident In the territories allocated by
the UN for the "Jewish State" (including, of course,
all 1948 Palestine refugees and their descendants) are entitled
to "Jewish State" citizenship, let alone to the
title to their properties inside Israel and to return.
It took the UN by far too long to realize that political
Zionism is a form of racism representing a blatant violation
of the norms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and the standards of international law. It was only in the
wake of the 1967 war and the consequent war crimes perpetrated
by the Israeli occupation forces, challenged by the renewed
resistance of the Palestinian Arab people led by the PLO,
that the UN corrected its record and passed General Assembly
Resolution 3379 of November 1975 determining that "Zionism
is a form of racism and racial discrimination". And
it is indeed most regrettable that on the wake of the Middle
East Peace Conference convened in Madrid in October-November
1991, co-sponsored by the US and the former USSR, the General
Assembly muddied its record again by passing Resolution
46/86 of December 1991, deciding to revoke the said determination
of Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination.
Let us all hope that following the forthcoming UN World
Conference Against Racism convened in Durban South Africa,
August-September 2001, as well as the World Summit on Sustainable
Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg, South Africa, August-September
2002, and predicated on the clear and firm distinction between
Judaism as a confessional statement that strictly belongs
to the private realm of the individuals concerned versus
Zionism as a political programme that like all political
programmes ought to be critically attended to and judged
by the extent that they are compatible with the values of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the standards
of international law - all those committed to the values
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to the
consistent application of the standards of international
law worldwide will coordinate their efforts with the view
to motivate the UN to recognize that Zionism is a new form
of Apartheid.
There is little doubt that, as in the case of the dismantlement
of Apartheid in South Africa, the UN is able to play a critical
role, mutually beneficial to all parties concerned, by applying
to the State of Israel suitably corresponding sanctions
with the view to suggest to the Government of the State
of Israel that just as the international community would
not tolerate apartheid in South Africa it could and it would
not tolerate apartheid in Israel.
All parties involved with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
first and foremost the State of Israel, the colonial occupation
party as well as the PLO, the anti-colonial resistance party
could do worse than remember that the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and international law frame universal norms
for the removal of injustice in such terms as secure the
human rights and fundamental freedoms of everyone, including
those of the former colonized and those of the former colonizers;
those of the former occupier and those of the former occupied;
both the Arab and the Hebrew peoples of Palestine as equal
future Palestinian Arab and Palestinian Hebrew citizens
under a democratic constitution of one (unitary) state or
two states (federated or confederated, with economic union
and the city of Jerusalem under international UN administration).
During the heyday of the apartheid regime in South Africa
the Dutch Reformed Church educated its constituents, almost
exclusively classified as "White" in the apartheid
legal system, and their supporters in the West and beyond,
that to oppose the political programme of apartheid, to
be anti-apartheid, was somehow tantamount to being "anti-Christian",
and thus, "pro-Devil", or worse, "pro-Communist".
In a similar way, under the dominance of political Zionist
ideology and practice, Zionist and Israeli educational and
information establishments educate their constituents, almost
exclusively classified as "Jews" in the Zionist
legal system, and their supporters in the West and beyond,
that to oppose the political programme of Zionism, to be
anti-Zionist, is somehow tantamount to being "anti-Jewish",
and thus, "anti-Semitic", or worse, "pro-Nazi".
It took many decades of protracted struggle, including armed
struggle, by the native indigenous ("non-White")
peoples of South Africa under the leadership of the African
National Congress (ANC), supported by international solidarity
and culminating in UN sanctions, before the criminal education
of equating Christianity with apartheid and being a "good
Christian" with being "pro-apartheid" was
effectively challenged. In the new South Africa today, where
in 1994 the apartheid legal system was dismantled and replaced
with a democratic constitution, one would be hard put to
find anyone admitting that they were ever pro-apartheid.
The distinct minority of South African citizens classified
as "White" in the apartheid legal system, who
recognized apartheid to be what it was: an abomination in
terms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a
crime under the standards of international law, and who
crossed the political lines to join the struggle for democracy
in South Africa, have made significant educational and other
contributions to this process.
And it will take many decades of protracted struggle, including
armed struggle, by the native indigenous ("non-Jewish")
peoples of Palestine under a leadership of similar quality
to the leadership of the ANC, supported by international
solidarity and culminating in UN sanctions, before the criminal
education of equating Judaism with Zionism and being a "good
Jew" with being "pro-Zionist" is effectively
challenged, so that in the new Palestine of tomorrow one
would
be hard put to find anyone admitting that they were ever
pro-Zionist.
The distinct minority of Israeli citizens classified as
"Jews" in the Zionist legal system, who have recognized
political Zionism to be what it is: an abomination in terms
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a crime
under the standards of international law, and who crossed
the political lines to join the struggle for democracy in
Palestine, have made and will continue to make significant
educational and other contributions to this process.
In other words, it is the hope of this writer that this
treatise will establish convincingly the viability of the
contrary tenet to the Zionist political tenet above, namely,
that in order to be a "good Jew" it is necessary
to be anti-Zionist in the same sense that under the apartheid
regime in South Africa, in order to be a "good Christian"
it was necessary to be anti-apartheid.
Coda
Since 1973, following the adoption of the International
Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime
of Apartheid, ratified by the UN General Assembly Resolution
3068 (XXVIII) and entered into force in 1976, the international
community is largely united in the rejection of the values
of apartheid political systems, notably, in rejecting the
claim that it was a good idea to attempt establish and consolidate
a sovereign political system that would endeavour to guarantee
in law and in practice a demographic majority of any given
tribe or tribes, ethnic and/or confessional group or groups
in any given territory, and has become progressively more
aware of the beneficial distinction between "nationality"
(national identity) and "democratic citizenship"
(the rights of the individual vis-à-vis the state).
Most attempts at a political solution of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict hitherto seemed to have assumed that it was not
"practical" to enforce compliance with international
conventions and UN resolutions and apply the standards international
law on all parties involved with the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, first and foremost the Government of the State
of Israel, the party in the most blatant violation thereof.
After decades of failing attempts to effect political solutions
to the Israeli conflict that in effect accept the political
Zionist claim that it is a good idea (or at minimum it was
justified) to establish and consolidate in the country of
British Mandate Palestine a "Jewish state", namely,
a sovereign state such as would attempt to guarantee in
law (e.g., Absentees Property Law of 1950) and in practice
(e.g., the mass expulsion, under the cover of the 1948-49
war, of the native indigenous Palestinian Arab people) a
demographic majority of the Jewish tribes (a demographic
majority of ethnic Jews) in the territories under its control
- and in light of the continuing cruelty and suffering that
the implementation of this idea in violation of the values
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the standards
of international law has inflicted on the indigenous Palestinian
Arab people - the time may have come to begin to accept
that the continuing failure of such attempts over the past
decades suggests that they are less than practical, and
that alternative paradigms for a political solution are
the more practical.
One of the people most criminally responsible for the plight
of the Palestinian Arab people was the late Aba Eban, former
Ambassador of the State of Israel to the UN and Minister
of Foreign Affairs. He played a most negative role in perpetrating
the shameless lie alleging the voluntary exodus of the indigenous
Palestinian people from their localities of residence in
the course of the 1948-49 war at the behest of Arab leadership.
If I am not mistaken, however, it was the same Aba Eban
who observed that in his long political and diplomatic experience,
people and governments tend to consider the reasonable course
of action only after they have tried every else and failed.
Having attempted over many decades unreasonable courses
of action, all predicated on the misguided assumption that
it was justified to exempt the Governments of the State
of Israel from compliance to the terms of UN Charter, UN
resolutions and the standards of international law - the
international community, having tries everything else and
failed, may now wish to consider the reasonable course of
action: a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that
conforms to the terms of all UN resolutions on the question
of Palestine, including UN General Assembly Resolution 181
of 1947 and 194 of 1948.
Uri Davis