Content area
Full Text
Abstract: The prevalent conception of the Israel-Palestinian "peace process" has long outlived any expectation for its success, and has provided cover for Israel's de facto capacity to dictate terms. That framework fetishizes the two-state solution, mistaking the means (partition) for the end (mutual self-determination), while conceptually fragmenting the Palestinian political community so as to deprive it of its equal standing. Practical, moral, and legal considerations require nothing less than a re-imagining of the project of Jewish self-determination in Israel/ Palestine to accommodate the realization of Palestinian national rights on terms of equality. At the same time, it is errant and counterproductive for critics to treat the essence of that project - distinguishable both from the false universalism that marked the Labor Zionist era and from the unadorned ethno-nationalism that marks the contemporary practice of the Israeli state - as reducible to a colonialism fit to be vanquished. A consociational approach to the conflicting national aspirations promises a more productive engagement with the practical requisites of a mutual self-determination consistent with international legal standards.
Keywords: Israel-Palestine, mutual self-determination, consociationalism, actually existing Zionism
I.Introduction
Few initiatives are as incendiary as the effort of Palestinian rights advocates to problematize the normative premises of the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process."1) Yet with that process appearing moribund, alternative approaches can no longer be suppressed.
Palestinians and their allies have been expected to remain faithful to an existing framework (prominently including the 1993 Oslo Accords) that has long outlived any expectation for its success, and that has provided cover for Israel's de facto capacity to dictate terms. As Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley detailed in their controversial 2017 report for the United Nations, the existing framework for a peaceful settlement fragments the Palestinian political community into discrete geographical categories in a manner that serves objectively to undermine prospects for Palestinian self-determination.2) Inhabitants of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, residents of East Jerusalem, Arab citizens of Israel, and 1948 refugees are not only differently situated as a matter of fact and of positive law; they fall into different conceptual silos. This framework minimizes challenges to the legitimacy of Israel's overall domination, which when considered holistically might invite unpleasant descriptors (e.g., the term "apartheid").3) Although routinely speaking to Israel's observance vel non...