ISRAEL: Recommended one-state readings

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In the course of researching today’s story on growing Palestinian support for a one-state solution, Bureau Chief Richard Boudreaux and I came across an absolute mountain of articles, books, speeches and message boards devoted to the topic.

As a service to you, our noble readers, we’ve cleared out the chatter and present here a quick list of sources we found interesting and provocative.

For starters, here’s an recent analysis of one-state sentiment in The Jerusalem Report magazine and a point-counterpoint of columns by Israeli and Palestinian thinkers posted on the Bitterlemons website.

Any one-state discussion has to include the Electronic Intifada. The well-known pro-Palestinian site is one of the online nerve centers for one-state sentiment, and founder Ali Abunimah has even written a book on the topic.

And here’s the 9-year old public endorsement of one-state by iconic Palestinian academic and author Edward Said that may have helped relaunch the modern movement.

One-state advocates freely admit that they’re on a 20-year plan, at best. It will take that long, they say, for Israelis to even be willing to consider the idea.

Time will tell if that’s true, but at the very least the issue is non-starter for this generation of Israelis. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks of a single shared state as a nightmare scenario that must be avoided, as does U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Israeli leftist Uri Averny pronounces the idea ‘a vision of despair,’ as does the peacenik Meretz Party, and one Zionist blogger calls it a recipe for Israel’s destruction.

One of the few prominent Israelis willing to envision a shared Israeli/Palestinian state is Ilan Pappe. Here’s a transcript of a debate on the issue between Pappe and Averny.

—Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem

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