Compassion and Politics

05-05-2024

Roger Berkowitz

The Arendt Center will host a talk on Thursday this week by Mira Sucharov, a member of the Palestinian-Israeli non-profit A Land For All ([email protected] for info). The group seeks to imagine a future in which the 15 million inhabitants of Israel-Palestine live together between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. The form of such a togetherness would be a federation in which both Jewish and Palestinian peoples have their own sovereign states and yet live amongst each other geographically, economically, and culturally. It is a bold vision, utopian, and maybe impossible–at least in the short term. Yet it is also very much indebted to Hannah Arendt’s own vision of a federated republic that could encompass both Jewish and Palestinian homelands. 

Arendt was a zionist in that she believed the Jews needed a homeland. But she did understand that there were Palestinians in Israel and that the creation of a single Jewish state would deny them their own vision of a homeland. Arendt’s proposed solution was a bi-national federated state. The United Nations chose partition instead, which has led to 70 years of war and conflict. While Israel has flourished, it remains embroiled in a dangerous and corrupting war and occupation, while Palestinians have themselves struggled to imagine a meaningful resolution absent a single state that would deny Jews the homeland they also treasure and deserve. 

A Land For All is a group of Jews and Palestinians who are trying to imagine a collective future. In their draft, “A Land for All: From Conflict to Reconciliation, A New Vision for Palestinian-Israeli Peace,” the group writes:

Both peoples have a profound connection to this land or parts of it, whether they call it Eretz Yisrael (Israel), or Palestine, and both consider it their homeland. Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians live side by side, sometimes intermingled, throughout this land.
Based on this reality we, a group of Jews and Palestinians, offer a vision for reconciliation. Our vision precludes supremacy by one nation over the other. Our vision is one of equal national and individual rights for everyone living in this homeland, a vision of true partnership between the peoples of this land. Partnership is the best guarantee for respecting and promoting the interests of members of both nations. It is a guarantee for enduring peace and for reconciliation.
There is a deep emotional need for partnership in this land. When Palestinians say Palestine, they refer to the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean; just as when Israelis say Eretz Yisrael, they refer to the same space. The homeland is one and the same, even if it is called by different names. No international borders could change these connections, this identity. No international borders could sever Palestinians’ ties to Jaffa, Haifa, or Lod any more than they could sever Jewish ties to Hebron, Nablus or Bethlehem.
We live in a small geographic space. If a river in the West Bank gets contaminated, the groundwater in the coastal plain is affected. If air quality is poor on the coastal plain, it will be felt in the West Bank. In the small space shared by these two peoples, everyone’s interests would be best served by a high level of cooperation.
More than a hundred years of conflict have taught us that no nation can be the sole lord of this land. Occupation, annexation and denial of rights do nothing but deepen the conflict and fan the flames of hatred, and the concept of separation has failed as it ignores the complex reality of two peoples living in the same land. Unilateral solutions have also failed time and time again.
We boldly say: Mutual recognition that this land is a shared homeland - a homeland for Jewish Israelis and for Palestinians – is a must. That is why the political solution must reflect this emotional reality and create a framework that allows members of both nations to travel and live throughout the shared homeland, without undermining their right to self-determination and their ability to exercise this right.
The solution we are proposing, which has been formulated and honed through in-depth discussions and hundreds of meetings between Palestinian and Israeli citizens and public figures, includes two sovereign states in Eretz Yisrael/ Palestine, where both nations can fulfill their right to self-determination, but without strict physical and demographic separation. In other words: Political separation - yes. Geographic and demographic separation - no. Mutuality, partnership and equality - yes.

Join the Arendt Center and Mira Sucharov for a discussion of this draft proposal on Thursday, May 9th at 6pm. Info at [email protected]