Collegiate Times

Palestinian youth play soccer by the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

Correction: This story has been modified from its original version. — Mark Goldstein and Shay Nevo are the authors of the article. The Collegiate Times regrets this error.

Bashir Bashir's presentation, "The Politics of Reconciliation," made a very convincing argument concerning the minority status of the Arab-Israeli. In Israeli society, Arab-Israelis often hold the status of third-class citizens.

Further, they are not allowed many of the opportunities that Jewish-Israeli citizens possess. That being said, his idea of "reconciliation" is flawed in many aspects. Among them is his solution concerning a bilateral state in which Palestinians and Israelis coexist under a single government. Under Bashir's plan, the Palestinian "refugees" from 1948 would be allowed the right to return to historical Palestine. Along with that, a new state would emerge with a new flag and national anthem with neither a Palestinian nor a Zionist connotation. Bashir completely rejects the two-state solution, on the notion that he believes it was never viable (disregarding the fact that it almost became a reality in 2000).

A point that should be made is that Israel is, by definition, a Jewish state. Following the Second World War, the international community granted this land to the Jewish refugees of the world. Israel exists as a state where the Jewish people do not live under the whims of regimes that may or may not care about their wellbeing. It is a country formed by people with similar ideals, cultural and religious values, and a collective memory of oppression (something that Bashir mentioned in his speech regarding the Palestinians). By creating a bilateral state, the Jewish identity of Israel would be stripped away. I do not believe that, in an attempt to be politically correct, it would be moral to take away the flag and national anthem that the people of Israel have fought for over 60 years to protect. Furthermore, the logistics of Bashir's plan border on the absurd. How does he suggest that the state of Israel, which is roughly the size of New Jersey, will be physically able to accommodate both the current Israeli population along with all of the returning Palestinians? To undertake such a project would result in the expulsion of the Russian and Ethiopian communities which have immigrated to Israel in mass numbers following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and over the past decade.

Bashir was very critical of the solution which would result in the creation of a separate Palestinian state. He claims that the solution was never even close to being viable. This is despite the fact that in 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinian Authority an independent state on the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank, along with $30 billion dollars in aid to make this state a reality. In this case, the Palestinian Authority was at fault for not taking the well-being of its people into consideration.

Bashir might have had a valid point concerning the Arab-Israeli social status. However, his solution of a bilateral state is completely unviable. Aside from being logistically impossible, it would completely eliminate the Jewish character of Israel. Rather than trying to accomplish the impossible, we should concentrate more time and energy on the viable two-state solution.

-- by Mark Goldstein

sophomore ACIS

& Shay Nevo

freshman general engineering