Binational solution

Binational solution is a term most often used in reference to a proposed resolution of the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is also known as the One-State Solution, as opposed to the Two-State Solution.

Binationalism in British Mandate Palestine

Binational proposals for a common Jewish-Arab state in Palestine have existed since at least the 1920s. In 1925, the journalist Robert Weltsch established Brit Shalom (Covenant of Peace) to promote Jewish-Arab

Related Topics:
1920s - 1925

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understanding in Palestine. Brit Shalom, which functioned until 1933, stood on a platform of creating "a binational state in which the two peoples will enjoy equal rights as befits the two elements shaping the country's destiny, irrespective of which of the two is numerically superior at any given time" (from their first publication Our Aspirations, 1927). It had a few hundred members, mostly European-born intellectuals. The general concept of binationalism was to be adopted by other minority Zionist groups, like Hashomer Hatzair and Mapam, Kedmah Mizracha, the Ichud and the League for Jewish-Arab Rapprochement.

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According to the historian Susan Lee Hattis, binationalists sought to recognise the reality of a majority Palestinian population in what is now the territory ruled by Israel. They supported "not the ideal but the reality, and if this reality is not grasped Zionism will fail. Brit Shalom were not defeatists who were willing to make any concession for the achievement of peace, they simply realized that the Arabs were justified in fearing a Zionism which spoke in terms of a Jewish majority and a Jewish state. Their belief was that one need not be a maximalist, i.e., demand mass immigration and a state, to be a faithful Zionist. What was vital was a recognition that both nations (the Arab and the Jewish) were in Palestine as of right."

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One of the most prominent and forceful early advocates of binationalism was Professor Martin Buber, a renowned scholar in the field of Jewish tradition and literature. In 1939, shortly after he emigrated from Germany to British-ruled Palestine, he replied to a letter by Mahatma Gandhi, who thought that "Palestine belongs to the Arabs" and the Jews "should make that country their home where they were born." Buber rejected this idea but agreed that there needed to be a consensus between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. He wrote that Jews and Arabs must

Related Topics:
Martin Buber - Germany - British - Mahatma Gandhi

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:"develop the land together without one imposing his will on the other. We considered it a fundamental point that in this case two vital claims are opposed to each other, two claims of a different nature and a different origin, which cannot be pitted one against the other and between which no objective decision can be made as to which is just and which is unjust.

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:"We considered and still consider it our duty to understand and to honor the claim which is opposed to ours and to endeavor to reconcile both claims... We have been and still are convinced that it must be possible to find some form of agreement between this claim and the other; for we love this land and believe in its future; and seeing that such love and faith are surely present also on the other side, a union in the common service of the land must be within the range of the possible"

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Buber and his fellow binationalists were, however, always a minority within the Zionist movement. Official Zionist policy advocated a "Jewish state" - not precluding democracy or civil rights for resident Arabs, but still ensuring that a future state of Israel would be ruled by Jews for Jews.

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