On Arab-Jewish State; The Ottoman Experience And After

Abstract

The text below was a paper submitted to an international conference at Lausenne University Svvitzerland on "One Democratic State in Israel/ Palestine." The theme of the conference and my paper were both responses to the painful failure of the ill-fated Partition resolution of the U.N. General Assembly, some six decades ago. The recommendation itself being largely the product of election strains in the domestic politics of the United States, the leading victorious power after the vvar, it vvas scrutinized then by a number of leading intellectuals, including some prominent Jevvs. Past expeıience in the historic land having brought bloodshed, mass exodus and vvars, today's circumstances urged many more thinkers and vvriters to accentuate the need for a single state, in one form or another, that vvill embrace ali those living in the vvhole Palestine. As the paper underlines, such coexistence vvas a reality during the Ottoman centuries. Although many sorrovvful events accumulated since then, it is an alternative, realizable either by the conciliation of the majorities on both sides, or through a democratic process to be based on the votes of the Palestinian Arabs, vvhether Muslims or Christians, vvho vvill constitute the majority in some future date on that land.