Implementing "Two Peoples, One Future": Conceptualizing Mutual Self-Determination in Israel-Palestine

In a recent article in Europa Ethnica, Mitchell Institute Visiting Scholar, Professor Brad R. Roth, argues that the prevalent conception of the Israel-Palestinian “peace process” has long outlived any expectation for its success, and has provided cover for Israel’s de facto capacity to dictate terms.  That framework fetishizes the two-state solution, mistaking the means (partition) for the end (mutual self-determination), while conceptually fragmenting the Palestinian political community so as to deprive it of its equal standing.

Practical, moral, and legal considerations require nothing less than a re-imagining of the project of Jewish self-determination in Israel/ Palestine to accommodate the realization of Palestinian national rights on terms of equality.

At the same time, he argues, it is errant and counterproductive for critics to treat the essence of the project of Jewish self-determination – distinguishable both from the false universalism that marked the Labor Zionist era and from the unadorned ethno-nationalism that marks the contemporary practice of the Israeli state – as reducible to a colonialism fit to be vanquished.

A consociational approach to the conflicting national aspirations promises a more productive engagement with the practical requisites of a mutual self-determination consistent with international legal standards.

Read the article here.

 

Professor Brad R. Roth

Brad R. Roth is Professor of Political Science and Law at Wayne State University in Detroit.  His scholarship applies political theory to problems in international and comparative public law, with a special focus on crises of political authority.

The featured image has been used courtesy of Toa Heftiba, Unsplash.