Professor Ian Lustick: Prospects for Peace Through Democracy— An Analysis (7 January 2023) by Lawrence Davidson
Part I—One State From the Sea to the River
The two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been called into serious question by facts on the ground. Over the past 75 years, Israel, driven by its foundational Zionist ideology, has occupied all the land of Palestine from the sea to the river Jordan.
Taking the “long view,” one can imagine a dynamic (akin to the economic and cultural isolation of apartheid South Africa) that might be capable of shaking loose Israeli control beyond the “green line.” However, in the foreseeable future this seems improbable. Most of the world’s nations either acquiesce in the Israeli occupation or offer only feeble objections. Thus, many of those seeking an equitable settlement of the conflict now work on the assumption that a de facto one-state reality must be accepted.
Working on this assumption, some activists look toward the evolution of a more democratic and equalitarian Israel—and a better future for the Palestinians within that better Israel. They now theorize how that might happen. As an aside, one might expect that the same outside pressure that would be necessary to accomplish a withdrawal of Israel’s illegal settlers from Occupied Territory (OT) will probably be needed to help realize any future equalitarian democracy in “greater” Israel.
One of these activists is Ian Lustick, Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019). And, more recently the article, “Israel’s One State Reality and the Challenge of Democratization” (TPQ, November 2022). Both the book and the article assume the one-state of “greater Israel” will be the background or context in which any solution to this conflict is arrived at. Both seek to suggest possible scenarios by which the Palestinians can be integrated into the de facto singular state by the process of progressive democratization. It is an examination of that path that the present analysis will deal with. Since this author reviewed Lustick’s book for the journal Middle East Policy (Vol. XXVII, No.1, Spring, 2020), this examination will be based on the recent article.
Part II—What is the Status of the Palestinian Question?
Surprisingly, Professor Lustick begins his article with the claim that the Palestinian question is no longer seen as central to present Israeli politics. He points to the recent (Fall 2022) election to prove his point. “The overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews voted this year without thinking much about the nuances of Israeli policy toward Palestinians.” In terms of “political advertisements or platforms of parties” the issue and its particulars, such as “how to continue or end the occupation” are simply not there. In terms of the campaigns this is doubt the case. However, it probably does not tell the whole story. For instance, among the issues that did appear in the campaigns were “demands for removing legal restraints on Israeli soldiers” (such as they are) operating in the OT, and the “celebration of the Israeli military and Jewish nationalist values.” As election issues of debate or acclamation, it is hard to see how they could have been addressed without the Palestinians directly or indirectly in mind.
Nonetheless, according to Professor Lustick’s argument the Palestinian question is presently “absent from the political agenda.” Why would he insist on this point? Because he narrows the Palestinian question of the fate of Occupied Territories and that fate has now been decided in favor of a “greater” Israel. Thus, “the old debate over whether to withdraw [from the OT] or not; whether to agree to a Palestinian state or not, has been settled. There will be no negotiated withdrawal and no Palestinian state.” Allegedly, this has made the Palestinians temporarily “irrelevant” within the context of Jewish Israeli politics—at least in terms of “current elections.”
Lustick is correct that the territorial question has been settled in favor of a one-state reality. But he is wrong to interrupt this as a diminution of Palestinian relevance to Israeli politics. What has actually happened is the Palestinian problem has been reconfigured. Its continuing relevance is self-evident for reasons Lustick himself puts forward: “The system of control Israel has imposed on Palestinians based on blanket surveillance, systematic coercion, mass imprisonment, vigilantism, elaborate economic sanctions, and elaborate bureaucratic requirements, has transformed the very meaning of the ‘State of Israel.’” In other words, the problem of the Palestinian presence within an evolving one-state reality has moved Zionist Israel in the direction of apartheid. That Lustick is sure that many Israeli Jews nonetheless proceed with their political lives without conscious reference to the Palestinians, may be a testimony that most of us live our lives locally. And it is local concerns that will often monopolize our thoughts and affairs—even to the exclusion of seminal issues lurking just over the next hill. It is like living near an earthquake fault. Danger is always there whether you are paying attention or not.
Despite his assertion that the Palestinian problem is no longer a central concern in Israel, Lustick immediately turns to how Israel might escape the status of an oppressor. “What path toward a better future remains? The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has returned to being a struggle over whether and how Arabs and Jews can live together in the same polity. The crucial operational question is democracy. Jews hold power in a state inhabited by as many or more Arabs than there are Jews. Can such a state democratize?”
Part III—The Timeline Issue
Lustick thinks it can (but, as we will see, not that it necessarily will) and therefore his position is, in a contingent way, a hopeful one. However, he says, if Israel does democratize, it is going to take time—a lot of time. “Facing these questions requires a drastic extension of the time frame observers have been accustomed to using when thinking of positive ways the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can evolve.” There is something troubling about this. How long is this time frame? Is it simply open-ended? There is a fanciful concept in terms of evolution that says, given infinity, all things are both possible and probable.
However, for people caught in oppressive environments, open timelines are, ultimately, not tolerable. Within such an open timeline, the policies that support oppression (some of which are itemized by Professor Lustick) can be downplayed because, supposedly, solutions will be found in an open-ended process of reform. Indeed, although Professor Lustick does not intend this to be the message of his essay, one might feel an undertone of such a outlook when he declares that, with acceptance of the one-state reality, “no longer must they [progressive activists] or should they be concerned with such perennially frustrating questions as whether this or that settlement is about to be expanded, whether a new Israeli housing project will or will not be built in some greater East Jerusalem neighborhood … whether political moderates in Israel will prevent yet another right-wing government from coming to power, or whether Israel will end up a binational society. In the one-state reality these questions are irrelevant.”
We should not mistake this for simple acceptance of the status quo. Rather, Lustick is betting on the possibility of a difficult and protracted democratic political dynamic to mitigate all these problems and bring about a better future for all. “The kind of democratization challenge that Israel faces entails the extension of rights to large populations who have long been excluded from participation in the demos; people who have been stigmatized as unworthy, unqualified, threatening, or irrelevant to politics by the long-enfranchised.” True enough, and let’s keep in mind that this “stigmatization” has, over time, become a codicil to the Zionist ideology, as well as an explicit or implicit message of the Israeli educational system.
To overcome this situation Professor Lustick suggests that we all must shift gears. Instead of a Palestinian state—made impossible by the aggressive, and quite illegal, fulfillment of Zionist ambition—we must struggle to defy and erode the apartheid environment it has created. “Progressives can begin to shift toward emphasizing the goal of equality of rights, statuses, and opportunities for both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs—objectives attached to the operation of Israel as a state advertising itself as democratic. The world community should insist … that all inhabitants … enjoy equal rights to citizenship, voting [Lustick emphasizes the possibilities of increased Palestinian representation through the electoral process] and a proportionate share of national resources.”
Two points might be raised here: first, the number of progressive activists residing in Israel has been shrinking as has their ability to organize in a politically serious way. Second, the insistence mentioned here, at least from some of the Western and Middle Eastern nations (a distinct minority of countries overall), has been on-going since 1948. After all, there are Palestinian citizens in Israel behind the Green Line who, after 74 years, ought to, but do not enjoy equal rights. Israel has mostly ignored these outside protestations, and now defames as anti-Semites those doing the insisting. The confirmed Zionists know, of course, that Lustick’s goal must come at the cost of their own ideological position. One can expect them to fight against this as fiercely as they would fight an enemy at their borders. If you want an example of such a roadblock, just consider the recent establishment of the “Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People.” Lustick quite accurately tells us that this law is “evidence of just how real and how disturbing, for ultranationalist Israeli Jews, is the political potential of Arabs within the one-state reality.”
Yet, given enough time, Lustick insists that the progressives might prevail. He notes, among other precedents, how long it has taken African Americans to achieve “political equality” and the lengthy struggle of the Irish Catholics against English rule. Then there is the multi-generational struggle of non-white South Africans. One might note that in terms of time much of these struggles begin before the post colonial period and accelerate with the change in expectations that new era brings forth. In any case, Lustick concludes that given such historical precedents “we can expect that Arabs under Israeli rule could face decades and even generations of struggles for citizenship and full political rights.”
The suggestion of additional generations of struggle might prove acceptable to Israeli Jews and their diaspora supporters who could see it as an environment susceptible to unending delay, but it is hard to imagine the Palestinians, operating in the post-colonial era, will exercise the required patience. It condemns them to the vagaries of history with its record of successes as well as outright failures. The fact that the exercise of international law was meant to eliminate the guesswork and assure just outcomes for such struggles has been all but forgotten by everyone but the oppressed and their supporters.
Part IV—No Guarantees
In the end, for all his faith in the democratic process, Professor Lustick must hedge on the future. “Many factors can be identified as necessary in the development and success of these struggles—cultural and generational change, international pressure, severe economic strain that raises the value of traditionally excluded groups, and large-scale wars that upend norms and force the mobilization of all available human rights advocates can exploit, but not effectively manipulate.” Lustick goes on to warn that this process may be tumultuous—certainly an understatement. “The process of democratization [is not] necessarily peaceful. Increasingly ruthless oppression, spasms of violence, expulsions, and even civil strife are all possible.” And, after all is said and done, “There are of course no guarantees that democratization will occur.”
So what would Professor Lustick have us do now? He identifies two factors: (1) resist the “racist and violent policies” that are to come with the new Netanyahu government and (2) resist whatever rationales still support a two-state solution. Both types of resistance are required for “Palestinian emancipation within a one-state reality.”
Part V—An Alternate Scenario
Ian Lustick believes he has laid out a realistic scenario for a potentially “prettier” ending to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Yet, one can foresee other scenarios within the same one-state reality. For instance, mass deportation (or worse) under the cover of inter-ethnic war. There is historical precedence here in both the Israeli wars of 1947-8 and 1967. In both cases the war was, at least in part, fought to bring about both voluntary and involuntary removal of Palestinians.
It is the open-ended timeline along with the historically feeble worldwide reaction to Israeli violations of international law that make this scenario possible. And, of course, there is little that Lustick or anyone else can do about either situation.
The increase in land confiscations, house demolitions, involuntary population shifts, and perhaps the eventual elimination of suffrage for Palestinian Israelis, all of which are likely to come with the one-state reality is almost certain to lead to an increase in Palestinian resistance. As time goes on that resistance could lead to a return to earlier, more violent tactics in response to large scale Israeli terror. Israeli terror has been ongoing and increasing—often privatized to settler pogromists. Palestinian terror has not gone away but has been comparatively restrained. The last organization-sponsored suicide attack occurred in 2016. Most recent attacks have been by individuals and of a spontaneous nature. If Palestinian resistance returns to past practice, and violence reaches a presently undefined level, a hard right Israeli government may well use it as an excuse for the mass deportation of Palestinians into Syria or Jordan, or into Bantustan-like reservations. Another unfortunate probability is that this sort of scenario is likely to occur sooner on an open timeline than the one laid out by Professor Lustick. Why so?
The key reason is that Professor Lustick’s democracy based scenario is revolutionary in that it would lead to either the demise of Zionism or its radical reinterpretation. In other words Palestinian emancipation within one-state Israel negates classical Zionism. One can imagine circumstances that would lead to this happening and Lustick, particularly in his book, Paradigm Lost, does so. But, as he admits in his article, this possibility, if it happens at all, is far away in time. The alternative scenario wherein Palestinians suffer mass deportation or worse is not revolutionary because it follows plausibly from Zionist ideology as it expresses itself in practice. And, such a scenario fits in with Lustick’s assertion that “for the foreseeable future, and, in fact, for a considerable time beyond the foreseeable future, the only governments that will be formed in Israel will be right-wing.” A radical attempt to remove a demographically significant number of Palestinians, would be logistically difficult. However, compared to the option of Palestinian emancipation, it would be, for most Israeli Jews, the path of least cognitive disruption.
Of course only time will tell, but let us keep in mind that the Zionist goal, as well as that of the Israeli religious nationalists, is to control the maximum amount of Palestinian land with the absolute minimum of Palestinians residing there on. In the past, the main thing that has prevented mass deportations has been Israeli reluctance to alienate Western public opinion and thereby the very lucrative support of Western governments. But this concern is fading. Certainly it is of lesser concern to the newly elected rightwing government in Jerusalem. How the West reacts to the policies of this new government can be seen as a test case of what future Israeli regimes will attempt when it comes to Palestinians. History seems to suggest that the one-state solution will only emboldened Israeli racism and the timeline for the consequences will be Hobbesian in nature: “nasty, brutish and short.”
