Re: On the Responsibility of the Weak: Jeffrey Isaac

it seems to me that there is a willful misunderstanding here. "Binational
state" does not and has never meant "the destruction of Israel," even
though that is how Israel's supporters habe always presented it. In fact
there are Israeli and other Jewish supporters of this solution. Martin
Buber was, if I am not mistaken, the first to support it, arguing that the
two state solution envisioned by the UN in 1947 would lead to interminable
wars and bloodshed, as the case has indeed proven itself. A binational
state, by contrast, is not only the far more humane and democratic
alternative. It is also in tune with contemporary global realities of
interdependence and reduced sovereignty. The "disentanglement of nations"
proposed around WW1 and the "separation" of the two peoples being proposed
now by many Israeli liberals flow from similar wellsprings, and the cost
of that solution will now be as it was then: ethnic cleansing and the
creation of additional accounts to be settled.

It would be good, for a change, if words and terms are discussed first on
the basis of what they actually say. No one has spoken of the
"destruction" of anything, yet that is how you chose to understand the
proposal, thus saving yourselves from having to actually consider its
merits.

Yours,
Mohammed Bamyeh



On Mon, 6 Nov 2000, Jeffrey C. Isaac wrote:

> because as I listened to her talk, she deployed those others who
> supposedly support a "binational" state, i.e., the destruction of Israel,
> as a veiled threat. Her own rhetoric in the talk that I heard was little
> different from those who take a more emphatically maximalist position.
> Further, there was nothing in the talk that I heard to indicate the kind
> of political responsibility that I discuss in my essau. That is why
> Ashrawi's talk troubled me.
>
> JI
>