A possible alternative to amputation

by Samah Jabr

11 June 2007

BitterLemons.org

http://www.bitterlemons.org/issue/pal2.php

In the June 16, 2003 edition of bitterlemons.org, under the title "Tearing down the walls", I explained why I view the two-state solution as a desperate political option for Palestinians. To take this discussion one step forward, let us look at the psychological aspect of this question.

Irreplaceable time has been lost talking about a two-state solution. In the meantime, Israel has been working on a no-state solution: settlements are bigger, the wall is longer, the occupation is ever more committed and the political discourse of ethnic cleansing has gotten louder. Israel wants an endless occupation of either a self-destructing Palestine or a Palestine that provides "the hewers of wood and the drawers of water" forever.

In social psychology it has been argued that the importance of justice cannot be ignored in conflict resolution. Perceived fairness is an important determinant of human behavior and affective reactions. All peace proposals seem to ignore this important aspect. Deals are based on profoundly unjust divisions of land, water and natural wealth that establish a de facto ghettoization and promote slave labor by maintaining huge economic differences and a significant discrepancy in average income and basic labor rights while maintaining Israel's military superiority that will always threaten and jeopardize our survival.

Yet we are expected to accept Israel's pathological equation of safety with having a Jewish majority in a Jewish state. There is already a level of physical integration between Palestinians and Israelis, both inside and outside the green line. And there is no guarantee that Israel will remain a Jewish state due to the rapid growth of its Arab minority. What will happen then? Transfer or genocide? What about Palestinian fears? Why can't Israelis accept that a constitution that guarantees equality before the law and equality of opportunity will protect us from each other?

Palestinians have developed a very distinct and strong national identity that draws on the heritage, culture, narrative, glories and tragedies related to historic Palestine. Any amputation from this land is a profound trauma to our national pride and will always hurt us as a phantom pain for a lost limb that we feel intensely but others don't recognize.

I realize that it is impossible for both Israelis and Palestinians to discard their identities. But I believe that a larger group identity can be constructed, like the identity brought by a unity state, which does not conflict with the other two. Under constitutional protection that respects civic life, provides a guarantee of individual and group rights and thus organizes relationships we could engender a state of mutual respect and trust, rather than the manipulation and abuse inherent in the relationship between a dominant Israel and a weak and fractured Palestine.

After so great a loss of people, prestige, land and dignity a nation has to mourn. But the lack of acknowledgment and the mooted partial compensation leaves any possibility of mourning polluted by feelings of humiliation, rage, irredentism for what has been lost and a sense of entitlement to regain it that will always impair hopes of peace. In a two-state solution we shall internalize all those negative feelings, identify with our aggressor and live with psychological degeneration. Separation breaches legal equality and equality of opportunity and can never be fair or just; it will only exacerbate hatred, prejudice, fear and mistrust.

A unity state will not be the undoing of the historic injustices inflicted upon the Palestinian people. But it will allow us, after a full recognition of the wrongs and the subsequent possibility of true mourning, to forget about the past and put an end to ongoing injustices: the occupation of Palestine and the discrimination against Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.

On September 14, 2003, the New York Times reported a poll showing that 25 to 30 percent of Palestinians support the idea of a unity state. My own impression is that a majority of Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship view the one state proposition as the optimal one, this, without any serious supportive political or media advocacy.

Today, this solution seems ever more popular given the facts on the ground Israel has established, leaving no possibility that a viable, sovereign Palestinian state with real resources can be created out of the remnants of the pre-1967 borders. The Palestinian elections also exposed the US myth that two democratic states never fight each other.

The Palestinian struggle for liberation and justice can only come to fruition in a unity state. It is the only viable, desirable and sustainable solution that will restore to Palestinians their dignity and morality and guarantee freedom.

Let me add something personal. I'm a junior Palestinian psychiatrist and I work with a senior Israeli colleague. We sit together every couple of weeks and discuss patients and other matters. I like my mentor and I don't wish for her or hers any less than I wish for my own. To my mind, when I defend a unity state, I defend my rights as well as hers and our right to stay in touch. If this is lost for political reasons, it will only be a phantom pain in another lost limb.- Published 11/6/2007 © bitterlemons.org

Samah Jabr is a psychiatrist who is currently working at the Community Mental Health Clinics in Ramallah and Jericho and is a regular writer for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and the London-based monthly Palestine Times.