Friday, November 11, 2005

One last job for Nelson Mandela?

In Quisling and Occupier, Virginia Tilley recommends giving up on the two state solution for Israel and Palestine and pursuing a unitary state with justice for all.

"From the Jewish-Israeli side, Israel would have to be reimagined and reconstructed in the only stable formula ever truly available to Zionism: a democratic state embracing both Jewish and Palestinian national homes within an overarching civic nationalism...

From the Palestinian side...The Israeli government would no longer be seen as the unjust alien occupier of Palestinian land but as an unjust apartheid government in a unified land."

Expecting such fundamental ideological shifts still seems hopelessly utopian to many people, says Tilley. Yes, but if it's the right path how about a big push to reframe the challenge, led (at least symbolically) by the likes of a global hero like Mandela along with a notable - and conspicuously peaceful - figure from a Muslim tradition (e.g. Shirin Ebadi)?

I guess this would never fly, for a million and one reasons?

(Tilley's piece was published together with Sara Roy's 'A Dubai on the Mediterranean')

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