“Two-state condominialism”
A fascinating idea in Tikkun from Princeton’s Russell Nieli, in which he proposes the idea of “two-state condominialism.”
The two-state condominial arrangement starts out with the creation of a democratic Palestinian state (composed of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem) much like that suggested in other two-state proposals with the boundaries of the Palestinian state roughly determined by the pre-1967 Green Line. The Palestinian state (”Palestine”) would have most of the features of a democratic nation-state, but from the outset it would be an ethnically defined state, a state of the Palestinian people, whereby a close parallel was maintained to the definition of Israel as a state of the Jews…Both Palestinians and Jews under the condominial proposal would be granted the right to settle anywhere within the territory of either state. Together the two states would thus form a single, binational settlement community. Palestinians would have the right to settle anywhere within Israel, just as Jews would have the right to settle anywhere within the territory of the Palestinian state. Regardless of which of the two states they live in, all Palestinians would be citizens of the Palestinian state, and all Jews would be citizens of Israel. [read the whole thing]
What really intrigues me about this idea is its recognition of the State as a set of structures, services, and modes of participation that do not necessarily depend on geography (in defiance of Robert Kaplan’s recent assertion that geography is making a comeback–but hey, Jews have always defied whatever historical trend was afoot, right?).
In way it is a Diaspora notion of the nation-state taking the idea of scattered peoples and building insitutions to match their reality. The way Palestinians living in Israel would be governed or Jews living in Palestine would be governed makes me think of the Babylonia Exilarch, who was supposed to rule of the Jews living in exile after the destruction of the Temple. It didn’t really work because it’s not so easy to excercise authority from a distance, the local rules and mores took presedence, and the Jews lacked any real power. But the idea was there. The spiritual homeland, the longing for Jerusalem, allowed people in the exile to define themselve by a place without living in the place; to defy geography while recongizing its importance. It’s a tension with which all exiles live, and one in which those who have no intention of moving “back” learn to flourish.
Taking that mind-set and building a binational terrority consisting of two states is brilliant. Flawed and unlikely to happen in reality, but utterly brilliant. It allows both peoples the right to ethnic self-determination and territorial self-deterimination. The settlers wouldn’t have to leave their settlements and the Palestinians could “return” to the homes they lost in 1948. Of course, how the competing claims on the same land, the same houses, and the same trees would be worked out under two different legal systems, is anyone’s guess. But this kind of creative thinking is certainly thought provoking.
