A Peaceful Palestinians Perplexing Plan

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Politics & Ideas

A Peaceful Palestinian’s
Perplexing Plan
What Is a Palestinian Al-Quds University there. He holds the best way to realize yourself as
State Worth? degrees in philosophy from Oxford a Palestinian, as a citizen, as a hu-
By Sari Nusseibeh and Harvard, has received dozens of man being.” This leads Nusseibeh to
Harvard, 234 pages awards and citations for his activi- some interesting speculation about
ties on behalf of Israeli-Palestinian the relationship between Palestinians
Reviewed by Elliott Abrams peace, and has served as an ofﬁcial and the many entities in which they

S
of the Palestinian Authority. But he live. Palestinians are refugees with-
ARI NUSSEIBEH is a is a Palestinian, and there is no Pal- out rights in Lebanon; refugees with
man without a country. estinian state. In his new book, he citizenship in Jordan but in a state
Nusseibeh is a member of asks how much it matters for Pales- that is clearly not theirs; members
one of the most distin- tinians to “have” a state. What is a of a global diaspora where they may
guished Arab Jerusalem Palestinian state worth? His answer live in democracies and be loyal to the
families and is now president of is, not much: “There is no absolute states of which they are citizens. And
need for us to have a separate or so- Palestinians, he writes, live in Israel
Elliott Abrams is a senior called independent state.” with full political rights but, again,
fellow for Middle Eastern studies “What would a state be for, any- in a state that another group, Jews,
at the Council on Foreign Relations way?” he asks. “What needs would controls. They are citizens, but it is
and served as a deputy national se- it satisfy?” not “their” state. “Palestinian Israelis,”
curity adviser in the George W. Bush In his view, only individuals count, he writes, “can feel they have a state
administration. so in politics “you are searching for in the weak sense (they belong to it)

Commentary 41
but not that they have a state in the guaranteeing Palestinians their
strong sense (it belongs to them or
they own it).”
Of course, this relationship to
e Palestinian
opinion
human rights and all services a
state normally provides for its
citizens, including their collec-
the state is a choice made by the
Palestinians. In early November,
is divided tive cultural rights. . . . Simply
put, in this scenario the Jews
Israel’s most popular newspaper, between those could run the country while the
Yediot Ahronoth, carried a story
about a Bedouin from the Negev
who seek a state Arabs could live in it.

who was described as a fervent in the West Nusseibeh mentions this pro-
Zionist. His sons serve in the Is-
rael Defense Forces, he is in the
Bank and Gaza posal several times and examines it
at length, so he means it seriously.
reserves, and his daughter recently and those who It helps clarify why he has never
enlisted as the ﬁrst female soldier
from the Bedouin sector in south- continue to had much success as a political
ﬁgure, for this proposal engenders
ern Israel. The man in question, wish for a one- zero support among Palestinians.
Salame Abu Ghanem, told Yediot Palestinian opinion is divided be-
that “I am a proud Muslim, and I state solution tween those who seek an indepen-
am proud of the State of Israel . . . it
says in Israel’s declaration of in-
in which the dent state in the West Bank and
Gaza, and those who continue to
dependence that the state is Jew- Jewish state wish for a one-state solution in
ish. It’s clear to me that this is the
situation, from the day I was born.
becomes one which Israelis are eventually out-
numbered and the Jewish state
It’s clear to everyone, including more Arab state. becomes another Arab state. What
Arabs—so what is the problem? Nusseibeh calls his “halfway mea-
As far as I am concerned, you, my sure” is politically demented.
cousins, can run the country as you But he is a sensible man, so it is
see ﬁt . . . this is my country, I love it, ted?” Rejecting what Palestinian worth asking what he is up to here.
I want to serve.” groups call “armed struggle” and Some may suspect that this is his
Oddly enough, Nusseibeh comes most of us call terrorism, Nus- version of the phased approach
to view a twisted version of Gha- seibeh thinks Palestinian state- whereby Palestinians will, step
nem’s approach as the ideal solution hood is clearly not worth the ﬁght. by step, eliminate Israel, but that
to the Israeli-Palestinian conﬂict. He then ponders what other is not his goal. This slim volume
He believes it is likely too late for arrangements might be made and makes clear that he is wrestling
the two-state solution, or at least comes up with this bizarre answer: with the relationship between in-
too late to achieve it at a reasonable dividuals and the collective entities
price. Nor does he think Israelis will One future path that, I be- in which they live. He explains:
ever agree, peacefully, to a one-state lieve, deserves serious consid-
solution that creates a new entity in eration by both Palestinians States exist for us . . . in the
which they live as a minority. And he and Israelis is a one-state but sense of their being our ex-
is a man of peace and wishes perhaps electorally nondemocratic con- tended homes, familiar pub-
above all else to avoid more violence. sensual arrangement: that is, a lic spaces, constructed by us,
“During the period after 2000,” mutual agreed-upon conferral where we feel entitled to speak
he writes, “when Palestinian sui- by Israel of a form of “second- our minds, and where we can
cide attacks almost became the class citizenship” on all Pal- expect our general well-being
norm to express resistance to the estinians who wish to accept to be attended to and cared for.
occupation . . . I began asking my- it. For those Palestinians, the In this light, the question of
self what the state we were ﬁghting result would be like having a what states are for is ultimately
for is worth. How much killing can state in the weak sense [of ] about what it is to feel at home,
a group suffer or commit before the belonging to the state without about our inner emotions and
suffering and the loss of life begin being its co-owners. . . . This sce- aspirations, about who we are
to outweigh the values on whose nario . . . would maintain Jewish as human beings and how we
behalf the killing is being commit- ownership of the state while can best live together.

42 Politics & Ideas : January 2011
The problem for Nusseibeh is seemed poised and ready to
that such entities as states or in-
deed any political collectives end
up denying or destroying that
e A vibrant
Palestinian
take on the world . . . . Those
young Palestinian students
had faith in themselves . . . . Two
which we seek in them. He calls
these entities “meta-biological”
civic culture decades later, however, that
faith seems to have vanished,
(the book is full of far too much disappeared both among students and in
jargon of this sort). But his fears
are evident:
when Yasir the population at large. The
change seems to have begun as
Arafat returned soon as the Palestinian Author-
On one side of this picture
are ordinary human individu-
in 1993 and ity was installed and began
to construct ofﬁcial Palestinian
als. . . . who seek their own well- proceeded leadership ediﬁces. Somehow,
being. On the other side . . . are
lifeless layers of structures and to install his almost imperceptibly, people
began to turn over the power
entities through which individ- corrupt satrapy. they had possessed and exer-

Power was
uals seek and/or articulate this cised during the uprising to
well-being. As meta-biological the various arms of the newly-
structures, they may take the
form of ideologies, norms, be-
violently established Authority.

lief systems, religions, regimes, seized by his Here he conceals some critical
states, and so on. And as meta-
biological entities, they may
13 “security facts of which he must be aware.
The period he lauds, of Palestinian
take the form of gods, families, forces.” character and “faith in themselves”
tribes, nations, political move- before the PA was established, is
ments. . . . But whatever form precisely the period of direct Israeli
they may take, they threaten rule after 1967. And he is right: as
ﬁrst to dominate and then to Palestinian, a group led over the soon as Israel replaced the Jordani-
dehumanize the real, ﬂesh-and- past century ﬁrst by Haj Amin al- ans, Palestinian civic associations
blood individuals. Husseini (the notorious Mufti of sprung into life and a vibrant civic
Jerusalem) and then Yasir Arafat culture began to appear, mirroring
This is an astonishingly grim into paroxysms of violence and Israel’s democratic society. And it
view of human associations, all of terror that have deeply corrupted disappeared not when “the Pales-
which are in Nusseibeh’s view not their political culture. It is startling tinian Authority was installed” in
vehicles for human fulﬁllment but and depressing, but Nusseibeh ap- some bureaucratic sense, but when
threats to it. His approach is radi- pears in this book to be saying that Yasir Arafat returned as its head in
cally individualistic, then, and it Palestinians might be better off un- 1993—and proceeded to install his
is no wonder he does not think a der permanent Israeli rule, where corrupt satrapy. People did not “al-
Palestinian state worth much. at least they would have civil (if not most imperceptibly” begin to “turn
How does a thoughtful, civilized political) rights, while in their own over the power they had possessed.”
man reach such a view as this of state, they might well have neither. It was violently taken from them by
human life? Perhaps Nusseibeh’s Toward the end of the volume, Arafat and his 13 “security forces.”
conclusions are less surprising if Nusseibeh expresses some of his It is surprising that Nusseibeh
one considers him not, well, not as pessimism in describing the tra- does not make this point, but per-
an “ordinary human individual” jectory of Palestinian politics. He haps Arafat remains too holy an ob-
but as part of various “meta-biolog- explains that he has taught gen- ject to be described in any realistic
ical” entities and structures. He is erations of Palestinian university fashion by a Palestinian in public
an Arab, and there is not one single students and is life. More surprising still is his
Arab state that meets his deﬁnition ignorance of, or perhaps refusal to
of what states are “for.” Not one, struck by the change in their support, the current efforts of Pales-
for example, is a democracy whose general character since the es- tinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad
citizens or subjects “feel entitled to tablishment of the Palestin- to re-create a sense of civic in-
speak our minds.” He is moreover a ian Authority. Before, students volvement and virtue, to eliminate

Commentary 43
corruption, and to restore law and
order to Palestinian streets. Fayyad
has—to say the least—a tough row
to hoe given the sordid history of
Palestinian politics, the corruption
and incompetence that continue
to characterize the Fatah Party still
dominant in the West Bank, and the
Islamist extremism and terror in
Hamas-ruled Gaza. But this ought
to be Nusseibeh’s ﬁght as well.
The Nusseibehs are one of the
oldest families in Jerusalem; since
Saladin’s reign in the 12th century,
they have been entrusted to lock
and unlock the doors of the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre. (The only so-
lution to the ﬁghting among Chris-
tian communities was to give this
job to Muslims.) It is depressing to
see a philosopher and peace activ-
ist like Sari Nusseibeh so fearful or
despairing of Palestinian self-rule
that he ends up explaining why Pal-
estinians will perhaps be best off as
second-class citizens in Israel.
A Palestinian state is not—in
this, Nusseibeh is certainly right—
worth Palestinians seeking if the
main method is terrorism that
destroys their own values and the
outcome is just another Arab “re-
public” like Syria, Egypt, or Tunisia,
where freedom is lost. But watch-
ing Salam Fayyad and many other
Palestinians trying to revive a sense
of self-worth, one wonders why
Nusseibeh does not enlist. Last year,
Fayyad commented on the failure of
the “peace process” since Oslo and
said, “After 16 years why not change
the discourse? We have decided to
be proactive, to expedite the end
of the occupation by working very
hard to build positive facts on the
ground, consistent with having our
state emerge as a fact that cannot be
ignored. This is our agenda, and we
want to pursue it doggedly. It is em-
powering to even think that way.”
Indeed, far more empowering, in
any event, than disquisitions about
“meta-biological structures.”q