Between the Two-State Solution & Israeli Apartheid Week

BY JAIDAA TAHA, ABDALLAH
ABDELDAYEM & MARIAM MANSOUR
@CARAVAN_AUC

Nearly half of surveyed AUCians said they were not aware of Israeli Apartheid Week activities held on campus March 20 to 24. An even greater number – 65 percent – said they did not know about a sit-in held on March 24 in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The Israeli Apartheid Week is a yearly event that aims to raise awareness about the Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestine and inform people of The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS Movement), which is a global campaign attempting to increase economic and political pressure on Israel.

“We’re planning on holding an apartheid week each year, but we are working on a long-term movement which is building up a branch of the BDS movement at AUC,” said Ibrahim Ahmed, construction engineering senior and organizer of the Apartheid Week.

“This is going to be something sustainable that takes place throughout the year to raise awareness about the Palestinian cause and provide ways to boycott Israel effectively,” Ahmed told The Caravan.

Meanwhile, director of policy and government relations for Americans for Peace Now Lara Friedman addressed how a two-state- solution is the only viable outcome to the ongoing conflict in a lecture held at AUC earlier that month.

Since 1967, the Israeli- Palestinian conflict has been one of the major dilemmas in the Middle East.

Americans for Peace Now is an organization initiated by mostly American Jews to monitor the US government’s policies against peace between both Palestine and Israel.

It was mainly founded to raise funds and charitable donations to the organization Peace Now in Israel, but its goals later expanded, Friedman explained.

Friedman described the organization’s mission as a “mirror image” of what its sister organization Peace Now, an Israeli organization which monitors the Israeli government’s policies against peace, raises awareness among the people and mobilizes them in protests to alter these policies.

Having lived in Jerusalem for two years, Friedman illustrated that she felt responsible for tracking the government’s policies, especially that she was raised in a community which is deeply concerned with Israel.

Friedman often dealt with members of congress over the decade of working with Americans for Peace Now. She explained that whether they agree or disagree, she refers to the map, and not her opinion of the West bank settlements.

Since Americans for Peace Now endorses the two-state solution to the conflict, Friedman elaborated that it meant a negotiated agreement between Israel and Palestine. This agreement would lead to two geographically contiguous states, recognized by the world economically and politically.

However, Friedman clarified that people who claim that they support the two-state solution and say that Israel should keep all of Jerusalem, are not supporting the two-state solution.

“They’re either lying to themselves or lying to all of us,” added Friedman referring to the fact that no Palestinian leader would give up Jerusalem.

Nevertheless, Friedman stated that the solution is viable if two leaders who had the courage, political will and ability emerged for negotiations. Although it is difficult and a lot of settlers will be moved, she emphasized that the solution is absolutely doable.

She stated that she did not comprehend how people view the two-state solution as unreachable when the one-state solution is not easily applied either.

Friedman explained that the one-state outcome means urging Palestinians to fight for eternity, as Israelis are never leaving, along with convincing Israelis of the impossibility of erasing the Palestinian nationality.

“If you say it’s going to be one Jewish state river to the sea, you’re living in a fantasy world where there’s going to be perpetual conflict,” said Friedman.

Friedman also rejected the idea of the one-state secular democracy as both groups are hostile to one another, referring to the cases of Ramallah and Tel Aviv where each group live in a non-shared community.

“It’s not a secular struggle fundamentally or a nonnationalistic struggle, it is a struggle between two different peoples who both want and have a right to hold on to their identity,” added Friedman.

Unlike Friedman, Assistant Professor of International Security and Conflict Management in the Department of Public Policy Allison Hodgkins supported the one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hodgkins told The Caravan that UN resolution 242 in 1967 was the base for a two-state solution, which later became an international consensus for the solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

However, Hodgkins explained that the resolution was originally made to return the occupied territories to Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Hence, she considers the two-state approach problematic because it is based on a resolution that is irrelevant to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict per se.

Besides, Hodgkins said that she is not sure whether the two-state solution under the Oslo Accords, a peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, is viable any longer.

She clarified that it might have been implemented in the past by agreements between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

“I think we have come to a point where the facts on the ground have gone beyond what a two-state solution can accommodate,” added Hodgkins.