An Online One State Bibliography in English

Living in a country - the United States - where Jews and Nazis, African-Americans and Ku Klux Klan members, Kurds and Turks, black and white South Africans, Irish Catholics and English Protestants, Serbs, Croats, and Albanians all manage to co-exist within the same state, the same polity, and the same society; the argument that Israeli Jews and Palestinian Christians and Muslims simply can never do the same carries no weight whatsoever. Of course there are grievances, tensions, and even sporadic violence, but this is true of all multicultural states, and regardless of what either Israelis or Palestinians have to say about, they do live in a multicultural state.

From the adoption of the ‘Resolution on Palestine’ at the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905 that determined that only Palestine was an acceptable target for the Zionist enterprise, the Zionist movement essentially guaranteed that any future Eretz Israel would be a multicultural state. Even before the coming of the Zionists, Palestine was multicultural; comprised of nomadic Bedouin, landed fellahin, Christians, Jews, Circassians, Druze, along with a smattering of Turks, and even Europeans. The early Zionist olim were just one more group landing and settling in this multicultural province of the Ottoman Empire. Just like in the modern United States, there were grievances, tensions, and sporadic violence, but society continued to function and it wasn't until much later - in 1948 - that the first mass ethnic cleansing along ethnic/cultural lines occurred in Palestine's modern history.

Regardless of the historical circumstances that resulted in the current situation – and there is plenty of blame to spread to all sides – the fact remains that today there are some five million Israeli Jews and five million Palestinian Arabs resident in the collective territory that has been under Israeli rule since 1967. Further, there is no realistic reason to believe that either of these populations is leaving. While there was a time that a two-state solution might have worked, the Israeli decision to use the Oslo process as cover for literally doubling the settlements – and their related infrastructure – in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has taken this option off the table. Virtually all rational observers recognize that any “Palestinian State” possible today would be nothing more than a South African style “Bantustan” at best, or a series of East European style ghettos at worse. Despite the allure of the notion of ethnic cleansing among the extreme Right of both sides, realistically this is not an option either.

Doyle’s character “Sherlock Holmes” once said: “It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” In the case of Israel/Palestine, the simple truth is that it has been a de facto one state since 1967. Today, the only realistic path forward is to come to grips with this reality and begin working toward peace by making this de facto reality a de jure one. Israel, having an absolute monopoly on power since 1967, has made this inevitable today. Even if some sort of “two-state” Bantustan or ghetto scheme were to be implemented today, it will not result in peace but be little more than a temporary stalling tactic as the demographic balance continues to shift in favor of the Palestinians.

The one state idea is an idea whose time has come. Despite the occasional rhetoric, the vast majority of Palestinians understand that the Israelis aren’t going anywhere. On the Israeli side – sharing many of the exact same fears faced by the Afrikaners in South Africa – this realization is coming about much more slowly, but it is starting to come about as well. Even the Rightist Yesha Council is now discussing various one state options that do not involve ethnic cleansing as an alternative to further territorial compromises.

None of the above is particularly new. Since 2002 and 2003 an ever increasing number of people have gradually reached the same conclusion. The “Pro-Unity One State Articles” bibliography is provided to give a fair representation of the various views and suggestions that have been presented promoting various models of political unification between “the river and the sea.” The “Anti-Unity Ethnic Separatist Articles” bibliography is meant to provide a fair view of the counter-arguments against political unification and in favor of ethnic separatism. The “Other Related Articles” bibliography provides articles on related topics that do not necessarily support or oppose a one state option in Israel/Palestine. The “Online Discussion Fora” table is not really a bibliography, but provides a list of online discussion groups where the one-state/two-state discussion is welcome. The “Organizations with Pro-Unity Positions” is meant to provide a resource for interested parties to learn more about various schemes and views of the inevitable one state.