Summary
In Rethinking Statehood in Palestine, the paradigm that has dominated all international attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — dividing the land between two national states — and the paradigm the book argues must be transcended for Palestinian Self-determination and decolonization (Rethinking Statehood in Palestine, PDF p.21).
Details
- The Foreword: self-determination, statehood and partition shaped the modern global order after World War I, and the 1993 Oslo “peace process”, based on the partition logic of “land for peace”, greatly accelerated Israeli colonization of Palestine (PDF p.14).
- The Introduction: the Palestinian state project was the price of the Palestinian historic compromise, the only way to advocate within the international consensus on partition set out in UN Resolution 181 and UNSC Resolution 242; a state on only 22 percent of Palestine was considered better than none (PDF p.24).
- Under Oslo the PLO acquiesced to a conflict resolution approach intrinsically tied to territorial partition, and Israel’s recognition of the PLO proved a means to fragment the Palestinian people; the leadership, the international community and regional powers all remained committed to partition as the only way to achieve Palestinian independence (PDF p.26-27).
- Partition plans are intrinsic to imperial strategies to divide and conquer, proposed to “resolve” ethnic or national conflicts by steering groups into divided spaces, and have not succeeded in bringing enduring peace or reconciliation — Hamas-Fatah, Israel-Palestinians, India-Pakistan and the UK-Northern Ireland among the examples (PDF p.28, citing Dubonov and Robson).
- Oslo’s institutionalization of demographic separation through territorial fragmentation and annexation made any solution based on partition racially delineated and unequal (PDF p.31).
Related pages
Rethinking Statehood in Palestine, Two-state solution, One-state solution, Self-determination, Oslo Accords