Hey, I don’t oppose to this as a viable path forward and neither do many anti-Zionists. However I do think this is a half measure which will result in a continued struggle for justice among Palestinians. This would be similar to the Anglo-Irish treaty which history has shown us was actually not a good solution.
If they would have the foresight to include guaranteed civil rights for Arabs living in Israel and a Political avenue for the unification of Palestine which could be executed in a couple of generations, perhaps the worst of the mistakes of the Anglo-Irish treaty could be averted.
What made the Anglo-Irish treaty so disastrous for Northern Ireland were in fact racialized policies and discriminatory practices which denied civil rights and political representation for one group so that the other group could exert their dominance. If a two state solution repeats that, all I can say, is “I told you so”.
> The Arab world was (is, really) in the verge of normalizing relations with Israel, premised on the viable solution I outlined above.
The political class in most of the Arab world is not Anti-Zionist.
To me, with this definition, being "anti-Zionist" makes about as much sense as being "anti-Texan". And, aesthetically, I get it! My wife is from Houston! I've had to go there! But it's not a position I can understand taking seriously. There are multiple ongoing urgent problems, and none of them involve granting millions of people dual citizenship to Israel (or Texas).
I understand and can take seriously a narrower "anti-Zionist" definition that pushes back on "Greater Israel" ideology that impedes Palestinian self-determination.
But what we're talking about here is basically: "I reject the premise of the state of Israel". To which, and I mean this respectfully, the only reasonable response I can see is "it's good to want things, I guess".
(It's fine if we just intractably disagree; it would be weird if any two people here never did.)
Would it help if you thought of Anti-Zionism as a social justice movement rather than a foreign policy ideology?
The goal here is social justice for Palestinians, as of now, they don’t have civil rights, political recognition, nor any non-violent avenues of resistance. So I get your sense that, yes, these are urgent issues which needs addressed. But the anti-Zionist will not stop until full justice is achieved. Maybe you are looking at an anti-racist while slavery is still a thing, or a land-back activist during the trial of tears. Perhaps you are a reformist being presented with a radical (i.e. looking at the root of the issue) solution.
For me the root of the issue is the settler colonial prospect of Israel, while Israel wants to maintain any ethnocratic policies (i.e. zionism) it will have to come at the cost of civil rights for Palestinians. My solution is to not grant Israel the right of ethnocratic policies.
Sure. I have friends who believe that all national boundaries are immoral, that free immigration and equal citizenship is everyone's global birthright. I get that! I can't engage with it (any more than I can engage meaningfully with my anarcho-abolitionist friends), but I can recognize it as a coherent ideal even if my own premises prevent me from recognizing it as a practical plan. And, of course, I can be wrong about all this stuff.
I think the only thing I'd put on the table here past just recognizing that we're working from incompatible premises (at least, when we get past a Palestinian state and self-determination, and probably Netanyahu in a prison cell somewhere) is to try to stay cognizant of whether the standards you're setting for Israel are the same as those of other countries or other people or other ethnicities or whatever. because there's a whole grim history of people pretty much everywhere in the world singling Jewish people out as moral "others". But if you're being consistent about stuff, I don't have much to push back on.
If they would have the foresight to include guaranteed civil rights for Arabs living in Israel and a Political avenue for the unification of Palestine which could be executed in a couple of generations, perhaps the worst of the mistakes of the Anglo-Irish treaty could be averted.
What made the Anglo-Irish treaty so disastrous for Northern Ireland were in fact racialized policies and discriminatory practices which denied civil rights and political representation for one group so that the other group could exert their dominance. If a two state solution repeats that, all I can say, is “I told you so”.
> The Arab world was (is, really) in the verge of normalizing relations with Israel, premised on the viable solution I outlined above.
The political class in most of the Arab world is not Anti-Zionist.