Countering an illusion of our epoch: the re-emergence of the single state solution in Palestine/Israel

Since the Oslo Accords, the two-state solution has dominated, and frustrated, the official search for peace in Israel/Palestine. In parallel to it, an alternative struggle of resistance — centered upon the single state idea as a more liberating pathway towards justice to the conflict — has re-emerged against the hegemony of Zionism and the demise of a viable two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. This thesis inquires into the nature of this phenomenon as a movement of resistance and investigates its potential to become a counterhegemonic force against the processes of Zionism as embedded within the peace process since Oslo. To this end, it reconstructs the re-emergence of the single state solution both intellectually and organizationally. This reconstructive analysis is undertaken in two interlinked ways. On the one hand, this thesis analyzes and evaluates the single state alternative from within its own self-understandings, strategies and maps to power. In doing so, it centers the political practices of the situated resistances of the oppressed themselves. On the other hand, it mobilises a classical Gramscian theoretical approach—one that re-centers the processes of counterhegemony, and Gramsci’s radical embrace of the transformative power of the human being—through the writings of Edward Said. This theoretical lens enables the analysis of the counterhegemonic potential of this alternative through an evaluation of the extent to which it meets the more stringent demands of becoming a Gramscian-Saidian counterhegemonic force of liberation. Hence, this thesis represents both an empirical contribution to knowledge, and a theoretically informed analysis of the nature of the single state alternative. The thesis finds that the single state alternative can be seen as a Gramscian-Saidian movement of critical pedagogy aimed at creating a reconstructive moment within the conflict. It argues that it has laid much of the groundwork required to become an expansive counterhegemonic force. However, this potential has yet to be seized through a unified, officially led vehicle openly endorsing a single state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—and has several obstacles left to overcome in its process of becoming an established political force

The Single State Solution: Vision, Obstacles and Dilemmas of a Re-Emergent Alternative in Flux

In this chapter I begin by giving a brief snapshot of the recent re-emer- gence of the single-state solution as a potential political force, and of its alternative intellectual worldview against the Oslo Accords. Predominantly powered forward by the Palestinian Diaspora within the international arena today, it is this unified vision that holds the whole of the alternative together as a movement of resistance. Centering political Zionism and its processes of separation as the central obstacles to justice and equality in Palestine/Israel, in the second section I proceed to highlight the core elements of this world- view, and the strategies of resistance that emerged as channels through which to begin to transcend Zionism. In the final section of this chapter, I argue that in the single-state alternative’s struggle to erase the “green line,” and to wage a struggle for equal citizenship for all of the inhabitants of historic Palestine, the role of Palestinian-Israelis is central6. However, it is also within the dilemmas and divisions of this role that many of the obstacles facing the single-state alternative within the geography of Palestine/Israel itself can be seen. As such, in juxtaposing the voices of a selection of prominent Pales- tinian-Israeli intellectuals presently involved in the creation of a grassroots national movement for equal citizenship with those of others within the land of Palestine/Israel itself, I seek to underline the main obstacles and divisions the movement is currently facing across the fragmented geographies of the land. In doing so, I hope to be able to create space for strategies forward from within the terrains of the single-state alternative’s present failure to transform its original potential into a coherent movement for social change within the geography of the contested land itself

The single state alternative in Palestine/Israel

Since the Oslo Accords, the two-state solution has dominated, and frustrated, the official search for peace in Palestine/Israel. In parallel to it, an alternative struggle of resistance—centred upon the single-state idea as a more liberating pathway towards justice to the conflict—has re-emerged against the hegemony of Zionism and the demise of a viable two-state solution in Palestine/Israel. This paper inquires into the nature of this phenomenon as a movement of resistance. To this end, it reconstructs the re-emergence of the single-state solution intellectually and organisationally from within a Gramscian-inspired lens—while specifically focusing upon the centrality of the anti-Oslo writings of Edward Said and the consequent role of the Diaspora within this alternative. This it does from within a de-colonial approach to the politics of resistance which centres the political practices of the oppressed themselves in its analysis. Thus, it analyses the potential of the single-state alternative as a Gramscian ‘philosophical movement’ from within its own self-understandings, strategies and maps to power. In doing so, it aims to shed light upon a largely silenced pathway of resistance to the current peace process, to question its location between the ‘local’ and the ‘global’, and to take its possibility as a more just alternative to the status quo seriously

The Re-Emergence of the Single State Solution in Palestine/Israel : Countering an illusion

Providing the first in-depth intellectual and organizational mapping of the single state idea’s recent resurgence in Palestine/Israel, this book enquires into its nature as a phenomenon of resistance, as well as into its potential as a counterhegemonic force in the making against the processes of Zionism.Reconstructing this moment of re-emergence through primary material and interviews with diverse influential intellectuals—its analysis highlights their self-understandings, worldviews, strategies and perceptions of the phenomenon in which they are involved, while questioning whether the single state idea has the potential to become a Gramscian inspired movement of resistance against Zionism. In presenting this rare insight into a resistance movement in the making, this book resurrects an empowering image of Antonio Gramsci infused with the writings of Edward Said. This it does in an effort to both problematize the dominant interpretations of Gramsci’s writings in International Relations, and to decolonise the abstract way in which resistance and counter hegemony are often studied in the discipline.Contributing a mapping of a silenced alternative and hopeful way forward in the context of escalating violence, this book is essential reading for those studying the Arab-Israeli conflict, Middle East Politics and International Relations