Yara El-Ghadban
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Having been born a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, I grew up with the idea that Palestinians must fight not only for their right of return (a right guaranteed by UN resolutions and by the universal Declaration for the Human Rights) but also fight for a Palestinian State. Like the majority of Palestinians, I supported a peace process which could lead to the establishment of two States. This solution which requires the withdrawal of Israel from the 1967 territories and the recognition of refugee rights has been proposed on the negotiation table time and time again.
However, as soon as I set foot in Palestine and Israel for the first time in 1999 (as a Canadian citizen of course, since as a refugee I still don’t have the right to visit), I understood that this solution would be, at best, a still-born baby, in the worst case scenario, a recepy for another series of wars.
It was then, during my master’s research on Palestinian music, that I discovered a land which, at the dawn of the 20th century, was among the most cosmopolitan in the world. Thanks to geography, it had become a transit land for artists, merchants and pilgrims coming in from the Maghreb (North Africa) and the Mashreq (the Middle East). Jerusalem was at the heart of the cultural life of the country and thus witnessed an intense movement of individuals and ideas. I discovered the splendid history of this area through the biographical account of Palestinian musician, poet and chronicler, Wassif Jawhariyyah, who lived in Jerusalem at that time and whose mémoirs were translated and published recently by Palestinian historians.
Jawhariyyah portrays, through his writings, the image of a pluralist Jerusalem, open to modernity, whose religious status hardly corresponded to the metropolitan and secular temperament of its citizens. He also gives us an account of another era when, as a teenager and musician, he participated in Jewish festivals and highlighted the strong presence of Jewish musicians originally from Aleppo and Ashkenazy ensembles that he accompanied as they performed variations on Arab music repertory. All the while, Sepharady choirs, Jawhariyyah recalls, performed Andalusian music during Arab marriages in Jerusalem. All that, he sadly adds, “was before the cursed Belfour declaration” in which the British promise in 1917 to help create a Jewish State in Palestine.
From that point on, Jawhariyyah presents us with a fascinating portrait of a Jerusalem where the dynamics of power between an aristocratic and opportunistic social elite, an emerging middle-class, a declining Ottoman empire and a double colonialist force represented by Zionist militants and the British were echoed, but also contradicted on the sociocultural scene.
Furthermore, his account calls into question the segregation of Jerusalem’s neighborhoods according to religion, a separation reinforced by the British under the pretext that they were merely maintaining an already established reality. Jawhariyyah rather describes numerous popular districts whose borders were fluid and were mostly marked by the mahallates (stores) whose goods were aimed at specific customers without excluding the others (somewhat like the multi-ethnic neighbourhoods of Montreal).
Today, all that of course has changed, but not as much as one might think. As soon as one sets foot in Palestine or Israel, they are struck by the closeness of the villages, that are however separated by walls; one is struck by the closeness of the people who cross the streets, without ever speaking to one another; one is struck by the shared history of a land located at the crossroads of three continents and three religions that find their source within the same theological genealogy. One is struck by the pluralism of this society at war with itself, where Armenians, Greek, Syrians, Iraqi, Palestinians, Lebanese, Egyptians, Bedouins, Muslim, Jew, Christian, Druze, Bahaï, only to mention a few, have been established there for such a long time.
Tell me now, how do you expect to divide and partition this land into two States where several histories coincide; where one can literally cross from the Red Sea to the Lebanese border in one day, where the villages are sometimes separated by no more than two road lanes; where there are so many overlapping myths and beliefs? The two State solution, which is no more than a camouflaged form of partition, can only lead to a new wave of “ethnic cleansing”.
Partition has a terrible history in our modern world. It has never resolved anything, except in very rare cases where separation was already established before the fact, as in the case of Tcheckoslovakia. In the vast majority of cases, partition has only produced extremely traumatizing and violent population transfers, civil wars and eternal conflicts between States on the borders. Partition is all the more precarious in the Israeli-Palestinian case since there will always be a part of the population that won’t accept the territory it has been granted on the map and who would either ask for independence or to join the neighbouring State for historical, ethnic, economic, religious or cultural reasons.
Moreover, partition requires a clear division of the land what is impossible today, because the Palestinian territories are literally perforated with Israeli colonies and are dissected by a network segregationist roads reserved to Israelis, not to mention the military barriers. Furthermore, this solution would only allow Palestinians in diaspora to return to the Palestinian State thus circumventing the recognition by Israel of it responsibility in the 1948 uprooting of the Palestinians, and the possibility of financial compensation for the refugees who do not return. That will only lead to an enormous financial and demographic burden that the Palestinian State would have to carry alone. Lastly, thanks to this “solution”, Jerusalem will be eternally divided, and will remain the center of conflicts and demographic and ideological wars.
Discouraged? Me too.
After nearly eight years of annual trips to Palestine and Israel, I came to the realization that only a bi-national state could bring back peace to the area. A fundamentally pluralist state, culturally, linguistically and religiously. A state with a constitution and a charter of rights to protect the rights of minorities as well as with a hybrid democratic system stemming from the history of the Middle East and thus inevitably based on a reconciliation between religion and politics. Why not a republican and strictly secular system? Quite simply, one need only witness the failure of states that have claimed to be exclusively secular or exclusively theocratic to understand that such a system is bound to fail in a multi-ethnic region where religion and politics have never been separated.
And what about the population in diaspora? There should be a regional agreement among all concerned countries which would allow (1) the recognition of the right of return, a right already given to Jewish communities around the world, (2) the financial compensation of refugees for the suffering and expropriated lands, (3) citizenship for the Palestinians in the countries where they have settled for six decades, and (4) a policy of reunification for members of the families separated by the uprooting of 1948.
Contrary to those who are opposed to this solution for demographic reasons, it seems to me that by offering recognition, compensation and citizenship in diaspora, while opening the entire land instead of a part of it to those who want to return, there will no longer be any mass movement of people, nor any artificial ethnic concentration in certain areas.
With regard to the minority status of Jewish communities and their freedom of movement in the Arab world, this agreement would allow (1) the recognition of a Jewish national identity, (2) the protection of their culture, language, religious and community rights, (3) the end of hostility towards Jewish communities in Arab countries, and the eventual reunification of Jewish families affected by the Arab-Israeli wars, all the while being citizens and one of the two founding members of a bi-national State.
It should never be forgotten that Jewish communities were always a minority in the Arab world, and yet, in spite of this seemingly precarious historical status, the Zionist movement was born in Europe and not among Jewish communities from the Middle East, therefore the thesis of an “innate hatred” and historical hostility between the communities is not credible.
Taking into account the demographic growth of Arabs, and particularly that of Palestinians, the symbolic walls of an exclusively Jewish state will not be able to ensure the development nor the security of Jewish communities for long, especially if they are at war with the majority. It is in the interest of Israelis to opt for the bi-national solution.
Furthermore, by unifying the land instead of proceeding with an extremely risky exchange of parts of territories and colonies and with the division of natural resources here and there- a process that will only reinforce the claims of extremist groups on both sides- these territories will no longer be small and ethnically homogeneous islands where part of the population is excluded from the benefits of the natural resources and where minorities feel threatened.
For ardent defenders of Israel, this solution would put an end to Israel in its current state. Yes, this solution would put an end to a “certain” Israel and a “certain” Palestine, mythical, ethnically homogeneous, prey to ideological groups and to a colonial system of artificially invented nation-states. In their place, a country that is peaceful and faithful to the history of the peoples who have lived it in, will blossom.
Idealistic? May be but I’m not alone, I’m merely repeating what a considerable number of respected Palestinian and Israeli intellectuals have already proposed, including literary critic and activist Edward Said, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, deputy-mayor of Jerusalem in the 1970s, Meron Benvenisti, Arab-israeli member of the Knesset, Azmi Bishara, and other academics like Tanya Reinhart, Virginia Tilley, Leila Farsakh; as well as journalists like Amira Haas and Ali Abunimeh.
Practically unrealistic? Nobody believed that the apartheid would disappear without a blood bath between Blacks and Whites in South Africa. And yet, by favouring a process of reconciliation and not of retribution, supported by the international community, a terrible situation was transformed into one of the few success stories of our times.
4 Comments, Comment or Ping
Please allow me to share my reaction to your thoughtful text. There are a couple of mistakes here.
Israel is not, of course, an ethnically homogeneous island — it is, in fact, quite heterogenous — nor would it become so upon the creation of a Palestinian state.
The modern Zionist movement’s birth in Europe is, of course an outgrowth of public international law’s birth in Europe. It is the following-through of the idea that each people has the right of self-determination. That idea is the foundation of international law even today. So, while many Zionist movements have been started by the Jews living in what we today call Arab countries or under Muslim rule, the modern one — unsurprisingly — is the only one that corresponds to the Europe-originated system of public international law.
Finally, as to a “one-state” solution, by all means, if that is what the peoples involved desire. But you should know that the Jews and the Palestinians, being peoples under international law, each have the right to decide to move forward or not move forward in this manner.
Oh, I do think it is a nice idea to abolish borders and create republican countries in which multiple peoples can look to the state to assert their group rights. (Religion has little to do with it — Israel is not a particularly religious state, compared with most even in Europe, unless you are one of the people who tries to deny Jews their national existence and close them in a box called “religion”.)
So, sure, post-national states. But the rights asserted by Israelis or Armenians, or for that matter Quebec nationalists vis-a-vis the Quebec state, hardly seem like the convenient place to start erasing borders, if post-national states are what one wishes to get started on. Longer-established countries are in a better position to do so. Perhaps have Morocco and Senegal merge to become one countries. France and Germany can efface the border to merge as one. Greece and Turkey can become a unitary state. Azerbaijan and Then we will be ready to start with the newer countries.
Until then, rather than dismantling the system of international law and doing away with the nation-states which are its building-blocks, we are stuck with the imperfect system of: in many places, a state exists to assert the collective rights of particular peoples, yet must also respect the individual rights of all of the people. Israel, or for that matter any other Middle Eastern country, is certainly not immune to this requirement!
April 28th, 2007
Thank you for your comment. Let me go back to some of the points you make:
1) There is nothing post-national about what I and others before me have proposed and it is definitely NOT republican ( I\’m not particularly fond of republicanism which for me is based on an artificial notion of equality, an equality that does not recognize and is unable to deal with or tolerate difference and diversity). In its European version at least, republicanism also requires strict secularism which goes against all of the history and cultures of the Middle-East, Jewish and otherwise. On the contrary, a bi-national state reasserts the importance of national and cultural identity while recognizing that both Jewish and Palestinian identities have always been and will be forever intertwined.
2) Israeli society being not very religious ( which I know having been there annually for the past 8-9 years), does not change the fact that religious identity and nationality are merged in Zionist ideology and it has been used time and time again to justify Israeli policy, all the while undermining alternative voices within Israel and outside who have tried to separate the two, notably by showing that Zionism goes against Judaism\’s teachings.
3) The logic of international law does not work here: It has not worked for Palestinians, who so far, and despite many laws that confirm their rights, are still living and dealing with injustice, violence and occupation, and it does not work for Israelis who want peace because they keep being accused of denying the injustices done to Jews as well as their rights as a people which is a total manipulation, in my opinion, of the suffering of Jews and a very effective way of justifying occupation by playing the victim and the \”self-determination\” card.
4) One should be very careful with using modern ideas of nationhood like Zionism and applying them to other historical periods, as the link you referred me too does, where ideas of belonging existed in very different contexts and had very different meanings. Not only that, but the discourse in that page clearly ignores historical documents on Jewish-Islamic relations, exchanges in philosophy, cohabitation, notably in Andalousia and later on under Ottoman rule until the arrival of european colonialists. It is part of nationalistic discourse to try to invent historical legitimacy by reconstructing and reinterpreting past manifestations of identity and pluralism, and this case, claim that Arabs and Jews have always been enemies (which goes against most historical accounts of the region).
What I refer too in my little passage about Jerusalem, is very recent, it is not 1000 years ago, it is not even a 100 years ago and it existed when the idea of nationhood was well underway in Europe, which means that alternative models of nationhood that do not require creating homogeneous territories and ethnic identities nor erasing them all together (as republicanism does) are possible and not only that, they might work better considering where eurocentric nationalism has lead us so far.
5) Speaking of different Zionisms, the bi-national state is a very old idea which was actually defended way before the 1947 partition, ironically, by Zionists who wanted to fight for the recognition of Jewish identity but were against that being done by taking someone else\’s land. As Leila Farsakh has argued:
LINK: http://mondediplo.com/2007/03/07binational
6) As I said in the article, it is not a question of what people think they want. People want peace, and the solution that will bring peace is the one they will prefer. They have been told for the last 60 years, the only solution that will bring peace is to divide and separate (a solution that has so far miserably failed in other conflicts), a solution which history, demography, geography all show would be a dead-end. If we look at those three things seriously (history, geography, demography) and if we want peace, there can only be one solution: one state. Whether people are ready for it right now, that is another question. But someday they will be because there is no other option left in my opinion.
7) I don\’t see how a bi-national state undermines international law. Ironically, Israel is a democracy with no constitution and that is not a coincidence because if they had a constitution, they would not be able to justify their policies under the cover of democracy. That is why, I think it is very important, as I suggest, that there be a constitution and a charter of rights that would balance popular / representational democracy ( the tyranny of the majority who sometimes can make very bad decisions) with a constitution and a charter that would uphold human rights, international law and the collective rights of minorities in a bi-national state. Should such an arrangement lead necessarily to emphasis on the individual and on secularism? That is what has happened in Western societies, but that is not the only way nor necessarily the right way to go in the Middle-East. That is where a lot of thinking has to be done.
April 28th, 2007
Yara,
Je ne suis pas d’accord avec ton diagnostic et les remèdes que tu proposes. Aussi permets moi d’en discuter franchement.
D’abord tu pars de l’idée que dans le passé lointain comme assez récent, Juifs, Arabes, Musulmans, Chrétiens, Bahais, Druzes, etc. vivaient en une sorte de symbiose. Certes, ils ne se mélangeaient pas mais ils échangeaient (commerce, culture, arts), des amitiés personnelles existaient, un certain sens de la solidarité “territoriale” existait.
C’est une vision que je pense trop idyllique du monde d’avant et insuffisante pour celui de demain. Le “c’était mieux avant” est toujours plus facile à dire lorsqu’on n’a pas vécu le passé.
Ensuite, il y a ce qu’il faut bien appeler un procès, celui du modèle de l’État-nation. Et je suis partiellement d’accord avec toi sur ce point sauf que l’alternative c’est l’Empire (Ottoman, Britannique, Américain (?) ou reconstitution du Califat pour les islamistes).
D’un autre coté, la Nation, dans le concept que tu appelles républicain (mais qui marche très bien en monarchie), sans doute fais-tu référence au modèle d’Horowitz, c’est tout de même la souveraineté populaire!
C’est le principe selon lequel ce n’est plus le Roi qui dispose de ses sujets, qui établit sa propriété sur ses fiefs, et ce arbitrairement, mais que le souverain devient “les habitants du pays”. C’est un principe démocratique incontournable et je crois qu’il faut lui rendre justice.
Concernant le droit international, hérité des traités de Westphalie (1648): ce droit, en consacrant la souverainté des États (devenue souveraineté nationale), consacre en effet l’interdiction par le Droit aux couronnes de s’échanger territoires et populations comme des pastilles de menthe.
Rappelles-toi du dépeçage de la Pologne par les Prussiens, Autrichiens et Russes coalisés! L’Histoire tragique de l’Europe de l’est est due au non respect de ces principes cardinaux, non à leur application.
Quant au constat selon lequel la séparation des nations et leur redistribution de manière homogène sur des territoires séparés est une suite d’échecs tous plus épouvantables les uns que les autres, ça me paraît être un jugement expéditif.
La Yougoslavie est certes née à la suite de la proclamation des 14 points de Wilson mais cela n’empêche pas que ce pays multiethnique a été créé effectivement sur des bases totalement artificielles. L’explosion des années 1990 n’est pas due au principe des nationalités mais au fait que la realpolitk a fait assembler un amas hétéroclite de peuples, par la contrainte, dans un seul et même État.
Le principe des nationalités, justement, aurait empêché qu’on force à vivre ensemble Sebes et Croates!
Le principe des nationalités, c’est également l’émancipation de l’Italie, de la Hongrie, de la Tchéquie, de la Pologne, mais également de la Chine, de l’Algérie, du Vietnam, du Sénégal, etc.
Oui, c’est aussi l’émancipation des colonies des métropoles européennes! Tu dis que l’état-nation, somme toute, est chose occidentale et que c’est une erreur de l’appliquer à d’autres, que c’est procéder d’une vision européo-centriste que de vouloir l’appliquer tel quel au Moyen-Orient.
Mais, dans ce cas, que les Algériens abandonnent conscience nationale et souveraineté et qu’ils reviennent sous le joug de la France! Que la Palestine revienne sous mandat britannique, que les irakiens et tant de peuples qui se sont battus pour leurs libertés collectives, les rendent et reviennent à leur “habitus” de sujets d’Empire (Abasside, Ottoman et non pas seulement les méchants Britanniques et Français).
Peut-être que je vais trop loin et que je dépasse ta pensée mais l’idée que je défends c’est qu’il est dommage, vraiment dommage, d’oublier à quel point le principe des nationalités est révolutionnaire. À l’origine même, il était de gauche!
Mais aujourd’hui, une partie de la gauche renoue avec la Réaction et reprend à son compte les idées que ses adversaires d’hier faisaient leurs : Herder, de Maîstre, de Bonald, Vico, Burke, etc.
Yara, tu dis qu’il faut un État bi-national. Je n’ai rien contre dans le principe SI les nationalités concernées l’approuvaient. Mais je vois mal les Palestiniens vivre avec les Israéliens qu’ils haissent tant et vice-versa et je veux éviter un nouveau Sarajevo ou un nouveau Rwanda.
Mais tant qu’à faire, puisque la Petite Palestine qui sera bien créée un jour en Cisjordanie+Gaza, ne sera pas un État viable et puisqu’Israel ne l’est pas non plus, car trop exigus, ces États ne pourraient-t-ils pas fusionner dans une Grande Syrie?
À rejeter le principe des nationalités en combattant le concept d’État-nation, on risque de réintroduire le principe impérial. L’impérialisme qui froisse tant les Palestiniens reviendrait alors par la porte arrière car n’est-ce pas le grand “frère” syrien qui disait à Arafat que la Palestine n’est qu’une chimère, une invention de l’OLP et que la réalité c’est que ça fait partie de la Syrie?
Quant à la notion d’État non viable ou artificiel, elle souffre d’une vision trop réductrice du monde. L’indépendance est une virtualité que la réalité contourne: les États, quelque soit leur puissance, sont interdépendants. La Suisse qui n’a pas de maitères premières, en fournissant services financiers et en produisant des biens industriels, s’inscrit dans les termes de l’échange global et compense ses carences en gagnant de quoi acheter ce qui lui manque.
Je crois et je me fais volontiers “conservateur”, que le principe des nationalités et que le droit international méritent aménagements et éclaircissements - enlever le coté passionel, “germanique” de la chose, pour conserver la version rousseauiste, kantienne, ouverte, inclusive, civique - mais qu’ils sont nécessaires plus que jamais.
Oui les Palestiniens vivent une injustice et je n’y suis pas insensible, je te prie de le reconnaître malgré mon discours peut-être difficile à digérer mais je dois aussi timorer ce constat. Les Palestiniens bénéficient d’une reconnaissance internationale de leurs droits légitimes et le temps ne joue clairement pas en faveur de ceux qui en Israel rêvent encore d’écraser le mouvement d’émancipation palestinienne.
Mais soulignons qu’il existe des situations infiniment plus tragiques que tout ce qu’ont vécu les Palestiniens en 59 ans! Inutile d’énumérer la liste de ces peuples oubliés des médias, des intellectuels, et des manuels d’histoire.
Maintenant, dans ta défense d’un modèle “bi-national” qui ne ferait pas la part belle au sécularisme, je lis quelque chose comme la thèse d’Arendt Lijphard sur la démocratie consociative.
C’est-à-dire une forme de cohabitation “respectueuse” de la diversité, dis tu! Mais qu’est-ce que la diversité? Enfermer les hommes et les femmes à l’intérieur de frontières ethniques, quand bien même les frontières ne seraient plus géographiques et autoriseraient les échanges de toute nature?
Mais enfin, qu’est-ce qui est le plus grave? Des frontières géographiques, administratives, totalement artificielles mais des fictions légales que des regroupements comme l’Union Européenne, qui sont un exemple, sont en train de transformer ou les frontières, certes discontinues, de religion, de sectes, de race, d’ethnie?
Est-ce que la protection de la diversité c’est la reconnaissance de l’autre en tant qu’individu, dans son authenticité, sa particularité qu’il/elle ne partage avec nul autre au monde et qu’il est LIBRE de se choisir ou de s’arrêter à la reconnaissance des ensembles comme les Juifs, les Musulmans, les Chrétiens, les Arabes, les Européens, etc?
La diversité c’est avant tout celle des êtres humains, des individus, c’est le caractère sacré de chacun. La religion, la nationalité, l’éthnie, l’identité, tout cela n’est que vues de l’esprit même si l’Histoire les a confortées et leur a donné valeur d’évidence.
L’organicisme, la théorie des corps intermédiaires, pour quelque utiles que ces notions puissent être pour tempérer les excès de la majorité, elles n’ont jamais fondé, sans être dépassées par le principe de la souveraineté populaire, un seul régime de Liberté et d’Égalité.
L’exemple du Liban est saisissant et il ne suffit pas d’évoquer les ingérences multiples pour balayer ce contre-exemple du revers de la main. En tant qu’État multiethnique, multireligieux, le Liban, s’il est parvenu a éviter le totalitarisme de son grand voisin Syrien, n’en a pas moins échoué à fonder une société ouverte et tolérante. La Belgique, État bi-national, connaît des convulsions qui remettent en cause son modèle pourtant porté par deux grandes communautés qui ne se démarquent pas par leurs passions.
Que le sionisme ait “importé” d’Europe le principe des nationalités est vrai mais encore faut-il dire que les nationalistes arabes, qui lui sont contemporains, ont fait exactement la même chose. Relevons également que le nationalisme arabe, par delà toutes ses déclinaisons, était initialement la tentative d’arabes pas forcément musulmans de conserver leur place dans un ensemble moyen-oriental dominé par l’islam. La sécularisation, pour nombre de minorités dans une région qui s’épure d’eux depuis quelques décennies, est leur seule chance de se maintenir chez elles à long-terme.
Réconcilier religion et politique est un vaste programme mais il sera difficile de promouvoir l’unité des peuples (pour ne pas dire des nations) en maintenant la séparation très féodale qui préexistait l’ordre westphalien adapté au M-O. Le sécularisme n’est pas tant cette doctrine inhumaine que vous nous décrivez qu’un moyen de s’entendre, en dépit de nos différences. Ce n’est pas l’effacement de nos différences mais leur maintient dans un respect sobre, feutré et discret, c’est-à-dire tout le contraire de l’ostentatoire, l’orgueilleuse et vindicative revendication de son appartenance à tel ou tel groupe.
La Nation c’est effectivement le fait de déposséder ces corps intermédiaires, notables, clercs, aristocrates, etc. de leurs clientèles. En remettant à l’individu le soin de sélectionner ses préférences, ses différences et de composer avec elles, en lui remettant entre ses mains la Souveraineté, la nation retire aux “féodaux” précités le pouvoir (paternaliste) de s’entremettre entre les uns et les autres, d’instrumentaliser leurs clientèles et de s’en servir à des fins politiques.
La France orléaniste était, par exemple, une illustration moderne de ce type de société avec un Parlement fort où s’exprimaient les différents “corps intermédiaires”.
Le pluralisme est un terme à la mode mais je ne crois pas qu’il soit interchangeable avec le mot diversité. Le pluralisme c’est précisément cette société de corps, de corporations, cette société fragmentée en groupes (ethniques, religieux, professionels, ou autres) où l’individu ne peut exister en dehors d’eux à moins d’être sérieusement désavantagé. La diversité c’est tout de même la reconnaissance de l’individu car elle est là la richesse, elle est là la légitimité, elle est en chacun de nous la diversité. L’être humain prime les intérêts de groupe, de caste, de corporation. C’est l’intérêt général, c’est l’État impartial, c’est la justice du peuple et non d’une élite ni d’un compromis immoral entre les intérêts retranchés des “représentants” de tel ou tel corps.
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Ton point 7 est très intéressant et peut servir d’illustration:
“”" 7) I don\’t see how a bi-national state undermines international law. Ironically, Israel is a democracy with no constitution and that is not a coincidence because if they had a constitution, they would not be able to justify their policies under the cover of democracy. That is why, I think it is very important, as I suggest, that there be a constitution and a charter of rights that would balance popular / representational democracy ( the tyranny of the majority who sometimes can make very bad decisions) with a constitution and a charter that would uphold human rights, international law and the collective rights of minorities in a bi-national state. Should such an arrangement lead necessarily to emphasis on the individual and on secularism? That is what has happened in Western societies, but that is not the only way nor necessarily the right way to go in the Middle-East. That is where a lot of thinking has to be done. “”
Israel, il est vrai, n’a pas de constitution mais ça ne veut pas dire qu’il n’y a pas de lois constitutionnelles (dites lois fondamentales) qui compensent largement cette absence de texte unique. D’ailleurs, le Royaume-Uni, démocratie exemplaire s’il en est, n’a pas de constitution non plus. Le Canada n’en a pas eu de 1867 à 1982!
L’idée de contre-balancer la “tyrannie de la majorité” en Israel est erronée. Le système électoral - proportionelle intégrale - en Israel bien au contraire des USA et de la France, donne une prime aux petits partis c’est-à-dire
à une foison de forces politiques qui s’équilibrent toutes les unes les autres.
S’il y a bien un pays au monde où la tyrannie de la majorité ne peut s’exercer, c’est bien Israel, un pays où on ne peut pas former un gouvernement sans former d’abord une coalition parlementaire. C’est peut-être d’ailleurs un grand problème israélien qu’à chaque fois qu’un PM veut mener une politique ambitieuse (de paix par exemple), il doive compter sur des partenaires issus de partis particularistes (exemple: celui des russes, l’autre des séniors) qui n’ont pas fait campagne en disant clairement quel était leur positionnement sur la question de la paix mais qui, néanmoins prennent les gouvernements en otages et souvent les forcent à réduire leurs ambitions.
D’une certaine manière, le modèle politique israélien est proche du type de modèle que tu défends dans ton texte.
Merci de m’avoir lu et j’espère que nous aurons un échange dépassioné et franc
May 20th, 2007
Voir ma réponse ici:
http://www.tropismes.org/post/120
Yara
May 21st, 2007
Reply to “Palestine: For a Bi-national State”