One Country A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-palestinian Impasse

A "visionary"* approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflictone state for two peoplesthat is more urgent than ever Clear-eyed, sharply reasoned, and compassionate,One Countryproposes a radical alternative: to revive the neglected idea of one state shared by two peoples. Ali Abunimah shows how the two are by now so intertwinedgeographically and economicallythat separation cannot lead to the security Israelis need or the rights Palestinians must have. Taking on the objections and taboos that stand in the way of a binational solution, he demonstrates that sharing the territory will bring benefits for all. The absence of other workable options has only led to ever- greater extremism. It is time, Abunimah argues, for Palestinians and Israelis to imagine a different future and a different relationship. Ali Abunimah, the Jordanian-American son of Palestinian refugees, is the creator and editor of The Electronic Intifada Web site, since 2001, and more recently of Electronic Iraq and Electronic Lebanon. A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Chicago, he is a frequent speaker and commentator on the Middle East, writing for theChicago Tribuneand theLos Angeles Times. A resident of Chicago, he also directs research for the design of children's services in the United States and Europe. The Israeli-Palestinian war has been called the world's most intractable conflict. It is by now a commonplace that the only way to end the violence is to divide the territory and separate the two peoples, and all efforts at a resolution have come down to haggling over who gets what: Will Israel hand over 90 percent of the West Bank or only 60 percent? Will a Palestinian state include any part of Jerusalem? One Countryproposes an alternative: to revive an old and neglected idea of one state shared by two peoples. Ali Abunimah shows how the two are by now so intertwinedgeographically and economicallythat the pursuit of separation is doomed to fail, providing neither the security Israelis need nor the rights Palestinians must have. He reveals the bankruptcy of the two-state approach, takes on the objections and taboos that stand in the way of a binational solution, and demonstrates that sharing the territory will bring benefits for all. The absence of other workable options has only lead to ever greater extremism; it is time, Abunimah suggests, for Palestinians and Israelis to imagine a different future and a different relationship. Defying the present climate of hopelessness and deadlock, Abunimah argues that a vibrant, thriving Jewish community can coexist alongside a Palestinian nation, reunited and healed after decades of dispossession, in a new entity that is equally and simultaneously the Jewish state and the Palestinian state. "A provocative and well-written account attacking the same failure of imagination that delivered to the world the present Arab-Israeli calamity."Clayton E. Swisher,Middle East Policy"A provocative and well-written account attacking the same failure of imagination that delivered to the world the present Arab-Israeli calamity . . .One Countryis a valuable springboard for debate, conventional thinking having been so counterproductive to peace."Clayton E. Swisher,Middle East Policy "Ali Abunimah challenges the conventional thinking that partition is the only acceptable option . . . mak[ing] the case for a one-state solution based on legal equalitAbunimah, Ali is the author of 'One Country A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-palestinian Impasse', published 2007 under ISBN 9780805086669 and ISBN 0805086668.