If the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is to ever be resolved, it will not be through peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, according to Saree Makdisi.
He said if peace in that region is to be attained, it will be because people around the world will have advocated it.
“It’s to that reserve of good will around the world that Palestinians should look,” he said. “I think that can greatly empower the Palestinian struggle and greatly bring about a much quicker and much more effective resolution that brings justice with peace.”
The half-Palestinian UCLA professor is an expert on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Makdisi spoke Saturday at the Collier Education Building during the 10th Annual Maryse and Ramzy Mikhail lecture series, an annual lecture that discusses peace in the Middle East.
Makdisi is a strong proponent of a one-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, opposed to a two-state solution that peace processes between these two nations are currently aiming toward.
He believes it is unthinkable that Israel and Palestine can ever reach a just and lasting peace given these two parties are “grossly” unequal. The “so called” Palestinian government, he said, repeatedly lacks its commitment to the national goals of its people.
“If a two-state solution were to be passed, the only Palestinian state Israel would approve of is a Palestinian nation that is stripped of any means of self defense and territorial defenses,” he said. “A state like that would look more or less like the present reality [of Palestine].”
Because the two-state solution is the result of 20 years of negotiations without justice for the Palestinians, Makdisi said the one-state solution is the only option and can be achieved only through non-violence.
“Israel is not quite on the level of South Africa in terms of boycotts and sanctions, but it’s certainly moving in that direction,” Makdisi said
An indication of the world moving in that direction, he said, is the Davis Cup Tennis Match played between Israel and Sweden in 2009 that was played in an empty stadium because the Swedish government was worried about anti-Israeli protestors.
Musicians such as Elvis Costello and Carlos Santana have refused to play concerts in Israel in protest to their treatment of Palestinians, he said.
Makdisi said there are several indicators that American attitudes are shifting dramatically as well.
“There’s increasing discussion in Washington [D.C.] in national security circles about the impact of Israel on American national security and Americans’ interest and people are asking, ‘what does America benefit from its support from Israel?’” he said. “And the answer they are coming up with is there is no American benefit.”
Makdisi said a one-state solution is the only option that would recognize and protect the 1.5 million Palestinians living inside Israel from discrimination.
“The systemic, legalized forms of discrimination practiced by the state [of Israel] are hardly ever discussed when it comes to discussions of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” he said. “Hardly anyone talks about the apartheid practiced within the state that separates citizens according to their religious background.”
Makdisi said about 10 percent of Palestinians living in Israel live in unrecognized villages that were there before the creation of Israel in 1948. Many of these villages are not connected to water, electricity, or infrastructure.
“The question of apartheid is becoming increasingly important to the levels of understanding how to resolve the conflict of the Israelis and Palestinians,” Makdisi said. “Having to set a one-state would address the rights of all citizens, whereas a two state solution does nothing for the rights of Palestinians who are left in Israel and are treated as second-class citizens.”
Samir Abu-Absi, a professor of english linguistics at the University of Toledo, believes the current two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict does not seem to be working and other possible solutions need to be explored.
“I think it’s an option that has not received its share of serious discussion, and I think it’s something we really need to discuss,” he said.
Said Zagha, a senior majoring in film at Kenyon College in Gambler, Ohio and a Palestinian who was born in Jerusalem and raised in the West Bank, said the one-state solution to the problem is the only possible solution to the conflict.
“Maybe a couple of years ago, when I was living back there, I was more skeptical, but as you look at the statistics, if Israel keeps doing what it’s doing now I don’t think it will have a sustainable future,” he said.
Not everyone agrees that a one-state solution will solve the conflict.
Amanda Rachidi, a sixth-year pharmacy student at UT, said the one-state solution is an ideological, yet unfeasible solution.
“It’s not going to work because you have two different people who pretty much hate each other,” Rachidi said. “The Israelis don’t want one state; they put [the Palestinians] in separate areas because they don’t want one state. To hope for a one state solution, that they are all going to live together in one state is kind of a far stretch.”
