Rebranding The Left

In Haaretz, Rami Livni notes an unusual change that is beginning to develop amongst the Israeli left:

The traditional peace-camp solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – two nations, two states – has fallen out of favor, and its supporters’ ranks have dwindled. Instead, other voices have been advocating, with increasing confidence, a single bi-national state.

The one-state advocates still don’t have a joint program or political front, but the balance within the left is changing. The peace organizations’ conference in Madrid exploded last month after radical leftist activists refused to sit in the same hall with Peace Now representatives, claiming they were “an arm of the occupation.” They drafted a document focusing on the one-state principle.

The drift toward one state is obvious in the Arab leadership in Israel. The Arab legal organization Adalah has recently revoked its traditional stand and called for the creation of a single constitutional state between the Jordan and the sea. Even Hadash [a left-wing party with 3 legislators in the Knesset] is drawing away de facto from the two-state idea. It is not advocating one state, but it has tucked away what until recently used to be its historical banner.

Livni goes on to note that while one-state advocates are still in the minority, they’re increasingly influential. In significant ways, he points out, “they are affecting the left-wing’s discourse, re-demarcating the borders of what is ‘just’ and ‘moral’ and damaging the sense of justice and inner conviction of a wider left-wing circle.”

While a growing one-state movement is an interesting observation, it’s a stretch to take a few examples and argue that their ideas are starting to catch on in Israeli political discourse. If there’s one thing that the majority of both Israeli liberals and conservatives agree upon, it’s the necessity of maintaining the Jewish nature of their state — a reality that has been constant since the country’s founding. If one-state advocates are ever to have their views take hold, it will still be a long time in the coming.

(hat tip: E-man)