nadim rouhana the colonial condition is partition possible in palestine

8/6/2019 Nadim Rouhana the Colonial Condition is Partition Possible in Palestine

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Jadal 1 Mada al-Carmel Jadal Issue no.10, June 2011 www.mada-research.org

The Colonial Condition: Is Partition Possible in Palestine?

Nadim N. Rouhana*

Whether we conceptualize the conflict between Zionism and the Palestinians as acase of settler colonialism or a clash between two national movements has direct

implications for the type of solution one envisions as being possiblesuch as the

partition of Palestine into two states or seeking alternatives to partition. Given thecritical practical implications for future peace-making efforts, this question should

best be framed in analytic and not ideological terms. That is to say that such adiscussion will be best conducted in a way that separates indisputable historic

developments from their ideological and psychological justificatory wrappings orself-serving narratives.

Whatever its justificatory systemnational, religious, or humanitarianthe

(mainstream) Zionist movement undeniably sought to establish an exclusivelyJewish state in Palestine. This explicit goal, which was pursued openly and proudly,

necessitated bringing Jewish immigrants from outside Palestinemainly fromEurope in the first stagesto establish the state in a country inhabited by another

people, the Palestinians. The success of such a project would necessarily mean

expropriating the country from its indigenous inhabitants. Rationalization andjustification systems aside, in such a project, the violent displacement and forceful

control of the indigenous inhabitants is inevitable.

To say that Zionism is a settler colonial movement, therefore, is, at the very

minimum, a description of the process in which Palestine was taken over, and does

not necessarily contradict the argument that Zionism is a national movement. Butthis national movement sought to achieve its goals by taking over a populated

countrythrough a colonial project. Ironically, the colonial marks striking presenceon this conflict has been absent from the conflict analysis; at most, the conflict has

been analyzed as being one between two national movements. Palestinians, byconsensus, maintain that Israel has been created as the outcome of a colonial projectand that it continues to act as such in the West Bank, Gaza, and inside the state of

Israel itself.

Israelis do not see Zionism as a colonial project. In fact, they react intensely to even

the suggestion of such an analysis. Zionism rationalizes away such a frameworkby

A n a l y t i c a l P a p e r


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applying elaborate justificatory systems such as using biblical religious promise to

establish secular political rights. But even if the vast majority of Israelis deny thereality of the very practicalities of colonialism, that does not mean that the colonial

practices do not manifest politically in ways that parallel colonialist projects, or thatIsrael did not engage in typical colonial undertakings (such as land and resource

expropriation, ethnic cleansing, marginalization of the remaining indigenouspopulation, construction of an exclusionary identity, Judaizing of time and space,forceful domination, instilling deep, intrinsic fear of the colonized in the colonialist

worldview, etc.). Israelis self-image and their aversion to invoking the settlercolonial model should not obscure the analytic implications for how a colonial

project develops, what it is capable of doing in order to defend itself or to maintain

colonial privileges, and how the conflict between settler colonialism and theindigenous population can be resolved.

Partition and settler colonial conditions

The experiences of conflict between settler regimes and the local populations whoselands they sought to colonize have centered around different demands dependingon the historical era in which each regime has emerged and the nature and potency

of the indigenous resistance to colonization. These demands have varied fromseeking the departure of the settlers, to building a common homeland with them.

While strategies of national resistance movements often differ depending on their

context and goals, resistance to settler colonialism always faces severe human rightsviolations in the forms of ethnic cleansing, ghettoization of indigenous peoples, land

robbery, or structural, political, and military violence from the settler populationand their institutions. Nevertheless, partition has not been a demand of colonized

indigenous populations, and no settler colonial project has ended with a partition of

the colonized land between the settlers and the indigenous population. Like otherindigenous populations around the world, Palestinians factually, the indigenous

population of the land rejected the various partition plans including the UnitedNations General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947. Of all Arab parties in Palestine

only the small communist partyat the time called the National Liberation League in

Palestine accepted the UN partition plan and considered partition a fair settlementof the conflict (but only after the Soviet Unionwhich was one of the first countries

to recognize Israelendorsed it). It is also true that later on, the Palestiniansthemselves represented by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO),

advocated partition into two states. Starting in the 1970s and culminating in 1988,

the partition of Palestine into two statesIsrael, and a Palestinian state in the WestBank and Gazahas been advocated by the PLO. It was in fact Israel who rejected

such partition, until recently. Now, finally, the principle of partition seems to beaccepted by both sideseven if historically Palestinians rejected the principle at first,

and Israelis rejected it later. Proponents of partition argue therefore that resolving

this conflict should simply be a matter of devising a well-designed internationally


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supported negotiation process, because the parameters of partition are all well-

known.

But such an argument overlooks the practicalities of colonialism and the complex

political and physical realities it has been producing on the ground for generations.The argument fails to notice the colonizers patterns of violent domination and

ingrained sense of superiority that has to come with the process of colonization, thecontinuous dispossession and demographic control of the native population, and theepistemological and psychological systems that have emerged among the colonizing

population to deny or justify dispossession and domination. It also fails to see whythe colonized indigenous population cannot accept surrendering their homeland

and/or renouncing their original belonging to it, why they resist, and why they

withhold granting legitimacy from the colonial project. The partition argument alsopays no heed to the historical evidence about resolving conflicts caused by settler

colonialism.

Historically, settler colonial projects have ended in one of three ways:

1. The native population was eliminated or reduced to a group or collection ofgroups with marginal political significance (e.g., Australia, North America).

2. The settlers were defeated, and most chose to return to their mother country

(e.g., the French in Algiers, the Crusaders in the Holy Land).

3. A new political order emerged, after periods of violent domination and a long

and persistent struggle by the indigenous populationsan order that included

both settlers and the local population (e.g., New Zealand, South Africa,Zimbabwe, and one can even say Northern Ireland).

Three main characteristics distinguish the Palestinian case from other historic

settler-colonialist cases and are of central importance to the question of partition.Could any of these characteristics promote the logic of partition, even if it would be

a historical first?

The first characteristic is that mainstream Zionism sought explicitly to establish an

exclusively Jewish state in Palestine, a state that by definition, cannot include theindigenous population in its national definition. Perhaps, then, this should favor

partition into a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. But a two-state solution will

leave a significant Palestinian group inside Israel where inequality isin effectadefining cultural and political force of the state. Equality is seen, rightly, as a fatal

threat to the very idea of Zionism. Thus, partition does not address this majorsource of conflict. Nor can Palestinians recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state for

reasons that are too complex to describe here, but in essence because it meansrecognizing the legitimacy of Zionism, which claimed their homeland as theexclusive homeland of the Jewish people. Such a partition, thus, could lead under

certain circumstances to further ethnic cleansing and war crimes.

Second, Israel was established based on a UN resolution, and partition was

stipulated in UN General Assembly Resolution (resolution 181 of 1947). Thus, if the


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UN endorses partition, and the partition resolution is now accepted by the

concerned parties and internationally, and indeed, supported regionally, how canone but pursue this option? But a closer examination of the UN resolution would

show that it stipulated that although the Jewish state would have had a Jewishmajority of 55%, full equality was envisioned for the Arab citizens, along with a

whole range of cooperation and economic interdependence between the two states.Thus, even according to the original UN partition plan itself, an exclusive Jewishstate, the fundamental tenet of Zionism, was not envisioned.

Third, unlike many other settler colonialists, the Zionist settlers had no singlemother country. By the time the partition plan was endorsed by the UN in 1947, the

Zionist settlers had started to form a new identity based not on their countries of

origin but on the Hebraic roots and the new political and cultural imagination of thenew Jew. There were ordinary influences from the mother countries, but Zionist

settlers did not see themselves as the emissaries of any country and, in many cases,moved to sever the emotional relations that a settler would otherwise have with the

motherland, because of the discrimination and persecution they faced in some of the

homeland countries. In the historical process that ensued, a new people was formedin Palestine, the Israeli-Jewish people, whose only connection is to that land (except

perhaps for groups of recent immigrants, particularly the Russian immigrants). Thatnation, even if formed as a result of a colonial project, has the right to self-

determination in that land and the right to live in security in it. Does this recognition

of the right of the Israeli-Jewish people to self-determination lead to a solutionbased on partition? Possibly, but not likely.

In the case of partition into two states, the political forms of self-determination inthe state of Israel in its 1967 borders will have to be negotiated with the indigenous

population, the Palestinians. The Palestinians in Israel will not negotiate away their

rights to nationhood and equality, and such rights necessarily lead into the demandsfor bi-nationalism.1

In conclusion, beyond the underlying difficulties of the frequently stalematednegotiation over partitionsuch as the exclusive and expanding Jewish settlements

in the West Bankthe questions of borders, security, Jerusalem, and Palestinianrefugeeswe should ask a fundamental conceptual question: Is partition even

applicable in conflicts that are settler-colonial in essence? Based on the analysis

above, the partition under discussion will lead to a bi-national Israel. If that is thedirection anyway, why should Israelis and Palestinians not start thinking about

alternatives to partition? In such alternatives self-determination will be redefined toincorporate the national existence of both groupsthe entire Palestinian people and

the entire Israeli Jewish people in a common homeland, the entire Palestine, based

Furthermore, a just resolution to the refugees problem, which

means the right to return to the part of Palestine that became Israel, will also lead tothe direction of bi-nationalism inside Israel. Such a partition is not accepted by the

Israelis.

1See, for example, TheHaifa Declaration.
http://www.mada-research.org/UserFiles/file/haifaenglish.pdfhttp://www.mada-research.org/UserFiles/file/haifaenglish.pdfhttp://www.mada-research.org/UserFiles/file/haifaenglish.pdfhttp://www.mada-research.org/UserFiles/file/haifaenglish.pdf


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on full group and individual equality in a democratic, inclusive, and multicultural

state? Once such a vision is accepted, the intellectual and political projects willbecome how best to think about forms of government and patterns of institutions

that lead into its materialization.

* Professor Nadim N. Rouhanais the founding director of Mada al-Carmel and the editor of thisissue ofJadal.

nadim rouhana the colonial condition is partition possible in palestine

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