The state of the Middle East

Christian Century, Nov 29, 2003

THE STATE OF THE MIDDLE EAST: The so-called road map for peace in the Middle East calls for the creation of an independent, democratic Palestinian state on all the territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 war. However, Israel's control of more and more of the land, made especially evident by the building of what it calls the "security fence," seems to be undermining this two-state solution to the Middle East problem.

As a result, some people have been calling for a binational one-state solution instead. Naim Meek, head of Sabeel, the Jerusalem-based Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, said recently while in Chicago that he envisions this latter option as two separate states under the control of one central government--something like Canada with its French and English areas. "Obviously, the best solution would be one democratic, secular, pluralistic state in which no one is a second-class citizen," Meek says. Other than killing or expelling the Palestinians--which Ateek hopes the international community would not permit--Israel has little choice but to learn to see the Palestinians' equal humanity and eventually to live with them in the kind of multiracial, multiethnic, multireligious democracy, that characterizes many nations in the Western world. The sheer growth of the Palestinian population in Israel and the occupied territories suggests that Israelis are going to have learn to peacefully coexist with the Palestinians.