Sex, Death, and Shit—the Great Taboos

They evoke, depending on the person, context, or culture, intense emotions such as fascination, fear, vulnerability, shame, desire, disgust, mystery, and a reminder that we are subject to forces that we do not really control. It is perhaps for this reason that in D.H. Lawrence’s novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, those three things seem to be weaved together in the lives of the main characters, especially Connie, the upper-class woman who has an affair with Mellors, the lower class servant of Sir Clifford, Connie’s husband who embodies everything that socialists despise: a greedy industrial capitalist with little empathy for his workers and who profits from their labours while living in comfort and luxury. Another major theme of the novel is the intersection between sex, class relations, and the geopolitical context of the time when the novel was written: just after World War 1, which had left deep scars on all of Europe and which, among other things, led to the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the existential clash between the West and the East. This ideological clash, as we will see, impacted even the most intimate relations of people who were present at the time.

The novel begins with the Great War. Shortly after the marriage between Connie and Sir Clifford, the latter, like most young British men, went to the front to fight and was seriously wounded, coming back to his young wife permanently paralyzed from the waist down and unable to perform the conjugal functions of a husband. Initially, it seems as if he and Connie could preserve the matrimonial bond through their mental connection: Clifford demonstrates the bourgeoisie appreciation for art and the life of the mind, which Connie finds attractive. But their lack of physical intimacy leaves her deeply dissatisfied, leading to a kind of emotional crisis which leads to a brief affair with the insecure and peripatetic artist Michealis. Although she is fascinated by his “unscrupulousness” and youthful beauty, his sexual egoism ultimately leaves her dejected. She then meets Mellors, the gatekeeper and servant of Sir Clifford. She perceives in him “a vividness not far from death itself”.  Her consciousness of death, and her attendant emotional crisis is also captured when, during a walk in the woods, she sees the cemetery by the Church, “with hideous tombstones that seem like teeth”, and comes to the realization that she will soon be buried there.

Shortly after, the romance between her and Mellors begins, but it does not follow the traditional script of courtship, flirtation, and consummation. Rather, it has an animal like-quality to it: after a chance meeting in the woods, Mellors is overcome with the male procreative urge, while Connie is seemingly helpless to her impulses as well. It is as if their union has the force of nature, almost completely independent of each other’s will. Although, at least initially, the dalliance follows the traditional pattern of Mellors as the dominant male and Connie as the submissive female, both are subject to forces that neither can control. As we will see, this kind of romance is a metaphorical kind of resistance to the bourgeoisie order that both parties are contemptuous of: instrumentally rational, rule based, suppressive of the natural and instinctual, and organized around the seeming impermeability between the classes.

The novel depicts their love-making in explicit detail and with a poetic force that must have jarred the sensibilities of readers in early 20^th century Britain, when the book was published. Their union is compared to the creative force “at the beginning of time” and Connie’s orgasms are described as “rippling, rippling, like a flapping overlapping of soft flames, soft as feathers, running to points of brilliance, exquisite, exquisite, and melting all of her molten inside”. That is quite the literary achievement: capturing and conveying the seemingly ineffable subjective sensations of orgasm with the English language is no easy feat, and D.H. Lawrence has done it. Another curious feature of the lovemaking between the two is its association with human excrement. Before making love, the novel repeatedly refers to how they could feel the sexual attraction for each other “in their bowels”. Mellors displays a curious fascination with Connie’s anus, at one point touching it and saying “if that shits and the other pisses, I’m glad. I don’t want no woman that couldn’t shit or piss”. Later in the novel, he asks Connie why she likes him, and she replies “your courage and tenderness to put your hand in my tail” (one of D.H. Lawrence’s curious euphemisms for anus). This, I think, provides a clue to their love: there is a primordial tenderness that does not shy away from the deepest (pardon the pun) and most vulnerable parts of the naked body. It is no coincidence that this kind of sex clashed with the upper-class bourgeois and industrial post-war order that both parties detested, where the union between men and women was more about producing offspring to bequeath inherited wealth rather than satisfying the animal lust that humans are often subject to.

Sex and Geopolitics

As a political scientist my knowledge of the Great War tends to be restricted to the realm of geopolitics. As any first year student knows, the conflict led to a new world order: the rise of the US as the world’s dominant power, its mission to spread democracy and a world governed by law rather than force, the creation of the League of Nations (the precursor to the UN) and other global governance institutions, the complete redrawing of borders in Europe, Asia, and especially the Middle East (and for the last of those regions we are still living with the aftermath). One of the beneficial aspects of reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover is learning about the intersections between World War 1 and the intimate relations between the sexes. The immense slaughter and industrial-scale violence impacted families all across Europe, and this was also the case for the characters discussed here. After being wounded in battle Sir Clifford becomes paralyzed from the waist down, and hence his marital union with Connie cannot be completed. With all his British stoicism Clifford seems to be resigned to his fate and is content to pursue the life of the mind, but not Connie. She is young (28), brimming with the desire to fully explore and pursue her womanhood, and to eventually reproduce. Clifford understands this, and even encourages her to have an affair while in Italy and become pregnant so that they could raise a child as if it was his. This would also ensure offspring for Clifford to whom he could bequeath his accumulated property.

It does not turn out that way, of course. Connie feels free to pursue affairs with other men, but ends up with one of Clifford’s servants. The political content is inescapable: Connie’s union with a man below her in status, wealth, prestige, and class is a direct affront to Clifford’s bourgeois world which was characterized (and still is, I would argue) with the near impermeability between the classes. Different cultures, habits, tastes, rhythms of life, language, and networks usually ensure that mating is usually intra- rather than inter- class, and this continues to be true today. It is a major channel that directly transmits the economic inequality of the system to future generations and ensures the perpetuation of the existing order. Connie’s passion for Mellors is a direct assault on this pattern, which is one of the things that makes it so intriguing.

During their discussions and pillow talk, Mellors reveals himself as sympathetic to the ideals of the Bolsheviks, whose revolution in Russia in 1917 was made possible by convulsions of World War 1. He rails against the institutionalized greed of the capitalist system, and how it subjects the classes to a dehumanizing and degrading existence, and how it prioritizes industry, rationalization, and rules over instinct, the intuitive faculty, and the body’s natural functions. In an echo of the later complaints of environmentalists, he also condemns the ugliness of the factories and the towns organized around them, and how they despoil the beauty of nature. Connie agrees with him, but unlike Mellors she is a direct beneficiary of the system: her upper-class upbringing and education, her life of comfort and luxury with Clifford, were made possible by the wealth that her class accumulated. These philosophical disagreements come to the fore in one dramatic scene when she argues with Clifford, condemning him and the order that he embodies. Her sympathy for the ideals of the Bolsheviks represents a direct and irreconcilable clash with Clifford. He replies that inequality has always existed, regardless of the economic or political system in place (he is right about that), and that societies will always divide themselves into classes because that is the nature of things. She senses he is right, and although her love affair with Mellors is a direct refutation of his observation, she is perhaps dimly aware that it is radically unique and rare. More common is the attitude of her sister, Hilda, who has sympathy for the plight of the working classes but would not genuinely inter-mix (in every sense of the term) with them, because of the radical differences in outlook, communication, taste, and all the other building blocks of human bonding and intercourse.

The association of death, sex, and shit throughout the text has an ominous undertone at times, and one could not help but think that the love triangle between Clifford, Connie, and Mellors would end in tragedy, perhaps with Clifford murdering Mellors or vice versa. Happily, it does not turn out that way. Connie becomes pregnant with Mellors’s child, and has to make the grindingly difficult decision on whether to stay with Clifford and raise the child as the latter’s son (and give him an heir) or follow her instincts and leave Clifford so that she could be with Mellors. In light of the general thrust (wink) of the text, it is unsurprising that she chooses the latter option. The book ends there, leaving the reader wondering whether the love between her and Mellors endures the trials and tribulations of Connie choosing to live with a much lower standard of living than she was used to, and raising a child under these new conditions. In the real world, one could imagine that this would eventually cause a lot of strife between them, especially after the intensity of their passionate love died down, as it often does. Or perhaps they would have remained together, monogamous and faithful, raising children and diligently working hard to ensure that all their material needs were met. This would have been ironic, since their love affair, which began as a form of resistance to the system, would have ended in classic bourgeois style.

What Hip-Hop Dancing has Taught Me About Life

As a teenager in the late eighties and early nineties I was an avid hip-hop and break-dancer. This was an era when those interested in the genre would sometimes, while walking in public spaces, carry bulky stereos on their shoulders with pounding music that caused equal amounts of annoyance and amusement. Often, on the sidewalk or in the park, the stereo and sheets of cardboard would be placed on the ground, a circle would form, and we would practise our moves and compete against each other. Twenty years have passed since then, and now I am an almost middle-aged academic. My students have probably never seen one of those stereos except in some eighties flick or a museum.

Although I stopped dancing regularly, there still is a part of me that has a blast moving to the rhythmic melodies, rhyming lyrics, and booming beats. In fact throughout the past few decades I continued to dance, but only occasionally and for fun—sometimes at home in the living room, other times at clubs with friends. This year I decided to take up hip-hop dancing again, even though it would be hard to reconcile with the punishing hours involved in my teaching and research. It has been two months since I started taking weekly classes. I am still in the beginner-intermediate level, and plan to make it to the full-intermediate by winter 2015 and to the advanced-level by 2016, but already I have learned that hip-hop dancing has a lot of life lessons to teach:

1) Humiliation is necessary for success

Entering my first class was very awkward, mainly because I was twice the age of almost everyone else. Generally I am a pretty confident guy, but this confidence did not prepare me for the embarrassment that I felt when I was unable to keep up with the others. I thought that my past history of dancing would have made a beginner class a breeze. What I found, rather, was that I could not follow all the moves of the instructor, nor coordinate with everybody else. The humiliation was compounded by the fact that all this happened in front of a huge mirror, where everyone could see how out of step I was. At certain moments, I just wanted to leave the room, with my tail between my legs, and forget about the whole experience, never to return. But I was determined. Two months later, I have improved considerably, such that I can now keep up with the instructor and with everyone else.

Last week I decided to take my first intermediate class. I thought I would be able to handle it because I have become good at the beginner level. I was wrong; the next level is harder than I thought, and, similar to my first beginner class, I was humiliated because I was the only person in the room who could not keep up. But this did not discourage me. In fact it made me more determined than ever to master the intermediate level. It also made me more comfortable with humiliation, which is salutary in so many ways. It not only forced me to think about what went wrong and how to improve. It also deflated my ego, which is a good defense against pride, one of the major defects of character that afflicts the human race.

2) Anything worth having is hard

My objective is not to become a professional dancer. At this stage in my life it would not be prudent to throw away the ten years of university that it took to obtain a PhD and aim to tour as a back-up dancer for J-Lo or J-Z. My definition of success is more modest: to reach the advanced level in less than two years. But even this will take a lot of dedication, sweat, and hard work. And who knows? I might discover, after reaching that modest objective, that my definition of success was too restricted and that I should aim for the stars, although with my already aching knees that is very unlikely.

3) To be original, one must first learn from the experts

We live in an age in which originality and individual self-expression are supreme values, often irrespective of the quality of these things (in some circles, the very notion of “quality” is a bourgeois anachronism that devalues human equality). One of the ironies of the times, though, is that as more people aim to be original, they actually become more like each other. Most claims or perceptions of originality, then, are quite shallow. True originality should therefore include the element of quality; it must not only be different, but in some sense an improvement. This takes a lot of hard work, and before one can get there, one must learn from the masters of the trade. This is true whether one is completing a PhD or learning how to dance. Because of my history of dancing it would be easy to delude myself into thinking that I can come up with better moves than my teacher, but this is not the case. My sense is that I will be able to be truly original when I have mastered the advanced level. After that, I can start to try to develop my own techniques and routines that build upon and improve what I have been taught. This is no guarantee that true originality will emerge, but it will be worth trying.

4) With art, feeling is more important than thinking

Taking hip-hop classes has forced me to train my brain to learn in new ways. I remember ideas pretty well. After reading a book, I will remember most of the main ideas of the text; give me a newspaper, and after reading it I will be able to recall the content of most of the articles; ditto for poetry: with a little effort I can memorize entire pieces of verse, like Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be”. The reason, I think, is that I have always been a reader, and my brain—either through learning, genetics, or both—is equipped to process and internalize ideas. One of the reasons I struggled during my first hip-hop classes was that I tried to learn the dance routine the same way that I learn ideas: through thinking and memorization. Luckily, I had a good instructor to tell me that that was the wrong approach. He told me that I had to “feel” the moves. How, I asked? He replied that every move should be felt as a whole body sensation. That little piece of advice made a dramatic difference in my capacity to learn.

Feeling is important for other reasons. When listening to a beautiful piece of music, or reading a moving poem, or observing a delightful painting, we are touched because of the way that these pieces of art make us feel. We can intellectualize all we want about why Hamlet’s “To Be or Not to Be” can stir the soul, but fundamentally the poem’s power has endured for centuries because of its emotional impact on the reader. The same is true for hip-hop dancing. Watching the instructor dance is beautiful because of the way his talent makes the observer feel. Success, then, will be measured, not mainly on the basis of how much I have learned, but on the way that people feel when they see me dance. Did I impact them emotionally in some way? If not, then I have a lot to learn.

Lastly, the beliefs “if it feels right, do it” or “follow your heart” or “it is right if you feel it” have no place in the attempt to become a good hip-hop dancer. In fact in many ways this genre teaches me to ignore the way I feel. Had I followed my “feelings”, I would not have returned to the class after those humiliating experiences, nor would I risk dancing in front of others when I am so unsure of myself. One of the beautiful things about this experience is that it is helping me to become comfortable with negative feelings, to not run away whenever things get uncomfortable or hard, to accept my flaws and weaknesses. This is difficult but wholly salutary for all areas of life. Progress is slow but with determination becomes inexorable.

5) Harmony and coordination with others compliments individual talent.

Hip-Hop dancing has been a helpful reminder that we are not equally endowed. For reasons of biology, learning, and plain old luck, some are simply more talented than others. At the classes, I sometimes cannot help but be envious at some of the dancers in the room who seem to be able to learn and perform the moves with ease, while I am struggling. But although—at least at this point—I am not as good as the others, I am getting better. And when I dance with those who are better than me, it helps to motivate me to improve.

When we dance together as a group, this inequality of talent is somewhat reduced because we are all doing the same moves. Some do them better than others because they have more rhythm in their bounce, or because they can somehow incorporate their entire bodies—including the slightest facial expressions—into each move, giving the motions much more soul than would otherwise be the case. But these differences are minimized when as a group we do the same routine, and when we are coordinating the moves with one another. This seems to be a metaphor for other spheres of human activity. The intrinsic inequality of talent between human beings is somewhat attenuated when they work together for a shared goal—whether in the seminar room, business enterprise, or dance studio. This does not, of course, negate the value of individual genius. Watching Michael Jackson dance is a reminder that some will always tower above the others, and no amount of team work can change that. But still: there is something magical when people dance together because, almost through osmosis, the skills of the best are transferred to the less talented, creating something that is more than the sum of the individual parts.

 

 

Zionism and the Birth of Israel

When one speaks of “history”, the event in question  is often presented as objectively true in the sense that most people agree on what happened. But this obscures the extent to which many of the facts and events of the past that people take for granted are actually the constructs of scholars and historians who disagree among themselves on what constituted the historical event. In this regard, a useful conceptual distinction is between “history” and “historiography”: the latter refers to the methods and theories that scholars deploy to understand the past, while “history” refers to the popular—and mistaken—use of the term, namely, that history can be objectively and conclusively known. This is rarely the case, and that is especially true for the circumstances that surrounded the birth of Israel, which led to one of history’s most intractable and interminable conflicts that persists to this day and will likely continue to for many generations. The previous blogpost on Israel was about a book written by Menachem Begin, a Zionist whose interpretations of the past differ greatly from others that will be the focus here. “New Historians”, as they are called, are a group of Israeli scholars who challenge the Zionist narrative that Israel is surrounded by enemies bent on its destruction, that it miraculously won the war of independence in 1948 against seemingly insurmountable odds, that the Palestinian Arab refugees voluntarily fled their homes because they were told to by their brethren in neighbouring countries,  and that the conflict is ultimately rooted in the Palestinians’ intransigent refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state.

A discussion of the birth of modern Israel must start with the policy of Britain, the colonial power that ruled the Holy Land in the crucial years before 1948. Zionists tend to focus on the Balfour declaration, which established the legal basis for a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland. Zionists are correct that legally, as the ruling power, Britain did have the authority to make that decision. It is worth recalling that it was made before the right of national self-determination had become an established principle of international relations. This meant that Britain did not have a legal obligation to consult with the locals who might have objected, even if it had a moral obligation to do so. In fact many of today’s states in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa were created by the great powers in Paris after World War 1 precisely because, at the time, drawing borders and installing client states was how international politics worked. Locals often resisted, but unlike in the present time there was no universal legal code that they could appeal to.

However, what the Zionists neglect to mention is that Britain also promised a state to the local Arabs in Palestine in return for their services to the British Empire in its fight against the Ottoman Turks. In other words, Britain made promises to both communities that were contradictory and unrealizable. Perhaps this was done in good faith; the British may have thought that the two communities would find some sort of compromise that would allow some form of co-existence. Maybe it was the perfidious Albion making promises it knew it could not keep because it furthered the interests of the Empire. The truth is probably more prosaic: human stupidity. Britain bungled the situation because it stumbled in its temptation to satisfy both parties. The rest, as they say, is history.

When it became clear that Jews and Arabs would not find a compromise, Britain threw its hands in the air and passed the problem to the United Nations, which imposed a partition. Jews accepted it, the Arabs did not and subsequently invaded the nascent Jewish state. This is one of the only events that the Zionists and the New Historians agree happened. However, their interpretations of the events are very different. First, the New Historians do not accept that all the Arab states shared the same goal of pushing Jews into the sea. Rather, there were mixed motives. King Abdullah of Jordan, for example, was the nominal leader of the Arab invasion of Israel, but his main agenda seemed to be territorial aggrandizement for Jordan in some areas even if it meant making peace with the Jews. This may have clashed with the motives of others, like the Mufti of Jerusalem, who openly proclaimed a jihad against the Jewish inhabitants and directed his followers to fight them uncompromisingly. These mixed motives, as well as poor organization, training, communication, and transportation, are what contributed to the Arab defeat, at least according to the New Historians who want to dispute the Zionist belief that the Jewish victory was some sort of miracle that could be explained only by divine intervention. The New Historians also have a different take on the reaction to the UN’s partition plan. Although it is correct that the Jews accepted it and Arabs did not, the founders of Israel never really believed that the borders were final. Territorial expansion was the plan from the beginning, and this seemed to be confirmed by the capture of Arab territory in subsequent wars and the continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are illegal and recognized by no country, not even Israel’s allies. According to this interpretation, the Jews’ acceptance of the UN partition is essentially a moot point, since from the beginning there were plans to encroach on Arab territory.

The war of 1948 between Jews and Arabs led to an exodus of around 700 thousand refugees that continues to stain historical memory and that prevents a final resolution to the conflict. Israel’s supporters have long held that the Arabs voluntarily fled their homes because they were encouraged by neighbouring Arab states who sent messages via radio frequency that warned of an impending invasion and that encouraged them to leave, promising that they could return after they had destroyed the Jewish state. This, of course, is very self-serving, for, if the local Arabs left of their own volition, than they are responsible. The New Historians have adduced evidence that poses a fundamental challenge to this account of the refugees, thumbing their noses at this attempt to shroud the Jewish states’ complicity. Benny Morris, for example, argues that many Arabs fled because there were many massacres of innocent civilians in Arab villages. Their flight, then, was coerced in the sense that staying might have meant a violent death. Avi Shlaim goes further, arguing that there was a systematic plan among the Jewish leadership to expel as many Arabs as possible to make room for Jewish settlement. In this regard, he quotes Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, who expressly ordered his men to expel Arabs.

The stakes of this debate are not only scholarly. They raise existential questions about the legitimacy of Israel itself. One of the characteristics of the Zionists is that they are internally consistent: their narrative, although partial and perhaps even tendentious, supports the case for Israel’s sovereignty in Palestine—legally and morally. The same cannot be said of the New Historians. Their narrative arrives at an inescapable conclusion: that a monumental and epochal injustice was done to the local Arabs when Israel was created. And yet the New Historians persist in proclaiming that the Jewish state has a right to exist. The mental gymnastics required to square that circle are worth mentioning. Avi Shlaim, one of the most articulate New Historians, argues that Israel’s legitimacy rests on the United Nations partition plan. Legally he is absolutely correct: the recognition of Israel by the great powers of the Security Council does give the Jewish state juridical legitimacy. But this elides the fact that the Security Council did not have the consent of the local Arabs or the Arab countries in the region. In a sense, then, the Security Council was acting imperially, the way that empires have always acted: drawing borders as they please, and locals’ wishes were secondary to the superior military force of imperial masters. The fact that it was an international body ostensibly suffused with the ideals of the United Nations does not change that.

Many Arab states have reluctantly resigned themselves to Israel’s existence. The Jewish state has signed peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, and has ratified agreements with the moderate Palestinian leadership that recognizes Israel’s right to exist. What is more, even Arab states that still do not formally recognize Israel, like Saudi Arabia, have expressed a willingness to do so provided it makes major concessions on borders, refugees, and Jerusalem. This is progress, of a sort, even when we take into account that Arab masses likely do not feel the same, and that the Jewish state still has implacable foes bent on its annihilation, like Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and others. The climate in the region remains poisonous and toxic, raising questions about whether, and how, the conflict can be solved.

There have been many missed opportunities to resolve the conflict, and this is another area where Zionists and New Historians disagree. The former sustains that the conflict has not been solved because of the Palestinians’ unwillingness to recognize the legitimacy of Israel. One example that supports their view is the collapse of the second Oslo negotiations. Then, the Labour Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat over 80% of the West Bank, the return of East Jerusalem which would become Palestine’s capital, and a solution to the refugee problem that included accepting 500 refugees a year plus compensation. It was an unprecedented offer, and broke many taboos, especially on Jerusalem, which for Zionists must remain under complete Israeli control. Arafat, under pressure from other Arab countries, refused the offer, and, even worse, did not make any counter-offers. The talks collapsed, and even former US president Bill Clinton blamed Arafat. It seemed to confirm the Zionist belief that the Arabs do not really want a two state solution, otherwise they would have accepted it when it was offered to them.

The New Historians agree that Arafat missed an historic opportunity to finally end the conflict, but they point out that this does not absolve Israel from its illegal settlement expansion that makes a two-state solution more remote than ever. They also mention that the Jewish state has also rejected offers from Arab states to end the conflict. For example, after the 1948 war, some Arab modernizers, like Colonel Zaim of Syria, were willing to accept Israel’s existence and even help solve the refugee problem in exchange for territorial concessions that would not have threatened the country. Israel, from a position of strength, declined the offer, arguing that the armistice agreements were sufficient to keep the peace. According to Avi Shlaim, this represents a missed opportunity that might have led to peace between Israel and Syria, which to this day remain hostile enemies.

So where do we go from here? Global elites and members of the commentariat believe that the two-state solution is the only way for the communities to co-exist. Every time there is a war between them—around every 2-3 years—that “solution” is uncritically bandied about as if it is self-evident to all thinking and well-meaning people. I too believed that, until I travelled to Israel and Palestine in the spring of 2014. It was then that I realized that the so called two-state idea is largely an elite construction that does not accord with many facts on the ground. First is the fact that many, perhaps most, Palestinians would not want to live in a Palestinian state, regardless of what they tell pollsters or foreign journalists. Why? Because such an entity would probably be corrupt and poor and mostly dependent on foreign aid. Consider this: Arabs living in Israel enjoy one of the highest living standards in the world, with access to world class schools and public services that rival and even surpass those in the developed world. How many of them would give up these benefits to live in some Palestinian state that would be much poorer, where perhaps only the politically connected would enjoy a high standard of living? This speaks volumes about the viability of a Palestinian state. It also confirms one of the observations I made through the simple act of talking to average people: most do not care about abstractions like “two-states”. Rather, most want the things that others take for granted: a job that can support a family, security of property, and good public services. This basic fact is obscured to Westerners because the media provides a skewed version of reality. We see either images of negotiations between elites, or the after effects of violence perpetrated by extremists. But this does not reflect the reality of the majority who do not share the interests of either the elites or the radicals.

A two-state solution is not viable for other reasons. When I was in the Holy Land, I was struck by how closely the communities were to each other. I recall seeing an Israeli settlement in Bethlehem (in the West Bank) that was a stone throw’s distance from Palestinian homes. East Jerusalem, which many Arabs would like as their future capital, seems to seamlessly connect with the Christian parts of the city. In Hebron, the tomb of Sarah and Abraham—holy to both Islam and Judaism—is in an ancient building that is divided between Jewish and Muslim sections. Jewish settlements in Hebron are also often atop Palestinian stores and apartments. How would the two state idea be applied to communities who live in such close proximity? In theory, Jews would be subject to the laws of their state, and Palestinians to the laws of their own state, even though in practice they are essentially sharing the same territory. This seems unfeasible, to put it lightly, and one can envisage endless legal disputes between two nominally sovereign nations that would be difficult to resolve.

It seems, then, that the only viable idea is a bi-national unitary state. This would challenge the whole paradigm of the conflict, since the mantra of the two-state solution has become so unthinkingly entrenched in the discourse on Israelis and Arabs. This was recognized by Edward Said, a Palestinian Christian born in Jerusalem whose family fled the 1948 war. He was one of the world’s most articulate and vocal defenders of Palestinian rights, and he too believed in the two state idea—until he travelled back to his homeland and realized that the facts on the ground make it unrealizable. A unitary state would not be a panacea, and it would be difficult to overcome resistance from those who want to preserve Israel’s Jewish identity. But compromises could be found that allow, at least for the time being, the state to retain its Jewish identity while granting citizenship rights to Palestinians. The current Israeli president, Reuven Rivlin, is a proponent of the one state idea, as are several groups among both Israelis and Palestinians. Under current conditions, it will not happen, but neither will the two-state idea. We can therefore expect conflict to continue, with wars breaking out every two or three years. Sooner or later, though, events may force the major actors towards radical solutions like the bi-national unitary state.