[NYTr] Conference to advance one-state solution in London

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Abunimah News - Nov 12, 2007

The Electronic Intifada - 12 November 2007
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9092.shtml

Palestinian, Israeli scholars to advance one-state solution in London

Leading Palestinian and Israeli scholars and activists will be among
the speakers at an unprecedented conference to explore a one-state
solution, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in
London on 17-18 November.

Organized by the London One State Group and the SOAS Palestine
Society, the conference, "Challenging the Boundaries: A Single State
in Israel/Palestine," will explore new models for a just peace
including binationalism, secular democracy, a 'state of all its
citizens' and federalism.

The London conference comes as prominent politicians including US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UK Foreign Secretary David
Milliband have recently warned that the window for implementing a
two-state solution is fast closing. Israel has continued to block
the establishment of a Palestinian state by accelerating its
colonization of the occupied West Bank and tightening its starvation
siege of the occupied Gaza Strip, even as Rice makes last ditch
efforts to implement a partition.

"Unquestioned support for the two-state vision" among international
elites "remains firm despite the disastrous failure of the peace
process," a statement from the London One State Group notes, thus
necessitating efforts "to broaden the discourse regarding the
Israel-Palestine conflict towards consideration of a One State
vision as a desirable and achievable alternative." The statement
adds that the "birth of the non-racial democracy in South Africa and
the implementation of the power sharing arrangement in Northern
Ireland have strengthened the belief that partition is not the
inevitable, nor necessarily the most desirable resolution to the
conflict."

Over the past several years the failure of the two-state approach
has led to a resurgence of interest in a one-state solution and the
London conference brings together many who have written or spoken in
favor of it.

Those scheduled to participate include Nur Masalha, Ghada Karmi,
Ilan Pappe, Joseph Massad, Ali Abunimah, Haim Bresheeth, Ghazi
Falah, As'ad Ghanem, Leila Farsakh, Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Nadim
Rouhana, Omar Barghouti, Tikva Honig-Parnass, Louise Bethlehem,
Kathleen O'Connell, Gilbert Achcar, Sumantra Bose, Haidar Eid, Eitan
Bronstein, Eyal Sivan, Yousef Faker el Deen and Rajaa Omari.

The two-day conference includes sessions on aspects of a one-state
solution including its rationale and historical context, geography,
geopolitics, citizenship and identity, and rethinking the
nation-state. Speakers will provide a comparative perspective on
conflicts in Ireland, India-Pakistan, South Africa and Lebanon.

Sessions on grassroots activism will bring together one-state
advocates from all over Palestine and the Diaspora including the One
State Group based in Gaza, according to the published program.

Conference organizers cite as one of their inspirations the late
Palestinian scholar Edward Said, who wrote in 1999, "The beginning
is to develop something entirely missing from both Israeli and
Palestinian realities today: the idea and practice of citizenship,
not of ethnic or racial community, as the main vehicle of
coexistence."

The full conference program and details can be found at
http://onestate.net.