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One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel
‘An intelligent, sensitive writer’-- Financial Times ‘Her bold vision of a single egalitarian state is the only way to break the current log jam’-- Nur Masalha, author of A Four Thousand Year History In 1948, Ghada Karmi and her family in Jerusalem were among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were exiled during the creation of the state of Israel. She has since become one of the most vocal proponents of the single democratic state in Palestine-Israel. In this book, Karmi powerfully argues that a democratic one-state settlement is the best possible route to a just future for all concerned, including Palestinian refugees. Uniting the land – from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan – and allowing the Palestinian right of return is the only way to end the exclusive and antidemocratic character of the Israeli state. Ghada Karmi was born in Jerusalem. Forced from her home during the Nakba, she later trained as a Doctor of Medicine at Bristol University. She established the first British-Palestinian medical charity in 1972 and was an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs. Her previous books include the best-selling memoir In Search of Fatima .
208 pages, Paperback
Published April 20, 2023
About the author
Ghada Karmi
11 books124 followersDr Ghada Karmi was born in Palestine and then had to flee with her family when it became Israel. She grew up in Britain and now she's a doctor, author, academic, and well-know international commentator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Ghada still vividly remembers a huge bombing just behind her house in Jerusalem. "It was absolutely dreadful. I was bewildered, I was scared - I could see my parents were scared, which is very scary for a child because you think your parents know it all and they look after you. I knew, from that moment on, things had changed for us. I didn't know how, but things weren't going to be the same again."
After fleeing their family home, her family eventually settled in London. "My mother was very angry about the loss of the homeland. She didn't speak English, she didn't want to come that far afield, she just wasn't prepared. I'm afraid she never adapted, she stayed very Arab. I think it's a very great tragedy, one of the many, is people like my mother, who could not accept her exile, and was never really happy in Britain - and never found happiness again, in fact."
Unlike her mother, Ghada settled in fairly quickly. "I was a child. I made friends, I became very much part of the English way of life. I married an Englishman! I felt not just integrated, but assimilated."
Her idea for a one-state solution in the Middle East hasn't got much support as yet. "This is still a minority view. There is a constituency for it, on both sides, and also by the way among non-Jews and non-Palestinians, but the good news is - this constituency is growing. A few years back nobody was talking about the one-state solution. Today, three or four years on, we are hearing more and more voices raised in support. That, to me, shows that the trend is growing."
Ghada still vividly remembers a huge bombing just behind her house in Jerusalem. "It was absolutely dreadful. I was bewildered, I was scared - I could see my parents were scared, which is very scary for a child because you think your parents know it all and they look after you. I knew, from that moment on, things had changed for us. I didn't know how, but things weren't going to be the same again."
After fleeing their family home, her family eventually settled in London. "My mother was very angry about the loss of the homeland. She didn't speak English, she didn't want to come that far afield, she just wasn't prepared. I'm afraid she never adapted, she stayed very Arab. I think it's a very great tragedy, one of the many, is people like my mother, who could not accept her exile, and was never really happy in Britain - and never found happiness again, in fact."
Unlike her mother, Ghada settled in fairly quickly. "I was a child. I made friends, I became very much part of the English way of life. I married an Englishman! I felt not just integrated, but assimilated."
Her idea for a one-state solution in the Middle East hasn't got much support as yet. "This is still a minority view. There is a constituency for it, on both sides, and also by the way among non-Jews and non-Palestinians, but the good news is - this constituency is growing. A few years back nobody was talking about the one-state solution. Today, three or four years on, we are hearing more and more voices raised in support. That, to me, shows that the trend is growing."
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
November 8, 2023
As a Jewish person who had just lived in Israel for a year, I chose this book as a starting point to seek more information from the Palestinian perspective in light of the most recent events. I believe wherever your ethnic, religious, or political affiliations lie, it is of utmost importance to do research and gain knowledge from various media forms, and viewpoints in order to strengthen your knowledge and understanding of worldwide events.
I really appreciated Ghada Karmi's commentary backed by a fascinating bibliography. To be honest, I never read an argument for a one-state solution that accounted for the needs and histories of both groups, so I really enjoyed learning about the bi-national and unified secular models. I also appreciate how Karmi shed a light on the history of attempted diplomatic peace offerings, which heavily, and unfairly favoured the Israeli side. Karmi expresses her points beautifully and articulately, which made for a wholly engaging read! I did not agree with every point made, but I'm really glad to have picked up this book; I would love to check out her memoir too!
I really appreciated Ghada Karmi's commentary backed by a fascinating bibliography. To be honest, I never read an argument for a one-state solution that accounted for the needs and histories of both groups, so I really enjoyed learning about the bi-national and unified secular models. I also appreciate how Karmi shed a light on the history of attempted diplomatic peace offerings, which heavily, and unfairly favoured the Israeli side. Karmi expresses her points beautifully and articulately, which made for a wholly engaging read! I did not agree with every point made, but I'm really glad to have picked up this book; I would love to check out her memoir too!
December 7, 2023
Thoughtful, clear and in the circumstances remarkably humane survey of surely the only logical and fair way out, which now seems further than ever.
July 6, 2024
Cet essai est fouillé, instructif et objectif. Difficile néanmoins pour ma part de souscrire à sa thèse, surtout lorsqu’on sait que de l’aveu même de Ghada Karmi, la solution à un État soulève des objections « difficiles à réfuter ». Le contexte de génocide actuel a donné raison à l’une d’entre elles : « la majorité des palestiniens […] pensent même que c’est une idée dangereuse qui risque de détourner de l’attention de la lutte urgente contre l’occupation ». Les massacres en cours à Gaza hurlent l’impossibilité d’Israël à renoncer au projet sioniste et l’impératif palestinien de refuser une « solution » si consensuelle.
July 16, 2024
This is an important book for people who want to see a different way of looking at Palestinian liberation. Karmi's book takes you through the historical contexts related to Zionism, Palestine, and the British colonialism that has mired West Asia in turmoil for over 75 years. The first few chapters may be a bit of a review for people who know the history, but the last few chapters are quite informative and useful as Karmi goes through all of the various variations for imagining what one state could look like in historic Palestine and argues persuasively why that's the only real way forward.
November 2, 2023
Karmi lays out the logic well of the case for a one state in Palestine-Israel exceedingly well. Karmi also goes further than other writers on this topic in being forthright about the roadblocks and difficulties to achieving this solution and draws out the pros and cons of different approaches. Rarely the difference between bi-nationalism or single democratic state are spelled out, so this book does a great job at that.
June 23, 2024
A great work that seems to attempt a few different analyses to varying degrees of success. As a historiography of what solutions have been suggested for the conflict, it is very interesting and provides a unique insight. Its framing of the conflict itself, putting forward a history that places the Nakba and Zionism itself at its core, a core that must be overcome for any just and (crucially) lasting resolution is important, and remarkably relevant considering it was written before October 7th and the current war.
It's charting of various different one-state solutions does help frame the argument. However, I find Karmi's argument against binationalism a little underwhelming and unconvincing. But it is still well-written and has given me a lot to think over since finishing it a few weeks ago.
I also found part of her history of the conflict to be incomplete, but I can't fault it too much for oversimplifying considering that it isn't the primary thrust of the book.
It's charting of various different one-state solutions does help frame the argument. However, I find Karmi's argument against binationalism a little underwhelming and unconvincing. But it is still well-written and has given me a lot to think over since finishing it a few weeks ago.
I also found part of her history of the conflict to be incomplete, but I can't fault it too much for oversimplifying considering that it isn't the primary thrust of the book.
January 29, 2024
Educational, logical and well-written.
January 24, 2024
It’s refreshing to read a book that takes seriously a “One-state solution” to the perpetual crisis in Israel and the Palestinian territories. It describes a democratic secular state with civil rights for all its citizens and the right of return for refugees. Such a state would fill the borders of historic Palestine from Lebanon in the north to the Red Sea in the south, the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the river Jordan to the east.
This was published before the Hamas-led attack on 7 Oct 2023 when 1200 Israelis were killed and several hundred were taken hostage. Israel’s war on Gaza in response continues and over 25,000 Palestinians have been killed to date by the Israeli military. It has turned Gaza into a vast sink of malnutrition, disease and creeping or sudden death and hundreds of Palestinians have been murdered in the West Bank by settlers and vigilantes armed by the Israeli state.
Karmi describes the ultimate source of this horror, the 1917 Balfour Declaration by British authorities in Palestine who supported the principle of a Jewish homeland, a “little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism”. Then the 75 years since the 1948 war when 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes by forces that became the Israeli military. Thousands of Palestinians were murdered then for being Palestinian and the colonial-settler state of Israel was born. Karmi sketches the various deals and proposals for peace deals since, culminating in the 20-year siege of Gaza and the racist apartheid system that operates throughout Israel and the Palestinian territories now. Karmi describes the material benefits of being Jewish in Israel and sketches the restrictions Palestinians live under.
She looks at ideas of “bi-nationalism” and how popularity for a one-state solution has increased or waned over the years with a review of publications, books and conferences about it. Anyone honestly looking for a just solution to this horror can understand that two states in historic Palestine isn't it.
There are flaws here (p46-7) with simplistic analysis of historic Jewish communities in Europe. It wasn’t the “hold of traditional Judaism” in Eastern Europe that resulted in the “quasi-ethnic identity of their own”... where the “ majority of Eastern European Jews lived in ghettos, apart from their non-Jewish compatriots, and traditionally led separate lives.” This misunderstands how Jews experienced virulent, murderous racism and laws that restricted where they could live, their education and jobs Jews were allowed to work at.
It's worse when Karmi says, “Jewish assimilation in Europe provoked the creation or worsening of powerful anti-Jewish in Russia and elsewhere to which the term antisemitism was first applied in modern times.” It’s factually inaccurate and blames victims of antisemitism for their own persecution.
The lack of class analysis probably reflects Karmi’s own class position and may account for a misunderstanding of what ended apartheid in South Africa (p139) and her conclusions about how Palestinians can achieve their liberation. The end of apartheid in South Africa did not “come about after the withdrawal of foreign, especially US support caused by a large-scale, external anti-apartheid campaign and, most importantly, economic sanctions”. The external campaign put pressure on the racist South African government and showed ordinary people there fighting apartheid that they weren’t alone and the world wasn’t indifferent. But the enormous strikes by its huge, highly organised and militant Black working class paralysed South African capitalism and forced some of its ruling class to understand that apartheid had to go to save their national capitalist interests and themselves.
Karmi is not talking about anyone being forced out but she notes that at times of Palestinian resistance there is a rise in Israeli emmigration. She sketches the deals and treaties involving various governments and ruling authorities that have failed spectacularly. She also wonders whether the “uprising” of May 2021 could happen again, only stronger and with a broader movement of Palestinians to achieve liberation. I completely understand why any Palestinian wants to feel they needn’t rely on other forces than themselves. But Palestinians don’t have the social and economic weight that almost any other working class in the Middle East has. The May 2021 general strike had a serious impact on construction and transport and was a huge display of unity. But millions of Palestinians are excluded from great swathes of the Israeli economy which is why they rely so much on aid.
There also isn’t much clarity about what Karmi calls the “US/Israeli axis” and "Western-influenced” governments in the Middle East and why they support the Israeli state or, in the case of Arab states don't seriously oppose Israel. The US wants to maintain its imperialist interests and governments in the Middle East fear their own people and will protect themselves at all costs. We saw that when the various dictators crushed the 2011 revolutions.
But the enormous protests for Palestine recently across the region show how strongly ordinary people feel that Palestinians are their siblings and the injustices done to them are insults to all of them. They want their own lives to be better too.
The book ends with a prediction that the Israeli state’s continuing repression of the Palestinians will inevitably breed retaliation but Israelis did not expect to be hit so hard. Hamas’s “al Aqsa flood” used the tactics that the IDF usually mete out to Gazans and Israelis are very angry about it. So, far right Israeli ministers make genocidal statements about killing as many Palestinians as possible and Netanyahu will do anything to save his own career.
The worldwide protest movement for Palestine is huge and growing and if it develops and deepens it could reshape the whole region, which is what US and Middle Eastern governments, including Israel fear. It seems a long way off but that's also why ultimately only a single democratic, secular state could be an expression of civil rights and justice for everyone who lives now and in future within Palestine’s historic borders.
Despite my criticisms this is a useful book and it underscores why without justice for the Palestinians there will be no peace.
This was published before the Hamas-led attack on 7 Oct 2023 when 1200 Israelis were killed and several hundred were taken hostage. Israel’s war on Gaza in response continues and over 25,000 Palestinians have been killed to date by the Israeli military. It has turned Gaza into a vast sink of malnutrition, disease and creeping or sudden death and hundreds of Palestinians have been murdered in the West Bank by settlers and vigilantes armed by the Israeli state.
Karmi describes the ultimate source of this horror, the 1917 Balfour Declaration by British authorities in Palestine who supported the principle of a Jewish homeland, a “little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism”. Then the 75 years since the 1948 war when 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes by forces that became the Israeli military. Thousands of Palestinians were murdered then for being Palestinian and the colonial-settler state of Israel was born. Karmi sketches the various deals and proposals for peace deals since, culminating in the 20-year siege of Gaza and the racist apartheid system that operates throughout Israel and the Palestinian territories now. Karmi describes the material benefits of being Jewish in Israel and sketches the restrictions Palestinians live under.
She looks at ideas of “bi-nationalism” and how popularity for a one-state solution has increased or waned over the years with a review of publications, books and conferences about it. Anyone honestly looking for a just solution to this horror can understand that two states in historic Palestine isn't it.
There are flaws here (p46-7) with simplistic analysis of historic Jewish communities in Europe. It wasn’t the “hold of traditional Judaism” in Eastern Europe that resulted in the “quasi-ethnic identity of their own”... where the “ majority of Eastern European Jews lived in ghettos, apart from their non-Jewish compatriots, and traditionally led separate lives.” This misunderstands how Jews experienced virulent, murderous racism and laws that restricted where they could live, their education and jobs Jews were allowed to work at.
It's worse when Karmi says, “Jewish assimilation in Europe provoked the creation or worsening of powerful anti-Jewish in Russia and elsewhere to which the term antisemitism was first applied in modern times.” It’s factually inaccurate and blames victims of antisemitism for their own persecution.
The lack of class analysis probably reflects Karmi’s own class position and may account for a misunderstanding of what ended apartheid in South Africa (p139) and her conclusions about how Palestinians can achieve their liberation. The end of apartheid in South Africa did not “come about after the withdrawal of foreign, especially US support caused by a large-scale, external anti-apartheid campaign and, most importantly, economic sanctions”. The external campaign put pressure on the racist South African government and showed ordinary people there fighting apartheid that they weren’t alone and the world wasn’t indifferent. But the enormous strikes by its huge, highly organised and militant Black working class paralysed South African capitalism and forced some of its ruling class to understand that apartheid had to go to save their national capitalist interests and themselves.
Karmi is not talking about anyone being forced out but she notes that at times of Palestinian resistance there is a rise in Israeli emmigration. She sketches the deals and treaties involving various governments and ruling authorities that have failed spectacularly. She also wonders whether the “uprising” of May 2021 could happen again, only stronger and with a broader movement of Palestinians to achieve liberation. I completely understand why any Palestinian wants to feel they needn’t rely on other forces than themselves. But Palestinians don’t have the social and economic weight that almost any other working class in the Middle East has. The May 2021 general strike had a serious impact on construction and transport and was a huge display of unity. But millions of Palestinians are excluded from great swathes of the Israeli economy which is why they rely so much on aid.
There also isn’t much clarity about what Karmi calls the “US/Israeli axis” and "Western-influenced” governments in the Middle East and why they support the Israeli state or, in the case of Arab states don't seriously oppose Israel. The US wants to maintain its imperialist interests and governments in the Middle East fear their own people and will protect themselves at all costs. We saw that when the various dictators crushed the 2011 revolutions.
But the enormous protests for Palestine recently across the region show how strongly ordinary people feel that Palestinians are their siblings and the injustices done to them are insults to all of them. They want their own lives to be better too.
The book ends with a prediction that the Israeli state’s continuing repression of the Palestinians will inevitably breed retaliation but Israelis did not expect to be hit so hard. Hamas’s “al Aqsa flood” used the tactics that the IDF usually mete out to Gazans and Israelis are very angry about it. So, far right Israeli ministers make genocidal statements about killing as many Palestinians as possible and Netanyahu will do anything to save his own career.
The worldwide protest movement for Palestine is huge and growing and if it develops and deepens it could reshape the whole region, which is what US and Middle Eastern governments, including Israel fear. It seems a long way off but that's also why ultimately only a single democratic, secular state could be an expression of civil rights and justice for everyone who lives now and in future within Palestine’s historic borders.
Despite my criticisms this is a useful book and it underscores why without justice for the Palestinians there will be no peace.
December 23, 2023
Ghada Karmi published this book in 2023, just weeks before her most dreadful prediction came to pass:
"Such gross Israeli abuses of power have led me to wonder more than once why it was that Israel did not go the whole way: bomb Gaza to smithereens, for example, deport the Palestinians en masse, and raze their towns and villages to the ground. Who would have stopped Israel had it done so? Certainly not the European powers, which meekly followed the US lead, and not the Arab states, which were incapable of independent action."
That is exactly what has happened.
Although any book on this topic is bound to be superseded by events, this one is punctuated by lightning flashes of insight that help us to understand the disastrous situation in Palestine/Israel, the most relevant of which, it seems to me, is to see parallels between the long and painful struggle of the Africans in America, and the equally long and painful struggle the Palestinians may have to face in the future, after the obvious and (she argues) inevitable unification of Palestine and Israel somehow comes to pass.
Again and again, the Author points out that of all the places in the world that are dangerous for Jews, Israel is the most dangerous of all: an invented country created in somebody else's territory at a time when it might have been thought that the age of imperialism was dead, and that is only able to survive by becoming grossly militarised and supported by the United States, whose aim is to retain a pro-American ally that will help it (it thinks) to control events in the Middle East. Israel was doomed from the outset to be a country permanently at war.
Writing about the so-called Two-State Solution she wonders "why did Western governments persist in the charade of making empty pledges to the Palestinians about something they knew could not happen?"
Ghada Karmi's family was thrown out of Palestine in 1948 by the Zionist terrorists, and like millions of her compatriots she has had to live in exile ever since. She is the Author of several important books, some about her personal experience as an exile, and some about her political thinking.
One of the many useful parts of "One State" is a detailed review of the large body of literature that has been published on the subject of re-unification of Palestine as a single state where the human rights of everyone are guaranteed. Many thinkers besides herself have envisaged what this new country could look like, drawing comparisons with the experience of other divided societies, from Cyprus to South Africa.
At present, of course, we are stuck at an impasse. The Palestinians would never accept to share a country with the very people who usurped them in the Naqba of 1948 and for their part the Israelis would, seemingly, never give up their Zionist dream of a Lebensraum stretching all the way to the RIver Jordan. And yet this rapprochement, Karmi argues, is the only solution.
Once again we are faced with the age-old, fundamental problem of the existence of nation-states, of which Antonio Gramsci once wrote: "this, it appears, is the harsh fate of humans: an instinct that takes possession of us and makes us want to devour one another, rather than join forces to overcome our base nature and make it serve human needs better".
Once again we must hope that the small groups of like-minded Palestinians and Israelis that exist today will become numerous and powerful, and will take things to the next step. With that in mind Karmi describes many of the inspiring ideas there have been that envisage how this exciting new Middle East might be.
"I have a dream" said Martin Luther King. We need something similar for Palestine/Israel. Ghada Karmi has given us a timely and scholarly (but very readable) footnoted summary of the rich patrimony of ideas and actions we have seen thus far and that have brought the Middle East to where it is now.
Certainly there is more to come; her book is a milestone on a long. long road and is important reading for anyone who really wants to see where it may be leading.
"Such gross Israeli abuses of power have led me to wonder more than once why it was that Israel did not go the whole way: bomb Gaza to smithereens, for example, deport the Palestinians en masse, and raze their towns and villages to the ground. Who would have stopped Israel had it done so? Certainly not the European powers, which meekly followed the US lead, and not the Arab states, which were incapable of independent action."
That is exactly what has happened.
Although any book on this topic is bound to be superseded by events, this one is punctuated by lightning flashes of insight that help us to understand the disastrous situation in Palestine/Israel, the most relevant of which, it seems to me, is to see parallels between the long and painful struggle of the Africans in America, and the equally long and painful struggle the Palestinians may have to face in the future, after the obvious and (she argues) inevitable unification of Palestine and Israel somehow comes to pass.
Again and again, the Author points out that of all the places in the world that are dangerous for Jews, Israel is the most dangerous of all: an invented country created in somebody else's territory at a time when it might have been thought that the age of imperialism was dead, and that is only able to survive by becoming grossly militarised and supported by the United States, whose aim is to retain a pro-American ally that will help it (it thinks) to control events in the Middle East. Israel was doomed from the outset to be a country permanently at war.
Writing about the so-called Two-State Solution she wonders "why did Western governments persist in the charade of making empty pledges to the Palestinians about something they knew could not happen?"
Ghada Karmi's family was thrown out of Palestine in 1948 by the Zionist terrorists, and like millions of her compatriots she has had to live in exile ever since. She is the Author of several important books, some about her personal experience as an exile, and some about her political thinking.
One of the many useful parts of "One State" is a detailed review of the large body of literature that has been published on the subject of re-unification of Palestine as a single state where the human rights of everyone are guaranteed. Many thinkers besides herself have envisaged what this new country could look like, drawing comparisons with the experience of other divided societies, from Cyprus to South Africa.
At present, of course, we are stuck at an impasse. The Palestinians would never accept to share a country with the very people who usurped them in the Naqba of 1948 and for their part the Israelis would, seemingly, never give up their Zionist dream of a Lebensraum stretching all the way to the RIver Jordan. And yet this rapprochement, Karmi argues, is the only solution.
Once again we are faced with the age-old, fundamental problem of the existence of nation-states, of which Antonio Gramsci once wrote: "this, it appears, is the harsh fate of humans: an instinct that takes possession of us and makes us want to devour one another, rather than join forces to overcome our base nature and make it serve human needs better".
Once again we must hope that the small groups of like-minded Palestinians and Israelis that exist today will become numerous and powerful, and will take things to the next step. With that in mind Karmi describes many of the inspiring ideas there have been that envisage how this exciting new Middle East might be.
"I have a dream" said Martin Luther King. We need something similar for Palestine/Israel. Ghada Karmi has given us a timely and scholarly (but very readable) footnoted summary of the rich patrimony of ideas and actions we have seen thus far and that have brought the Middle East to where it is now.
Certainly there is more to come; her book is a milestone on a long. long road and is important reading for anyone who really wants to see where it may be leading.
Read
November 27, 2023DNFing this @ 25% because while i agree with the author’s contention that a one state solution is the only just state solution in palestine and israel, i find it genuinely disturbing to see the khazar hypothesis repeated so credulously in 2023. this is a belief for which there is no good evidence outside of a few fringe studies, and which is likely impossible to prove or disprove. it was a pet theory of ezra pound, derived from nineteenth-century race science, and remains popular amongst russian antisemites today.
immediately after relating this theory the author concedes that it’s not even important to her argument - even if ashkenazi jews do originate from the levant (as all the evidence suggests they do), this doesn’t give them the right to impose an ethnostate on the palestinians. which leaves me confused as to why she felt the need to include a section on a theory widely considered antisemitic and why an editor didn’t suggest removing it to begin with…
immediately after relating this theory the author concedes that it’s not even important to her argument - even if ashkenazi jews do originate from the levant (as all the evidence suggests they do), this doesn’t give them the right to impose an ethnostate on the palestinians. which leaves me confused as to why she felt the need to include a section on a theory widely considered antisemitic and why an editor didn’t suggest removing it to begin with…
January 12, 2024
La démonstration de l’état unique comme seule solution viable est bien argumentée et très convaincante.
Les détails des différentes tentatives de processus de paix au fil des années sont organisés dans le livre d’une manière moins claire, et un peu difficile à suivre avec beaucoup de redites. Le propos aurait été parfaitement clair et percutant avec une chronologie linéaire et 50 pages de moins.
J’ai été surprise par les partis-pris réducteurs de l’autrice, au milieu d’un exposé historique très sourcé. La colonisation et le régime d’apartheid sont bien sûr indéfendables, mais d’après elle tous les peuples vivaient en paix avant Israel et les Palestiniens n’avaient jamais connu la violence. De tels propos manichéens peuvent mettre en doute l’objectivité de son analyse.
Malgré tout, c’est un essai important et plein d’espoir pour l’avenir.
Les détails des différentes tentatives de processus de paix au fil des années sont organisés dans le livre d’une manière moins claire, et un peu difficile à suivre avec beaucoup de redites. Le propos aurait été parfaitement clair et percutant avec une chronologie linéaire et 50 pages de moins.
J’ai été surprise par les partis-pris réducteurs de l’autrice, au milieu d’un exposé historique très sourcé. La colonisation et le régime d’apartheid sont bien sûr indéfendables, mais d’après elle tous les peuples vivaient en paix avant Israel et les Palestiniens n’avaient jamais connu la violence. De tels propos manichéens peuvent mettre en doute l’objectivité de son analyse.
Malgré tout, c’est un essai important et plein d’espoir pour l’avenir.
April 16, 2024
Compelling study of why practically every other attempted solution has failed for the Palestinians, and why, despite being the last thing the Israeli government are likely to accept, there may be no alternative to a secular one-state solution. This book was written and published before October 7th but is even more relevant now, sadly.
The one cause for hope is that the upsurge in global pro-Palestine sentiment and action observed by the author in 2021 has only intensified since despite having gone on for six months, and might finally force the issue on boycotts and sanctions against Israel.
The one cause for hope is that the upsurge in global pro-Palestine sentiment and action observed by the author in 2021 has only intensified since despite having gone on for six months, and might finally force the issue on boycotts and sanctions against Israel.
December 6, 2023
Essai extrêmement intéressant, il a définitivement amélioré ma compréhension de la situation, et m'a éclairé sur l'aberration qu'est le sionisme.
Toutefois, ce n'est pas du tout une lecture facile d'accès. L'autrice part du principe que nous connaissais énormément de points du problème Palestino/israelien. Or, ce n'est évidemment pas le cas, et cela à tendance à rendre la lecture compliquée.
Je ne pourrai pas recommander ce livre à quelqu'un qui souhaite développer ses connaissances sur le sujet mais qui n'a pas l'habitude de lire des essais.
Toutefois, ce n'est pas du tout une lecture facile d'accès. L'autrice part du principe que nous connaissais énormément de points du problème Palestino/israelien. Or, ce n'est évidemment pas le cas, et cela à tendance à rendre la lecture compliquée.
Je ne pourrai pas recommander ce livre à quelqu'un qui souhaite développer ses connaissances sur le sujet mais qui n'a pas l'habitude de lire des essais.
January 22, 2024
très triste de lire le passage suivant, quand on connaît l'évolution du conflit israélo-palestinien depuis octobre 2023 : " Je me suis demandé plus d'une fois pourquoi Israël n'est pas allé au bout, n'a pas réduit Gaza en petits morceaux par ses bombardements, n'a pas déporté les Palestiniens et rasés leurs villes. Qui l'aurait arrêté dans cette voie ?"
lecture édifiante sur la question de l'état unique, et qui met bien en perspective cette solution qui reste encore aujourd'hui, malheureusement, plus une aspiration que l'avènement d'avenir proche. mais l'espoir doit perdurer!
lecture édifiante sur la question de l'état unique, et qui met bien en perspective cette solution qui reste encore aujourd'hui, malheureusement, plus une aspiration que l'avènement d'avenir proche. mais l'espoir doit perdurer!
March 16, 2024
I've read a lot of books on Palestine. This is one of the best I've read, if not *the* best. Karmi is an outstanding writer. The book is not long, and it is accessible for beginners, but it's one of those books you can tell years of research went into. Some of the quotes and insights, like on Arafat's motivations for accepting the Oslo Accords and the author's personal conversations with other Palestinians around the one state solution, were new and surprising to me.
I wish this book were required reading in US high schools. Or at least for US presidents!
I wish this book were required reading in US high schools. Or at least for US presidents!
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January 29, 2024Ghada Karmi’s latest book, One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel advocates for the one-state solution as the only possibility – a vision that is faced with many political impediments. Read The New Arab's review here: https://www.newarab.com/features/one-...
June 7, 2024
Très très bien
L'énumération de toute les solutions proposées par le passé, de toutes les solutions possibles est extrêmement intéressante et permet de mieux comprendre la question
Je garderai "il ne faut pas se demander si la solution à un état est faisable mais si elle est souhaitable" (la réponse est oui, mais ne nous laissons pas abattre devant la difficulté de mise en place)
L'énumération de toute les solutions proposées par le passé, de toutes les solutions possibles est extrêmement intéressante et permet de mieux comprendre la question
Je garderai "il ne faut pas se demander si la solution à un état est faisable mais si elle est souhaitable" (la réponse est oui, mais ne nous laissons pas abattre devant la difficulté de mise en place)
January 1, 2024
A clear, articulate and passionate call for justice and equality for Palestinians. Well worth reading.
January 7, 2024
Sharp and accessible, perfect for people who don't know where to start or feel like they're pretty informed. My favorite book I've read so far on the topic (next to Hamas Contained)
January 25, 2024
Powerful and educational.
May 23, 2024
good, readable text. the distinctions between bi-nationalism and secular democratic state both in historical / current approaches were outlined really well
June 2, 2024
Fair and inspiring, thoughtful for both Jewish and Palestinians, a must read for those looking forward
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June 19, 2024funny this book comes from a "radical" publisher
February 3, 2024
Timely, alarming and necessary. Marked down because it lacked chronology of dates and most importantly a map. Also requires that you have some knowledge of key dates surrounding this conflict - which admittedly I do not. I'm not wholly convinced on the arguments either... maybe the writing was too academic, lacked structure, persuasion and flair.
February 26, 2024
Not only did this book deeply dissect the Zionist regime within but also brought on fabulous conversations with strangers & comrades along my travels. Also an amazing repellent for bigots💅
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