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Haifa Republic: A Democratic Future for Israel
A provocative argument for a new way of seeing Israel, Zionism, and the two-state solution.
Haifa A Democratic Future for Israel is an urgent wake-up call. The philosopher Omri Boehm argues that it is long past time to recognize that there will not be a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people. After fifty years, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank constitutes annexation in all but name, even as the legitimate claims of the Arab population, soon to be a national majority, remain unaddressed. Meanwhile, daily life goes on under conditions rightly likened to apartheid. For liberals in Israel and America to continue to place their hopes in a two-state solution is a form of willful and culpable blindness, especially now that Israeli leaders across the political spectrum have begun to speak of ethnic cleansing. A catastrophe is in the making.
But Haifa Republic also offers grounds for hope. Catastrophe can be averted, Boehm contends, by reconfiguring Israel as a single binational state in which Palestinians and Jews both possess human rights and equal citizenship. The original Zionists—Theodor Herzl, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and, early in his career, David Ben-Gurion—all advocated such a federation, and as prime minister, Menachem Begin successfully submitted a kindred plan to the Knesset. A binational federation offers a last chance for the two peoples who call Palestine home to live in peace and mutual respect and to have a truly democratic future in common.
Haifa A Democratic Future for Israel is an urgent wake-up call. The philosopher Omri Boehm argues that it is long past time to recognize that there will not be a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people. After fifty years, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank constitutes annexation in all but name, even as the legitimate claims of the Arab population, soon to be a national majority, remain unaddressed. Meanwhile, daily life goes on under conditions rightly likened to apartheid. For liberals in Israel and America to continue to place their hopes in a two-state solution is a form of willful and culpable blindness, especially now that Israeli leaders across the political spectrum have begun to speak of ethnic cleansing. A catastrophe is in the making.
But Haifa Republic also offers grounds for hope. Catastrophe can be averted, Boehm contends, by reconfiguring Israel as a single binational state in which Palestinians and Jews both possess human rights and equal citizenship. The original Zionists—Theodor Herzl, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and, early in his career, David Ben-Gurion—all advocated such a federation, and as prime minister, Menachem Begin successfully submitted a kindred plan to the Knesset. A binational federation offers a last chance for the two peoples who call Palestine home to live in peace and mutual respect and to have a truly democratic future in common.
200 pages, Paperback
First published August 17, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
March 22, 2024
Though the title is misleading (no mention of Palestine), this book is focused on the vision for one, democratic, secular, binational state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The Israeli Jewish author spends much of the book 1) explaining the untenable conditions and violence of occupation and the apartheid system, both for Palestinians and Israeli Jews, 2) quoting early Zionist leaders and Israeli politicians who were open to the possibilities of one binational state and 3) critiquing the liberal fixation on two state solution, especially decades after the failures of the Oslo accords. Those parts of the book are compelling and presented in ways that felt unique and important, especially the piece around early Zionist thinkers (and the influence of British rule on the political shifts that perpetuated the Nakba). The actual description of what this vision would look like in practice and the road to get there felt more murky so I would have loved more depth in that section. I’m excited to continue reading Palestinian and Jewish voices about models for an end to settler colonialism, occupation and apartheid that ensures safety, dignity and justice for all peoples.
May 16, 2021
Interessantes Buch, das die Scheinheiligkeit vor allem der sich für liberal haltenden Akademiker und Bildungsbürger analysiert und kritisiert. Ich fand es vor allem lustig, wie Jürgen Habermas im Speziellen kritisiert wird, den ich zwar nicht tiefgehend kenne – aber als (mehr oder weniger unfreiwilliger) Begründer des Linksfaschismus-Komplex Unfugs hat er sich auch nicht mit Ruhm bekleckert. Zurück zu Boehm: Sein Buch hat die Entwicklungen von Zionismus und liberalem Zionismus anschaulich beleuchtet und argumentativ aufgezeigt, wieso das heutige Israel so wie es ist nicht weiter existieren kann und auch die Zweistaatenlösung schon seit einiger Zeit eigentlich keine realisierbare Utopie mehr darstellt. Er plädiert stattdessen für eine bilaterale Republik dessen Hauptstadt Haifa wäre, in der jüdische Menschen und nicht jüdische Menschen als gleichberechtigte Staatsürger anhand einer gemeinsamen Erinnerungskultur, die sowohl Shoah als auch Nakba beinhalten kann und muss, um einen tatsächlich demokratischen Staat zu begründen, statt eines ethnoreligiösen. Der eine Stern Abzug ist an Verlag und Lektorat gerichtet.
September 28, 2025
Der israelische Philosoph Omri Boehm möchte mit seinem Buch „Israel – eine Utopie“ einen Beitrag zum verhärteten Konflikt zwischen Israel und Palästina leisten.
Einleitend wird die Frage gestellt, ob man den Staat Israel kritisieren darf. Aufhänger ist ein Interview mit Jürgen Habermas in einer israelischen Tageszeitung, in dem Habermas betont, dass Deutsche aus seiner Generation sich nicht zu Israels Politik äußern sollten. Boehm möchte diesem vehement widersprechen und argumentiert, dass ein Grundpfeiler der Demokratie, die Kritik am Staat ist und solange Israel als demokratischer Staat wahrgenommen werden möchte, Kritik angebracht und notwendig ist.
Boehm führt den Lesenden durch die Geschichte der Staatsgründung Israels, die Geschichte des Zionismus, die Nakba (die Vertreibung der Palästinenser 1948) und spannt so einen Bogen bis zur Beschreibung der politischen Gegenwart. Grundtenor des Buches ist, dass die Zweistaatenlösung gescheitert ist und gleichzeitig wirft er den Verfechtern davon vor, keine realistische Perspektive anbieten zu können. Zudem argumentiert er, dass es den Zionisten ursprünglich vor allem um die Bildung eines autonomen Gebiets auf dem Boden Palästinas ging und nicht um die Annexion des gesamten Gebiets. So scharf Boehm Israel kritisiert, so blass bleibt Palästina. Im Buch werden sie als stille Subjekte beschrieben, die nicht gleichwertig als handelnde Objekte am Konflikt beteiligt sind. Das ist vermutlich auch das größte Manko des Buches. Zu einer Medaille gehören doch immer zwei Seiten.
Der Unterschied zu allen andern Büchern über den Nahostkonflikt ist, dass Boehm Philosoph ist und kein Politikwissenschaftler. Das eröffnet ihm die Möglichkeit, den Konflikt aus einer anderen Perspektive zu betrachten. Er fordert einen jüdisch-palästinensischen Bundesstaat mit gleichen Rechten für alle Einwohner:innen. Er ist sich aber durchaus bewusst wie unwahrscheinlich diese Option ist.
Boehm ist mit seinem Buch „Israel – eine Utopie“ ein konstruktiver Beitrag zum Israel-Palästina-Konflikt gelungen, der mehr als lesenswert ist, auch wenn die vorgeschlagene Bundesstaat-Lösung mehr als unwahrscheinlich ist.
Eine klare Leseempfehlung!
Note:2+
Einleitend wird die Frage gestellt, ob man den Staat Israel kritisieren darf. Aufhänger ist ein Interview mit Jürgen Habermas in einer israelischen Tageszeitung, in dem Habermas betont, dass Deutsche aus seiner Generation sich nicht zu Israels Politik äußern sollten. Boehm möchte diesem vehement widersprechen und argumentiert, dass ein Grundpfeiler der Demokratie, die Kritik am Staat ist und solange Israel als demokratischer Staat wahrgenommen werden möchte, Kritik angebracht und notwendig ist.
Boehm führt den Lesenden durch die Geschichte der Staatsgründung Israels, die Geschichte des Zionismus, die Nakba (die Vertreibung der Palästinenser 1948) und spannt so einen Bogen bis zur Beschreibung der politischen Gegenwart. Grundtenor des Buches ist, dass die Zweistaatenlösung gescheitert ist und gleichzeitig wirft er den Verfechtern davon vor, keine realistische Perspektive anbieten zu können. Zudem argumentiert er, dass es den Zionisten ursprünglich vor allem um die Bildung eines autonomen Gebiets auf dem Boden Palästinas ging und nicht um die Annexion des gesamten Gebiets. So scharf Boehm Israel kritisiert, so blass bleibt Palästina. Im Buch werden sie als stille Subjekte beschrieben, die nicht gleichwertig als handelnde Objekte am Konflikt beteiligt sind. Das ist vermutlich auch das größte Manko des Buches. Zu einer Medaille gehören doch immer zwei Seiten.
Der Unterschied zu allen andern Büchern über den Nahostkonflikt ist, dass Boehm Philosoph ist und kein Politikwissenschaftler. Das eröffnet ihm die Möglichkeit, den Konflikt aus einer anderen Perspektive zu betrachten. Er fordert einen jüdisch-palästinensischen Bundesstaat mit gleichen Rechten für alle Einwohner:innen. Er ist sich aber durchaus bewusst wie unwahrscheinlich diese Option ist.
Boehm ist mit seinem Buch „Israel – eine Utopie“ ein konstruktiver Beitrag zum Israel-Palästina-Konflikt gelungen, der mehr als lesenswert ist, auch wenn die vorgeschlagene Bundesstaat-Lösung mehr als unwahrscheinlich ist.
Eine klare Leseempfehlung!
Note:2+
December 30, 2021
You could fill a whole library with proposed solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; this book belongs in the bookcase headed “make a single, democratic, binational Israeli/Arab state.”
I have long considered such proposals unrealistic, but Omri Boehm, in this book, makes a persuasive argument that the “two states for two peoples” proposal, taken for granted among Western governments, has become even more unrealistic than binationalism. Any such settlement would require evacuating tens of thousands of Jews out of the West Bank. (Imagine if the US settled a border dispute by removing all of its citizens from Maine and then giving the state to Canada. That’s the scale of displacement we are talking about here.)
Boehm further points out that many early Zionists took for granted that the eventual Jewish homeland would really be a multinational state structured to protect the interests of its Jewish national minority. He blames the British government for introducing the idea of partition with the 1937 Peel Commission report. (Considering the Arab revolt that preceded the Peel commission, and considering Ben-Gurion’s enthusiasm for partition after the idea was laid on the table, I’m not convinced that the British were doing more than recognizing the nationalistic sentiment that already existed on both sides.)
The bulk of the book explores how, in contemporary Israeli culture, Jewish national identity and Jewish communal self-protection have become entangled with a Jewish-identified sovereign state; and how such concepts might, gradually, become disentangled. Obviously, with the growth of the Israeli right, this is a project for the distant future—but, returning to the author’s original point, the two-state resolution that Rabin dreamed of is even more distant.
I would be interested in reading any similar books that might have been written by Palestinian authors, discussing the barriers to creating a binational state on the Palestinian side and how those might be overcome.
I have long considered such proposals unrealistic, but Omri Boehm, in this book, makes a persuasive argument that the “two states for two peoples” proposal, taken for granted among Western governments, has become even more unrealistic than binationalism. Any such settlement would require evacuating tens of thousands of Jews out of the West Bank. (Imagine if the US settled a border dispute by removing all of its citizens from Maine and then giving the state to Canada. That’s the scale of displacement we are talking about here.)
Boehm further points out that many early Zionists took for granted that the eventual Jewish homeland would really be a multinational state structured to protect the interests of its Jewish national minority. He blames the British government for introducing the idea of partition with the 1937 Peel Commission report. (Considering the Arab revolt that preceded the Peel commission, and considering Ben-Gurion’s enthusiasm for partition after the idea was laid on the table, I’m not convinced that the British were doing more than recognizing the nationalistic sentiment that already existed on both sides.)
The bulk of the book explores how, in contemporary Israeli culture, Jewish national identity and Jewish communal self-protection have become entangled with a Jewish-identified sovereign state; and how such concepts might, gradually, become disentangled. Obviously, with the growth of the Israeli right, this is a project for the distant future—but, returning to the author’s original point, the two-state resolution that Rabin dreamed of is even more distant.
I would be interested in reading any similar books that might have been written by Palestinian authors, discussing the barriers to creating a binational state on the Palestinian side and how those might be overcome.
January 4, 2025
Anspruchsvolle Lektüre mit einigen für mich neuen Infos. Der Vorschlag von Omri Boehm klingt erstmal gut, den Weg dorthin bleibt er schuldig - völlig nachvollziehbar. Gut gefallen hat mir die ausdifferenzierte begründete Kritik anderer Modelle und Anschauungen.
September 17, 2024
This book laid bare the folly of the liberal Zionist myth that it is still possible for Jews to "separate" themselves from the indigenous population in Palestine and run our own state, ostensibly uncorrupted by the ongoing occupation of the '67 lands.
Not only is this no longer possible, argues Boehm, but it is not a desirable aim, and not the original aim of the original Zionists to begin with, for whom an ethnic Jewish majority in any large part of Palestine was a pipe-dream requiring the unjust removal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Of course, this eventuated in 1947-8, forever tainting Jews' claims to reside and thrive on their ancestral lands. This was Zionism's "original sin". This original act of ethnic cleansing, followed two decades later by the conquest of the remainder of the territory did not in and of itself condemn the Palestinians to eternal statelessness, horrible as they were. However, actions of subsequent Israeli governments have worked to turn that outcome into a reality.
With the number of settlers rapidly approaching one million (it was about 200,000 when Oslo was signed), it is safe to say that a full withdrawal from the West Bank is either impossible, or would be too bloody to contemplate for either Israelis or Palestinians. A one-state reality is here, with one sovereign power west of Jordan, imposing its will on everyone in its territory. In this state, Jews travel freely across 90% of its territory, where Palestinians exist on a tiered hierarchy. Some are constrained to a small strip of land along the coast where they are subject to one of the most brutal military campaigns of the last century. Some live lives where the most basic trips to school or work come with the abuse and harassment of heavily armed 19-year old Israeli checkpoint guards. A minority of Palestinians are citizens of Israel, where they are free to vote and exercise individual liberties, but are substantially excluded from a state that excludes them from the sovereign Jewish demos (cf. the racist Nation-State law), confining them instead to the secondary support role of Arabs in a Jewish state, tolerated as individuals but suppressed as a collective. In all of the territory of this "Greater Israel", Palestinians and Jews make up roughly an equal share of the population. It is unclear why the former should be expected to accept this Jewish-supremacist reality.
Leaving Palestinians to self determine on 22% of their historic homeland, living side by side with the Israeli population may seem like a triumph to many liberal Israelis today, but, as this book explained, such a situation (impossible as it now is) would only ever perpetuate Zionism's "original sin", the Nakba, and conveniently sweep under the rug the fact of how the demography in Israel's original 1948 borders were secured in the first place. The total separation of Israel from Palestine, as has been the dream of the liberal Israeli intelligentsia since at least the 1970s, would only further take the perpetuation of the Nakba as a forgone conclusion, excluding future generations of Palestinians from walking through Jaffa, Acre and Haifa again as their grandparents did. In addition, doing so would allow liberal Israelis to forget the original sin behind their country's founding, and, as so many do, focus their attention exclusively on the impacts of the post-1967 occupation, whilst continuing to turn a blind eye to (else attempting to justify) the original Catastrophe to befall the Palestinian people.
I hope such an argument to be sympathetic to Jews for whom a millennia-old connection to the Holy Land is framed as central to the Jewish right to return.
A large part of the book is dedicated to comparing the memorialisation of the Holocaust and the Nakba in Israeli society. In Israel, the Holocaust is set apart from any other instance of human tragedy, with the commandment Zachor! Remember! given to each Israeli Jewish child. The very overt subtext, of course, is "Remember what happened to us", excluding Arab Israelis from inclusion in civil-patriotic ritual, whilst constantly reminding Israelis of their victim status, especially in the lead-up to 1948. It is necessary, argues Boehm, to build a shared demos of Jews and Palestinians alike in which the holocaust is memorialised together, as an expression of one of humanity's greatest tragedies, but one which does not define the collective memory of one subset of the Israeli nation at the expense of others. After all, according to Boehm, it was possible in the 1960s to include the majority Mizrahi population in this ritual of Holocaust memorialisation in an attempt to create a Jewish national memory. In their exclusion from this national memory (imported as it was by Jewish refugees), Arab Israelis have been consciously excluded from the Israeli national narrative, diminishing the value of their citizenship to a country which has no interest in representing them as part of the nation's history.
On the other hand, the horrors of the Nakba (with its rapes, executions, massacres) are wiped from the collective memory of Jewish Israelis for whom the narrative that the cowardly Arabs fled in 1948 is still convincing enough. This, of course, has never been convincing to Palestinians, either those who remained or to those driven into the West Bank, Gaza, and beyond in 1948, who always knew what was really done to them.
Some sort of collective memory is essential for all those in the region to live together in peace. Just as descendants of European settlers the world over have slowly been introduced to the impacts of their ancestors' colonial exploits on indigenous populations, so too must Israeli Jews come to terms with the ongoing effects of ethnic cleansing, occupation, siege and settlement on the Palestinian people.
No one in 1945 would have predicted that today, Poles, Germans, Frenchmen, Italians and others share a common citizenship. The nation has been superseded as the supreme polity, and, whilst this has not been without its reactionaries and challenges, Europeans are now "in an embrace so close that no side can draw back to strike the other". Despite this, national governments continue to operate within this joint structure, therefore giving expression to Europe's distinct national groups on global and local fronts.
As Jews, we are used to reading history as Jews. It is hard to know what to do with a story in which we take the role of Rome, Babylon, or Assyria. Hopefully learning to do so will allow future generations of Jews and Palestinians to walk forward in a union that recognises the national aspirations of both groups, and recognises the right of both to cultural self determination on the small strip of land that their ancestors shared.
The alternative vision in this book is simple. A federal republic of Israel and Palestine, where both groups would exercise national self determination within their borders, but where a secular, shared constitution would guarantee freedom of movement and residency, establish a secular school curriculum and encourage the cooperation of these two peoples economically and socially.
The two state solution is a long way behind us now, with two generations of right-wing Israeli politicians doing everything in their power to sabotage the establishment of a truly sovereign Palestinian republic anywhere within the confines of their "Greater Israel". While such a solution may have feasibly worked if taken seriously in the 1990s, it was never the most just solution to a conflict whose defining chapter was the eradication of a nation's civil life in 78% of its historic territory overnight.
On the other hand, the idea of a single unitary state is not a solution many in the region would find acceptable. Without the existence of sub-national federative units, Israelis and Palestinians would have good reason to mourn the demise of each of their respective national aspirations, and arguments over the overall demography and character of the state and its institutions would plague it for generations.
A federation would allow each of these groups the long desired autonomy to manage their respective cultural affairs, provide refuge for their diaspora populations, and feel represented by the state in which they live, whilst striving for a common prosperity in all of the land we all call home.
The two state solution is dead; long live the Haifa Republic.
Not only is this no longer possible, argues Boehm, but it is not a desirable aim, and not the original aim of the original Zionists to begin with, for whom an ethnic Jewish majority in any large part of Palestine was a pipe-dream requiring the unjust removal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Of course, this eventuated in 1947-8, forever tainting Jews' claims to reside and thrive on their ancestral lands. This was Zionism's "original sin". This original act of ethnic cleansing, followed two decades later by the conquest of the remainder of the territory did not in and of itself condemn the Palestinians to eternal statelessness, horrible as they were. However, actions of subsequent Israeli governments have worked to turn that outcome into a reality.
With the number of settlers rapidly approaching one million (it was about 200,000 when Oslo was signed), it is safe to say that a full withdrawal from the West Bank is either impossible, or would be too bloody to contemplate for either Israelis or Palestinians. A one-state reality is here, with one sovereign power west of Jordan, imposing its will on everyone in its territory. In this state, Jews travel freely across 90% of its territory, where Palestinians exist on a tiered hierarchy. Some are constrained to a small strip of land along the coast where they are subject to one of the most brutal military campaigns of the last century. Some live lives where the most basic trips to school or work come with the abuse and harassment of heavily armed 19-year old Israeli checkpoint guards. A minority of Palestinians are citizens of Israel, where they are free to vote and exercise individual liberties, but are substantially excluded from a state that excludes them from the sovereign Jewish demos (cf. the racist Nation-State law), confining them instead to the secondary support role of Arabs in a Jewish state, tolerated as individuals but suppressed as a collective. In all of the territory of this "Greater Israel", Palestinians and Jews make up roughly an equal share of the population. It is unclear why the former should be expected to accept this Jewish-supremacist reality.
Leaving Palestinians to self determine on 22% of their historic homeland, living side by side with the Israeli population may seem like a triumph to many liberal Israelis today, but, as this book explained, such a situation (impossible as it now is) would only ever perpetuate Zionism's "original sin", the Nakba, and conveniently sweep under the rug the fact of how the demography in Israel's original 1948 borders were secured in the first place. The total separation of Israel from Palestine, as has been the dream of the liberal Israeli intelligentsia since at least the 1970s, would only further take the perpetuation of the Nakba as a forgone conclusion, excluding future generations of Palestinians from walking through Jaffa, Acre and Haifa again as their grandparents did. In addition, doing so would allow liberal Israelis to forget the original sin behind their country's founding, and, as so many do, focus their attention exclusively on the impacts of the post-1967 occupation, whilst continuing to turn a blind eye to (else attempting to justify) the original Catastrophe to befall the Palestinian people.
I hope such an argument to be sympathetic to Jews for whom a millennia-old connection to the Holy Land is framed as central to the Jewish right to return.
A large part of the book is dedicated to comparing the memorialisation of the Holocaust and the Nakba in Israeli society. In Israel, the Holocaust is set apart from any other instance of human tragedy, with the commandment Zachor! Remember! given to each Israeli Jewish child. The very overt subtext, of course, is "Remember what happened to us", excluding Arab Israelis from inclusion in civil-patriotic ritual, whilst constantly reminding Israelis of their victim status, especially in the lead-up to 1948. It is necessary, argues Boehm, to build a shared demos of Jews and Palestinians alike in which the holocaust is memorialised together, as an expression of one of humanity's greatest tragedies, but one which does not define the collective memory of one subset of the Israeli nation at the expense of others. After all, according to Boehm, it was possible in the 1960s to include the majority Mizrahi population in this ritual of Holocaust memorialisation in an attempt to create a Jewish national memory. In their exclusion from this national memory (imported as it was by Jewish refugees), Arab Israelis have been consciously excluded from the Israeli national narrative, diminishing the value of their citizenship to a country which has no interest in representing them as part of the nation's history.
On the other hand, the horrors of the Nakba (with its rapes, executions, massacres) are wiped from the collective memory of Jewish Israelis for whom the narrative that the cowardly Arabs fled in 1948 is still convincing enough. This, of course, has never been convincing to Palestinians, either those who remained or to those driven into the West Bank, Gaza, and beyond in 1948, who always knew what was really done to them.
Some sort of collective memory is essential for all those in the region to live together in peace. Just as descendants of European settlers the world over have slowly been introduced to the impacts of their ancestors' colonial exploits on indigenous populations, so too must Israeli Jews come to terms with the ongoing effects of ethnic cleansing, occupation, siege and settlement on the Palestinian people.
No one in 1945 would have predicted that today, Poles, Germans, Frenchmen, Italians and others share a common citizenship. The nation has been superseded as the supreme polity, and, whilst this has not been without its reactionaries and challenges, Europeans are now "in an embrace so close that no side can draw back to strike the other". Despite this, national governments continue to operate within this joint structure, therefore giving expression to Europe's distinct national groups on global and local fronts.
As Jews, we are used to reading history as Jews. It is hard to know what to do with a story in which we take the role of Rome, Babylon, or Assyria. Hopefully learning to do so will allow future generations of Jews and Palestinians to walk forward in a union that recognises the national aspirations of both groups, and recognises the right of both to cultural self determination on the small strip of land that their ancestors shared.
The alternative vision in this book is simple. A federal republic of Israel and Palestine, where both groups would exercise national self determination within their borders, but where a secular, shared constitution would guarantee freedom of movement and residency, establish a secular school curriculum and encourage the cooperation of these two peoples economically and socially.
The two state solution is a long way behind us now, with two generations of right-wing Israeli politicians doing everything in their power to sabotage the establishment of a truly sovereign Palestinian republic anywhere within the confines of their "Greater Israel". While such a solution may have feasibly worked if taken seriously in the 1990s, it was never the most just solution to a conflict whose defining chapter was the eradication of a nation's civil life in 78% of its historic territory overnight.
On the other hand, the idea of a single unitary state is not a solution many in the region would find acceptable. Without the existence of sub-national federative units, Israelis and Palestinians would have good reason to mourn the demise of each of their respective national aspirations, and arguments over the overall demography and character of the state and its institutions would plague it for generations.
A federation would allow each of these groups the long desired autonomy to manage their respective cultural affairs, provide refuge for their diaspora populations, and feel represented by the state in which they live, whilst striving for a common prosperity in all of the land we all call home.
The two state solution is dead; long live the Haifa Republic.
December 12, 2023
4.5 A clean compelling take and far too prescient. The comparisons drawn between hard liner Zionists and the mounting wave of Nationalist theatermania worldwide, including the most white-supremacist and anti-Semitic leaders/ talking heads of them all, was truly astounding - the unifying line being (Jews belong in Israel) - as was the unveiling of transfer ideation from the start. "Forgetting" the Holocaust & remembering the Nakba as a mechanism for true Jewish liberation and a stable future for Israel (and *any* future for Palestinians) really struck me. Asserting that a liberal democracy cannot truly exist in a 'Jewish' state defined according to religion and ethnicity also stays with me. While reading this I conducted an informal survey of who -American or international- was taught about the Nakba in school and concluded that none of us were. It has been a very successful exclusion/covering up of modern history. I find this all incredibly disturbing given the current context of things and watching Netanyahu play out all of Israel's naked desires for the total extermination/ removal of Palestinian people.
March 29, 2024
"... the art, or the politics, of forgetting".
The fact that Boehm has been awarded with the Leipzig Buchmesse prize really surprises me. His position on Israel/Palestine strikes me as deeply antithetical to the German narrative. But, in that, this is such a valuable addition to the discourse.
Not sure I agree 100% with his proposal in the last chapter, but this is undoubtedly some of the best political writing on memory I've come across. Free Palestine 💗
(Intrigued by the marketing of this book - he calls Israel an apartheid state, explains thoroughly why there is no doubt ethnic cleansing has been happening for years, explicitly advocates for the Nakba to be taught etc, etc, etc and yet the cover/title would really not give that away, I think... Intentional choice on behalf of the publisher, I'm sure, but intriguing!)
The fact that Boehm has been awarded with the Leipzig Buchmesse prize really surprises me. His position on Israel/Palestine strikes me as deeply antithetical to the German narrative. But, in that, this is such a valuable addition to the discourse.
Not sure I agree 100% with his proposal in the last chapter, but this is undoubtedly some of the best political writing on memory I've come across. Free Palestine 💗
(Intrigued by the marketing of this book - he calls Israel an apartheid state, explains thoroughly why there is no doubt ethnic cleansing has been happening for years, explicitly advocates for the Nakba to be taught etc, etc, etc and yet the cover/title would really not give that away, I think... Intentional choice on behalf of the publisher, I'm sure, but intriguing!)
March 6, 2024
My husband was very enthusiastic about this book, which offers a plan, allegedly based on a proposal by Menachem Begin, for a one-state solution. Israel would be one country with different states or regions. Everyone, regardless of ethnicity or religion, would be a full citizen. It sounded good to me, although totally unrealistic today. But I found the book impossible to read. It meanders away from the political and civic solution into stories of the Holocaust and the Bible. So I stopped reading.
October 23, 2023
Broadened my horizons. Interesting to get Boehms take on the historical and current arguments for a one-state solution.
His writing propelled me to plunge deeper into certain aspects of history that I was not aware of and regret that it hasn't been taught as part of our school curriculum as I realize most of what we were taught is a specific Israeli narrative. Prime example: the Nakba.
Want to go look for additional voices that can bring more nuance to this picture.
"Sometimes, the alternative to having your mind in the clouds is not having your feet on the ground, but burying your head in the sand."
His writing propelled me to plunge deeper into certain aspects of history that I was not aware of and regret that it hasn't been taught as part of our school curriculum as I realize most of what we were taught is a specific Israeli narrative. Prime example: the Nakba.
Want to go look for additional voices that can bring more nuance to this picture.
"Sometimes, the alternative to having your mind in the clouds is not having your feet on the ground, but burying your head in the sand."
June 11, 2022
This is a well written account from a "post" Zionist angle, while it claims that it is actually recovering Zionist's original ideas and plans. It makes a great effort in showing how the two-state solution became just a symbol rather that something feasible. The book brings little or no information on actual arab-jews day by day relationships. Neither it touches on BDS. These omissions make the argument a bit weaker.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 8, 2022
Like many Americans, I have long supported a "2-state solution" for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, envisioning 2 separate states of Israel and of Palestine. That 'support' is rather abstract, because frankly, unlike many of my friends, I do not have a personal dog in this fight. This book is an extended polemic by an Israeli intellectual in favor of a "1-state solution", envisioning a single state with both Israeli and Palestinian nations. It appears to be aimed at a purely Israeli or Jewish audience, leaving me reaching for Wikipedia repeatedly to follow Boehm's argument. This is what I can gather. He first bemoans the failure of the 2-state vision, arguing that it is impossible to implement under current and any foreseeable demographic and geographic (ethnographic?) conditions. The next part of his argument is more interesting. He presents a history of early Zionists as being "1-staters"; whether this is accurate or not, I do not know, but what is intriguing is his clear distinction between self-determination of peoples on the one hand, and state sovereignty on the other hand. In other words, he recognizes and supports the concept of the nation, but not of the nation-state (my words, not his). I don't know if this idea is any more possible to implement in Israel-Palestine than the 2-state solution, but the idea is certainly worth pondering in our current world of rising and militant (and usually illiberal and undemocratic) nationalism. Including here in America.
July 6, 2022
I knew from the first paragraph of this slim book that I would not agree with the author's point of view but I stuck with it because it was short and I thought I could learn something. Boehm's contention is that Israel is stuck on the Holocaust, and has ignored the Nakba during Israel's war of independence when a majority of Palestinian Arabs left (or were forced) from their homes. He believes that prior to the Holocaust the Zionist vision was a one state solution, and given the failure of the two state solution, he believes this is the just and only way forward. He even insists that Begin advocated for it before he realized he could get peace with Egypt without it. The book tells almost nothing from the Israel point of view, ignores Arab brutality, wars started by Arab countries and Israel's valid security concerns. But hey, in truth the two state solution hasn't worked. The conflict between a Jewish state and a democratic one increases day by day, and it is time for fresh ideas. He believes that the Israeli left (including the Arab parties) as well as young American Democrats will be pushing this forward...an interesting idea, but until you build trust between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews, this will be a non-starter. Still worth the time for a quick read.
August 19, 2024
Auf der Suche nach einem liberalen Zionismus für die Zukunft, der sich nicht auf die schon lange unrealistische Zweistaatenlösung zurückzieht und Schweigen als einzige Antwort auf die Nakba und die ethnonationalistischen Vorstellungen der überwältigenden Mehrheit der gegenwärtigen israelischen Politik kennt. Boehms postulierte Lösung einer binationalen föderalen Republik mit palästinensischer und jüdischer Selbstbestimmung mag utopisch klingen, ist aber - überzeugend verargumentiert - die einzige Alternative zu ethnischen Säuberungen in den von Israel beanspruchten Gebieten und einer anschließenden Apartheidvariation, wie sie bereits im Westjordanland vorherrscht.
Elegant hergeleitet, überzeugend begründet, mit dem gelungenen dialektischen Kniff, den Holocaust und die Nakba als Teil eines modernen Staatsbürgertums "erinnern, zu vergessen", und angereichert um eine für den deutschen Diskurs befreiend unverstellte Charakterisierung der israelischen Politik. Einziges Manko sind Redundanzen gegen Ende, aber ansonsten ein unverzichtbares Buch.
Elegant hergeleitet, überzeugend begründet, mit dem gelungenen dialektischen Kniff, den Holocaust und die Nakba als Teil eines modernen Staatsbürgertums "erinnern, zu vergessen", und angereichert um eine für den deutschen Diskurs befreiend unverstellte Charakterisierung der israelischen Politik. Einziges Manko sind Redundanzen gegen Ende, aber ansonsten ein unverzichtbares Buch.
October 11, 2020
Leider war die Sprache sehr sperrig und voll teilweise von Fachwörtern, was mir das Lesen und den Zugang zur Thematik schwergemacht hat.
November 13, 2022
An incident that involved myself is recounted in this enlightening book.
November 22, 2023
A frank look at what Israel has come to, how it got here, and where it may go. Boehm argues that the extent of the settlements in the West Bank have rendered a two-state solution impossible -- Palestinians would not accept less land than they had in 1967, and the relocation of tens of thousands of Israelis is never going to happen.
Rather than dwell on the damage done, Boehm looks back to before the state was even founded, to what the founders of the Zionist movement had envisioned. When they spoke of a Jewish state, it was clear from their writings that they did not mean a nation-state cleared of Palestinians. In fact, one leader wrote that when the British government suggested "population transfer" (a polite euphemism for what has come to be known as the Nakba) of the Palestinians, it was beyond his wildest dreams.
Boehm argues that Israel should look back to the original Zionist vision, which today would be seen by many as anti-Zionist and create a binational state where Jewish and Palestinian people all have a right to self-determination. He proposes a minimal federal government and judiciary where Jews and Arabs must be represented equally. There will be a federal constitution guaranteeing basic human rights and religious freedoms, but the finer details are left to the Israeli and Palestinian states. While his solution redraws the 1967 lines, looping the settlers into the West Bank, in practice the borders become almost a technicality; while Israelis and Palestinians will each be citizens of their own state, they will have freedom to live, work, and travel throughout the territory without restriction.
I do have some questions about how this would work, if there come to be significant legal differences between the two states. Are people bound by the laws of the state in which they're a citizen? The state they're in physically? Even still, Boehm lays out a very compelling argument for how to allow each people self determination and a right of return without disrupting the lives of people living there. How is this to be implemented? I'm not sure. But I like where Boehm is going.
Perhaps most interestingly, Boehm argues that for any of this to be possible, everyone in the region must adopt "politics of forgetting" both the Holocaust and the Nakba. Not forgetting in the literal sense -- Boehm acknowledges the importance of remembering these events, which are often unknown among the group who didn't experience them. By "forgetting," Boehm means something more like letting go. Israelis and Palestinians each have a foundational trauma that they suffered in the founding of Israel. The key as he sees it is for people to be able to see these events less personally, less us vs. them, and more as a collective history of the region. Boehm traces how the spector of the Holocaust in the Israeli consciousness allows right-wing politicians to justify any means toward their end, something that has seemed too contradictory for me to understand.
By creating a uniform curriculum where Israeli and Palestinian students each learn the history of the Holocaust and the Nakba, where each are taught Hebrew or Arabic as a second language, Boehm hopes to create a more unified citizenry that see each other as peers.
Really, really interesting read. International policy is outside my wheelhouse, but Boehm's writing is accessible to a lay audience. I have no idea how the region could get to a point where the Haifa Republic could be put into place, but I have an idea of that that republic could look like, and I hope someday I might see something like it.
Rather than dwell on the damage done, Boehm looks back to before the state was even founded, to what the founders of the Zionist movement had envisioned. When they spoke of a Jewish state, it was clear from their writings that they did not mean a nation-state cleared of Palestinians. In fact, one leader wrote that when the British government suggested "population transfer" (a polite euphemism for what has come to be known as the Nakba) of the Palestinians, it was beyond his wildest dreams.
Boehm argues that Israel should look back to the original Zionist vision, which today would be seen by many as anti-Zionist and create a binational state where Jewish and Palestinian people all have a right to self-determination. He proposes a minimal federal government and judiciary where Jews and Arabs must be represented equally. There will be a federal constitution guaranteeing basic human rights and religious freedoms, but the finer details are left to the Israeli and Palestinian states. While his solution redraws the 1967 lines, looping the settlers into the West Bank, in practice the borders become almost a technicality; while Israelis and Palestinians will each be citizens of their own state, they will have freedom to live, work, and travel throughout the territory without restriction.
I do have some questions about how this would work, if there come to be significant legal differences between the two states. Are people bound by the laws of the state in which they're a citizen? The state they're in physically? Even still, Boehm lays out a very compelling argument for how to allow each people self determination and a right of return without disrupting the lives of people living there. How is this to be implemented? I'm not sure. But I like where Boehm is going.
Perhaps most interestingly, Boehm argues that for any of this to be possible, everyone in the region must adopt "politics of forgetting" both the Holocaust and the Nakba. Not forgetting in the literal sense -- Boehm acknowledges the importance of remembering these events, which are often unknown among the group who didn't experience them. By "forgetting," Boehm means something more like letting go. Israelis and Palestinians each have a foundational trauma that they suffered in the founding of Israel. The key as he sees it is for people to be able to see these events less personally, less us vs. them, and more as a collective history of the region. Boehm traces how the spector of the Holocaust in the Israeli consciousness allows right-wing politicians to justify any means toward their end, something that has seemed too contradictory for me to understand.
By creating a uniform curriculum where Israeli and Palestinian students each learn the history of the Holocaust and the Nakba, where each are taught Hebrew or Arabic as a second language, Boehm hopes to create a more unified citizenry that see each other as peers.
Really, really interesting read. International policy is outside my wheelhouse, but Boehm's writing is accessible to a lay audience. I have no idea how the region could get to a point where the Haifa Republic could be put into place, but I have an idea of that that republic could look like, and I hope someday I might see something like it.
November 21, 2021
نویسندهی جمهوری هیفا یکی از خوشفکرترین فیلسوفان سیاسی معاصر است. او در این کتاب نه تنها موضوع ایجاد جمهوری فدرال فلسطینی-اسرائیلی به عنوان تنها راهحل معقول و انسانی پایان دادن به مناقشات اشاره میکند، بلکه تصویری از شبهدموکراسیهای قومی-قبیلهای و اعتقادی ارائه میدهد که به همان اندازه مردمسالاری (کذا!) کنونی ایران را نیز شامل میشود. او نشان میدهد که اگر در ایجاد و تقویت شهروندی همهشمول نکوشیم، یک جمهوری در بهترین حالت جمهوریِ قبیلهای-ایدئولوژیک با مرزهای محکم خودی-غیرخودی خواهد بود و هر چیز هولناکی جز حکومت واقعی مردم بر مردم! شهروندی همهشمول زمانی امکانپذیر میشود که فعالانه به خاطر داشته باشیم که در کجا باید فراموش کنیم؛ فراموش کنیم تابوها، آدابورسوم و سنتها، باورهای اجدادی-قبیلهای، تمایزات زمانی-قومی و همهی آن چیزهایی را که مانع از شکلگیری یک روح شهروندی نوین و مشترک میان ساکنان یک نقطهی سرزمینی مشخص میشود. و آخرالامر مدرنیته چیست جز تلاش ارادی برای بهخاطرسپردن امکان فراموشکردن مداوم و آگاهانه! این کتاب تصویر روشنی ارائه میدهد از مدلی که همهی بهاصطلاح دموکراسیهای منطقهی آسیای غربی و همهی جمهوریهای ناقصالخلقه و عجیبوغریب آنجا را نمایندگی میکند. و شاید باورش سخت باشد، اما دموکراسیِ کنونی حاکم بر اسرائیل دقیقاً همان زبان مشترکی است که میان اوضاع دو دشمن متخاصم، یعنی جمهوری اسلامی و آن کشور برقرار است. تفاوتها هر چه باشد، در زمینهی ساختار و اصول سیاسیِ حاکم، نه تنها این دو کشور، که تقریباً همهی به اصطلاح جمهوریهای منطقه (و نه فقط این منطقه، بلکه بخش عمدهای از مناطق مستعمره و شبهمستعمرهی جهان) زبان و بیان و تجلی یکسانی دارند!
درد هست، اما درمان نیز هم! نویسندهی کتاب با تأکید بر هیفا به عنوان مدلی کوچک از همنشینی بزرگ و رویایی آینده میان فلسطینیان و اسرائیلیان، پیشنهادات مشخص حقوقی برای تحقق این رویای بزرگ، یعنی ایجاد جمهوری فدرال هیفا ارائه میدهد. پیشنهادهای او نیز از اتفاق نه فقط برای آن نقطهی پرکشمکش، که الگویی بسیار مطلوب را برای آیندهی سعادتمندتر دیگر کشورهای آسیای غربی و فراتر از آن در اختیار میگذارد؛ مناطقی که کشمکشهای قومی-قبیلهایشان نه تنها با گذر زمان تخفیف نیافته، که هنوز و هر روز بیش از پیش رو به وخامت گذاشته است. این کتاب حرفهای بیسابقهای دارد؛ نه فقط خطاب به اسرائیلیان و فلسطینیان، که خطاب به همهی ساکنان آسیای غربی و جنوبغربی. هر چه باشد، رویاپردازی نخستین گام نجات از درد واقعیت است!
درد هست، اما درمان نیز هم! نویسندهی کتاب با تأکید بر هیفا به عنوان مدلی کوچک از همنشینی بزرگ و رویایی آینده میان فلسطینیان و اسرائیلیان، پیشنهادات مشخص حقوقی برای تحقق این رویای بزرگ، یعنی ایجاد جمهوری فدرال هیفا ارائه میدهد. پیشنهادهای او نیز از اتفاق نه فقط برای آن نقطهی پرکشمکش، که الگویی بسیار مطلوب را برای آیندهی سعادتمندتر دیگر کشورهای آسیای غربی و فراتر از آن در اختیار میگذارد؛ مناطقی که کشمکشهای قومی-قبیلهایشان نه تنها با گذر زمان تخفیف نیافته، که هنوز و هر روز بیش از پیش رو به وخامت گذاشته است. این کتاب حرفهای بیسابقهای دارد؛ نه فقط خطاب به اسرائیلیان و فلسطینیان، که خطاب به همهی ساکنان آسیای غربی و جنوبغربی. هر چه باشد، رویاپردازی نخستین گام نجات از درد واقعیت است!
November 25, 2024
Really good read. Came into it pretty vehemently disagreeing with some of the premises and left… somewhat disagreeing but open to Boehm’s arguments for a binational federation. Really liked the use Renan’s idea that national citizenry and belonging is forged through shared forgetting ( directly from “What is a Nation,” my fav reading from undergrad :) but disagreed with his take on the need to decouple the remembrance of the Holocaust as a raison d’etre for Jewish statehood and the need to emphasize the Nakba — maybe Renan is wrong and we need to acknowledge and validate the pain of both historical truths? Don’t think this makes me give up hope (and preference) for a two state solution, but it gives a kind of roadmap needed to make one state work.
February 11, 2024
Sehr informativ, hilfreich für jene die sich zum Gaza-Krieg nicht äußern können oder wollen, weil sie keine Antisemiten sein möchten.
Wesentliche Themen: Nakhba und ihre Verdrängung in der israelischen Geschichte, der Holocaust als Inspiration und Legitimation für die ethnische Säuberung, der unauflösliche Widerspruch zwischen einem Jüdischen Staat und einer liberalen Demokratie, der Beitrag der liberalen Zionisten zu der Radikalisierung des Staates.
Der aktuelle Krieg in Gaza wird praktisch vorhergesagt, die Annexion der Westbank ebenso.
Viele wichtige Literaturhinweise!
Wie es zu der utopischen Einstaatenlösung kommen sollte bleibt leider offen.
Wesentliche Themen: Nakhba und ihre Verdrängung in der israelischen Geschichte, der Holocaust als Inspiration und Legitimation für die ethnische Säuberung, der unauflösliche Widerspruch zwischen einem Jüdischen Staat und einer liberalen Demokratie, der Beitrag der liberalen Zionisten zu der Radikalisierung des Staates.
Der aktuelle Krieg in Gaza wird praktisch vorhergesagt, die Annexion der Westbank ebenso.
Viele wichtige Literaturhinweise!
Wie es zu der utopischen Einstaatenlösung kommen sollte bleibt leider offen.
April 23, 2025
After demonstrating that the two-state solution is well nigh impossible given conditions on the ground, Boehm makes the intriguing argument that the early Zionists did not see removal of Palestinians as necessary or desirable. He then proposes a binational federation between two states on a single territory. I appreciated the historical and philosophical perspective but wish he had spent more time on the nitty-gritty details of how such an entity would function.
January 29, 2022
An interesting premise regarding a solution that seems improbable. The writing is very dull, though and I had a hard time getting through it, even for such a slender book. The author describes an end state, but no real process for achieving it. A simple solution to a very complex dilemma.
October 23, 2023
Penso que és un llibre valent tot i que la proposta de l'autor em sembli idealista, sobretot a les pàgines finals. Les idees exposades són algunes controvertides, però són noves. Una visió diferent al conflicte etern i que tristament avui torna a estar a la primera plana.
October 2, 2021
The one state solution laid out before your very eyes. Maybe when people become more desperate, they will see the future more clearly.
Oh, and who would have guessed. Menachem Begin…
Oh, and who would have guessed. Menachem Begin…
December 31, 2021
Hochspannende Ideen. Must-read!
July 6, 2022
One of the best books in political philosophy/ on Israel in a very long time. Interesting (feasible?) de-coupling of self-determination and sovereignty.
June 12, 2025
Es mega guets buech. Schildered de hütig Konflikt bis id Vergangeheit mit villne Fakte. Er isch mega offe und ehrlich und spricht das us was niemert seit.
Read
August 27, 2025Oh god.
Well. If nothing else, at least one other person agrees with me about This Promised Land.
Well. If nothing else, at least one other person agrees with me about This Promised Land.
December 12, 2025
Delusional, mad, and doomed, just the way I like it.
(can see how this got him cancelled by all sides)
(can see how this got him cancelled by all sides)
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