A single democratic state is the only viable alternative to racialized partition

Evidence

The more the Wall goes up, psychologically and materially, the more it calls forth suicidal impulses. This perhaps gives a new sense to what Foucault, thinking of an earlier historical moment, has called “the suicidal state.” Even the Israeli prime minister now recognizes the challenge, American apologists like Alan Dershowitz notwithstanding. In the wake of the Anapolis meeting in late 2007 to revive two state negotiations, Olmert declared bluntly that if the two-state solution fails, “Israel is finished.” He continued: “We [will] face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights.” Curiously and contradictorily enough, the contemporary South African legacy reveals that as any ethnoracially predicated “two-state solution” dissolves and equal voting rights prevail, justice is promoted rather than perishes, and racial tensions fall away. This recognition strengthens the resolution that only a single state is conceivable. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 638

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to my reading on racialized state formation and partition logic in South Africa and Israel-Palestine.
• QUESTION: Olmert’s concession that a two-state failure means equal voting rights is striking — worth chasing the original Anapolis-era speeches.