What federalism for the Middle East?

As unexpectedly as the recent turmoil in South Korea, in a few days the rebel forces have toppled the Assad regime in Syria, and Damascus has fallen, after 50 years of authoritarian control and more than a decade of Civil War. Institutional systems evolve in a non-linear way, especially in times of geo-political changes.

The forces that opposed the Assad regime are heterogeneous across religious and ethnic lines. The rebel leaders have promised moderation and stability. If they fulfill this promise, they may be a positive influence for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We know the alternative: ethnic fragmentation, chaos, poverty and humiliation of minority groups. The possibility of a multi-ethnic democracy (with secular federations and confederations) in the Middle East will have to face enormous obstacles, the first one skepticism and the accusation of lack of realism. But this should be the benchmark: democratic institutions that treat every citizen with the same dignity and promote diverse cultures.

A new book and the re-edition of an old book show exactly this way for Palestine-Israel.

The Israeli historian Shlomo Sand, in “Israel-Palestine: Federation or Apartheid”, tells the story of those thinkers and writers, both Jewish and Arab, that have promoted the idea of one binational federal state from the river to the sea. The idea is as old as the Sionist movement, and was considered by the United Nations but rejected in favor of the failed two-state solution, which has tried to consolidate an imposible and undesirable ethnic separation. It is an old idea that has recently re-emerged as the logical benchmark with which to oppose the current reality of one state that practices ethnic discrimination. The author is also skeptical about the practical implementation of the idea in the short run, but admits that this should be the horizon of local and international democratic forces.

The two state solution of the Oslo accords is not feasible with the presence of more than 700.000 settlers in the West Bank. Seven million Jews and seven million Arabs share a small piece of land. The only human and just horizon is reconciliation, and institutional sharing, like in South Africa and Northern Ireland. Two aceptable alternatives would be a confederation of two states with freedom of movement (like in the European Union) after the existence of two states is consolidated, or one state with equal rights but no recognition of national rights. But the two pre-existing states would be too unequal and would spend resources on exclusive ethnic identities instead of a shared destiny. On the other extreme, not recognising the existence of two different national cultures with the right to recognition and reparation after a painful history, would be naive. A federal binational state would protect the equal rights of individuals, but would also constitutionally preserve the cultural and national rights of the two peoples, independently of the demographic game of majorities and minorities.

The 2024 reedition of "The Question of Palestine" written by the late Edward Said, with a new preface and an article he wrote on the one-state solution before his death in 2003, presents the arguments for the one state federal and binational solution, from a Palestinian perspective. Said distinguishes between the right to self-determination and the right to create an exclusive ethnocracy. Two peoples can self-determine by sharing a land and respecting each other, as we share many of the international capitals of the world. The original book was written in 1979, but the arguments are very similar to the ones proposed by Shlomo Sand. They are the same arguments that in the past were used by Hannah Arendt, Tony Judt, and that today are stated by an increasing list of corageous groups and individuals. These are the principles that should guide the efforts to build peace and justice in the whole region and in the world.