A Single State for Jews and Arabs. The Plan B of the Catholic Church

Speaking on September 28 to the United Nations General Assembly, car­di­nal secre­ta­ry of sta­te Pietro Parolin reaf­fir­med for the ump­teenth time that “the only via­ble solu­tion” to ensu­re pea­ce bet­ween Israel and the Palestinians “is a two-state solu­tion with Jerusalem having a spe­cial sta­tus.”

In rea­li­ty one must go back three deca­des, to the Oslo Accords of 1993 and then to the fai­led Camp David Accords of 2000, to latch onto the only span of time during which the two-state solu­tion appea­red fea­si­ble. Because after­ward it was ever less so, and today it remains ali­ve only in the words of govern­men­ts that con­ti­nue to evo­ke it, as in an emp­ty ritual.

And so it is for the Holy See, too. In its offi­cial sta­te­men­ts nothing has chan­ged sin­ce 1947, when it endor­sed the UN plan to par­ti­tion the Holy Land into two sta­tes, one Jewish and the other Arab-Palestinian, with a spe­cial sta­tus for Jerusalem.

But in the mean­ti­me, in the upper eche­lons of the Catholic Church a dif­fe­rent solu­tion has been under con­si­de­ra­tion for some time, a sort of plan B. It too would be tou­gh to bring about today, but in per­spec­ti­ve is seen as the only real way for­ward: not two sta­tes but just one, with equal rights for all, Jews, Arabs, Muslims, Christians.

This is the solu­tion publi­cly indi­ca­ted for the fir­st time by the Catholic bishops of the Holy Land — inclu­ding the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa — in a sta­te­ment of May 20, 2019:

“All the talk about a two-state solu­tion is emp­ty rhe­to­ric in the cur­rent situa­tion. In the past we lived toge­ther in this land, why could we not live here toge­ther in the futu­re too? The fun­da­men­tal con­di­tion for a just and lasting pea­ce is that all in this Holy Land have full equa­li­ty. This is our vision for Jerusalem and for the who­le ter­ri­to­ry cal­led Israel and Palestine, which lies bet­ween the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”

And it is the solu­tion argued for repea­ted­ly in “La Civiltà Cattolica” — the maga­zi­ne of the Rome Jesuits, publi­shed only with the prior review of Vatican autho­ri­ties — by a spe­cia­li­st on the sub­ject with a very sin­gu­lar pro­fi­le: David M. Neuhaus, from a German Jewish fami­ly that emi­gra­ted to South Africa in the 1930s, born in Johannesburg in 1962, sent to Israel as a tee­na­ger to stu­dy and the­re fasci­na­ted upon encoun­te­ring nuns from Russia, bap­ti­zed into the Catholic Church at the age of 25 and then admit­ted into the Society of Jesus, fir­st in the United States and then in Egypt, but always remai­ning Jewish and Israeli, indeed, from 2009 to 2017 vicar of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem for Hebrew-speaking Catholics in Israel, as well as pro­fes­sor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute of Jerusalem.

There are at lea­st six arti­cles, the late­st of them qui­te recent, in which Neuhaus has advo­ca­ted for the Holy Land not two sepa­ra­te sta­tes, but a sin­gle sta­te for all.

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The fir­st arti­cle bears the date of September 19, 2020, and the title “People of Israel, Land of Israel, State of Israel.”

In it, Neuhaus regi­sters the pro­te­st of the Jews over “the per­si­stent reluc­tan­ce of the Church to expli­ci­tly reco­gni­ze the theo­lo­gi­cal signi­fi­can­ce of the Jewish claim to the land and sta­te of Israel,” a claim foun­ded on the pro­mi­se of the land made to them by God in the Bible.

He coun­te­nan­ces the fact that Jews should con­si­der the sta­te of Israel an inte­gral part of their iden­ti­ty. At the same time, howe­ver, faith in Christ has uni­ver­sa­li­zed the bibli­cal tra­di­tion of the land pro­mi­sed and given, has expan­ded its boun­da­ries beyond all limi­ts. And the­se two visions must under­stand and inte­gra­te each other, all the more so to heal “the mul­ti­ple forms of discri­mi­na­tion, mar­gi­na­li­za­tion, and exclu­sion that ‘non-Jews’ con­ti­nue to expe­rien­ce in the Jewish sta­te.”

These too, in fact, “must have a voi­ce, not only in the poli­ti­cal are­na, but also in the theo­lo­gi­cal deba­te on the land and the sta­te of Israel.”

This is becau­se “wha­te­ver fra­mework may be esta­bli­shed for a solu­tion to the Israeli-Palestinian con­flict — whe­ther it be two sta­tes living side by side or a sin­gle sta­te for all — the ulti­ma­te prin­ci­ple for a lasting solu­tion is the equa­li­ty of the human per­son in rights and duties.”

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The second arti­cle is from November 19, 2022, and goes even more direc­tly to the heart of the mat­ter, alrea­dy made expli­cit in the title: “Rethinking the Partition of Palestine?”

First of all, Neuhaus poin­ts out that it was the Arabs who rejec­ted right away the divi­sion into two sta­tes appro­ved by the UN in 1947. It was war, and the win­ner was Israel, which awar­ded itself three four­ths of the ter­ri­to­ry, from which 700,000 Palestinians were for­ced to flee, who­se even more nume­rous descen­dan­ts are still con­fi­ned to the refu­gee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan.

This for­ced exo­dus was given the Arabic name of Nakba: a “cata­stro­phe” that only a sure home­land could reme­dy, just as for the Jews the sta­te of Israel was their safe haven after the Holocaust.

But “is the two-state solu­tion still rele­vant today?” Neuhaus asks. And his answer is no. Because “if one looks at the rea­li­ty on the ground after deca­des of Israeli inva­sion of the lands fur­ther occu­pied in the war of 1967, with the inces­sant con­struc­tion of Jewish set­tle­men­ts, Israeli roads, and other infra­struc­tu­re, the two-state solu­tion today seems hard­ly rea­li­stic.”

The con­se­quen­ce that Neuhaus dra­ws from this sta­te of affairs is that in the poli­ti­cal and diplo­ma­tic fields “atten­tion is slo­w­ly shif­ting toward a chan­ged voca­bu­la­ry,” who­se key word is “equa­li­ty.”

In short, “sin­ce the pos­si­bi­li­ty of par­ti­tion — in a rea­li­ty in which Israel has prac­ti­cal­ly anne­xed most of the ter­ri­to­ries occu­pied during the war of 1967 — seems more doubt­ful by the day, this could be the right time to streng­then the aware­ness of the need for a strug­gle for equa­li­ty bet­ween Israelis and Palestinians, wha­te­ver poli­ti­cal sha­pe the situa­tion may take.”

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The third arti­cle is from May 6, 2023, bears the title “The Jews of Arab Culture,” and sket­ches a fasci­na­ting histo­ri­cal pro­fi­le of “the time when a Jew could also be an Arab,” as an inte­gral part of socie­ty, in nume­rous Muslim coun­tries stret­ching from Morocco to Iraq and then on to Iran, Turkey, and Central Asia, befo­re their expul­sion fol­lo­wing the birth of the sta­te of Israel.

Today in Israel — Neuhaus poin­ts out — the lea­der­ship of the poli­ti­cal par­ties is almo­st enti­re­ly in the hands of Jews ori­gi­nal­ly from Eastern and Central Europe,  cal­led “Ashkenazi.” But it must be reco­gni­zed that also tho­se ori­gi­nal­ly from the Muslim world, the “Mizrahi,” also cal­led “Sephardi,” are an impor­tant com­po­nent of socie­ty. And they have an approach more open to the Arab world.

At the begin­ning of the arti­cle, Neuhaus cites a revea­ling epi­so­de from a few weeks ear­lier: the deva­sta­tion by Jewish set­tlers of the town of Huwara, near Nablus in occu­pied Palestine, in reven­ge for the kil­ling of two Israelis. In the gover­ning coa­li­tion, he wri­tes, the majo­ri­ty justi­fied that cruel action. But among tho­se who stric­tly con­dem­ned it were abo­ve all the mem­bers of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish par­ty Shas, a direct expres­sion of the “Mizrahi,” deci­ded­ly on the right, but “who­se mem­bers have some­ti­mes sur­pri­sed poli­ti­cal obser­vers by their mode­ra­tion and open­ness to dia­lo­gue with Arabs in gene­ral and Palestinians in par­ti­cu­lar.”

This is to highlight that, just as the­re was a time when many Jews were “an inte­gral part of the Arab world,” still today the­re are tho­se in Israel who “offer the pro­spect of a futu­re in which Jews could live along­si­de Arabs in a just pea­ce and recon­ci­led equa­li­ty.”

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The fourth arti­cle is also the fir­st after the mas­sa­cre of October 7, 2023, by Hamas; it bears the date of March 2 of this year and the title “Israel, Where Are You Going?”

Neuhaus fir­st outli­nes the cri­sis into which Israel has plun­ged, the “wor­st cri­sis sin­ce its foun­da­tion,” which erup­ted at the height of the radi­ca­li­za­tion of the con­flict “bet­ween Judaism and demo­cra­cy,” or “bet­ween two dif­fe­rent visions of the sta­te: on the one hand, a Jewish sta­te con­cei­ved of as a home­land for all the Jews of the world; on the other, a demo­cra­tic sta­te con­cei­ved of as the coun­try of all its citi­zens, Jews and non-Jews, pre­do­mi­nan­tly Arabs.” A clash in which, befo­re October 7, “the Palestinian threat see­med to belong to the past.”

Not only did October 7 tra­gi­cal­ly dispel this last illu­sion, it rai­sed “the awful que­stion of whe­ther the sta­te of Israel is tru­ly the safe haven that it see­med to Jews fleeing vio­len­ce in a world whe­re they had been a mar­gi­na­li­zed and often per­se­cu­ted mino­ri­ty.”

But who has brought about this sta­te of cri­sis? As in the pre­vious arti­cle, Neuhaus answers that “the main pro­ta­go­nists still come from the Zionist ‘Ashkenazi’ eli­tes who have domi­na­ted the histo­ry of Israel sin­ce 1948.” An eli­te who­se con­cep­tual world “is enti­re­ly cen­te­red on a Jewish sta­te for a Jewish peo­ple.”

When instead the­re is more to Israeli socie­ty. It is also made up of “vast peri­phe­ries that con­sti­tu­te a signi­fi­cant part of the popu­la­tion.” And it is from them that the­re could emer­ge “a crea­ti­vi­ty so neces­sa­ry today to help Israel in for­mu­la­ting answers to its inter­nal and exter­nal exi­sten­tial que­stions.”

Among the­se mino­ri­ties are the Arab citi­zens of Israel, mostly Muslims but also Christians and Druze, the descen­dan­ts of non-Jews who remai­ned within the bor­ders of the new sta­te of Israel after its foun­da­tion in 1948.

They num­ber about 2 mil­lion and for­mal­ly “have poli­ti­cal rights like all Israeli citi­zens,” but in fact are “exclu­ded from most deci­sio­nal pro­ce­du­res.”

And then of cour­se account must be made of the “Mizrahi,” the Jews from Arab coun­tries alrea­dy descri­bed in the pre­vious arti­cle. Underway among whom is a cul­tu­ral renais­san­ce that accen­tua­tes “the affi­ni­ty bet­ween them and the sur­roun­ding Arab world: an affi­ni­ty that could sug­ge­st the pos­si­bi­li­ty of coe­xi­sten­ce.”

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The fifth arti­cle is from May 18, 2024, and is enti­tled “Jewish-Catholic Dialogue in the Shadow of the War in Gaza.”

Here Neuhaus returns again to the que­stion of the sta­te of Israel as part of Jewish iden­ti­ty, “as the phy­si­cal pla­ce of the cove­nant bet­ween the Jews and God.”

“Yet it should be remem­be­red,” he wri­tes, “that that land is also the home of the Palestinians. Today in Israel-Palestine the­re are seven mil­lion Israeli Jews and seven mil­lion Palestinian Arabs.” Hence the two-state solu­tion, which if imple­men­ted “would cer­tain­ly faci­li­ta­te rela­tions bet­ween Israel and the inter­na­tio­nal com­mu­ni­ty, inclu­ding the Holy See.”

But as to whe­ther this solu­tion is prac­ti­ca­ble, it has alrea­dy been seen that Neuhaus grea­tly doub­ts this. He belie­ves it is more con­struc­ti­ve to look beyond, with a dia­lo­gue bet­ween Israelis and Palestinians, as well as bet­ween Jews, Muslims, and Christians, car­ried out in the spi­rit of the May 18, 2024 embra­ce in Verona, besi­de the pope, bet­ween the Israeli Maoz Inon, who­se paren­ts were kil­led by Hamas on October 7, and the Palestinian Aziz Sarah, who­se bro­ther died under the stri­kes of the Israeli army.

And he con­clu­des: “Could not Israelis and Palestinians put their hope in such a pro­spect, in the end of hosti­li­ties and the con­struc­tion of a shared futu­re in a land cal­led to be holy, in Israel-Palestine?”

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The sixth and so far last arti­cle is from September 21 and is enti­tled “The Ultra-Orthodox in Israel.”

Neuhaus master­ful­ly sket­ches the com­plex pro­fi­le of this cur­rent of Judaism. In Israel, the ultra-Orthodox are sho­wing the most rapid demo­gra­phic gro­wth; they are at almo­st one and a half mil­lion, and at school one child out of four now comes from their ranks. Their con­vic­tion is that “it can­not be a Jewish sta­te that gua­ran­tees secu­ri­ty and well-being for Jews,” becau­se the stu­dy of the Torah takes pre­ce­den­ce over the sta­te and over secu­lar laws. They still think they are living “as if in exi­le, con­tra­ry to the Zionist reli­gious claim that the sta­te of Israel is the begin­ning of redemp­tion.”

So it comes as no sur­pri­se that the ultra-Orthodox should pre­sent them­sel­ves as an alter­na­ti­ve to the “Ashkenazi” poli­ti­cal and reli­gious esta­blish­ment. In fact, their most signi­fi­cant poli­ti­cal expres­sion, the par­ty cal­led Shas foun­ded in 1984 by the Iraqi-born rab­bi Ovadia Yosef, is made up of “Mizrahi” from Arab and Muslim coun­tries. Neuhaus wri­tes that they are stron­gly oppo­sed to both mili­ta­ry ser­vi­ce and “a lef­ti­st agen­da on social issues, like gen­der equa­li­ty, LGBT, etc.,” but they also oppo­se the fana­ti­ci­sm of the far right and “instead sup­port pea­ce nego­tia­tions with the Palestinians and the Arab world, as well as ter­ri­to­rial com­pro­mi­se.”

In short, Neuhaus con­clu­des: “Today in Israel the ultra-Orthodox com­mu­ni­ty is a vital and gro­wing com­po­nent of socie­ty. Its histo­ry sho­ws that it is capa­ble not only of sur­pri­sing, but also of chal­len­ging the ruling eli­tes of Israel and the domi­nant ideo­lo­gies. It could play an impor­tant role in the dra­ma that is unfol­ding in Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East.”

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Meanwhile, the war con­ti­nues and is increa­sin­gly exten­ded on mul­ti­ple fron­ts. Israel is fighting to defend its very exi­sten­ce again­st ene­mies, Iran fore­mo­st, that want its anni­hi­la­tion. And even among Israelis the­re are ever fewer who still belie­ve in two sta­tes for two peo­ples.

But the for­tu­ne of the Jewish peo­ple is that it is a com­plex and crea­ti­ve socie­ty, as the Christian Jew Neuhaus so often brings to light. A socie­ty to which God has pro­mi­sed and given a land cal­led to be hospi­ta­ble to the orphan, the widow, the stran­ger, the Palestinian.

(Translated by Matthew Sherry: traduttore@hotmail.com)

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Sandro Magister is past “vati­ca­ni­sta” of the Italian wee­kly L’Espresso.
The late­st arti­cles in English of his blog Settimo Cielo are on this page.
But the full archi­ve of Settimo Cielo in English, from 2017 to today, is acces­si­ble.
As is the com­ple­te index of the blog www.chiesa, which pre­ce­ded it.

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