Aren't Meretz more of a party that advocates the strengthening and emancipation of Arabs and Palestinian identity within an Israeli (thus somewhat Jewish, although obviously secular) state context? Whereas the two others actively question the existence or necessity of a Jewish state and would favour one state solution? Or have policies changed?
sorry if this is phrased stupidly.
Meretz is a Zionist party and the Arab parties are not. That may seem like a massive gap, but in reality the difference in policy goals of each is negligible because who knows what it even means to be Zionist anymore.
Well if Zionism = Jewish self-determination then I think two state solution is the more obvious choice no? Whereas the one state solution just means a state where Jews can live and feel secure with their identity in but not have seperate political institutions as a Jewish demos (inevitably you probably trend towards a Lebanon-style compromise...but then one could argue the current Israeli state is also heavily fractionised).
Those on the right who are pushing for a rapid expansion of the settlement enterprise in the West Bank in a way that makes a one state inevitable are doing so under the guise of Zionism ("Jews have a natural right of settlement in their historic homeland"). That's now a mainstream position on the to right and those who suggest evacuating settlements to create two states are widely considered anti-Zionistic.
The truth is that the right, left, and Arab public in Israel already realizes that there is going to be one state, even though nobody likes to talk about that openly and publicly because it's so volatile. That one state will either be Jewish or it will be democratic. The debate in Israel today is ostensibly over what that state will look like. When it comes to that question there is no daylight between Meretz and Hadash-Taal.
Does the one state solution includes Gaza? I maybe wrong but I don't think anyone is advocating building settlements in Gaza, so it will remain Arab.
I think pretty much everyone is desperate for Egypt to just seize control of the place and establish some order to it. Even on the right very few want to touch the place, although I'm sure some of the settlers who were evacuated during the disengagement have nostalgia about going back. But because there are a lot of settlements in the West Bank and no settlements in Gaza it's really the West Bank that we are talking about. It's notable, though, that with Gaza there is an Arab majority between the Jordan and the sea, while without it there is a slightly larger Jewish population.
Considering this and the fact that not many want a 2 state solution now, I wonder if the end result would be a "1.5 state solution"? Where Israel and the West Bank form one state and Gaza another?
That would after all keep the large state as a Jewish majority state after all (albeit barely and I imagine it would resemble Lebanon or Bosnia to a large extent in terms of power-sharing?)
