Ruth Gavison, who is reportedly hard to pin down when speaking at conferences (“No, no, I didn’t say that…”) has written in today’s Haaretz — if I understand her correctly — that what the Palestinians are being asked to accept is the Jewish people’s (or does she mean the Jewish nation’s?) right to self-determination.
Gavison writes: “The basic principle of the conflict is that of self-determination of nations – the basic unit of nationality. A nation-state is not a state of all its citizens, but rather a state of the majority nation or of the national collective living within it”. [Question — is Gavison saying that a tyranny of the majority is permissable? Or maybe that’s not what she meant…]
See her entire argument here.
One should not lose perspective or forget, however, that the Jewish people’s right to self-determination is no longer in doubt — not at the moment, nor in the forseeable future — and that it is the Palestinian peoples’ right of self-determination which is being blocked and suppressed by Israeli policies.