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 From Honolulu to Haifa (April 14, 2009) | America claims the world's record for "melding" diversity, whether ethnic, linguistic, or religious.
The Jewish population of the U.S. is greater than that of Israel. Jerusalem is not much farther from Washington than Honolulu, which is 2400 miles (4,000 Km) from the California coast. The majority of Hawaiians are of east Asian descent, and Hawaiian is an official language of this 50th state. Hawaii entered the Union in 1959, the same year as Alaska, the governor of which can observe the ex-("evil empire") Soviet Union 51 miles (85 Km) across the Ber9ing Strait. Even the International Date Line was altered to accommodate the Americans with their Aleutian Islands.
Why not, then, make Israel-Palestine - Canaan - the 51st State in the American Union?
Starting with the name Canaan and some geopolitical considerations, De Grazia presents a relentless barrage of historical fact, social psychology, and personal anecdote from his long and varied experience in support of this audacious - indeed outrageous - proposal.
Which is not so ridiculous or impossible as first might meet the eye.
De Grazia is an octogenarian political scientist and radical humanist, an American imperialist ready since World War II to exercise U.S. power to enforce a world federal government. He long ago proposed a single-state solution to the interminable Israel-Palestine crisis, a federation based on principles and practices taken from the Swiss and American models, spelling out the inviolable rights and responsibilities of each of the two federal regions under one national constitution. This concept, still beyond the pale of the mainstream media and public consideration (see M. Ghedaffi's "Isratine"), has found growing support from diverse quarters of the policical spectrum. As it becomes ever clearer that "the two-state solution" will continue to permit Israel to obliterate Palestine and endanger the region and entire world with further genocied and (even nuclear) war, the time has come for a new approach.
Make the U.S. constitution the federal constitution of Israel-Palestine, says De Grazia.
Objections? Too near "enemy axes of evil"? Hardly nearer than Siberia or Cuba. Too many suddenly new U.S. citizens? "Canaan", about the same size as New Jersey, would add about the same po0pulation as that state; millions of (Spanish-speaking) Puerto Ricans were made U.S. citizens by a simple act of Congress as long ago as 1917, and each year other millions of new immigrants continue to pass through "the golden door" anyway. Too imperialistic? Even such patriotic Israelis as writer David Grossman maintains that the U.S. must "dictate" a solution to this unending catastrophe. The right of Palestinians to return to their homeland? As U.S. citizens Palestinians and Israelis could move freely anywhere in the U.S. and elsewhere on the planet Americans are permitted to travel, work, or live. Militant bellicosity? Military and intelligence institutions and materiel, including Israel's 200-odd nukes, would be immediately subject to American control. Nuclear prohibitionists and anti-imperialists will find this an inadequate compromise, but it's surely better than the current tinderbox. De Grazia quotes an Israeli military strategist: "We have the capability to take the world down with us, and I assure you that this will happen before Israel goes under."
Making "Canaan" the 51st American state would present difficulties neither simple nor cheap to resolve. Reparations for the decades of incalculable damages to lives and propert of both Palestinians and Israelis must be estimated (De Grazia Makes such preliminary estimates). Public health services would have to deal with perhaps four million cases of post-tramatic stress disorder, in addition to soaring cancer rates from depleted uranium radioactivity and other war-related injury and disease. Widespread paranoia must be dealt with, employing all available psychiatric professional resources (many of them incidentally Jewish). Religious fundamentalism, particularly that of "Armageddon" evangelical Christians, "Greater Israel" Zionists, and "neo-con" Jewish lobbyists, would not diminish quickly or easily. Plus the automatic establishment of American sovereignty in the heart of the middle East will not be easy for Russia, for example, to accept.
De Grazia's experience and scholarship in public policy management and political theory permits him to meet these problems head on. The U.S. state of Canaan is not a utopian dream, but a practical proposal as realistic as it is outrageous.
Why not?
Richard Stern, April 14, 2009 |
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