Haifa Republic: A Democratic Future for Israel

A provocative argument for a new way of seeing Israel, Zionism, and the two-state solution.

Haifa Republic: A Democratic Future for Israel is an urgent wake-up call. The philosopher Omri Boehm argues that it is long past time to recognize that there will not be a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people. After fifty years, Israel s occupation of the West Bank constitutes annexation in all but name, even as the legitimate claims of the Arab population, soon to be a national majority, remain unaddressed. Meanwhile, daily life goes on under conditions rightly likened to apartheid. For liberals in Israel and America to continue to place their hopes in a two-state solution is a form of willful and culpable blindness, especially now that Israeli leaders across the political spectrum have begun to speak of ethnic cleansing. A catastrophe is in the making.

But Haifa Republic also offers grounds for hope. Catastrophe can be averted, Boehm c ontends, by reconfiguring Israel as a single binational state in which Palestinians and Jews both possess human rights and equal citizenship. The original Zionists Theodor Herzl, Ze ev Jabotinsky, and, early in his career, David Ben-Gurion all advocated such a federation, and as prime minister, Menachem Begin successfully submitted a kindred plan to the Knesset. A binational federation offers a last chance for the two peoples who call Palestine home to live in peace and mutual respect and to have a truly democratic future in common.

Rezension:

"Democratic visions such as Boehm s [are] essential to frame a practical discourse of shared liberation." Steve France, Monodweiss

Omri Boehm attempts to reconcile Israel s history with the demands of justice. His ideas are radical just as much as they are hopeful. Boehm is one of the most important philosophers of his generation. Susan Neiman

[The] most important book on the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict . . . that has appeared in recent years. Micha Brumlik, Die Zeit

Boehm elegantly synthesizes a tortuous history and offers an imaginative model for Israel s political future Kirkus Reviews

Expansive. . . [Haifa Republic is] a life-raft for the followers of a liberal Zionism now floating aimlessly off the coastal city. Shaul Magid, +972 Magazine

[Haifa Republic is a] brave and sleek polemic. . . Boehm makes a stimulating case for the fact that Zionism s fathers (including Menachem Begin!) would have agreed with Israe l being a joint, sovereign state. . . . Boehm s agile blade, swung in the cause of recognizing reality, cuts both ways, and that lends his book its persuasiveness. Bill Marx, The Arts Fuse