Ebrahim Moosa – Radio Islam International | 08 Jumadal Ukhra 1438/07 March 2017

Former South African President Kgalema Motlanthe has offered a detailed exposition of his views on the prospects for peace in Palestine and the unfeasibility of the so-called two-state solution.

Motlanthe, who visited Palestine in 2006, delivered the keynote address Sunday at the launch of Israeli Apartheid Week 2017 at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg, dedicating much of his address to highlighting the pitfalls associated with a two-state proposal as the solution to the Middle East imbroglio.

“We are here because what happens outside our borders matters and the people it happens to matter,” Motlanthe said, at the onset of his eagerly anticipated speech.

“I speak to you today energised by a deep belief in the power of democracy and a desire for human rights to triumph over all adversity”.

“Across the world, democracies claim to have to sole mandate on the principles of freedom, justice and equality are being tested. It has become increasingly evident that democratic states are capable of the very actions they claim to contest and the kinds of fascism their central texts abhor.”

Democracy, the former President said, perceivably in reference to Israel, was not guaranteed by its mere arrival or utterances.

Motlanthe characterised the daily realities lived by people in the region to be one of deep separation.

“Different laws for different peoples,” is how he spoke of the statutory system enforced unevenly by Israel on Israeli citizens and its subjects in the Palestinian territories.

“Having lived under such conditions I know its effects all too well and how they solidify into institutions, laws, mentalities and the character of state”.

Concurring with former US Secretary of State, John Kerry, Motlanthe stated that Israel could either be Jewish or democratic.

“It cannot be both”.

Motlanthe said it was imperative for the international community not to simply manage the crisis, but find meaningful solutions. The two-state solution, he said, largely remained a theoretical construct with little resolve and preparation existing to ensure its successful execution.

Upholding his central argument on the unviability of the status quo and popularly proposed solutions, the ANC icon highlighted the role of illegal Jewish settlements in entrenching the divide.

“The erection of Jewish settlements…have changed the physical realities of the areas of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem”.

“When one apprehends the changes to the map of the area from the Jewish settlements of 1914 to Palestine and the Transjordan under the British Mandate in 1923, Jewish land ownership in 1947, the UN partition plan of 1947 and the Israeli borders and armistice lines of 1949, what becomes increasingly clear is the huge and continuing shifts in land and territory ownership, which, I would humbly submit, render the two-state solution in its current iteration unworkable”.

The alternative, Motlanthe posits is progressively appearing to be a single democratic state for all its peoples on the entire area of historic Palestine.

“I am increasingly interested in the possibility of a democratic one state solution,” the statesman explained, drawing on academic research and sentiments of residents of the region.

“Such a solution perhaps should take the form of a federal state in which each side enjoys the majority in territory. I say this acknowledging the minority fears and identity concerns which persist in the present. As such a constitution would be required to guarantee such a federation as demographics shift.”

Motlanthe dismissed suggestions that such a proposal would entail a recipe for yet more conflict, citing the example of South Africa’s largely peaceful transition to democracy.

“We must not forget that such violence was also predicted in South Africa [after the end of minority rule] but was largely avoided because of sheer human will and brave leadership,” he said.

In 2008, Motlanthe, the then Deputy President of the African National Congress, commented that conditions for Palestinians under Israeli occupation were “worse than conditions were for Blacks under the Apartheid regime.”

As president of South Africa, on the 2nd of December 2008 speaking at the University of Pretoria on the occasion of the Commemoration of the UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Motlanthe said: “The humanitarian crisis in Palestine weighs heavily on our conscience”.

Motlanthe was also one of the high profile signatories of the Robben Island Declaration, calling on Israel to release jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti and other Palestinian political prisoners.