Cuba calls for peace in the Middle East
The USA ought to support the two-state solution
The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs today issued a statement entitled “A just and lasting peace in the Middle East is an urgent need.” It declared:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba reiterates its deep concern about the escalation of violence between Israel and Palestine, which is a consequence of decades of Israeli practices of illegal occupation and colonization. . . .
The Ministry rejects, and has always rejected, the death of civilians and innocent persons of all the parties involved in this conflict, regardless of their ethnic origin, nationality or religious creed; and strongly condemns the killing of civilians, particularly women, children and humanitarian workers from the United Nations system; as well as the indiscriminate bombings against the population in Gaza and the destruction of houses, hospitals and civil infrastructure and the cutting off of water, power and fuel supplies to the population of Gaza, which are serious violations of International Humanitarian Law.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs urgently calls for a ceasefire and the immediate delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
Cuba calls for an end to the belligerent rhetoric and reaffirms its support for a just, comprehensive and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the creation of two States that would allow for the exercise of the right of free determination of the Palestinian people and the creation of an independent and sovereign Palestinian State on the basis of the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, that would equally ensure the right of the return of refugees.
The International Relations Committee of the National Assembly of People’s Power (the Cuban Parliament) had issued a similar statement on October 10, lamenting the loss of life on all sides, and at the same time denouncing the “systematic application for more than seven decades of the aggressive colonizing and genocidal policy of the State of Israel,” denying the right of the Palestinian people to live in their territory. The Declaration called for the search for peace through negotiations, seeking a just and lasting solution to the conflict, through the creation of two states based on the pre-1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital.
During this past week, Cuban news outlets have reported on the conflict, including the initiation of a military operation by Hamas on October 7 and the resulting Israeli deaths and casualties. Cuban news reporting, however, has emphasized the bombing of the population of Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces.
During this past week, I have observed that there are deep divisions in the United States with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with two sides framing the issue in fundamentally different ways, and both believing that morality is on their side.
In my view, the USA has a special relation with Israel, and it ought to repeatedly affirm the principle of a Jewish homeland and the right of the nation of Israel to exist, for several reasons. First, Jews are among the peoples of the United States. There are approximately as many Jews in the United States as there are in Israel, far more than any other nation. Jews arrived at U.S. shores in great numbers from Eastern Europe during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as part of the great wave of migrants from Ireland, Italy, Poland, and other Eastern European countries. A much higher percentage of Jewish migrants were urban residents in Europe than was the case with the other migratory groups, some 90% of whom were rural peasants. This difference was one of the factors in the relatively rapid upward mobility of Jews in the USA. The emigration of Jews was driven in part by norms of religious/ethnic discrimination in Europe that the other groups did not experience, which to a lesser extent they also found in the USA.
Secondly, the U.S. moral obligation to support the concept of a Jewish homeland and the right of the nation of Israel to exist is based in obligations that the USA assumed when it entered the European theater of the Second World War. Along with the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and resistance fighters from various occupied European nations, the United States in that war prevailed against fascism. The war brought the USA to a position of hegemony in the world-system with high levels of world prestige, even though the USA was morally wrong in unleashing massive bombings on the cities of Germany and Japan and in demanding unconditional surrender. By and large, the USA enjoyed much prestige in the world, because of its defense of democracy during World War II. Not able to disengage following the war, the United States assumed certain responsibilities, which it myopically characterized as the defense of democracy and the “Free World.”
Although the U.S. power elite entirely overlooked the possibility of leading the world to a new post-colonial and post-imperialist world order based on the sovereign equality of nations, the USA was correct in maintaining that its responsibility included some reasonable resolution of the Jewish question. The world was shocked to learn of the barbarism of the death camps, and the victorious allies indeed had an obligation to provide a program of support to Jews who had survived, many of whom had been displaced. Jews themselves turned to the notion of a settlement in a Jewish homeland in the region of ancient Israel and Judah, which was a movement that had begun in the early twentieth century. In this context, the United States had a moral obligation to support the establishment of the modern state of Israel.
Some in the U.S. Left compare the modern Jewish settlement in Palestine to the modern Dutch settlement in South Africa or the English settlement of North America. But this is not a helpful comparison. The Dutch in South Africa, the Spanish and Portuguese in what would become Latin America, the English and French in North America, and the Spanish, English, and French in the Caribbean had no ancient ties to these lands and no spiritual claim for settlement.
For these reasons, the USA has been right in supporting the right of the nation of Israel to exist. However, U.S. support should not be a blank check. It ought to be recognized that the creation of the state of Israel involved the displacement of part of the Palestinian population. The Arab world, although initially opposed to the notion of a Jewish state in Palestine, has long accepted the concept of a Jewish state, and therefore, the basis exists for a two-state solution. Palestinian authorities have for years been present in international organizations, affirming their commitment to the two-state solution. International organizations of the Global South and the UN system have repeatedly advocated for the two-state solution, with the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state. But Israel has for years defied the two-state solution, occupying territory and settling lands that pertain to the Palestinian people in the two-state solution; and using instances of violence in a long-standing political conflict as a pretext for unleashing violence against civilians in Palestine. Consciousness of this fundamental fact is evident in the statements of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cuban National Assembly of People’s Power.
Because of the special relation between the USA and Israel, the United States is well positioned to pressure Israel toward acceptance of the two-state solution, in accordance with the reiterated demand of the governments of the Global South. The USA should stand with the Global South in supporting the two-state solution, in which Israel’s security concerns can be addressed through the UN system. Constructive engagement by the USA with respect to Israel would go a long way toward establishing permanent peace in the Middle East and toward the final fulfillment of U.S. moral obligations with respect to the Jewish question and Israel.
And U.S. support of the two-state solution would be a symbolic gesture toward North-South cooperation, which has been a longstanding demand of the Global South, and which the USA ought to have undertaken in the late 1940s. The USA today has no viable option other than North-South cooperation, as a result of the structural crisis of the world-system, in which Western imperialism is making evident its unsustainability.
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