This is a question that remains to be answered. Below are some of Avnery's views on the current situation in Israel and Palestine and its global context.-SRP
January 3, 2000
At the beginning of the twentieth century, a few idealists advocated the creation of a "United States of Europe." They were ridiculed. But after two terrible World Wars and tens of millions dead, the European Union was created, a confederacy that practically abolished borders and set up a united economy.
Today I dare to forecast that the twenty-first century will see the creation of a "United States of the World": a global order headed by a world authority.
The last century-like the one that preceded it-was dominated by the national state. This idea won in Europe and expanded from there to all the other continents. Israel, as a "democratic Jewish state" and the coming State of Palestine are late-born children of that era.
We, who were born into this reality, can hardly realize that the national state is a recent human creation. Even at the beginning of last century, the Russian czar, the Austrian emperor and the Ottoman sultan were still potent rulers, each of whom reigned over many peoples speaking many languages.
The national state (as distinguished, for example, from the citystate or the dynastic state) did not come into being by accident. New technologies created a reality that required a (comparatively) big economic, cultural, and military unit. The local market had to be big enough to sustain an economy, population, and territory that could sustain a modern army big enough to defend the fatherland. The national idea satisfied these requirements and gave the masses, together