Left-wing friends of the single secular state as putative solution to the problems of Israel-Palestine are thicker and thicker on the ground these days, so it's no surprise to find Slavoj Žižek writing in the New Statesman in support of the idea. There's nothing much new to say about the basic proposition and the answer to it. If this is what both peoples (Israelis and Palestinians) come to want, then the one binational secular state will be fine. But until they do want it, it isn't fine; for Žižek to present it as simple and obvious, indeed as 'already a reality', is therefore nonsense. His own appeal, 'So let's... transform this land into a secular, democratic state', says as much - though it may be pointed out in passing that the 'us' rolled up within that 'Let's' needs to be the Israeli and Palestinian peoples themselves or the one secular state will be not a democratic but an imposed solution.
Apart from all this - mere business as usual - Žižek's argument for the single secular state contains a special element, putting him into some sort of emotional relation with the Jewish people and letting him feel entitled on that basis to admonish the Jewish people regarding its singular character. He writes:
I am more than aware of the immense suffering to which Jews have been exposed for thousands of years. What is saddening is that many Israelis seem to be doing all they can to transform the unique Jewish nation into just another nation.
Just another nation how? If Žižek intends by this, as the rest of his piece would suggest, that the Jewish nation has been behaving badly, unjustly, then it may be held to account for doing so; its injustices, as everybody else's, are to be opposed and put right. Otherwise, though - why should not the Jewish nation be a nation like any other? Does he mean that because the Jews have suffered, it's unthinkable that the Jewish nation should be marked, as are other nations, by injustices and mistakes? Why so? The Jews have not been lifted into a zone beyond human error, nor should that be expected; nor should it be assumed as some (impossible) benchmark. Or does he mean that because the Jews have suffered, the Jewish state may not defend itself against the threat of extinction by its enemies? This question goes to the very heart of the matter that Žižek has chosen to raise. There are many nations in the world for whom the right to national self-determination is recognized. Why may not the Jewish nation be 'just another nation' in this regard too? In response to that question Žižek ventures not a word.