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Why Only Two States Can Work
By Nayyer Ali MD
While the destruction of Gaza grinds on, the world needs to put pressure on the Israelis, and also the Palestinians, to end this conflict. The occupation of Gaza and the West Bank has been going on for 67 years, with over two generations of Palestinians living through a stateless existence at the mercy of Israel’s land grabs, detentions, torture, and all the other misery that occupation inflicts.
I have argued for decades that the only solution to this conflict is two separate states, Israel and Palestine, with equal status and with neither dominating nor controlling the other. For the Palestinians, to accept this means to accept that the Nakba (the ethnic cleansing of 700,000 Palestinians from the land that became Israel in 1948) will not be reversed. It means in a certain sense, accepting that the Palestinian national cause has been defeated and that Israel is a permanent presence as a majority Jewish state making up 77% of the land between the Jordan River and the sea. The Palestinians would have to accept that they would be left with only 23% of the land, divided between Gaza and the West Bank, and that the descendants of those expelled during the Nakba will not be returning to the homes and villages their grandparents left. Is this fair? No, it’s not. But fairness is not a feature of history.
Many supporters of the Palestinians hold out for what is called the “one-state solution”. In this, Israel annexes Gaza and the West Bank, but it makes the Palestinians full and equal citizens. It would also allow the refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere to exercise the right of return and become residents and citizens of a single binational state for both Palestinians and Jews.
The one-state solution has a certain moral logic. It requires neither side to admit defeat, and it allows the right of return to be applied to the Palestinian refugees. But this is a mirage. The notion that the Palestinians and Jews can live peacefully in a single state is risible. The two sides hate each other and would like nothing better than for the other to leave. Jews created Israel in order to create a Jewish state, a state that would be overwhelmingly made up of Jews and would be an expression of Jewish nationalism. In no conceivable reality would the Jews of Israel agree to a one-state solution.
The current demographics are that about 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians live between the Jordan and the sea. If this was to be a single state, another 1-2 million Palestinian refugees would move in from outside. Because the Palestinians are more youthful and have a higher fertility rate, going forward the state would become ever more majority Palestinian. Politics in such a state would be solely an ethnic contest with Jews and Palestinians voting for their own kind. Given that the Palestinians would have the majority, in short order the flag, the national anthem, and everything else about Israel that is Jewish would be set aside. Palestinians would control the government. Jews would find life in the West more enticing and there would be steady emigration out of Israel and to the US and Europe. Within a generation Israel would become Palestine, an outcome that Palestinians and Jews both understand well, which is why a one-state solution is impossible.
Palestinians and their supporters still hope that Israel can be pressured into such a scenario. But Israel is a military machine. Its armed forces are far more capable than its neighbors, not to mention the lightly armed Hamas gunmen. And the Arab states want to bring Israel onside in an anti-Iranian alliance. Egypt is not going to invade and defeat Israel. Not to mention that Israel has had nuclear weapons for over 70 years.
This is why Palestinians must accept the reality of a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. While some Palestinians want a one-state solution, which is a fantasy, the Israelis for decades have indulged in their own fantasy about how to settle this conflict. They have repeatedly offered not two-states, but “one and a half-states” as the answer. By this I mean that the Jews get a real state in Israel, but the Palestinians get a “half-state”. The West Bank gets carved up with Israeli controlled roads leaving hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers in place, and Israel retains control over the airspace, water, borders, and security of the land that is supposed to form a Palestinian state. This is the main reason that previous attempts to settle this conflict have failed. At Camp David in 2000, at Taba in 2001, with the Arab League peace plan of 2002, and the Annapolis negotiations in 2008, the Israelis have consistently refused to accept a real two-state resolution and agree to remove their settlers and go back to the international border. This is the place where American pressure can make a difference. The US needs to push Israel to accept the actual logic of a two-state solution and remove its settlers completely.
The war in Gaza remains pointless. It appears that Israel is not going to succeed in destroying Hamas. Does this mean that once the fighting does stop Hamas will be back in control of Gaza? That would be an awful outcome. We need new leadership in Gaza and we need a new government in Israel that will clear the path to ending this conflict. Simply leaving Hamas and Netanyahu in place makes the terrible death and destruction wreaked since this round of conflict started on October 7 even more in vain than it already is.
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