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one state solution
How a One-State Solution for Israelis and Palestinians Could Heal the World
This is the language of peace. It swells the heart, it transcends the small-mindedness of global politics.
Mar 22, 2024
Probably fewer ideas are treated with more contempt in today’s world than . . . ahem: a one-state solution for Palestine and Israel, with, good God, every resident equally valued, equally free.
“Snort! No one wants this! It’s not possible — it’s not true!”
My reply to the cynics is this: We will not enter the future with closed minds. We will not find security — we will not evolve — if we choose to remain subservient to linear, us-vs.-them thinking. We will not become our fullest selves or have access to our own collective human consciousness if we choose to stay caged in our own righteous certainty. Our god is better than your god!
I acknowledge from the start: This is not a simple process, any more than America’s reluctant embrace of the civil rights movement was, or is, simple. But armed dehumanization — which is to say war, hatred, ethnic cleansing, cultural erasure, endless slaughter, the murder of children, genocide — is neither “simple” nor the least bit effective in creating a world that is safe for anyone. War and hatred perpetuate nothing but themselves. You know that, right?
The world we are in the process of creating is bigger and more whole than the fragmented, shattered world that currently exists.
But what about a two-state solution? Neither side actually wants this and, with the West Bank overrun with Israeli settlers, it’s hardly possible anyway. The concept of a two-state solution, Samer Elchahabi writes at the Arab Center website. “has been used to delegitimize Palestinians’ aspirations for equality and freedom, has allowed for relentless settlement expansion on Palestinian land, and has offered a fig leaf for perpetuating occupation with Western support.”
I also note the insightful words of management consultant and social philosopher Mary Parker-Follett, who pointed out, in her groundbreaking 1925 essay “Constructive Conflict,” that there are three basic ways of dealing with conflict: domination, compromise and what I would call transcendence.
Domination is simplistic. I win, you lose. This is the essence of every war and obviously the essence of Israel’s ongoing devastation of Gaza. Attempted domination never touches the heart of the conflict but, rather, attempts to kill it. This never works. Compromise is usually seen, with scathing reluctance, as the only other choice, a la some sort of two-state solution. Both sides give something up; neither side gets what it wants. “Compromise,” Parker-Follett pointed out, “does not create, it deals with what already exists.” And the conflict doesn’t really go away. It just takes a different form.
But the third option, which she referred to in her essay as “integration,” addresses the needs and wishes of all parties to the conflict and creates something — a solution — that hadn’t previously existed. In short, it creates a better world.
“As conflict — difference — is here in the world, as we cannot avoid it, we should, I think, use it,” Parker-Follett wrote. “Instead of condemning it, we should set it to work for us.”
Is this possible — in the midst of the hell called war? Most analysts of the conflict seem to dismiss a one-state, equality-for-all solution as “delusional” . . . oh gosh, too much work. It’s so much easier to keep hating and killing and just “finish the job,” as Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner put it in a recent interview, adding that Gaza’s “waterfront property could be very valuable.”
Yeah, dominance is seductive, especially for those in the most advantageous position. Perhaps that’s why it usually seems to be the disadvantaged ones — victimized, endangered, deprived of their full humanity — who are able to envision the transcendent blessings of equality, not for some but for all. This has certainly been the case here in the U.S.A., where those still addicted to “white America” view the country’s swelling tide of equality with fear (“they’re trying to replace us!”) rather than wonder and awe.
Elchahabi writes: “A departure from the two-state solution to another model based on equality and democratic rights for all is imperative. The one-state solution entails a single democratic state encompassing Israel, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza, with equal rights for all inhabitants, irrespective of ethnicity or religion. This paradigm shift addresses core issues: the right of return for Palestinian refugees, as stipulated in UN General Assembly Resolution 194; the status of Jerusalem; and the question of settlements.”
And then he makes a key point: “The one-state solution reimagines these as internal challenges of a unified polity rather than as zero-sum elements of a bilateral conflict.”
This is stepping out of the usual context in which the media presents the horrific conflict: us vs. them. Attempting to understand the conflict from a transcendent vision of unity and connection is what it means to evolve. The world we are in the process of creating is bigger and more whole than the fragmented, shattered world that currently exists.
He goes on: “Israelis and Palestinians alike should imagine a unified state that upholds the rights and dignity of all its citizens, forging a shared identity from the rich tapestry of its diverse peoples. This vision, while challenging, holds the promise of a lasting peace built not on separation and segregation but on the foundations of justice and mutual respect.”
This is the language of peace. It swells the heart, it transcends the small-mindedness of global politics. Palestine and Israel could transform the world.Keep ReadingShow Less
Calls for a Two-State Solution Provide a Distraction—Not Hope
What does invoking the two-state solution really mean after so many years of neglect, and the ensuing destruction and suffering inflicted on a colonized people? Will it translate into a real shift in U.S. policy?
Nov 28, 2023
For many Palestinians, talk of a two-state solution, or any other political resolution to the ongoing colonial conflict, sounds like a luxury given the urgent necessity of saving 2.3 million people in Gaza from Israel’s massive onslaught.
Stopping Israel’s genocidal war is a top priority for the Palestinian people, and for all people of conscience. They have thus received new talk from US President Joe Biden on the two-state illusion as little more than a distraction from the unprecedented atrocities being perpetrated by Israel, with Washington’s backing.
The revived U.S. rhetoric on this subject, framed as a vision to be pursued the day after the genocidal war ends, is conditioned on the achievement of Israel’s military plan to root out Hamas from Gaza, no matter how many civilians are killed or forcibly displaced in the process, or how much devastation is unleashed on the territory.
We are moving from a phase in which the mantra of the two-state solution has been used as cover for Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, to one involving the extermination of Palestinians in Gaza, which has become the world’s biggest open-air concentration camp.
All of this is being justified by the need to remove the purported greatest obstacle to peace.
It is absurd to join together two such contradictory trajectories—one that talks of peace, and another that entails the ongoing process of exterminating a group of people who are supposed to benefit from the peace process.
But such a proposition is by no means unfamiliar within the context of US history, which began with the extermination of the indigenous population and extended to Iraq and Afghanistan by the 21st century. It is by design, based on the assumption that this is an opportune time to go ahead with a plan whose main goal is to guarantee the security of Israel and rebuild Washington’s regional alliances.
Real policy shift?
The American administration, stunned by the “shock and awe”-style Hamas operation, wants to take advantage of the mounting weaknesses of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, given his failure to defend his own citizens and to dismantle Hamas, in order to bring Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) back to the negotiating table.
But what does invoking the two-state solution really mean after so many years of neglect, and the ensuing destruction and suffering inflicted on a colonized people? Will it translate into a real shift in U.S. policy?
And is the two-state solution still a serious or viable option, given the entrenched settler project in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the deepening fanaticism and trend towards fascism exacerbated by the current war? Is Washington’s version of the two-state solution the same one that the Palestinian leadership aspires to, and is the U.S. willing to put real pressure on Israel?
The prevailing atmosphere amid the Gaza war, and the spike in hatred between Palestinians and Israelis, are extremely discouraging. It is difficult to estimate just how much deeper the divide has grown, or whether any talk of a political solution that delivers even a bare minimum of rights to the Palestinian people is even relevant in such times.
Even after the current war ends, the broader conflict will continue so long as there is no just solution
Israeli society will likely emerge from this war with even less willingness to accept any compromise with Palestinians, especially since the Israeli regime has framed the 7 October attack as being disconnected from the grave historical injustices that it has inflicted on Palestinians.
Worse still has been the remobilization of Israeli society, misled into endorsing a blatantly genocidal mindset rooted in Zionist ideology. Israel’s settler-colonial policies dehumanize the Palestinian people, with the erasure of Palestinian culture and history since 1948 viewed as the fulfillment of a divine promise, or a national imperative.
In recent years, parts of Israeli society and mainstream media have become increasingly racist and insensitive to Palestinian suffering. This is why Palestinians have escalated their resistance struggle, despite having to make huge sacrifices. This fight for justice, decolonization, and liberation will never end; this is why Palestinians in Gaza refuse to abandon their homeland, even after 16 years of a cruel Israeli siege.
Biased broker
Even after the current war ends, the broader conflict will continue so long as there is no just solution. When this round of fighting subsides, the diplomacy will begin—but this process will be difficult and prolonged, and a great challenge for Palestinians because the U.S. has never been an unbiased broker.
If Israel succeeds in weakening Hamas and removing it from power in Gaza, as it seeks to do, the U.S. will need to guarantee the replacement of the far-right Israeli government with an administration willing to deal with the PA, which has been acting as a subcontractor for the Israeli occupation.
But it is difficult to foresee a genuine change in Israel’s position on Palestinian rights, amid looming internal strife over a planned judicial overhaul, which will likely be exacerbated after Netanyahu’s massive failure on 7 October. Such a change will come only after continued internal pressure, namely Palestinian and progressive co-resistance, and genuine international pressure.
Palestinians will emerge from this war having endured another horrific humanitarian catastrophe, unprecedented in scale since the 1948 Nakba. Yet, thanks to their resistance and remarkable steadfastness, they will also have made significant gains in terms of support and sympathy for their cause globally - most importantly in Western countries whose governments disgracefully gave full support to Israel’s genocidal war. Israel’s standing in the world has been further undermined, its lies and myths largely demolished.
A new generation has arisen with a new consciousness and knowledge of the justness of the Palestinian cause. This younger generation will continue to question their governments on their failures, imperialism, and complicity with war crimes.
The world is witnessing another wave of grassroots, alternative politics, with a focus on justice, liberation, and equality. Leaders and activists in this ever-expanding global movement see the Palestinian struggle as an extension of their own battles for justice at home.
Palestinians will again find themselves facing the challenge of how to unite and capitalize on these gains. Most Palestinians no longer believe in the two-state solution, as the Zionist regime has repeatedly proven its genocidal, settler-colonial intentions. The slogan “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea” will become an integral part of the Palestinian discourse, and attempts to criminalize it will fail.
This is not a genocidal slogan, but a noble goal that calls for the liberation of Palestinians from brutal apartheid, and the liberation of Israeli society from Zionism—allowing both Palestinians and Jews to live together in an egalitarian entity.
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