Against the backdrop of Israeli occupation and settlements and Palestinian resistance, the two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict is being increasingly questioned. Michael Slackman reported this week in the New York Times that Arab leaders see little future in the plan. “The way events have evolved, there is no likelihood that a real Palestinian state would be formed. A truncated entity, one dotted with Israeli settlements and divided by internal Palestinian conflict, would in the end be no state at all, and would serve only to empower radicals and fuel the conflict in perpetuity, Arab political analysts and government officials said.... [M]omentum is moving in favor of the more radical players, like Hamas and its patron state, Iran.”
Akiva Eldar writes in Ha'aretz that “if the ‘Annapolis process’ goes the way of the ‘Camp David process’...the Palestinian Authority will fall.” He quotes a moderate Fatah official as saying, "’Instead of talking about occupation, we will recognize that we are living in an apartheid state… Instead of fighting for independence, we will fight for equal rights.’”
A real two-state solution -- in which a Palestinian state in all of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem would enjoy full sovereignty and independence in a contiguous territory not segmented and not totally surrounded by Israel -- is now a forlorn dream from which the international consensus has yet to awaken,” argued Kathleen Christison in CounterPunch last month.
Possible alternatives to the two-state model include indefinite military occupation; the binational or unitary secular state proposed by Edward Said and others; and absorption of Gaza by Egypt and of the West Bank by Jordan, a prospect discussed in the Slackman article.
A unitary state featuring equal rights of Jews and Arabs in Palestine remains anathema to the Israeli majority. “Most Israelis have come to recognize that the consequence of failing to reach a two-state solution is either a bi-national state, which could not be Jewish, or an undemocratic regime where Palestinian residents could not enjoy equal rights,”
wrote Ori Nir, spokesman for Americans for Peace Now. “In an interview with Israel's daily Ha'aretz last November, [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert warned that if the two-state solution collapsed, Israel would ‘face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.’”
Most progressive U.S. Jews also still regard a Jewish majority state as essential to defend the interests of the Jewish people. "Justice demands a negotiated two-state solution. Nothing else will provide real, lasting peace and security for Israel and the Palestinians,” writes
Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, The Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace. Describing Zionism as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, Diane Balser of Brit Tzedek seeks to “advance the principle of two states for two people, and help progressive Jews develop greater confidence in their Jewish identity, from which to reach out to potential allies among Muslims, Arabs, African Americans and all peoples of color.”
The Tikkun network of Rabbi Michael Lerner and Dr. Cornel West writes, “we understand why, in this historical moment, the Jewish people need a state of our own. With memories of the murder and genocide of our people still fresh… we affirm preserving ‘the Jewish character’ of Israel.”
A minority of U.S. progressive Jews are not committed to the two-state strategy. Jewish Voice for Peace insists on “the right of the Israeli people to self-determination” alongside “a solution to the Palestinian refugee crisis [recognizing] a right of return for all refugees,” but does not demand a two state solution: "...[W]hen the Occupation ends, it will then become possible to consider all the different ideas for a permanent and sustainable peace in the Middle East. We believe that an open dialogue that includes all different formulations of such a permanent solution are legitimate, as long as they each respect the individual and collective rights of both Israelis and Palestinians.” Tikkun’s statement indicates that it contains a minority who favor a bi-national state.
The history and identity of Israel cannot be separated from the settler state's role as an outpost of Western imperialism in the Middle East. As Balser correctly notes, Jews have played a progressive role in both the U.S. and Europe, growing out of their struggle against anti-Semitism and for full equality in society. But the founding of Israel after the Holocaust was not an outgrowth of that struggle. Building Israel meant survival, but it also meant denying another people’s rights and allying with imperialism as part of the bargain. In the context of the global struggle, Israel functions today as an integral part of the U.S. imperial project. It acts as a regional proxy for U.S. power, with its nuclear arsenal, assistance to the U.S. military, and worldwide arms sales, including to regimes the U.S. cannot deal with openly.
Thus there has always been a contradiction at the heart of the two-state solution. While its liberal proponents hope that Israel will evolve into an ordinary nation living in peace with its neighbors, the reality is that to do that, it would have to forfeit its role as imperialist outpost.
If Palestinians won't accept a vitiated mini-state, and Israelis will neither accept a binational state nor enable a true Palestinian state by withdrawing to the 1967 borders, then the only options that remain are continued occupation and resistance, or absorption of the Palestinian territories by Egypt and Jordan, which, according to Slackman, may only intensify the struggle: "absorption would make permanent the fight over the land Israel is on, giving radical groups a cause to rally around, and moderates nothing to point to."
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