The Failure of the Two-State Solution

The Prospects of One State in the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Hani Faris

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781780760940
• eBook ISBN: 9780857734235
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Diplomats, politicians and activists alike have long laboured under the assumption that a two-state solution is the only path to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But as this conflict continues unabated, and violence and instability deepen, it seems that the ideal of two states coexisting alongside each other and the ever-elusive goal of peace slip further from reach. The Failure of the Two-State Solution examines the impasse in the Israel-Palestine conflict, exploring the reasons behind the breakdown of attempts to establish a meaningful Palestinian state. This book therefore points to another - until recently unthinkable - option: a single bi-national state in Israel-Palestine, with all inhabitants sharing in equal rights and citizenship, regardless of ethnicity or faith. Hani A. Faris has drawn together a wide-ranging and in-depth analysis of the historical and current situation in Israel-Palestine. By analysing the history of the conflict in Israel-Palestine and its numerous peace initiatives, this book demonstrates how the current deadlock has been reached.
With a nascent Palestinian state hampered by Israeli security policy and internal political divisions and the continuing expansion of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, it is argued here that the viability of the two-state solution seems to have run its course. And so highlights the one-state solution as an option, and debates and develops the organisational steps and strategies, on a local and international level, that would enable the construction of a bi-national state. With scholars from the US, Europe, the Arab world and Israel analysing the possibility of a one-state solution and the shortcomings of the two-state track, this is an important and ground-breaking book for students of Politics, International Relations, Peace Studies and Middle East Studies and all interested in the resolution of this seemingly intractable conflict.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Failure of the Two-State Solution and Delimiting the One-State Idea

Hani A. Faris

Situating a Problematic: The Two- and One-State Solutions

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has been among the longest enduring conflicts in modern history. It has been also, and remains, among the most destructive and dangerous conflicts, threatening not only the stability of the Middle East, but also the peace and security of the world. To illustrate, nuclear alerts on a global scale were declared in the past by the super powers in response to developments in the 1973 October War.¹ Moreover, Israel is known to have a significant cache of nuclear armaments and is reported also to have declared a nuclear alert during the same war after Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal,² destroyed the Bar-Lev line³ and moved east toward the Sinai passes. Also, some Middle Eastern countries are believed to have chemical and biological weapons in their arsenal – their use cannot be ruled out in future conflagrations. Much depends on how the conflict evolves and whether the international community succeeds in defusing or resolving the conflict issues. Given the prospects, the incessant search for solutions which has earmarked this conflict is understandable. Within this context, and given the abject failure of the existing conflict resolution, the peace-making process and the old-new idea of a solution based on the establishment of a one-state in Israel/Palestine is worthy of careful and detailed consideration.

Many Palestinians and others believe the international community should recognise that the conditions Israel has created in the occupied territories render the two-state solution impossible. For them there is an urgent need to start exploring in earnest the only option left for a final negotiated settlement offering peace with justice for all concerned: Israeli Jews and Palestinians. The latter consist of Palestinian citizens of Israel, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, 1948 Palestinians and their descendants in the shatat (Diaspora). They envision the two communities becoming citizens of a single democratic, secular and multicultural state in all of historic Palestine.

A few words about the one-state are in order. The idea has been the subject of misguided ridicule by a number of Jews and Palestinians alike. It has been described as a ‘total illusion’ and its advocates as ‘inveterate dreamers’ and ‘time wasters’. The attacks by both sides are principally due to a misunderstanding of what the one-state solution is in both the Israeli and the Palestinian spheres. The following three points illustrate and address some of the existing misconceptions.

First, there is a general tendency among people to think in either/or dualities or bi-polar relationships, rather than in a continuum or a dialectical interaction. The one-state idea is seen as the antithesis of the two-state idea. Since the latter represents today the international consensus on the solution to the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, and both sides to the conflict pay it lip service, many observers discuss the one-state idea as an attempt at undermining the international effort to resolve the conflict. But the one-state idea is not the inverse of the two-state solution. Were Israel to remove Jewish settlers, withdraw to 1967 borders, allow the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state and address the Palestinian right of return, a predominant sector of the Palestinian population would support such a settlement. Those who would only support such a two-state outcome for the foreseeable future believe a future merger of the two states is feasible. However, facts on the ground tell a different story. For all practical purposes, a viable two-state solution is out of reach and for many a point of no return has been reached. To Palestinians the growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is so obvious and invasive, and the number of settlers so large, that many of them firmly believe that Israel intends to annex rather than withdraw from the territories. Alongside the growth of settlements, ‘Israel checkmated itself’⁴ and shattered the two-state solution by adopting policies such as the expropriation of vast expanses of West Bank territory under different guises, the construction of an elaborate network of Jewish-only bypass roads, modification of the demography and character of Arab East Jerusalem, and control of the water aquifers and other natural resources in the West Bank. Together, these policies have forced the issue of the one-state on to the table again.⁵ To one-state advocates the rise of a meaningful two-state system (i.e. two sovereign states along the 1967 borders) is now impossible. They consider the long drawn-out peace process, ongoing for nearly 20 years, as simply furthering the Israeli settlement project, allowing it to continue to annex the land and effect a quiet population transfer. The most the Palestinians could hope for in such circumstances is what they see as a bogus Palestinian entity with a minuscule and truncated structure. If Palestinians view the ‘peace process’ as a total waste which is not addressing their human rights and national life of their kin under occupation, then they unsurprisingly ask who the dreamer is and who the realist is in assessing the prospect of a viable two-state settlement.⁶

The second point is that all sides – Palestinian, Israeli and international – ultimately invoke the same rationale to explain their opposition to the one-state idea. They all believe that the overwhelming power the Israelis enjoy will prevent the one-state idea from ever being realised. The Israelis are advantaged by the status quo and could, in time, force the Palestinians to yield to their demands on West Bank territory, resources and demography. Solutions are dictated by the powerful and the only one-state solution the Israeli political/military establishment favours is one that yields control to Israel over most of historic Palestine, if not all of it. However, this form of thinking reflects a static view of power relationships and assumes that political and military powers are permanent barriers to fundamental change. This ignores the experience of the late twentieth century in South Africa where a powerful player, always militarily strong, failed to impose its positions on its militarily weaker adversary. All its efforts and the much larger capabilities it marshalled over a relatively long period of time proved of no value. Rather, it was the African National Congress (ANC) that wrested major concessions and forced change on their opponent. Had the ANC tailored its national aspirations to reflect the realities of power relations, the South Africa apartheid system would still be in place and thriving.⁷

Finally, some of the public, politicians and intellectuals on each side to the conflict view the one-state in terms that are injurious to the other side. To those Israelis, it is a realisation of Greater Israel and securing Zionist hegemony. To their Palestinian counterparts, it is a chance to return Palestine to pre-Israeli days with Palestinian Arab dominance. Properly understood and applied, the one-state is the only scheme that presents the Jewish Israeli and Palestinian sides with a win-win situation, co-existence and the hope of lasting peace. A two-state solution, regardless of its terms, will not resolve the conflict on a permanent basis. At best, it is a solution that may address the needs of the residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who represent only about one-third of Palestinian society. Israeli/Palestinian negotiations since Oslo (1993) indicate that Israel will not concede the Palestinian right of return and the Palestinian Authority (PA) may not insist on strict Israeli adherence to this popular Palestinian demand for the right of return if Israel meets its territorial demands in the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem. The unsettled status of the Palestinians inside Israel and the shatat will forever raise questions about Israel’s legitimacy and the acceptance it seeks from the region’s populations. While Israeli Jews may be confident about their present power advantage, they are understandably concerned about what the future holds for them. Similarly, the Palestinians and Arabs in general deplore what they perceive to be their present weakness but have confidence in the long-term future of their aspirations. In other words, irrespective of what may happen with the two-state solution (i.e. whether it fails or succeeds and whatever its contours might be), the conflict will persist until there is a settlement that attends to all the people of both parties. Meanwhile, for those whose concern is the maintenance of an ethnic/religious entity, it would be wise to recall the words of Albert Einstein:

I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from practical consideration, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain – especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state.⁸

Additional to the above misconceptions, the objections to the one-state solution of many Israelis are based on additional considerations that derive from Jewish historical experiences in Western societies and are rooted in Zionist doctrines. Foremost among them is the fear of demographic trends among the two communities. The number of Palestinians is expected to equal and start to exceed the number of Jews in historic Palestine by 2017.⁹ Being in the minority is viewed as an existential threat and allows for their persecution or for their dominance over a Palestinian majority. The rise of a binational political entity is another cause of concern, since it spells the end of the Jewish character of the state and threatens to replace it with pluralist arrangements and possibly secular public institutions. Finally, a noticeable number of Israeli Jews would not consider living with Palestinians and often display attitudes of superiority towards them.

One-state advocates must attend to legitimate concerns of Israeli Jews about their future welfare within the framework of a single state if their plans are to have a chance of success. The majority of Israeli Jews will not shift positions unless they are certain their individual and communal security and prosperity would be secured and enhanced. Until then, although short-sighted, they will opt for the status quo and conflict management.

Rebirth of the One-State Idea

Both Arab Palestinians and Israeli Jews have shifted positions over time on keeping historic Palestine united and sharing the country under a single state. The Palestinians, from the start of the conflict that followed the founding of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in 1897 and until the 1970s, were almost to a man advocates of the one-state. Other than members of the communist parties who heeded Moscow’s directives after 1948, hardly any opted for the two-state solution. Meanwhile, the Zionists under the Mandate aspired and worked diligently for a predominantly, if not exclusively, Jewish state in all of historic Palestine.¹⁰ The 1917 Balfour Declaration made such a vision seem feasible and the memorandum the WZO submitted on 3 February 1919, to the Paris Peace Conference, delineated their territorial demands which included part of present-day Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.¹¹ Later in the Mandate, the Zionist leadership made the tactical decision to publicly support a partition of the country to two states and bide their time for a more opportune moment to achieve a single Jewish state outcome. They basically had no other choice given their demographic minority status and their limited land ownership.¹² The war of 1948 provided them with the opportunity to establish their domain by force of arms in 78 per cent of the land.¹³ The remaining 22 per cent were acquired in the June 1967 War. Since then, all of historic Palestine has been under Israeli dominion: directly in the West Bank and de facto in Gaza since 2005.

The Palestinian leadership began seriously to consider a two-state solution after the 1973 October War. It revealed its intention in a staged approach and over time. The process began with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) announcing its acceptance of the binational state, and floating the idea that Palestinians would set up a national Palestinian authority in any area evacuated by Israel, irrespective of the size of the area.¹⁴ A sarcastic public referred to this scheme as the Jericho state. In time, the PLO officially announced its acceptance of the two-state solution to end the conflict.¹⁵ Finally, it formally accepted, in 1993, UN Resolutions 242 and 338, recognised Israel and revoked its right to armed struggle.¹⁶ Its stated aim was to establish a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and secure the right of return for Palestinian refugees.¹⁷ Meanwhile, the Israeli government position began to shift slowly towards the two-state solution after the 1993 Oslo Accords, except that its position on the issue of boundaries was intentionally left unclear. Finally, the international community, including the Arab countries, followed in the steps of Israeli and Palestinian officials and adopted the two-state solution as the only way to end the conflict and establish peace.¹⁸ Nevertheless, almost two decades have passed since Oslo and all the subsequent negotiations have come to nothing despite all the fanfare and lip service paid to the two-state solution by Israel and the world powers. Palestinians remain stateless and under occupation, their situation desperate, and the likelihood of a total or even near-total withdrawal from the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, is seen as next to impossible.¹⁹

It is this impasse which drove a range of figures – multi-religious, multi-ethnic and multinational – to revive and promote the one-state idea as the only rational alternative to the failed two-state solution. As early as 1999, the late Edward Said, after becoming totally disillusioned with Oslo and losing faith in the leadership of the PA, shifted course and openly called for a binational Israeli–Palestinian state. He made several constitutional, institutional and political proposals, but his main contribution was to promote ‘the idea and practice of [equal] citizenship, not of ethnic or racial community, as the main vehicle for coexistence’.²⁰ A number of leading Jewish intellectuals also announced their support of the one-state. The case of Tony Judt stood out. In an outspoken statement, Judt asked his audience to think the unthinkable. Israel, he opined, had become an ‘anachronism’ and ‘dysfunctional’, it was time ‘to convert Israel from a Jewish state to a binational one’, and not only was this solution ‘increasingly likely, but actually a desirable outcome’. What was needed to affect this outcome is ‘a new political class’ among both Arabs and Jews.²¹ Inevitably, Said lost favour with the official leadership of the PLO and Judt’s essay triggered a wave of attacks on him and his ideas.²² Nevertheless, given the high regard with which these two individuals were held and their large circle of admirers, the idea of the one-state began to arouse wider interest among intellectuals and across religious and ethnic lines.

Since the turn of the last millennium, international conferences on the onestate and the rise of formal groups propagating the idea gathered momentum. Among such conferences, five stand...

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Author
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Contributors
• List of Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• 1. Introduction: The Failure of the Two-State Solution and Delimiting the One-State Idea
• PART I: IS THE TWO-STATE SETTLEMENT FEASIBLE?
• 2. The Deeper Politics of Jewish Settlements
• 3. A Racialised Space: The Future of Jerusalem
• 4. Building a Palestinian State Under Occupation: Reassessing the Oslo Process
• 5. Is the Two-State Settlement Still Viable? An Overall Assessment of the Present Situation
• 6. Israel’s War on Gaza: Zionism’s Pyrrhic Victory?
• PART II: IDEOLOGIES AND THE IDEA OF A HISTORIC SETTLEMENT
• 7. Deconstructing the Zionist Settler Narrative and Constructing an Alternative
• 8. In the Golden Age of Constantinian Judaism: The Future of the Indigenous Jewish Prophetic: Israel, Ethnic Particularism and Universalist Values
• 9. Challenging the Consensus Favouring the Two-State Model
• 10. A Blueprint for a One-State Movement: A Troubled History
• PART III: PRACTICALITIES IN THE SEARCH FOR A RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT
• 11. The Rights of Palestinian Refugees and Territorial Solutions in Historic Palestine
• 12. The Geographic and Demographic Imperatives of a Single State
• 13. Mizrahi Feminism and the Question of Palestine: Two States or One?
• PART IV: MOBILISING FOR A SOLUTION
• 14. Mobilising Palestinians in Support of One State
• 15. Mobilising Israel and the World Jewry for the One-State Solution
• 16. Palestinians in Israel and Binationalism: Escape from the Impasse
• 17. Reversing Defeat Through Non-violent Power
• 18. Building Movements for the One-State Solution in Palestine and the Arab World
• 19. Awakening the American Conscience about Israel/Palestine
• 20. Building an International Movement to Promote the One-State Solution
• Appendix
• Select Bibliography
• Endnotes