Both the United States and Israel have long envisioned a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
“We need to renew our resolve to pursue this two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians can one day live side by side in a two-state solution with equal measure of freedom and dignity,” President Joe Biden declared on Nov. 24.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may reject the framing, but he accepts the goal so long as both diplomats and Palestinians acknowledge Israel’s Jewish nature. Prominent diplomats and politicians, however, now say the two-state solution is dead. Three decades after the Oslo Accords, Palestinians’ embrace of terror and rejection of Israel remains an impediment to their statehood. The current war in Gaza only increases polarization.
So what is the alternative? The Left argues that failure to accede quickly to Palestinian independence will lead Palestinian Arabs to outnumber Israeli Jews within Israel and on territory Palestinians claim. Many of the statistics they cite, much like Hamas Health Ministry death tallies, are fictional. Still, diplomats are superficial and seldom question from where numbers come. This is why officials such as former Secretary of State John Kerry insist that Israel’s refusal to cave to Palestinian demands will force Israel to choose between its Jewish character and its democracy.
Three decades after the Oslo Accords, Palestinians’ embrace of terror and rejection of Israel remains an impediment to their statehood. The current war in Gaza only increases polarization.
For some officials, a one-state solution in which Israel effectively ceases to exist as a Jewish state would be preferable. Even before the Hamas pogrom, for example, former Irish President Mary Robinson, whose antipathy toward the Jewish state runs deep, and former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon argued that a “one-state reality” overshadowed hopes for a two-state solution.
In Washington, too, such statements are entering the mainstream.
On Dec. 14, the Qatar-sponsored Arab Center Washington DC argued that the “one-state” solution was the new “path for peace.” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) also endorses a one-state solution. Such sentiment, however, reflects antisemitism. To support one state against the backdrop of majority Palestinian support for Hamas’ Oct. 7 beheading of Jewish babies and rape and mutilation of Jewish women is just sanitized endorsement of genocide. It is unrealistic to expect any state to cease existence voluntarily and embrace its people’s annihilation or exile.
Even if Palestinian society embraced religious tolerance, neither Palestinians nor any Arab state, besides perhaps increasingly Iraq, have any culture of democracy. While Israel is multiethnic and upholds religious freedom, not only Hamas but also the Palestinian Authority demands their territory be Judenrein. Apartheid exists in the region but in Gaza and Ramallah, not Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
If a one-state solution is tantamount to genocide and a two-state solution is unworkable, are there other alternatives?
Yes, it is time both Israelis and the international community consider a three- or four-state solution. Insistence on a single Palestinian state is as arbitrary as Palestinian nationalism. After all, there are two Romanias (one called Moldova), two Albanias (one called Kosovo) and two Turkeys (one called Azerbaijan). Just a century ago, most Palestinians considered themselves Syrian. Palestinian nationalism rose alongside and in reaction to Zionism. Gaza and the West Bank never shared the same political culture, especially as Egypt occupied the former and Jordan the latter. The 2007 Hamas coup and its indoctrination of a generation have made the division irreversible.
If a one-state solution is tantamount to genocide and a two-state solution is unworkable, are there other alternatives?
While the 88-year-old Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has prioritized personal power over preparing Palestinians for independence, it is conceivable that portions of the West Bank might be both ready and willing to trade independence in exchange for disarmament. In such a case, why should those in Bethlehem or Jericho have their dreams denied by militancy in Nablus or Gaza?
Throughout the current crisis, Jordan has behaved badly, condemning Israeli counterterrorism even as Jordanian King Abdullah II seeks to eradicate Hamas inside his own kingdom. Just as Turkey learns treaty revisions can go both ways, so too should Abdullah II understand that upending Oslo might lead to reconsideration of whether Jordan itself is Palestine occupied by Hashemite interlopers.
The Abraham Accords succeeded by discarding conventional wisdom. It is time to do likewise with the Palestinians.
