A Two-State solution (Revisited)

 No Justice, No Peace 

A Two-State solution (Revisited)

A single, secular, democratic State of Palestine for Jews and Arabs, protecting Islam, Christianity and Judaism, ending Zionist Colonialism, is a beautiful but I believe, delusional ideal. Not only that, awaiting the ideal and denying a compromise already agreed by the PLO 30 years ago(universally accepted as the ‘sole representative of the Palestinian people’) would be like western ‘revolutionary communists’ endlessly waiting for the ‘proletarian revolution’ while condemning participation in the democratic process under capitalism. 

Increasingly, some on the left, and other Pro-Palestinian voices in the Western world, are taking on an aggressive tone in dismissing ‘Two-Stater’s’ as sell- outs. This is a position that deserves to still be taken seriously, despite the corruption and collaboration by Abbas and other elements of the PA. I point specifically to Marwan Barghouti, the leader who consistently comes top of polls in Gaza and the PA territories, including Hamas leaders, on who should be the leader of the Palestinian struggle for freedom. Palestinians and Israelis have every right to condemn or delegitimise a two-state solution, it is they who will have to live or die with the consequence’s of taking it off the table. However, outside observers have no such right. 

 

A Palestinian State, alongside Israel, will be a compromise and less than ideal, but is practically the only game in town. Before proceeding, I acknowledge completely, that a ‘Two-State solution’ cannot have the ‘Oslo’ map as its starting point. Just as Western liberal politicians throw around ‘Two- States’ as an afterthought, they now do the same with the crucial word preceding it, ‘viable’. All the while giving Israel ‘unconditional’ support, but conditioning support for Two Sates with the phrase, ‘dependent on future negotiations with Israel’. 

No! We need to clearly define what the Palestinian State will be, agree it at the UN, and then negotiate ‘details’ with Israel at future talks. The lesson of  the ‘Oslo’ compromise, which Arafat said ‘would kill him’, is that no Israeli settlements can remain beyond the Pre-67 boarder. With settlements, come Israeli military protection, occupation and apartheid. The same for East Jerusalem settlers, ‘transfer’ or become Palestinian citizens under its laws and security provisions. Gaza can no longer be imprisoned and isolated. Palestine must be joined and continuous. No ‘buffer zones’ on Palestinian soil for ‘Israel’s security’, buffer zones can be on Israeli soil. The ‘holy sites’ need to be protected, administered and accessed by all three of the religious traditions. 

So a ‘viable State’ has to be defined from the beginning. Israel has to accept this as a basis for starting negotiations. Of course the current government of fascists and fanatics would never agree to it, nor previous Likud or Labor occupation governments. However, despite a genocide, occupation of Lebanon, degrading Hamas, Hezbollah and other resistance forces in Palestine, Israel is losing the war. The world has woken up to Israel’s crimes, it’s increasingly seen as a ‘pariah State’ much like Assad’s Syria, Putin’s Russia or its number one foe, Iran.(Israel is only a democracy for Jewish Israeli’s, Palestinian Israeli’s and Palestinians under occupation have to abide by supremacist laws, much like white supremacism under South African ‘democracy’). A new generation in the West are no longer going to blindly continue arming and supporting Israel. They’ve witnessed a live genocide. The US, UK and EU governments are going to have to listen to their voters and put pressure on Israel. They see the hypocrisy of sanctions against Putin’s ‘occupation’ but ‘hug them close’ for Israel. Israel’s hubris, its veneer of ‘invincibility’ has been shattered by not only October 7th, but by Hezbollah and Iranian missiles actually breaching the ‘iron dome’ defence system. Drone technology has helped Israel’s military supremacy, but at the same time has handed its adversaries another, very cheap, means of breaching its defences. Tens of thousands of Israeli’s have been displaced, the ‘body bag’ count will rise in Lebanon. The costs of these ‘wars’ and ever increasing security, will cripple an economy all ready in trouble. In recent years people have been leaving Israel for solely economic reasons. Now add fear and disruption. 

So the future for Israel is uncertain and insecure. That means there may well be a time in the not too distant future, that Israel could come to the peace table and not be in a position of overwhelming strength. Its friends a little less friendly and more demanding. 

So the alternative. ‘One-State solution’, Israel is removed from the map and Palestine is re-established in the entirety of historic  Palestine. Is this negotiated or engineered by force? Who would negotiate? Because Zionist Israelis(massive majority) wouldn’t negotiate their own ‘destruction’ nor would worldwide Zionism. If its by force, then good luck against a nuclear armed sophisticated military State machine! Even if it could, somehow, be imposed on the former State of Israel, do you think world Zionism would accept it? All their resources would be harnessed to fund and supply a ‘Zionist guerrilla army’ to disrupt, destabilise and defeat Palestine. Any all-Palestine nation would be crippled at birth. 

When some on the left talk of this ‘One State’, its often described as ‘secular and democratic’. Why would it be? If Hamas were the predominant political grouping it would be an Islamist nation and not democratic. How would Fatah and other political forces fair? Thrown off tower blocks? How about Christianity and Judaism? Do you see millions of now ‘Jewish Palestinians’, sharing this land in peace with full citizens rights? Or will understandable vengeance reign, mass expulsions and confiscations in reverse? And morally, who has rights to that land? Israel has no ‘right’ to exist, that ‘right’ is the Palestinians. However, it does exist and has done so since 1948. Millions of Israeli Jews, unlike their parents, have known nothing else, this is their land. They too have a right to live in that land and share it. So how will it be shared? How will a ‘government of all’ be achieved? Will it be a federal system or have regional autonomy? The more you dig into how it could possibly work, the more questions arise. More hurdles appear. Holding up the example of South Africa’s transition from ‘White minority rule’ to democracy and inclusivity is too simplistic. The white privileged were nothing near to the Zealots of Zionism, no worldwide support system was going to arm them to resist change. They knew they were Europeans in Africa, the messianic Zionists fully believe this land was given to them by God. South Africans, white and black, already shared a nation, both within its borders, Israelis have a nation of their own to lose. 

The Fatah movement contains many of the secularists, but their impotence and corruption has handed Hamas (with Israel’s connivance) the dominant position in the resistance. This outcome of the ‘Oslo accords’, in hindsight, was a trap set to split the Palestinian movement. Within 5 years the PA was meant to transition into a full Palestinian State. That never happened and the expansion of Settlements showed that in reality  Israel was grabbing more land and actively preventing Two-States. Likud and Netanyahu continued the Israeli ‘One-State solution’ alongside bolstering Hamas in Gaza while making Fatah/PA impotent in the West Bank, just by administering areas of the territory, the PA is manipulated into being a ‘collaborator’ in its own occupation.  

Abandoning a parallel State will allow Israel’s plan to succeed. Divide and rule. Conquest of Palestinian land (‘from the river to the sea’) designed to prevent Statehood and to build ‘greater Israel’ incrementally in their ‘One-State’ they call ‘Eretz Yisrael’ which includes the West Bank which they call ‘Judea and Samaria’. Ben-Gurion said, on establishing Israel as part of the UN Partition plan, this is ‘only a stepping stone’ towards Eretz Yisrael in all of Palestine. 

After 75 years of colonisation, ethnic cleansing, occupation, humiliation, settlement, apartheid, and now genocide, are we really going to campaign against attempts at a VIABLE Palestinian State alongside Israel? Should academic, idealised versions of anti-imperialist, Socialist purity really seek to disrupt honest attempts at peace and Statehood? 

There would be no peace, no coexistence, just permanent war and violence.