The Two-State Delusion

Everyone knows what to do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Arrange the “two-state solution.” That has been a commonplace for decades, going back to the Oslo Accords, all the international conferences, the “Roadmap,” and the efforts by a series of American presidents and their staffs of ardent peace processors.

In the West, the call for a “two-state solution” is mostly a magical incantation these days. Diplomats and politicians want the Gaza war to stop. They want a way out that seems fair and just to voters and makes for good speeches. But they are not even beginning to grapple with the issues that negotiating a “two-state solution” raises, and they are not seriously asking what kind of state “Palestine” would be. Instead they simply imagine a peaceful, well-ordered place called “Palestine” and assure everyone that it is just around the corner. By doing so they avoid asking the most important question: Would not an autocratic, revanchist Palestinian state be a threat to peace?

No matter: The belief in the “two-state solution” is as fervent today as ever. The German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said it’s the “only solution” and Britain’s defense minister chimed in that “I don’t think we get to a solution unless we have a two-state solution.” Not to be outdone, U.N. Secretary General Guterres said, “The refusal to accept the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and the denial of the right to statehood for the Palestinian people, are unacceptable.” The EU’s Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said recently, “I don’t think we should talk about the Middle East peace process anymore. We should start talking specifically about the two-state-solution implementation process.” What if Israel does not agree, and views a Palestinian state as an unacceptable security threat? Borrell’s answer was that “One thing is clear—Israel cannot have the veto right to the self-determination of the Palestinian people. The United Nations recognizes and has recognized many times the self-determination right of the Palestinian people. Nobody can veto it.”

In the United States, 49 Senate Democrats (out of 51) just joined to support a resolution that, according to Sen. Brian Schatz, is “a message to the world that the only path forward is a two-state solution.” Biden administration officials have been a bit more circumspect in public. At the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos in January, Secretary of State Blinken told his interviewer, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, that regional integration “has to include a pathway to a Palestinian state.” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called for “a two-state solution with Israel’s security guaranteed.” And President Biden meandered around an important security point: “there are a number of types of two-state solutions. There’s a number of countries that are members of the U.N. that … don’t have their own military; a number of states that have limitations, and so I think there’s ways in which this can work.”

The Biden administration, then, joins all enlightened opinion in saying there must be a Palestinian state, but adds that it must not have an army. No other precondition seems to exist for the creation of that state once the Palestinian Authority has been “revamped” or “revitalized” so that it becomes “effective.” And most recently, Blinken has asked his staff for policy options that include formal recognition of a Palestinian state as soon as the war in Gaza ends. This would be a massive change in U.S. policy, which for decades has insisted that a Palestinian state can only emerge from direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But the pressure is growing, it seems, to skip niceties like negotiations and move quickly to implement the “two-state solution.”

There are three things wrong with this picture. First, none of the current proposals even acknowledges, much less overcomes, the obstacles that have always prevented the “two-state solution.” Second, the “effective governance” reforms fall very far short of creating a decent state in which Palestinians can live freely. And most important, any imaginable Palestinian state will be a dangerous threat to Israel.

Start with the issues—beyond violence and terror—that negotiations to create a Palestinian state must resolve and are being ignored. Take borders, for instance: Where are they? In the round of negotiations in 2008, after the 2007 Annapolis Conference, Palestinian representatives demanded that Israel get out of the West Bank towns of Ariel and Ma’ale Adumim—populations 20,000 and 38,000, respectively. Are those still Palestinian demands? How many of the Israelis living in the West Bank must leave? Must the new state of Palestine must be judenrein?

But those are the simpler border issues; the tough one is Jerusalem. Will East Jerusalem be the capital of a Palestinian state? If so, what does that mean? The old Arab Quarter only, or the Christian and Armenian quarters too? Do their residents have any say in this? Is it actually being proposed that the Western Wall would be the Israeli border, and if you stand there and look up you are looking at another country? Or that David’s Citadel and the Tower of David would be in Palestine? A look at the map of Jerusalem shows how impractical is the division of Jerusalem again if the city is to thrive, but what about politics? Which Israeli politicians of the left or center are going to be in favor of dividing Jerusalem again, going back to the pre-1967 days—and doing it in the aftermath of the Hamas massacres of Oct. 7?

The Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 is sometimes suggested as the basis for negotiations, but it demands “Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.” More border troubles! Especially since the U.S. has recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which includes areas claimed by the Lebanese.

And what about the issue of “refugees?” UNRWA, the U.N.’s discredited but powerful Palestinian refugee agency, says there are 5.9 million “Palestinian refugees,” using its definition that includes generation after generation no matter what citizenship they have. Will there be a “right of return?” In the negotiations in 2008, the private Palestinian demand was much smaller—in the range of 10,000 or 15,000. But Israeli negotiators rejected those numbers, taking a position of principle against the “right of return” but also noting the impossible problem of deciding who would qualify for it. Will Palestinian politicians agree to abandon it once and for all? If not, how will negotiations succeed?

Second, suppose negotiations do succeed and the borders of a Palestinian state are drawn. Does anyone care what is going on inside those borders? In January Secretary Blinken said, “It’s I think very important for the Palestinian people that they have governance that can be effective. …” They need a Palestinian Authority, he said, that can “actually deliver what the Palestinian people want and need. …”

There are some words missing in all the calls for a Palestinian state—words like democracy, human rights, and liberty. EU Foreign Minister Borrell said in 2022 that “our message to the incoming Israeli government, which we hope will confirm the country’s full commitment to the shared values of democracy and rule of law, and with which we hope to engage in serious conversation on the conflict and the need to re-open the political horizon for the Palestinian population.” This is not new: In his speech in Israel in 2013, President Obama called for “Two states for two peoples. … [T]he only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.”
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