Al-Awda, the Palestinian right to return coalition, has released a statement about the way forward in Palestinian solidarity that says that BDS has changed the playing field, and BDS is aimed at one democratic state in historic Palestine. Here is the portion of the statement that opposes a two-state solution– against those who say that visions of one state are "unrealistic." Myself I’m somewhat agnostic, but I recognize the importance/creativity of the statement, at a time when the 2SS has collapsed, but a belief in its vitality is maintained against all evidence inside US power circles (and an oath of that belief is a requirement for access):
First, the principle of self-determination means, above all, that decisions about what is or is not "realistic" belongs to those who live under oppression, rather than their sympathizers — however well meaning. “As in the struggle against South African apartheid,” writes Omar Barghouti, “genuine solidarity movements recognize and follow the lead of the oppressed, who are not passive objects but active, rational subjects that are asserting their aspirations and rights as well as their strategy to realize them.”
Second, is there any social justice movement that has not seemed “unrealistic” or even impossible? Yet, circumstances change rapidly and unpredictably; what was fantasy yesterday often comes true tomorrow. It is enough to remember the long decades that preceded the abolition of slavery, the civil rights victories of the 1960s, or the collapse of colonialism and apartheid in southern Africa.
Third, the "Two-State Solution" is itself realistic only as ratification of a fractured, Israeli-controlled Bantustan; a “Two-Prison” solution, as Palestinian activist Haidar Eid bluntly describes it. This has been the Israeli and U.S. goal since the beginning of the “peace process”; indeed, anyone looking to catch glimpse of a future Palestinian “state” need look no further than the systematic strangulation of Gaza and continued “Judaization” of the land on both sides of the 1948 “Green Line.” In that sense, the most dangerous aspect of this solution is precisely that it is possible.
Finally, “pragmatism” at the expense of justice is always an illusion. As Martin Luther King Jr. famously pointed out, true peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice.
