The American discourse is beginning to make room for a human-rights argument about the conflict: that there is one state right now, and it’s an unequal one. Khaled Elgindy is a former adviser to Palestinian leadership during the Quartet peace process and is now at Brookings. Here he is at Open Zion all but throwing in the towel on the peace process. His conclusion is similar to that reached by Ziyad Clot, a former negotiator for the Palestinians: There will be no Palestinian state. Note the concern about inevitable violence at the end of this excerpt.
Ask any Israeli or Palestinian–or American or European–official this question (which I do as matter of course) and you are likely to hear only vague reaffirmations of the crucial need for a negotiated resolution based on two states for two peoples. Press them further, however, and they will eventually concede something like the following: “The two-state solution cannot expire because there is no alternative.” But if there is no alternative, then time is certainly not “running out.” It is this paradox that gives American, Israeli, and even Palestinian leaders the illusion that the status quo can be maintained indefinitely, and why it is so easy for all sides to support a two-state solution without ever taking the necessary steps to make it happen.
That a bi-national state may not be an acceptable alternative at this time does not preclude the possibility of one as an eventual outcome. So, while, there can be no normative threshold beyond which a two-state solution officially becomes null and void, it cannot logically remain on the table forever. This is so not only because growing numbers of Israelis, and especially Palestinians, are abandoning the idea of two states, but because they already live in a one-state reality—albeit a highly inequitable and unsustainable one.
In the meantime, there are any number of ways a two-state solution might be rendered permanently unworkable on the ground. The most obvious and tangible of these is the physical collapse of the Palestinian Authority, including its many security and governing institutions. This could happen through an official decision by the Palestinian leadership to dissolve the PA, as President Abbas and other Palestinian leaders have occasionally threatened, or, more likely, as a result of the chronic lack of resources, political dysfunction, and declining legitimacy that plagues the PA. A decision by Israel to formally annex all or parts of the West Bank, as it threatened to do in response to last year’s UN bid, could also put an end to the possibility of two states, as could the eruption of sustained violence similar to what took place a decade ago in the West Bank.
An enormous amount of work needs to be done to clarify what a bi-national state would look like. For one thing, the term is used in two very different senses. Some people use it as a synonym for the democratic secular state, while for others it means a constitutional structure that enforces an equal balance of powers between two “nations” irrespective of their relative demographic weight. This has the advantage of making demographic competition pointless.
That is not to say that political structure is the only thing requiring clarification. It is not necessarily the most important thing and certainly not the most difficult. I think the most difficult question is how to redistribute rights to the land. Presumably at least some of the villages destroyed in 1948 will be rebuilt. What principles will guide this process?
two related points: First, the single state will happen and it is a matter of evolution, of sorts, whether this state will be a Jewish state or a secular state; so the all-of- it is informal and formal process; informal process would be the emergence of getting along between Palestinians and Jewish Israelis, particularly in and around the settlements and formal processes could be institutional arrangements, like dual citizenship over time.
Second, it is astounding how ruthless the single Jewish state crowd is and how much this interest group controls Israel and US policy. This unfortunately makes one consider the prospect of a prolonged ethnic cleansing policy, under various benign and not so benign guises as the most likely outcome.
Zilad Clot former Palestinian negotiator and whistle blower on the Palestinian papers is not optimistic of a two state solution saying these facts on the ground, a sort of de facto annexation are the reason, well the solution is in the PA’s hands, I hope the PA have not forgotten the strategy put forward before its claim for statehood at the UNSC, Zomlot, Senior official in Fatah’s Dept of Foreign Relations said ” How has Israel sustained the status quo for nearly 20 years? The bilateral process has led nowhere, and one of the tools to sustain the status quo was negotiations themselves. We stopped that, and we stopped that strategically. Negotiations under the previous terms were just prolonging negotiations. The terms of reference were created and accepted by Israel before we even started. WE ARE NOT GOING BACK TO THE OLD DAYS OF NONSENSE”. Well it seems they are going back to the old days of nonsense, with Abbas just concluding productive talks with Clinton, Professor Finkelstein once said Abass would be happy with a toilet seat with a Palestinian flag on it, I think the Israelis know that, and is why Livni could say the Israeli position is simple, we keep building and building until the time comes when we say, we have the land, what is there to talk about, and then added, this has been the policy of all Israeli Governments for a long time. [Palestinian papers]. I will know the PA are serious about a state when they go to the UN to get the almost certain vote in favor, then on to the ICC, they must face up to the US, it will be tough, but the Israelis fear the ICC more than anything else and with good reason, IDF Military Advocate General Mandelblit said the PA going to the ICC would be viewed as an “act of war”by the Government of Israel and he hoped the US would weigh in with both the PA and the ICC,[ wikileaks cable released 30-08-2011] well we can assume that’s a given, the status quo suits Israel/US and until the PA fights back through all legal means, they will be crushed.
Right wing Israelis like Caroline Glick and left wing Israelis like Bradley Burston are exploring the “give the West Bank Palestinians the vote”. (I’d assume Glick doesn’t use the term Palestinians, but that is still the gist.)This will not solve Gaza nor will it solve the refugees, but it is an idea being bandied about. The goals of the various advocates differ- Burston wants to give the Palestinians a voice and I suspect Glick wants to get the left to shut up, but nonetheless with the existence of these voices on different parts of the Israeli spectrum, those who want to see “one man one vote” ought to try to figure out how to work on the same side as these disparate Israelis.
Maan reported that the HRC had named the team of three experts who will investigate whether Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories violate human rights law. Israel already announced that they will not be allowed to enter Israel or the Palestinian territories. The report also noted that:
— http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=501916
Of course nobody is really addressing the status of the 1.6 million people living in the Gaza Strip when they make statements like that. Gaza has a larger population than a dozen UN member states. So it may be a while before the UN or the Human Rights Council adopts Falk’s position.