The two state solution is dead. Sen. Chris Murphy on the Senate floor, Yousef Munayyer in Foreign Affairs, and Ian Lustick in a new book are the latest public figures to acknowledge as much. But Democratic presidential candidates liberal Zionists want to deny the one-state reality so as to maintain the dream of a Jewish democracy. Amplifying Palestinian voices is the only answer to this logjam.
OneVoice was founded to end the occupation as a “moral” and “existential” imperative for Israel. But it has dropped the two-state solution in its messaging to Israeli voters in next month’s elections, focusing on issues of “division and racism” and the “cost of living.” It knows that Israeli Jewish voters are against a Palestinian state.
“The two state solution is dead. Palestinians have to move on and press for equal rights in a unitary state. That will take a generation, if not longer, but I see no alternative.” Ed Abington once negotiated the Oslo accords for the State Department. Now he sees denial of visa to Hanan Ashrawi as landmark event.
Back in 1983, a settler leader explained to the writer Amos Oz that Defense Minister Shimon Peres had allowed the settler movement to thrive in the West Bank and they only needed to get to 100,000 settlers in five years to end the possibility of a Palestinian state “for good.” So why has the US establishment ignored this truth — there will not be a two-state solution — for 30 years?
In an interview with the “burning Zionist” Jonathan Møller Sousa on Danish media, non-Zionist Jonathan Ofir shows that the two-state solution has been made impossible by Israeli colonization of occupied territories, and that occupation is actually manageable. All because the international community does nothing to enforce its demands.
Is a two-state “solution” still possible? Or is it time to push for one state with equal rights for all? Palestinian youths in Gaza respond to the Paris Peace Conference.