‘Two-state solution’ a fig leaf for Western leaders
First published at Arguing for Socialism.
At the time of the former Labor Senator Fatima Payman affair, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the ABC on July 1: “Labor supports a Palestinian state existing alongside an Israeli state. We don't support a one-state solution.”
Calling for a separate Palestinian state serves as a fig leaf for Western politicians to cover their fundamental position of support for Israel. It suggests they support Palestinian rights when they know it is never going to happen. The West has no intention of ever doing anything to even try to make it happen (like ending all arms deliveries to Israel and imposing strong sanctions).
Zionism’s basic drive
Zionism’s inherent, foundational drive is occupy all of historic Palestine and expel its indigenous inhabitants. For the Zionists, Palestine was “a land without people for a people without a land”. They might not have invented the phrase but it sums up their brutal colonialist outlook. This is a work in progress; it has been the objective since the first Zionist settlements in the 1880s and will continue as long as the Israeli state exists.
Zionism is extremely violent, aggressive and fanatical. This is its nature, its DNA, and it will never be anything else.
Zionism wants domination
The original November 1947 United Nations partition resolution gave 56% of the land to a future Jewish state, 42% to Palestine (despite having twice the Jewish population) and 2% to an international zone (Jerusalem, Bethlehem). This was completely illegitimate; the UN had no right to give away Palestinian land to the Zionist colonisers. In the ensuing war, the Zionist militias conquered all Palestine except Gaza and the West Bank (these were later seized from Egypt and Jordan in the 1967 war).
The 1993 Oslo Accords allowed for a very limited Palestinian administration in Gaza and part of the West Bank. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation under Yasser Arafat’s leadership accepted the deal and recognised Israel’s right to exist. A Palestinian Authority was set up but it had no real power; Israel retained ultimate control. For instance, when Arafat wanted to fly his helicopter from one place to another, he first needed to get Israeli permission since Israel controlled all the airspace — so much for Palestinian sovereignty. The various PA security forces controlled the West Bank Palestinian population for Israel.
Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza did not mean any turning away from the Zionist project. Rather, “the higher Palestinian birth rate posed a ‘demographic time bomb’, threatening the Jewish majority in areas claimed by Israel. By withdrawing from Gaza, Israel effectively removed 1.4 million Palestinians from its demographic considerations.” But Gaza remained an open-air prison under Israeli control. Who and what went in and out was determined by Israel.
Two-state solution is a non-starter
Israel will never permit or accept a Palestinian state
Any supposed Palestinian “state” would be like apartheid South Africa’s Bantustans — a fiction with no independent existence whatsoever and with a quisling administration (like the current Palestinian Authority). Anything more than this would never be accepted by Israel.
The West Bank settlers are not going to move
Moving 800,000 settlers to clear the West Bank and East Jerusalem for a Palestinian state is impossible. Any serious attempt to do so would lead to civil war. The pogrom now taking place in the West Bank shows the direction in which things are heading. The current settler-IDF rampage is burying any idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The settlers want to drive all Palestinians across the river into Jordan (just as the Zionists would like to empty Gaza’s population into the Egyptian Sinai).
There is no territory left for a Palestinian state
The current West Bank situation leaves no room for a Palestinian state. According to Wikipedia:
As of January 2023, there are 144 Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including 12 in East Jerusalem; the Israeli government administers the West Bank as the Judea and Samaria Area, which does not include East Jerusalem. In addition to the settlements, the West Bank is also hosting over 100 Israeli outposts, which are settlements that have not been authorized by the Israeli government. In total, over 450,000 Israeli settlers reside in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, with an additional 220,000 Israeli settlers residing in East Jerusalem.
The West Bank is also covered by army checkpoints, a network of Israeli-only roads and industrial plants. And above all, there is the monstrous 700km “separation wall” around the West Bank, often well inside the West Bank, cutting off an estimated 9% of Palestinian territory and isolating communities.
Now settlers, protected by the army, are on a rampage to terrorise Palestinian villages and force the population to leave. This is a state-sanctioned pogrom — ethnic cleansing, to use today’s terminology.
Apartheid Israel would still exist
Even if we accept — simply for the sake of argument — a separate Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, this “solution” accepts that apartheid Israel would still there, with 1.5 million Palestinians living without rights.
No right of return for refugees
And what about the right of return of millions of Palestinian refugees? This is a key Palestinian demand. Israel, of course, is completely opposed to it. But, in any case, where would the refugees go? There is no way they could fit into a severely fragmented Palestinian micro state, even if one were established.
According to Wikipedia, in January 20215 the refugees were distributed as follows: Jordan — 2,117,361; Lebanon — 452,669; Syria — 528,616; Gaza — 1,276,929; West Bank — 774,167. This gives a total of 5,149,742. Thus, over 3 million refugees are in camps outside Israel (Jordan, Lebanon and Syria), and over 2 million live in the occupied territories.
Palestinian support
At times the two-state idea has had significant Palestinian support. People were desperate and anything seemed better than nothing. But, as Palestinian writer Ghada Karmi puts it: “It is probable that no greater illustration of the triumph of hope over reality exists than the two-state solution.” (One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel, Pluto Press, 2023, p. 87)
A single-state with equal rights for all
Currently there is, effectively, a single state, controlled by Israel with Palestinians denied equal rights — a system of extreme apartheid.
In the late 1960s the Palestine National Liberation movement, Fatah, came out for a democratic non-sectarian Palestine. As the 1970 Fatah document, Towards a Democratic State in Palestine, put it:
We are fighting today to create the new Palestine of tomorrow; a progressive, democratic and non-sectarian Palestine in which Christian, Moslem and Jew will worship, work, live peacefully and enjoy equal rights . . . Our Palestinian revolution still stretches its welcoming hand to all human beings who want to fight for, and live in, a democratic, tolerant Palestine, irrespective of race, colour or religion.
This remains the aim of the struggle. It is the only rational and moral solution. The Fatah document is well worth reading today. It is a clear and inspiring exposition of the whole question.
But will it ever happen?
Revolutions needed in Arab world
The traditional Marxist view is that a democratic secular Palestine (i.e., one state with equal rights for all) will necessitate revolutions in the wider Middle East. It is necessary to sweep away the bourgeois regimes, such as those in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, the Gulf states, Turkey and Iran that give direct or backhanded support to Israel or block any realistic appeal to the Israeli masses.
Egypt, for instance, polices Gaza’s southern border, helping Israel enforce starvation rations on the territory and preventing any normal population movement. And Jordan is vital in getting food and other supplies into Israel, especially now that the Red Sea route has been cut off by the Yemenis.
Israel’s population is currently united behind the war even if many want a ceasefire to save the remaining hostages. Those questioning the whole Zionist project are still only a tiny minority. But down the track, as the country’s economic crisis deepens, who is to say an appeal from a revolutionary regime in a neighbouring country could not begin to gain traction among the Israeli masses.
The collapse of Israel?
The multi-faceted crisis which has engulfed Israel following October 7 now raises the possibility of a complete collapse of the Israeli state. Israel is now staring at economic disaster: no tourism; tens of thousands of businesses folding; hundreds of thousands of people, including vital professionals, leaving the country for good; a partial maritime blockade; the evacuation of the north; and so on.
Combined with this is the severe internal crisis engulfing the country: over saving the hostages versus “crushing Hamas”; over military service for the Orthodox youth; and over how to deal with the war with its unprecedented toll on the Israeli army.
Some very revealing data given by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Nasrallah in a July 17 speech shows the unprecedented cost the resistance has imposed on Israel:
The toll includes 9254 individuals, among them officers and soldiers, with 3000 amputees, 650 paralyzed, 185 completely blind, and several thousand suffering severe psychological trauma.
(Of course, if these are Israel’s losses, one can scarcely imagine the level of suffering and trauma imposed on the Palestinian population of Gaza where, alongside the huge death toll, the medical and physical infrastructure has been deliberately destroyed.)
Could Israel just collapse? That is unlikely. Things may well get even uglier. Israel may end up being reduced to a poverty-stricken failed state but as long as it has US backing and aid it is hard to see it just giving up. And there is always the danger of the Netanyahu regime unleashing an all-out war (against Hezbollah and Iran) in order to save itself.