One State – Two State
Updated 2024-04-03
What is the relationship between Israel and Palestine? – Britannica “Palestine” was the name of the region along the eastern Mediterranean Sea that came under British administration after World War I. It came to denote the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, while the lands east of the Jordan River became known as Transjordan. “Israel” is the name of a state which was established in Palestine in 1948 for the Jewish people. Both names are ancient in origin. Another term, the “Palestinian territories,” refers to areas of Palestine known as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip were the areas of Palestine that remained under Arab control after the Arab-Israeli war of 1948–49. The territories were later captured by Israel in 1967 but were never brought under Israeli civil law. An agreement in 1993 between Israel and representatives of the Palestinian people sought to establish a Palestinian state in these territories, but that process has not been completed. Israel is an independent state governed by a form of parliamentary democracy. The Palestinian territories have some level of autonomy: the West Bank is governed by the Palestinian Authority, a self-governing body established after the 1993 agreement with Israel, and the Gaza Strip is governed by Hamas, a militant movement that until recently rejected the notion of a two-state solution. The conflict at its core is about the self-determination of two peoples living in the same place: Jews and Palestinians both want to control their own futures and both seek the ability to live in peace, freedom, and security. But how to achieve that for two peoples on a tract of land slightly larger than Vermont has been very difficult to work out. https://www.britannica.com/video/223179/Britannica-Insights-Israel-Palestine-conflict
2024-04-13 The Oasis Plan: The LaRouche Solution for Peace Through Development Today’s conflict in Gaza has come to the point that it stains the collective soul of humanity. Though it is born out of decades of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, and amidst a swamp of imperial ambitions, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on Jan. 26 delivered an undeniable verdict: Israel is on the verge of creating a genocide in Gaza. Either an end to this conflict is reached soon, or the words “Never Again,” which were so clearly stated at the end of the Nazi holocaust during the 1940’s, will forever ring hollow.
Therefore, an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza is urgently required. No good will come, either for Palestinians or for Israelis, from a continuation of this conflict. Additionally, steps must be taken toward the implementation of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. A solid basis for this already exists in United Nations Resolution 242, adopted November 22, 1967, which calls for the return to the pre-1967 borders. Without these basic steps, this war threatens to not only annihilate the people of Gaza, but to engulf the entire region in war—a situation which could rapidly become a nuclear World War III. https://laroucheorganization.com/larouche-plan-southwest-asia
2024-03-22 How a One-State Solution for Israelis and Palestinians Could Heal the World This is the language of peace. It swells the heart, it transcends the small-mindedness of global politics. Probably fewer ideas are treated with more contempt in today’s world than . . . ahem: a one-state solution for Palestine and Israel, with, good God, every resident equally valued, equally free.
I acknowledge from the start: This is not a simple process, any more than America’s reluctant embrace of the civil rights movement was, or is, simple. But armed dehumanization — which is to say war, hatred, ethnic cleansing, cultural erasure, endless slaughter, the murder of children, genocide — is neither “simple” nor the least bit effective in creating a world that is safe for anyone. War and hatred perpetuate nothing but themselves. You know that, right?
But what about a two-state solution? Neither side actually wants this and, with the West Bank overrun with Israeli settlers, it’s hardly possible anyway. The concept of a two-state solution, Samer Elchahabi writes at the Arab Center website. “has been used to delegitimize Palestinians’ aspirations for equality and freedom, has allowed for relentless settlement expansion on Palestinian land, and has offered a fig leaf for perpetuating occupation with Western support.”
There are three basic ways of dealing with conflict: domination, compromise and what I would call transcendence. Domination is simplistic. I win, you lose. “Compromise does not create, it deals with what already exists.” And the conflict doesn’t really go away. It just takes a different form.
But the third option, which she referred to in her essay as “integration,” addresses the needs and wishes of all parties to the conflict and creates something — a solution — that hadn’t previously existed. In short, it creates a better world. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/israel-palestine-one-state-solution
2024-03-05 Achieving the Two-State Solution in the Wake of Gaza War The two-state solution is enshrined in international law and is the only viable path to a long-lasting peace. All other solutions—a continuation of Israel’s apartheid regime, one bi-national state, or one unitary state—would guarantee a continuation of war by one side or the other or both. Yet the two-state solution seems irretrievably blocked. It is not. Here is a pathway.
The Israeli government strongly opposes a two-state solution, as does a significant proportion of the Israeli population, some on religious grounds (“God gave us the land”) and some on security grounds (“We can never be safe with a State of Palestine”). A significant proportion of Palestinians regard Israel as an illegitimate settler-colonial entity, and in any event distrust any peace process.
The usual recommendation is the following six-step sequence of events: (1) ceasefire; (2) release of hostages; (3) humanitarian assistance; (4) reconstruction; (5) peace conference for negotiations between Israel and Palestine; and finally (6) establishment of two states on agreed boundaries. This path is impossible. There is a perpetual deadlock on steps 5 and 6, and this sequence has failed for 57 years since the 1967 war.
Thus, the settlement should follow this order: (1) establishment of Palestine as 194th member state within two-state solution framework on June 4, 1967 borders; (2) immediate ceasefire; (3) release of hostages; (4) humanitarian assistance; (5) peacekeepers, disarmament and mutual security; and (6) negotiation on modalities (settlements, return of refugees, mutually agreed land-swaps, and others; but not boundaries). https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/two-state-solution-gaza-2667433791
The Oslo Accords were an agreement signed by Israel and the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organisation) that saw the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza as part of a process that was meant to lead to a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Netanyahu’s comments come after several Israeli officials said that there would be no two-state solution following the end of Israel’s indiscriminate war on Gaza, which has destroyed much of the occupied territory and killed at least 18,800 Palestinians, primarily women and children, in Israeli attacks since October 7, according to the territory’s health ministry.https://www.commondreams.org/news/netanyahu-s-bold-boast-proud-to-thwart-palestinian-state-creation
2023-11-28 Calls for a Two-State Solution Provide a Distraction—Not Hope We are moving from a phase in which the mantra of the two-state solution has been used as cover for Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, to one involving the extermination of Palestinians in Gaza, which has become the world’s biggest open-air concentration camp. All of this is being justified by the need to remove the purported greatest obstacle to peace.
It is absurd to join together two such contradictory trajectories—one that talks of peace, and another that entails the ongoing process of exterminating a group of people who are supposed to benefit from the peace process.
But such a proposition is by no means unfamiliar within the context of US history, which began with the extermination of the indigenous population and extended to Iraq and Afghanistan by the 21st century. It is by design, based on the assumption that this is an opportune time to go ahead with a plan whose main goal is to guarantee the security of Israel and rebuild Washington’s regional alliances. But what does invoking the two-state solution really mean after so many years of neglect, and the ensuing destruction and suffering inflicted on a colonized people? Will it translate into a real shift in U.S. policy?
And is the two-state solution still a serious or viable option, given the entrenched settler project in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the deepening fanaticism and trend towards fascism exacerbated by the current war? Is Washington’s version of the two-state solution the same one that the Palestinian leadership aspires to, and is the U.S. willing to put real pressure on Israel? https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/two-state-solution-gaza
With his approval ratings in the tank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly been lobbying members of his Likud party in a bid to keep their support, claiming he is “the only one who will prevent a Palestinian state” in Gaza and the West Bank. “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told his colleagues in 2019. “This is part of our strategy—to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
Analysts have long argued that one democratic state, not two states, is the only viable alternative to the apartheid status quo, given factors such as ever-expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Throughout his career, Netanyahu has vociferously opposed a peaceful resolution and worked to divide Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank by propping up Hamas. https://www.commondreams.org/news/netanyahu-palestinian-state
2023-11-18 What ‘From the River to the Sea’ Really In 1969, the Palestinian National Council, the highest decision-making body of the Palestinians in exile, formally called for a “Palestinian democratic state” that would be “free of all forms of religious and social discrimination.” A 1986 poll found that 78% of respondents “supported the establishment of a democratic-secular Palestinian state encompassing all of Palestine,” while only 17% supported two states. This remained a popular vision among Palestinians, even as some of their leaders inched toward the idea of establishing a truncated Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.
Many Palestinians were skeptical of this two-state solution. For refugees exiled since 1948, a two-state solution would not allow them to return to their towns and villages in Israel. Some Palestinian citizens of Israel feared that a two-state solution would leave them even more isolated as an Arab minority in a Jewish state. Even Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip—those who stood the most to gain from a two-state solution—were lukewarm to the idea..
Two States or One? The 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords led many to believe that a two-state solution was just around the corner. But as hopes for a two-state solution dimmed, some Palestinians returned to the idea of a single, democratic state from the river to the sea. Today, broad swaths of Palestinians still favor the idea of equality. A 2022 poll found strong support among Palestinians for the idea of a single state with equal rights for all. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/from-the-river-to-the-sea-meaning, https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-the-river-to-the-sea-a-palestinian-historian-explores-the-meaning-and-intent-of-a-scrutinized-slogan/
2023-11-10 “From the River to the Sea”: Omer Bartov on Contested Slogan & Why Two-State Solution Is Not Viable Israeli American scholar Omer Bartov says the two-state solution is dead after decades of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank, making the creation of an independent Palestinian state all but impossible. He says a one-state solution — a single democratic state for all Jewish Israelis and Palestinians — is also unlikely to work given the competing national visions of the two communities. “The only solution is a confederation,” says Bartov, describing a scenario in which two states would be closely intertwined and interdependent. He also discusses the phrase “from the river to the sea,” used by both Israelis and Palestinians to refer to the land. Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBaf3LpNJeQ
2023-11-03 A One-State Solution Could Work in Israel But the end of South African apartheid demonstrates it would take an Israeli commitment to peace that is nowhere in evidence. The stated objective of the Israeli government is to defeat Hamas permanently. But what then? Israeli officials insist that they won’t govern the territory, but there is no one aside from Hamas in a position to run anything. Even if Gazans were to cobble together some group to run what remains of Gaza’s shattered civil administration, the boiling hatred and despair that fuel Hamas’s terrorism will remain—indeed, it likely will get much worse. It has been obvious for decades that the only path forward is to end the occupation and grant some kind of government to the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Whether this should be as two separate states or as a single one is the question. The case against the two-state solution is mainly one of practicality.
Apartheid was always going to leave deep scars. But the proximate problem with modern South Africa is that Mandela’s ANC, thanks, perhaps ironically, to the deep loyalty among the majority Black population created by the ending of apartheid, has faced no serious political competition in any election since 1994. As a result, it has degenerated into a deeply corrupt and incompetent organization. The major lesson here is that thirty years of one-party rule tends to lead to poor governance, not that the idea of a democratic South Africa was a bad one.
One could argue that the violence in Israel-Palestine is so much worse than what happened in South Africa that it is a difference in kind, not degree. But South Africans of all races would have had more than enough justification to cling to bitterness and resentment if they wished, and keep fighting until the country disintegrated. They simply chose not to do.
The question for Jewish Israelis—who hold most of the power in this situation and therefore must take the lead on any lasting resolution—is whether they can muster this kind of sensible farsightedness. The biggest difference between the South Africa’s late apartheid regime and that of Israel is that there has not been any serious attempt to reach lasting peace from the latter party for decades now, since the pro-peace Israeli Prime Minister Yitzakh Rabin was assassinated by an ultra-Zionist terrorist.
As Jerome Karabel writes here at the Prospect, there is a man currently in Israeli prison, Marwan Barghouti, who bears an eerie similarity to Mandela. Like Mandela, he once advocated violent resistance but turned against it in prison; like Mandela he is by far the most popular potential leader among Palestinians. If Israel wanted a credible negotiating partner, there he sits. But he remains locked up. https://prospect.org/world/11-03-2023-gaza-israel-war-one-state-solution/
2023-10-20 China and Russia plan to work together for a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians China and Russia share the same position on the Palestinian issue and plan to try to work together to cool the situation and help establish a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, a top Chinese envoy said Friday.
“The fundamental reason for the current situation of the Palestine-Israel conflict is that the Palestinian people’s lawful national rights have not been guaranteed,” Zhai said, according to a statement released on Friday by the Chinese foreign ministry. The two countries want to “play a positive role in resuming talks for peace between Palestine and Israel, truly implementing the two-state solution, and promoting a comprehensive, just and enduring solution to the Palestinian question at an early date,” Zhai said. https://apnews.com/article/china-middle-east-envoy-israel-gaza-c08587a566ff38fec882118a0e117c3a
2021-05-00 Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State Activist and scholar Jeff Halper believes we are living at an inflection point in the history of the Israel-Palestine “conflict.” There’s a caveat, though: In order for the impending waters of justice to rise, the Palestinian people must coalesce behind a clear and cohesive political plan, he argues.
Halper’s latest book, Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine, makes the case for one state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, and argues that the global civil society and solidarity infrastructure is in place to make this outcome a reality. The book is a byproduct of the One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC), an upstart movement launched by Halper and others to provide a clear vision for one, democratic state. https://www.wrmea.org/book-talks/decolonizing-israel-liberating-palestine-zionism-settler-colonialism-and-the-case-for-one-democratic-state.html
2021-04-03 Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State Halper’s latest book, Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine, makes the case for one state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, and argues that the global civil society and solidarity infrastructure is in place to make this outcome a reality. The book is a byproduct of the One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC), an upstart movement launched by Halper and others to provide a clear vision for one, democratic state.
In order for this plan to work it needs buy-in from weary Palestinians, and Halper acknowledged this has yet to happen. If Palestinians were to take off and run with the one-state solution, Halper believes it would be a success.
Halper sees a plethora of groups and individuals advocating for Palestinians and engaging in movements such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, but he fears this energy is not being effectively channeled. In his mind, it’s time to move from resistance and advocacy to action. Palestinians, he believes, can energize this global support in a historical way if they launch a clear political campaign. It’s important to note that Halper’s book is not merely a plea to encourage a course change among Palestinians. Decolonizing Israel offers people of goodwill across the world an opportunity to rethink how this issue is discussed and what outcomes citizens and practitioners alike ought to be realistically promoting.
While Palestinians are the primary victims of settler colonialism, Halper noted that this pernicious reality also leaves Israelis feeling unsettled. “One of the problems with settler colonialism is that you are constantly living in a state of insecurity because everything is built on injustice,” he said. “You can’t relax and say ‘I’m in my country, I’m at home, I’m at peace’…because you’re constantly aware that there is that underside of oppression and suffering that is ongoing that will never go away until decolonization takes place.”
Halper also convincingly argues that there is much global energy and solidarity to be tapped into. Yet, one cannot but remain cynical that those in power—from Washington to Israel—are prepared to let the voices of Palestinians and their supporters be heard, regardless of how organized and numerous they are. https://www.wrmea.org/book-talks/decolonizing-israel-liberating-palestine-zionism-settler-colonialism-and-the-case-for-one-democratic-state.html
2020-11-30 Green Party – One secular, democratic state for Palestinians and Israelis https://progressiveissuesblog.com/2020/11/30/israel-palestine/
2020-05-10 The Political Program of the Campaign for One Democratic State in Historic Palestine In recent years, the idea of a one democratic state in all of historic Palestine as the best solution to the conflict has re-emerged. It started gaining increased support in the public domain. It is not a new idea. The Palestinian liberation movement, before the catastrophe of 1948 (the Nakba) and after it, had adopted this vision, including the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The PLO abandoned this idea in the framework of the diplomatic negotiations at the late eighties that led to the Oslo agreement of 1993. The Palestinian leadership hoped that this agreement would enable the building of an independent Palestinian state on the territories that Israel occupied in 1967. But on the ground Israel has strengthened its colonial control, fragmenting the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza into isolated cantons, separated from one another by settlements, checkpoints, military bases and fences.
The two-state solution, which is basically an unfair solution, is clearly dead. Israel buried it deep under its colonial settlement policies in the territories that were supposed to become the independent Palestinian state. Israel has imposed a single repressive regime that extends over all the Palestinians who live in historic Palestine, including those with Israeli citizenship. https://icahd.org/2020/05/10/the-political-program-of-the-campaign-for-one-democratic-state-in-historic-palestine/
2018-06-05 A just “one-state solution” is still possible in Israel/Palestine: But not if the media buries it The one-state solution is the idea of bringing justice and peace to Palestine/Israel by having all inhabitants of historic Palestine — the land that includes Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza — living in one, binational country, where everyone has equal rights and political matters are settled on the basis of one person, one vote. This arrangement differs from the two-state solution, which would partition historic Palestine into two states divided along ethno-religious lines, and contrasts with present conditions, in which Palestinians live as second-class citizens inside Israel, and under Israeli occupation in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — the last of which is subject to a merciless siege.
The one-state option is gaining traction, but media coverage consistently suggests that the only possible scenarios for Palestine/Israel are either the two-state solution or the continued regime of Israeli occupation, colonization and apartheid. https://www.salon.com/2018/06/05/a-just-one-state-solution-is-still-possible-in-israelpalestine-but-not-if-the-media-buries-it/
2017-01-07 Israel/Palestine: One State/Two State? Ralph Nader Ralph talks to Israeli activist, Miko Peled, author of The General’s Son, Journey of an Israeli in Palestine about whether a two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is even possible. https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/israelpalestine-one-statetwo-state-137#details
.
Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict
.
progressiveissuesblog 