‘How Israel-Palestine two-state plan died leaving 7million facing apartheid persecution’ – Fawaz Gerges – World News
Like other observers and academics, I used to think the two-state solution was the most effective means for Israel-Palestine peace.
That plan is dead now. A one-state solution has become a reality with equal rights for Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs.
What has led to the collapse of the two-state plan? First, since the Six-Day War of June 1967 Israel’s occupation and control of Palestinian land and life has become deeply entrenched.
More than half a million Jewish settlers and counting dominate the hills and fertile land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
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(Image: STEPHANIE LECOCQ/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Far from independent, the Palestinian authority led by Mahmoud Abbas functions mainly as a contractual security coordinator with the Israeli military occupation.
Second, after decades of international and Israel human rights organizations warning that Israel’s control of Palestinian life might lead to apartheid, the “threshold” has now been crossed, according to a new, well-documented report, by Human Rights Watch.
Indeed, one of the more startling new findings in the HRW report is that even the Palestinians living in Israel are subjected to a form of apartheid rule.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The HRW report asserts that nearly seven million Palestinians in the occupied territories and within Israel itself face collective persecution under an apartheid system.
Third, Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally and illegally gift the remaining bit of historical Palestine to Benjamin Netanyahu not only destroyed the framework of a two-state solution but has also made the one-state solution or a bi-national state with citizenship and equal rights for both communities the only option available to advance a just and lasting resolution to this conflict.
Yes, the international community still supports a two-state plan, international law favours two states, and most Israelis oppose a one-state solution and demand a Jewish state.
(Image: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Not only that but the two main Palestinian parties (Fatah and Hamas) oppose a one-state solution.
But they have more to gain than to lose in accepting a one-state plan.
So instead of paying lip service to the fanciful notion of a two-state solution, the international community, including the UK, should support a bi-national or a federal (Israel-Palestine) democratic state with equal rights for all citizens.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
As long as the US supports Israel, unconditionally, Israel has no incentive to change; there is room here for the UK and the EU to play a more constructive role.
- Fawaz Gerges is a professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics.
