The Two-State Solution is the holy grail of Mideast politics: a way to solve the unending Arab-Israeli conflict by creating a “Palestinian”* state aside the existing Jewish state of Israel. It was the original UN plan for the partition of the region, but was rejected by the Arab countries and peoples. That was only the first time it failed. There were several other attempts, and every time the sides got close, extremists intervened (Jewish extremists assassinated their Prime Minister, Arab extremists provoked widespread violence) to undermine progress.
Despite this long history, western politicians and experts continue to insist the Two-State Solution is the only way to achieve peace. Even after the October 7th terrorist attack, some people continue to support the notion. While Israel is closely divided on politics in pro- and anti-Netanyahu camps, almost nobody there favors a Two-State Solution now. Let me provide an analogy to which Americans can relate.
For our hypothetical situation, let’s change the events of 9/11 to more closely resemble that of 10/7. Imagine a group of highly-organized, Native American terrorists working across several reservations staged the attack. They took down one of the twin towers with a plane and occupied other buildings. During the ensuing stand-off, they filmed hostages begging for their lives before cutting their throats. Eventually, American military units stormed the buildings, but some terrorists escaped with hostages, returning to the reservations.
Then imagine people citing the long history of American mistreatment of Native Americans, justifying the attacks. Accepting the progressive critique of how “Indians” were treated (I don’t, but . . .), it easily surpasses anything the Jews have done to the Palestinians. After all, the Native population in America is a tiny percentage of what it once was, while the Palestinian population has grown five-fold since 1948. (Note: Next time someone says Gaza and the West Bank are prisons or concentration camps, ask them when has anybody ever seen a concentration camp which had a natural population increase of 500%?) Now imagine even more people, especially people outside the United States, calling on America to set the reservations free as independent nations. How would Americans feel about this “Two-State Solution”? I’m inclined to think we might have seen the third use of nuclear weapons, myself.
In a previous post (Gaza Delenda Est), I called for eliminating Hamas and removing the Palestinian people from Gaza (remember, you heard it first here!). Many of my astute friends pointed out the extreme challenges to this approach– which I acknowledge–and those challenges remain. I will note that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have done much (but not all) of the required military work, and both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump had mooted the same idea (removing the Palestinians). I suggest the Overton window (a concept that says the range of acceptable opinion on anything is a variable which can be moved) has changed.
But none of that addresses the larger problem of Palestinian statehood. There has never been a real Palestinian state, and now there never will be. Nobody wants the Palestinian people. When the Romans exiled the Jews from their homeland, the Jews became wildly successful expats throughout the empire (much to their eventual chagrin, as it made them convenient scapegoats, too). When the Palestinians suffered their Nakba (“catastrophe”), or exile, they became a corrosive force everywhere they went. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) went to Lebanon, upset its delicate ethnic and religious balance, and Beirut went from being the “Paris of the Mideast” to a poster-child for desolation. The PLO then moved to Tunisia and created more havoc. Palestinian refugees went to Jordan and almost overthrew the monarchy. They went to Egypt and had to be forcibly suppressed. And they stayed in Israeli-occupied areas and fought, and fought, and fought.
Worst of all, they gave control of Gaza to Hamas, a move which Israel tacitly accepted, a major mistake by Netanyahu. He thought Hamas was happy to be perfromative against Israel, launching some missiles, conducting some raids, living the good life while corrupting UN aid and building tunnels that no Palestinian civilian could ever use as bomb shelters. Netanyahu and the IDF focused on Iran and Hezbollah, which is why the October 7th attack was such a success (and why the war with Iran is, too). But most importantly, Gaza under Hamas was a precursor: the Palestinians had, for all intents and purposes, a state. When they did, they turned it into a corrupt terrorist base. Where is the evidence that would ever change?
Israel cannot accept incorporating the West Bank, because to do so would very soon make Jews a minority in Israel. They can’t go on forever as an occupying power either. Eventually they will have to grant some successor regime in the West Bank limited autonomy. Such a regime will by necessity need to be not only demilitarized, but completely disarmed., and it will (also of necessity) exist at the sufferance of Israel. It will not be a normal state, because the people have not demonstrated any ability to act as one. Yes, they’ll vote for their leaders, create their own internal rules, and police themselves. No, they won’t vote in the United Nations, conduct foreign policy, or have any authority over the Jews who live amongst them (in some cases) or surround them.
Every act of violence, every new bit of evidence of the corruption and terror Hamas wrought, re-sets the timeline for eventual peace. And only after a prolonged period of peace is the prospect of a Palestinian mini-state even a possibility. Few people reading this (even the youngest) will ever live to see it, and it will only happen when those same Palestinians give up their dreams of reclaiming the country from the Jews.
Palestinians had a state for moments in 1948; they launched an invasion and lost it. They had a territory in 1994, and used it for corruption and terrorism (two intifadas). They had an enclave (Gaza) which freely elected a terrorist organization. How many times does the Two State Solution have to fail?
*I choose to initially refer to the terms Palestine/Palestinian within quotations marks to denote my belief using such terms denotes a reality that does not exist. The people living there are, and always have been in modern times, Arabs. I only use the marks the first time in any blog, to make the point, and afterwards use without further comment. I believe any nation should be able to determine how they are labelled. People from the United States are “Americans,” not United States-ians, because we choose to be called Americans.
Not to mention the fact that the US has been funding Palestinian schools with pro Hamas teachers through the UN for decades.
Most people in the West have no knowledge of history and so continue to advocate for the two state solution not realizing, as you’ve so clearly laid out, that it will never happen for so many reasons.