Two-State Solution

(Bloomberg) -- The notion that Israelis and Palestinians can share the Holy Land living in separate, independent nations has been a seductive goal for eight decades. The vision drove on-and-off peace talks for more than 20 years. The latest round foundered in 2014, giving way to a growing sentiment that the two-state solution was dead. On Jan. 28, U.S. President Donald Trump announced his plan for peace, including a possible “transition” to two states, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected it even before it was released. If not two states, then what? An enlarged Jewish state in which Palestinians are less than equal? One with Arabs and Jews living together in a state that is no longer Jewish? Anyone have a better idea?

The Situation

A fact sheet distributed by the White House indicated that under Trump’s plan, Israel wouldn’t have to surrender Jewish settlements in the West Bank, land Palestinians hope to make part of a future state. The proposal rejected a key Palestinian demand, that Palestinian refugees be allowed to return to land they fled or were expelled from in fighting surrounding Israel’s 1948 establishment. It offered the prospect of limited statehood only if Palestinians met  conditions on fighting corruption and militancy. Trump already had alienated the Palestinians, who’d cut off high-level talks with the U.S., by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, even as Palestinians claim the city’s eastern sector for their future capital, and by reversing the U.S. position on settlements, saying they did not violate international law. About 130 government-approved settlements and 100 unofficial ones are home to some 400,000 Israelis in the West Bank, where an estimated 2.6 million Palestinians live. Responding to Trump’s plan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it may take the Palestinians “a very long time” to get an independent state. In the past, he’s said such a state “would endanger” Israel’s existence.

The Background

The two-state solution dates to the 1937 Peel Commission, which recommended partition of what was then British Mandatory Palestine to stop Arab-Jewish violence. The United Nations embraced a different partition plan in 1947, but the Arabs rejected both, leading to Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948 and the first Arab-Israeli war. That period produced more than half a million Palestinian refugees. In a 1967 war, Israel captured, among other Arab territories, the Gaza Strip, West Bank and east Jerusalem, putting residents under military occupation, which fanned Palestinian nationalism. After a Palestinian uprising that began in 1987 claimed more than 1,200 Palestinian and 200 Israeli lives, secret negotiations produced the landmark 1993 Oslo accords. As an interim measure, Palestinians gained limited self-rule under an entity called the Palestinian Authority. The occupation, Israeli settlement building and violence continued, however, as the two sides repeatedly failed to resolve issues standing in the way of a promised final agreement that presumably would establish a Palestinian state. A second Palestinian uprising, from 2000 to 2005, was especially bloody. Most countries already recognize Palestine as a state, but that hasn’t changed things on the ground: Israel has ultimate control over the territory. Stumbling blocks in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations included where to draw borders, how to share Jerusalem, and the status of Palestinian refugees. Israel acted alone in 2005, withdrawing its troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip, while largely sealing the frontier and later imposing a blockade after the militant group  Hamas wrested control of the territory from the Palestinian Authority in 2007. Gaza subsequently became a launchpad for rockets and mortars into Israel. According to polls, 35% of Israelis supported the concept of a two-state solution in March, and 42% of Palestinians backed it in December.

The Argument

In response to Trump’s proposal, Netanyahu vowed to move ahead with an earlier proposal to extend Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank Jewish settlements. Supporters of annexation say Israelis have a right to remain permanently in the West Bank, which they call by its biblical name of Judea and Samaria — the cradle of Jewish civilization. Critics say annexing the settlements would make it all but impossible for the Palestinians to have a viable state. If Israel ultimately took full control over more Palestinians in the West Bank, it would have to choose between offering them citizenship — diluting the country’s Jewish majority — or keeping them stateless, reinforcing accusations of apartheid. If it did offer them citizenship in a democratic binational state, elections would determine who controls the government. While a growing number of Palestinians favor this approach, few Israelis do. Jews would outnumber Arabs in such a state today but barely, and perhaps not for long given the likely return of Palestinian refugees and the higher Arab birth rate. For Jews to be a minority would defeat the purpose of creating the world’s only Jewish state. 

The Reference Shelf

• An article in Foreign Affairs on the one-state solution.
• A Council on Foreign Relations blog post on the future of the two-state solution.
• A commentary in The Forward argues that two states would serve Israel as well as the Palestinians.
• An article in The American Interest on the demise of the two-state solution.
• Related QuickTakes on Israeli settlements, the issue of annexing them to Israel, the battle over Jerusalem, Hamas, Palestinian refugees and the Golan Heights. 

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