A "Two-State” solution isn’t a solution at all

A well-meaning lunch companion told me that the "Two-State" solution was the only realistic hope for the people of #Palestine. I told him why I thought he was wrong.

I had lunch today with a very decent man I could only describe as an English gent - except I think he’s actually Scottish. When we spoke about Palestine and #Gaza he said that he thought the only hope for the people was a ‘two-state’ solution. As he optimistically explained that there was a moment of opportunity IF moderate Zionists could be appealed to, he noticed my silence and said “I can see you don’t agree”.

I said I would explain why I thought he was wrong - and that when I explained my thoughts, I hoped he’d see the validity of my argument, even if he disagreed.

The reasons that I shared briefly (in fairness, it was a very hurried lunch where other things were also discussed) were that a Palestinian state as envisaged by the ‘International Community’, would be (at best) a divided state: divided between what’s left of Gaza and a balkanised West Bank (see the far left frame). Moreover, it would be denied any right to maintain its own defence and security.

That would be the best case scenario. A weak, divided entity, surrounded by a hostile neighbour - its former occupier. Less viable than Lebanon is today. One more statelet in a Sykes-Picot Middle East to be controlled by others stronger than itself - and such not really a ‘free’ Palestine in any meaningful sense.

If you don’t believe me, hear what a young Egyptian man said to me when he saw a recent video of mine on Palestine. “As an Egyptian I feel that we're occupied too. Two college students at my age just got kidnapped by the police and put in jail for wanting to support Palestine in their university similar to what students are doing all over the world. For ten years now, the regime was able by actions like this to install fear inside the people. Most people try to avoid politics or any engagement with public discourse because they know they might get in trouble. It's really dark for me to try to imagine a future with regimes like this ruling us.” Ask the people of the West Bank if they think a ‘Free Palestine’ under the Palestinian Authority is likely to be better than this, when they already do the dirty work for the “Israelis”, just as Sisi does dirty work for the United States.

As I said, not a ‘free’ Palestine in any meaningful sense.

My lunch companion talked about ‘give-and-take’ being needed on both sides.

The problem is that the starting point for the give-and-take in this best-case scenario is that the Palestinian people as a whole have to surrender 80% of historic Palestine (see the transition from green to white in the image) - which means their homes, farms, olive groves, land, orchards that they were driven from - rewarding those who were responsible for their ethnic cleansing.

Not a very just ‘give-and-take’ - and all to be agreed with a serially dishonest interlocutor.

However, what I didn’t discuss was that this ‘best-case scenario’ didn’t factor current public opinion within the politics of the Occupation, which would expect Palestinians ‘citizens’ of the areas occupied in 1948 borders - so-called ‘Israeli Arabs’ - to migrate to the new Palestinian state. This was stated some years ago by Tzipi Livni, a minister in the government led by the supposedly moderate Kadima party. One commentator writing within the past few months imagined a scenario where these Palestinians migrated west, whilst settlers in the West Bank migrated in the opposite direction, and feared a bloodbath that would make the partition of India look tame.

Aside from these insurmountable challenges whilst discussing practical politics, we did not even cover the matter of the Islamic ruling on the issue.

Many Palestinians have reminded us over the past 7-months, that the issue is not just theirs. Jerusalem (Bait al Maqdis, Al Quds), al Masjid al Asqa - and even the common territories that were not in private ownership are not just theirs. Rather they have cared and protected and tried to defend these things on behalf of the Ummah.

Just as Sultan Abdul Hamid II said to Theodore Herzel that it wasn’t his to sell - those places are no ones to surrender.

Do I sound pessimistic? Well, I am not. I am pessimistic about the continuous peddling of this non-solution to the Palestinian people as if it is their only hope. It most certainly is not.

I keep reminding myself of the Islamic civilisation in the region over twelve centuries - starting from the Rashidun Caliphate and ending in World War One, interrupted by the Crusader occupation. In that period Muslims, Jews and Christians did manage to live in security, harmony and dignity for long periods. That is an optimistic thought.

How we get to such a situation seems impossible to many. Yet, those people might still express hope that a those responsible for plausible genocide could be partners for peace, with the US-backers of the occupiers acting ‘honest-brokers’.

The Middle East has suffered over the past one hundred because of a massive geo-political upheaval born out World War One. The Middle East was occupied and divided. Proxy-rulers were appointed by the colonial powers, over lands separated by artificial borders. The centuries-old order that existed under the Ottoman Caliphate was abolished and there were attempts to impose various other ‘acceptable’ nation states, disconnected from the values and historical experience of the people. Various attempts of the people to establish any kind of independent self-government - even within the secular nation-state - were crushed with coups and counter-coups.

It is hard to imagine a change without a similar level of change that sees a change in the systems governing the people, the abolition of the borders and establishing societies where the politics are consistent with the values and historical experience of the people.

Will that change be traumatic? Perhaps - or perhaps not. Child birth is traumatic, but the result is usually a wonderful beginning. But what should not be underestimated is the level of suffering that the people of the region face today. What is not acceptable is to think that the status quo is acceptable - or fool ourselves in to thinking that there is a ‘solution’ that is just another variation of the status quo for the rest of the Middle East.

Abdul Wahid has been active in Muslim affairs in the UK for over 25 years. He has been published on the websites of Foreign Policy, Open Democracy, the Times Higher Educational Supplement, and Prospect Magazine. You can follow him on social media https://linktr.ee/abdulwahid101010