As Israel Expands Settlements Only A One State Solution Can Still Achieve A Just Peace

The two state solutionis still theoretically possible but only theoretically. Zionist facts on the ground are making it presently impossible. And anybody who still defend this solution is either willingly or unwillingly blind or hypocrite. Where were they those who defend the two state solution against the one state for Palestinian and Jews when Israel willingly ignored international law ? Why are they just waking up today to the two state solution ?

A more likely alternative to the present debacle is one state, which is obviously the goal of Israeli leaders who insist on colonizing the West Bank and East Jerusalem. A majority of the Palestinian leaders with whom we met are seriously considering acceptance of one state, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. By renouncing the dream of an independent Palestine, they would become fellow citizens with their Jewish neighbors and then demand equal rights within a democracy. In this nonviolent civil rights struggle, their examples would be Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

Israel-Palestine: A single binational state

Last may, the most vehement critic of Israel and zionism, Norman Finkelstein, was giving a conference in Montreal invited by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East. After the conference, he was asked about his position on the issue of a single binational state. He said that in his opinion the most possible and feasible solution right now is the two state solution and that the One state solution did not have support on either side.

This answer from Finkelstein made me change my opinion about him. I think he is more of a critic of what zionism and Israel have become than a staunch supporter of the palestinian cause as he is most often described. Because he was ignoring in his answer and in his position the extraordinary and growing support for a single binational state on both sides and persisting in trying to convince himself and us, against all odds, that the two state solution is still workable.

But he is wrong.

The Two State solution is nearly dead

Palestine and Israel: One State to end the conflict

The School for Oriental and African Studies, London, organised a conference on the One State Solution for Israel and Palestine last November.

"Over the past several years the failure of the two-state approach has led to a resurgence of interest in a one-state solution and the London conference brings together many who have written or spoken in favor of it."

The conference gave way to a declaration on the One State Solution, published in Counterpunch. The declaration is worth reading because its clarity contrasts with the vague agenda of the two state solution. People who are still promoting the two state solution, not only failed many times, but were never specific about what a Palestinian state could or should be.
"The two-state solution ignores the physical and political realities on the ground, and presumes a false parity in power and moral claims between a colonized and occupied people on the one hand and a colonizing state and military occupier on the other. It is predicated on the unjust premise that peace can be achieved by granting limited national rights to Palestinians living in the areas occupied in 1967, while denying the rights of Palestinians inside the 1948 borders and in the Diaspora. Thus, the two-state solution condemns Palestinian citizens of Israel to permanent second-class status within their homeland, in a racist state that denies their rights by enacting laws that privilege Jews constitutionally, legally, politically, socially and culturally. Moreover, the two-state solution denies Palestinian refugees their internationally recognized right of return.

The two-state solution entrenches and formalizes a policy of unequal separation on a land that has become ever more integrated territorially and economically. All the international efforts to implement a two-state solution cannot conceal the fact that a Palestinian state is not viable, and that Palestinian and Israeli Jewish independence in separate states cannot resolve fundamental injustices, the acknowledgment and redress of which are at the core of any just solution."

Thanks, But No Thanks: A wonderful defence of the One State solution.
"But statehood as such is a relatively recent addition to Palestinian aspirations. The main Palestinian impetus after the disaster of 1948 was that of "return"; it was more about reversing the loss of Arab land and patrimony, than the fulfilment of classical post-colonial self-determination, via statehood."