Prospects of the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian logjam
Story by Ayuba AHMAD
The two-state solution is commonly a reference to the proposal for the establishment of two sovereign states of Israel and Palestine in the present geographical space occupied by the peoples of Israel and Palestine in the Middle East. While Israel already exists as a state or a country for the Jewish people, Palestinians of Arab extraction, on the other hand, are a stateless people.
The talk of a two-state solution in the Middle East is variously considered as one of the most rational and plausible ways out of the 78-year-old cataclysm resulting from the feuding between the Palestinians and the state of Israel.
The genesis was the birth of the state of Israel in 1948, an event that was the culmination of a history of grand conspiracy spurned and orchestrated by the world Zionist movement and hatched by the imperialist, incubatory centres in Britain and her western allies.
Like in all advents of colonialism and imperial incursions, the quandary to which the idea of a two-state solution is being projected as a panacea, was the outcome of the violent invasion, forceful expropriation and occupation of the ancestral homelands of the Palestinians by streams of bands and swarms of Zionists in the cloaks of the “living tribes” of the biblical Jews.
In response to the agitations and lobbying by the Jewish leadership in Britain, and hoping to get the support of the Jewish economic elites toward her war efforts, the then British Foreign Secretary, Lord Arthur James Balfour, issued a 1917 declaration, proclaiming the country’s support for the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
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By that singular act of Britain, which took control of the “mandate” territory of Palestine in 1922, the Zionists were offered the legitimacy of sole sovereignty over a land that was historically, almost completely Arab in population and culture. In 1947, Britain handed over the Palestinian problem to the newly created United Nations Organisation, UNO.
Following the end of the 2nd World War and the euphoria of the global empathy for the Jews due to the horrors of their experience of the “Holocaust” under Adolf Hitler’s Germany, the United Nations, by its Resolution 181 of November, 1947, announced a Partition Plan for the land of Palestine. Under the plan, Palestine was to be divided into two between the Palestinians and the Jews.
According to the Plan, the Gaza Strip and the entire West Bank were earmarked to be under the sovereignty of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital city.
Barely six months later, on the 14th May, 1948, the Zionist leadership under David Ben Gurion declared the state of Israel. Not unexpectedly, as if waiting on the wings, Britain, the USA, France, the Soviet Union, Italy, and Canada among others, swiftly recognised the Jewish state. Also, not unexpectedly, Israel was invaded the following day, by the armies of the neighbouring Arab countries of Egypt, Syria and Jordan.
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The war of resistance by the Arabs against Israeli occupation of Palestine has been fought several times all through 1948 till date. Besides the “first Arab-Israeli war”, 1948-1949, other major encounters were those of 1956, 1967, 1973 and the raging horrific Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, 2023 till date.
It is amid the unprecedented scale of the ongoing horrendous carnage, being wreaked by the Zionists in Gaza, that the echo of the two-state solution has been rebounding in several parts of the world in recent times.
The conscience of most of humanity is, apparently, being pricked by the famine, the unspeakable daily killing of children, women and the elderly in Gaza and elsewhere in the occupied territory. Even the historical friends and allies of the state of Israel are clearly no longer able to stand the bloodcurdling atrocities being perpetuated by the blood thirsty, belligerent and warmongering Zionist Benjamin Netanyahu.
At the last count, France, Britain, Australia and Canada are among the traditional bastions of support for Tel Aviv that have pledged to recognise the Palestinian state by September 2025. The position of these countries is, however, variously conditional.
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The conditions include disarmament and democratic reforms by the Palestinian Authority, such as an election that excludes Hamas. A guarantee for the peace and security of the state of Israel.
To Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his country will recognise the Palestinian state if Israel fails to agree to a cease-fire, and halt its military actions and related humanitarian crises in Gaza between now and the September United Nations General Assembly summit. Very obviously, Benjamin Netanyahu will not halt his war of attrition, genocide and induced famine in Gaza within the time frame.
The impending surge in the number of countries that support the creation of a state of Palestine may not go beyond mere, inconsequential symbolism. Swelling the numbers from 140 out of the 193 member-nations of the United Nations General Assembly does not, as it is, translate to a two-state situation. Much ado about little to nothing.
The first reality that makes a two-state solution a long way from being achieved is the question of the land for the envisaged Palestinian state. With the Zionist occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, where is the territorial space for a Palestinian state, and where will the country’s capital city be located?
Defiant, impertinent and bellicose Israel has consistently defied, with brazen impunity, all international laws and regulations regarding its obligations and the rights of the people of Palestine. What guarantees are there, therefore, that an overwhelming global support for the state of Palestine will translate to a reality in the face of Israeli adamant objection and sabotage?
The recognition of France and Britain for the state of Palestine implies that with Russia and China, four of the five-member Security Council are in favour of the two-state solution. The USA is not disposed to the solution and will very certainly use its veto power to block the formal acceptance of the state of Palestine by the world body.
With Israel and the USA in the way, whatever milestones are covered with increased global support at the September UN General Assembly, will amount to insignificance vis-a-vis the decades-old struggle and quest for a state of Palestine.
With Israel proving to be above the UN Resolutions not favourable to it, the Zionist state will not relent on the pursuit of its agenda of infinite expansion of its frontiers through new settlements and annexations of Palestinian territories, the total extermination or forced evacuation of the people of the Gaza Strip, their relocation and settlement in another country.
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For as long as Israel remains impervious to world opinions, rules and regulations for the attainment of enduring peace in Palestine specifically and the Middle East in general, for that long will the craving and strivings for a two-state solution remain a chase after the chimaera…a futile, frustrating and energy-sapping endeavour.
Sadly, it also means that for that long, the catastrophe of war in the unfortunate region will continue. War without end.
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