Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
One state suggested for Mideast peace
As 2-state solution fades, some eye new way forward with Israel
Palestinians ponder binational plan, which may put Israel’s identity at risk.
RAMALLAH, WEST BANK — For nearly three decades, governments around the world have insisted that the best way to end the most intractable conflict in the Middle East is to trade land for peace, creating an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
But these days, as Palestinians see prospects for the so-called two-state solution disintegrating, a growing number are mulling a provocative alternative: a single binational state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.
The notion would force Israel either to give Arab residents full voting rights — and jeopardize the Jewish identity upon which Israel was created in 1948 — or risk becoming an apartheid state under permanent sanction by the rest of the world.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned of the risk Wednesday in what he described as a “fundamental reality” for the two sides to consider: “If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic — it cannot be both — and it won’t ever really be at peace.”
For Palestinians, the renewed calls to consider a one-state solution come as the peace process is at one of its lowest ebbs. Negotiations have been mothballed for three years, Israeli settlements in the West Bank are under steady expansion, and there are calls by Israeli politicians to annex part of the West Bank.
President-elect Donald Trump’s victory and the prominence of patrons of the Israeli settlements in his close circle of advisers have only compounded the skepticism. A December public opinion poll found that twothirds of Palestinians think a two-state solution is no longer feasible.
The alternative, many argue, is an invitation to Israel to swallow Palestine.
“Many people support the idea,” said Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian legislator and a former candidate for president. “If the two-state solution is physically unattainable, we have only one option: A struggle to gain full and equal democratic rights in one state, in the land of historic Palestine.”
Once limited, the idea is being widely discussed.
Palestinian intellectuals, businessmen and political officials who long championed the two-state solution are starting to strategize about what some argue is an already existing one-state reality.
“Because of the lack of a political horizon, the inability of the sides to sit down together, because of the reality on the ground of expanding settlements and road checkpoints, people started to believe that the two-state solution is dead,’’ said Bashar Azzeh, a youth activist and marketing director at Wassel Group, a Palestinian logistics firm. “Some people are saying: Let’s demand full human and civil rights rather than national rights; then maybe the international community will listen to us.’’
A poll last month by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found a nearly 10-percentage-point jump over three months of Palestinians who say the two-state solution is no longer viable. Support for a one-state solution has advanced in the same period to 36 percent from 32 percent.
“This is a major change, a significant erosion in the viability of the two-state solution,’’ Khalil Shikaki, the director of the polling center, said in a lecture at the Jerusalem Press Club. “Today, we don’t have majority support for the twostate solution. What has gone up is support for the one-state solution.’’
Slackening two-state support can be found in Israel as well as in the incoming U.S. administration. Trump’s nomination of David Friedman, a patron of the Israeli settlement of Beit El, as ambassador to Israel suggests the new administration might no longer champion negotiations toward a Palestinian state.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he remains committed to “two states for two peoples,’’ but when he was asked by an Israeli journalist on the eve of the 2015 election whether he expected the creation of a Palestinian state on his watch, he said, “No.”
The prime minister and his aides say Israel needs to reach security agreements with surrounding Arab governments before a peace deal with the Palestinians.
The notion of a single binational state — which would have roughly equal numbers of Arabs and Jews — has long been an anathema to many Israeli Jews because it would mean a radical makeover of Israel’s identity as a “Jewish state.’’
Israel’s Arab minority accounts for 20 percent of the country’s population.
On Saturday, The Associated Press reported that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he is willing to work with Trump to reach a two-state solution.
But many Palestinians like Samer Abd al-Kareem Omar, 40, say they are willing to part with the dream of an independent state if it means economic prosperity, physical security and equality.
Omar, a computer teacher, traverses military checkpoints daily. For him, a single “undeclared state” already exists, he said.
“The two peoples live together. What is wrong with living on equal footing? This is the ideal situation,’’ he said. “People need to look after their future and their personal interests — national claims are not everything.”