The so-called two-state solution is dead. The only credible proposition to deliver peace and security in the Middle East is to dismantle Israel and replace it with one unitary, de-Zionised state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
It’s just over a year now since the former prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, announced the British government’s formal recognition of the state of Palestine. But his announcement was littered with caveats, including the bold claim that, “Hamas will have no role in the future of Palestine.” But that is a matter for Palestinian people to determine, not some second-rate post-colonial politician. In other words, Starmer was indulging in performative politics to give the illusion of taking action, while in reality maintaining the status quo ante.
Some have claimed that the removal of Starmer and his replacement with Andy Burnham marks a sea change in the UK’s policy toward Palestine and the Zionist colony. They point to Ed Miliband’s declaration of sanctions against illegal Zionist settlements in the territory occupied since 1967. But the reality is very different. The sanctions represent the bare minimum and will do nothing to deter Israel’s ongoing crimes against humanity. Just last week, Declassified UK revealed that the government has not cancelled any arms export licences to Israel, and the Ministry of Defence maintains contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds with Israeli arms firms. Furthermore, just like his predecessor, Burnham still refuses to describe the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians as a genocide.
The truth is there is no two-state solution. The 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords were supposed to pave the way, but Israel reneged on the agreement signed by Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and US President Bill Clinton. The only credible and long-term resolution to this 78-year long injustice is one singular state where all citizens have equal rights. Furthermore, all the Palestinians and their descendants who have been ejected from their homes since the Nakba in 1948 must have the absolute right of return, and be awarded reparations for the injustice they suffered.
Palestine became part of the British Mandate, which was a system established by the League of Nations to administer territories formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire, after WW1. But that didn’t give Britain the right to give away a land that didn’t belong to it, to a people who had no legitimate claim to it, at the expense of the people who lived in it. If truth be told, 31 years after the original Balfour Declaration, which promised Palestine to Zionist Jews, the Attlee Labour government surrendered to a lengthy campaign of terrorism by Zionist extremists.
The indigenous Palestinian population was twice the size of the Jewish population, but they were given a significantly smaller slice of their own country. Even that wasn’t acceptable to the Zionists. They seized more territory in 1948, then made a further land grab in 1967 and have been illegally occupying the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights ever since. Last year it voted by a majority of 71 to 13 to formally annexe the West Bank. In 2018 the Knesset passed the Nation-State Law that relegated non-Jewish inhabitants to second class citizens; and Israel’s Central Elections Committee has just barred Arab parties from standing in the general election.
Although Britain is mainly culpable for the catastrophe experienced by the Palestinian people, the international community also bears some responsibility because it has shamefully turned a blind eye to Israel’s crimes. They sat on their hands while Israel constructed a 9-metre-high separation wall and atomised the West Bank with 700,000 Zionist settlers to destroy the prospect of a two-state solution coming to fruition. Moreover, the UN Security Council has done nothing to enforce any of its resolutions critical of Israel.
Consequently, the only credible solution is to create one unitary democratic sovereign state, where all citizens enjoy equal voting rights, freedom of movement, access to land and resources, and protection under the same laws. Jews and Palestinians alike could maintain their cultural and religious identities within a shared civil framework. Hebrew and Arabic could be co-official languages, and both historical narratives could coexist in public discourse and education. This proposition draws inspiration from other historical precedents where outright racist regimes transitioned to democracies, such as the end of apartheid in South Africa. It was Nelson Mandela himself who said, “we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
But there is a crucially important caveat. It would be entirely wrong to expect Palestinians to live alongside the very people who have been oppressing them since the Zionist colony was created. Israelis with dual nationality would almost certainly leave, but those who remained would need to be de-Zionised because Jewish Israelis have been radicalised.
A poll published last year by the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, found that 82% of Israeli Jews support the expulsion of the Palestinians from Gaza to other countries. And 56% support the forced expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel to other countries, too. It is clear that a dangerous derangement has gripped the Jewish Israeli population, which will have to be exorcised to secure a long-term harmonious future for a unitary state. There are clear parallels with Nazi Germany and Austria which were subjected to a denazification process after WW2 to prevent the resurgence of Nazi ideology.
Anyone who says that securing a unitary Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea is an unattainable pipedream, should remember the words of Nelson Mandela, who said: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
