One State or Two?

(L-r) Robert Malley, Aaron David Miller, and Hussein Ibish discuss the feasibility of both one-state and two-state solutions. Staff photo Andrew Blakely

The Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC hosted a discussion on Sept. 2 with Lebanese-American Dr. Hussein Ibish, author of the recently published book, What's Wrong with the One-State Agenda? Robert Malley, the son of an Egyptian-born Jewish journalist who helped organize the ultimately unsuccessful 2000 Camp David summit, also spoke about the Aug. 10 New York Times article he co-authored with Hussein Agha, “The Two-State Solution Doesn’t Solve Anything.” Moderator Aaron David Miller, who advised six U.S. secretaries of state and helped formulate U.S. Mideast policy for 20 years, and is now a Wilson Center public policy scholar, gave a sober assessment of peace options.

Ibish took on pro-Palestinian advocates of a one-state solution, who he described as mostly students, professors and grassroots activists who “talk in a vacuum” and are divorced from actual Palestinian, Israeli and U.S. national policies. He posed six questions that he claims one-state supporters have not answered or considered.

First, if Israel won’t surrender 22 percent of the territory it holds, how can it be compelled to surrender or share 100 percent of it?

Second, what, as a practical matter, does this vision of a single, democratic state offer Jewish Israelis? What’s in it for them?

Third, what efforts have one-state advocates made in reaching out to mainstream Jews and Israelis and to incorporating their national narrative into this vision?

Fourth, how do one-state advocates propose to supersede or transcend Palestinian national identity and ambitions? Why is it that no significant Palestinian political party or faction has adopted the one-state goal?

Fifth, what’s the one-state advocates’ strategy? Boycotts, divestment and sanctions won’t collapse Israel, Ibish said.

And sixth—since they reject both Palestinian independence and the ongoing agenda of infrastructural and institutional development presently defining the strategy of what they consider the “quisling” Palestinian Authority—what do one-state advocates, as a practical matter, offer those living under occupation, other than expressions of solidarity and interminable decades of continued struggle and suffering?

Not one advocate for the one-state solution has answered these questions, Ibish stated. While the two-state solution under present circumstances is very difficult, he admitted, it’s the only solution based on international law. The wall, settlements, and other physical facts on the ground are subject to politics and can be changed, Ibish argued.

Neither Jordan nor Egypt will agree to take control of the West Bank or Gaza. There will be no military victory, he added, and the status quo is untenable to both parties. Only the two-state solution is possible—the rest is fantasy, Ibish declared.

“The choice is stark, and it’s between war and peace,” he warned. The Obama administration can try to find a way to make the two-state solution work, or ignore it—but this conflict has a way of coming back to bite you, Ibish concluded.

Robert Malley, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the International Crisis Group, agreed that the one-state solution is a non-starter. Tinkering and fine-tuning past agreements, modifying land percentages for a two-state solution, or lowering expectations also won’t work, he said, nor will putting more pressure on Israel or involving the rest of the Arab world suffice.

What is missing, Malley said, is the involvement of fundamental actors who could derail a peace agreement, including religious settlers, Islamists, Hamas and the diaspora community. They should be part of the solution, “not after-thoughts or lepers,” according to Malley.

Secondly, he pointed out, the conflict began in 1948, so just addressing the issues that emerged in 1967 misses the main point. The origins of the conflict can’t be swept under the carpet, or repressed as a post-1967 territorial tug-of-war over the West Bank and Gaza. There needs to be acknowledgment of a legitimate Jewish homeland and acceptance by Arabs, Malley said. Israelis must also acknowledge that Palestinians didn’t just suffer as a result of a tragic mistake, but that a crime was committed, and Israel must agree to some form of reparation or the “ghosts of the past will always come back.”

Aaron Miller, who described his mediating days—not with panelists who mostly agreed with each other, but during peace talks—as “1,000 days of root canals,” pointed out that Israelis and Palestinians have a “proximity problem.” In Miller’s opinion, vibrant nationalism on both sides will make working together difficult for a long time, and peace will come only by separation.

(Ibish’s book may be downloaded for free from the American Task Force on Palestine in Washington, DC, where he is a senior fellow <www.americantaskforce.org>.)

—Delinda C. Hanley