The two-state solution is dead, so why do politicians rely on it?

The struggle for peace appears increasingly futile as a campaign of supposed escalating to de-escalate unravels any appetite for the fighting to stop, even if temporarily.

However, while the talk of what happens the “day after” the war ends may be premature, ultimately it will shape any deal.

There appears to be a consensus among world leaders that at the core of future peace, negotiations for implementing the “two-state solution”, which would see a Palestinian state existing peacefully alongside Israel, should be restarted.

But in the aftermath of Hamas’s attacks, is this still a possibility? Unfortunately, despite all the best intentions of world leaders, a Palestinian state has long been a practical impossibility. There are two main reasons for this.

The Jerusalem conundrum First, Israel controls both east and west Jerusalem. The division of the ancient city is not historic but is a consequence of the 1948 war that saw the creation of the Israeli state.

However, given the centrality of Jerusalem for both Palestinians and Israelis, each view control of the city as being emblematic of the legitimacy and righteousness of their respective claims to statehood.

For Palestinians, there is no Palestine without at least East Jerusalem.

Not only is Jerusalem the third holiest city in Islam, East Jerusalem, with its crucial religious, cultural, political, administrative, and economic position, is considered by Palestinian to be an indispensable part of any future state.

Equally, for Israelis, there is no Israel without Jerusalem.

The city is the holiest place in Judaism, where Jewish temples stood on Temple Mount for thousands of years. The western wall, which is in East Jerusalem, is the last remaining structure of these temples. Thousands of Jews pray at the site every day. When Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six Day War, the unification of the city was greeted by an almost messianic jubilation by Israelis. For the first time in nearly 2,000 years the Jewish people had control of the holiest city in Judaism.

However, for Palestinians, the loss of control of East Jerusalem became another painful symbol of their dispossession that began in 1948.

Since 1967, successive Israeli governments have authorised and funded the construction of numerous settlements in and around East Jerusalem as part of a strategy to make it impossible for any future Israeli government to be forced to ever cede control of East Jerusalem to Palestinians, and with it control over Temple Mount.

In 1980, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed the Jerusalem Law that declared the united city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Israeli settlements, alongside the Separation Wall that encloses much of the West Bank, are explicitly designed to excise Palestinian communities from East Jerusalem, forming part of the decades-long demographic struggle to ensure that Jerusalem becomes a majority Jewish city.

Identity and culture Second, in the aftermath of Hamas’s attacks that saw the most significant loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, there is little will among Israelis to “reward” the Palestinians, and by extension, Hamas, with statehood.

Netanyahu himself vehemently opposes any Palestinian state, declaring that it would pose an existential threat to the state of Israel.

Since he first became prime minister in 1996, Netanyahu has only ever grudgingly engaged in negotiations with the Palestinian leadership, steadfastly refusing to make any concessions that would advance the cause of Palestinian statehood.

Not only does Netanyahu’s position have to do with refusing to divide Jerusalem, it also includes his refusal to cede control of the West Bank, which Israelis refer to by their biblical names, Judea and Samaria.

While this refusal is couched in security language, it is the ideological and cultural importance of these territories to Zionism rather than Judaism which is the primary driver.

Added to this, Netanyahu leads a coalition government consisting of right-wing nationalist parties who also steadfastly refuse to accept any future Palestinian state. In July 2024, the Knesset overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing the creation of a Palestinian state mirroring Netanyahu’s claims that it represented an existential threat to Israel, would perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and destabilise the region.

There is a strong belief in Israel, especially among conservatives and right-wing nationalists that the state of Israel should rightfully exist from “the river to the sea”, and the current government appears determined to make this ideological goal a reality.

What this war has become is a strident effort by the Israeli government to not only crush Hamas but crush the last remaining vestige of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and thus to the ideal of an Israeli state existing wholly from “the river to the sea”.

The only other Palestinian movement with the capacity to resist is Fatah.

Unfortunately, Fatah, under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, has long avoided actively resisting Israeli occupation in return for continued Western financial support. With Hamas’s capacity to resist effectively likely taking years to recover, Israel would be free to entrench its occupation.

Indeed, since October 2023, the UN has recorded an explosion of Israeli settler outposts being constructed throughout the West Bank, further cementing Israel’s control of territory that would form part of any Palestinian state.

Additionally, recent reports suggest that Netanyahu is considering a plan that would see the northern half of the Gaza Strip declared a military zone, meaning all Palestinian residents would be removed.

This would mean the forcible relocation of between 300,000 to 500,000 Palestinians — a repeat of 1948’s Nakba (Arabic for the catastrophe) that saw approximately 725,000 Palestinians “relocate” to refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and neighbouring Arab states.

While the logistical practicalities of such a relocation are immense, there are equally sound military considerations for Israel to consider permanently reoccupying the Gaza Strip.

Consequently, the possibility of a Palestinian state remains an illusion. How the international community responds to this realisation is far from certain.

But there appears to be little political will to punish Israel now for decades of Western diplomatic blindness to the realities of Israel’s settlement construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

For Palestinians, the end to this current war will simply entrench their fate of remaining stateless, destined to live perpetually under Israeli occupation. (360info) SCY