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Two States: The Only Solution
Louise Strait, November 17, 2023
One unexpected but entirely reasonable consequence of the current Hamas-Israel war that started on October 7 has been renewed attention to the importance of the two-state solution. Most striking have been pleas by current and former heads of state. “A two-state solution would be a victory for our common humanity,” wrote Jordan’s King Abdullah in the November 14 Washington Post. U.S. President Joe Biden said on November 16 that “the conflict won’t end until there’s a two-state solution.” And former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said, “If Israel produced a serious proposal for two-state negotiations, it would have a dramatic impact on the international community.”
In the aftermath of the Oslo Accords, numerous initiatives, both private and public have advocated for a viable state for Palestinians side by side with Israel. To mention a few, there was the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002, accepted by the Palestinians but rejected by Israel, and the Trump Administration’s peace plan, rolled out in 2020, which was rejected by the Palestinians but accepted, albeit very lukewarmly, by Israel. This needs to be seen through the lens that the lack of a Palestinian state, with Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank since 1967, has been a major motivator of Arab and Islamist terrorism on the one hand and Israeli expansion on the other. And this is on top of the 1948 Nakba displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians.
Current near-universal criticism of Netanyahu’s strategy of empowering Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank prior to October 7 and concern over his statement that Israel would have indefinite control over Gaza have added urgency to the debate about creating two states. Given that a vast majority of Israelis want Netanyahu out of office by, at the latest, the instant that the conflict is over, it is easy to imagine that he will want the conflict to endure to maintain his hold as prime minister.
Thus it is imperative that planning for “the day after” proceed apace. The international consensus is that post-war Gaza should be under international control, with an eye to ultimate governance by the Palestinian Authority. This was made explicit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken when he said, “The future of Gaza must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”
There have been many opinions as to who should take the lead in the “day after” planning. In the New York Times, Thomas Friedman advocated that the US take a leading role with the “Biden Peace plan,” ostensibly a redo of the earlier Trump plan. There are many competitors for this role in Israel. One highly plausible advocate for an equitable future is Gershon Baskin, the prominent peace activist who successfully negotiated the release of Gilad Shalit; his “Plan for the Day After Tomorrow” appearing In the Times of Israel can be boiled down to ending the occupation, forming a state of Palestine that is recognized by the UN, and choosing new Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
But any plan, no matter how grandiose or mundane, must have women as its core, both as the citizens of any new reality and its creators. This is for several reasons. First, women on both sides have suffered disproportionately in this conflict, as evidenced, for a start, by stories of the horrors of Arab women giving birth in the Gaza invasion and Israeli women raped by Hamas on October 7. Second, women on both sides, especially in the younger generation, have demonstrated the energy and commitment to a shared future, as shown in the November 16 New York Times article on two such Israeli and Palestinian women, “A New Generation of Peacemakers Wants to be Part of the Dialogue About the ‘Day After.’” Finally, learning to trust women would be a small step that adherents of the two patriarchal traditions in Israel/Palestine could take toward the larger step of overcoming hatred and fear of the “Other,” which will have to happen if there is to be an enduring peace.
One unexpected but entirely reasonable consequence of the current Hamas-Israel war that started on October 7 has been renewed attention to the importance of the two-state solution. Most striking have been pleas by current and former heads of state. “A two-state solution would be a victory for our common humanity,” wrote Jordan’s King Abdullah in the November 14 Washington Post. U.S. President Joe Biden said on November 16 that “the conflict won’t end until there’s a two-state solution.” And former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said, “If Israel produced a serious proposal for two-state negotiations, it would have a dramatic impact on the international community.”
In the aftermath of the Oslo Accords, numerous initiatives, both private and public have advocated for a viable state for Palestinians side by side with Israel. To mention a few, there was the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002, accepted by the Palestinians but rejected by Israel, and the Trump Administration’s peace plan, rolled out in 2020, which was rejected by the Palestinians but accepted, albeit very lukewarmly, by Israel. This needs to be seen through the lens that the lack of a Palestinian state, with Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank since 1967, has been a major motivator of Arab and Islamist terrorism on the one hand and Israeli expansion on the other. And this is on top of the 1948 Nakba displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians.
Current near-universal criticism of Netanyahu’s strategy of empowering Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank prior to October 7 and concern over his statement that Israel would have indefinite control over Gaza have added urgency to the debate about creating two states. Given that a vast majority of Israelis want Netanyahu out of office by, at the latest, the instant that the conflict is over, it is easy to imagine that he will want the conflict to endure to maintain his hold as prime minister.
Thus it is imperative that planning for “the day after” proceed apace. The international consensus is that post-war Gaza should be under international control, with an eye to ultimate governance by the Palestinian Authority. This was made explicit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken when he said, “The future of Gaza must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”
There have been many opinions as to who should take the lead in the “day after” planning. In the New York Times, Thomas Friedman advocated that the US take a leading role with the “Biden Peace plan,” ostensibly a redo of the earlier Trump plan. There are many competitors for this role in Israel. One highly plausible advocate for an equitable future is Gershon Baskin, the prominent peace activist who successfully negotiated the release of Gilad Shalit; his “Plan for the Day After Tomorrow” appearing In the Times of Israel can be boiled down to ending the occupation, forming a state of Palestine that is recognized by the UN, and choosing new Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
But any plan, no matter how grandiose or mundane, must have women as its core, both as the citizens of any new reality and its creators. This is for several reasons. First, women on both sides have suffered disproportionately in this conflict, as evidenced, for a start, by stories of the horrors of Arab women giving birth in the Gaza invasion and Israeli women raped by Hamas on October 7. Second, women on both sides, especially in the younger generation, have demonstrated the energy and commitment to a shared future, as shown in the November 16 New York Times article on two such Israeli and Palestinian women, “A New Generation of Peacemakers Wants to be Part of the Dialogue About the ‘Day After.’” Finally, learning to trust women would be a small step that adherents of the two patriarchal traditions in Israel/Palestine could take toward the larger step of overcoming hatred and fear of the “Other,” which will have to happen if there is to be an enduring peace.
