The Two State Solution is Dead

Why are my candidates still parading around its corpse?

On Thursday, April 9th, I sat down with almost 800 people, both in person and on zoom, to watch the debate between three Democrat primary candidates for NY-17. The debate covered a wide range of issues, but something stuck out to me when the candidates were pressed about Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza. The issue that stuck out? The candidates’ support for a two state solution. 

I’m Jewish and have actively paid attention to Israeli politics since high school. I remember that, right before COVID-19 shut down the world, the Israeli government was forced to hold three general elections in one year because neither the Likud party or any other party could form a majority government. This cycle was only broken by the emergency coalition government declared to confront the pandemic. 

Since then, my opinion of the Israeli government has rapidly declined. Since the tragedy on October 7th, I’ve watched as the Israeli government has rained bombs across Gaza, forcing over two million people into displacement and killing tens of thousands of Palestinians. I’ve also seen violence from Israeli settlers in the West Bank increase as terrorist groups routinely harass, injure, and even kill innocent Palestinians all the while the Netanyahu led government in the Knesset threatens to annex not just Area C (the Jordan Valley where the vast majority of Israeli settlers are located), but the entire West Bank. 

In the time since Arafat walked away from the negotiating table at the Oslo Accords, the Israeli government has seen to the complete destruction of any kind of prospective two state solution. Over 500 illegal settlements currently exist in the West Bank, home to almost 700,000 Israeli settlers. For those who may remember, in 2005 then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pulled the IDF and the over 8,000 settlers out of Gaza. By all accounts that disengagement was a nightmare and something that would be hard to repeat on the scale of what is occurring in the West Bank. The fact of the matter is that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank make the prospect of a two state solution laughable. Yet it continues to be propped up by American politicians as the only sensible conclusion to a senseless conflict. 

What is actually needed is a one state, bi-national solution that caters towards both Israeli Jews and Arab Palestinians. The demographics of both Israel proper and the West Bank aren’t changing any time soon, and many Palestinians who were displaced from their homes during the Nakba, who are stuck in refugee camps in surrounding nations, cannot all fit into the West Bank and Gaza. The plan released by the first Trump Administration in 2020 was relentlessly mocked by all sides for how it carves up the West Bank into small islands of sovereignty in a sea of Israeli jurisdiction, but truthfully if there were to be a two state solution implemented today, that’s what it would look like. 

We can talk endlessly about the Israeli government’s role in killing the two state solution. From directly funding Hamas as a rival to Fatah (the leading party of the Palestinian Authority) prior to 2006, to their illegal funding of settlements in the West Bank and the advertising of those settlements to prospective Israeli immigrants. We can also go on about the role that corrupt Palestinian officials, like Mahmoud Abbas, have played.

What would be important to note in these conversations, however, is the radical injustice of a two state solution in the first place. Displaced Palestinians didn’t just live in the West Bank or Gaza, but all over what is now recognized as the State of Israel. Another layer is the myriad of Jewish religious sites that would most likely be barred to Jewish pilgrims, such as the Tomb of the Patriarchs, should a two state solution with a hard border be implemented. 

What is needed for both sides is freedom of movement, integration, and cooperation. This isn’t a fantasy either. Despite what is said, the period of history prior to the establishment of the State of Israel is chock-full of instances of Jewish and Arab cooperation and shared Palestinian identity. Jews and Arabs farmed together to get through the Great Depression, and fought together against the British Mandate. The last thing anyone living between the Mediterranean and Jordan needs is more mass displacement and political subjugation, Lord knows both populations have suffered enough. It’s time to advocate for a sensible, long term solution to Israeli occupation and Palestinian displacement that centers justice and camaraderie instead of violence and hate.