The idea of a two-state Israel ‘peace deal’ died long ago

The peculiar thing about the “peace deal” between Israelis and Palestinians that was announced in Washington this week was obvious.

There was President Donald Trump and his buddy Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, together at the podium, and an audience of US and Israeli officials who clapped at every opportunity. They were talking about a “two-state solution”, and one of those states would have to be Palestinian – but there wasn’t a single Palestinian in the room.

The after-life of the “two-state” principle has already been much longer than its real life. It was born in the Oslo Accords of 1993, which were based on the belief that although Israel had conquered all of historic Palestine by 1967, it could not go on ruling over millions of Arabs.

Peace and prosperity could only come, therefore, if the Palestinians had their own state too. So the Oslo principle was that there should be two equal and democratic states living side by side, one Israeli and one Palestinian: the “two-state solution”. But that solution didn’t even survive the 20th century.

Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who signed the Oslo deal, was assassinated in 1995. His successor, Netanyahu, had strangled the deal in its cradle before his first term as prime minister ended in 1999.

The Oslo Accords died because Palestinian nationalists didn’t want to accept a state that included only one-sixth of former Palestine, and Israeli nationalists didn’t see why the Palestinian Arabs should have that much land.

Two decades later almost nobody admits publicly that the two-state solution is long dead, because to say that commits you to a discussion of the remaining alternatives – and none of them are good. That’s why even this bizarre sham “deal”, cooked up by Trump and Netanyahu without any Palestinian participation, still talks about two states.

At every turn of the wheel, the size of the imaginary state on offer to the Palestinians dwindles. With Israel on the brink of formally annexing all the Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, it’s down to about 10% of former Palestine, and it will never actually happen. Yet the fictional destination of a Palestinian state must still be maintained. Why?

A real two-state solution is politically unsaleable in Israel, partly because of the Jewish majority’s security concerns but mainly because the Jewish settlers want too much of the territory such a Palestinian state would be built on.

The alternatives are a two-state solution or a “one-state solution” in which Israel annexes all the occupied territories. But if Israel annex them then those five million Palestinian Arabs will be able to vote in Israeli elections – and Israel ceases to be a ‘Jewish state’, although it remains a democratic one.

Or else you don’t let them vote, in which case Israel becomes an apartheid state. This is why the zombie two-state solution keeps rising from its grave. Israel must keep talking about some sort of Palestinian state or else resign itself to being simply an ethnic tyranny.

Palestinian consent is not necessary, and when they reject it they can be vilified for rejecting “peace”. Netanyahu understands this perfectly. Whether Trump understands it doesn’t even matter.

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