The raging war between Israel and Hamas has brought global attention back to the contentious land conflict between Jews and Arabs in West Asia. Israel has launched a war on Gaza with the stated goal of eradicating Hamas and establishing a new reality in the blockaded enclave. The airstrikes have been unsparing and devastating, even as an Israeli ground offensive seems imminent, and one for which the Israeli Defence Forces are actively preparing. There is also a very palpable fear of the Israel-Palestine conflict leading to a regional flare-up, one in which the United States will be forced to militarily intervene. Fearing a regional war with Iran and its many proxies on one side, and the United States and Israel on the other, many have chosen to take refuge in a decades-old idea — the two-state solution. Unfortunately, this supposed “solution” is grossly overrated.
The two-state solution is dead. There must be no doubt about it. As a matter of fact, where Israel was once very open to the idea of creating a Palestinian state out of its own territories, it is now dead opposed to it. The era of Israeli accommodation is over. To put it simply, for Israel, the two-state solution train has left the station. What about the Palestinians? Well, a two-state solution was never really acceptable to them. According to recent studies, over 67 per cent of Palestinians oppose a two-state solution. Armed struggle to achieve freedom from Israel, meanwhile, retains 51 per cent support in the Gaza Strip and 54 per cent support in the West Bank. These are all conservative estimates, by the way. So, Hamas and other terror organisations like the “Palestinian Islamic Jihad” are mere manifestations of a rather popular belief that Israel has no right to exist in Arab lands.
There is one slogan that has begun reverberating in major cities around the world, and it is key to understanding the Israel-Palestine conflict. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — This is a chant that can be heard in nearly all pro-Palestine rallies around the world. It essentially calls for the liberation of all territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, meaning the elimination of Israel in totality. This is not a slogan only a fringe minority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip hold dear to their hearts. It is, in fact, a slogan that has popular support in the West Bank and Gaza, and also among Palestine supporters around the world.
The World Must Learn from the Failure of Two Nation Theory
Concepts like the two-state solution or the two-nation theory cannot be expected to work in the real world. Those who think a two-state solution is key to resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict are not just being indifferent to history, but also naïve. While a two-state solution is indeed ideal, it is not practical. If such a solution did actually work, India and Pakistan would not be in a perpetual state of conflict. Israel has learnt the right lessons from the creation of Pakistan. Unfortunately, the world has not.
The whole premise of the two-nation theory was that Hindus and Muslims cannot live together in a nation as one people. In principle, when the two-nation theory was executed and India was partitioned to create an Islamic Republic, there should have ideally been peace on Indian borders. After all, India allowed itself to be amputated in the West and the East, unleashing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the hopes that the future would be peaceful. Contrary to that, Pakistan waged a war against India within two months of its creation. Then came the wars of 1962, 1971 and Kargil. All this, while Pakistan allowed its terror industry to flourish with the sole intention of harming India.
Islamabad uses terrorism as a foreign policy tool to somehow bring India to its knees. One need not be reminded of Pakistan’s role in fanning conflicts in Kashmir and Punjab or the serial blasts that sought to hurt Indian civilians regularly just a few years ago. All of it happened with Islamabad and Rawalpindi’s sanction, including 26/11. The purpose of partitioning India therefore, in the supposed belief that there could be lasting peace in the region, stands defeated. Instead, India now has a nuisance to deal with in the form of Pakistan.
Similarly, there is nothing to suggest that the Israel-Palestine conflict can be solved with a two-state solution. As mentioned earlier, the Palestinians and their representative have repeatedly rejected two-state solution proposals. Today, the Palestinian movement has been hijacked by radical extremists and terrorists who will settle for nothing less than the complete extermination of what they like to call the “Zionist state” of Israel.
Then there are powers in the Arab world who would cheer at the prospect of seeing Israel bleed. Take Iran for instance, which has helped prop anti-Israel armed militias across West Asia, from Iraq to Syria and from Lebanon to Yemen. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not shied from openly saying that Iran’s goal is the annihilation of Israel. To think that Iran and its many proxies in the region will suddenly settle for peace and allow Israel to safely exist after the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state would be juvenile.
Terrorism is Not a Freedom Struggle: Sane Palestinians Must Take Control of the Narrative
It is now more crucial than ever for saner Palestinians to take control of the narrative. Whenever there has been meaningful progress towards achieving a two-state solution, Israel has been victimised by a wave of terror attacks. The most pronounced example of this would be the Oslo Accords of 1993, when secret talks in Norway culminated in agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Just when peace seemed to be on the horizon, Israel was targeted by terrorists. After 1993, Israel’s inclination to accommodate Palestinian demands shrank, primarily because the peace process was sabotaged by terrorists. That has been the modus operandi of organisations like Hamas and its backers in West Asia for as long as one can remember. For them, it’s either all or nothing.
When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the enclave had a golden opportunity to realise the Palestinian dream. Instead, Hamas rode to power by winning the parliamentary elections in 2006 and has since concentrated all its efforts towards bleeding Israel dry. Today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and the Israeli public at large wonder whether the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state, with an army, air force and navy of its own is even remotely something the Jewish nation can afford. There is simply no sure way of knowing that the might of such a Palestinian state would not be used to achieve the larger goal of dismantling Israel and driving Jews out of their historical homeland.
After all, there has been no condemnation of the dastardly terror attack against Israel this month from either the Palestinian public at large or individuals who claim to champion the Palestinian cause. President Mahmoud Abbas’s half-hearted condemnation was driven more by political considerations, given that the Fatah has come to face a significant challenge from Hamas in the West Bank. Even Abbas’s nominal condemnation, by the way, was subsequently removed by the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency. That goes on to show the risk Palestinian leaders incur when they speak out against terrorism. Why that seems to be the case is something the global community must reflect on.
The October 7 terror attacks against Israel have now become etched in the minds of Jews as the single deadliest day for their community since the Holocaust. The brazen targeting of civilians and atrocities inflicted on babies, children, women and elderly alike have dealt a lethal blow to the Palestinian cause. The idea that Israel will be willing to even entertain the idea of creating a Palestinian state after the events of October 7-8 is a non-starter.
The Palestinian public must openly call out Hamas and pray that Israel successfully eliminates the terror outfit. For as long as the Palestinian movement remains entangled with terror outfits, the establishment of Palestine will continue to elude those who wish to see its creation.
Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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