open Democracy News Analysis - Two states for two peoples, Tony Klug - Comments

Joe M. on "Two states for two peoples: solution or illusion? "

Joe M. — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 05:18:13 +0000

The problem with the article by Tony Klug is that he seems to imply that "peace" is going to break out tomorrow if only the correct proposal was made. Without going through all the places where this implication is made, it is essentially the most serious reason he seems to believe that the one state solution belongs in fantasy land. Yet at the same time he ends his article by concluding that the two-state solution can still work and is most satisfactory for all, if only it is done under the banner of a one-state solution. Yet, as a Palestinian in the diaspora, I want to tell Mr. Klug that we Palestinians are not so naive as you think. Those of us who have always pushed for a one-state solution never believed that it would happen over night or that it would be a utopia. But we typically base our position on two major pillars:
1) That we have a right to our land and will not allow our land to be pertinently confiscated and colonized by the racist state of Israel. We believe a one-state solution provides us some realization of that (even if we don't kick the Jews into the sea).
2) That there can never be peace anywhere if the societies are defined by ethnic or religious nationalism.

Only through a one-state solution can these problems be reconciled. And, of course, there are thousands of particularities why we should all be pessimistic about any peace. Especially considering Israel record of destruction and cruelty. But our vision of a one-state solution will always hold the most comprehensive and productive path to "peace".
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The response by Ami Isseroff is truly disgusting, and I normally wouldn't dignify it with a response, except that I feel it is necessary to leave a counterpoint. What is most violent about this person's view is that she/he is willing to accept all the crimes of Israel (and especially the original sin of its colonization of Palestine and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population) while relying on the false argument that "Palestinian conditions make a peace deal impossible". Obviously, Israel is the one that is making and applying all the conditions by the nature of its power imbalance. One can not simultaneously dominate all aspects of decision-making and also pass the responsibility for peace off on to the weak. What is perfectly clear is that Israel can make peace with the Palestinians if it chose to do so, but the opposite is not true.

I have no desire to further respond to Ami Isseroff .

Ami Isseroff on "Two states for two peoples: solution or illusion? "

Ami Isseroff — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:10:17 +0000

What an actual Israeli (fairly supportive of Palestinian Arab rights on a good day) thinks:
1- Tony Klug omitted the obvious objections - Any Zionist or any Palestinian nationalist who advocates a one state solution is nullifying the right of self determination of the other side or giving up their own national cause. We are respectively, members of the Jewish and Palestinian Arab peoples, that's what it is all about - why there is a conflict.

2- According to Tony Klug, it would seem that the only objection to a binational state is that it might not be robust. But it is obvious from the examples he gave, as well as the more robust Swiss state, that in a so-called binational state, there is only one nationality reality. French Canadians do not have a vote in the UN and cannot conduct foreign policy. Walloons and Vlems likewise. They are ethnicities within a single state. When the respective national feelings overcome the ties to the artificial state, it falls apart or blows apart - Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia being cases that come to mind.

3- Hamas never agreed to make peace with Israel on the basis of any borders They continue to declare, again and again, that they will never recognize Israel or make peace with Israel. They will accept a two state solution with return of refugees on the basis of PRE 1967 borders, only as a base for destroying Israel. Of course, return of the refugees in large numbers would mean the end of Jewish self-determination.

IMO - a moderate Palestinian who wants a one state or "binational" solution, is like a lamb who orders Shish kebab for dinner. This state will either be run on the lines outlined by the Feiglinites and their supporters or it will be taken over by the Hamas. Only the IDF prevents the rule of the Hamas in the West Bank.

Tony Klug's article leaves the impression that it is only the Israelis who are obstructing peace, and that the Palestinians are quite willing to make a reasonable deal. That is not the case. Again and again, moderate Palestinians have said they will accept no deal that allows any Israeli national rights in east Jerusalem, that they must have right of return for refugees and 1967 borders exactly. Most recently they said all this in response to the leaked offer of Olmert. They could have been silent about this leak, or said they could not consider a deal without knowing about the provisions for Jerusalem, but they did not.

Palestinian conditions make a peace deal impossible and they must know it. No Israeli government can surrender all rights to the old city of Jerusalem, where Jews lived for many centuries before being ethnically cleansed in 1948, and which contains so many of our national symbols.

If Palestinians are serious about peace, they could adapt the Geneva accord or something similar to it. That would provide a serious challenge to the Israeli government. As long they continue with obstructionist tactics and threats about one state solutions they won't make headway.

Until then, the Israeli right can use Palestinian inflexibility and threats about "one state solutions" as evidence that Palestinians are not serious about peace, and get a free license to build settlements where they please.

Ami Isseroff

Mideastweb: Middle East

deborah.gordon on "Two states for two peoples: solution or illusion? "

deborah.gordon — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:01:51 +0000

Agreed. Also, the P.A. could just close shop. They could say to the "international community," aka, Dick Cheney and co., "Okay, we're not going to get anything like a state, so the U.S. and Israel can pay the price, politically and financially."

There is no "sovereignty" to speak of on even what little territory on which the P.A. still exists. The other day, there was some report that Abbas might declare "statehood," if nothing comes of the meeting in D.C. This "threat" would be hilarious, if it wasn't such a glaring symptom of how irrelevant are he and his circles to Israel, the U.S. and the E.U., who treat him like a dog on a leash that they occasionally pet, while beating him mostly.

And this is not new but has been going on for years. It's been over fourteen years since Palestinians have been asking, "what state?" Israel is not going to remove its infrastructure, settlers, settlements, checkpoints, army from the Occupied Territories.

I think we're not far away from the P.A., not out of their own desire, but political pressure from multiple directios, being forced to say, "we want equality not freedom." They'll never get the latter, so they're likely to turn to the former.

Even Olmert recognized that this was on the political horizon, which is why he suddenly became a "two state" advocate.

I'm afraid Tony Klug's perspective belongs to the past, when there were real possibilities for Palestinian statehood. Those days have faded, and besides Israel just taking its F-16s and mowing down as many Palestinians as it can (that's always a possibility, given the levels of corruption that this occupation has created in Israel and its "partners" in the West; I can see American academics having a big internal debate over whether the AAUP can actually make a public statement condemning it, if that happened--that's how inane discussion of this issue is even in the official organizations of "liberal" American academia), there aren't any other viable alternatives that would actually give the Palestinians their long overdue rights to exist, let alone flourish as a people.

Creelman on "Two states for two peoples: solution or illusion? "

Creelman — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:05:57 +0000

Bill Hayton's proposal is straightforward. It challenges the warring parties to do things the way Europe does them. Bureaucratic, yes, but hard to argue against.

bill.hayton on "Two states for two peoples: solution or illusion? "

bill.hayton — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:23:12 +0000

I have a one step plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace. It's simple: Israel joins the Council of Europe. (Just like Russia and Turkey.)

Once in the Council of Europe all Israel's laws become subject to the European Convention on Human Rights and its citizens can petition the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Then the entire apartheid structure of the state will be picked apart until what is left is a 'modern' non-sectarian state in which all citizens can be equal. At the same time the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza should stop demanding independence and instead demand Israeli citizenship. Then the name of the state can be changed to 'The Holy Land' or Canaan or something equally unacceptable to all sides.

OK, it's a dream, but it's better than the current dreams on offer.

deborah.gordon on "Two states for two peoples: solution or illusion? "

deborah.gordon — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:41:16 +0000

Yes, Bill Hayton, you are exactly right. A one-state solution is where Israel is heading, because it will not leave the West Bank, and there is no Palestinian leader who will sign on for what will be on offer from Israel after the Bush administration has allowed Sharon and Olmert to go wild expanding settlements there. Plus, there is no Palestinian leader that will accept

Of course, Palestinian Arabs want to remain citizens in Israel; they're the indigenous people, and some of them are even on their own land. Why should they want to move for the sake of some "Jewish" state or Palestinian "statelet." Please don't tell me that anyone is ignorant enough here to believe that Israel will withdraw to the 1967 borders. Sorry, don't shoot the messenger, but that's the deal breaker for a two state solution with minimal right of return and compensation for the refugees.

Anyone who thinks there is a Palestinian leader who will sign on to some version of the Allon Plan--three cantons--which is all Israel ever comes up with is dreaming. It's not going to happen.

One-state, two-state, red state, blue state. The entire discourse of "statehood" is a joke anyway. The very first thing that must occur is the end of the Israeli occupation. Talking about a Palestinian "state" simply allows that occupation to deepen. As anyone with a map in one hand and a brain can see began in 1967 and has not reversed itself since. And don't bring up the removal of settlers from Gaza! That was only to hold on to Ariel and Male Adumin, and Gaza is still under Israeli occupation.

Those who defend Israel and keep on keepin on about a two state solution are the dreamers. There is not going to be a Palestinian "state," because Israel's idea of a "generous" state will never come close to such an entity.

bill.hayton on "Two states for two peoples: solution or illusion? "

bill.hayton — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:34:36 +0000

Anyone who has been to the West Bank recently can plainly see that the two-state solution is not the plan to which Israel's politicians are working. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on new settlements, roads, bridges and tunnels. Does Israel really mean to leave all this infrastructure behind?

The more likely scenario is that Israel's planners intend to keep the Palestinian population in enclaves, allow them to work in industrial zones (such as the ones Tony Blair is promoting in Jenin, Nablus and Hebron) and keep them dependent on Israel for all their basic needs. In this the parallel with apartheid South Africa and its 'homeland' policy is clear.

At the same time living conditions will become worse and more and more Palestinians will choose to leave - 'transfer' of the Arab population will become a voluntary process and Israel will be able to claim more land. Israel wants a 'one state' solution, it's just not saying so publicly.

Judy Abeles Eliasov on "Two states for two peoples: solution or illusion? "

Judy Abeles Eliasov — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:43:43 +0000

The writer is thinking in academic Utopian terms no doubt from an arm chair in Britain...his idea of "one
democratic secular" state is the euphemism for "one Islamic state". Theoretically, all peace loving democratic peoples should have no problem accommadating diferences. In that part of the world...one person, one vote and one time is the usual parctise.
Both the Jewish and Arab peoples living in Israel have established a viableif not perfect democratic state for 60 years.(A recent Harvard University research project surprised the researchers with its results-77% of the Arabs living in Israel consider themselves Israeli and would not want to live anywhere else-82% of Jewish Israelies loved their lives in the Jewish state and dont want to live elsewhere) Let the aim be a Two State solution with mutual respect and cooperation - pls put to bed the Utopian dream of all Middle Easterners being a multicultural entity. Before you propose one state solution for Israel and Palestine rather get the Arab Middle eastern countries and sects to stop warring with one another.

James Canning on "Two states for two peoples: solution or illusion? "

James Canning — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:23:22 +0000

I agree with the author that, at a time Hamas has made it fairly clear it would accept an independent Palestine of the Gaza Strip and all of the West Bank, it is remarkable that the illusion of a one-state "solution" would start to gain traction (though not much).

I think an Israeli peace agreement with Syria should be put through, because the effort to evacuate the Jewish settlers from the Golan Heights would be less daunting than the one of removing them from the West Bank (or obliging them to accept Palestinian sovereignty).

deborah.gordon on "Two states for two peoples: solution or illusion? "

deborah.gordon — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:34:16 +0000

I couldn't agree more with Creelman. The idea of a Jewish state has come and gone, and it is this passing which is why leaders from Europe like Gordon Blair are running to try and save it. It won't work. Today, 20% of Israeli citizens are Palestinians who are not Jewish. They are not going anywhere, and their numbers are growing. It will not be long before they will be half the population of Israel. Then what will the Israeli government do? Put them in a sea of cantons like it has the West Bank? The U.S. government will support Israel no matter what it does--Israel could go in and mow down the Palestinians with F-16s, and the U.S. academy still wouldn't do anything, say anything, because its regents, boards of directors, administrators, legislators, do not believe in academic freedom or faculty governance and are allied with pro-Israeli donors, politicians, etc. And it's "liberal" America.

Fortunately, the rest of the world isn't America and interprets Israel based on its actions, not an overly sentimental view of a "Jewish" state. The one-state solution discussion, however, is occuring even inside of the U.S. and it will continue, because whether anyone likes it or not, demographics will have to addressed. When crunch time comes either Israel will finally draft a Constitution in which it states clearly that it is a racist fascist state, or it will have to recognize that you can't build a state on ethnic exclusivity, keep colonizing and trying to expel the native inhabitants, call yourself a democracy, and then stamp your feet and call the rest of the world "anti-Semites" for not allowing you to get away with it.

Not logged in Lawrence Efana on "Two states for two peoples: solution or illusion? "

Not logged in Lawrence Efana — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:28:38 +0000

This dimension of regional challenges is not any simple to cast oneself into. History, meanings, hardships and more than just dreams about "the way or ways out" have been our "lots" for a long time now. I would not hesitate putting Johan Galtung and his theory - one of his characteristically Nordic gifts: "Transcend and transform..." into context here.

As a university student in Sweden in the early 1970s, I still can recall a full text particularly of the history - a theme of balance course literature selection, which put the class to study and debate as group. We were students then in political science. Surely most of us are now in our late fifties and early sixties - long enough within the life span of the human being. We 'old' ones need not underestimate our responsibility to the 'young'! They need love and peace, can't people say enough is enough?

Again, I was in Florida for the Association of African Studies conference, when the news of Issac Rabin was read. Believe you me, I and many others wept openly and looked helpless! Diplomacy, meant to be a tool, thereafter turned weak! But after listening to the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, I could have a sound sleep, concentrating, contemplating and meditating for peace. That is not much said! Putting aside past efforts and modes of success and failure feelings, I dope the Prime Minister "John the Baptist" - the one preparing the way!

That is why I personally will end my comment, citing a paragraph in Tony Klug: "The pressing need at this point is for a serious, concerted global effort to resolve this quintessentially 20th-century conflict once and for all, based on two viable states and a comprehensive regional settlement. This will call for uncharted political resolution and creative mindsets on the part of the principal regional actors, and firm leadership at the international level - but it can be done. It will depend, above all, on the determination of the 'incoming' president of the United States and on his motivational and inspirational powers, for it is he who holds the master-keys to the last-chance saloon." Meditational and clairvoyant workers must continue. Thank you!

Lawrence Efana [Finland]

Creelman on "Two states for two peoples: solution or illusion? "

Creelman — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:24:02 +0000

This essay fails mainly because it lacks references to contemporary statements and research. It's lazy to argue on the basis of "in the past the PLO charter envisaged ... [and] there is little evidence or reason to suppose that Palestinians today ...". It seems perverse to refer to the dramatically accumulating "facts on the ground" and then say there is no reason to suppose that anyone's mind has changed about anything.

It makes no sense for an aged Briton to tell us what the Palestinian people need and yearn for. There are Palestinian writers and intellectuals. Our essayist ought to cite them. He could go wholly berserk and refer to actual surveys. The essay would be livelier and more informative.

Our British essayist then tells us, without references, what the Israeli Jews might feel: "an attempt to eradicate the Israeli state and its predominantly Jewish character is liable to revive the Jewish fear of genocide". Pretty wild stuff. Does he think that people who worry about "the Jewish character of the Israeli state" are simply not open to reason? And what is the agency that is going to "eradicate" the state? The international community and its pounding humanitarian interventions, or the popular will of the people in Israel-Palestine?

The writer seems to think it is a bad thing that there are different conceptions of how the two nations would share one state. Perhaps because it means he has to argue against all of them, and it's too much bother. Still this is what he came to do; he is not writing here about the advantages of splitting the country.

"Belgium and Canada, the two bi-national examples often cited ... are both fragile entities". They are enduring and prosperous entities too, mind. It's easy to see why they ought to inspire rather than discourage, so our writer moves quickly on to states which broke up, like Czechoslovakia. We recall that horror, he hopes.

It might be that the failure of a unitary state would cause bitterness, like a failed marriage can, but it would behoove our essayist to show that this is likely, as well as too high a price to pay for even trying. Still, he does make the alternative sound plausible: "A negotiated two-state agreement that puts Israeli and Palestinian societies on a more equitable constitutional footing, could give rise to closer horizontal relations and structural ties and to a gradual pooling of sovereignties where this is viewed as advancing their common interests." He has given this more thought than one might think.

The author says that time is running out for his idea of retaining a separate state just for Jews, but he doesn't say why. Perhaps it is that the Israeli state is demonstrating to the world the weakness in the idea of a Jewish state: the methodically organised brutality we are watching this state visit upon non-Jews.

Two states for two peoples, Tony Klug

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:16:19 +0000

Is it already too late for the "two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Is a "one-state solution" the realistic as well as alluring alternative, where the energies of those committed to a peaceful outcome should be invested?

Tony Klug is a special advisor on the middle east to the Oxford Research Group. He is the author of How peace broke out in the Middle East: a short history of the future (Fabian Society, 2007)

Also by Tony Klug in openDemocracy:

"The West Bank and Gaza Strip: an international protectorate?" (7 May 2003)

"Israel-Palestine: how peace broke out" (5 June 2007)

This article will also be published in the forthcoming edition of the Palestine-Israel Journal

These questions have a particular resonance for me, for as long ago as summer 1972 I explored these very options in a pamphlet that concluded that the two-state framework was the only logical and sustainable basis for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the interests of both peoples. So certain was I of its desirability and inevitability, that I admonished my publisher, the London-based Fabian Society, for delaying publication until January 1973, by which time, I suggested, this solution may already have been put into effect!

As it turned out, I was a little hasty both with that prognosis and with my warnings over the next few years that time was about to run out. Today, however, the prospects for such a settlement truly are in the "last-chance saloon", for reasons that are daily becoming more evident. But why should this be of concern if, waiting in the wings, is the increasingly fashionable one-state alternative? The simple answer is that this option (with the qualification that there needs to be a certain respectful caution in deeming it so, given the circumstances out of which it has emerged) is a fantasy - and, moreover, a dangerous fantasy, for it implies that the real alternative to two states is not perpetual conflict but some sort of harmonious, egalitarian utopia which miraculously circumvents a complex of intractable problems.

The pressing need at this point is for a serious, concerted, global effort to resolve this quintessentially 2oth-century conflict once and for all, based on two viable states and a comprehensive regional settlement. This will call for uncharted political resolution and creative mindsets on the part of the principal regional actors, and firm leadership at the international level - but it can be done. It will depend, above all, on the determination of the incoming president of the United States and on his motivational and inspirational powers, for it is he who holds the master-keys to the last-chance saloon.

Over the past four decades, two powerful, conflicting trends have been at work. On the one hand, the intellectual and political argument for two states has effectively been won at virtually every level. From a handful of advocates in the late 1960s, there now exists worldwide support for this outcome. Even Hamas has indicated its preparedness to do a deal based on the post-1967 borders. This would be a strange time indeed to abandon the whole idea.

On the other hand, even as the Israeli government bolsters its rhetorical commitment to two states, the feasibility of an authentic Palestinian state has been constantly chiselled away by the changing facts on the ground - the maze of settlements, bypass roads, military posts, forbidding barriers and the progressive isolation of Arab East Jerusalem from its Palestinian hinterland. There were around 5,000 settlers in the West Bank in the early 1970s; nowadays the figure is in the region of 250,000, or roughly double that number if East Jerusalem and environs are included. Already, according to United Nations figures, some 38% of West Bank land is controlled by the settlements and other Israeli infrastructure (although the populated, built-up areas of the settlements, according to the Israeli group Peace Now, take up no more than 2%).

Among openDemocracy's many articles on the Israel-Palestine conflict:

Eyal Weizman, "The politics of verticality" (April-May 2002) - an eleven-part project mapping Israel's three-dimensional control of the West Bank

Eyal Weizman, "Ariel Sharon and the geometry of occupation" - in three parts (September 2003)

Stephen Howe, "The death of Arafat and the end of national liberation" (18 November 2004)

Eric Silver, "Israel's political map is redrawn" (25 November 2005)

Jim Lederman, "Ariel Sharon and Israel's unique democracy" (12 January 2006)

Menachem Kellner, "Israel reverses gravity" (30 March 2006)

Eyad Sarraj, "The campaign that should never stop" (13 November 2006)

Khaled Hroub, "Palestine's argument: Mecca and beyond" (6 March 2007)

Laurence Louër, "Arabs in Israel: on the move" (20 April 2007)

Mary Kaldor & Mient Jan Faber, "Palestine's human insecurity: a Gaza report" (21 May 2007)

Fred Halliday, "Palestinians and Israelis: a political impasse" (5 June 2007)

Rosemary Bechler, "Palestinians under siege in the West Bank" (6 June 2007)

Volker Perthes, "Beyond peace: Israel, the Arab world, and Europe" (22 January 2008)

Jeroen Gunning, "Hamas: talk to them" (18 April 2008)

Avi Shlaim, "Israel at 60: the ‘iron wall' revisited" (8 May 2008) Yet not all "realities" are permanent. Sometimes they can be reversed, at least up to a point. There are precedents for such shifts - indeed, it was said after the 1967 war that severing the West Bank from the East Bank was unimaginable. But more ominously, what may soon be irreversible is the impact changing realities are slowly but surely having at a deeper level - on the Palestinian psyche.

A closer look

After years of agonised internal debate, Palestinian opinion in the West Bank and Gaza came to regard the two-state formula as the pragmatic solution to the conflict. More recently, however, a new mood is gathering - if only at the margins for now - in which pragmatism is starting to favour one state for both peoples, even if it means engaging in a bitter long-term struggle with uncertain consequences and reaching for an objective Palestinians themselves don't necessarily favour or truly believe is attainable. In short, there is a growing sense that they have no alternative. Yet this option does indeed (with the caution above in mind) warrant the description a "fantasy" or "illusion", for at least three compelling reasons.

First, there is a profound lack of visceral enthusiasm, currently and historically, among Palestinians and Israelis for one combined state for both peoples. On the contrary, such a prospect is widely viewed as deeply threatening. Their respective struggles - reflecting their respective histories - have been for national independence and self-determination in their own state.

Although in the past the PLO charter envisaged one "democratic secular" state of Palestine, it was explicitly to be "Arab" in character and would include only those Jews - defined exclusively in religious terms - who arrived before the "Zionist invasion" (variously interpreted as 1917 or 1948). In other words, it would include very few of them. There is little evidence or reason to suppose that Palestinians today are any more ready to drop their demands for national independence and self-determination and share common statehood instead with another people in a combined non-Arab (and non-Muslim) state. Is it even reasonable to expect this of them? What they desperately need and yearn for - and for which they are entitled to receive full support - is an end to occupation and for Palestinian sovereignty over the evacuated territories."‘One state" profoundly deflects from this vital goal.

In parallel, an attempt to eradicate the Israeli state and its predominantly Jewish character is liable to revive the Jewish fear of genocide, or minimally of discrimination and persecution, and meet with fierce resistance. It is hard to imagine Israeli Jews voluntarily sacrificing their hard-won national independence to become a minority again in someone else's land.

To put it another way, Israel/Palestine is not South Africa; nor is it Northern Ireland; nor is it directly analogous to a host of other international or historical trouble-spots. Each conflict has its own peculiar features and, for a solution to work, it needs to spring from the inside-out rather than be imported from the outside-in. South Africa and Northern Ireland, each in its own way, were essentially civil-rights struggles. Israel/Palestine is primarily a clash of two national movements (even if there is a heavy-duty civil-rights dimension as well) and any proposal that disregards either national imperative (let alone both of them) is incongruous and bound to fail.

Second, there have been numerous unsuccessful attempts in the region over the past fifty years to merge separate entities - in which Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, North Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Tunisia have all featured at various times. If such attempts failed abysmally among peoples who in some way perceived themselves as sharing a common language, culture, religion and a sense of history and destiny, on what ground would we anticipate a different outcome between two peoples who share none of the above traits and who have been bitter foes for the best part of a century? It may be a nice dream to believe it would somehow work, but a dangerous sentiment on which to build the future of millions of people and possibly the peace of the world.

Third, there is not just one but many versions of a united state and very little effort has been made to put flesh on the skeletons of any of them. It is one thing to obtain agreement on - and attract superficial support for - the high-flying rhetoric, but a lot of it falls away once it comes down to the substance. Depending on the proponent, "one state" could be unitary, federal, confederal, bi-national, democratic, secular, cantonal (Switzerland), multi-confessional (Lebanon), Islamic (Hamas), Arab (PLO charter) or Jewish (Greater Israel). Some of these terms are frequently used interchangeably even though many of them are mutually inconsistent, even fiercely contradictory. So it is up to the supporters of each option to take up the challenge of elaborating the detail of their particular proposal if they wish it to be taken seriously as an authentic alternative to two states. This is no time to hide behind clichés.

In particular, the proponents of a "secular democratic" state, will need to show how in practice its version will not be tantamount to the continuation of occupation under another name, will not perpetuate and exacerbate the existing economic and social imbalances, will not lead to the political domination of either people over the other, will not foster an "apartheid-style" entity and will not be treated with deep suspicion by other states in the region who may view authentic democracy and secularity - if this is what is meant - as alien and threatening. Crucially, they will need to explain how the national imperatives of both peoples will melt away. These are serious questions that cannot be glossed over.

A genuine "bi-national confederal" state - by giving expression to the collective identities - could in important respects be closer to a two-state model than to a unitary "secular democratic" state, but its supporters would need to show why it will be more robust than, say, Belgium and Canada, the two bi-national examples often cited in favourable comparison but which are both fragile entities, periodically in danger of dissolving into their national constituent parts. The fate of the multinational constructs of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia are not encouraging in this respect either.

On the other side of statehood

This discussion points to a conclusion with an ironic twist in its tail. On the one hand, an imposed unitary-state scenario that fails to reflect the wishes or accommodate the needs of both peoples could provoke a Palestinian secessionist movement and thus act as the unintended midwife of two separate, hostile states further down the line. On the other hand, a negotiated two-state agreement that puts Israeli and Palestinian societies on a more equitable constitutional footing, could give rise to closer horizontal relations and structural ties and to a gradual pooling of sovereignties where this is viewed as advancing their common interests.

In the past, two states were spoken of not as a "solution" but as an essential step in the quest for solutions to the many outstanding problems between Israelis and Palestinians. The Israelis already had their state. Palestinian statehood was the vital missing parameter. Similarly, two states were not necessarily seen as the end of the process. It would be up to the two peoples to determine, democratically and non-coercively, how they would want to shape their future constitutional relations. There have been many changes over the past few decades but these two imperatives are no less valid today than they were forty years ago (see Fred Halliday, "Palestinians and Israelis: a political impasse", 5 June 2007).

How the future will span out is of course yet to be seen, although no doubt it will all have been obvious in retrospect. Perhaps the most likely distant scenario for these two embattled peoples is some form of voluntary bi-national confederal (or conceivably federal) arrangement - possibly including Jordan and, later, maybe other states too - with each constituent element retaining its national identity and essential zone of sovereignty. One route to this eventual destination will cost countless lives and create ever more rancour. The other path will skip that stage by allowing developments between neighbouring Israeli and Palestinian states to evolve peacefully and take their natural course. If this opportunity is not seized while it still - just - exists, future generations will justifiably look back at those who failed to grasp it with deserved contempt.

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