MIDDLE EASTThe Two-State Solution: an Idea Whose Time Has Come?
The ‘two-state solution’ therefore appears as an idea whose time has come. It already figures prominently in all international deliberations on the ‘day after’ – when and if a relatively durable cease-fire is in place, allowing for relief to get to the population, the release of hostages, and a start to the hard work of reconstruction. There is, however, no simple path from where we are now to a viable Palestinian state.
The foreign ministers of the G20 group, made up of the world’s largest economies, including China and Russia, agree on very little these days. But when they met on 22 February there was, as the Brazilian host put it, ‘virtual unanimity in the two-state solution as the only solution to the [Arab-Palestinian] conflict.’ On this, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reported a ‘commonality’, while on behalf of the EU, Josep Borrell spoke of the strength of the consensus.
Everybody here, everybody, I haven’t heard anyone against it. There was a strong request for a two-state solution. … There is not going to be peace … not going to be sustainable security for Israel unless the Palestinians have a clear political prospect to build their own state.
The Israeli government dislikes the idea but those countries it needs to manage the process of reconstruction and security in the Gaza Strip are demanding that it commits to this policy. Hamas has no Israeli state at all in its vision for the future (that is what the ‘from the river to sea’ chant is all about) though in the past it has suggested as a matter of expedience that it could live with two states. But for now the future of the Gaza Strip is being taken out of its hands.
The ‘two-state solution’ therefore appears as an idea whose time has come. It already figures prominently in all international deliberations on the ‘day after’ – when and if a relatively durable cease-fire is in place, allowing for relief to get to the population, the release of hostages, and a start to the hard work of reconstruction. There is, however, no simple path from where we are now to a viable Palestinian state. It requires more than a declaration. Once one is established it must succeed and that will require firm foundations. In practice, if Gaza is to be rebuilt and the West Bank protected, Western and Arab governments will need to accept that they will have a substantial role to play in this process for some time.
