The Two-State Solution Is Dead — Long Live the Two-State Solution
Did the Palestinians groan for a state? Did they plead to be lifted from the dung heap and raised from the dust? No. What they did was celebrate every watershed atrocity from 9/11 to Oct 7.
Enigmas do come wrapped in mysteries. But really. First the United Kingdom, along with countries of that provoking sort, recognized pie in the sky “Palestine” as a country. Now a member of Britain’s government has punished Israel for aborting the newly born Palestine.
So what’s it to be — real or unreal?
Recognizing a country with no borders, no elected government, no economy, and no way of standing on its own feet was manic to begin with. Now the European Union’s foreign minister compounds the enigma by calling on member countries to join Britain’s trade ban on Jewish communities in what they call the “West Bank” and Israel, keeping the name from Roman rule, calls “Judea and Samaria.”
President Trump won’t tolerate this. To him it is obvious that recognizing Palestine is a reward for terror.
And that is where things stand with the creaky “Two-State Solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With plans to construct new settlements in area E1 (to complicate name calling) Israel has given the West a new excuse to boycott the Jews and Palestinians new impetus for the brutal violence that always defined their identity.
But this grim yet ironic picture conceals the real kicker. Ever since Israel’s own 911 — the Oct 7 atrocity — Israelis can’t stomach the Two State Solution. And thus join the Palestinian Arabs who never could stomach the concept.
It is entirely fair to say that Israel tried and retried the peace process route to a Palestinian state which the world believes will solve the conflict. No go. Essentially it remains in 2026 what it was in 1947: the Jews said Yes and the Arabs said No.
It is undeniable that Arab blood boils at the very thought of two states living side by side in harmony.
No one would know that better than Hussein Agha and Robert Malley. The book Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine tells about their decades of effort, singly and together, promoting Palestinian statehood.
Boiling blood indeed: the authors write that “October 7 was neither uniquely Hamas nor distinctively Islamist. It was Palestinian through and through.”
So what is it the United Kingdom and Europe want from Israel? Their pet Pals never wanted to build a state of their own. They only wanted the Jews gone from their midst. In November 2008 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered up the 1967 borders — the “Auschwitz borders” — with East Jerusalem for the capital. Once again, “No” was the answer. If that suicidal offer was not good enough no offer will ever be enough.
To cut to the quick, the idea of two states for two people does not meet the aspirations of either people. The Solution is dead, long live The Solution.
Yet the resolve of Ed Miliband, Foreign Secretary in Britain’s new Andy Burnham government, is unwavering. “The E1 project risks making a Palestinian state unviable.”
Miliband swore that never will he “acquiesce in the destruction of the two-state solution.”
There you go: the “never say die” mania.
Much of Europe has caught the psychosis big time. Some 20 countries, including France, Germany, Italy, the EU, and Australia view Israel’s conduct vis-à-vis buggering a Palestinian state as nothing short of criminal.
What is criminal is the bald faced falsehood in their joint statement condemning the E1 project in the “Occupied West Bank.” What also is criminal is Ed Miliband worried to death that Jewish settlements in E1 will “harm the territorial contiguity of the Palestinian territories.”
Indignant politicians of his ilk give Israel the eye treatment and say, there goes a serial breaker of international law. Yet they are the people in glass houses who shouldn’t throw stones.
The real estate they call, “Occupied Palestinian Territories” could not be further from being international law. Indeed “Occupation” and “Palestinian Territory” happen to be utter nonsense.
I proved as much through different lenses: political, historical and logical. My efforts were not called for because back in 2012 Prime Minister Netanyahu tasked three top legal minds to investigate the legality of Jewish settlements in the “West Bank.”
No one can dispute that the 89 page analysis is about law and not politics. It sidelines the peace process and also Israeli government pledges to the international community not to create new settlements. The team looked at Israel’s obligation under international and domestic law and nothing besides. The analysis was conclusive: the laws of occupation are not applicable to Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria.
Israelis have the legal right to settle in Judea and Samaria and the establishment of settlements cannot, in and of itself, be considered illegal,
Hence (1) war records turn up nothing to support “Occupation” and “Palestinian Territories” and (2) Statutes also turn up nothing. There really is no Palestinian territory for Israel to occupy.
The latest of moves to ban Jewish products has everything to do with the politics of hate and nothing to do with morality. What Europe and Britain are doing amount to introducing a blatant backdoor to impose Nazi style boycotts of Jewish businesses.
Over and above slandering Israel as occupier of “Palestinian Territories” (which are neither occupied nor Palestinian) a quite laughable falsehood crops up. The Palestinian Territories, declares a joint statement from many countries, are “home to millions of Palestinians striving for self-determination and statehood.”
Heehaw. Those “millions of Palestinians” are fundamentally preoccupied with eliminating the Jewish state rather than building one of their own.
Certainly, Florida Congressman Randy Fine was unimpressed. Companies complying with Britain’s Israel sanctions, he posted, will be barred from doing business with state and local governments.
“Florida is one of Britain’s largest trading partners. They should understand that their vanity project in support of Muslim terror could cost them billions of dollars.”
Muslim terror and Palestinians attract each other like honey attracts bees.
After the 9/11 attacks, there was video footage of celebrations in the West Bank and Gaza. Sweets and goodies were being handed out. Yasser Arafat’s spokesperson, Hanan Ashrawi vehemently denied the widespread celebrations that our lying eyes had watched live. Reuters and AP filmed the videos and their cameramen were violently attacked for so doing.
As for the Palestinian Authority, it condemned the attacks but took the occasion to censor the media through scare tactics. Arafat’s Cabinet secretary spoke menacingly in warning that he couldn’t “guarantee the life” of cameramen if they broadcast footage of the 9/11 celebrations in Nablus. A Norwegian research institute, the FAFO Foundation, published a poll in 2005 that found that 65 percent of Palestinians supported “Al Qaeda’s bombings in America and Europe.”
Support for Oct. 7 was higher. In the immediate aftermath around 72 percent of Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza welcomed Hamas doing what it did. Thereafter the approval level never fell below 50 percent. No wonder that even Israeli leftists have lost their taste for the Palestinian state the West madly desires.
There are more important things for Western leaders than the peace process. They love media attention, negotiations, swanky visits, noble declarations, peace summits. Making a Palestinian state viable takes long hard work which is unrewarding.
“This is what we are witnessing in the new wave of ritually recognizing the non-existent state of Palestine. The message to Palestinians is clear:
What you need to do to get your state recognized is nothing. No reform, no institution building, no democracy, no defeat of terrorist groups, no competent government. All of that will happen magically in the Palestinian state once it comes into existence. The use of brutal and inhuman violence will bring some nice rewards, while Israel’s reactions will bring it punishment.
Elliot Abrams is bang on. Without Oct 7, Macron, Albanese, Carney, Miliband and co would not today be punishing Israel for blocking the fairy tale state.
“A Palestinian state must be recognized immediately without negotiations between it and Israel, and without its having achieved any of the normal prerequisites for statehood.”
President Trump won’t tolerate this. To him it is obvious that recognizing Palestine is a reward for terror.
Israelis, much to the distaste of the international community, refuse to commit suicide. Michael Oren in “Farewell to the “Two-State Solution’ Delusion” observes that,
Since the massacres of October 7, 2023, the majority of Israelis view a Palestinian state as a dangerous reward for terror. Nobody knows what that state would look like, who would run it, or whether it would be democratic and peaceful or Islamic and jihadist. Nobody can adduce evidence that the Palestinians are capable of maintaining a nation-state.
Are those proposing a Palestinian state being antisemitic? They certainly believe that Israel must return to 1967 borders, no more than the armistice lines drawn at the end of the War of Independence in 1948 — borders that Israel’s famed UN Ambassador Abba Eban called “Auschwitz borders” and former IDF chief and Israeli Prime minister called “practically indefensible.”
So yes, sticky supporters of the Two-State Solution are, whether consciously or not, Jew-haters deluxe.
READ MORE from Steve Apfel:
Trump’s Ceasefire Trap: Iran, Gaza, and the Politics of Peace
What the Fauci Diaries Reveal About America’s COVID Response
Rubio’s War on the International Criminal Court
Steve Apfel is an authority on anti-Zionism and a widely published author.