Trump’s
One-State Option
By Neve
Gordon
February 17, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
-
Following his
meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu,
President Donald Trump declared
that the US would no longer insist on a
two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine
conflict. Decades of US diplomacy were thus cast
aside in an instant. “I’m looking at two-state
and one-state” formulations, Mr. Trump said
during a White House news conference; “I like
the one that both parties like. I’m very happy
with the one that both parties like. I can live
with either one.”
Although Palestinian representative
Saeb Erekat was infuriated
by Trump’s proclamation, and Nikki Haley, the US
Ambassador to the UN, immediately
retracted the statement,
averring that Washington “absolutely” supported
a two-state solution to the conflict, Trump’s
pronouncement can actually be understood as a
positive development.
Even
though Trump does not appear to support
Palestinian statehood or basic Palestinian
rights, the abandonment of the two-state
paradigm, which has informed years of political
negotiations (from the Madrid conference in
1991, through Oslo, Camp David, Taba, and
Annapolis), has the potential to bring about a
new and long overdue kind of debate in the US
and Europe.
On the ground, Israel currently controls the
area between the Jordan Valley and the
Mediterranean Sea, indicating that de-facto
there already is only one state. Moreover, past
negotiations based on the two state paradigm
have allowed
Israel to continue bolstering its hold on
Palestinian land,
where currently an estimated 600,000 Jewish
settlers live. The two-state solution has become
no more than a chimera used by Israel to sustain
the status quo while fortifying its colonial
project. In other words, the so-called two state
solution has become an effective tool of
domination.
By
changing the paradigm, the parameters for
discussion will also have to change. If within
the two-state framework the major points of
contention involve Israel’s full withdrawal to
the 1967 border, Jerusalem’s status and
division, and the acknowledgement of the right
of return of all Palestinians, discussions
revolving around the one-state framework
will—sooner or later—have to focus on the shift
from apartheid to democratization.
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Within
the area controlled by Israel there are
currently two legal systems operating, one for
Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens, and the
other for the occupied Palestinian inhabitants.
Such a situation, according to any reasonable
definition, is apartheid. Consequently, only
after the one-state paradigm is accepted will
the important questions come to the fore and
discussions about how to establish a form of
power-sharing governance among Israeli Jews and
Palestinians based on the liberal democracy
model of the separation of powers finally
emerge.
Unlike
Jewish Israelis, many Palestinians have already
come to realize that even though they are
currently under occupation, Israel’s
rejectionist stance will unwittingly lead to a
bi-national solution. And while Netanyahu is
still thousands of miles behind the current
juncture, it is high time for an American and
European Awakening, one that will force world
leaders to support a viable democratic future
for the 13 million Jews and Palestinians living
between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean
Sea. And while it is extremely unlikely that
Trump himself will take the lead in such a move,
he has, nonetheless, opened the door precisely
to such a development.
Neve Gordon
is a Leverhulme Visiting Professor in the
Department of Politics and International Studies
and the co-author of
The Human Right to
Dominate.
This
piece was first published at
Counterpunch
