France and Saudi Arabia are hosting a UN conference next week, in which they will attempt to breathe life into a long-dead body: the two-state solution. In theory, their goal is commendable: Israel is committing genocide. The world has grown ever more disgusted. This is a vain attempt to do something either to stop it; or barring that, to impose a steep price on Israel, by creating a Palestinian state.
The conference will likely set up conditions for Israel to meet. One of which would undoubtedly be agreeing to a ceasefire. If it refuses to satisfy them, the options would be to impose sanctions on Israel; to cancel trade and research agreements; and finally, to recognize a Palestinian state.
But organizers have already bowed to US and Israeli pressure and diluted the goals of the meeting. It will no longer take immediate measures to recognize Palestine. This, in effect, renders the event toothless and plays into Israel’s hands. Its goal is to stave off pressure through delay and obfuscation. It seems to have succeeded:
The change to the aims of the conference,…marks a retreat from an earlier vision that it would mark a joint declaration of recognition of Palestine as a state by a large group of countries, including permanent UN security council members France and the UK.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president and a co-sponsor of th…conference…has declared recognition of Palestine as “a moral duty and political requirement”, but French officials briefing their Israeli counterparts this week reassured them the conference will not be the moment for recognition.
…“The recognition of a Palestinian state remains on the table, but not as a product of the conference. This will remain a bilateral subject between states.”
Why would anyone care what Israel thinks, considering the genocide it’s committing? We are only rewarding such criminality by catering to its interests. This is precisely what allows Israel to feel it will never be held accountable (and it hasn’t). Further, what are those nations supporting two states getting in return fur this renunciation of their objectives? What compromise has it agreed to? Or are you just guving away the store?
If any such goal of creating a Palestinian state is to be realized, nations must ignore Israeli interests and pressure. Paying any attention to them is a formula for failure. The UN meeting has now set itself up for precisely that outcome.
This represents the reduced scope of the conference:
The UK is overseeing the humanitarian working party and other working groups cover reconstruction, economic viability of a Palestinian state, promoting respect for international law, narratives for peace and “peace day”, an imagining of the benefits to both sides from a peaceful settlement.
All touchy, feel-good ideas, but merely performative. They give the impression of action without its substance. This has been the problem with the two-state solution for decades. Nations have mouthed platitudes without doing the hard work of making it reality. This has turned the concept into a meaningless, even toxic phrase.
Though over 100 nations recognize Palestine, the major European nations (UK, France, Germany, Italy, etc) do not. If they broke with their decades-old policy of refusing to recognize Palestine, it would strike a heavy blow against Israel’s own rejectionist approach. This no longer seems an option.
Palestine, which currently enjoys partial membership in the UN, could move for full membership. That would add another element of legitimacy to its campaign for international recognition. Israel, in turn, would face increasing isolation, including the loss of its main European allies.
But ultimately, the conference will likely fail to achieve its goal: a two-state solution. As long as Israel controls the West Bank and Gaza, there can be no such state without its agreement. There isn’t a hope in hell any Israeli government, whether the current one or one led by the Opposition, will accept a Palestinian state. To do so would require withdrawal from territory seized since 1967. That’s unlikely give it is engaged in wholesale elimination of Palestinian presence in both the West Bank and Gaza.
This encapsulates how problematic and contradictory the event’s goals are:
…Governments in Europe increasingly doubt Israel has any intention to ease its control over Palestinians and see recognition as a possible lever to force a change of thinking among Israeli officials.
How can you force an implacable country to change its thinking by a declaration, unless you are willing to enforce it through cold, hard, decisive action? This doesn’t seem in the cards, given how attentive organizers have been to Israel.
There cannot be a Palestinian state without Palestinians. Israeli policy is to eliminate them either via genocide (Gaza) or ethnic cleansing (West Bank). Are those gathered at the UN prepared to act aggressively to enforce these conditions on Israel? I have my doubts.
There is only one viable path to statehood: international bodies like the UN or NATO, and its member states forcing Israel to agree. They can do this through a sanctions regime such as the one imposed on apartheid South Africa; or restricting Israel’s pursuit of its regional interests. It currently pursues them with virtually no opposition from its US or European allies. If instead they placed roadblocks in Israel’s path, it would radically transform the regional power dynamic.
LA Distraction: Attack on Iran Imminent
Blogosphere on fire 🔥 past hours.
Huckabee: a future Palestinian state could be formed out of land from Muslim countries rather than in Judea and Samaria.
The two state solution seems a wonderful idea, but what would a Palestinian state look like? Has anybody described what sovereignty for Palestine really means?
Most experts accept that the current borders are not viable, and a return to the 1967 or the 1948 borders would not be accepted by Israel. In addition the meaning of “sovereignty”, what a Palestine government can do within its borders, have never been discussed, as far as I am aware. Would the Palestine government have the right to a military force, tanks, jet fighters, naval warships???
Is anybody discussing these issues? Does anybody think Israel would fit in with the dictionary meaning of sovereignty of Palestine? Would America fit in with it?
I am baffled. I simply do not understand how or why intelligent people would even waste time discussing a “Two-State solution”, it is as realistic as a discussion on the establishment of a Native American state within the city of New York. “Two-State” is a dead concept unless the Palestinian “state” consists of another large open-air prison like Gaza and that is no path to peace.
Where and HOW would it be established? Let’s just look at some issues…
Israeli Jews are not about to go back to even the 1967 borders; they are not likely to evacuate any settlements on the West Bank either. Gaza is flattened along with about 200,000 Palestinian men, women and children, most of whom are still buried under the rubble.
Israel insists on complete _defense”) military control over air space and the “right” to “hot pursuit”, Israelis will still demand the water they have been taking from Palestinian territories for decades and it will want veto over any foreign relationships, business or otherwise. No military for Palestinian “state”. Transit through Israel from West Bank to Gaza “will be negotiated”.
Yeah, I can see how successful the Palestinian “state” will be!
Nothing is going to change until the US stops supplying Israel with unlimited weapons and money, along with Europe; that is a difficult thing to imagine when there are so many in US Congress blindly support Israel (even now with Genocide in full swing). THHEN Israeli Jews will have to face the fact that the only way for them to continue to live with security and dignity is to have ONE state that includes Christian and Muslim (Palestinians) as equal citizens. Until then, Israeli Jews can happily slaughter away the people who subconsciously remind them of their Shoah survivor ancestors.
The concept of ethnic partition – the two state ‘solution’ – has always been toxic. It’s just a euphemism for apartheid. (link to bureauofcounterpropaganda.blogspot.com)
As for recognition of The State Of Palestine leading to, or ‘building momentum towards a two-state solution’ (link to theguardian.com), it demonstrates deep confusion. 147 countries already recognise Palestine and the UN in 2012 elevated the state of the state of Palestine from ‘non-member observer entity’ to ‘non-member observer state’. Even more countries recognise the state of Israel, a full fledged member of the UN. So there are already two recognised states. If the objective of the two state solution is for there to be two states, it’s done. But nobody actually thinks that. They must not believe that the entity they aimed to recognise is actually a state. In any case, with all the talk of ‘reforming the PA’ and disarming Hamas, it’s clear that whatever Palestinian state they envisage will definitely not enjoy the right to self determination. (link to bureauofcounterpropaganda.substack.com) So nothing actually changes, one way or another. And in any case, now that Ambassador Huckabee has uttered the quiet part out loud, we know a Palestinian state in historic Palestine is off the table. (link to theguardian.com)
Apart from that, under current circumstances, a call to recognise The State Of Palestine entails endorsing ethnic partition in principle and the state of Israel as a Jewish state in particular, as well as legitimising the quisling PA. (link to bureauofcounterpropaganda.substack.com)