The division between Palestinians and Israelis, the partition of disputed land so that the two peoples coexist without living together, has traditionally been the driving force of all diplomatic initiatives in the zone. In 1917, the Balfour Declaration (a formal declaration of British Government support for the Zionist project in the form of a letter from the Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, to Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild) said: “His Majesty’s Government welcomes the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people (…), it being clearly understood that nothing will be done that may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status of Jews in any other country.”.
In 1947, the UN approved the Partition plan, which recommended dividing British mandate Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, leaving Jerusalem and Bethlehem under international control. The Arabs refused to hand over part of the land to the Jewish emigrants coming largely from Europe and in 1948 the war broke out, which the newborn won. State of Israel. Several decades and wars later (1967, 1973), the Oslo process in the 1990s took the same approach. The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was considered the “embryo” of the Palestinian State and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), once considered a terrorist organization, came to be treated as the only interlocutor of the Palestinian people and their fight, a movement of national liberation.
Oslo went bankrupt, the second intifada, The ANP collapsed and the PLO fell into irrelevance, but not the idea of separation and the creation of a Palestinian State. The solution of two states living in peace and security side by side was the diplomatic initiative led by George Bush and implemented by Madrid Quartet to end the bloodshed of the second Intifada and continues to be the solution to the conflict sponsored by the international community, as Pedro Sánchez has reiterated on his trip to the area. Actually, The two-state solution is a diplomatic zombie, a self-deception which is used to disguise the nonexistence of a project to end the conflict.
Why are the two states unviable?
1. British Mandate Palestine It has been a single political reality since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Israel dominates the entire territory and governs the population. Depending on the areas and the origin of the citizens, different legislation applies: broadly speaking, a democratic state in Israel, a non-internationally recognized annexation system in East Jerusalem and a military administration in the occupied territories. The ANP exercises very limited autonomy in Gaza and specific areas of the West Bank. The two states would involve Israel giving up this control and reversing the colonization that since 1967 has turned the West Bank into an archipelago of disconnected Palestinian enclaves. The extent of colonization makes a movement of this type impossible.
2. In Israel is the majority since his victory in the intifada a vision of the conflict contrary to negotiating and any cession. The concept of peace, identified with Labor, was discredited at the beginning of the century and today the most extreme right-wing coalition in the history of the country governs. His vision is not that of the two states, but the opposite: more colonization and treating the Palestinian population in their enclaves as a security problem to be repressed. Gaza today is the example.
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3. Palestinian society, destructured, divided and impoverished by decades of occupation, He has no leadership. The ANP is an ineffective structure and the PLO, an instrument of the past. Hamas offers no alternative but violence. No one has the legitimacy to lead a hypothetical negotiation.
This portrait is not post 7-O, it is the ‘status quo’ well known for years that daily generates a vast network of violence and periodically causes blood baths. Talking about the two states is like saying nothing and, therefore, it does not contribute anything to devise a solution that, if it exists, is no longer viable under the traditional prism of partition.