The one-state solution is a resolution that aims to bring together Israelis and Palestinians in a single, federal, secular and democratic state, where both peoples would have their fundamental rights guaranteed. An old reflection which could return to the political scene in the Middle East.
After more than two and a half months of war between Israel and Hamas, peace seems far away. However, several voices are raised to think about the “after”. And among the avenues explored, one is that of a single and secular State. An idea at least as old as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which explores different administrative forms according to its defenders, but offers a similar perspective: cohabitation between Palestinians and Israelis on the same territory and with the same rights.
The one-state solution has been advocated for a long time. On the Palestinian political scene, it was the idea of a single Arab (and not binational) state that prevailed. “It was written and defended in the 1960s, explain Rula Shadeed, co-director of the Palestinian Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD), an NGO based in Ramallah. “When the Palestinian national movement was structured and parties emerged, most parties, including Fatah, thought of the liberation of Palestine as a whole, rejecting European Jewish immigration and the Zionist project; and therefore by defending a democratic state for all: Jews, Muslims, Christians. The idea was to build a secular Arab state, anchored in its regional environment.”she specifies.
A perspective abandoned in favor of the two-state solution
Another approach was that put forward by “a current of binationalists among the Jews of Palestine before the creation of Israel”explains Thomas Vescovi, independent researcher in contemporary history and member of the editorial committee of the platform Yaani. Being a minority until then, the latter wanted to be part of a common state with specific rights to negotiate for them, according to the researcher. “The Second World War and the arrival of Holocaust survivors completely changed the situation”, he adds. After the creation of Israel in 1948, among the Jewish population, binationalists represented a tiny minority compared to those who defended the establishment of a Jewish home.
From the end of the 1960s, it was the famous two-state solution (one Jewish, one Arab) which prevailed in political negotiations. “Particularly after the 1967 war, known as the Six-Day War, the Palestinians noted that the de facto state of Israel was here to stay and that they would have to review their position”, explains Thomas Vescovi. This led to the peace process and the various agreements, including those of Oslo in 1993. It was at this time that Yasser Arafat, then leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), recognized the right to ‘Israel to exist in “peace and safety” with, in return, the recognition of the PLO as the legitimate authority of the Palestinian people.
However, this two-state resolution has become illusory for many observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly due to the expansion of settlements, illegal under international law, in the West Bank. The latter make the 1967 borders promised for the division into two distinct states impossible. Additionally, approximately 5% of the Israeli population lives in the settlements today, including several ministers in the current Israeli government.
The one-state trail
Currently, the one-state solution, like that of the federal state, has almost no political representation either in Israel or within the Palestinian Authority, observers agree. Worse, “the end of the Olso Accords, the second Intifada as well as the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu contributed to the radicalization of actors where each will consider that the other is no longer legitimate to be there”specifies Thomas Vescovi, who analyzes that the current war confirms this impossible dialogue and the risk of anchoring the spiral of hatred and revenge.
However, campaigns from civil society testify to the rise of this political resolution of the conflict within civil societies: “One Democratic State” is a campaign launched from Haifa, Israel, in 2018, by Jewish, Palestinian and Israeli intellectuals and academics. They propose a reflection around equality of rights and the sharing of the same territory. “A Land for All”on the other hand, offers the alternative to “two states and one homeland” with a federal system where certain institutions would be shared. Fifteen points, quite accomplished for some, are presented as lines of action for future peace.
In 2020, according to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), a single democratic state was supported by 44% of Palestinians in Israel, 23% of Palestinians and 20% of Jewish Israelis. “On the Israeli side, there is no poll yet,” assures Shlomo Sand, Israeli historian and author of a forthcoming book, One state, two peoples (Threshold). The historian is also concerned to see that “civic movements that want to fight against the occupation and for a binational state are often hindered in Israel”.
A federal and secular state
But that doesn’t discourage him from pushing the idea. According to him, it is a federal legal form that would be the most likely to achieve a common future and escape from chaos: “I plead for a solution like in Switzerland, Belgium or Canada, for example, with great political autonomy in each group and above, a unifying form.”
This federal state, defended by the historian, would be secular rather than multi-confessional, like Lebanon for example: “I think of this state as a secular state because I do not believe in Israel as a Jewish home, explains the co-author of How the Jewish people were invented (Flammarion). The challenge for me is to recognize the Israeli identity which has a common language and culture, but which is not necessarily Jewish.”
“A federal or confederal state is the only way not to deny everyone’s identity”
Shlomo Sand, Israeli historianat franceinfo
The historian is also convinced that the solution of a secular federal state that he defends would be for the Israelis “the only way to continue living in the Middle East”.
For Rula Shadeed, “the main issue is not yet the administrative form that this State can take but rather to determine what is the social contract and the model of society throughout the territory. Then, there will necessarily be a process of decolonization, of repair and justice to achieve real equality”. The objective being to achieve recognition of the collective and national rights of the Palestinians “because today the right to self-determination as a people is denied”she adds.