As the war in Gaza drags on, the Biden administration and other world leaders are calling for a political resolution that would revive the process for a two-state solution.
But is an independent Palestinian state still possible? Phyllis Bennis — an IPS Middle East expert, international adviser to Jewish Voice for Peace, and author of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer — joined Al Jazeera to discuss.
Phyllis argued that the two-state blueprint was flawed from the beginning. “The kind of ‘state’ that was being talked about for the Palestinians was never really a Palestinian state,” she told the network. “It would be an entity that lacked control of its own borders, of its own water, of its own airspace, its electrical grid, self defense… It was not designed to be an equal state with the state of Israel.”
After years of Israeli settlement growth in the West Bank — and with Israel’s current far-right government dead-set against Palestinian sovereignty — even that limited state may no longer be viable. “As an analyst, I don’t think it’s viable any longer because there’s simply no land left,” Phyllis said. “What we’re hearing is now a much more explicit call for acknowledging the reality of the Israeli legal system, which so many in the world now identify as an apartheid system.”
Phyllis concluded it’s not the number of states that’s important — nor for the United States to decide — but instead a just resolution for everyone who lives in the region. As an American, Phyllis said,, “I don’t think I have any right to say whether” the two-state solution is “a good thing or a bad thing. That’s for people who live in that land, Palestinians and Israelis, to decide.”
“What we want is equality. If it’s one state, equality for all within the one state. If it’s two states, equality within both states and between both states.”