IT’S WAY PAST TIME TO DISCARD THE “TWO STATE SOLUTION” MANTRA AS USELESS, COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE AND DANGEROUS
Dr. Seth Ward
Below is a slightly edited version of a post about this topic from October 5, 2012. I’ve done only light editing for clarity of this piece now.
In this piece, I argued that the “Two State Solution” is a misleading phrase, confusing outcome with solution. Please note that I am not arguing for or against the emergence of an Arab State called Palestine alongside the State of Israel and truly at peace with the State of Israel—which is how the “Two State Solution” phrase is often meant by those who use it. While I in fact have some ideas about whether this outcome is good or bad, or achievable, or how or whether to achieve it, that is not the point of this essay. Therefore I make no statements about these issues nor should this essay or my 2012 essay be construed as doing so.
Focus instead on this point: seeing “a two-state solution” as a solution rather than a possible outcome is wrongheaded and unhelpful. The slogan’s definition of “Two States” as a “solution” has moreover proven to be dangerous: it does not seem to have had any positive outcome either in terms of better preparedness for an Arab State that would live in peace alongside Israel, or even just long-term reduction of terror or military responses. Calls for “A Two State Solution” or “The Two State Solution” to “solve” hostilities between Israel and Arabs or to solving “the Middle East problem” have clearly not succeeded. Indeed, this phrase has proven to be a disaster. This terminology has outlived its usefulness. It’s time to change this mantra.
Even if your goal is the emergence of an Arab State in the former British Mandate for Palestine (as it was on May 13, 1948), why use a slogan or “brand” that clearly has not worked on little bit in the past few decades?
In the years since 2012, I have only grown more convinced that the mantra is dangerous. It presents a false idea that creating a second State is itself the solution (even if technically one could argue that it calls for a solution leading to a second state rather than envisioning that state as itself being the solution). The slogan totally avoids defining just what problem is to be solved by this solution. Of course, that is its beauty—people can see the problem to be solved any way they see fit. But more important, that is also its tragic flaw, a flaw that has proven deadly over and over again.
In the business world, a brand that has not achieved results would be modified or completely jettisoned. The mantra of a Two-State Solution has come close to desired results from time to time, but these near successes have usually quickly turned to failures. It’s time to discard this tired phrase. Without doing so, I do not think there is any hope of peace.
The original essay can be found here: https://drsethward.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/the-two-state-result-is-not-the-same-as-the-t/ and is reproduced below with minor editing.
Seth Ward
January 8, 2024
This piece was written Sept. 14 2012 in response to a posting by Don Ellis:
http://peaceandconflictpolitics.com/2012/09/14/procon-one-state-or-two-states/, which was a copy of a posting at Procon: http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000632. This link is no longer active, but Don Elis’s copy is.
The ProCon post presented brief arguments, pro and con, responding to the “Two State Solution,” signed by Moshe Ya’alon (con) and Ziad Asali (pro), and unsigned pro and con arguments about the One State Solution.
One problem with the approach of all these statements is that there appears (to me at least) to be a false binary here. In a very important way, the Pro and Con excerpts can be harmonized by readers wishing to do so, just by saying that many of those involved, if not most, agree about the likely eventual emergence of an independent state called “Palestine” alongside Israel. The author of the “con” argument, Yaalon, would appear to agree as well, as long as this State was prepared to recognize Israel as a Jewish State, and to live in peace and harmony.
In fact, the “two state solution,” as usually articulated, includes “the peace and harmony” idea, and it might be said that this argument for or against the “two states” boils down not to whether there should be a State of Palestine, but whether the issues raised by the “con” side can be solved at all, and if so whether the “two state solution” can solve them.
In my humble opinion, the nomenclature may be part of the problem rather than part of the solution of the problem.
I think some of those who support the “two state solution” really think in exactly those terms: the creation of a Palestinian State will provide the actual solution to the “Palestine Question.” Many readers familiar with the history of Political Zionism will recognize a kind of parallel with Theodore Herzl’s thinking of sovereignty as the simple solution to Antisemitism. On the other hand, many who accept the emergence of an Arab State—indeed, welcome it as not only inevitable but ideal—actually endorse a “two state result” rather than a “two state solution.”
I think there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the mere creation or existence of a sovereign state, even a democratic one, does not alone solve all the problems it was meant to solve. One must only look at such entities as the Weimar Republic, or post-colonial/post-imperial states in Asia and Africa and for that matter in the Former Soviet Union, or to Southern Sudan—itself a highly significant partition of Sudan, a largely Muslim state. Certainly one can adduce Israel as an example: it did not entirely provide the solution of the Jewish Problem and anti-Semitism, as envisioned by Herzl. The “Two State Result” or some other nomenclature which implies that a “solution” is not automatically implied strikes me as the better approach.
As for the false binary: it’s false because this debate is between slogans or broad ideas–not really an “up or down” between specific propositions. My colleague Menachem Kellner used to talk about the great distinction between “belief in” and “belief that,” and this debate often seems to me to have the problems attendant to the “belief in” paradigm: people “believe in” a “two state solution” but problems arise when they have to express their belief that this or that specific element will have a specific result.
To conclude: I am not sure that the arguments pro and con for “a two state solution” or “a one state solution” are really to the point. They express belief in a concept, or binary choices about one or another very specific plan, with flaws always raised by the other side.
Since there have been many years of discussing all sorts of “two-state” solutions and plans, perhaps this suggests that a “two state result” may well be the outcome–rather than the solution–and confusing outcome with solution may indeed be part of the problem.
Seth Ward
September 2012
Coffeecups 