By now, in the context of Israel and Palestine, you will have heard the term “two-state solution” so many times that your brain has learnt to file it automatically in the meaningless basket.
In February, the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, voted in support of a resolution moved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, objecting to unilateral international recognition of a Palestinian state. The context was the political push in numerous countries to recognise Palestine as a break from the prevailing two-state position, which Netanyahu was anxious to head off.
That left the status quo ostensibly in place. But last Thursday, the Knesset put an explicit full stop at the end of the sentence, with a resolution (passed 68-9) that it “firmly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan [river]”.
The rationale was clear: “The establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the land of Israel would pose an existential danger to the state of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilise the region … [it] will be a reward for terrorism and will only encourage Hamas and its supporters to see this as a victory, thanks to the massacre of October 7, 2023, and a prelude to the takeover of jihadist Islam in the Middle East”.
Where to now?
It’s difficult to see how Australia, or Israel’s other allies, can avoid recognising the consequences of this formal change to Israel’s position. It means that negotiations for a two-state solution are dead, because one side has now rejected its previously agreed outcome.
They can avoid it, of course: it is just diplomacy as usual to pretend that things are what they clearly are not. But adding to the degree of difficulty for Australia is the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last Friday, declaring Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem since 1967 illegal, along with findings of illegal repression tantamount to apartheid.
The ICJ also declared that member states are obliged to take steps to enforce its ruling, putting pressure on countries like Australia to consider sanctions, arms embargos and other direct measures against Israel.
Australia’s formal policy is that “we are committed to a two-state solution in which Israel and a future Palestinian state coexist, in peace and security, within internationally recognised borders”. The position is bipartisan between the major parties.
It includes weasel words, of course — “in peace and security” is code for “when we say so”, and the question of borders has been rendered, um, complicated by Israel’s illegal (under international law) settlements program in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The solution is also United Nations policy: the General Assembly adopted a partition plan in 1947 (following an original British proposal from 10 years earlier). The Palestine Liberation Organization accepted a two-state solution in principle in 1982, while Hamas has never quite got there but is in any event excluded from a seat at the table by its status as a terrorist group.
Whether a two-state solution was ever viable is contentious. In theory, with goodwill on both sides, it could have been achieved at the time of Israel’s creation in 1948 (which led to the first Arab-Israeli War and the ensuing Nakba); or, less likely, after the Six-Day War of 1967. In reality, too many forces were arrayed against the recognition of either a Jewish or Palestinian state, and almost everything that’s happened since has only pushed the practical possibility further away.
Israel has consistently maintained that the two-state solution cannot be entertained until its security is assured. For many, that was always nothing more than practised cynicism, a delaying cover for the constant encroachment of settlements on occupied territory that will ultimately answer the question of sovereignty by a sort of slow coup de grâce to Palestine’s sovereign ambitions.
Media missing in action
Since I read the news of the Knesset rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state, I’ve been looking in vain for a report of the resolution in the Australian mainstream media. It’s been widely reported overseas, but not here other than as a minor footnote.
To her credit, our Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong did take notice, tweeting that “a secure and prosperous future for both Israelis and Palestinians will only come with a two-state solution” and that the Knesset’s resolution “denies this reality”.
She might have said, more accurately, that it establishes a new reality. Israel’s government, with the majority support of its Parliament, has made a deliberate (and, no doubt, carefully deliberated) choice to remove the mask that this resolution indicates it had been wearing at least since October 7.
The resolution is unequivocal and declares a permanency to the sovereignty impasse. The distinction it draws between the “state” and “land” of Israel is telling: it projects the Zionist claim to the entire area covered by Israel and Palestine, implicitly confirming that maintaining a status of occupation over the whole is essential to preserving security for the state within its UN-recognised borders.
But whatever anyone thinks of the validity of the territorial claims, Israel has now staked its political claim for all time: as long as Israel exists, Palestine cannot. And whatever the truth of Israel’s past motivations and intentions, its actions this year have moved the goalposts of diplomacy dramatically.
Israel and its patron, the United States, will ignore the ICJ ruling, but it leaves Australia and others exposed on the tightrope they’ve been walking for so many years.
Whatever the two-state solution was prior to these developments, it is now most certainly a mirage thanks to the Knesset. The ICJ’s move makes it all the more plain. The price for continuing the conceit that it still exists, in the distance, is being counted daily in Palestinian lives.
How should Australia respond to recent moves by the ICJ and the Israeli Parliament? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
