What is behind the return to the “one-state scenario”

The recent period witnessed the issuance of numerous studies and research, especially in Western and American studies centers, based on the approach to Palestinian rights or the one-state solution, which is an old-new proposition that was adopted by a group of intellectuals, but it did not receive interest from any party, and at that time it represented a “scenario”. Fantasy”, in light of those historical and political conditions and contexts, especially with the flourishing of the option of armed resistance from one angle, and the persistence of hope among many Arab regimes for the possibility of achieving a peaceful settlement that leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state on all the territories occupied in 1967.

However, the many changes that occurred later, especially with the collapse of the Israeli left camp and the dominance of the right-wing movement there over the political scene, and the escalation of its social power, and then the remarkable decline of successive US administrations in adopting the peaceful option, in its previous sense, especially with the administration of former US President Donald. Trump, who put forward the final version of her vision for a settlement through what was called the deal of the century, a vision that strips any meaning from the true meanings of the Palestinian state, and the political rights of the Palestinians, in addition to the most dangerous variable represented by the growing settlement in the occupied lands, and the absence of any Israeli tendency towards dismantling the settlements. The latter’s influence in Israeli politics increased through electoral power and its great support for the right-wing movement there.

In light of these changes, the talk about the one-state solution has returned, and this discourse is gaining great momentum, and is gaining supporters and promoters from the Palestinians, Americans, and Westerners. A group of American academics and scholars has published a book specialized in this regard, “One State Reality.” Share It includes Palestinians, Jordanians, and Americans, and the American Foreign Affairs magazine also published a special file to clarify this approach, its dimensions, and the solution it offers to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The owners of this approach start from many realistic hypotheses. First, the end of the two-state solution and its inability to implement it, with the settlements in the West Bank and the remarkable shifts in the Israeli electoral and political milieu. And secondly, from the “structural crisis” in the Israeli project itself, by colliding with the Palestinian demography, and implicating “Israel” in the mud in which it put itself, by insisting on seizing the lands, and obliging them to the human rights of the Palestinian population. Thirdly, from the seriousness and effectiveness of the term apartheid state, its resonance in the Western ear, and the ease of projecting it on the Palestinian-Israeli situation. Thus, there are solid and strong legal, human rights and “documents” that Israel cannot evade with, as it does on the issue of the Palestinian solution.

On the other hand, this proposition faces substantial criticism and major problems, the most prominent of which are two: first, it is unacceptable to the Israelis, because for the right-wing center in Israel, which is the dominant center altogether, it represents a process of political suicide, and it contradicts the essence of the theses of this center, and if it is not adopted by the Israelis, then it is It will be useless, no matter how much it is promoted, because Israel is at the end of the day one of the poles of the conflict, as well as the Zionist lobby and Israeli influence in American and Western policies.

Secondly, this scenario requires a major precondition represented in the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority, and the implication of Israel in the West Bank equation, which requires a strategic decision from the authority and the Arab regional system, and this is realistic and far from expected, in addition to the fact that such a solution may give Israel an opportunity to activate the settlement process and gnaw away More lands, while the Palestinian bet will be linked to marketing the idea of ​​apartheid, if we go beyond the economic and legal problems, the Palestinian security situation, and internal conflicts that may erupt at any moment, as happened in Gaza 2007.

Necessarily, there is no easy or convincing strategic option for the Palestinians in light of the current structural crisis, and in a conflict saturated with religious, symbolic, historical and civilizational dimensions, and the current realistic conditions, which requires Palestinian intellectuals and academics to hold in-depth discussion sessions to read the reality and the conflict’s shifts and variables and to develop perceptions for all scenarios and options. possible, and the associated international, regional and internal factors.