Despite local and international peace efforts, the Palestinian territories have endured years of political, social and psychological violence. The notable scholar, Edward Said writing after the 1982, Israeli assault on Beirut, put it bluntly: “I recall during the siege of Beirut obsessively telling friends and family there, over the phone, that they ought to record, write down their experiences […] Naturally, they were all far too busy surviving…’.
Since well before the establishment of Israel in 1948, Palestinians have regarded the Zionist movement as a colonial settler ideology that has sought to expel them from their land, with the colonizing agenda to claim all of historic Palestine as a Jewish state.
Time and again, Palestinians have strongly emphasized Zionism’s status as a settler colonialism motivated by diasporic nationalism and a desire for racial exclusivity — a desire which has had violent and disastrous consequences for the Palestinian society.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an existential conflict between two parties, two identity groups, each claiming the same territory for its national homeland and political state. In such a conflict, the identity and the very existence of the other represents a threat to each group’s own identity and existence.
The mere acknowledgement of the other’s identity can jeopardise one’s own identity and existence. Each side is adamant to prove the view that only one can be a nation: Either we are a nation or they are.
It seems that Israel is gradually moving away from the two-state solution after pushing for its own ‘one state solution’. Israel hardly seems interested in concluding the ‘final status agreement’ to create an independent Palestinian state. A new paradigm within the two state solution is the need of the moment that applies a settler-colonial framework in the hegemonic discourse on reconciliation to the conflict
“They can acquire national identity and rights only at the expense of our identity and rights” (Kelman, 1987, p. 354). The failure so far to reach a negotiated agreement, along with the changing realities on ground — the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the building of separate roads, the confiscation of land, the construction of the security barrier, the proliferation of checkpoints, the development of Jewish housing in East Jerusalem — have led an increasing numbers of Palestinians to the conclusion that a two-state solution is no longer possible.
It seems that Israel is gradually moving away from the two-state solution after pushing for its own ‘one state solution’. Israel hardly seems interested in concluding the ‘final status agreement’ to create an independent Palestinian state. A new paradigm within the two state solution is the need of the moment that applies a settler-colonial framework in the hegemonic discourse on reconciliation to the conflict.
To move the peace process towards a successful conclusion, the two parties must now commit themselves to a principled solution whose key elements include prior commitment to a genuine two-state solution as the end point of the final status negotiations, and provision of meaningful citizenship to the Palestinians of the territories and the refugees. Such a proposal, might seem utopian, however it represents the most realistic choice at the present stage.
The writer is an independant researcher in International Relations and can be reached at [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, September 5th 2018.