Recently I co-authored an article “Israel’s One State Reality” for Foreign Affairs with three colleagues. All of us have followed Israeli (and Palestinian) politics and Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, sometimes quite closely. Independently we had come to feel that it was time to shift the policy debate in the United States from how to restart a peace process — aimed at a “two-state solution” — to how to cope with the reality of a single state.
We argued that all the ingredients for two-state diplomacy have evaporated. Instead, it makes far more sense to ask how to start from what actually exists (and indeed has become deeply entrenched): a single state of Israel that controls all of the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea but that treats inhabitants differently based on their ethnicity and place of residence.
While many aspects of our analysis had been voiced before, its appearance in what is seen as an establishment publication sparked strong reactions and prompted a follow-up debate in the pages of Foreign Affairs. But we also received a large number of other responses, sometimes in private, sometimes in public, and sometimes both. They fell into three camps.
The first reaction might be summed up as “Of course. But why did it take those in Washington so long to realize what people who live this reality have known for decades? “
The second response was that what we were saying was outrageous or offensive, designed to celebrate one state, erase Israel, or deny Jewish rights. We said no such things, but that was not the point: some saw any attempt to depict the reality in such terms as threatening.
The third reaction might be summed up as “Sadly you are right.” That response commonly came (often but not only in private) from senior figures who had devoted much energy and ingenuity to pursuing a two-state solution. It is this third reaction that interested me the most. If this reality was so obvious to people who lived there, why had it taken so long to have it accepted within top foreign policy circles in Washington?
There was a good reason, though not a logical one. The end of two-state diplomacy was too disconcerting to discuss. I have encountered this insistent silence consistently for over a decade and a half—but this third reaction shows that it is finally beginning to recede.
In June 2007, I drafted an article called “The Peace Process Has No Clothes.” The term “peace process” had been coined decades earlier to suggest “process” just as much as “peace.” It was based on the hope that irreconcilable positions could be reconciled not all at once but by a series of steps in which confidence and trust was slowly established, making yesterday’s nonnegotiable demand today’s subject for bargaining. And for a short time in the mid-1990s that happened.
But by the spring of 2007, it was clear not only that distrust between the two camps was deepening but that processes within each society (Israeli settlements; the rightward political and religious shift in Israel; Palestinian institutional decay; the rise of armed resistance; and deep popular alienation) left little room for the dwindling number of diplomats still committed to a two-state outcome.
Just as I drafted an analysis of the sunset of two-state diplomacy, fighting broke out between Fatah and Hamas in June 2007. I almost pressed “delete” on my draft because the argument was so obviously true—but ambivalently I pressed “send” and the article was published. I need not have hesitated. Instead of dealing with realities, the United States and other important actors soldiered on, pretending that two-state diplomacy was the only realistic option. So I continued to scribble away, with pieces that discussed topics like the “sunset” for the two-state solution.
Why did I disagree with the conventional wisdom? It was not that I was smarter than anybody else. In fact, I was largely relaying what I heard from people who knew the details of what was happening better than I did—their wisdom seemed deeper to me than what I heard in Washington. Israelis and Palestinians tended to react contemptuously or nostalgically at best when hearing the phrase “two-state solution.” Diplomats and others whom I met on the ground had no illusions either. Why did leaders in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere keep on repeating the need for two-state diplomacy and warn that a one-state reality might ultimately emerge (ignoring the fact that such a reality had been evident already for decades)? Why did more frank discussions only occur in private?
To acknowledge the “one-state reality,” as many of us were coming to call it, came with a steep price. It seemed to offer only short-term despair to many—and to vindicate those critics on both sides who had always opposed two-state diplomacy. But no longer were those speaking of a single state dominated by those who favored it; the phrase “one state reality” described what was, not what should be. At most it required consideration of what might turn the reality of a single state into a just solution. And that difficult task could often be posed as a challenging question: “If the two-state solution is dead, then what is your alternative?”
My response to that question has been an intellectual one: there may be no just solution achievable now, but there are movements in positive and negative directions. So policy makers should ask themselves two questions when approaching Israel/Palestine. First, what can they do to make things better now? Second, how can they aid the development of trends that may open up new possibilities for the next generation? The questions are vague to be sure, but a more difficult problem is that they can pull in different directions: any attempt to make the present tolerable can be derided as entrenching injustice rather than overcoming it.
An even more difficult problem is that my answer has made no political sense to many of those who are finally coming to acknowledge the “one-state reality.” It suggests taking Palestinian rights more seriously and ending an approach that shields Israeli leaders from the consequences of their own actions. Few have had the stomach for that. To press the issue, I have joined others in referring to the reality as akin to “apartheid,” a term I have sought to avoid for a long time but can no longer.
The “sadly, you are right” response to our Foreign Affairs article is thus quite notable. It suggests that the search for new strategies among Western policy makers may finally begin. It will be slow and painful for many, but it is long past due.
Nathan J. Brown is a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Washington is Finally Smelling the Coffee on Israel and Palestine
By Nathan J. Brown
Middle East & North Africa
Recently I co-authored an article “Israel’s One State Reality” for Foreign Affairs with three colleagues. All of us have followed Israeli (and Palestinian) politics and Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, sometimes quite closely. Independently we had come to feel that it was time to shift the policy debate in the United States from how to restart a peace process — aimed at a “two-state solution” — to how to cope with the reality of a single state.
We argued that all the ingredients for two-state diplomacy have evaporated. Instead, it makes far more sense to ask how to start from what actually exists (and indeed has become deeply entrenched): a single state of Israel that controls all of the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea but that treats inhabitants differently based on their ethnicity and place of residence.
While many aspects of our analysis had been voiced before, its appearance in what is seen as an establishment publication sparked strong reactions and prompted a follow-up debate in the pages of Foreign Affairs. But we also received a large number of other responses, sometimes in private, sometimes in public, and sometimes both. They fell into three camps.
The first reaction might be summed up as “Of course. But why did it take those in Washington so long to realize what people who live this reality have known for decades? “
The second response was that what we were saying was outrageous or offensive, designed to celebrate one state, erase Israel, or deny Jewish rights. We said no such things, but that was not the point: some saw any attempt to depict the reality in such terms as threatening.
The third reaction might be summed up as “Sadly you are right.” That response commonly came (often but not only in private) from senior figures who had devoted much energy and ingenuity to pursuing a two-state solution. It is this third reaction that interested me the most. If this reality was so obvious to people who lived there, why had it taken so long to have it accepted within top foreign policy circles in Washington?
There was a good reason, though not a logical one. The end of two-state diplomacy was too disconcerting to discuss. I have encountered this insistent silence consistently for over a decade and a half—but this third reaction shows that it is finally beginning to recede.
In June 2007, I drafted an article called “The Peace Process Has No Clothes.” The term “peace process” had been coined decades earlier to suggest “process” just as much as “peace.” It was based on the hope that irreconcilable positions could be reconciled not all at once but by a series of steps in which confidence and trust was slowly established, making yesterday’s nonnegotiable demand today’s subject for bargaining. And for a short time in the mid-1990s that happened.
But by the spring of 2007, it was clear not only that distrust between the two camps was deepening but that processes within each society (Israeli settlements; the rightward political and religious shift in Israel; Palestinian institutional decay; the rise of armed resistance; and deep popular alienation) left little room for the dwindling number of diplomats still committed to a two-state outcome.
Just as I drafted an analysis of the sunset of two-state diplomacy, fighting broke out between Fatah and Hamas in June 2007. I almost pressed “delete” on my draft because the argument was so obviously true—but ambivalently I pressed “send” and the article was published. I need not have hesitated. Instead of dealing with realities, the United States and other important actors soldiered on, pretending that two-state diplomacy was the only realistic option. So I continued to scribble away, with pieces that discussed topics like the “sunset” for the two-state solution.
Why did I disagree with the conventional wisdom? It was not that I was smarter than anybody else. In fact, I was largely relaying what I heard from people who knew the details of what was happening better than I did—their wisdom seemed deeper to me than what I heard in Washington. Israelis and Palestinians tended to react contemptuously or nostalgically at best when hearing the phrase “two-state solution.” Diplomats and others whom I met on the ground had no illusions either. Why did leaders in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere keep on repeating the need for two-state diplomacy and warn that a one-state reality might ultimately emerge (ignoring the fact that such a reality had been evident already for decades)? Why did more frank discussions only occur in private?
To acknowledge the “one-state reality,” as many of us were coming to call it, came with a steep price. It seemed to offer only short-term despair to many—and to vindicate those critics on both sides who had always opposed two-state diplomacy. But no longer were those speaking of a single state dominated by those who favored it; the phrase “one state reality” described what was, not what should be. At most it required consideration of what might turn the reality of a single state into a just solution. And that difficult task could often be posed as a challenging question: “If the two-state solution is dead, then what is your alternative?”
My response to that question has been an intellectual one: there may be no just solution achievable now, but there are movements in positive and negative directions. So policy makers should ask themselves two questions when approaching Israel/Palestine. First, what can they do to make things better now? Second, how can they aid the development of trends that may open up new possibilities for the next generation? The questions are vague to be sure, but a more difficult problem is that they can pull in different directions: any attempt to make the present tolerable can be derided as entrenching injustice rather than overcoming it.
An even more difficult problem is that my answer has made no political sense to many of those who are finally coming to acknowledge the “one-state reality.” It suggests taking Palestinian rights more seriously and ending an approach that shields Israeli leaders from the consequences of their own actions. Few have had the stomach for that. To press the issue, I have joined others in referring to the reality as akin to “apartheid,” a term I have sought to avoid for a long time but can no longer.
The “sadly, you are right” response to our Foreign Affairs article is thus quite notable. It suggests that the search for new strategies among Western policy makers may finally begin. It will be slow and painful for many, but it is long past due.
Nathan J. Brown is a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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