Dan Perry’s recent essay in the Forward makes a point both troubling and oddly hopeful: Israel’s latest annexation activity in the West Bank — however misguided — may paradoxically offer the opening needed to halt the Gaza war and revive the two-state solution. In the tortured logic of Middle Eastern politics, a reckless decision can sometimes clear the logjam that statesmanship cannot.
Approval of new settlement construction in the E1 corridor east of Jerusalem was trumpeted by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich as the burial of Palestinian statehood.
Critics around the world echoed the refrain, warning the move “erases” the two-state solution. The truth, as Perry notes, is more complex. Every serious peace framework — Bill Clinton’s parameters in 2000, the Geneva Accord in 2003, Ehud Olmert’s proposals in 2008 — envisioned Israel annexing Ma’ale Adumim and the connecting corridor, in exchange for compensatory land swaps. E1 is not the death knell; it is a replay of an old formula.
That does not make the settlement wise. It damages Israel’s international standing, feeds global perceptions of permanent occupation and weakens moderates abroad. But it may also serve as a political bargaining chip, a concession to the far right that gives Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cover to accept a cease-fire and a phased hostage release. If that happens, then the very move denounced as the end of partition could become the price of its revival.
What follows will depend on whether Palestinians can rise to a challenge of historic proportions. A two-state solution is not merely a diplomatic document. It is the construction of an entirely new political reality. For Palestinians, that means building institutions where almost none exist, creating credible security services, transparent governance in place of corruption and factionalism, and an economy that can sustain rather than suffocate a population. It means establishing a judiciary, a tax system, schools and civil structures that ordinary people can trust. In short, nation building from scratch under the gaze of a skeptical world.
Israelis, too, must change. The mindset that sees annexation as vindication must give way to recognition that even a cold peace with a neighboring state is preferable to endless conflict within a single, combustible land. Demographic reality is unforgiving. In the absence of partition, Israel faces a choice between ruling indefinitely over a disenfranchised Palestinian population or abandoning its identity as a Jewish state. Neither is acceptable.
Two states do not promise harmony; they promise boundaries. They offer a framework in which disputes can be managed rather than fought without end. That may not be inspiring, but it is preferable to rockets, invasions and funerals.
It would be a bitter irony if Smotrich’s cherished project, intended to slam the coffin on partition, ends up prying the lid open just enough to keep hope alive. If E1 becomes the bargaining chip that allows Israel to trade ideology for pragmatism, and if Palestinians are finally willing to do the grueling work of state building, then this moment of folly may yet be remembered as the unlikely spark of renewal.
What is required now is clarity. Palestinians must seize the chance to demonstrate seriousness about governance and Israelis must accept that sovereignty divided is better than sovereignty corroded. The alternative is one state from the river to the sea, in which Jews and Arabs live in permanent strife.
Israel can not annex” any land since the land already belongs to Israel under binding international law.
Specifically, Article 80 of the United Nations Charter, an international treaty, which incorporates by reference the 1922 Palestine Mandate and the 1920 San Remo agreement, declares all of what is Israel to be the reconstituted homeland of the Jewish people.
Thus, Israel is an ethnic democracy not a liberal democracy whose Jewish aspirations are embraced by the United Nations Charter and the U.N. members who are required to obey it.